Emancipatory Horizons: The Possibility of a Revolutionary Architectural Practice

Architecture has always been tied to social change, but also to social reproduction.
Architects have sought to challenge social structures before, but this tendency seems to
be in utter decline, is an emancipatory practice of architecture still possible? What
prevents architecture from engaging in radical social and spatial transformation? To find
out if it can still have a progressive function within society, its material relation to capital
must be unravelled. The active human body, abstract labour, abstract space, fixed capital,
landed property, and rent are crucial concepts to understand the spatial logic of capitalism.
This research examines these theoretical issues through the historical case of UNCTAD III
building in Chile, one of the last attempts to challenge the capitalist production of space.
Through this case the difficult questions concerning the role of architecture within capitalist
society and what are the possibilities for an alternative practice in our current conditions
can be addressed. A radical alternative through architecture must acknowledge both its
autonomy and dependence from the cities produced by capitalism if it wishes to address
concrete change.