The Meaning of Counter-Hegemony Possibilities in Architecture

Abstract

The article aims to propose a reflection on the critical – theoretical-practical – possibilities to formulate architecture and urbanism strategies that allow reacting at different levels to the impositions of destructive social logics in the contemporary world. To this end, it proposes an analytical path of some of the spatial results of the process of rationalization in modern architecture – in its Brazilian refraction – to name the conditions of a critical – counter-hegemonic – action; one that is possible in contemporary times. This reflection’s main theoretical frameworks are the questions posed to modern architecture by the Italian critic Manfredo Tafuri, and the problematization of Fredric Jameson on the theoretical impasses attributed to it. These could be partially overcome by Lefebvre's critique of the production of space and everyday life, allowing the construction of a theoretical-methodological horizon of social transformation. The present possibilities indicate that critical practice must pursue spatial, cultural, and social contents as alternatives to the progressive abstraction of life, that is, imagine counter-hegemonic procedural actions – and achievements – to face the imposition of hegemonic capitalism (Jameson).