The house, the referential metaphysics, and the ideological decolonization of architecture and urbanism

Abstract

Considering that architecture is a language that draws in the city the ideologies of a culture, this article draws inspiration from conceptual and philosophical disputes over language that have been fruitful in the areas of linguistic anthropology, semiotics, and applied linguistics to question the referential metaphysics that lies in the knowledge about architecture and urbanism and that limits the possibility of a multiple, political, and socially engaged architectural creativity. From the discussion of concrete examples of non-conventional housing, it seeks to reject the normativization of private and public spaces, to propose a polysemy of the signifier house. By discussing these counter-hegemonic examples, we propose to deconstruct the normative relation of architecture to the body, the subject, and the city. Among the conclusions, it is suggested that normativity in architecture and urbanism is not inherent, but a result of inculcation of philosophical desires for purity, disciplinarity, referential assertiveness, and the heterocapitalist family as a model and guiding theme of desires and social relations.