90 years of solitude

the absence of Latin American sensibilities in the debate on architectural autonomy

Résumé

This paper shifts its attention from “South-South” relations to the absence of “South-South” relations in a culturally blind chapter of architectural criticism. It focuses on the postwar debate on architectural autonomy whose disciplinary reduction, especially in the United States, prevented an urban interpretation of a culturally sensitive autonomy. The paper argues that the dogmatic architectural criticism of the twentieth century and the post-critical discourse of the twenty-first century have failed to recognize that critical sensibilities other than Eurocentric and North American approaches exist in other regions such as Latin America. The paper is structured in four phases: a brief history of architectural autonomy; its disciplinary reduction; its overlooked cultural dimension; and its urban potential. The goal is to highlight the cultural blindness of critical and post-critical architectural discourses through a theory sensitive to cultural and urban solitudes based on a revision of the interdisciplinary interpretations of the term autonomy.