The Berlage

There are many accounts of structuralist Marxism, but none that have considered what this theory might mean for an actual Marxist structure, like the building Oscar Niemeyer was commissioned to design in Paris in 1965 to represent the French Communist Party.  In Mysteries of a Communist Cave, Lytle Shaw investigates each component of Niemeyer's elegant headquarters in relation to the transformations in politics, architecture, art and philosophy that were being played out both in the building's front yard and across the world, including in Brazil, from where its Marxist architect had himself recently fled. In this lecture, Shaw will expand upon the study's central arguments and sketch their context a bit more broadly than was possible in the published book.