Dystopia exists, and can be found in El Salvador. In this small Central American country of abrupt geography, tropical climate, and the highest population density on the continent, President Nayib Bukele has launched an unprecedented social experimen
The world changed on 24 February 2022, but the start of the war in Ukraine was produced by the tensions in the tectonic plate of Eurasia. There is no way to understand the conflict without knowing the history of Russia, nor without penetrating the he
In a new epiphany of unease, a crowd chose a symbolic building as a frame for its protest. On 6 January 2021, Trump supporters stormed into the United States Capitol to try to overturn the election of Biden; and on 8 January 2023, Bolsonaro followers
Human beings are not free-floating agents capable of reshaping themselves in any way they choose; this only happens in online virtual worlds. We are limited in the first instance by our physical bodies. Technology has done a lot to free people from t
It is time to consider a radical solution to stave off the prospect of political violence and even civil war in the US. The Ukraine war and global economic troubles momentarily overshadowed domestic discord in the United States earlier this year, but
Architecture is not so much ‘frozen music’ as ‘crystallized politics.’ While Goethe understood that it has a mathematical internal order, as music does, its origin and purpose link it to politics inextricably. Organizing the ‘polis’ requires social n
The historic swerve of 24 February supplied an iconic image four months later in Madrid. The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a geopolitical commotion that has been labeled Zeitenwende, and the leaders participating in the NATO summit gathered arou
President Biden ordered the revocation of the Executive Order, “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture,” signed by former President Trump on December 18, 2020. The Trump order, mandating the preference for “traditional and classical architect
Donald Trump decreed on Monday that all new US federal buildings should be “beautiful”, in a long-expected executive order which excoriated architectural modernism but stopped short of demanding that all such projects should be in the classical style
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. Societies have long recognized the importance of beautiful public architecture. Ancient
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, the United States, like many other countries, was unprepared. As the contagion spread, the wealthiest country in the world found itself unable to provide even the medical masks and other protective gear that
The US Election
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” This line of the replicant in Blade Runner referred to robotic battles in remote worlds, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to apply it to phenomena we are living right now which, indeed, are pretty hard to b
Among the recently announced big government plans in the United Kingdom, the pronouncement that may well leave a more permanent mark on the post-Covid-19 landscape was Boris Johnson’s promise to “build build build”. The prime minister’s supposed ‘new
In terms of length and complexity, Joe Biden’s speech was the shortest and simplest. Donald Trump’s speech was not just twice as long, it was also significantly more complex…
We keep hearing that we are living one of those dystopian situations Hollywood has accustomed us to. But what movies, exactly, are we experiencing firsthand? When several American friends of mine sent messages about firearms stores running out of sto
Donald Trump proposes architectural classicism as the default style of federal buildings. A draft executive order obtained by the magazine Architectural Record sets a list of rules for architecture commissioned by the government. The document – title
The latest books of Thomas Piketty and Francis Fukuyama address the populist challenge from complementary perspectives. The French economist expands the scope of his studies of income and inheritance inequality in Le capital au XXI siècle to include
“The suburbs are the place where energy is in the city—in the good, in the bad,” said Renzo Piano in 2015. Old left-right distinctions are fading as class identities break down. The big-tent party families, the social democrats and Christian de
Since the time he set up his Office for Political Innovation in the year 2003, the Spaniard Andrés Jaque has succeeded in making a niche for himself – a truly growing one at that – in both the Spanish and the international architecture scenes, on the
Forensic Architecture is a research group based in Goldsmiths, University of London. It is also the name that the group has given to a new field of exploration. Using techniques belonging to architecture, Forensic Architecture analyzes images, sounds
Donald Trump is old news for architects. Long before he began his career in media – let alone his meteoric political trajectory that has landed him in the presidency of the United States of America – Trump published his memoirs as a real estate devel
Spanish political life finds itself at a crossroads. The institutional silence of days when the two houses of the nation’s legislature – the Congress of Deputies and the Senate – are not in session is perhaps of the same nature as the calm in the eye
Giuliano da Empoli
París 2022
Gallimard - 288 Pages
Orlando Figes
Londres 2022
Bloomsbury - 368 Pages
Johan Norberg La historia del progreso humano
Owen Hatherley
Madrid 2022
Capitán Swing - 704 Pages
José Enrique Ruiz-Domènec El Mediterráneo, de la guerra de Troya a las pateras
Francis Fukuyama Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition
Antoni Ramon Josep Maria Montaner Cultura, ciudad y política
Byung-Chul Han
Barcelona 2014
Herder - 128 Pages
Guy Standing Una carta de derechos
Wendy Brown
Barcelona 2015
Herder - 208 Pages
Saskia Sassen Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy
