What does the common look like?

Abstract

Urban commoning projects, seen as part of those practices referred to as ‘spatial agency’, deal with the production of space focusing on the construction of relations and processes rather than on the production of objects, buildings, or images. The refusal of architectural formalism is seen as a way to bypass commercialism and the superficiality of traditional architectural practices. However, architect-led urban commoning activities still cannot avoid the production of very recognisable images, reinforcing a more or less involuntary aesthetics of the commons. This article posits that the production of images is too important to be left to commercial architectural practice, and that it should be considered as an integral part of spatial agency. Rather than privileging a return to a depoliticised and formalist architectural practice, this article argues that commoning practices, if seen from the point of view of the theory of the common in the singular, have an intrinsic capacity to produce a new political and aesthetic strategy. Some projects from DOGMA and Aristide Antonas are presented as practices that take the production of the common as a theme while at the same time problematising the role of image- and form-making, providing new formulations of the role of the project of architecture in contemporary production.