PROGRAM is a nonprofit project aimed at testing the disciplinary boundaries of architecture through collaborations with other fields. Initiated in 2006 by Carson Chan and Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga, PROGRAM provides a discursive platform for artists, architects, critics and curators to explore ideas through exhibitions, performances, workshops, lectures, and residencies. PROGRAM intends to enrich and broaden our definitions of architecture, and to challenge traditional, domesticated modes of architectural practice and representation. Developing each project independent of an overarching agenda, PROGRAM is striving to diversify the ways we understand and make architecture. Central to our project is to engage the discourse with emerging creative processes that activate the space between pure theoretical research, professional praxis and architecture's social role.
Occupying the ground level of former Russian Hotel Newa, PROGRAM’s location in Berlin includes an exhibition space, workspaces, a reading room / event space, and a residency.
Workspace is currently available at PROGRAM. We offer desk spaces in an open office to artists, architects, curators, students, and others who are looking for a temporary workspace in Berlin. Please email us for more information.
Co-directors
Carson Chan is an architecture writer and curator. After receiving a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and a Masters in Design Studies in the History and Theory of Architecture from Harvard University, he began work at Barkow Leibinger Architects and at the Neue Nationalgalerie’s architecture department, Berlin. Carson is a regular writer for cultural publications like West East Magazine (Hong Kong) and 032c (Berlin), where he is also a contributing editor. Carson has served as a guest design critic at various institutions including the summer design programs at Harvard and Cornell Universities, and at the New York Institute of Technology. In 2005, he taught design studio at the Boston Architecture Center. Carson is an active advisor to several cultural institutions including DLD ’08 (Munich) and Europan Denmark '10. He recently organized an evening of panel discussions at the Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin) with leading artists, architects and curators to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Mies van der Rohe building. Along with Nadim Samman, Carson was appointed curator for the 4th edition of the Marrakech Biennale in 2012. [www.carsonchan.net]
Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga (1979, GR) is an architect and researcher. She holds a Diploma of Architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a Master in Design Studies in the History and Theory of Architecture from Harvard University where she studied on a Fulbright Scholarship. In 2006 she moved from Boston to Berlin where she co-founded PROGRAM.
Fotini is also engaged in various projects using video, interventions, research and design to explore the collaborative possibilities inherent in the intersections between social and physical space. Most recently, her work has brought her to Beijing, where she co-organises the artists’ initiative HomeShop. [www.iwishicoulddescribeittoyoubetter.net]