199verting every intentional critical reaction into an impulse that supports the system
through the game of fashion.^107
But even when they are rather pessimistic with respect to the possibility of cri-
tique, poststructuralists nevertheless repeatedly argue for subversive attitudes and
oppositional activities. No longer do these pleas represent an unassailable belief in
the project of modernity, but they are symptomatic of a desire to take a stand against
the status quo and to break the dominance of the prevailing system. In Lyotard, for
instance, this strategy takes on the form of a “rewriting of modernity,” with explicit
reference to the aims of Adorno, Bloch, and Benjamin.^108 This rewriting, in his view,
should take the form of what Freud calls Durcharbeitung, a working through or out,
a reflective questioning of what is fundamentally concealed. Durcharbeitungin psy-
choanalysis is not just a matter of rationality; it depends rather on having access to
memories and associations that should receive an equal amount of attention from
the analyst, independent of their logical, ethical, or aesthetic relevance. As I see it,
what is involved here is a mimetic operation: rewriting modernity means rethinking
it in terms other than just those of objectifying rationality.^109
From all this one can conclude that mimesis provides one with a key for deal-
ing with reality in anotherway, thus developing margins for critique. Both the work
of Adorno and Benjamin and the more recent writings of poststructuralist authors
point in this direction. Does it follow that mimesis can also play a critical role in ar-
chitecture? Can architecture by making use of mimesis—consciously and delib-
erately or otherwise—develop strategies by which it can present itself as critical
architecture?
There are undoubtedly arguments for answering this question in the negative.
The main objection is that architecture is not an autonomous art form: architecture is
always built as the result of a commission from somebody or other; for reasons of
social usefulness it must conform to prevailing expectations. Architecture, if it is ac-
tually to be built, is almost unavoidably on the side of money and power, thus sup-
porting the status quo.
This argument is valid and can be applied to a very high percentage of what is
built. It does not, however, cover architecture entirely. For in analogy with Adorno’s
argument about the dual character of artworks—that they are both socially deter-
mined andautonomous—one can argue that architecture as a discipline that has to
do with the designing of space does involve an autonomous moment. It is true of
course that architecture, more so than literature or the visual arts, is determined by
social factors: in the end not only materials and techniques but also context and pro-
gram are the net result of a series of social determinants. Even so, architecture can-
not simply be reduced to a sort of sum total of these factors. Giving form to space
cannot be reduced to a simple conformity to heteronomous principles, such as func-
tional or constructional requirements, the psychological needs of the users, or the
image a building is intended to convey. There is always an autonomous moment in198