Mariapaola Michelotto
Explore Lab
Città Fabbrica: From the City of Production to the Productive City
The project takes as a case study the monotown of Togliatti, the largest built in Soviet Union as an industrial complex for FIAT car manufacturing. Due to the current economic stagnation in Russia, the town is experiencing a state of crisis, proving the need of finding alternative productive sources. Relating to the contemporary debate on the productive means of the capitalist system, the project deals with the current transformation of the concept of production, that is gradually shifting from production of goods to production of knowledge. While blurring the border between life and work, architecture turns into an instrument of control that imposes hierarchical systems over everyday life.
Highlighting the need of a transformation in the design processes and goals, the project considers architecture not as a problem solving practice or a profit maker tool, but as an instrument to investigate new ways of working and living, putting forward an alternative that wants to question the way we design contemporary architecture.