Mirela Spasova

Utopias originate from the dissatisfaction with reality. They create a fiction for a superior existence or rather an exaggerated version of its deceitfulness. Utopias incorporate a sense of hope.

The project modi di essere uses architecture as a space for reflection. It adopts Utopia as a way to emphasize certain social matters. The work is based on an in-depth-study of Superstudio`s projects Le Dodici Città Ideali and Salvataggi dei Centri Storici Italiani. The analysis deals with the ideology of the projects as well as the specific visualization techniques used by the group as idea-materialising-apparatus. It resulted in the design of a construct, a system for conceptual composition and visualization based on which own critical utopias were created – “Six Cautionary Tales About Venice”, composed by textual and visual part and focused on six specific problems the city of Venice faces. The project could be seen among others as an experimental platform where a variety of media was brought to bear in order to reveal and render the message in the best possible way.

The thesis is meant to provoke and give the observer thought-arousing impulses about the world we live in and about the way we relate to it. It defamiliarizes our known environment and incorporates the “guerrilla warfare” tactic of Superstudio, taking processes to their limit, showing per absurdum their falsity and immorality. The critique seeks to address the practices that are taking place in the city undermining its existential purpose. The aim is not to introduce a solution but rather to increase the sensibility, to accuse the “museumification” of the historic city, the “monetization” of cultural heritage and the exodus of its inhabitants. It also carries a sense of ambiguity allowing different personal readings.

Modi di essere is, among others, a project about the way we imagine our future.

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