Emancipación y arquitectura a partir de la vivienda obrera: Apuntes genealógicos del concepto de habitar en la arquitectura.

José Sanchez Laulhe; Ester Gisbert Alemany; Enrique Nieto Fernández

doi:10.12795/astragalo.2025.i38.03

Authors

José Sanchez Laulhe Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Departamento de Artes y Humanidades, Grado de Diseño Integral y Gestión de la Imagen, Madrid https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1813-6224
Ester Gisbert Alemany Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión gráfica, composición y proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Alicante https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0612-1159
Enrique Nieto Fernández Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión gráfica, composición y proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Alicante https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8513-7115

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12795/astragalo.2025.i38.03

Keywords:

genealogy, working-class housing, hygienism, authority, architect

Abstract

This research explores the role that the working-class housing project played throughout the 19th century in shaping the architectural discipline as we have inherited it. This was a period in which modern disciplines were consolidated through the demarcation of their competencies and training processes in universities. We will see that the housing project incorporated criteria from which to validate architecture as a knowledge with a scientific basis and assigned a function to architecture within a broader social transformation promoted by the liberal bourgeoisie. From the hegemony established in the realm of housing, the architect as an expert would appropriate the exclusive role of overseeing and controlling everything built through a series of protocols and codifications. For this research, the contributions of Michel Foucault have been fundamental in demonstrating how the legal and social legitimization of psychiatry as a set of knowledge was achieved through science, allowing it to be defined as objective. As in the genealogy of architecture, in its genealogy, it would not be important whether psychiatry adhered to the precepts of a science, but rather how science supported certain methodologies and elevated certain professionals as experts. As a conclusion, we will propose that the architect, as an expert, constructed their specificity based on the following question: Does this building, and primarily this housing, pose a physical or moral danger to society?

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Author Biographies

José Sanchez Laulhe, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Departamento de Artes y Humanidades, Grado de Diseño Integral y Gestión de la Imagen, Madrid

José Sánchez-Laulhé is the project manager of the cooperative Tejares Once SCA. As a researcher, he specializes in digital fabrication with projects such as FabMóvil (selected for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale), 3D Medifi and ProtoFab (European projects within the Fabulous consortium), or Redesigning Gardens in the Air (part of the recent European LAUDS call). He has also explored alternative architectural historiographies in the book Conversaciones con Antonio Sáseta and in his doctoral thesis, Hackitectura (2001–2010): A History of 21st-Century Territorial Conflicts. Other research areas include the sociocultural transformations resulting from the digital platforms' monopoly over our memories, industries, and crafts in contemporary cities, as well as their connection to industrial heritage (through projects such as Ehcofab and T11). He also investigates biopolitics and Michel Foucault's spatial theories, as well as the climate crisis through his various experiences at AEMET.

Ester Gisbert Alemany, Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión gráfica, composición y proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Alicante

Ester Gisbert Alemany is an architect since 2010 and holds a PhD since 2022. She understands design anthropology as a way to overcome an object-centered approach to architecture and to develop urban and territorial practices in correspondence with a continuously evolving world. She has been trained in feminist research methodologies, and her articles on architecture, urbanism, and its pedagogy — from the perspective of Science and Technology Studies — have been published in international journals and conferences. Her current research focuses on the evolution of Mediterranean coastal landscapes, the urbanization processes derived from tourism, and is developed as a practice-based investigation. She has given lectures and workshops on the everyday and distributed construction of the environment at conferences, professional associations, universities, and other institutions. She directs, coordinates, and designs landscape and local development projects from the creative studio Drassana.

Enrique Nieto Fernández, Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión gráfica, composición y proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Alicante

Enrique Nieto Fernández is an architect since 1994 and holds a PhD since 2012. As a researcher, he focuses on articulating the concerns of a heterogeneous group of people about the present and future of architectural practices around three key themes (pedagogies, politics, and practices) and three adjectives (critical, ecological, and material). His doctoral thesis, titled ¡...PRESCINDIBLE ORGANIZADO!: Agenda docente para una formulación afectiva y disidente del proyecto arquitectónico, aims to explore alternative approaches to disciplinary practice based on the teaching experiences at UA. His research advocates for the political necessity of allowing an institution to be built also from the knowledge students possess, which must be integrated into the classroom. His work has been recognized in the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture — Mies van der Rohe Award, the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, and the Architecture Awards of the Region of Murcia.

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