The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism - Critical encounters between Giorgio Agamben and architecture

The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben-s political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben-s 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 Agamben-s 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 architecture-s aesthetic-political function.