Perspectives on Verticality in the Seventies. Intellectual Networks, Themes and Representations

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the reconstruction of the debate on verticality during the 1970s. In line with this objective, the hypothesis argues that, during this period, discussions of international scope took place that profoundly transformed the “ways of seeing” this phenomenon. In particular, a shift can be observed in the assessments of high-rise constructions, which ceased to be understood exclusively as symbols of progress and modernity and instead became the object of a problematizing and largely disenchanted reading, associated with the negative effects of verticalization in a broad sense that goes beyond the strictly architectural field to encompass social, economic, and environmental dimensions. To corroborate this, the article analyzes a fragment of that debate through specific exchanges among four issues of architecture magazines from different countries –L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Summa, Casabella and Oppositions– published between 1975 and 1977.