This symposium will explore the political-economic structures underlying the concept of architecture as it developed over the past 50 years. Our disciplinary self-understanding is connected to the slow collapse of welfare-state forms—our idea of ‘radical’ architecture shaped by an ideological shift away from both revolutionary socialism and social-democratic reform. However, the history of the twentieth century shows that large-scale social, economic, and political issues have only been solved through large-scale coordinated responses. We will therefore look at the suppressed historical experience of architecture’s involvement in the vast planning processes of welfare-capitalist and socialist macro-investment efforts.
Contrasting three formations, Radical/Reform/Revolution, this symposium proposes a structural understanding of economic conditions and an engagement with real political agents as the precondition for operative commitment today.
Architectural solutions for politics or political solutions for architecture?
Marianela D’Aprile, Grace Blakeley, Ricardo Ruivo
Contemporary architectural discourse is increasingly taking note of the limitations imposed by the current crisis upon its practice, and, naturally, architects seek to use radical disciplinary strategies to address the problem. However, the political-economic terrain has already doomed them to failure—or worse, to unwittingly exacerbate the conditions. The second session will explore the structural character of the current crisis and shift the debate towards the political terrain, emphasising the role of planning and the public sector.
The speakers:
Marianela D’Aprile is a writer living in Chicago. Her work deals in architecture, culture, and politics. She holds a Masters in Architecture History and Theory from the University of California – Berkeley.
Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune Magazine and author of The Corona Crash: How the pandemic will change capitalism, and Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation. She features frequently on UK and international media, including appearances on Question Time, the Today Programme and MTV News, and her books have been reviewed in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Guardian, among other outlets.
Ricardo Ruivo is a Portuguese architect, researcher, and teacher at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where he completed his PhD. His work focuses on the tensions between architectural form and political content in architectural discourse, and on contemporary problems internal to the rising effort towards a re-politicisation of the discipline.
