This article is an editorial

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

author: Federico Montanari (Dipartimento di Comunicazione ed Economia, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (IT); Centro Universitario Bolognese di Etnosemiotica (CUBE), Bologna (IT))

Introduction

language: italian

abstract: The subject of the relationship between architecture and politics is “limitless yet to the point”, as rightly underscored in one of the articles in this issue. However, it is because the subject is so vast that we feel it can serve as a link and encouragement towards further exploration and avenues to investigate, also thanks to the choices made by the authors who responded to the call. Architecture or urban planning may evidently be described as languages that are not only spatial but that also express crossing and settling: operations that not only require a finding of one's way, but also an arrangement of space itself, its interpretation. In practical terms, even in the architectural and urban context power is therefore an “able to do” on the one hand (able to freely go, travel, cross) and on the other, a form of “able to be” able, however, to deny space to others: “I am..., and so I'm stopping you from going there, or I'm forcing you to look or pass that way”. This issue of Ocula considers these two different dimensions, all within the space of the city.

citation information: Federico Montanari, Introduzione, "Ocula", vol.13, n.13, August 2012. DOI: 10.12977/ocula10

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 Committee.