The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism

The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agambens political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agambens politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agambens oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical encounter with architectures aesthetic-political function.