In the period following WWII, ideology critique was often characterized as a science. The French philosopher Louis Althusser epitomized this stance, updating Marx's theories to analyze the growing tertiary economy in Europe. In social theory, literary criticism, and philosophy, "historical materialism" positioned itself as a science in competition with the "positivist" science of other disciplines. This Marxist science was imported into American academic architecture in the 1970s, and it became the mainstream of architecture theory in the 1990s. This paper examines what characterized ideology critique in Europe and how it was transformed in its trans-Atlantic journey.
I will focus, first, on the IUAV and analyze how this higher education institution in Venice developed a "scientific" research program that generated and accumulated knowledge. A leading figure at the IUAV, Manfredo Tafuri, developed a mode of writing to describe the contradictions that provided, in his view, the motive force of architectural history.
I will turn, second, to one of Tafuri's American interpreters, the literary theorist Fredric Jameson. Jameson retained Tafuri's dialectical mode of writing but abandoned the IUAV's research program. I will describe the features of Jameson's writing that made it "scientific," including his reliance on para-textual diagrams and formulae, and how ideology critique disseminated through a unique discourse network of conferences, publications, and teaching.
Today, as many figures in architecture theory are aligned against "instrumentality" and science generally, it may be useful to remember their predecessors, who had a less monolithic view of science – and saw themselves as scientists.
