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Architecture, Buildings, and Political Ends

Authors

  • Saul Fisher Mercy College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58519/aesthinv.v6i1.12162

Keywords:

built environment, politics, architecture

Abstract

It is not infrequently heard in architectural circles that architecture is an inherently political enterprise and pursuit, such that build structures are, correspondingly, inherently political objects.  But does architecture, by its nature as practice or artifact, universally serve political ends?  Taking ends of something X to be political iff X serves the projection of power by state or government, or advances policy-making, ideologies, or the body politic, it may be thought that

AP1. Architecture, in its products, always serves political ends.

on the grounds that, roughly speaking, wherever one looks, one finds cases providing evidence that

AP2. Buildings (built structures, generally) always serve political ends, and

AP3. Buildings (built structures) are the only products of architecture.

On the supposition that this fairly tracks the common view, I take for granted that the argument goes through if the premises are defensible.  I propose, though, that neither AP2 nor AP3 are defensible, at least in the grand, universal fashion that they are offered.

References

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Jencks, Charles. 1973. Modern Movements in Architecture, Anchor Press.

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Petrescu, Doina and Kim Trogal. 2017. “Introduction: The Social (Re)Production Of Architecture In ‘Crisis-Riddled’ Times”, 1-19, in Petrescu and Trogal (eds.), The Social (Re)Production of Architecture: Politics, Values and Actions In Contemporary Practice, Routledge.

Scruton, Roger. 1979/2013. The Aesthetics of Architecture, Princeton University Press.

Scruton, Roger. 1995. The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism, St Martins Press.

Sparshott, Francis. 1994. “The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space”, 3-20, in Michael H. Mitias (ed.), Philosophy and Architecture, Rodopi.

Tafuri, Manfredo. 1973. Progetto e utopia: Architettura e sviluppo capitalistico. Laterza; 1976. Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, Barbara Luigia La Penta (tr.), The MIT Press.

Yaneva, Albena. 2017. Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice, Bloomsbury Academic.

Younès, Samir. 2004. “The Empire of Masks - Pluralism and Monism in Politics and Architecture”, Philosophy, 79, 310: 533-551.

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Published

2023-08-30

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Section

The Problem of the Building (Philosophy of Architecture)

How to Cite

Fisher, Saul. 2023. “Architecture, Buildings, and Political Ends”. Aesthetic Investigations 6 (1): 19-32. https://doi.org/10.58519/aesthinv.v6i1.12162.