Marco Biraghi's 'Questa è architettura' diagnoses architecture's crisis

Marco Biraghi's new book 'Questa è architettura' (Einaudi, 2021) argues that contemporary architecture is in crisis both as a discipline and a profession. Building on his previous work 'L'architetto come intellettuale' (Einaudi, 2019), Biraghi frames the architectural project as a construction of collective wills responding to needs emerging from cultural contradictions and conflicts. He calls for architecture to 'think with its hands' and become a practice of care, shifting from producing space to a sensitive attitude of transformation. Biraghi distinguishes between transformative architecture and merely innovative architecture, which improves performance or design without questioning existing conditions. He criticizes contemporary architects for serving the 'realm of complacency.' The book cites Mexican architect Luis Barragán, Pritzker Prize winner in 1980, as an archetype of transformative practice. Biraghi links the concept of the sublime to periods of crisis, arguing it can destabilize cosmetic projects and spur genuine transformation. The final chapter, 'Architecture as Pharmakon,' presents the project as medicine to heal the city into a 'great house' of responsibility and care. The book is 200 pages, €20, ISBN 9788806249564.