adolescent architecture Shifting features of the architectural medium, its institutions and practitioners at the turn of the 21th century.

The thesis titled Adolescent Architecture: Shifting Features of the Architectural Medium, Its Institutions, and Practitioners at the Turn of the 21st Century aims to investigate one of the ontological transformations undergone by the architectural discipline—its contexts, media, and purposes—as well as its agents, during the period from 1970 to the early 2000s in the Western context. It traces the development of a disciplinary discourse within architectural culture, one that—through formats such as museums, magazines, festivals, and universities— has shaped and redefined architectural discourse as a complex cultural phenomenon. The gradual emergence of what this thesis defines as a cultural infrastructure dedicated to architecture serves both as an object of analysis and as a lens through which to examine the discipline’s engagement with the broader cultural industry. No longer solely focused on the realization of material services, architectural culture is examined as a methodology, a system of knowledge, and a form of entertainment. Through its hybridization with other disciplinary fields, it inherits not only procedures and topics but, above all, systems of production, communication, and economies. By examining the historical, social, and communication technology conditions that facilitated this disciplinary expansion at the end of the 21st century, the thesis portrays the emergence of tools, platforms, and contexts – beginning with the exhibition format – through which 3 ABSTRACT architecture began to be delivered and consumed, thus rewriting its goals, clients, and responsibilities. Methodologically, the thesis seeks to gather and critically reconstruct the historical precedents to the contemporary establishment of a practice-transforming cultural infrastructure dedicated to architecture – through an archival compost rather than a selection of case studies. This metamorphic tension and disciplinary indeterminacy is described in the thesis as adolescent. On one hand, it reflects the relentless search for diverse outputs within the architectural culture; on the other, it analyzes the interdependent relationships and subjectivities fostered by the proliferation of physical and digital disciplinary platforms. In other words: How do these cultural infrastructures sustain and foster an ongoing disciplinary adolescence?