Abstract

This paper discusses architecture as a critical process, caught between two extreme tensions, a conservative criticism under the authority of institutions, and a radical criticism based on indignation. Through a broad survey of major critical positions, the author proposes a third critical way for architecture, more attuned to the present political agenda: in such a perspective, architecture needs to acknowledge its 'physiological state' of motion and becoming, illuminating all those latent spaces and neglected potentials operating in the complex mechanisms of the contemporary city.