Future or Eclipse of Criticism

Has architectural criticism disappeared for good or has it adapted to the pressures, exigencies, and fashions of the present?

Its demise may be due to fibrillation or asthenia, to excessive sharp judgment, condemnation, and critique, or, conversely, to a resigned acceptance of reality. But should the eclipse of criticism today be regarded as lamentable? Might not its lack be hailed as a new phase of rigor and objectivity?

The objective of both the lecture series “The Future or the Eclipse of Criticism” presented at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and the eponymous symposium which took place at the University of Pisa’s School of Engineering was to identify those figures, exhibitions, publication projects, and paradigmatic constructions that have either supported or directed particular critical approaches. But before calling into question the future of criticism, the contributors asked each other whether and how it could still play a role in society. In fact, in a cultural landscape stuck between the horizontality of social media and the verticality of powerful cultural institutions, research centers, think tanks, museums, and biennials, the heroic figure of the critic has been replaced by the more appealing one of the architectural journalist and curator. 

With contributions by Stan Allen, Nina Bassoli, Joseph Bedford, Marco Biraghi, Giovanna Borasi, Lorenzo Ciccarelli, Cynthia Davidson, Fulvio Irace, Lucia Giorgetti, Hélène Jannière, Lina Malfona, Pierluigi Nicolin, Franco Purini, Carlo Olmo, Albena Yaneva, Teresa Stoppani, Lucia Giorgetti, Cecilia Marcheschi and Elisa Barsanti