The Architecture of the Periphery

Aldo Rossi’s L’archittetura della citta (The Architecture of the City) has proven to be one of the most influential architecture manifestoes of the 20th century. Written against the backdrop of the CIAM and Functionalism it offered a theory of the elements that constitute the architecture of the city. Rafael Moneo writes: “As a critic no one can question the insightful value of Rossi’s oeuvre. From the knowledge of the ancient city it has been possible to make a critique of modern urbanism that has shown its terrible gaps and, therefore, the role that the ancient city has played as an antidote to that has been of prime importance. This has been his most important contribution to the development of current urban thinking.”
The last chapter of Rossi’s book emphasizes the importance of investigating the peripheries of the European city, and offers a starting point for this thesis. Moreover, according to Rossi there is a clear relationship between architectural theory and the project, and this thesis explores this assertion in the context of the city of Madrid. No other European city has undergone a similar scale of development in recent years regarding peripheral and infrastructural development. Picking up from Rossi’s final chapter, this thesis asks whether it is possible to establish a theory of the architecture of the periphery of the European city.
To arrive at such a theory, Rossi’s methodology, developed for his reading of the traditional city, needs to be supplemented and developed. Here, this work will be started by drawing on the contribution of Rossi’s contemporaries Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown (Learning from Las Vegas ). The gaps left in the theory also requires new approaches for the methodology and its application, and fieldwork techniques are used here that embrace other forms of exploring these territories, including walking and visual tools such as photography, in order to map, and to analyse and understand, these environments. This PhD uses fieldwork to look at different areas developed to the North and South of Madrid, in combination with architectural theory, in order to describe, analyse and understand the architecture of the periphery, and to define the gaps between architectural theory and project.
In addition to this understanding of the architecture of the periphery, the thesis also makes a methodological contribution, developing practical and analytical tools and building a theory that offers new ways of analysing other European peripheries.