Politecnico di Milano
“For the General Public: Architecture between Debate, Dissemination, and Narrative Strategies”
december, 2025
The conference was on architectural communication for the general public. I was 22, the youngest person in the room, and surrounded entirely by PhD researchers. I presented a paper arguing that memes (yes, memes!) aren't trivialising architecture but extending it. Platforms like Instagram and the entire genre of architectural meme accounts are making architecture accessible to people who weren't looking for it.
The presentation argued that architectural communication has always evolved from specialist journals to mainstream magazines to internet vernaculars. What might look like trivialisation is actually expansion.
Turns out arguing that memes are a legitimate form of public pedagogy to a room full of academics is surprisingly good preparation for explaining anything to anyone.