Utopia & Modern Architecture Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- History of Science and Technology, Cultural History, Future Studies, Comparative Literature
- by Luke Barnesmoore
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- Critical Theory, Philology, Religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion

Το Δελφικό Κέντρο ήταν ένα όραμα του Σικελιανού για μία μικρή αυτόνομη κοινότητα στους Δελφούς. Αυτή η κοινότητα ήταν οργανωμένη γύρω από ένα διεθνές πνευματικό κέντρο το οποίο είχε σκοπό να διαφυλάξει την ελληνική αρχαιότητα ως αισθητική παράδοση και να προβάλλει την αναβίωση της στη
μοντέρνα εποχή. Ο Δημήτρης Πικιώνης ήταν ο αρχιτέκτονας ο οποίος μελέτησε το Δελφικό Κέντρο και προσπάθησε να ικανοποιήσει μέσω της αρχιτεκτονικής το αίτημα της αναβίωσης του αρχαίου ελληνικού πολιτισμού ως μοντέρνου.

- by Kostas Tsiambaos
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- Utopian Studies, History and Theory of Modern Architecture, Delphi, Frank Capra

This essay focuses on the writings of the architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri, who was at the center of a group of historians and theorists at the University of Venice’s School of Architecture. It considers how his works dealing with the avant-garde, especially Architecture and Utopia and The Sphere and the Labyrinth, develop a historical-critical method to identify and explicate the gap between the evolution of ideologies of the avant-garde and their translation into a repertoire of techniques that have divergent histories and social meanings than those posited by avant-garde ideologies. In doing so, Tafuri is not just offering an “ideology-critique” of modernism, revealing the way that the avant-garde failed to fulfill its postulated social and aesthetic goals; he is also arguing metahistorically, that via a dialectic of the avant-garde, twentieth-century capitalist modernity weaves an ideological fabric of modernism and interleaves it into the effective structure of reality, for instance through the practices of architecture and urbanism. Thus, “modernism” becomes a relevant term of periodization, not because of the historical veracity of any orthodox art historical narrative of the succession or progressive evolution of modernist forms, but insofar as “modernism” designates the symptomatic tension between the progressive history of avant-garde forms and the heterogeneous technical history that represents how the avant-garde’s formal programs were actualized.

- by Tyrus Miller
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- Architecture, Utopian Studies, Ideology, Architectural History

Entre el 30 de septiembre y el 2 de octubre de 2015 se celebró en el Centro Cultural La Corrala de Madrid el Congreso Internacional "Imaginarios utópicos: pasado, presente y futuro", con un total de 84 participantes. La idea de reunir este Congreso partió del Proyecto Imagest de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, que lo organizó como primera actividad de la recién creada Red Trasatlántica de Estudio de las Utopías. Para su realización se contó con la colaboración del Departamento de Historia Contemporánea, la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras y el Vicerrectorado de Investigación de la UAM, el Centro de Estudios de América Latina (UAM-Santander) y la International Nineteenth-Century Hispanists Network.

- by Juan Pro
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- Utopian Studies, Techno-Utopia, Art, Place And Utopia, Utopian Literature

La visión de Alfonso Pallares a lo largo de 50 años de hacer, pensar y provocar ideas arquitectónicas y urbanas en México. No es la biografía del arquitecto. Es una propuesta del pensamiento de una época a partir de la visión de un... more

- by Elisa Drago Quaglia
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- Utopian Studies, Futurism, Urbanism, Utopia

Starting from the Piranesian visions of the Carceri (1745–1750), through the drawings of Pantheon by Francesco Piranesi (1790) and the fantastic paintings by Nils Ole Lund as The house in the cliff and L’éléphant dell’étoile by Charles-François Ribart (1758) up to the Utopian Urban Machines by Le Corbusier and the incredible perspective sections of Paul Rudolph (Art and architecture building, 1963), it is visible how the section is gradually becoming a fundamental tool for adequate parameterization of the human being in space and in the city, whether in the real or imaginary world. Thanks to the examples cited and an imaginative vision, which wants to go beyond boundaries of what is achievable, we reach the projects of contemporary visionaries such us Julio Lafuente with the hotel on the cliff in Gozo, Malta (1967), Lebbeus Woods with his ‘sectional’ hybrid architectures, Gordon Matta Clark with his Home Cuts and Stefano Boeri with his Milano Animal City (MAC). These dreamers produced ‘utopian sectional architectures’, regarded as such only because they were not built at all, even if they are potentially feasible. Through a careful analysis of some significant examples, it is possible to perform a historical reconstruction of the role in the utopian architectures and drawings section. The final objective of this survey is the reinterpretation of the creative and design value of those seemingly unattainable visions, in the light of the newest technologies and achievable possibilities of contemporary design.

La Revista de Estudios Globales y Arte Contemporáneo es una revista científica indexada, de acceso abierto y publicación en línea, que tiene como objetivo el estudio de la visualidad, las práctica artísticas contemporáneas y los conflictos interculturales desde una perspectiva global. REG|AC está asociada al grupo de investigación Art Globalization Interculturality (AGI/ART: 2014SGR 1050) del Departamento de Historia del Arte de la Universitat de Barcelona (Proyecto I+D Cartografía Crítica del Arte y la Visualidad en la Era Global: Nuevas metodologías, conceptos y enfoques analíticos MICINN: HAR2010-17403 /MINECO: HAR2013- 43122-P). En el contexto del 500 aniversario de la Utopía de Tomás Moro, el cuarto número de la revista tratará de UTOPÍAS NO TEXTUALES.
Existe una larga tradición de textos que abordan el tema de la utopía a través del género literario inaugurado por Tomás Moro en 1516. Sin embargo, hace tiempo (al menos desde Karl Mannheim) que los estudios utópicos incluyen muchas otras expresiones de la imaginación social, abarcando todas las formas de proponer cambios sociales profundos, cuya radical alteridad los vuelve inconcebibles o irrealizables desde los prejuicios ideológicos de cada momento. Desde ese punto de vista, la utopía puede ser vista más como un método que como una forma concreta (Ruth Levitas). Por su parte, Lyman Tower Sargent ha hablado de tres caras de la utopía: la literatura utópica, la teoría social y la práctica utópica.
Con su teorización del "principio esperanza", ya Ernst Bloch había destacado el papel del arte como una esfera de la creación de utopías. Si los cuadros de Arcadias, Paraísos o ciudades ideales son una manera obvia de abordar la cuestión, ésta se complica a partir del siglo XVIII, cuando el arte comienza a imaginarse a sí mismo como agente del cambio social, situándose entre los dos ejes de la representación y la praxis.
En el marco del 500 aniversario de la Utopía de Tomás Moro, la revista REGAC dedica un número monográfico a las UTOPÍAS NO TEXTUALES, buscando reflexionar acerca de las utopías que no están basadas en el texto escrito. En ese sentido, nuestro interés parte de la reflexión acerca de las prácticas artísticas y de la expresión de lo utópico dentro la cultura visual contemporánea. Sin embargo, entendiendo lo simbólico como un campo expandido que se funde con lo performativo y lo espacial, también damos la bienvenida a contribuciones que reflexionen acerca de las dimensiones utópicas de las prácticas políticas y comunitarias. Pese a centrarnos en un marco temporal posterior a la caída del Muro de Berlín, asimismo consideramos interesantes los estudios que se aproximen al contexto del siglo XX y finales del XIX. Buscamos textos, imágenes o proyectos artísticos que traten asuntos como:
Proyecto Cartografía crítica del arte y la visualidad en la era global III Parte (I+D+I
HAR 2016-75100-P
).
-la utopía en el arte y la arquitectura -imaginación utópica a partir de lo visual -iconografías de la utopía
-arte y práctica comunitaria -imaginación política y utopía
-comunas contemporáneas
-activismo y utopía
-utopías no occidentales
-utopías cinematográficas y ciencia ficción
-dimensiones de posibilidad e imposibilidad dentro de la utopía -relaciones entre utopía y realidad

- by Julia Ramírez-Blanco and +1
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- Critical Utopics, Utopian Studies, Techno-Utopia, Art, Place And Utopia

Explains my concept of a paradise (6 pages).

- by Nathan Coppedge
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- Religion, Philosophy, Utopian Studies, Biblical Studies
- by Elisa Drago Quaglia
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- Latin American Studies, Art History, Architecture, Mexican Studies

The Journal of Global Studies and Contemporary Art is an indexed journal and an open access online publication, which aims to analyse visuality, contemporary artistic practices and cultural conflicts through a global perspective. REG | AC... more

- by Julia Ramírez-Blanco
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- Social Movements, Art History, Education, Art

The exhibition Modern Architecture Works is a comprehensive presentation of how Soviet modern architecture is represented in the works of international contemporary artists. Despite its enormously valuable qualities in the generation of social space (in public cultural centers and other municipal areas), and despite its aesthetic qualities, this architecture is afflicted by historical stigma. It is artists above all who recognize its positive qualities; only rarely does that happen through art historical or architectural research or preservation.
In countries like Bulgaria, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, Modernism as an architectural achievement has often been confused with the ideology of Communism. With the new political system and new socio-cultural conditions after 1989, the status of many buildings constructed in the Communist era was either reconsidered in the conditions of commercial pragmatism or loaded with contradictory ideological freight. Many public buildings constructed in the 1960's, '70's and '80's are now abandoned, others have been transformed functionally or their capacity has shrunk, while some have been adapted to the new needs of society.
The massive boom in uncontrolled construction, with little respect for general urban planning and a significant decline in the aesthetic and functional qualities of architecture, which hit Eastern Europe in the '90’s, prompts us to reassess the qualities of some buildings constructed in the past. Modernist concepts of functionality, proportion and structure here converge with visions that were never fulfilled in reality.
This makes the field of architecture in many Eastern European countries a good example of advanced visual models that corresponded to concepts which were developing internationally at the same time. The demands of new urban development and public housing determined the need for functional construction that corresponded to urban planning. Many of these buildings are influenced by the historic achievements of their era, e.g. the Space Age, which is reflected directly in some elements of the architecture.
The buildings are eyewitnesses of our past just as much as of our present, and represent the ironic twist of history. They imply on a huge scale the need to express ideas that have either expired or changed their value over time. The visions stand still, but the buildings seem to respond physically to contemporary societies.
With Modern Architecture Works we aim to revisit the legacy of Modern Architecture in Eastern European countries with the necessary distance from the ideological concerns of its time. The vision of artists, photographers and film makers enables us to raise questions about the future of these buildings, about the transformation of ideas, and about the migration of visual patterns within different social and political circumstances.