La cambiante simbología de lo ordinario. Una aproximación visual americana
ISSN: 2341-2747, 2341-3050
Year of publication: 2017
Volume: 4
Issue: 1
Pages: 97-124
Type: Article
More publications in: VLC arquitectura. Research Journal
Abstract
The concept of “the ordinary” has become an ever more usual reference in the analysis of certain architectonic and territorial situations; but also social ones, which seem to escape any order set by planning. Nonetheless, the word still carries a rather ambiguous meaning, because not only the term is in itself polysemic, but also because it can have several interpretations, sometimes in a contradictory way, depending on the area of study, the time or the place in which it is used. This text addresses some of these apparent contradictions through a selection of visual expressions that emerge from the reassessment of “the ordinary” within a particular context: America in the seventies. To illustrate our views, we will use the work of two renowned photographers: David Plowden and Stephen Shore. Architecture was the centre focus of their images, which are part of the broad tradition of depicting American everyday life. We will analyse and compare them with the purpose of identifying their frictions and, more importantly, the values that transformed each of them from the ordinary into a perfect tool to deal with the strange and unstable material situation lived in post-war America.
Bibliographic References
- Agee, James, and Walker Evans. Elogiemos ahora a hombres famosos. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, S.A., 2008.
- Blake, Peter. "The Ugly America." Horizon, May 1961, (1961).
- Foster-Rice, Greg, and John Rohrbach, eds. Reframing The New Topographics. Chicago: Center for American Places at Columbia College, 2010.
- Foster, Hal, Rosalind E. Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. Arte desde 1900: modernidad, antimodernidad, posmodernidad. Tres Cantos (Madrid): Akal, 2006.
- Glacken, Clarence J. "Changing ideas of the habitable world." In Man's role in changing the face of the Earth, edited by William L. Thomas, 70-92. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1956.
- Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Scribner, 1997.
- Jakle, John A., and Keith A. Sculle. The Gas Station in America (Creating the North America Landscape). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
- Jameson, Fredric. "Equivalentes espaciales en el sistema mundial." In Teoría de la postmodernidad, edited by Fredric Jameson, 127-54. Madrid: Trotta, 1996.
- Jurovics, Toby. "Same as it never was: Re-reading New Topographics." In Reframing The New Topographics, edited by Greg Foster-Rice and John Rohrbach, 1-12. Chicago: Center for American Places at Columbia College, 2010.
- Lefebvre, Henri. La vida cotidiana en el mundo moderno. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, S.A., 1972.
- Lewis, Peirce K. "Axioms for reading the landscape. Some Guides to the American Scene." In The interpretation of ordinary landscapes: Geographical Essays, edited by Donald. W. Meinig and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, 11-32. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
- Plowden, David. The hand of man on America. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971.
- Plowden, David. Commonplace. New York: Sunrise Books, 1974.
- Plowden, David. Imprints: David Plowden, a retrospective. Boston: Little, Brown, 1997.
- Riley, Robert B., and Brenda J. Brown. "Most Influential Books." Landscape Journal no. 2, 10 (Fall 1991), (1991), 173-86.
- Ruscha, Edward. Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations. n.p.: Ed Ruscha, 1962.
- Santamarina-Macho, Carlos. 2016. Cultura y representación del man-made landscape. La construcción de la imagen de un territorio. EE.UU. 1925-1975, Departamento de Urbanismo y Representación de la Arquitectura, Universidad de Valladolid, Tesis doctoral inédita.
- Shore, Stephen. Uncommon places: photographs. Millerton, New York: Aperture; Viking Penguin, 1982.
- Shore, Stephen. American surfaces. London: Phaidon, 2005.
- Shore, Stephen. A road trip. London: Phaidon, 2008.
- Shore, Stephen, Marta Dahó, Horacio Fernández, and Sandra S. Phillips. Stephen Shore. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2014.
- Shore, Stephen, and Lynne Tillman. Uncommon places The complete work: Aperture, 2005.
- Szarkowski, John. Walker Evans. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1971.
- Trachtenberg, Alan. "From Image to Story. Reading the File." In Documenting America, 1935-1943 (Approaches to American Culture), edited by Carl Fleischauer and Beverly Brannan, 43-73. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1988.
- Venturi, Robert. Complejidad y contradicción en la arquitectura. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.A., 2003.
- Venturi, Robert, and Steven Izenour. Signs of Life: Symbols in the American City. New York: Aperture Inc., 1976.
- Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Aprendiendo de Las Vegas: El simbolismo olvidado de la forma arquitectónica. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili S.L., 2008.