Architecture as media construct: notes on the cultural circle of the discipline, from the avant-gardes to nowadays.

Abstract

Using a wide range of studies and authors, this paper draws an overview of the importance and influence of communication media (especially books and magazines) in the formation of a globalized architecture culture, departing from three key moments: the modernist avant-garde; the contracultural context of “paper architecture”; and the more recent times of “starchitecture” and branding. It highlights particular cases of globally known practices of the discipline in their relation to media, and the kind of architectural culture related and produced by that engagement both in its pragmatic aspects (connections, self-advertisement, etc.) and in its innovations in graphic expression.