Skip to main content

ISMAT 7886

Architectural Criticism and Aesthetics

Architecture
  • ApresentaçãoPresentation
    Criticism is an exercise in deconstruction. It relates to both theory and history, but its field is the instantaneous present, generally focused on a particular object (building or event). With the blurring of disciplinary boundaries and technological and media transformations, criticism has adopted other modes of expression (curatorship, programming, editing, research), but its purpose remains the same: this constant exercise of revision. In its broadest sense, aesthetics is a sharing of the sensible (the senses) that determines a mode of articulation between forms of action, production, perception, and thought. This general definition extends the field of aesthetics beyond the field of art and comes to include the conceptual coordinates and operative modes of visibility of the field of politics - in the sense of polis, of organizing the city (as common space), therefore of architecture. Together, criticism and aesthetics are a way of thinking about the world.
  • ProgramaProgramme
    The UC is divided into different themes, reflecting various critical and aesthetic positions from the last century. For each one, several works are presented that demonstrate its architectural manifestation. To support the discussion, there is a set of content and authors that will serve as starting points for reflection, but which will always be framed according to their relevance today.   S1: Representation and media - and the convergence of criticism and aesthetics; S2: Machines and abstractions - and technological and rational optimism; S3: Organisms and surrealisms - and the universes of nature and the subconscious; S4: Realisms and populisms - and their complexities and contradictions; S5: Structures and typologies - and formal invariants and essentialisms; S6: Dispersions and fragments - and the world of consumption and spectacle; S7: Reactions and emergences - and the trends in contemporary architecture; S8: Critical fictions - and the practical application of criticism and aesthetics.
  • ObjectivosObjectives
    CEA find it synthesis in representation and the means of its communication. And the way to understand the forces that shape them, to understand why something appears to us in this way, is through its deconstruction. To understand the different layers that compose it, the reasons that justify its mode, why it functions as it does, why it serves these purposes and people and not others. This can be done through curatorship, editing, programming, and research:   O1: Know-understand the issues and their characterization, analysis and interpretation of the various critical and aesthetic positions in architecture, together with their protagonists; O2: Reflect-construct a critical judgment about these positions through justified and coherent argumentation; O3: Explore-limits and aesthetic potentialities of different representation tools and means of communication; O4: Communicate-develop a discourse with clarity and rigor in the instruction and organization of oral, written and graphic records.
  • BibliografiaBibliography
    AAVV (2000-2026). Jornal Arquitectos. Ordem dos Arquitectos Colomina, B. (2006). Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X. Actar Publishers Leach, N. (2005). A Anestética da Arquitectura. Antígona Montaner, J. M. (2012). Arquitectura e Crítica. Gustavo Gili Rancière, J. (2010). Estética e Política. A Partilha do Sensível. KKYM Rattenbury, K. (ed.) (2002). This is Not Architecture: Media Constructions. Routledge  
  • MetodologiaMethodology
    In accordance with the reflective and exploratory nature of this course unit, students are expected to experiment with different tools and working methods. The aim is to diversify reflection approaches.   M1: Lectures; M2: Text analysis groups; M3: Collective discussion; M4: Study trips; M5: Individual written reflections; M6: Guided group work; M7: Public presentations.
  • LínguaLanguage
    Português
  • TipoType
    Semestral
  • ECTS
    4
  • NaturezaNature
    Mandatory
  • EstágioInternship
    Não