A Arquitectura como (Mass) Medium: Entre a Imagem, o Consumo e a Mediatização

Abstract

The present study aims to be a meditation about contemporary architecture, particularly focused between the modern period till nowadays. This period is marked by a series of mutations that changed effectively the practices and perception of architecture: the new technologies, the means of communication, the internationalization of the architecture practice, the emergency of consumption, the mutations on the notion of space and time, the rise of the spectacle... All these aspects have an enormous influence towards architecture, meaningfully changing the way of making, seeing and appropriating it. Architecture, as an open cultural practice, appropriates and let itself be appropriated by concepts and external practices, integrating them to its field. This aspect is cause and effect of any cultural process that presupposes a constant exchange. But today, this aspect is even more relevant. The analysis fronts, distinct but complementary, will be several: since the interaction of architecture with images, with consumption and with mediatization, these seem to be the aspects that force architecture to expand itself outside its disciplinary field and equally exercise influence within it. It is important though to analyze which is the interaction between architecture and other areas, like fashion or design; how it is appropriated by distinct cultural fields, like photography or cinema; or how it interacts with the means of mass communication - particularly the non-specialists - and which are the fundamental mutations emerging from this process. Thus, this analysis aims to understand how such a cultural production like architecture is appropriated, consumed, throw mediation and mediatization, within a society even more complex, pluralist and global.