An ontological inquiry on potentials of criticality and conceptualization of program in architecture

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Mimarlık Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2017

Öğrenci: SİNAN CEM KIZIL

Danışman: GÜVEN ARİF SARGIN

Özet:

The relation between architecture and social change is one of the key themes in historical discourse of architectural theory. The tradition of criticality has been consolidated after enlightenment and it caused distrust towards norms of architecture. Even though this tradition of criticality eventually turns to its roots and criticises the ideals of enlightenment in postmodern discourses, it is clear that namely postmodern architectures still subjected to criticism similar to their modernist predecessors. In this thesis, the core problem of the modern-postmodern loop that leads discourse to the post-critical position will be put as subject-object relationship mainly articulated by Descartes, Kant and Hegel in enlightenment. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s ontological thesis rhizome will be introduced to overcome inherently modernist distinction of “subject” and “object” that is constantly reproduced in modern-postmodern duality. Thus, this thesis aims to materialize an architectural theory actively interpreting political production of social structures within space with the term minor politics. Furthermore, using the same philosophical attitude, the concept of the program will be inspected as a philosophical concept. For doing this, a partial history of the program will be mentioned to illustrate different conceptualizations of it. This inquiry aims to free up the idea of the program by reinterpreting it within the ontology of rhizome in order to theorize programmatic strategies that are socially engaged with minor experiences.