ABSTRACT

The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben’s political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben’s politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben’s oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical ‘encounter’ with architecture’s aesthetic-political function.

part |2 pages

Part I Agamben’s burning house

part |2 pages

Part II Giorgio Agamben’s oeuvre

part |2 pages

Part III Towards an inoperative architecture

chapter 8|9 pages

Paradigms and dispositives

chapter 9|4 pages

Profanation

chapter 10|9 pages

Potentialities

chapter 11|15 pages

Inoperativity

chapter 12|6 pages

Use