Moving architecture and flattening politics: examining adaptability through a narrative of design

摘要

This example shows how 'Big Politics' is always dependent upon micropolitics, how every stabilisation, centring, institutionalisation and codification of politics necessarily invokes energies that exceed these forces, which open politics out towards non-coherence, towards unruly actors, that defy institutionalisation, codification and formalisation. It is here in this space of contention where the two events discussed help to elucidate the interplay of the two and suggest a more inclusive (and active) understanding of the 'political' forces which shape the buildings we construct and use. Yet it is too simplistic to say that micropolitics is pitted against 'Big Polities', like David against Goliath, because micropolitics can and does affirm 'Big Polities', providing it with a potential to act through small material-semiotic techniques and also remake itself anew by engaging new mediators to stabilise other 'blackboxes'.