Dirty realism and Europe on the edge of postmodernity

Abstract

The text is concerned with the analysis and theorization of dirty realism as one of the topics of minor regard in the contemporary architectural discourse. Defined by the most theorists as a kind of architectural production created on specific grounds of European urban reality in the mid-eighties of the past century, historically speaking, dirty realism coincides with the beginning of the Postmodern Era. The text aims to shed light on the spatial-economic and cultural context in which dirty realism was constituted as a movement, tendency or theoretical construct, as well as to make detailed reference to the typical theories of its protagonists - architects and theorists of architecture who participated in it. Given the fact that the reception of dirty realism in architectural discourse is based on a reductionist approach, the text will focus on the analysis of primary sources which point to several different possibilities to deal with this topic. On the one hand, the analysis of diverse visual manifestations shows all that dirty realism can be in a formalistic sense of the word. On the other, the text pays special attention to the comparison of theoretical models that were used in deriving and establishing the initial poetic and critical premises of dirty realism. Appropriation of theories of vastly diverse artistic, literary, film and philosophical-aesthetic provenience is what makes the architectural dirty realism one of the rather unstable and controversial topics in the history and theory of contemporary architecture.

Keywords

• dirty realism
• modernism
• postmodernism
• reality
• periphery
• technics