Illegal Architecture

    I rarely speculate about politics in architecture pertaining to the physical built environment. Typically, I assume political agendas influence much development and is pulling the strings for projects, but the implication that a physically built thing can be a political motivator, challenger, or illicit a political response is worth investigating. Guerilla architecture, rebel architecture, was the most interesting and polarizing idea this week in discussing The City as a space of Conflict.

    The architecture of violence film illustrates for us the role of architecture in politics to craft an extreme legal conflict within our built environment. The occupy movements, protests, and camps of informal settlements to protest are example of the legal process to protest but is executed in an illegal manner. The guerilla architecture film and work by Santiago Cirugeda is bypassing the system of building by with an undeniably illegal approach and not caring because they are trying to do necessary work in an unsupportive political environment. All of which craft an idea that built space is public space and public space is highly political.

    Sure, our built environment can be perceived as physical statements predicated on political agendas, but the built environment takes on a different quality when those physical statements attack and challenge the political atmosphere. Santiago’s work understands that the political climate may or may not change, but their work will just be there. It is already built and so it is up to them (government) to take it down. Which, I infer as an admission of the government to say that this (for example, the school building project) is not a necessity. Rebel architecture is attacking the system that generates our built environment and giving the public, the people the political power.

    The polarizing aspect of this type of architecture is that it is difficult to manage the risk involved and to take a chance doing ‘illegal’ architecture within communities that are unsupported politically. It is strange that we designers would encounter such a conflict that simultaneously challenges the very rules, laws, and guidelines that grant us professional credibility to pursue work that that fights rules that inhibit other people’s personal and political credibility. We designers would assume laws are fair and follow laws to then break laws, so others aren’t restricted by laws that are unfair to them. This isn’t to say that considering all public space would require and illegal architectural approach, but that given public space is political, we would have to understand that this is a scenario that falls within the range of a political spectrum imposing upon the built environment.