Ciudad compacta, ciudad dispersa. Lenguaje y manipulación en la comunicación gráfica arquitectónica comercial

Abstract

The image has acquired a predominant role in the architectural discourse, reducing

the space to an object of visual consumption. The current ocularcentrism hege- mony constitutes a base in the architectural and urban conception. Thus, architec- ture rather than a space, is an image with its own language, susceptible of multiple

interpretations. Under this principle, certain values are associated in an adulterated way to recurrent elements, generating dynamics of manipulation in their graphic

communication. With this background, two urban models are contrasted: the com- pact city and the sprawled city. The approach to its symbolic intentionality is based

on the categories given to “function and sign in architecture”, proposed by Umberto Eco: primary (denotative) and secondary (connotative) functions. These concepts have been applied in the analysis of the graphics of two Ecuadorian magazines, one

of specialized diffusion (Trama) and one of popular diffusion (El Portal). The contras- ting of the found values finally generates a discussion about the graphic language,

its ethics, and the role of the graphics of other categories of architectural diffusion, such as the scientific magazines or the ‘little magazines’ of 1960’s – 1970’s in res- ponse to the “society of the spectacle” of that time.