Fascism and Architecture - Architecture and Philosophy
Before enrolling in this course, it seems like it would be very possible to never make the connection between architecture and philosophy - buildings and cities seem to have developed on their own, as if their was no other guiding phenomenon other than a sort of inherent necessity that drives these forms. Having progressed significantly through the coursework, we have seen repeatedly since day one how one's world conception, scientific and cultural understand, as well as social structure and status have come to drive the development of the built environment. We have seen this as early as Laugier's Primitive Hut, wherein as philosophy was posited - the forms of architecture were rationalized as having root in organic and natural form.
As we have seen, philosophy can take a new presence in architecture as dominating and decisive factor - this is well illustrated in the bold distinction between Soviet and US architecture throughout the Cold War as indicative of differing political ideals.
If there is one philosophy and political methodology that has been recognized as an abominable social order, it is fascism. In a fascist society, one sacrifices one's individuality for an authoritarian idealism - the individual is sacrificed for the greater good. Yet this greater good is not the humble greater good of the local community, but dramatized to a scale of the destiny of mankind. In architecture, one might easily find a design caught between the goals of the individual and the individual spirit, as well as a sense of a mass solidarity. Attempting to appeal to this mass solidarity, the uniqueness and modernism of buildings seems to slip away for a theatrical display of such a tone.
