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Architectural Criticism and Cultural Satire in the 1980s:shared territories and languagesMichela Rosso,Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di TorinoThroughout the last century, no other decade like the 1980s seems to have marked a comparable contribution in raising the visibility of architecture as a matter of general concern: no longer confined to the realm of the profession, architecture began to be regularly featured in the general press. Not coincidentally it is around that period that modernism became the object of some of the most vigorous attacks launched by commentators well outside the professional circles. Tom Wolfe’s famous pamphlet From Bauhaus to Our House or Prince Charles’ controversial architectural speeches, are telling episodes of a diffused perception of the distance separating the general public of architecture and the often self-referential world of the profession.The aim of this paper is to examine significant examples of architectural criticism voiced by the general press during the 1980s in Britain and the USA. Particular attention will be devoted to the modes of interaction and contamination of this type of criticism with the genre of political and cultural satirical writings.The following issues will be at stake: which rhetorics, patterns of interpretation, and schemes of narration did this type of criticism borrow from the realm of cultural and political journalism? How did the use of specific modes of description and registers of expression, such as irony, exaggeration, distortion and caricature, affect the architectural judgment? In which ways and through which languages were specific aspects of the buildings and/or the architectural profession addressed and criticized? What were the issues tackled by critics and other kinds of writers by means of satire? What were the recurring targets of this type of criticism? And finally: Did this shared set of tools and languages question the idea of architectural criticism as an autonomous or disciplinary discourse?&#160;Michela Rosso is Associate Professor at the Politecnico di Torino – Italy, where she received a Bachelor in Architecture, and since 2001 has taught courses of History and Theory of Architecture, History and Theory of Design, History of Architectural Criticism, History of Architectural and Urban Historiography, History of Urbanism and Urban Culture, History of the Architecture of Turin to undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Degree, Master and PhD Programs. In 1998 she completed a doctorate in History of Architecture and Urbanism on the biography of the architectural historian John N. Summerson. She then extended her field of research to the English architectural scene of the 1920s -1950s and to the impact and reception of the work of the art and architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner within the English architectural and art-historical circles. On this subject she published La storia utile (Torino: Einaudi 2001) in which she has dealt with architectural history in England in relation to modernist avant-gardes, and the politics of architectural heritage.