Francois Charbonnet — PORTRAITS IV—TERRITORY & POLITICS

Francois Charbonnet in conversation with Daniel Niggli CONCEPT AND REALISATION Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning $Prof. Milica Topalovic & Prof. Marc Angélil, ETH Zürich Department of Architecture The event is part of the lecture series SESSIONS ON TERRITORY­—URBANISM BEYOND NEOLIBERALISM SESSIONS ON TERRITORY is a series of public debates on the political economy of architecture and territory within and beyond the neoliberal order. The seminar’s objective is to unravel forces at work in the formation and the perception of the contemporary city, and, as importantly, to spur debates that challenge the status quo. Every intervention by a guest speaker will be followed by a panel discussion with invited respondents. This semester’s series on POWER constitutes the first installment of Sessions on Territory—Urbanism Beyond Neoliberalism. The Sessions on Territory are a collaboration between the professorships of Marc Angelil and Milica Topalovic. Please find all lectures here: https://topalovic.arch.ethz.ch/projec... 27.11.2017 PORTRAITS IV—TERRITORY & POLITICS François Charbonnet with Daniel Niggli In the chapter XVI of his Leviathan – Of Persons, Authors and Things personated (1651), Hobbes defines the person as he « whose words and actions are considered, either as his own or as representing the words and actions of another man […] » accordingly delineating two subcategories : that of the natural person – when the words are his own – and that of the artificial person – when these are representing the words and actions of another ; he further states : « Of persons artificial, some have their words and actions ‘owned’ by those whom they represent. And then the person is the ‘actor’, and he that owns his words and actions is the ‘author’, in which case the actor acts by authority – but is not the author […]. So that by authority is always understood a right of doing any act, and ‘done by authority’, done by commission or license from him whose right it is ».