November \;2014: \;Architecture
\nAdvisory \;editors: Elisa Di Stefano\, Francesco Vitale (mail to: \;elisabettadistefano@gmail.com\,fvitale@unisa.it&lrm\; \;and \;rivista.estetica@gmail.com)
Deadline \;for submission: November\, 30\, 2013
Since the beginning architecture \;is a two-headed art as it is anchored on the field of the functional (see the \;functionalist drifts supported by the theorists of the Modernism in \;various \;forms) as well as on the field of the beautiful (which\, in extreme cases\, takes \;it to those forms of sculpture/architecture where the use destination annuls \;itself in the \;aesthetic experience). This issue of the &ldquo\;Rivista di Estetica&rdquo\; \;aims to account for the status of the contemporary debate\, in the analytic and \;continental area\, by focusing on \;the questions which nowadays society poses to \;architecture. Therefore\, what is the meaning of the dialectics between the \;functional and the beautiful in the contemporary \;architectural culture? To what \;extent can the aesthetic investigation contribute to the critical debate where \;the artistic and aesthetic dimension of architecture is pointed at \;from \;different perspectives as the legitimacy of a self-referential architecture\, \;which is oriented to purely commercial values and is reduced to a media \;instrument\, to means \;of cultural colonization? New issues related to \;globalization\, ecology\, landscape and environmental protection require an \;interdisciplinary approach and\, above all\, the \;retrieval of an ethics of \;responsibility. If the contemporary technocratic society too often sets the \;reasons of the profit above those of ethics\, aesthetics\, culture and even life\, \;it is perhaps possible\, through a new dialogue with classics\, with the great \;masters of the past\, to rebuild paradigms which can refer architecture back to \;its thousand-year \;task: the material and symbolical elaboration of the vital \;space of man. In this perspective\, the issue of the &ldquo\;Rivista di Estetica&rdquo\; is \;open to the contribution of scholars of \;aesthetics as well as of scholars of \;other philosophical disciplines\, humanities and architecture\, and of architects \;directly involved in the design practice. \; \; \; \; \; \; \;