Arquitectura, fenomenología y dialogía social = Architecture, phenomenology & social dialogics

Muntañola i Thornberg, Josep (ed.)

The phenomenological and social analysis of architecture and planning are not a new subject matter. However a set of new conditions made them interesting again. First the impact of Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical philosophy. We reproduce here the incredible text of the lecture in Barcelona (June 2013) by Michael Holquist, biographer, translator and the best worldwide expert of Bakhtin’s ideas and works. This lecture is a basic text in order to understand not only Bakhtin but also the cultural meaning of architecture as such. Second the tandem work by Steven Holl and Juhani Pallasmaa on the perception of human existential space. See the work by our PHD student Shlomi Almagor in this issue. Third the need for new social phenomenology of architecture and urban planning education. The bases for that are in an article devoted to Lewis Mumford legacy and published in the international review Scienze del territorio (Vol 2) 2014, University of Florence. The volume includes a selection of communication from the last two international congresses by the architectonics network in Barcelona 2012 and 2013. We cannot publish all of them, but the rest can be read in the web www.arquitectonics.com.