Stranger than paradise: Realities of cinema, architectural imageries, circa 1956

Abstract

[Excerpt] In the aftermath of the Second World War, the proposals and thoughts on architecture would once again move towards a hopeful – although careful – insight over the modern imagery. Still sustained by ideals of systematisation, standardisation, rationalisation and progress, such pro posals and thoughts would, nevertheless, also correspond to a critique of modernist orthodoxy, to the exaltation of the subjective, to an idea of con"ict and, consequently, to an architectural con!guration of such feelings. The rise of a subject who not only recognises but also allocates to the conception of space a communication meaning – rather than a formal one – would become a major in"uence on the way designers in terpret the built environment, thus leading to the fragmentation of a macro perception and to a repositioning of the principles and purposes of architectural intervention. This, in turn, would lead to a reduction of scale, which would naturally emphasise the importance of individual space and of one’s habitat, but such a reduction would also bare the idea of a globalised way of life, thoroughly connected, extensible and infrastructured. [...]