Relational Architecture: Poetics, Politics and the Transformation of Space

This article offers a critical and propositional reading of relational architecture as an emancipatory practice that integrates politics, poetics, and critical imagination in the production of space. Rejecting both technical neutrality and stylistic formalism, relational architecture is framed here as a language of transformation — one that resists dominant spatial logics and projects more just, meaningful, and cohabitable spatial relations. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the text examines historical and contemporary examples — from Haussmann’s Paris to the Findhorn Ecovillage, from SESC Pompeia to the Serpentine Pavilion — showing how architecture can reveal other forms of life and reconfigure modes of dwelling. Key concepts such as solidarity imaginaries, alternative cosmologies, and the poetics of resistance are discussed, in a structure that moves from critical diagnosis to operative propositions. The article concludes that consolidating relational architecture requires structural changes across political, disciplinary, pedagogical, and cultural domains, affirming architecture as an ethical, affective, and shared act.

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2025-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15306928
Primary Topic
Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Relational Architecture: Poetics, Politics and the Transformation of Space

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives
article

Relational Architecture: Poetics, Politics and the Transformation of Space

article en

Abstract

This article offers a critical and propositional reading of relational architecture as an emancipatory practice that integrates politics, poetics, and critical imagination in the production of space. Rejecting both technical neutrality and stylistic formalism, relational architecture is framed here as a language of transformation — one that resists dominant spatial logics and projects more just, meaningful, and cohabitable spatial relations. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the text examines historical and contemporary examples — from Haussmann’s Paris to the Findhorn Ecovillage, from SESC Pompeia to the Serpentine Pavilion — showing how architecture can reveal other forms of life and reconfigure modes of dwelling. Key concepts such as solidarity imaginaries, alternative cosmologies, and the poetics of resistance are discussed, in a structure that moves from critical diagnosis to operative propositions. The article concludes that consolidating relational architecture requires structural changes across political, disciplinary, pedagogical, and cultural domains, affirming architecture as an ethical, affective, and shared act.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
University of Beira Interior (PT), IDP Ingeniería y Arquitectura Iberia (Spain) (ES)
Sustainable cities and communities
Openalex Percentile: Top 49%
Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives
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