Arquitetura Pós-Gutenberg - Comunicação, Imagem e Sociedade de Consumo

Abstract

Architecture belongs decreasingly to the sphere of technique and increasingly to that of aesthetics. The culture of image floods everyday life. Architecture compromises to the virtuality of image and reduces itself to pictorial values which tend to make up its universe of references. The architect, operating in a consumerist society, straddles this universe of references to find access to the market and carve out his place in it. But image did not always predominate: while Vitruvius eschewed illustration in his treatise on architecture and in the Middle Ages memory and word were valued, the appearance of the printing press and of the reproducible image during the Renaissance revolutionized the communication of architecture. Given this, in what ways does the predominance of image and visual culture shape the current conception of physical architecture? In other words, what is the real in an age of communication? These are the questions which direct this study: an observation of the practice of architecture which attempts to be critical and intends above all to analyze this reality - the set onto which a student of architecture walks when he finishes his studies. The answers may vary according to the cultural, political, economic or geographical context; but the differences tend to fade in a globalizing world. Still, in the role of observer, and after a year as a mobility student at ENSAPB, I approach this subject in the context of the professional practice at Parisian architecture firms. Two kinds of firms are observed: one with a dozen people, another with a hundred. Different structures do not prevent the existence of a common denominator: a serious investment in media visibility and identity. Does the supremacy of mediatization in the practice of architecture interfere with the architect's social and humanist mission? What is happening today behind the forms of representation of architecture? Lastly, where will the current dissociation of architecture and physical reality lead us?