ABSTRACT
In general, common sense would accept the idea that ‘architecture has always shaped
society’.1 Monuments, squares, streets, patterns, houses, nature, rituals and so on are
understood as elements moulding cultures and ways of life in every city. Nevertheless,
we increasingly accept the idea that architecture cannot change society. This paradox
exposes a fundamental contradiction in the epistemology of architecture. The paradox is
important, not only to delineate how an impulse of subjugating the other (a ‘prince
complex’) is implicit in the way architecture transforms abstract machines into concrete
forms, but also to reveal how a narcissistic discipline reifies subjectivities to reproduce
the field of architecture. Furthermore, it is fundamental to understand how society
reproduces itself by producing space.2 This effort aims to avoid the most common
deadlocks of the discipline: ingenuity, resignation or even protest.
