To Hell with Architecture: An Architecture of Anarchism

Coates, M (2015) To Hell with Architecture: An Architecture of Anarchism. Anarchist Studies, 23. ISSN 0967-3393

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Abstract

The commodification of art is just as in evidence in the ‘art’ of architecture. Architecture is perhaps the most obviously commodified and the most essential to western capitalism of all the arts. Is architecture an art? Can it ever be de-commodified? I will argue that mass housing is a key example of the commodification of culture in architecture, also however that the self-build form of housing is a potential example of architecture breaking away from this commodification. A return to what N. John Habraken called, in an echo of Read, the natural relationship. This form of architecture and the historic example of The Architects’ Revolutionary Council, as a rebellion from within the profession, will form the basis of my argument.