‘What is urgent for theory…[is] the very idea of the future as itself a theoretical act…The future is always a historical artefact. There is no theory without history and vice versa…There is no architecture without theory…Architecture is by definition a theoretical act….The idea that there could be architecture is always more important than the specific kind of architecture or architectural statement…The urgency of theory is to intervene across the whole landscape…opening up our thoughts in a restless subversion of anything regarded as best practice.’ Professor Dean Mark Wigley (Columbia University, New York) Flash Theory 2015

‘There’s just as much theory in a label, a regulation, a syllabus, a competition, a joke, a protocol, an advertisement, a contract, an instruction, a tomb, an address, an account, a chart, an image, a ticket, or in modes of censorship or prohibition…wouldn’t those last two, censorship and prohibition, be the best possible place for examining the operations of theory as self-conscious attempts to modulate ideas?…[theory] doesn’t occupy a place…it takes many forms other than books and articles…its dispersed across studios, lectures, seminars, exhibitions websites, syllabi, labels, essays, texts, tracts, emails, tweets and posters…design is just another word for the aspiration to the theoretical act…The very concept of design refers to the production of an articulate object, an object that has absorbed theory and could talk...Theory is that thing that makes architecture visible. Theory is a flash that exposes the architectural effect, without which there would be no effect….Architectural theory allows architecture to be momentarily seen…Architecture theory is in this sense not only an architectural act, it is the architectural act.’ Professor Dean Mark Wigley (Columbia University, New York) Flash Theory 2015