This article is an editorial

This article has been published in: Ocula 13, Architecture and Political Discourse: crossing perspectives

author: Ruggero Ragonese (Dipartimento di Comunicazione ed Economia, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (IT); USAC University Reggio Emilia (IT); Istituto Iaad Bologna (IT))

Afterword

language: italian

abstract: “Tout est politique” and architecture is no exception. Even though it cannot be seen, politics is in the shape of the pyramids, in Roman basilicas and Renaissance temples, as it is in the ephemeral architecture of huge international exhibitions or the inventions of contemporary archistars. Because it is very clear that even the denial of politics in the construction of an architectural style implies its presence, since it is precisely when architecture denies its function within a community or area that politics (of architecture) expands and takes over.
In this respect, by working on the tangible device of urban (or non-urban) space on the one hand, and on the ‘order of flow phenomena’ on the other, semiotics becomes the principal actor in a political project for architecture. That which lies in the liminal possibility of not reducing space and its representation to the aspect of design or to sociological analysis, but of appreciating the overall ‘articulated’ sense in which historic and subjective instances as well as complex and multiple narrative paths coexist.

citation information: Ruggero Ragonese, Postfazione, "Ocula", vol.13, n.13, August 2012. DOI: 10.12977/ocula19

Ocula.it publishes articles and essays in semiotic research, with a particular eye on communication and culture; it is open to dialogue with other research fields and welcomes contributions from all the areas of the social and human sciences. See the Editorial Board and the Editorial Board.