Architecture and the Critique of Ideology Essay

Architecture and the Critique of Ideology - Essay Example In effect, architecture can serve as critique of ideological beliefs as much as it is a testament to it by its design and object. Relating these concepts to that of architecture one realizes that as architecture characterizes ideology it also drives it. Therefore it can be expected that given enough time the ideology that drives the precepts of ideology today will eventually off shoot to contradict it self or diverge to form a totally new ideology. Jameson cites that "The new Utopianism for high modernism thus unwittingly and against the very spirit of its own revolutionary and Utopian affirmations prepared the terrain for the omnipotence of the full "rationalized" technocratic plan" (457). The promotion of ideology needs a high degree of economics and it can not be conclusively be considered a representative of the whole society. Instead, it can be simply driven as the interest of those who control the greatest interest in society (Pinker). For example, the emphasis in the ideal Utopian society may be in the theme of creating a model society but there is an underlying motivation by those who control the construction and organization of the city (Jameson 452). For city administrators, they will likely benefit from the organization by easing management burden. For those constructing the city itself, there are driven by the assumption that the Utopian settings will provide them limitless potential for expansion. This supports Richard Lewis' view that ideology is a practical means of defining society and delineating its identity from that of others (30). By channeling these ideologies in architecture, the ideologies are given concrete and substantial testament when they are adapted or shunned by other cultures. Constraints Karl Marx's view on ideology presented it as the ideas of the ruling class, that legitimate the rule of the bourgeois class, as a means of hiding the true state of social conditions such as oppression and inequality. He believed that these ideologies produced a false sense of consciousness and furthered bourgeois class domination over the disenfranchised in society (Goldman 71). In this way, ideology is structured as the foundation of the state of power in a society giving legitimacy to the action in support of the ideology. At the same time, Marxian ideologies also serve as a contradiction to the existing system particularly in economics (Jameson 450). The distinction of an ideology does not lie on the utility of the ideology but rather should be on the ideas that constitute the ideology itself. Otherwise, the tendency is for the development of far-reaching interpretations that can prompt action against others. According to Ernst Bloch, one of the main dilemmas in the concept of ideology is that when it is "broached from the side of the problem of cultural inheritance, of the problem as to how works of the superstructure progressively reproduce themselves in cultural consciousness even after disappearance of their social bases". Therefore, the ideologies may contain the same core ideas like in the case of religions but the cultural components that influence the practice of the religion and the individuals who practice it create the variances that delineate them