Manfredo Tafuri and the critique of realism

One of the main themes of Manfredo Tafuri's historical work, whether he was analyzing Renaissance, Enlightenment or the 20th century architecture, has been that of trying to illustrate the distance between architect's work and reality. This topic is also the premise, the introductory theoretical frame for his critical and historical discourses that are inherent to his "critique of realism": a critique that was expressed in the essay Architettura e Realismo [Architecture and Realism], published in 1985. A text that represented the conclusion of Tafuri's observation on the Italian postwar architectural culture. In this essay the Italian neorealism became the object of a rather unique historical contextualization, the object of Tafuri's deep critique and, ultimately, of his demystification.