Demedicalize Architecture

Abstract

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) long ago observed, “In the order of things it is found that one never seeks to avoid one inconvenience without running into another; but prudence consists in knowing how to recognize the qualities of inconveniences, and in picking the less bad as good.” Given these complex conditions of engagement, it is critical that the relationship between architecture and health be revised. While perhaps partly responsible, architecture is not always capable of providing positive solutions for the environment or the “sick” body. Instead, a confused and anxious contemporary architecture struggles to produce new manifestations that avoid exalting the spectacle of capital of the last twenty years. While architecture is looking once again into the ambiguous political, cultural, moral, and, above all, social ideas of health and medicalization for both justification and a new mandate, it should seek to challenge – rather than pacify – the newly emerging neo-liberal agenda and question a medicalized vision and approach toward health issues.