Transgression in the Architectures of After-Modernity

Transgressive acts in architecture as responses to today’s ecological, political, economic, and social crises

In architecture, transgressive acts have always been a reality, in spite of rules and canons that have defined the discipline and its extended field. However, in recent decades, their frequency and radicality have surged from rather random, marginal and/or idiosyncratic phenomena. While their sudden rise can be explained as a reaction to the compulsive normativity of modernity, the deeper roots are to be sought elsewhere: the recent waves of transgressiveness are intimately linked to the hypercrisis affecting our world today – spanning ecological, political, economic, and social dimensions, and catalysing fundamental mutations and disorders. Some of these transgressive acts are motivated by a desire to dismantle a malfunctioning system, but more often than not breaking the rules has become an inherent survival tactic amid urgent social challenges. In our era of after-modernity, transgression emerges not just as an act of defiance, but reveals a new paradigm at work – a critical framework for reimagining the built environment, challenging established orders, and advocating for the rights of marginalised populations. Drawing on a rich array of theoretical insights and empirical case studies from multiple countries, this volume provides a unique, forward-looking perspective on transgressive acts in architecture as responses to today’s ecological, political, economic, and social crises.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Speaking Transgression
in Times of Crises
Carmen Popescu

Part One: Recodifying Inhabiting: On So cietal Mutations and Resituating Margins

1 “The Single-Persons Project”: Council Housing Beyond the Nuclear Family
Savia Palate
2 The Representability of Interstitial Scenes
Sarah Mills and Simon Baker
3 On Relational Histories of Spatial Law and Transgression
Tiago Castela
4 On Weeds and Hospitality: An Architectural Point of View on (Bio)Diversity
Carmen Popescu

Part Two: Bending Politics: On Moving the Lines

5 Limit(ation)s: Squatting in Naldöken, Izmir
Gülsüm Baydar, Kıvanc Kılınç, and Ahenk Yılmaz
6 Living with the Museum: Uses of Memory and the Normalization of Struggles
Leandro Peredo
7 Climbing Over, Stepping Across: Transgression as Lived Alternative in the Practice of Stalker
Patrick Düblin
8 Liminality as Transgression: The Urban Ritual of XR
Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio

Part Three: Deviating Theory: On Co ncepts and Devices

9 Transgression—Where Experience Meets with Concept? Tschumi’s “Paradox of Architecture” Revisited
Ole W. Fischer
10 Trapping, Dismembering and Crucifying Angels: Tracing the Sacred in Hejduk’s Bovisa
Jesse Rafeiro
11 Entwined Spaces of Boredom, Desire, and Transgression
Christian Parreno

About the Authors

Carmen Popescu

Carmen Popescu is professor of architectural history at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Val-de-Seine.

Simon Baker

Gülsüm Baydar

Tiago Castela

Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio

Patrick Düblin

Ole Fischer

Kivanc Kilinc

Sarah Mills

Savia Palate

Christian Parreno

Leandro Peredo

Jesse Rafeiro

Ahenk Yilmaz

Carmen Popescu