Dreams of reason: the Genealogy of the Paradigms for a Theory of Planning in the Thought of Fernando Terán

Abstract

In what he sees as a period of epistemological and control crisis the author fi nds a re-examining of
the key planning notions of Fernando Terán of signal importance in the defi ning of the corner stones
of what planning has since become. This however he fi nds no small undertaking given the protean
modulations of this discourse in constant evolution and, in the main, heuristic in character. Terán’s
thinking was not a fi nished architectural doctrine but rather an epistemological assault on the
obstacles obstructing the ethical imperative that should justify the collective drive to build a-right
both the city and Territory. In the paper and from this standpoint his thinking is examined in terms
of the key paradigms by him established in their dialectical relating to the then intellectual, social
and political universe of discourse into which they were brought forth by their author as follows: 1.
criticism of the institutional framework and plans as a means of governing territory. 2. criticism of
positivist planning: history seen here as a methodological instrument. 3. criticism of technocratic
planning: T&C from the base upwards. 4. criticism of neo-liberal de-regularization: planning seen
as an expression of the collective will’s wishes for both city and territory. 5. criticism of architectonic
projects as autonomic instruments for city building and 6, planning in an undeterminable and
uncertain context.