THE PROJECT
“It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existenceand the world are eternally justified”, said Nietzsche. But what would the German philosopher have said if he had seen the infinite and contemptible architectural works that cover the face of the earth and in whichwe live? Could we still talk about the “eternal justification” of the things that surround us?
With the project Archibruttura (eng., ArchiTerrible) we launch a movement of joyous protest against those architectural works that deface the landscape and consequently lower our quality of life. In parallel, we hope, we would ask you to give us the names of the architects or surveyors that created them according to what you regard as paradoxical aesthetic, functional and urban planning canons.
We hope that Archibruttura or Architerrible becomes the collective editorial project of a new publishing house called Eiecta. The project will be circulated on the net to foster widespread sensibility and to develop a tool for reporting and raising awareness of those that construct on the basis of taste and expertise picked up on Mars.
The more reports we receive the easier it will be forus to provide a barometer and a general evaluation of what we consider to be “ugly” in Italy. This is not such a straight forward task. My grandma, forexample, loved Formica and threw out 17th century furniture in favour of modern 1970’s furniture. This is why it is easy to think that there is no such thing as objective ugliness, only catalogue dugliness.
Ours is therefore something of agamble. But a gamble worth taking, and taking together with all of you.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Upload a good quality photo of what you regard as an example of Architerrible. Describe the location of the building or the piece of architecture photographed and add, if you know it, the name and surname of the architect/surveyor/company that produced it.
As an alternative, or in addition, provide a commenton your photo.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND (for those that wish to read it)
“That woman’s husband over there is really ugly. How can she find him so wonderful?” Our reflection on the concept of ugliness could be condensed down into a comment like this, the kind of which we have all heard at least a thousand times.
Indeed, with the 1853 release of Karl Rosenkranz’s The Aesthetics of Ugliness the traditional notion of Beauty was flanked by the unavoidable and inconvenient presence of the ugly. Whilst for the ancients ugly was nothing other than that shapeless and chaotic mass overshadowed by the concept of beauty which guided the hands of Phidius, Polykleitos, Praxiteles or the architects of the Parthenon or the Theatre of Ephesus, in modern society it has expanded to the point where it has almost overtaken the beautiful. Or vice versa.
The critique of judgment, which deals with aesthetic judgment, has broken down, is unable to define itself, as Kant well knew and aswe all know when we stop in front of one of those paintings in our neighbours’homes that we wouldn’t even use as a tray for the tea.
In short, philosophy rearranges the confines and disturbs the waters of thought.
Nevertheless certain council houses are truly horrendous, some terraced homes in the suburbs look like prisons from Gotham City, and certain work carried out in the city stops you dead in your tracks. How you can you express this if not through a catalogue of photos and comments?
