Disciplinary Society and the Myth of Aesthetic Justice

Abstract

Architectural design review is a social practice and as such cannot avoid being part of a complex network of power structures and relationships. The fact that it impacts upon the production of architecture and the built environment clearly indicates the political implications of aesthetic control. Space is neither innocent nor neutral: it is an instrument of the political. More than a simple container, architecture is a place that shapes beings; it has a performative impact on whoever inhabits it: it works on its occupants. At the micro level; space prohibits, decides what may occur, lays down the law, implies a certain order, commands and locates bodies. At a societal scale, space incorporates social action. Control over space is thus a fundamental and all-persuasive source of power. Buildings formalize the various relations and guarantee the performance demanded by authority. Power is structured by architecture and architecture celebrates and monumentalizes the structural networks of power.