Common space creation: can architecture help? (Towards a provisional manifesto)

Abstract

Reclaiming the right to the city means reclaiming the city as commons. In such a prospect, the city becomes both the scope of urban commoning practices as well as one of the most crucial factors that shape them. In order to proceed in this direction, we need to reclaim the power of collective creativity as well as the sharing of expert knowledge. In today’s neoliberal capitalist societies, different actors as well as deviant professionals are envisaging, proposing, and performing spaces that depart from the necessities and priorities of the prevailing logic. Can we talk about dissident architectural performances? And could such performances contribute to the production of common spaces, spaces that corroborate citizen participation and forms of self-governance? Using examples from Europe and Latin America studied through extensive field research, this paper explores urban commoning as a potentially emancipatory process.