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Emancipatory Horizons: The Possibility of a Revolutionary Architectural Practice by Patricio De Stefani is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Emancipatory Horizons: The Possibility of a Revolutionary Architectural Practice about?

Architecture has always been tied to social change, but also to social reproduction. Architects have sought to challenge social structures before, but this tendency seems to be in utter decline, is an emancipatory practice of architecture still possible? What prevents architecture from engaging in radical social and spatial transformation? To find out if it can still have a progressive function within society, its material relation to capital must be unravelled. The active human body, abstract labour, abstract space, fixed capital, landed property, and rent are crucial concepts to understand the spatial logic of capitalism. This research examines these theoretical issues through the historical case of UNCTAD III building in Chile, one of the last attempts to challenge the capitalist production of space. Through this case the difficult questions concerning the role of architecture within capitalist society and what are the possibilities for an alternative practice in our current conditions can be addressed. A radical alternative through architecture must acknowledge both its autonomy and dependence from the cities produced by capitalism if it wishes to address concrete change.

Who reads Emancipatory Horizons: The Possibility of a Revolutionary Architectural Practice?

Author

Patricio De Stefani

Publisher

University of Liverpool

Published

2013

Language

EN

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Art, Arts