ABSTRACT
Paradigm (from the Greek paradèigma, ‘example, exemplar’) is an action and relation word that contains within itself the possibility of variation and movement; it indicates oscillation and multiplicity rather than fixity and oneness. As an intellectual operation the paradigm defines a distance of the object from itself, removing the object from its singularity to then return it to another singularity. It also enables a distancing from acquired historical, morphological and typological preconceptions and classifications that are well known in architecture and urbanism. The paradigm as a cultural operation works towards the production of a non-dialectical form of knowledge, which does not aim to achieve the universal and to derive principles (rules) from it. ‘Paradigm: notes for a definition of architecture as paradigm’ argues that the architectural and urban ‘project’, as a cultural construction around its object, performs in the city the relational operation of the paradigm, a form of knowledge that dismisses oppositions and resolutions.
