Manfredo Tafuri: From the Critique of Ideology to Microhistories

Manfredo Tafuri is best known for the two books he published: 'Theories and History of Architecture' (1968) and 'Architecture and Utopia' (1973). Being generally reduced to the notion that he abandoned the study of modern architecture in favour of what is almost perceived as a regression to Renaissance studies, the aim of this essay is to better articulate and historically contextualize Tafuri's passage from the critique of ideology to a model of architectural history: a model that has a cross-disciplinary approach and for which philology is a fundamental methodological tool. At the same time, this passage does not represent an abandonment of his intention to write a politically committed history, but rather a shift in the tactics employed to achieve this aim. In this essay, Carla Keyvanian puts to discussion the subject of Architectural history and in particular the difference between the critique of ideologies and "microhistories." A microhistory, as Keyvanian explains, is "an in depth analysis of a closely circumscribed field of inquiry capable of shedding light on broader and historical issues." The article provides an insightful discussion of how a Marxist dialectician shifted his line of inquiry without abandoning the philosophic foundations of his vision.