Advisor: Otavio Leonidio
Dissertation: Architecture between matter and sense: design, presence and criticism in the contemporary expanded field of culture
Defense date: 13/07/2016
Abstract
This research aims to investigate the possibilities of the renewal of
signification processes and sense production in architecture, in the context of the
complex contemporary condition. From the capitalistic dynamics of consumerism
that govern the construction of contemporary cities emerges a spectacular
architectonic production created to symbolize political-economical prosperity in
which, frequently, art and architecture are associated in a process of cultural
commodification. This process added to the crises of the modern paradigm,
complicates the comprehension of the architect’s role and the possibilities for
architecture today through a critical approach determining an impoverishment of
the theoretical and architectural design activity, still conditioned to the traditional
codes and rules of functionalism. In this context, an emphasis is placed on the
importance of the displacement from the architectonic object and it’s aesthetical-
formal aspects to the conceptual aspects of architecture, to be approached in the
scope of the contemporary “expanded field” of culture. Since the incorporation of
theoretical paradigms from linguistics and philosophy by artistic and architectural
practices, in the 60’s, to approach the processes of matter and sense production
that composes the cultural built environment, interdisciplinarity has become
indispensable. These issues were approached in this study by analyzing the work
of the North American architect Peter Eisenman and his interlocutors, in an
intense dialog involving architecture, art and philosophy, with emphasis on the
importance of resistance and criticism of the standards that limit our presence,
experience and relationship with space, matter and time, through architecture.