Space Prospect in the Flexible Era of Late Capitalism

Abstract

This study is mainly influenced by the idea of Manfredo Tafuri that architecture cannot fulfil its ideological task since it started serving capitalism and there are no more utopias. In his book Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, Tafuri discusses the sociophilosophical tangle in which architects have been struggling since the 18th century. According to Tafuri, the drama of today's architecture is the obligation to return to pure architecture, a matter of form without utopia, supreme uselessness.

Another influence on the study is Richard Sennett's book The Corrosion of Character. Sennett mentions the concept of flexible capitalism and explains that work life is not as rigid as it was before. According to Sennett, flexibility has an impact on personal character and asks questions about how to decide the lasting value of we in an impatient society, how to pursue a long-term goal in a short-term economy, how to sustain loyalties to the continually redesigning institutions.