Base and Superstructure: A Vulgar Survey of Western Architecture

The essay attempt to trace the history of architecture as built ideology. The article follows the steps of Manfredo Tafuri’s famous essay ‘Per un critica dell’ideologia architettonica’, published’ in 1969, in the journal Contropiano, the article understand ideology in which the Italian historian proposed to read architectural culture as the ideological sublimation of the conflicts and contradictions brought by the historical evolution of capitalism. For Tafuri, architecture is a never-ending “intellectual work” whose aim is to constantly innovate in order to cope with the technical and social innovations provoked by social and economic development. The essay expands Tafuri’s critique of ideology to trace base and superstructure before capitalism and up to its contemporary stage.