Contemporary Architecture to the test of the History of Constructors

Centered on singular biographies, outstanding architectures, or big events, the prevailing narratives of architectural history seldom consider the involvement of other actors in the processes leading to the realization of built artifacts. If the role plaid by clients has received some attention in the past, little reflection seems to have been undertaken regarding the part that contractors, construction companies and technology providers normally have in the design and building activities. The history of Permasteelisa, as the amalgamation of three pre-existing industrial realities, challenges these deeply rooted historiographical views. While the development of the company’s portfolio appears at first to be overlapping with the current narratives of the history of architecture since 1945, it is evident that the responsibility for the aesthetic, functional and technological decisions that characterize the works presented in these outlines needs to be reassessed. This essay intends to use the case of Permasteelisa to reexamine the relation between the different actors that participate in the design process. By placing “high-profile” buildings in a wider epistemological context, it aims to lay the ground for a new historiographical approach that looks at architecture not merely as the result of select individual choices but as a collective and more complex endeavor.