Deferred codes. Dialogue between Architecture and Politics

Artistic languages are traditionally intimately tied with the social and cultural issues of their times, nevertheless their transmissibility transcends the circumstances. Sometimes, the ability to overcome their own era determines that the message, transmitted by the communicating object, is transmuted and, in this passage, it is attributed a different meaning. This leads to architectural signs being first extracted, then reread through a different gradient from the one that generated them. In the opinion of those who write there is nothing similar to grammar or syntax of spoken and written speech in the language of modern and contemporary architecture; in contrast with the language used by classical architecture, which, although still consisted a sui generis language, followed a rule expressing a hierarchical (and crystallized) social order. However, this characterization has not prevented its use as one of the most effective tools for the portrayal of society. Giannozzo Manetti, secretary of Nicholas V, in describing how essential the policy of public works was, to clarify to the people the mission of the Roman Church in the world, attributes to the Pontiff these words “(...) Il consenso del volgo è invece rafforzato e confermato dalla continua visione di grandi edifici (…) il consenso in questo modo è mantenuto ed aumentato “ (Battisti 1957). In the text “When the cathedrals were white”, Le Corbusier measures the distance between the crystallized culture of the European world and the ever-evolving and pragmatic American culture; precisely, when the cathedrals were white, that is, newly built, the society that was taking shape was united around the realization of a masterpiece, which was the result of a collective elaboration. Therefore, just because actually cathedrals are no longer white and society is characterized by “a new global disorder” (Bauman, 1999) architecture must be configured as a “servizio di linguaggio” (M. Sacripanti, 1973), with the mission to represent the society, it is referring to. The urgency, at this juncture, becomes a need to define a reference framework in a global reach , that changes every few hours becoming more complex. In the opinion of the writer, precisely because today’s social demands are increasingly diversified, the codes with which architects will have to comply in the near future will be multiple and increasingly characterized by incursions of external matters that are not within the discipline’s competence.