| This dissertation considers the groundbreaking work of the Italian architecture collective Superstudio (active 1968--78) in order to narrate an important shift in architectural practice away from designing buildings and toward the nomination of myriad non-tectonic pursuits as architecture. In an attempt to divorce themselves from what they perceived as a corrupt discipline, the six members of Superstudio replaced construction with a profusion of alternative mediums: including furniture, magazine works, films and temporary museum installations. Architecture, they claimed, had become complicit with late capitalist land development and status production and had relinquished its obligation to provide affordable housing to Italy's middle and lower classes. Superstudio, thus, as a political act, consciously withdrew from building while remaining within the discipline of architecture as a virus. By producing objects and engaging in activities once considered merely ancillary to the profession, the group questioned the discipline's injunction to build while making a claim for the architectural implications of the new mediums they employed. This dissertation, proceeding in a medium-specific manner, considers what it means to conceive of furniture objects, magazine spreads, museum installations and, ultimately, everyday life itself as new forms of architecture. This study has renewed relevance for the discipline of architecture as it continues to see its influence expand beyond building into every realm of daily existence. |
