Utopia is nothing other than a structural vision of the totality that is, and is becoming, the transcendence of the pure datum, and a system of orientation intent upon breaking the relationships of the existing order.
One is left to navigate an empty space in which anything can happen but nothing is decisive. This does not mean that a lucid awareness of the present situation is not necessary. Doing away with outdated myths, one certainly does not see, on the architectural horizon, any ray of an alternative; of a technology of our own. We must proceed to the analysis that, in the field of architecture, activities are only today being attempted with the necessary precision and coherence. For those anxiously seeking an operative criticism, the problems are deliberately treated, but in a historical outline.
Attacking the subject of architectural ideology from this point of view means trying to explain why the apparently most functional proposals for the reorganization of this sector of capitalist development have had to suffer the most humiliating frustrations – why they can be presented even today as purely objective proposals devoid of any class connotation, or as mere alternatives. Many of the new ideas on architecture have been gleaned from an accurate reexamination of the origins of the historical avant-garde movements. The entire cycle of modern architecture can be viewed as a unitary development. This makes it possible to consider globally the formation of architectural ideologies and, in particular, their implication for the city. |
