Body, criticism and creativity in the study of the city

Abstract

To think about the city is to consider it as dynamic and complex. The university an essential element in the architect’s basic education career, taking its constant updating as a commitment and challenge. Understanding the last century intellectual advances in several fields of knowledge, this article deals with contemporary ways of thinking, which point to the disciplinary complicity and the notion of uncertainty to think about its repercussions in the teaching field. For this purpose, speeches of historians, sociologists, a poet, and a mathematician are mentioned to frame methodological issues. Their combination with artistic and philosophical concepts take autonomy as the foundation for the production of knowledge, the body as an instrument to enhance urban perception, and subjectivity as a creative means of interpretation. Therefore, going opposite to the academic tradition on its teaching routine which tends towards a strict disciplinary debate, it accepts research, teaching, and learning as processes and the city as possibilities, just as the diversity itself of looking at it.