UCLA

Although architecture was historically considered the most public of the arts and the interdependence between building and the public realm was a key feature of the post-war discourse, the process of postmodernization undermined the traditional structures of power through which architecture operated. At the center of this shakeup was the modern structure par excellence: the State. This dissertation analyzes the dissolution of the bond between architecture and the State through a double lens. First, this study is framed by the workings of an architect, Aldo Rossi, whose practice mirrored this transformation in a unique way, going from Mussolini’s Italy to Reagan’s America, from the Communist Party to Disneyland. The second lens is provided by a set of technological apparatuses that, in this pre-digital world, impacted the reach of the State and the boundaries of architecture. Drawing on the multifaceted root of the term “State,” this dissertation sets out to explore a series of case studies that addressed the need to re-state architecture – both in the sense of relocating architecture within new structures of power and in the sense of finding ways to keep reproducing it in those uncharted territories.