Notes towards a Theory of Contestational Architecture

With very few exceptions since Ancient Greece, architecture has ignored for most of its history, its relation to power and politics, focusing instead on different ideals of beauty, perfection and purity of forms. It is no surprise then that architecture was used for political purposes mainly by people who are not architects, like Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, N.A. Miliutyn, to name just a few. Architecture is, and always was, linked to power, power holders, and to the idea of organizing the lives of groups or individuals. In the recent years, when the economic crisis hit the residential sector and other real estate developments strongest, the architects’ role in the perpetuation of the established economic and political system has been put to scrutiny. Critics argue that architecture and architects lost their social role, or even more radically, that it can be considered an accomplice of power holders in the perpetuation of the current system. Critical architectural practices, based on the philosophy of conflict and the rejection of the idea of consensus, challenge the existing power structures and have gained in the recent years more and more ground both inside the profession and outside. But these practices are marginal more often than not, with a very limited impact, because however idealistic and well intentioned these practices are, architecture is still dependent on capital. How can architects produce spaces which are less about the power holders which finance and/or own them and more about the users? How can contestational architectures create anticipative geographies without remaining marginal?