Intermediality, Architecture, and the Politics of Urbanity

Abstract

In his article "Intermediality, Architecture, and the Politics of Urbanity" Virgilio Tortosa Garrigós discusses aspects of the exponential development of large cities, the neoliberal economy, and the "spectacle" of architecture in the context of intermediality. With the connivance between land speculators and politicians — which has led not only to the loss of spatial identity but to irreversible pollution and geographic degradation — urbanity is epitomized on the Mediterranean coast line. In reaction to this development, a series of anti-globalization organizations and social movements, rooted in urban neighbourhoods, resist the homogenization of taste with anti-billboards and anti-advertising against consumerism and urban development. Architects who view the said urban development critically are also involved with counter movements such as street theatres and documentaries. Tortosa discusses these attempts occurring in various intermedial actions in order to conceive the city as a humane living space against consumerism.