Estrangement and the Metropolis: an enquiry into the discursiveness of modern form

Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, David Cunningham

The thesis examines how the concept of estrangement was employed by architectural practice in order to disclose analogous social considerations and how these enforced certain types of architectural form - especially if we regard architectural form as a constituent element of the extended urban territory. Particular architectural projects of the Interwar period in Europe are analyzed and their formal language interpreted, and along these lines the latter is determined as a narrative reaching beyond the language of architecture to the scale of the city. The dissertation presents the narrative of the modern metropolis and the ‘estranged’ human collective that inhabits it through a unitary conception of city and architecture, considering that the latter eventually constitutes a mechanism for the articulation of urban conditions and moreover a potential agent of political, social or cultural critique.

Alexandra Vougia (Thessaloniki, 1983) graduated in 2007 from the Faculty of Architecture of the Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece with Honours, and holds a Master of Science degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University (2008). She has worked as an architect in New York (Morris Sato Studio) and Athens (A. N. Tombazis & Associates Architects), before beginning her PhD research at the AA in 2011.


[IMAGE] ABC, “ABC Demands the Dictatorship of the Machine - ABC fordert die Diktatur der Maschine.”
In ABC – Beiträge zum Bauen: 1924-1928. Eindhoven: Afdeling Bouwkunde-Technische Hogeschool, 1969.