After being confined to the margins, the subject of labor is returning to critical discourse, in part because of the radical transformation in the organization and experience of work brought about by globalization, deindustrialization and the information economy. Likewise, in the field of architecture, the digitalization of contemporary design and fabrication has stimulated a rethinking of architectural modernity in terms of its conditions of production.

The seminar examines the nexus of architecture and labor through four central lines of inquiry: the historical transformation in the organization and meaning of work, and its effect on the social and cultural constitution of modernity; the architecture of the workplace as it evolved in time; the ideological function of architecture as legitimization of the social relation of production; and finally, the status of the work of architecture as a labor process.