SUBURBANISM

Talking about the suburb from the point of view of its production, reproduction and consumption implies looking at its meaning in terms of representation. The term does not have an autonomous meaning and its ambiguity is based on its marginal, peripheral character, but also on the paradox it embodies: being, simultaneously, an escape from the city and a self-destructive ghost, which needs to be transformed. This ambiguity has, for a long time, led architects to seek to urbanize the suburban, or to suburbanize the city and reflects the absence of suburbs as an autonomous research corpus, as well as the lack of a discourse on the suburban areas based in references other than those of the traditional practice of urbanism. By continuing to think the suburb as an evil to be eliminated, we risk never getting involved with its real issues, trying to mask the suburban as urban and continuing to deny its distinct nature. Discovering suburbanism as a discipline and the suburb as a project is the major challenge for contemporary architects.