Architecture Utopia Realism : thematic framework

Abstract

The term of concept of realism seems to be recurring in recent theoretical inquiries, from debates in philosophy and aesthetics to those in theory and pracice of architecture. Since 2000, the architectural discourse has benn concerned with a wide range of related issues coming from its own post-critical debates on utopianism and realism and the possibility of an 'utopian realism', as suggestion by Reinhold Martin (2005). The debates on realism resonate in the architectural theory anew as a reflection on the Manifesto on New Realism by the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris from 2011. The questions of realism vs. postmodernism, "new realism" on the ashes of post-modernism, critical and operative notions of realism and the like, have been asked both through practices of contemporary architecture and through recconsideration of the socialist realism in history and theory of architecture. The thematic issue of SAJ: Architecture Utopia Realism aims to further the ongoing discussion on the relations of architecture with realism and utopia.