ABSTRACT
Architecture is thought to be affected by the social, political and economic framework of society. A myth maintained in architectural theory for so long and still repeated in refrain. Developed initially by the Frankfurt School, the socially motivated European version of critical theory does not accept social reality as it is but questions its legitimation and justification. With its self-reflexive approaches and ambitions to change the world, it also followed later developments in post-structuralism, feminism, de-constructivist and postcolonial theories. While critical architecture allows for reduction and it constructs the world on the basis of givens, the pragmatist alternative is irreductive. The multiplicity of materials that we glimpsed during the slate story of the Senedd controversy and in the glass story of parliament architecture is too often forgotten by mainstream architectural theory. The Senedd controversy shows that the materiality of this building is as complex as the world of its symbolic interpretations.
