Operating conceptually in art: operating conceptually in architecture

Abstract

This dissertation is about the architecture project. It addresses the issue of whether the architecture project can acquire artistic relevance through factors other than its formal quality, using the group of phenomena historiographically identified as “conceptual art” as a reference, considered mainly from an operative perspective. The arguments are organised based on two conditions necessary for a work to be considered "conceptual": (1) The work is the literal translation of an idea. (2) The work reveals infrastructural aspects of artistic practice. In order to address these two conditions, I begin by explaining the contours of each and their implications on the field of art and then test their applicability in the scope of project design. This discussion will lead, on the one hand, to the establishment of parallels between art and project that are useful in order to the proposed definition of “artistry of the project” and, on the other hand, to finding the limits for the applicability of the operating model of conceptual art that result from the differences between art and project.