Historical Problematics of the collaborative Divide

Collaboration is ubiquitous as a signifier of collective action in the contemporary discourse on inter- and trans-disciplinary practices. While this undoubtedly foregrounds the collective nature of architectural production — that is, architects do not produce buildings in isolation — in a quest to optimize such practices, the discourse tends to overlook historical problematics of collaboration relative to architectural identity and authority. In this paper, I examine these problematics as a framework for critically assessing the twenty-first century re-emergence of collaboration as a technologically-driven practice.