Micro “versus” local y general

reflections about the scales of research in history of architecture

Abstract

Jacques Revel affirms that microanalysis –usually known as microhistory– “has been the historiographical avenue for a new focus on the problem of scales in historical analysis” (Revel, 1996-2005). According to Giovanni Levi, microhistory is “method and not theory”, since its intention is that “when observing the documents under the microscope, problems and realities arise that escape immediate reading and suggest new general questions” (Levi, 2019). Following these conceptualizations arising from social History, this article links them to the disciplinary field of History of Architecture and its practices in our environment. Having first identified the macro-micro and micro-local oppositions, a research experience at a micro scale –carried out by this author– is then exposed about “vivienda masiva desarrollista en Argentina” understood as ‘dispositif’. The closing offers questions and hypotheses around the problem of the scales of research in our discipline and a self-critical look to the own investigation.