Agripoetic resistance in urban architecture and planning in the european world

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the architectural responses to the evolution of human–nature relationships throughout history within European urban context by reviewing design practices with a focus on farming as a settling and dwelling. Drawing from Martin Heidegger’s notion of poiesis and Henri Lefebvre’s definition of urbanization, we elaborate on the ways that global urbanization controlled by neoliberal forces is challenged through a poetic urban agricultural tactic, namely agripoetics, an opposition to scientific and quantitative thinking of mass production for the sake of efficiency and profit. Agripoetic resistance overcomes one of the most controversial challenges of urban society—the impossibility to shape itself through the shape of its cities. Through agripoetic resistance, human–nature relations unfold with new meanings as social activists and architects, activism and profession merge together, while the rights to the nature, food, and city blend in a new modality of dwelling.