Politics and Architecture

بنفس القدر الذي يحاول فيه هذا المقال سرد قصة المعمارية والعمرانية لواحد من اهم العلامات المميزة في عمران القاهرة، فانه يقدم ايضا تحليلا للكيفية التي تستخدم فيه العمارة لإضفاء هالات اسطورية على القيادات السياسية في مصر. محور التحليل في المقال هو مشروع برج القاهرة، الذي عرف قديما باسم برج الجزيرة نسبة الى موقعه على جزيرة الزمالك. ينتمي المبنى الى تصنيف المباني العالية التي اصبحت المدخل الاكثر قبولا للتعبير عن تقدم المدن وتحضرها. من برج ايفل في باريس الى برج خليفة في دبي مرورا ببرجي بيتروناس في ماليزيا، تتنافس المدن المعاصرة في صياغة علامة بصرية تضيف ملمحا هاما الى شخصية المدينة وتميزها. كما تعظم القدرة على الاستدلال على مدينة ما بسبب القيمة البصرية لهذه العلامات الفريدة. من هذا المنطلق، يمثل برج القاهرة (برج الجزيرة سابقا)، معلما اساسيا في الصورة البصرية في العاصمة المصرية القاهرة. وهو يلعب هذا الدور تقريبا لمدة خمسة عقود، وخاصة مع ارتفاعه البالغ 187 مترا الذي كان لوقت قريب نقلة نوعية في الامتداد الرأسي لعمران المدينة.

The office buildings for the legislators, adjacent to the Capitolio de Puerto Rico, are significant under Criterion C on a statewide level as they represent an early introduction of the Modern Movement ideals within Puerto Rico’s architectural milieu. By integrating traditional and innovative concepts, materials and construction techniques, their design proves a unique concern towards the island’s tropical context and the preservation of an existing historic monument. Within Toro Ferrer Arquitectos’ body of work, its design stands out as one of their most representative examples of Commonwealth architecture. Despite interior alterations –specifically in the office space layout- and a rehabilitation project carried out in 2004, both buildings retain sufficient integrity to convey their significance.

Public architecture in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century reflected the political position of this province within the Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. During the neoabsolutist period, from 1848/49 Revolution to the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, almost all monumental public building projects were built according to the designs of Viennese architects. The 1867 Compromise and the consequent formation of the Dual Monarchy put an end to Vienna’s dominance in Hungary and Croatia. After the Croatian-Hungarian Compromise of 1868, which made Croatia a semi- autonomous province within Hungary, buildings of public institutions in Croatia that were under the control of the Croatian autonomous authorities were designed almost exclusively by Croatian architects. Only technically more demanding projects were regularly entrusted to Viennese architects. On the other hand, buildings of the joint Hungaro- Croatian institutions, controlled by Budapest ministries, were designed by Hungarian architects. This complex political situation led to diversity in public architecture, which, in spite of being of Central European provenance, shows influences from various regional centers.
The article was published in the edited volume: https://www.academia.edu/41167023/Art_and_Politics_in_the_Modern_Period._Conference_Proceedings_Faculty_of_Humanities_and_Social_Sciences_University_of_Zagreb_2019

Forced displacement in Colombia afflicts nire than 10% of its total population, and despite being one of its great social problems, it is a somewhat unknown condition thtat occuis mainly in the mnst remote rural populations. However, its impact can be felt in large cities because of their excessive, disoerderly and continued growth, lack of public safety, and the marked social difference between the provigiled and the marginalized. Contemporary colombian artists research, track and reflect on internal displacement, its consequences and main causes: the armed violence of the various insurgent groups as well as their confrontations with public security forces, the illegal exploitation of natural resources and its impact on the economy of the affected areas. Their work show us new realities of the marginalized and little-known country, focussing on the terms of constant movement and housing afflicting the displaced. This paper proposes a revision to these artistic manifestations accordingto some categories here established, from its poetic nature and the way the artists approach the issue of displacement, to works carried out with the victims and that in this interaction, make art a resilience mechanism for the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia.

The seminar explored the forces affecting the production of architecture from the wide lens of a historic study of its evolution. By looking at examples through the ages, it was observed that the power struggle in every state is consistently represented in the architecture that it tries to emulate.

This article considers key developments in Brazilian architecture which occurred under the ambiguous and contradictory Vargas' regime (1930–1945), when it was exposed to both internal and external political contingencies, including the crisis of liberalism, which affected its ability to expand and consolidate itself. This situation was not unique to Brazil, since many interwar dictatorships, including the Soviet and fascist regimes, shared the same characteristics. In the Brazilian twentieth century, both during democratic and dictatorial times, whether dominated by left-wing or right-wing ideologies, architecture and the State constantly sought to take advantage of the relationship between them. The demands, projects and interests of both spheres set up an intricate web of relationships that shaped national identity and embodied its material representation. Investigating the place of architecture within a broader context, that of the Brazilian nation-building process, the article establishes that the architectural representation of the Brazilian state was never straight forward, combining a set of breakthroughs and setbacks, and always leaving the quest for a uniform and coherent aesthetic language unsolved. This anomalous situation has led scholarship to disregard the complex relationship between the State and architecture , between ideology and aesthetics and, simultaneously, to ignore the profound contradictions within Vargas's government, both in the political and architectural field, and to underestimate the role played by the modernism of European fascism in acting as one of the poles of attraction acting on how building projects were conceived.

The monastery of Brou founded by Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I and aunt of his successor Charles V at the head of the Holy Roman Empire, is a masterpiece that has been regarded as a clever political instrument to represent the power of its commissioner. As such, it could also be said that exhibits a keen modern spirit in line with Alberti's literary suggestions, despite its sheer late Gothic architectural features. Considering that the artistic choices of Margaret of Austria might be related to her stay in Spain during the years previous to this foundation, this paper aims at reflecting about the late Gothic – or early Renaissance?! – stylistic experiments that took place in the Iberian Peninsula during that time, which would give rise to the profoundly rhetoric “styles” that became known as Isabellian, Plateresc, and Manueline. Particularly, and focusing on the relationship between visual form and meaning, the paper seeks to reflect on which ideological values – conspicuously “nationalistic” in all the cases – were associated with which different styles in the eve of the short period of time when patrons and architects chose different styles as alternative speeches (namely, the late-Gothic and the Italian Renaissance). The paper will eventually question the preference of Margaret of Austria for a yet “old-fashioned” architectural language as a sort of appraised criticism to provide the buildings at Brou with a particular meaning – this considering some written, pictorial and material evidence.

The Supreme Court Building is significant state wide under Criterion C in the area of architecture as an outstanding example of the Modern Movement and its application within the local context. It is also significant under Criterion A, as the building embodies the historical development of Puerto Rico's highest court of law.

Mondoperaio 3/2012 Se vi è stato un intellettuale estraneo alla dissimulazione (anche onesta), questi è Bruno Zevi. «Un eretico, restio all'omologazione, all'adesione a schieramenti, a fedeltà a priori (Saggio, 2000). Eppure non si pensi alla figura di un isolato, semmai di un "inorganico", perché Zevi appartiene a pieno titolo a quella schiera di intellettuali del '900 in grado di essere maestri sul campo e di incoraggiare al parricidio (Bartolozzi, 2001), instancabili suscitatori di energie collettive (Teodori, 2002). In nessuna delle sue imprese-dalle riviste, ai convegni, alle mostre, alle collaborazioni giornalistiche, alla televisione-vi è il segno dell'autoreferenzialità, per quanto sia più che visibile la sua impronta. Zevi fu uno straordinario produttore d'idee riconducibili ad un filo conduttore: l'interesse all'innovazione, pendant dell'ispirazione libertaria, da sviluppare attraverso una tenace azione di smontaggio del provincialismo culturale italiano (Saggio, 2002). Senza deleghe, senza bisogno di imprimatur. Ed ebbe la capacità di giocare sia sul livello della grande editoria, il riferimento è all'ininterrotta appartenenza einaudiana, sia su quello della sperimentazione in proprio di nuovi strumenti comunicativi, come dimostrano l'esperienza di Teleroma 56, le collane economiche Newton-Compton, le stesse apparizioni al Maurizio Costanzo show. E allora se fu un isolato, Zevi lo fu alla maniera di un Capitini, di un Dolci, non a caso suoi costanti interlocutori, come loro costantemente attento all'azione dal basso e alieno dall'autocompiacimento. Impossibile scindere il critico, per il quale il nesso tra architettura e morale era irrinunciabile, dal politico (Prestinenza Puglisi). Il filo conduttore è il sessantennio di militanza liberal-socialista, con i due termini separati tra loro come era solito utilizzarli riferendosi all'esperienza azionista.

Addresses the contrast, surely deliberate, between the two orders used on the front of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The Ionic of the portico columns is clearly heterodox; here its leathery quality is emphasized, and a possible connection with the economic and social status at Rome of the butchers' guild and that of the bovattieri, the merchants controlling the trade in cattle and pastoralism in general in the region. The relative orthodoxy of the Corinthian order of the giant order is associated with the zone of governmental reason in the upper story, containing the council chamber.  In other words, the palace is organized around a contrast between art -- especially the art of government -- and nature -- the products of the pastoral economy.