Advisor: João Masao Kamita
Dissertation: City poetics and the concept of public space
Defense date: 30/08/2017
Abstract
When Rem Koolhaas, one of the most paradigmatically architects of
nowadays, questions himself “Whatever happened to urbanism?”, one puts
in evidence a latent crises in actual domain. Identity crises? Formal crises?
Institutional crises? Operating in the studies and investigations field of urban
environment and the relationship between the architectural discipline with the
production of thoughts, spaces and policies in the cities, this research mobilizes
key-concepts, guidelines to articulate the reflection about the current condition of
architecture and some of the meanings adopted in its discourse. Following a critic
line of thoughts towards functionalist urbanism – towards its scientific, prognostic
mentality, with a certain productivist moral – and its deployments in actuality,
in urban contexts marked by the hegemony of advanced capitalist system. One
may identify this critic retrospectively with the ideas addressed by the situationist
theory, in the 1960 decade, also associating it with conflicts pointed out by Henri
Lefebvre’s discourse about space politics – especially when it comes to the
oppositions between agents present in the space practices, bringing up debates
about the spaces of representation, public spaces and the everyday space. Those
categories, listed above, permeate interdisciplinary discourses, making possible,
with a web of case studies, discussions about aspects in which the architectural
field might be enriched by the approach of urban uses and phenomenon – or
appropriations