'There Are Alternatives to Square Boxes': Rivolta Architettonica's Practices of Resistance and Media Resilience

Abstract

This article investigates Rivolta Architettonica (RA), the Italian section of the transnational network Architectural Uprising (AU), showing how the movement builds aesthetic counter-narratives and forms of communicative resilience within today's hybrid-media ecology. Using Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) on Instagram posts published in a year, the study examines the interplay among discursive choices, visual techniques and semiotic oppositions (e.g., before/after, beauty/ugliness, tradition/modernism) that sustain frames of resistance and mobilization practices. Adopting the Communicative Resilience Theory, the study treats resilience as a communicative process that through recurring practices enables collectives to reimagine "urban normality". The RA case highlights: (i) the democratization of aesthetic judgment as a lever of civic inclusion; (ii) the strategic use of visual comparison to foreground what is at stake in the city; (iii) recurring calls to action that turn followers into issue publics. We discuss contributions and limitations with respect to polarization and crises of trust in expertise and conclude with implications for the study of media-based urban movements.