Democratization and Architecture in the European South: A Comparative Approach
Session chair: Manuel López (PhD '22 Harvard University)
Southern Europe remains an outlier in the history of the modern politics of architecture. With the notable exception of Italy, the historical trajectories of Portugal, Greece, and Spain after the Second World War are still understudied. They are somewhat aberrant to the mainstream processes of democratization and Keynesian capitalist expansion that extended over thirty years, and whose architectural articulation has been the subject of much recent scholarship. Indeed, it was only in the mid- to late-1970s that these countries definitively adopted constitutional regimes comparable to those of their Western European counterparts. Owing to this time lag, and to the interpretive dissonances that it entails, existing narratives on the architecture of democracy and the welfare state have elided these three latecomers. The fall of the Regime of the Colonels in Greece, and of Salazar’s and Franco’s dictatorships in the Iberian Peninsula, presented architects with unprecedented opportunities to explore untried realms of design: heritage preservation, urban spaces for a newly accessible public sphere, the seats of representative bodies, and the infrastructure of welfare. Paradoxically enough, that happened just as the role of architecture in social life was beginning to dwindle across the West, dragged down by the combined effects of economic crisis and neoliberal reaction.
This session aims to address that historical singularity, extending in space and time – toward the south and toward later decades– our grasp of European experiments in the construction of a more inclusive built environment. We invite contributions that will help us comprehend the commonalities and idiosyncrasies of the Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish experiences of transition to and unfolding of democracy during the 1970s and 1980s. Crucially, the session seeks to overcome nation-state frameworks toward a comparative approach. We accept case studies as long as they yield conceptual and methodological tools with the potential for generalization, and we welcome plainly historiographic papers that elaborate theoretical instruments or that critically revise and adapt those we already possess. Comparative analyses across the three countries, or between any of them and developments in northern latitudes, are particularly encouraged. Specific topics might include the changed relationship between public patronage and architectural practice, the representation of institutional openness, popular participation in decision-making procedures regarding urban and territorial planning, typological innovation in response to educational or healthcare programs, architects’ civic commitment, and so on.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to eahn2024@gmail.com by September 8, 2023.
