La cambiante simbología de lo ordinario. Una aproximación visual americana

Carlos Santamarina-Macho

doi:10.4995/vlc.2017.6954

Authors

Carlos Santamarina-Macho Universidad de Valladolid https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7436-4876

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4995/vlc.2017.6954

Keywords:

Commonplace, Man-made landscape, Vernacular architecture, Photography, United States of America

Abstract

The concept of “the ordinary” has become an ever more usual reference in the analysis of certain architectonic and territorial situations; but also social ones, which seem to escape any order set by planning. Nonetheless, the word still carries a rather ambiguous meaning, because not only the term is in itself polysemic, but also because it can have several interpretations, sometimes in a contradictory way, depending on the area of study, the time or the place in which it is used. This text addresses some of these apparent contradictions through a selection of visual expressions that emerge from the reassessment of “the ordinary” within a particular context: America in the seventies. To illustrate our views, we will use the work of two renowned photographers: David Plowden and Stephen Shore. Architecture was the centre focus of their images, which are part of the broad tradition of depicting American everyday life. We will analyse and compare them with the purpose of identifying their frictions and, more importantly, the values that transformed each of them from the ordinary into a perfect tool to deal with the strange and unstable material situation lived in post-war America.

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Author Biography

Carlos Santamarina-Macho, Universidad de Valladolid

Carlos Santamarina-Macho(Gijón, 1981) es arquitecto por la E.T.S.A. de la Universidad de Valladolid (Premio Extraordinario Fin de Carrera, 2005), master en Restauración Arquitectónica (2007) y doctor por la misma universidad (Sobresaliente Cum Laude, 2016) con la tesis “Cultura y representación del man-made landscape. La construcción de la imagen de un territorio: EE. UU.; 1925-1975. Actualmente compagina la docencia en el Departamento de Teoría de la Arquitectura y Proyectos Arquitectónicos, con la actividad profesional vinculada a la planificación urbanística y ordenación del territorio.

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