145of a critical position of this sort is Sigfried Giedion—who consequently becomes the
target of Tafuri’s polemic. Giedion claimed that history is no neutral discipline but that
it should make a contribution to overcoming the evils of one’s own time. For this rea-
son he deliberately embraced the cause of modern architecture, and his writings
therefore have the character of an apology. His working method, however, leads in-
evitably to a selective history, which on a fairly subjective basis chooses to deal with
a number of developments while omitting others. Furthermore, in Tafuri’s view,
Giedion’s interpretation tends to distort the historical facts in order to fit them into an
a priori pattern of development.^178
This manner of writing history overshoots the mark, however, because “in-
stead of making history, one makes ideology: which besides betraying the task of his-
tory, hides the real possibilities of transforming reality.”^179 Since operative criticism
hides historical reality behind an ideological veil, the possibilities of change that are
genuinely present are not perceived. The resulting distortion of history means that
rigorous analysis is replaced by mystification and prejudice. A procedure of this sort
can only end in self-deception.
Tafuri opposes the notion of operative criticism with that of historic criticism:
in his view, criticism and history are identical—in other words, architectural criticism
should always be historic criticism;^180 what is more, there is a hiatus between ar-
chitectural criticism on the one hand and architectural practice on the other.^181 Ar-
chitectural criticism (architectural history, that is) cannot be expected to offer any
ready-made solutions for the problems that occur in the practice of the profession.
All that history and criticism can do is to help clarify the context—in the broadest
sense of the word—within which architectural production is carried out; they cannot
provide any guidelines for its future development.^182
It is this idea, according to Jameson, that lies behind what is generally as-
sumed to be Tafuri’s “pessimistic” attitude toward the possibilities of contemporary
architecture. Indeed, Tafuri’s condemning the principle of operative criticism makes
it by definition impossible for him to undertake the defense of any contemporary cur-
rent or figure whatsoever. His notorious pronouncements about the impossibility for
contemporary architecture to achieve anything more than “sublime uselessness”^183
should be seen in this light: rather than a carefully considered and definitive “posi-
tion,” they constitute a formal necessity within the broader structure of Tafuri’s
text.^184 Jameson in fact correctly points out that in his studies of specific cases, the
Italian historian has a much more subtle and nonpartisan judgment than his some-
times rather extreme utterances would lead one to suspect. Like Cacciari, Tafuri
tones down the radicalism of his theoretical position with the subtlety and philologi-
cal detail of his concrete interpretations.
In the end, however, it must be admitted that both Tafuri and Cacciari seem to
have a rather monolithic notion of history. They see modernity as an increasingly to-
talitarian, closed system within which concrete political and cultural practice appears
to have no genuine impact on the course of historical development. Their theory dis-144