Design and the Building Site is Sérgio Ferro's most influential theoretical work — a rigorous critique of architectural production under capitalism that, half a century after its first publication, appears in English for the first time with new and previously unpublished texts.
About This Book
Written in the early 1970s after Ferro fled Brazil's military dictatorship and survived imprisonment, this essay is shaped by lived experience as much as by theory: encounters with Brasilia's construction sites, collective work with Arquitetura Nova, and time spent in prison reading Freud alongside construction workers. The text surveys the political economy of architectural production and its consequences for contemporary practice. This edition contextualises Ferro's argument with three additional texts — including a new preface written for this edition, a 1969 analysis of Brazilian housing production, and a previously unpublished essay on architectural modernism as a Hegelian negation of nineteenth-century eclecticism. Together they form a sustained and challenging body of thought on architectural labour, design, and capital.
Key Features
- 280 pages of theoretical essays, historical analysis, and critical architectural writing
- Author: Sérgio Ferro
- Includes a new preface by Ferro written for this first English-language edition, the 1969 essay "Production of Houses in Brazil", and the previously unpublished essay "Against the Grain"
- Published by MACK Books
What You'll Discover
- Ferro's founding critique of architectural production under capitalism — how the separation of design from building site labour shapes both the profession and its social relations
- A personal account, in the new preface, of Ferro's trajectory from Brasilia's construction sites to the experiments of Arquitetura Nova, and his rarely discussed views on postmodernism
- A forensic analysis of Brazilian housing in 1969 — from self-builds to luxury developments — as a model for deciphering the social relations of architectural production in any context
- An interpretation of architectural modernism as a Hegelian "determinate negation" of nineteenth-century eclecticism, developed in the previously unpublished essay "Against the Grain"
About the Author
Sérgio Ferro is a Brazilian architect and theorist whose work was formed through involvement with the collective Arquitetura Nova and the editorial committee of the journal Teoria e Prática. He was arrested in 1970 for his involvement in active resistance to Brazil's military dictatorship, an experience that directly shaped the theoretical framework of this text.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 280
- Dimensions: 165 x 225mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781915743497
- Publisher: MACK Books
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, theorists, and students engaged with the politics of architectural production, labour, and capital — and anyone working through the relationship between design practice and its material conditions.