Architecture and Dissidence: Utopia as Method

Abstract

Association of “architecture” with “dissidence” reveals an oxymoronic conceptual structure. The problem is not so much one of precedent - the paradox of looking to the past as a guide to nonconformist action in the present - as a logical impossibility. Architecture’s near total capture by whichever system prevails renders futile almost all attempts at escape from the given. Even Paper Architecture offers little relief from the near impossibility of doing anything beyond what is already possible. In fact, the visionary fantasies of Paper Architecture are escapist above all else. Although direct action offers up the possibility of acting upon the restrictions of the world, it usually takes an extra-architectural shape. Here I am thinking of the dissident Italian architect Danilo Dolci (1924-97), whose critical practice took the form of making community by resisting the government and mafia alike. In a more general way, this article considers utopia as method.

Keywords:

• utopia
• method
• utopia as method
• Danilo Dolci
• critical practice
• architecture

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nathaniel Coleman

Nathaniel Coleman is Reader in Architecture at Newcastle University. He first studied architecture at the IAUS, then at RISD. He also studied Urban Design at CCNY, and received his Ph.D. from UPenn. Author of Utopias and Architecture (2005) and editor of Imagining and Making the World: Reconsidering Architecture and Utopia (2011), he is currently working on Lefebvre for Architects (2014), and editing a special issue of Utopian Studies on Architecture and Utopia (2014). He has also published numerous journal articles and book chapters on architecture and utopia, and architecture education.