The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism: Critical encounters between Giorgio Agamben and architecture (Design and the Built Environment)

'The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism' explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben's political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben's politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben's political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben's politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben's oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical èncounter' with architecture's aesthetic-political function 'The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism' explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben's political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben's politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben's political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben's politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben's oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical èncounter' with architecture's aesthetic-political function Agamben's art and aesthetics -- Note -- 3 Literal and artistic potential common grounds -- Exceptionality, the camp and extraterritoriality -- Thresholds, dispositives and architectural theory -- Artistic interpretations: the fertile space of ambivalence -- Notes -- 4 The taking place of possible inoperative encounters -- Thresholds and indistinctions -- Profanation, ambivalence and use -- Opting out: contra-devices and anti-poietic projects -- Notes -- Part II Giorgio Agamben's oeuvre -- 5 Earlier works: The Man Without Content and Stanzas -- Stanzas: knowledge and the terra incognita of poetry Language and history -- 6 The coming politics and the question of potentiality -- 7 The Homo Sacer project -- The protagonist: bare life -- From Homo Sacer to The State of Exception: the central feature of potentiality -- From the exception to the governmental machine -- Witnessing and the question of testimony -- A detour in The Open and the animal vocabulary -- Form-of-life: Agamben's central manifesto -- Homo Sacer pars construens: inversion of life and use -- Note -- Part III Towards an inoperative architecture -- 8 Paradigms and dispositives -- Paradigms -- Dispositives -- Notes Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction: An architecture inseparable from its form -- Encounters with Agamben and the Italian theory -- Agamben's avventura and the structure of the book -- A coda -- Notes -- Part I Agamben's burning house -- 2 Tracing the complex encounters between space, architecture and art -- Agamben's direct reference to architecture, urban and spatial elements -- City and polis -- Agamben's spatial element par excellence: the camp 9 Profanation -- 10 Potentialities -- 11 Inoperativity -- The origins -- The theological meaning of inoperativity -- Paradigms of inoperativity -- Inoperative operations -- Notes -- 12 Use -- 13 Abandoning the project: The possibility for a 'whatever architecture' -- Agamben's philosophy and his 'pensiero in atto' -- Agamben's life and forms-of-life -- Agamben's inoperative politics: 'just a little bit different' -- Agamben's aesthetics: radical and transformative -- Philosophy and architecture: the taking place of an encounter -- Abandoning and reconsidering theory A 'whatever architecture' and the ethics of a potential urbanism -- A coda -- While writing, things happen -- References -- Index pt. 1. Agamben's burning house -- pt. 2. Giorgio Agamben's oeuvre -- pt. 3. Towards an inoperative architecture.