The Project

The Site of Discourse

O Lugar do Discurso

The project The Site of Discourse intends to identify, analyze, debate and reflect on the editorial culture of the Portuguese architectural periodicals over the 20^th century.

The title of the project — The Site of Discourse — has a number of different meanings. First and foremost, it invokes an idea that belongs to architecture itself. The title suggests that this project is about the discourse as well as about the “place” on which such discourse is produced — the architectural reviews and journals. It also invokes a complex grid of configurations about “who” produces, “what” contents involves, and “how” such “site” is constructed.

In fact, this project is grounded on the argument that specialized periodicals of architecture are more than a mere sequence of printed objects. As a totality they embody various discursive and crossed lines, which formed, over time, an editorial culture supported by a network of exchanges between the editors, critics, and architects.

By proposing a distinctive framework that expands the conventional treatments of this theme in Portuguese and international scientific context, this project will study how the editorial culture frames the architectural discourse with a critical reflection based on three focus of analysis: the formal and visual support; the agents and their social web; the discursive contents in its several dimensions — disciplinary, ideological, professional, esthetical, technical, theoretical.