Architectures, Nomads, Wanderers

This essay will investigate the possibility of a nomadic and wandering architecture, in opposition – however apparent – to the voluntary imprisonment elevated to paradigmatic living conditions of the contemporary world; hence, the full, closed space of everyday life will be opposed by the empty, open space of nomadism from which we come; the striated space of walls will be opposed by the smooth space of the desert. Although, in fact, the spaces for welcoming temporary nomads (nom-de-plum of the many tormented ‘tourists’) can be configured as exclusive enclaves or homologating and homologated architectures – ‘the idea has taken hold that tourists are citizens of a state composed of countless enclaves wedged into as many states, where the inhabitants are finally spared the permanent shock of foreignness by closing themselves off in compounds and resorts’, nomadism, if radical, can have a subversive nature and create spaces of resistance against statehood, or private entities. So, here we will move away from the theorization of a world resolved in a plethora of immune monads barricaded behind imposing surveillance systems, to deviate towards the possibility of a nomadic and wandering architecture – inhabited by mobile, thieving and stealing away singularities – in the awareness that, like all of us, 'ce que je souhaite au fond, c’est pratiquer le tourisme'.