Abstract (accepted)

Our abstract was accepted by Conditions Magazine. Here it is below, although I've been reluctant to post it because, to be honest, I'm not that happy with it. I struggled to try and include how the article was to be constructed around a metaphor of time (history, memory, temporal flows, rhythms of the city) and how this informs collective identity, but was unable to do it.

Anyway, here's our abstract:

Global flows and Local identity:
the Contradiction of Collective Value

Beyond the idea of material or monetary value, the question of architecture engaging in a qualitative notion of value confronts a contemporary paradox. The modern notion of value as the ideals, customs and principles of the collective rejects the notion of an external or objective system. Value derives its meaning from its societal context, yet the contemporary city is defined more than ever by forces that lie beyond it. While it has always been the case that the city is a field of struggle between the those that control the city, those that use the city, and those that appropriate the city, today it is further stressed by transnational forces that contradict any conventional notions of collective society and collective values. The space of the city, the rhythms of its spatial forms, its voids, its typology, form, ornament and image that mediate the processes of the city comprise the identity of its collective. Urban space is more than just a receiver of societal values; it is a conduit that transmits them as well. It is clear then that architecture is a participant in this conflict, constructing collective spaces that exist in tension with the city’s collective values; the question is whether it is active or passive participant.

Through the account of my four month academic exchange in the city of Rome, from my travels through Italy to my arrest at the Sistine Chapel, I was exposed to the informal and formal transnational flows that define modern Italy, and the corresponding policing of urban space that followed. This text examines the relationship between the state-engineered values of the city and the global flows that threaten it and looks at architectural methods of reflecting legitimate cultural values of modern Rome.

There is a critical need to understand Rome beyond the image presented by the state, through new and existing research, photographs, mapping exercises, and architectural projects the text reveals this complex, and multi-polar urbanism that lies beyond its state representation.