Manfredo Tafuri's Ideological Criticism in Architecture and the Problem of Architectural Practice

만푸레도 타푸리의 이데올로기 비평과 건축의 실천에 대한 사상의 연구

Manfredo Tafuri's Ideological criticism in architecture has opened a new horizon to interpreting architecture in modern capitalist architecture for it views architecture not just as a style or formal invention, but in terms of socio-economical process. It offered a comprehensive understanding of a chaotic situation of contemporary architecture and historical meaning modern architectural movements in relation with capitalistic development. However, it has been criticized as architectural pessimism which does not allow any possibility for progressive architectural practice. It was also criticized of epistemological problem of how one could be outside ideology without assuming true consciousness against false consciousness of ideology. Tafuri solves this problem by assuming Althusserian activist concept of knowledge and suggest the concept of labor of writing history of critical historians, instead of a design for utopian society, as a possible critical architectural practice. However, I argue that ultimately ideological criticism does not deny architectural practice itself, nor researches on formal characteristics of architecture. The problem lies rather in the architectural Intellectuals' attachment to the traditional concept of architect as a form giver to the society. By rejecting this myth and broadening the concept of architectural practice from design to production, we can find that Ideological problem is not architectural pessimism, but rather it opens up a new way of approaching to the problem of architectural practice in modern capitalist society.