6. pva - recontextualizing tafuri's critique of ideology

8/9/2019 6. PVA - Recontextualizing Tafuri's Critique of Ideology

1/12

Pier Yittorio .dure

/i

l. M:tnfredo Tafuri , "Lavoro l ntc:llettu;tle

e Sviluppo

: : ~ p i t : i u i c o ,

Com

ro;tM

2/70 (1970): 2+1

-

81

.

Tbc ftm p;art of

rhc:

anicle w;u pub

li

shed

as

t

bc:

rhird c.hapter

in Progtrto t

Utopia

ut)der tbc ti le

U

Jde

ologi:l e

Utopia.''

Tht

change

of

tide

h:u perhaps comribut

ed

to the o,ushad

owing of be themeof i.orellcctuaJwork

in Tafur '$ historical projcct. See

M ~ n f r e

< l o

Tafuri, Progetto

ia La

PrnD (Cam

bridge:

MIT

r e ~ , 1976).

2. Manfr e.do T < ~ f u r i ,

Per

uo.a Cri t ica

dell'Ideologi: Architeuouica," Crm

l

ro

fiano

1

( 1969) :

H 79;

rr aru. as

T o w : ~ . r d

a

Cririquc

of

Arcbitc


2/12

4.

Il

Piano del ~ p i t l was che t itlc of

a f\mdamental

CS 11)'

y

Mario

Tronti

publithed

in

1962 in

the

j

our

ru.l

Qp4dm i

Ro11i

In

ch

i.s

essa:y,

tbc Roman

p h i l

o ~ o -

pher, who would have a scrong influence

on T2furi's politica:l

an

al

ytis

of uchitec

ruraland urban lstory, attempted ro

anatrze capitttlisr

domination

:a,t

a

V


3/12

S lt is imporunt

ro note

due

in

the

c.arly

1960s Tafuri w

as

vcry dose co rhc posi

ri

on5 of rcformilm. H

$eArfy a r t i d

and

ctpcei:llly those devotcd co

w-b

an

pbnning, wcte cl

e01rfy

iafluenced

br

the

ethos

of

nformiu

soc

iilisn

1.

ID

those

ycan Tafuri

n ili

believcd

in

tbc

pos-s

ibili

)

of

link;ng thc bjscorOU phi

c

rcvi

5on of

mod

c:rn$m

with a dc$ign approac;h 10 thc

cit

y, u bis

pbnni

ng

projec

.u and stud.ics

d c v c l o ~ wich tbc group AUA( Architeu

U r b a n i ~ t i Assodat

i)

dc

moll$tratc

s. Scc

Manfrcdo Tafuri, Gio rgio Pic:c:ioato,

"La

territorio: Verso uzu nuova

d.imerl

sionc," 4 . f ~ t b t l / 4

Con

rinuit4 270 (Dccembc r

1961): 16- 25 .

6. o Ui

nitJ

war. al

so

tbc

ci

r

ie of che:

jo

ur

n ; ~ l

published

by

Ol

ivc:ui,

to

which

Tafuri conu ibutcd

sevenl arc-

idcs,

aud

tb

c namc

of

che u b l i s ~ housc affili

atcd with

Oliveni'$ center.

This publish

ing house produc:ed

onc ofTafuri's

fin

e

b

oo

k$, a

monograph on che: ltalian ucbi

tect

~ d

cown pu.nner Ludovico Qu.aroni.

Scc Manfrtdo Tafuri, Luiflvi(o

Q } t ~ t r o n i

t

rviluPfoJtll tJrchittrrur moitmtl in

t ~ ~ I U I

(Mi

lan: Edizioni di Comunit,

196+

).

Th

c

associ.ation of TaJuri

with

Comunitt.

d e m o r u t r :

u e ~

ho

w his c c p t i o n

of the critique

of

f o r m MD d e v e l o ~ d

onl)'

i_

n

tbc

latte

r

balf

of

tbc

9 6 0 ~

7. The Oliveui pu

ru

w..s l

oca

ted at Tvrea,

Picdn1om, wbere Olhvetci

promo

te

d

a

c:lmpus in

which

tbc main facili ics wc re

de,igncd by Iral.an m o 1 l ~ t a ~ h i c e c c . s .

The

proje


4/12

9

R:u:tiero

Panz.ieri, Lucio Libertini,

"Sette tesi ruJ contro

ll

o optr-'io," in

Monti Of

rnriiJ {Febru:try 19S8), repub

li.shed in

Mondo

Optrtt

Jo: .R4rttgn4 mtnlilt

Ji l i t i t i l , t t M ~ m i 1 1 t

cul

tur-, ~ 1 4 g i l z

1 9 6 ~

(F lorence: Luciano

landi,

1965), 880-90J.

10

. Ranicro Panz

ic

r

i,

"SuJI'uso deUe

macchine nel c : ~ p i t a l i s m o . QNJttltrni

Rotti 1(1

96

1): SJ-72.

Il . For an ovcrview on che dcvdopmcnt

of Oper;ajsmo and after,

k c

S

te

phen

W r i ~ ; h t

St

mmn:

Hr.rwn:

Cl.u:s C o m ~ r i t i t m

; , tA

ii4n Autono

mi.Jr M11rxitm

(Piuro

Preu: London, 200J). For a_n O\erview

on che uri) Opuaismo,

and

cspcci.ally

on iu mou in fluenri:1l figure$ - Pa nl:icri

;md MarioTromi - Ke

my

Tht Pr6jm

DJ

AutoM f.1

:

Politi

a

tinti

Arrbitfflurt

lllithin

tUUI

A g t ~ i n s t

Ct:piulilftl

(New

Yor

k:

Princtton

At'Chill

ctu

nJ

Pre

n ,

2008).

12. Both Adorno

wd

Bcnjamio's wric

Ulglwuc introduced co che

lcalun

audi

ence b)' cnayi$t and politi0:\1

Renato Solmi, who trambtc d both

Ad

orno's Minim11

MMtlt an

d BcD;a

min'$

writin&, coUccred in

tbc

antholog,

Attt.tlur no.,llt.

Solmi's litcrary w

or

k had

a profound ioflu

c:nce

on h2li:ut cuhure,

noc

only

c ~ u he

ituroduced the topics

and ide3

of the Fratlkfun S


5/12

H. O

nc: of

rhc

m ~ t

cri ticai u c s s

m e n u

of

i

nrd

lcC1ual wo

rk

u r ~ rh pcrt

od

w;u Luciano Bianciardi's La

Yrta

agra

(TIH

Bitur

Lift

,

an aurobiographic-al

nove in wh ich Bi:anciudi , che r

ranslator

cf

Amcric2n 2uthors sueh :u Jo

hn

Srcinbcck, WilJiam Faulk

ntr,

1nd Heru')

'

Miller,

rurntcd

t

bc:

v i . c u u u d c ~

of

a

)'OtUil; intellectu;a l during thc economie

boom cf

rhe

culy 1960s. Rianciardi, who

w

or

kcd for rhc halt:an

lefriu

p

ub

lishcr

f:cltrinclli and

w:as

fircd f

or

l

ow

produe

tivit)', later

c c < ~ m a crucu

J i ~ u r c for

Lhe rheorisu of eognit i,c labor, such as

Pa olo Vtrno, wbo luve dneriLcd

Bianciardi's

no

vcl

:u

onc of rhc

f rst pro

found

a n < ~ l } 1 c S of

rhc implie:usons

of

eulrural induury and cosnitive labor. In

a revt:aling

F


6/12

17

.

Fo

rtini, "Auu

ri

come

colombe,''

in

Ytrifica

ti

pmri

68-88.

within advanced capitalism, t

be

mandate

of

progressive

intellectuals could no longer

be

defined by the theme

of

anti

fascism.

In other

words, the criticai function

of

intellectuais

could not be justi.fied by a critique

of

the dirtct repression

of

freedom. The intellectual's role no longer involved advanc

ing

the problem

of

the freedom

of

speech, but rather in

addressing the problem

of

intellectual freedom as a new ide

ologica form

within

the reality

of ~ p i t l i s t

development.

The most famous essay

in

the anthology, "Astuti come

colombe" ("Cunrung as Doves"), focused

on

the critique

of

cultura ideology as the

la

.

tter

was produced by progressive

culture.17 Its main thesis not only condensed the Italian

debate about the role

of

intellectual

work

within capitaiisr

development but also provided Tafuri the criticai blueprint

for his critique

of

architecturai

ideo1ogy.

"Astuti come

Colombe" was originaUy published in 1962 in the cultura

journal

Il Menab

directed by Italo Calvino

and

Elio

Vittorini, in an issue devoted to the theme

of

culture and

industriai work. The issue

aiso featured essays by Calvino

and

Umberto Eco, among others. For these leftists and "pro

gressive"

intellectuals, the factory became the new cultura

epicenter

of

Hterary and artistic experimental practices. This

new

sensibility, which mixed socialist reformism and anistic

experimentationt gave imperus to the avant-garde revival

n

1taly, the mosr important manifestatioo

ofwhich

was Eco's

Gruppo

6 .

Avant-garde techniques such as collage, estrange

ment, and technological experiment.ation became devices

through which the members

of

Gruppo 6 attempted to sub

limare the effects

of

industrialization

on

social relationships.

Fortini directed his critique at this ideologica use

of

cultural

experimentation

in order

to mediate

and

mystify) the

effects

of

production o n both sociery and intellecrual work.

The two poles

that

defmed Fortini's critique were an analysis

of

the politica economy

of

intellectual

work and

an analysis

of

its aesthetic manifestation. Fortini used politica economy

as

a tool to describe the way capitalist affirmation within

society manifested itself through systematic cultura

se

lf

deception.

For

him, thls self-deception was often achieved by

capitalism's instrumentaiization

of

a progressive and socially

committed culture.

The

use

of

the aesthetic was a way to

trust artworks not only

as

the products

of

an author but also

as

artifacts t ha revealed in the concreteness

of

the object the

sensual features

of

capitalist integration. Drawing

on

politi

ca economy

and

aesthetics, Fortini constructed a critique

that was neither aimed at a rational reform

of

capitalist

development nor at a romantic resistance to the effects

of

94-


7/12

18

n f r e Tafri, T N N i ~ r mri

Jtll

arcbitttturtl

~ i L a t ~ r T . ; ~ , 1968).

Ibid., 161-94.

such development. His main objecrive was to demonstrate

how capitalist development was the source of a number of

ideologica manifestations that not so

much

represented

bourgeois

power as satisfied rhe good conscience

of

progres

sive intellectuals. Facing such an

extreme

level of cuJrural

mystification, in

which

modernization was reformism and

reformism was the new progressive face

of

capitalist domi

nation, Fortini)s conception

of

being criticai involved

becoming cunning as doves

and

innocenr as foxes" - rhar is,

to constantly adjust the terms

of

criticism to rhe standard

of

the cunning of capitalist ideology and not to surrender to the

easy narcissism

of

good intentions

typical

of reformist

approaches. Moreovcr, for Fortini it was precisely a criticai

anaJysis of the seemingly most genuine attempts of social

reform advanced by lefrisr movemems and institutions that

often revealed

the true

features

of

capitalisr domination.

Tafuri's critique of ideology took form from these prem

ises. Before it would be applied to imcllecmal work in generai,

Tafuri's critique, as formulated in his

1968

book Teorie

e

sto

-

ria

dell architettura, focused on rhe way "rheories"

of

archi

tecrure attempted to render the idea

of

modernity

in

rerms

ofprogress

1

8 His critique consisted in showing how such a

hisrorical perspective was achieved by systematically mask

ing

the

very cause

of

such progress,

meaning

the

conrinuous

state of culruraJ crisis provoked by the devdopmem of mod

ern culture. Tafuri first applied the critique of ideology to

those traditions within historiography tbat had deliberately

attempted to justify modern and contemporary architecture

on

the basis of its reformist origin and historical mandate.

Tafuri especially referred ro what he defined as ccoperative

history," a kind of history written with the specific, ideolog

ica goal to legitimize the tradition

of

modern

architecture.

1

9

Among the proragonists of operative hisrory, Tafuri placed

almost all the

major

historians of

modern

architecture,

including Nikolaus Pevsner, Sigfried Gied io n , and Bruno

Zevi. In che context

of

the critique of reformism elaborated

by Panzieri

and

Fortini, it is clear that the object of Tafuri's

critique was no,t so much

(or not only)

the historical defor

mations made y tbese historians in order to fit architecturaJ

hisrory

into

modern

architects' agendas. What Tafuri rcally

criticized was the ideology of reformism implicit in opera

tive history, its pretension to solve the contradictions left

opcn by the pas,t toward a coherent agenda for che future. By

instrumentalizing

history

as

a source

of

legitimacy, operative

hisrory was no t only reconfiguring rh e past to sui t present

conditions, but also separating historical developments from

9


8/12

20. Tbc "critique of ideology" w u rein

troduced and

re f

ormuhccd

m

thc

1960s

by

:Mar

io Tronti as a crilique

noc w mu

cb

ofcapicalilm

per

se,

but

a

c

tiquc

of

the way

thc

o r k i n ~

mo,unent

iudf

was

o

ften

che

embod.imcnrof values

d.icutc:d

by

capiralist devdopmcm. Tbc

cririquc of id

c:o

logy

mu st be

unde

mood

as a critique of

che

left itself. Tafuri

d ari

fed this

we

of the notion of a critique

of

ideol

o&)'

w

ben he w

To

tc: "Por

us [a) cri

tique

of

i

dc:o)ogy

was

a

cridque

of

thc lef

r.

M

owo

prognm

was to dc:v

c:l

op a cri

tiquc of thc: i d e o l o f ; i ~ J u ~ h r rhat

h:u

pervade

rowards his

or

hcr ow

n

ideology,

not

rhc:

ideology

of bi$ or hc:r enemy.

W

ha neec

to be dc

ideologized

is

precisely che cui-

turai context f

or

which one lghu.''

M;mfredo : : ~ f u r i , u Storta come pro&-

etto

, '

Jnt

c

rview

by

Luit

:a

Pas

r.c:rini

for

the

Ar

t RiStory Documentuion Projcct

( Los

An&des

: Tbc

Getry

Ccocer for the

H$10 1")of Art and

Hunun

i

ci

es,

1990, 44

( m)' tr.u\sl:uion).

Por

:w c:dited ' 'ersion

of thi l inrerview, scc Luisa Passerini,

"

Hi

scory

u Projecr," ANY2

/26, ing

MtlfrtJq Tdf

lri (2000). The

i

nter

view

took puce

in

Rom e in Fc:bruary-Ma.rch

1992. Fora

grneral

un


9/12

2. Tnis

e g ~ r tradi

tion

is

in

many

wa

ys

rd ated to

tht

midd.Je a s u ~

throu&h

nihiliim

prophesized by

NittzKh

t en route ro a r U ~ s v a l u :

i o n

of

v ~ u e 5

Bu

t it ;,

aho

not3bl r ne&"tivt,

atsd requir-tJ iu own t \'t ntual n e ~ a

2J. l t is ncver dear if

tb

est av

ant-g

ar

de"

movcmcots

u e

simpty p r o p r u t c

or in

fact prcuge anothcr maneuver by capitai

on

it1

path of

fu n

ber

Bp

pr

opriation and

subjugation. In termt of technological

avant-gar

du,

ir is always

a case of

che

lart

er

.

In

t

er

mJ

of

form

of

subjcetivi:u

tion, it is not w dc ar

meant an extreme critique of leftist culture itself an d espe

cially

of

how leftist progressive resistance t o and reform

of

capitalism had inevitably fallen iato the hands of the capital

ists as the most effective weapons of dominance over rhe

working class.

I is precisely withi n this context tha. Tafuri

constructed his critiquc

of

architectural ideology. If Fortini

showed Tafuri how to resist the temptation

of

reformism,

the editoria project

of

Contropiano provided Tafuri with the

terms in which antireform.ism could be translated back into

a dass critique. Within th.is conte.xt, Tafuri wrote "Toward a

Critique of Architectural Ideology"

with

the aim of rracing

the ideologica connotations of the origin of modern archi

tecture. Accord.ing to Tafuri, modern architecture, and espe

cially its avant-garde momcnts, could have been described

as

the ideologica prefigurations

of

the up coming effects

of

cap

iralist dcvdopment.

In

so

doing, modern.ist architectural cul

ture had a definitive role in

natura/izing

tbese effecu and

making them socially

an

d culturally accepta.ble.2J

The more architectural culture raised the bar of radical

experimentation, the more its cultural attributes contributed

to the following cycle

of

capitalist developmcnt. This was

and remains the vicious circle. And yet once a cycle of exper

imentation was surpassed by a newer cycle of development,

then its architecrural and urban products wcre left behind

as

"form without utopia" - that is, a form devoid

of

any

reformist urgency. This was particula.rly true in "technologi

cal" advances

in

materials and systems, the engine driving

Fordism, and

what

later bccame an excuse for innovation. n

this latter stage, according to Tafuri, architecture was simply

a useless object for capitalist development,

and

not evcn its

"utopian" idc:ological weapon. From his anaJysis, Tafuri con

cluded that

in

terms

of

class stn1ggle it

wa

s useless to work

on newer projects and plans. What was needed instead was to

radically rethink the role of the architcct and the planner

as

an

inrellectual

r ~ o r u r

This was intended to shift the cri tiquc

of ideology from the architectural and urban project to the

form

of

intellectual work itself. In "Intdlectual Work and

Capitalist

De

velopmcnt," publishcd a few months after

"Toward a Crir:ique of Architectural Ideology," Tafuri

attempted to expand the critique of ideology

at

this level

of

analysis.

He

argued that in order to go beyond tbc ideologica

understanding

of

inrellectual work, it was necessary to

defme the link between the cycles

of

capitalist development,

the economie reorganization that each cycle imposed on thc

division

of

labor, and the ideological mediations produced by

intellectuals. For Tafuri, the most crucial mediation pro-

9


10/12

duced by intellectuals in the frst

half of

the 20th century

elaborated the established middle-class acceptance

of

the

fundamentally irrational form of capitalist devdopment. If

socialism and reformism obstinately maintained the intrinsic

racionality

of

capitalism Cnce

un

der the governanee

of

pro

gressive politics), the most advanced bourgeois theorisrs,

such as John Maynard Keynes, understood that the only way

to govern capitalism was to make its fundamental irrational

ity productive. This potentially productive irrationality was

the working class's rebeJlious initiative, which, by constantly

threatening capitalism, forced capitalism to readapt and

adjust its terms of organizacion. Facing such a dynamic

process, and especially after the great crisis

of

1929 capital

ists understood that economie development was not only a

matter

of

scientilfc management,

but

also

of

politica initia

tive - that is, the wi t pfJ Wer over development itself. Por

Tafuri, intellecruals such as Weber, Keynes, and Peter

Schumpeter understood that the will to power over capitalist

development engaged the positive si de

of

capitalism Cco

nomie devdopment), together with the negative side dass

struggle), by accepting the negative force not as a collateral

effect of development but as its most powerful trigger.

For Tafuri, this productive way

of

dealing

with

crisis

was the most remarkable achievement of bourgeois thought

because it was no longer based on idealism, but on the prin

cip

le

of crisis used

as

a dynamic means for development and

power. Following Cacciari's model

of

negative thought,

Tafuri identified Weber's valuc crisis as the core of modern

politics and the most effective answer to the consequences of

capitalist development.

Through

the example of

W

e ber,

Tafuri claimed

that

within the permanent cultura and polit

ica instabiliry provokcd by capitalism, intellectual work

could only survive by rejecting any a priori

and

thus ideo

logica ) position, accepting the radical de sacralizarion

of

its

status and means of production. lt is for this reason that

those in the field of architecture who read Tafuri outside

of

the specifc cultura and political project in which he formu

lated his critique of ideology concluded that Tafuri's analysis

could only lead ro a "death

of

architecture."

y

recontextu

alizing Tafuri's critique and by understanding that it was

carried out within a project where the possible relationships

between cultura disciplines and class struggle were at stake,

not the architectural discipline itself), it

is

possible to under

stand how the conclusion that architectural critics reached

about Tafuri's criticai project was

wrong

or at least prema

ture). Actually, the passionate precision within which he


11/12

24 . This is

~ v i d

o tbe

inc

ro


12/12

PIER

VITT

ORIO URBLI

tS

AN ARCHI

TSCT.

H B

JS CO

POUNDBR OP

TilB

COLLBCTIV E DOOMA/ 0P PtCE ANO

TEACH'ES AT

THB

BEIU.AG.B

INSTJTUTE

IN RoTTEllD M

the world never question rhe mandare of rheir acrions. Above

ali, this PII to understand, which Tafuri never expecred to

be

satisfied, was only used as a trigger for his research, and it

wa

s implicitly aimed at what Fortini would bave called the

recuperation of the totalil of the intdlccr, or, in orher

word

s, the possibility of transgressing thc disciplinary spe

cializations and expertise imposed by the politic } economy

of

neo-capiralist

work

and

produ

ction.

Tafuri

demonsrrared

this transgression not in direct statements about imerdisci

plinarity or

transdisciplinarity

(two

forms

of

intellectual

work that he

would

have seen

as

the mos t advanccd forms of

idcological mystification within which capitalism administers

culrural production) but by the wide spectrum

of

his analyses

which combined politics, aestherics, politi

ca

l economy, and

architecrure iato one critica/project aimed at defning the

tota/ity

of

his

eruf

as

inrelleccual.

6. pva - recontextualizing tafuri's critique of ideology

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