Logbook

Search

Categories

KindTeamAuthor / Responsible

30/10/2026–15/01/2027

Event

ASR Presentations at the Online Workshop Series The Aerospace Image: Making the View from Nowhere

Angela Gigliotti, Lilian Kroth

Clean room technician working on Landsat 4's Thematic Mapper instrument (Source: NASA).

Twelve speakers in this workshop series interrogate aerospace imagery through its material, infrastructural, ecological, and labour-driven dimensions, dismantling the myth that the “view from above’ constitutes an abstract ‘view from nowhere’. Spanning from early aerial photography to contemporary remote sensing, the contributions trace how these visual materials are produced, processed, circulated, and archived across varied spatial and temporal contexts. Drawing on infrastructure studies and visual histories of extractivism, the presentations reveal how aerial and spaceborne perspectives – no matter how elevated – remain inextricably bound to the Earth.

Curated by Noemi Quagliati (EUI Florence / NICHE Venice), this workshop series is a collaboration between the Network Topographic Visual Media and the NICHE Centre for Environmental Humanities (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), through its cluster ‘Ecologies of Making: Material Culture Beyond the Human’.

Friday, 30 October 2026, 14:00–15:30 CET
Operational Images, Colonial Regimes, and Vertical Violence
Angela Gigliotti, St.Gallen: Surveying, Planting, Settling, Repeat. How Proximal Coloniality Operates one Shore at a Time.
Anda Pleniceanu, Vilnius: The Contingent Addressee. Walter Benjamin and the Operational Regime.

Friday, 15 January 2027, 14:00–15:30 CET
Graphic Assemblages: Drawing and Collaging Planetary Landscapes
Lilian Kroth, Fribourg: Drawing Like a Satellite. Line-Making as a Research Framework to Investigate Satellite Remote Sensing.
Paolo Berti, Venice: An Assemblage of the World. Robert Smithson’s Map Collages and the Labour of Aerial Vision.

Full program and meeting link

07/10/2026

Course

La philosophie par les astres. La révolution aérospatiale et ses conséquences

Emmanuel Alloa

Pale Blue Dot, 1990. Photograph of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990, from a distance of approximately 6 billion kilometers.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Public domain image, reprocessed in 2020.

Au XXe siècle, la conquête de l’espace a placé la philosophie devant des questions radicalement nouvelles. De Edmund Husserl à Bruno Latour, en passant par Martin Heidegger, Günter Anders, Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas ou Michel Serres, la révolution aérospatiale a bouleversé notre compréhension de l’être humain, de la Terre et de notre place dans l’univers. De Spoutnik à Artemis, l’exploration spatiale élargit tantôt notre horizon, tantôt nous renvoie à nous-mêmes et à notre condition terrestre indépassable. Le cours mettra en évidence les enjeux épistémologiques, éthiques et politiques liés à l’exploration du cosmos, à la satellisation du monde et à l’émergence d’une civilisation planétaire. Il abordera également les imaginaires du cosmos dans la philosophie, la littérature et la culture contemporaine. Une attention particulière sera portée aux questions de souveraineté, d’environnement orbital, de colonisation spatiale et de justice intergénérationnelle. En croisant les perspectives de la philosophie des techniques, de la philosophie des sciences et de la pensée écologique, ce séminaire invite à réfléchir aux conséquences intellectuelles et existentielles de la révolution aérospatiale.

01/09/2026–03/09/2026

Event

ASR International Conference AeroVisions: Aerial Aesthetics and the View from Above, Cuneo (IT)

Team Aerovision

Design: Max da Rocha Fonseca / IDe, SUPSI

AeroVisions: Aerial Aesthetics and the View from Above investigates the view from above as a perspective mediated by increasingly complex and diverse technologies of the air. Airplanes and drones, but also satellites and spacecraft make climate-monitoring devices and observational tools extend our gaze far beyond the limits of our atmosphere. These technologies are not only part of but also fundamentally condition the aesthetics of contemporary aerial visions.

Held in Cuneo (IT) from 1–3 September 2026 with sessions at the Rondò dei Talenti, the conference is is organised by the scientific committee Emmanuel Alloa, Alessandro De Cesaris, Lilian Kroth, and Emanuel Tandler.

Speakers

Mia Bennett – Spectrum Geographies: The Geopolitics of Electromagnetic Space – Chair: Rosa Cinelli
Teresa Castro – Seeing the Earth from Above: Apollo and the Paradoxes of the Planetary Gaze – Chair: Lisa Henicz
Rosa Cinelli – Aeroforensics: Notes towards an Archaeology of Recognition from Above – Chair: Claudia Nigrelli
Elie During – The Orbital Condition: Art and Philosophy from High Up – Chair: Matteo Vegetti
Lilian Kroth – Mirrors or Eyes in the Sky? The Satellite Gaze, Inversion, and Lunar Perspectivism – Chair: Alessandro De Cesaris
Noemi Quagliati – Fractured Vision: From Bird’s-Eye View to Remote Sensing and the Construction of a Totalizing Illusion – Chair: Emmanuel Alloa
Jan Völker – Sunset. On Terrestrial Reason – Chair: Emanuel Tandler
Cristina Voto – Operational Skies: Aerial Vision and the Invisuality of Contemporary Warfare – Chair: Lucrezia Pozzi

Read more

31/08/2026–06/09/2026

Event

ASR International Summer School AeroSpaces: Spatial Practices in Architecture and Urbanism, Cuneo (IT)

Team Aeroplanning, Alessandro De Cesaris

Design: Max da Rocha Fonseca / IDe, SUPSI

The Summer School AeroSpaces: Spatial Practices in Architecture and Urbanism held in Cuneo (IT) from 31 August to 6 September 2026 is an interdisciplinary academic program that unfolds over one week, combining research, dialogue, and public engagement. It investigates the implications of the view from above in architecture, urban design, art, society, science and technology at the interface of planning, philosophy and politics by rethinking how space is perceived, represented, and theorized from above. The program fosters both theoretical reflection and hands-on exploration, creating a dynamic environment for knowledge exchange among early-career and established scholars with an interest in architecture, urbanism, visual culture, philosophy and related fields.

Through workshops, excursions, and collaborative exercises, participants engage with theoretical frameworks, archival practices, and material experiments on aerial spatiality, while developing skills for their own research. As such, the Summer School becomes a platform for debating topical issues, testing innovative research tactics, and crafting alternative ways of thinking about the relationship between air, land, and urban form.

Cuneo, Turin and Piedmont serve as foundation to develop a historical, spatial, empirical, and material understanding of aerial planning, aesthetics and politics and their interdisciplinary dynamics. Throughout the week, public events open the Summer School to a broader audience, reinforcing its commitment to cultural exchange beyond academic boundaries.

The ASR Summer School is organised by the scientific committee Katrin Albrecht, Angela Gigliotti, and Lisa Henicz, in collaboration with the host institution CeSPeC (Centro Studi sul Pensiero Contemporaneo) represented by Alessandro De Cesaris and Elisa Michelis. It forms part of the collective initiative “Interfaces – Connecting the World between Air and Earth” (XIX. Edizione 2026 of CeSPeC Summer School).

Participants

Jenna Altomonte (Mississippi State University, USA)
Taylor Carr-Howard (UCLA, USA)
Nina Caviezel (Universität Basel, Switzerland)
Rosa Cinelli (Université Paris VIII, France)
Alessandro De Cesaris (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Catalina Fara (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Argentina)
Angela Gigliotti (OST, Switzerland)
Fabio Gigone (Leeds Beckett University, UK)
Lisa Henicz (OST, Switzerland)
Elif Kaymaz (University of Manchester, UK)
Lilian Kroth (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Marcella Marer (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Claudia Nigrelli (SUPSI, Switzerland)
Vyta Pivo (University of Miami, USA)
Lucrezia Pozzi (SUPSI, Switzerland)
Simon Rabyniuk (TU Eindhoven NL/Uni Toronto, Canada)
Marco Strano (USI, Switzerland)
Emanuel Tandler (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Luca Valsecchi (University of Turin, Italy)
Chiara Velicogna (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

Tutors and Workshops

Davide Deriu – The Emergence of Aerial Visuality: How Photography Reshaped the Architectural Imagination
Angela Gigliotti – Introduction to the Making of an Aerial Atlas
Commune di Cuneo – Breve Storia Urbanistica di Cuneo
Mauro Bruno, Giovanni Cerutti – Visit to Archivio Storico di Cuneo and to the City
Lilian Kroth – Aerial Aesthetics: Drawing as a Way of Thinking
Roberto Dini – Fondo Carlo Mollino at Politecnico di Torino: Aviation, Acrobatics, and Houses on Mountains
Edoardo Piccoli – Aeriality in Baroque Painting, Architecture, and Urban Space
Valentine Bernasconi – Towards a Digital Atlas. Relationship Between Images: How to Connect, Organize, and Visualize Images?
Fabio Gigone – Machine (Un)Learning

Public Events

Giovanni Covone – Altri mondi. Esplorare lo spazio e guardarsi dall’alto – Moderation: Antonio Lo Campo
Matteo Vegetti, Andrea Borsari – Book Presentation Earthscapes. Le conseguenze della visione della Terra dallo spazio (2023) – Moderation: Claudia Nigrelli
Paolo Cirio, Emmanuel Alloa – Artist Talk Art Exposing Climate Crimes

Read more

17/06/2026

Event

ASR Session at EAHN 9th Biennial Conference of the European Architectural History Network, Aarhus (DK)

Team Aeroplanning

On 18 June 2026, Team Aeroplanning chaired a Session on „Architectural Histories and Practices and the Aerial Spatial Revolution“ at the 9th Biennial Conference of the European Architectural History Network EAHN at Aarhus University, Denmark.

The five speakers were Koldo Lus Arana (Universidad de Zaragoza) on "This Aerial Life: On the Role of Popular Culture Images in the Spatial Reconceptualization of the City, 1880-1930“, Simon Rabyniuk (TU Eindhoven/University of Toronto) on "Counter-Constructions: Rotterdam and Sabena Passenger Helicopter Network, 1953-1966“, Hilary Huckins-Weidner, (University of Michigan) on "EROS Center: U.S. Architectures of Aerial Data and Ecological Control“, Maryia Rusak (KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) on "Fields of Vision: Norwegian Photogrammetry Projects in East Africa“ and Giulia Boller (ETH Zurich) on "The Flying Foremen: How Computers, Soldiers, and Cameras Built the Munich Olympic Roofs“.

With their excellent, well-interlocking presentations we expanded our research framework to include, on the one hand, preliminary concepts envisioning the conquest of aerial space, and, on the other hand, to postwar experiences involving new aerial technologies and means of transport and recording, new planning strategies, and associated networks. We shifted across scales, geographies, agencies and media to explore how the relevance and use of aerial space have shaped the ways in which architecture, cities, landscapes, and infrastructures are perceived, thought of, represented, designed and practiced.

The conference program also included a book presentation by Angela Gigliotti and Martin Søberg on their edited volume „Kay Fisker – Appraisals and Reappraisals“ (Magazine for Bygningskunst og Kultur, n. 11, 2026) on 17 June.

On the city tour „In the Footsteps of Kay Fisker and C. F. Møller“ on 19 June, Angela Gigliotti and Martin Søberg took the conference participants on a guided walk through Aarhus University’s historic campus and the former Municipal Hospital, tracing the legacy of Nordic functionalism in Aarhus.

Download Book of Abstracts

For further information:
https://konferencer.au.dk/eahn26
https://bygningskunstogkultur.dk/nr-11-2026/kay-fisker-appraisals-and-reappraisals

07/05/2026

Workshop

Virtual FPV Drone Flight

Lucrezia Pozzi

Lucrezia Pozzi delivered a certification course as a public outreach event entitled “Virtual FPV Drone Flight” at the FabLab of SUPSI’s Department of Environment, Construction and Design. The course aimed to broaden public awareness of the technical and perceptual aspects of drone technology beyond academic circles. The first part provided an overview of these aspects as they relate to drone flight, alongside regulatory frameworks, use cases and common practices. The second part enabled students and staff to experiment with first-person flight via a drone flight simulator in an immersive virtual reality environment.

25/03/2026

Call

Call for Participation: Summer School AeroSpaces: Spatial Practices in Architecture and Urbanism

Team Aeroplanning

Fake aerial selfie of Carlo Mollino flying over Manhattan (Photo: docomomo-nytri.org | ©AIANY.org)

The Summer School Aerospaces invites students and early-career researchers to engage in an interdisciplinary reflection on how aerial and spatial technologies have transformed the ways space is perceived, represented, and governed. Grounded in the critical concerns of the Aerial Spatial Revolution project, the program explores the aesthetic, political, and epistemic implications of technologies ranging from aircraft and satellites to drones and digital mapping systems, while fostering dialogue across architecture, philosophy, media studies, and political theory. Participants are encouraged to join this intensive exchange and contribute to a timely discussion on the forms of power, vision, and spatial imagination that shape the contemporary world.

25/03/2026

Call

Call for Papers: Special Issue “Aerial Affairs” for Planning Perspectives

Team Aeroplanning

Walter Mittelholzer, Aerial photograph of Lucerne, 1919 (ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz)

The conquest of the air at the threshold of the 20th century and the discovery of the air as a new element for movement and communication have profoundly transformed our way of perceiving, thinking and practicing space. New airborne technologies and visual media such as aerial photography, satellite imagery and drone vision have since become powerful means for surveying, representing, planning and designing cities, infrastructures and landscapes.
The gaining of a new vision indicated a revolutionary shift in planning practice and theory, even if first balloon surveying attempts were doubted to “ever be found practical and prove of more than theoretical interest” (E. Deville 1895). Whereas air views could show the “beauties and defects” (P. Abercrombie 1919) of the fast-growing historical cities by revealing a “new urban façade and perspective never before known” (J. L. Sert 1942), they would soon equally facilitate planning in remote, yet unmapped and seemingly uninhabited regions by enabling rapid data collection containing a striking “abundance of details” (R. Danger 1933) and by providing efficient tools for exploring and conquering new territories. Beyond the technical, analytical and documentary value of aerial means for planning and research, the changing perception and experience of spaces and bodies were assumed to also impact the overall “sensing of gravity, dimension, density and quantity” (P. Zucker 1929), and, consequently, to “enlighten and expand the spirit” (Le Corbusier 1942) of all urban and architectural projects.
Given the interdependence between spatial perception, representation and design, the special issue “Aerial Affairs” aims to assemble and relate new studies that investigate how aerial photography and aerial planning tools have reshaped urban design, examining how flight and the view from above and afar have catalysed new approaches to structuring cities, territories, landscapes and infrastructural networks for modern living in the 19th and 20th century.
The special issue builds upon the ongoing SNFS-funded project “Aerial Spatial Revolution. The Conquest of the Air and its Impact on Architecture, City and Territory” https://aerialspatialrevolution.ch/.

25/03/2026

Publication

“Zürich vom Boden und von der Luft aus betrachtet, Promotion und Kritik von Verkehrsplanungen in und um Zürich anhand von Gebrauchsfilmen (1937–1974)”

Jacqueline Maurer

Design: Max da Rocha Fonseca / IDe, SUPSI

Abstract
The film Zürich baut (1938) stems from an attitude that contrasts with today's urban planning discourse. A year before the Swiss National Exhibition „Landi“, Zurich's major urban development projects are promoted by praising the demolition of buildings in the historic centre and the projects for new roads that favour the increase of car traffic. The post-war construction boom built on these visions. From the 1960s onwards, international critics of the functional city began to intervene. With a focus on traffic issues and the role of aerial photography, this article highlights the changing perspective by juxtaposing Zürich baut with the later film Beton-Fluss (1974) and architectural theory positions from the 1970s.

Dowload the article

Read online

In: Repérages – Revue de la Cinémathèque suisse / Zeitschrift der Cinémathèque suisse, 2025. Issue 02: Films utiles: histoires zurichoises de ville, de campagne, de cinéma / Nützliche Filme: Zürcher Stadt-, Land- Filmgeschichten, ed. by Stefan Lenzlinger, Yvonne Zimmermann, and Seraina Winzeler.

27/02/2026

Meeting

ASR Meeting and Research Workshop, Fribourg (CH)

Team Aerovision

The Aerial Spatial Revolution Research Workshop will take place on 27 February 2026 at the University of Fribourg (Salon des Professeurs), bringing together researchers from several Swiss universities to discuss how aerial technologies—from drones to aerial imagery—are transforming the way space is perceived, represented, and theorized. Through a series of talks and discussions, the workshop will explore the cultural, philosophical, and spatial implications of these new perspectives on contemporary environments.

13/02/2026

Event

ASR Presentation at the Primo Convegno Nazionale della Società Italiana di Filosofia della Tecnica e della Tecnologia

Lucrezia Pozzi

On 13 and 14 February 2026, the First National Conference of the Italian Society for the Philosophy of Technique and Technology was held, where Lucrezia Pozzi participated as a speaker with a presentation entitled “L’azione oltre i confini fisici ed ottici. I droni come estensioni tecniche dell’azione e della visione umana e la trasformazione dell’esperienza spaziale”. Her presentation explored how drones extend human perception beyond physical location and how they are changing our relationship with distant spaces.

29/01/2026

Event

ASR Presentation at the conference Drone Performances: Aesthetics, Mediation, Politics

Lucrezia Pozzi

On 29–30 January 2026, Lucrezia Pozzi participated as a speaker in the international workshop “Drone Performances: Aesthetics, Mediation, Politics”, hosted by the Department of Media & Communications and the Digital Age Research Center (D!ARC) (Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft) at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Her presentation, titled “The ‘Bando’: Unlocking New Perspectives in Urban Exploration with FPV Drones”, examined the convergence of aesthetics, urban spatial studies, sociology, and media practices through the recreational phenomenon of exploring abandoned urban sites via first-person-view (FPV) drones.

Read more

15/01/2026

Event

ASR Presentation on Orbital Lines at University of Aarhus

Lilian Kroth

Orbital Lines: Drawing as a Research Framework for Satellite Imagery
by Dr. Lilian Kroth at University of Aarhus, hosted by Prof. Jussi Parikka

Planetary landscapes are drawn by sensing devices and their data, stretched out over great distances and scales. In different distances to the planet and with different speeds, satellites make their path around the Earth. Against language of the photographic shots, this presentation discusses how satellite images can be understood as compositional drawings. It focuses on drawing as an expanded form of line-making to investigate satellite vision. The focus is on different processes of data gathering and interpretation and as processual and layered process in their specific relation to lines and the infrastructures of visibility. Orbital trajectories and signal paths—such as in selected cases of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery––are considered as relevant forms of line-making that a conceptual framing of drawing can bring into view. The aim is to develop a methodological framework that contributes to discussions on satellite data literacy, revealing line-making as a fundamental operation within remote sensing practices as a spatial and temporal process more broadly.

Read more

17/12/2025

Event

ASR Presentation on Vertical Knowledge at ETH Zurich

Lilian Kroth

“Vertical Knowledge and the Philosophy of the Geosciences”, Talk by Dr. Lilian Kroth at ETH Zurich

17/11/2025

Workshop

Talk and Workshop on Orbital Lines and Drawing as a Way of Thinking

Lilian Kroth

Talk and Workshop on Orbital Lines and Drawing as a Way of Thinking by Dr. Lilian Kroth, hosted by Prof. Lisa Parks and Prof. Caren Kaplan, UCSB, Santa Barbara

14/11/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at the II Congresso Nazionale di Astronomia Culturale

Matteo Vegetti

Tra mare e cielo. L’origine geopolitica delle imprese spaziali americane
Matteo Vegetti

Benché le imprese di colonizzazione dello spazio durante gli anni ’50 e ’60 siano state spesso presentate e percepite come una sfida storica del tutto nuova, esse avevano in realtà radici geopolitiche profonde. Come si tenterà di mostrare, la visione americana circa il senso e il valore dello spazio esterno è legata alla storia dell’epoca moderna: ai paradigmi spaziali della geostrategia navale, alla forma assunta dal potere globale della talassocrazia inglese, al modo in cui gli Stati Uniti si sono fatti interpreti e legittimi eredi di questa lunga storia. L’intervento si propone pertanto di mostrare l’influenza dell’età del mare sulle politiche spaziali americane. La premessa di tale discorso è che l’incontrastato primato spaziale e strategico del mare non si è affatto concluso, come è stato spesso scritto, con l’ascesa dell’aviazione. Esso risorge in forma nuova quando la competizione per il dominio dello spazio globale si sposta in un’altra dimensione, quella dello spazio extraterrestre. Ricostruire l’eredità giuridica e geo-strategica del mare rispetto alle imprese spaziali degli anni ’50 e ’60 è dunque essenziale per comprendere sia i paradigmi dentro i quali hanno preso forma le politiche spaziali americane, sia le origini giuridiche dell’outerspace. In questa luce, l’intervento mostrerà innazitutto l’influenza che le tesi dell’ammiraglio Mahan (il primo grande teorico americano dello Seepower) hanno avuto su alcune figure chiave della storia dell’esplorazione spaziale americana, come l’ingegnere Dandrige MacFarlan Cole e il Presidente Lyndon B. Johnson. Inoltre si discuteranno alcuni aspetti giuridici che collegano – in modo spesso problematico e irrisolto – lo spazio marittimo a quello extraterrestre.

Read more

28/10/2025

Lexicon

Falling Upwards

Emanuel Tandler

In Falling Upwards, Emanuel Tandler shows how a metaphor takes us on an odyssey of space and time – navigating between gravity and levitation. Blending philosophy, art, and science, he explores how our sense of orientation, perception, and embodiment is transformed in an age of orbiting satellites and floating bodies in real-time communication. The essay invites us to rethink what it means to rise, fall, and find balance when even the sky is no longer a limit.

Read more

25/09/2025

Publication

The Aerial Turn: On the Conquest of the Air and its Impact on the City, the Territory and the Planet, ed. Matteo Vegetti

Katrin Albrecht, Caren Kaplan, Lilian Kroth, Jennifer Levasseur, Tommaso Morawski, Lisa Parks, Matteo Vegetti

With contributions from the ASR team and partners:
Katrin Albrecht, Lilian Kroth, Tommaso Morawski, Lisa Parks, Caren Kaplan

With the dawn of the modern age, the conquest of the third dimension — the aerial domain — set in motion a spatial revolution that irrevocably transformed humanity’s relationship with the city, with territory, and with the planet itself. The view from above introduced an unprecedented form of spatial knowledge, one from the outset charged with profound practical implications: the command of space, largescale planning, control and surveillance, and aerial warfare. At the same time, aerial — or aero-spatial — vision gave rise to fundamental ethical and political experiences, including the emergence of an early global consciousness and the first stirrings of ecological awareness. Through a historical and philosophical lens, this book investigates the impact of the aerial revolution on both fronts, tracing the continuities and ruptures that have shaped humanity’s gradual conquest of the skies.

Table of contents:

(p. 7) Introduction. Matteo Vegetti

(13) Around the New Vision. Mark Dorrian

(27) The Influence of the Photographic Birds-Eye View on German Urbanism. Marco Rasch

(49) Aerial perspective on the large city. Subjectivities and unthought aspects of anthropization. Nathalie Roseau

(67) Discovering of the city as a whole. Representations for urban design practice at the turn of the 20th century. Katrin Albrecht

(85) Planet Earth Seen from Space: A Very Brief Visual History. Sebastian V. Grevsmühl

(99) The Last Global Spatial Revolution. The world in the age of cosmonautical enterprises. Matteo Vegetti

(113) Leaving Earth to See Earth: An Astronaut’s-Eye View of Urban Development. Jennifer Levasseur

(133) Edges of the Ice: Aerial Views and Frontier Imaginaries. Lilian Kroth and Amelia Urry

(153) The Reverse Gaze of Satellite Imaging. The reconstituted face of the Earth. Darío Negueruela del Castillo

(173) The Virtual Globe. On the Digital Earth’s Mediality. Tommaso Morawski

(189) Vertical Mediation and Geopolitics in Contemporary Yemen. Lisa Parks

(209) Out of the Blue: No-Fly Zones and Atmospheric Politics. Caren Kaplan

Download

25/09/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at the Conference Passages: Architecture for Flowing and Connecting Spaces

Lucrezia Pozzi

On September 25, 2025, Lucrezia Pozzi presented her contribution "Elevating urban mobility: drones, air corridors and mobile nodes for the extended and sustainable city of the future" at the international conference "Passages: Architecture for Flowing and Connecting Spaces", held at Politecnico di Milano with the partnership of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU), Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), École d'architecture Paris-Malaquais (University PSL) and LIAT (Laboratory Infrastructure, Architecture, Territory).

Read more

19/09/2025

Call

Call for Papers: Session Architectural Histories and Practices and the Aerial Spatial Revolution at EAHN26 Aarhus

Team Aeroplanning

At the EAHN2026 conference in Aarhus (17–21 June 2026), the Aeroplanning team will chair the session "Architectural Histories and Practices and the Aerial Spatial Revolution", which investigates how the conquest of the air—through balloons, dirigibles, aerial photography, satellites, and drones—has redefined architectural and urban design practices from the 19th century onward. Emphasizing the interdependence between spatial perception, representation, and construction, the session invites critical contributions on how airborne technologies and visions transformed methods of surveying, planning, and imagining space—revealing new urban forms, facilitating territorial control, and reshaping the very experience of dimension, gravity, and scale. Papers may explore specific projects, figures, networks, or documents that illuminate the role of aerial perspectives in shaping modern architecture and cities, with particular interest in transcultural, transdisciplinary, and techno-political approaches. The call for papers is open until 19 September 2025.

Papers submitions here
For full session details, see

10/09/2025

Lexicon

Urban Axes

Jacqueline Maurer

Architectural, urban, and landscape planning as well as mapping and cartography have ever since to be understood in the context of control and power, of representation of order, hygiene, and of economic growth. Urban axes—as impressive perspectives seen from the ground and emblematic artefacts conceived and visible from above—embody these intentions of ‘order’ literally, metaphorically, and symbolically. In Paris and the Paris region, we encounter an exemplary historical continuity of axial planning under different political, economic, social and cultural conditions.

Read more

10/09/2025

Publication

“Un nuovo strumento per la pratica urbanistica. L’espansione coloniale negli anni Trenta attraverso la fotografia aerea”

Katrin Albrecht

Abstract
The essay explores the multifaceted significance of aerial photography in the process of urban planning and the role it played as a new planning tool during the pioneering phase in the context of Italian colonial expansion, using the case of the infrastructural and building efforts undertaken by the Italian state in Southern Albania in the 1930s in search of oil, and reflecting them through the images published in Italian journals on urban planning projects in Ethiopia and Sabaudia.

Paper presentation at the 11th AISU International Congress held in Ferrara, September 2023, organized by the Associazione Italiana di Storia Urbana AISU and University of Ferrara.
Albrecht, Katrin. 'Un nuovo strumento per la pratica urbanistica. L’espansione coloniale negli anni Trenta attraverso la fotografia aerea‘. In: Alessandro Ippoliti, Elena Svalduz (eds.), Oltre lo sguardo | Beyond the Gaze. Vol. 2, Aisu International, Turin 2025, pp. 230–241.

10/09/2025

Publication

“La scoperta del paesaggio terrestre. Note sulla rivoluzione spaziale astronautica del paesaggio”

Tommaso Morawski

Abstract
The most important event in cosmonautical exploration was not the reaching of distant lunar territory, but the fact that the Earth for the first time had the opportunity to see itself, to meet itself. Two photographs in particular have imposed themselves as a true visiotype of our planetary imagination, establishing the birth of a new landscape consciousness of the cosmos: Earthrise (1968) and The Blue Marble (1972). This article analyses the landscaping operation from which the new astronautical worldview originated: that “altered image of the Earth” that represents the most important and lasting legacy of the ‘astronautical spatial revolution’, the last great global spatial revolution in the air age.

Morawski, T. (2024). La scoperta del paesaggio terrestre. Note sulla rivoluzione spaziale astronautica del paesaggio. Aesthetica Preprint, (127), 115-129. Retrieved from https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/aesthetica-preprint/article/view/5341

28/08/2025–30/08/2025

Event

ASR International Conference Aeropolitics: On Contemporary Forms of Aerial Power, Mendrisio (CH)

Team Aeropolitics

Design: Max da Rocha Fonseca / IDe, SUPSI

Aeropolitics: On Contemporary Forms of Aerial Power investigates how aerial technologies—from airplanes to satellites, spacecraft, drones and digital mapping—reconfigure our ways of seeing, governing and designing space. Bringing together aesthetics, political philosophy, media and urban studies, the conference examines the epistemic claims and political imaginaries produced by aerial vision, as well as its implications for security, sovereignty and civic life. Held 28–30 August 2025 in Mendrisio and Ascona (Switzerland)—with sessions at the Teatro dell’Architettura (USI) and the Eranos Foundation—the event is organized by the scientific committee Matteo Vegetti, Tommaso Morawski, and Lucrezia Pozzi.

Speakers

Lisa Parks — The Satellite Coast: Vandenberg Space Force Base, SpaceX, and Materialities of Aerospace — Chair: Lilian Kroth

Peter Adey (online) — Aero-Neo-Colonial Infrastructure: Emergencies, Crisis and an Aeromobile Mantle of Safety — Chair: Emmanuel Alloa

Caren Kaplan — Atmospheric Politics: divergent commons with and beyond militarist airspace — Chair: Lisa Henicz

Alexander C. T. Geppert — Whither Planetary History? A Revolution beyond the Atmosphere — Chair: Lisa Henicz

Brad Tabas — Differing and Unusual Orbits: Space Power Beyond the Vertical — Chair: Tommaso Morawski

Lucrezia Pozzi — Telearchics: Operation Crossroads and the Rise of Atmopower at the Dawn of the Drone Era — Chair: Alessandro de Cesaris

Ole B. Jensen — Drone visuals and beyond: exploring the potential of volumetric, visual, and more-than-visual aerial sensing — Chair: Lilian Kroth

Francisco R. Klauser — Policing with the Drone: Towards an Aerial Geopolitics of Security — Chair: Alessandro de Cesaris

Lorenzo Pezzani — Proximate Indifference: the (spatial) phenomenology of aerial bordering — Chair: Claudia Nigrelli

Shona Illingworth — The Airspace Tribunal and Topologies of Air: Art and Human Rights — Visualising Threat — Chair: Emanuel Tandler

18/06/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at conference Back to Frozen Earth. Permafrost in Social Theory and Beyond, Sciences

Lilian Kroth

“Making sense of ice from space”, Talk by Dr. Lilian Kroth at conference Back to Frozen Earth. Permafrost in Social Theory and Beyond, Sciences Po, Paris

Read more

29/05/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at the XXIII Convegno annuale della Società italiana d’Estetica

Tommaso Morawski

On May 29t, 2025, Tommaso Morawski presented a paper entitled “1957-1977: Per una tecno-estetica della scala” at the XXIII Annual Conference of the Italian Society of Aesthetics: Aesthetics and Politics. The Italian Society of Aesthetics brings together professors and scholars of the aesthetic disciplines active in Italy and has the aims of promoting research in the field of aesthetic problems and extending interest in their better understanding.

Read more

28/05/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at the USI Doctoral Colloquium

Lucrezia Pozzi

Within the "Doctoral Colloquium" event hosted by the Accademia di Architettura (USI), Lucrezia Pozzi will present to the doctoral committee her research outcomes developed as part of the Aeropolitics axis. Her presentation, entitled "Places of projection, places of protection: unmanned aerial technologies and the rise of atmopower," will outline the main themes of her doctoral thesis project.

Download the program

27/05/2025

Workshop

FPV Drone Experience

Lucrezia Pozzi

FPV drones represent one of the most exciting developments in aerial technology, offering a fully immersive flying experience through first-person vision. This workshop introduces students to the technical functioning, creative uses, and filming potential of FPV drones. The first hour focuses on theory, covering drone components, aerial shooting techniques, and the use of cameras for both indoor and outdoor filming, including dynamic sequences such as chase shots. The second hour is dedicated to practice, allowing participants to experience immersive flight through FPV goggles. Open to all students and led by Lucrezia Pozzi, the workshop provides a hands-on introduction to the possibilities of contemporary drone technology.

Read more

26/05/2025

Lexicon

Bird’s-Eye View In Architecture Competitions

Lisa Henicz

The bird’s-eye view is a visualizing technique, where things are depicted from above as if seen from a flying bird. While it has been an imaginative perspective in the visual arts for millennia, since the late 19th century the human conquest of the air and the invention of photography accomplished the factual depiction of the world from above. The following contribution will focus on bird’s-eye views in the field of architecture, and more specifically on its use in architecture competitions in the early 20th century.

Read more

10/05/2025

Event

Outreach Activity for Children at UniVerso 2025

Matteo Vegetti

On May 01, 2025, the Aerial Spatial Revolution project took part in the UniVerso event, organized by Università della Svizzera italiana, with a creative workshop aimed at children. Inspired by lunar imaginaries, the young participants were invited to imagine and build a city on the Moon, using wooden blocks and various materials to shape futuristic settlements. Guided along a luminous path, the activity culminated in the creation of a collective landscape, allowing the children to explore architectural solutions for extreme environments.

Read more

06/05/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at DocTalks

Lisa Henicz

Junkers plane above Zürich-Sihlfeld, Walter Mittelholzer, 1925. ETH Library Zurich, Image Archive / LBS_MH01-004777.

During the online format DocTalks, Lisa Henicz presents her docotral project “Images of Modern Switzerland. Aerial Photographs of Walter Mittelholzer” on May 6th, 2025. DocTalks is an informal, peer-to-peer forum by and for PhD students, postdocs and early career researchers in architectural history and theory. The series started in 2018 as in-person meetings among PhD students at ETH Zurich/gta. In 2020 it moved online and opened to participants from other universities. Today, DocTalks is run by an international team and hosts a broad range of speakers and audience members from numerous universities worldwide.

May 6th, 2025, 14:00 CET, Zoom Link: https://ethz.zoom.us/j/65224802781

Read more

23/04/2025

Lexicon

Operative Images

Nicolò Pioli

In CNN's 24h media coverage of the Gulf War amidst the images of armaments and devastated landscapes one could see the Head-Up Display (HUD) images that U.S. soldiers used during military operations. These are, for example, infrared videos of aerial footage with a crosshair in the centre, showing air-to-ground missile explosions. Harun Farocki showed some of these images at the beginning of his installation Eye/Machine (2000-2003), he calls them “operational images”. One example he presents is a “suicide camera” on a laser-guided bomb, showing the view from the warhead’s perspective as it swoops down on the target from above. The image becomes more detailed as the missile approaches the ground, until the footage stops when it impacts the surface. Farocki calls this type of image a “phantom-subjective image” (2004, p. 13) for it simulates the human point of view from a position that a human being could not occupy. This image captures what the missile saw, while we, as viewers, observe safely from a distance, neither victims nor perpetrators.

Read more

11/04/2025

Event

ASR Presentation at the XXI Colloque Suisse de la Relève en Histoire de l’Art

Lisa Henicz

On April 11th, 2025, Lisa Henicz presented her doctoral project "Images of Modern Switzerland. Aerial Photographs of Walter Mittelholzer" at the XXI Colloque Suisse de la Relève en Histoire de l’Art in Neuchâtel. Since 1997, the colloquium has been annually organized to encourage the public presentation and discussion of the progress made by young Swiss researchers in the field of history of art.

Read more

10/04/2025

Course

Masterclass The Air-Age and the Rise of American Geopolitics

Matteo Vegetti

On March 6, 2025, Professor Matteo Vegetti delivered a masterclass titled “L’Air-Age and the Birth of American Geopolitics”, within the framework of the Master’s Program in Geopolitics and Global Security at Sapienza University of Rome. The lecture explored how the emergence of the Air-Age—a historical and conceptual shift marked by the strategic use of aerial space—contributed to the transformation of geopolitical thinking in the United States. Professor Vegetti offered an in-depth analysis of how air power reshaped territorial imagination and global influence in the 20th century.

The session, in Italian, was recorded and is available for viewing here.

23/01/2025

Meeting

ASR Meeting and Research Workshop, San Gallen (CH)

Team Aeroplanning

On 23 and 24 January, the Aerial Spatial Revolution team met in San Gallen at the ArchitekturWerkstatt for an intensive two-day workshop meeting to respond to each researcher’s project and discuss their different approaches.

16/01/2025

Lexicon

Telearchics

Lucrezia Pozzi

In 1946, the concept of "telearchics," introduced by Burnet Hersey, marked a new era in remote control technology, heralding the potential for dominating space through unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). The pivotal moment for telearchics occurred during Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll, where drones were used to capture aerial images of atomic explosions, demonstrating their ability to survive extreme conditions and perform tasks too dangerous for humans. This innovation gave rise to a new form of warfare, where power was exerted remotely through electromagnetic waves, creating a space of dominance that extended beyond traditional geographic boundaries. Telearchics represents a shift in military and technological strategies, where the "remote" control of machines not only alters the perception of space but also introduces a new logistics of warfare and surveillance. This approach, which continues to evolve with modern drone technology, redefines territorial conquest and colonization, emphasizing control from a distance without physical vulnerability. The concept of ether, a universal medium through which power and surveillance spread, further underscores the transformation of warfare into an ionospheric battle of electromagnetic engagement.

13/01/2025

Lexicon

Helivision

Jacqueline Maurer

In the post-war period, Europe faced significant challenges in urban planning and infrastructure reconstruction, which were documented and critiqued through the emerging medium of state television. Aerial views, often captured via helicopters, became a powerful tool for showcasing urban development, with the technique of "helivision" offering unique perspectives from above. The Italian film series L’Italia vista dal cielo (1966–1978), commissioned by Esso and directed by Folco Quilici, is a prime example of this approach.

13/12/2024

Event

ASR Presentations at the Convegno Internazionale Historical City and Urban Aesthetics

Katrin Albrecht, Matteo Vegetti

In the Historical City and Urban Aesthetics conference, Matteo Vegetti and Katrin Albrecht offer thought-provoking perspectives in Session VII: Techno-aesthetical perspectives on the city, chaired by Claudia Nigrelli. Matteo Vegetti explores the aesthetic and moral implications of aerial vision in modern urban contexts with his presentation La visione aerea e la città moderna: implicazioni estetiche e morali, delving into how aerial perspectives have shaped the way we perceive and design cities. Katrin Albrecht, in her presentation Representing the Unknown, examines the challenges and possibilities of visualizing and interpreting urban spaces in a historical context. Together, their contributions will shed light on the interplay between technology, aesthetics, and the urban environment, offering new insights into the evolution of cityscapes.

06/12/2024

Event

ASR Presentation at the Primo Congresso Nazionale di Astronomia Culturale

Matteo Vegetti

From 3 to 6 December 2024, the First National Congress of Cultural Astronomy will be held at the CNR Research Area in Palermo. On the 6th, Professor Matteo Vegetti will delve into the political significance of iconic images of Earth from space, such as Earthrise and The Blue Marble . In his presentation, titled The Political Meaning of Viewing Earth from Space: "Earthrise," "The Blue Marble," and the Idea of One World (original in Italian: ll significato politico della visione della terra dallo spazio: "Earthrise", "The Blue Marble" e l’idea dell’unità del mondo (“One World”) ), Vegetti will examine how these images have shaped collective imagination and fostered the concept of a united, interconnected world. Through a philosophical and historical perspective, he will highlight the role of visual representation in building global consciousness, reflecting on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in portraying the planet from above.

22/11/2024

Lexicon

Feminist critique(s)

Lilian Kroth

Feminist critiques of remote sensing and the "view from above" have evolved significantly, particularly in the past three decades. Initially, the distant perspective of satellite imagery was critiqued for embodying a masculinist and controlling gaze, which was detached, voyeuristic, and managerial. However, feminist critiques have since shifted, recognizing the potential of distance as a productive tool rather than a purely distancing one. By challenging the traditional division between masculine, detached knowledge and feminine, proximate care, feminist approaches have redefined remote sensing as a means to address environmental and humanitarian crises, exploring the intersections of gender, technology, and care. Feminist data visualization, critical mapping practices, and the reappropriation of distance now highlight how technology can be used to challenge power dynamics and rethink relationships to space, care, and access.

23/10/2024

Event

ASR ArchitekturWerkstatt-Talks III Macht der (Luft)Bilder

Team Aeroplanning

The third talk in the Werkstattgespräch series will focus on the power of aerial images. The event, titled "macht der (luft)bilder," will feature film excerpts commented and historically framed by Jacqueline Maurer and Lisa Henicz.

17/10/2024

Lexicon

Astronoetics

Emanuel Tandler

On October 4, 1957, the launch of Sputnik 1 sparked the concept of "astronoetics," introduced by philosopher Hans Blumenberg. He explored the profound impact of space exploration on human perception, focusing on how events like the Space Race reshaped our understanding of the world and introduced new philosophical challenges.

16/10/2024

Lexicon

Architectural Aerial Photography

Lisa Henicz

After World War I, advances in photography, aviation, and print media led to a rise in civil aerial photography. Former military pilots like Walter Mittelholzer transitioned to civilian roles, with Mittelholzer founding Ad Astra Aero in 1919, specializing in aerial images for urban planning and commercial use. Aerial photography, offering both innovation and objectivity, became essential for urbanists managing expanding cities. Mittelholzer’s photograph of Zurich’s Hirslanden clinic, published in 1932, emphasized the building’s technological advancements, highlighting the growing importance of aerial photography in promoting architectural innovation and documenting modern projects.

30/09/2024

Event

ASR Presentations at the conference At a Distance: Remote, Augmented, Operational Imagery

Katrin Albrecht, Emmanuel Alloa, Tommaso Morawski, Matteo Vegetti

On September 30, 2024, the conference At a Distance: Remote, Augmented, Operational Imagery will explore the impact of technologies that enable remote and augmented viewing on our perception and interaction with the world. Members of the Aerial Spatial Revolution project will present key contributions: Matteo Vegetti (USI, SUPSI) will discuss "Spatial revolution and space-time compression," Katrin Albrecht (OST) will explore "Precise recording from a safe distance," and Emmanuel Alloa (University of Fribourg) will address "Astronoetics: Philosophy from outer space." Additionally, Tommaso Morawski (Sapienza) will examine the evolution of scale in "Medializing the Cosmic Zoom: 1957-2005."

10/09/2024

Event

ASR Panel at the 12th Congress of the German Society of Aesthetics Medien der Künste/Künste der Medien

Team Aerovision, Katrin Albrecht, Tommaso Morawski, Matteo Vegetti

On September 10, 2024, the Aerial Spatial Revolution (ASR) panel will be part of the 12th Congress of the German Society of Aesthetics in Fribourg. Chaired by Lilian Kroth and Emmanuel Alloa, the panel will feature presentations by Matteo Vegetti on the concept of an "aerial spatial revolution," Katrin Albrecht on the use of street and aerial views in early 20th-century urban design, Tommaso Morawski on the astronautical revolution's impact on landscape, and Kathrin Maurer on drone sensoriums and their effects on communities.

05/08/2024

Lexicon

Earthscape

Tommaso Morawski

Today, it has become commonplace for us, almost a matter of course, to see the Earth represented in a photograph. It is therefore hard to imagine how shocking it was, on a psychological and perceptual level, when, in the 1960s, for the first time in the history of our species, humans saw a representation of their planet from space (Morawski, Vegetti). Having now become accustomed to the ubiquity of the extraterrestrial gaze, we take its recent novelty for granted and fail to appreciate the revolutionary impact of that first “ecumenical disorientation” (Boatto 2013, p. 25). An event that literally pulled the earth out from under our feet and returned it to us as an image.

03/05/2024

Meeting

Kickoff Meeting and Research Workshop, Mendrisio (CH)

Team Aeropolitics

On 3 and 4 May, the Aerial Spatial Revolution team met in Mendrisio (Switzerland) for the formal launch of the project. During the meeting, the heads of the three research areas—Aerovision, Aeroplanning, and Aeropolitics—outlined the objectives of each domain and the overall mission planning. Each researcher then presented their "flight plan," highlighting the methodological approaches they intend to pursue to contribute to this interdisciplinary study.

24/04/2024

Event

ASR Participation at the UZH Colloquium Architekturgeschichte(n)

Katrin Albrecht

Seminar Architektur im Spiegel der Sinne: Rezeptionsästhetische Ansätze
Prof. Dr. Katrin Albrecht (Ostschweizer Fachhochschule St. Gallen) Prof. Dr. Hendrik Ziegler (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

Ever since the beginnings of our discipline, architecture has been discussed in terms of the possibilities for experience, whether in terms of architectural form (Wölfflin) or architectural space (Schmarsow) – a perspective that has been given new impetus by Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space and, more recently, by Gernot Böhme's Aesthetics of Atmospheres. Corresponding explanations have highlighted the multisensory character of architectural reception and assigned a special role to the body in the process. In this session, the question of the validity of this model will be posed, both with regard to early modern and more recent building traditions.

Organisation of the Institute Colloquium FS 2024: Prof. Dr. Carola Jäggi, Prof. Dr. Joris van Gastel, Dr. Katja Schröck

Read more

01/01/2024

Call

Call for open positions

Katrin Albrecht, Emmanuel Alloa, Matteo Vegetti

AeroVision: PhD student in philosophy (100%)
Call Closed
AeroPlanning: PhD student in the History of Architecture and Urbanism (100%)
Call Closed
AeroPlanning: Postdoc or Scientific Collaborator (100%)
Call Closed
AeroPolitics: PhD student in philosophy (100%)
Call Closed

21/05/2022

Event

Online Symposium Aerial Spatial Revolution

Matteo Vegetti, Christoph Frank

Through interdisciplinary approach, the symposium explores the influence of the conquest of the air – from the first flight experiences to contemporary satellites – on the way of thinking, designing and practising space. The general framework is based on the concept of “Raumrevolution” (Spatial Revolution) introduced by the jurist and philosopher Carl Schmitt in Land and Sea (1941), but then implicitly present also in other authors (e.g. Wölfflin, Panofsky, Giedion, Koyré, and Kern).
A spatial revolution is a historical change that transforms the relationship between man and space at all levels. It involves the living environments in which subjects act, communicate and represent their world. The most profound spatial revolutions are those caused by the irruption of a new element (in our case: airspace and extraterrestrial space). In these cases, all spatial relations are modified, and thus inaugurate a general change that affects both the uses of space and its understanding. Is it therefore possible to talk about an aerial spatial revolution in architecture and urbanism and trace a history that shows the lines of development, the disconnections and the repercussions in political and social terms? How did the conquest of the third dimension produce new spatial experiences, aesthetic languages, and spatial intelligence in architecture and urbanism?
Ultimately the symposium analyses the relationship between aerial technologies for representing space and how space has been – and still is – conceived and designed.

Organized by Matteo Vegetti (USI-SUPSI) and Christoph Frank (USI)
Coordinated by Fabrizia Bandi (USI, UNIMI)
Moderated by Tommaso Morawski, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Welcome address
Walter Angonese - Director of the Academy of Architecture (USI)
Silvio Seno Director of DACD (SUPSI)

Introduction
Matteo Vegetti - SUPSI, USI
Christoph Frank - USI-ISA

Speakers

Marco Solinas, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa
Raumrevolution. On the first planetary spatial revolution
The paper aims to give an overview of Carl Schmitt’s concept of “Raumrevolution” on the theoretical-epistemological level as well on the juridical-political level, looking in particular at the first planetary spatial revolution of XVI and XVII centuries. In order to better explain and develop this concept of “Raumrevolution” I will use Thomas Kuhn’s conception of Copernican Revolution, understood as model of his theory of scientific revolutions. I will then try to clarify some elements of the key correlations between this theoretical side and the juridical and political considerations proposed by Schmitt, including the importance assigned to the opposition sea/land and to the conquest of oceans in modernity.

Mark Dorrian, Edinburgh College of Art Around the New Vision
While Le Corbusier’s Aircraft, brought out in 1935 by the British art publishers The Studio, is well known to scholars of architecture, what is less often remarked upon is that it was one part of a double publication. For, in marking the launch of an intended new series titled ‘The New Vision’ (which in the end ran to only three books), it appeared alongside a partner volume – W. Watson-Baker’s World Beneath the Microscope, a book of microphotographs prefaced with a richly-articulated text by the artist and critic William Gaunt. In this way, at its outset, the series tacitly established a relation between two species of downward look in which vision was transformed by technical apparatuses – the distanced view from the aeroplane and the microscopic close-up.
Working from the two Studio publications, this talk will reflect upon the nexus of aerial view and close-up, and the kinds of imaginative entanglements and metaphoric exchanges it sets in motion and licenses. It had an important role in the thinking of László Moholy-Nagy, to which The Studio’s project was deeply indebted, but it is also evident, in often surprising ways, in nineteenth-century visual discourses and beyond.
Mark Dorrian holds the Forbes Chair in Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Seeing From Above: The Aerial View in Visual Culture (2013, co-edited with Frédéric Pousin) and Writing on the Image: Architecture, the City and the Politics of Representation (2015). Mark is editor-in-chief of Drawing Matter Journal.

Natalie Roseau, École des Ponts ParisTech
The aerial thought of the large city
The construction of an aerial gaze has a long history, well before the beginnings of aviation, well before the invention of balloons, when from the top of medieval belvederes one could discover the panorama of the city and its surroundings. However, the context of the evolution of the greater city with its ever-fading limits gradually gave meaning to the aerial apprehension of space, that of a stable, free and autonomous movement in the third dimension, equipped with visual prostheses (photography, cinema), which allowed to grasp a reality that constantly escapes human perception. The quest for figurability of the large city crossed a bundle of inventions and appropriations, opportunities and contexts, allowing the development of an aerial thought of the space whose interferences did not cease to work the architecture and the urbanism. Representations, projections, realizations: this paper will question the functions of this imaginary that has influenced urban futures, pointing out its subjectivities and its unthinking, while cities and territories are confronted with the critical stakes of the anthropocene: ecology, globalization, digitalization.

Marco Rasch, Saxonia-Freiberg-Stiftung
The influence of the photographic birds-eye view on German urbanism
It was not until years after their establishment in Germany that architects also began to take an interest in aerial photography. Under the influence of the technical development in aviation and several exhibitions as e.g. the “Internationale Luftschiffahrt-Ausstellung” (International Airship Exhibition) in Frankfurt am Main in 1909 they moved into the focus of the young urban planning.
Aerial photographs were the appropriate tool to literally visualise the expansion from regionally narrowly defined house construction to aesthetic urban construction that had been propagated since Camillo Sitte. The photographs showed the spatial relations of the buildings, infrastructure and nature and thus initiated a general change that affected both the use of space and its understanding.
How this development took place in urbanism in Germany and what part the aerial photographs played will be the subject of my lecture. I will show the continuous path from the rediscovery of perspective in architectural journals in the late 19th century, the use of bird’s-eye views for the visualisation of architectural ensembles to aerial photographs as an object of study in German urbanism.

Christoph Frank, Academy of Architecture (USI-ISA)
Seen from Above, Seen from Below: Towards an Iconography of Aerial Destruction
Ever since human beings have managed to overcome gravity and went up into the air, their “advancement” on civilization has been used to military and strategic advantage, with devastating effect. This fact is currently being brought back to Europe to such a level, which can only compare to some of the most iconic images of the First and Second World Wars. Yet, wars perversely drive innovation and reconstruction, as is only too well known. And it may be this, which in terms of a discontented civilization may be at the roots of survivalist amnesia and even historical denial in relation to our response to such imagery, moreover in spite of its all too evident omnipresence.
Thus, this paper intends to look at the phenomenon of an iconography of aerial destruction from a set of dual perspectives, ranging from “above” and “below” to abstraction and concretion, to fakeness and forensics or empathy and denial and their overall respective reception in artistic processing at a later date. Evidently, part of the argument will take into consideration W. G. Sebald’s now legendary and extensively debated Zurich lecture cycle, which appeared in 1999 under the title of Luftkrieg und Literatur (English edition: On the Natural History of Destruction), and in which the author addressed a hitherto neglected aspect of post-war mental and artistic processing. Sebald observed that despite the overwhelming factual evidence of the near to total destruction of a large number of important central European cities as a result of aerial bombing during World War II, the subject seems to have represented a near to total taboo in literature and public discourse. Few of his writings have incited a more impassioned debate than Luftkrieg und Literatur.
Are there notable differences to be observed between the literary and visual processing of aerial destruction? Does war photography – and aerial photography in particular – stand in an overall iconographic tradition whether envisioned or documentary? What are its potential sources and reference models? Is there a “classical tradition” of aerial destruction? Will this help us to understand the visual empowerment of images in the current conflict? A history of the image of aerial destruction may still need to be written.

Respondent
Emmanuel Alloa, University of Fribourg

Sebastian Grevsmühl, CNRS-EHESS, Paris
From spaceship Earth to infrastructures of survival: a historical genealogy of a new scopic regime
One of the most iconic outcomes of human spaceflight was the influential metaphor of ‘spaceship Earth’. The metaphor figures amongst the most influential Cold War interpretations of the global environment and it effectively translates a ‘new’ vision of the world as a finite planet. It was adopted not only by military planners at the Pentagon but also proponents of new forms of environmentalism. Its success from the late 1950s onwards, in politics and economics, was driven by the fact that the metaphor incorporated both, the idea of global environmental crisis, yet also a strong belief in progress and the capacity to control and manage Earth as a whole. Thus, as a technological metaphor, spaceship Earth also illustrates Banham’s famous paradigm of the ‘First Machine Age’, where the machine appears as the ultimate metaphor for architecture. It thus comes as no surprise that Cold War architects, such as Buckminster Fuller and Frei Otto, developed utopian and concrete manifestations that actively fed into the idea of the Earth as a controllable spaceship. The declared goal was to resolve at a global scale all earthly problems in one sweeping gesture of urban planning, architectural design and infrastructural construction. More recent projects of geoengineering are ultimately the dark descendants of this highly problematic Cold War conceptualization of Earth as a controllable machine.

Dario Negueruela Del Castillo, University of Zurich
The reverse gaze of satellite exploration - the reconstituted face of the earth
Satellite images feed our daily intake from social media and television, illustrating the violent spatial reach of surveillance with uncanny perseverance since the first Gulf War. However, it would be misleading to consider this as a confirmation of long gone modernist scopic regimes. As most of the data stream from our ubiquitous and interconnected sensing devices, satellite imagery is not primarily intended to be processed visually by humans. Instead, these images are already networked and operative, being processed by other machines and triggering actions without our direct intervention through digital twins and other simulations Remote sensing and imagery becomes just an additional input source for these, conceptually breaking the traditional hierarchies of distance, focus, and resolution. Nonetheless, some of these contemporary Machine Learning techniques (eg. image super-resolution) point towards a contemporary machinic version of erotic and projective imagination. If vision is not a re-covery of pregiven features, but a sensori-motor enactment of a possible world, how can the conception and imagination of new environments work in the times of AI? Opening the doors to reimagine Space Ship Earth anew, this unexpected turn casts our longing and procreative gaze straight back at the cracks of our planetary sprawl, as if it were ruins to be interpreted and colonized.

Niccolò Cuppini, SUPSI-DEASS, Lugano
Air as Infrastructure. On Amazon Urbanism
When satellite images of contemporary metropolises started to be accessible to architects and urbanists, a quite radical shock emerged. Modern history has for long time pushed forward the idea that the higher you could view a city/landscape, the most you could know about it. This “zenital myth” went into crises through satellite view because urbanscapes appeared as bizzare and unrecognizable objects. (At least) the Western conception of the city as a bounded entity with a clear division between the countryside and “nature” appeared as a complete non-sense looking from above. This epistemological shock has been one of the factors that led to the crisis of urban planning writ large.
However, in the last decade, a new urban actor is emerging with new potentials and capabilities of planning in (not only) Western metropolises: Amazon. Amazon urbanism is characterized by a profound knowledge on territories due to big-data management and the disseminated logistical infrastructures of the company, interconnecting huge facilities with the last mile logistics. In the last few years, with a radical acceleration thanks to the Covid pandemic, Amazon is progressively colonizing “air” a new strategic frontier for its operations.
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, is a crucial player with Blue Origin in the “new Space race”. However, perhaps less known, Amazon operations are also increasingly focused on the sub- orbital aerial level. Amazon sees air as an infrastructure, the smoother one for an endless circulation. Therefore, Amazon is developing an urban intelligence aiming at creating a sort of “urban automation from above”, through an imaginary populated by multi-level drone fulfillment centers, flying warehouse facilities, delivery via drones “highways”.

Jennifer K. Levasseur, Department of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
An Astronaut-Eye View of Changing Urban Development
The sublimity of looking at Earth from space, often called the “overview effect,” shapes the impressions and words of astronauts. The evidence of what they see, in the form of photographs and videos, changes how the Earth-bound understand our impact on the globe. Given an astronaut’s opportunity to float above the Earth from as close as 100km or as far as the orbit of the Moon (377,000km), urbanism moves in and out of focus. High-powered camera equipment clarifies and obscures evidence of human activity, how both natural and political boundaries are overcome or pushed against. This presentation focuses on the changing view of that landscape over the age of human spaceflight. Using urban examples from around the globe, change over time is clear from the astronaut-eye view. Those who serve as our surrogates in space exploration provide visual and impressionistic points of view, evidence of how we have literally and figuratively reshaped the planet.

Lisa Parks, University of California, Santa Barbara
Vertical Mediation and the Current War in Yemen
This paper extends my previous research on vertical mediation and offers a critical analysis of international news media coverage of the current war in Yemen (2014-present), focusing on air and missile strikes on civilian sites, including an airport in Aden, prison in Sadaa, and telecom facility in Hodeidah. News media coverage of such attacks is not only reductive and polarizing but often confuses or effaces particularities of the conflict, whether parties involved, sites destroyed, or people killed. At the same time, these reports have become a kind of raw material for making sense of this war, including by forensic media organizations. I argue there is a need for other ways of imagining and critiquing the material relations of aerial/ballistic technologies, urban space, media, and geopolitics. Political analysts have described Yemen as a “security vacuum,” but I am also interested in the ways news media position the country as a kind of entropic state – one composed of warring parties that not only attack one another, but their own infrastructures and civilians, without pointing to the integral role of US/European weapons systems, financing, and refueling in this process.

Caren Kaplan, University of California, Davis
Out of the Blue: No-Fly Zones and Atmospheric Politics
Our understanding of the space above our heads has shifted from an unregulated, infinite expanse of ether to a volumetric, multi-dimensional zone of competing claims and infrastructures. In modernity the elemental aspects of air—its atmospherics and meteorology—are not simply natural but productive of social relations and politics. War moved into airspace in the early 20th century as the wealthiest nation-states drew upon the new achievements of aviation to advance colonial territorialization and to overcome the limitations of trench warfare. Yet the “freedom” that aviation seemed to offer military operations created counter measures based on the 19th century British legal doctrine of Cujus set solum ejus est usque ad coelumn (“whoever owns land owns it up to the sky”). Throughout the 20th century what counted as the “sky” and who owned it shifted legally, culturally, and politically. Airspace became conceived as structured—an architecture that interacted with ideas and practices of urban, rural, national, international, commercial, military and even literary or artistic spaces. The military “no-fly zone” (NFZ) emerges out of this complex history and generates new conundrums in contemporary warfare. The NFZ is a fraught operation in a politicized space of competing objects, materials and elements that produces violent, state-sponsored inequalities.

Respondent
Tristan Weddigen, Director of Bibliotheca Hertziana, University of Zurich

AeroSpaces: Spatial Practices in Architecture and Urbanism

Cuneo, August 31–September 6, 2026