Over the last two decades, the spread of digital platforms based on image sharing—Instagram foremost among them, followed by Pinterest, TikTok, and their various counterparts—has introduced a new variable into the production of the built environment, one that has acquired considerable significance. The visibility of a building is no longer measured solely by its physical presence within the city, the quality of its construction, or its recognition by professional critics. It is also measured, and in some contexts predominantly so, by the number of times that architecture appears as a backdrop in photographs taken by users, by its ability to generate shares, geotags, and hashtags, and by its potential to become a place people wish to visit, perhaps because they have already encountered it on a screen. This thesis aims to analyze the relationship between social media and architectural design along four main lines of inquiry. The first concerns the academic and professional literature that has documented and theorized the phenomenon: who has described it, through which conceptual tools, and with what conclusions. The second concerns the concrete cases in which this phenomenon can be observed: buildings explicitly designed to respond to the visual criteria of digital platforms, as well as architectural works that, although not conceived with this intention, have become objects of digital cult status, producing measurable effects on visitor flows, the reputation of places, and, in turn, subsequent design choices. The third line of inquiry focuses specifically on Milan, a city that, within the span of a decade, has seen the emergence of some of the most photographed and photogenic places in Italy and has directly experienced the interplay between architecture and digital platforms. The fourth, which is more closely related to my own approach to analyzing the phenomenon and represents the continuation of a photographic project begun twenty-four years ago, concerns the production of a series of photographs taken in selected sites of interest throughout the city of Milan. These images highlight both the phenomenon of continuous personal documentation and some of the aesthetic and formal qualities of the chosen locations. The objective of this thesis is to document a phenomenon, describe its mechanisms, and discuss its implications for the architectural discipline. Accordingly, no judgments are expressed regarding the architectural quality of the works cited. The thesis originates from a personal photographic project that has, for years, documented the ways in which people photograph themselves within spaces, ranging from contextualized tourist souvenir photographs to the countless documentary images produced everywhere following the advent of social networks and the widespread use of smartphones. The narrative developed through the captions accompanying the photographs draws upon direct observational experience. In the case of the analyses conducted in Milan, it investigates various aspects beyond the purely documentary dimension of photography, examining how public photographic practices contribute to the dynamics of attractiveness and photogenic appeal that characterize the selected sites and their modes of use. This thesis has been developed primarily through direct photographic observation of the phenomena enacted by people in close correlation with the selected architectural works.
Nel corso dell’ultimo ventennio, la diffusione di piattaforme digitali basate sulla condivisione di immagini1 — Instagram in primo luogo, seguita da Pinterest, TikTok e le loro varianti — ha introdotto una variabile inedita nella produzione dello spazio costruito che ha assunto una certa importanza. La visibilità di un edificio non si misura più soltanto sulla base della sua presenza fisica nella città, nella qualità della sua costruzione o nel riconoscimento della critica specializzata: si misura anche, e in certi contesti prevalentemente, nel numero di volte in cui quella architettura compare come sfondo nelle fotografie degli utenti che lo scelgono, nella sua capacità di generare condivisioni, geotag e hashtag, nel suo potenziale di diventare un luogo che si desidera visitare magari perché lo si è già incontrato su uno schermo. Questa tesi si propone di analizzare il rapporto tra social media e progettazione architettonica lungo quattro direttrici. La prima riguarda la letteratura accademica e professionale che ha documentato e teorizzato il fenomeno: chi lo ha descritto, con quali strumenti concettuali e con quali conclusioni. La seconda riguarda i casi concreti in cui questo fenomeno è osservabile: edifici progettati esplicitamente per rispondere ai criteri visivi delle piattaforme, e architetture che, nate senza questa intenzione, sono diventate oggetti di culto digitale con effetti misurabili sul flusso di visitatori, sulla reputazione dei luoghi e, di rimando, sulle scelte progettuali successive. La terza direttrice riguarda specificamente Milano, città che nel giro di un decennio ha visto nascere alcuni dei luoghi più fotografati e fotografabili d’Italia e ha sperimentato in modo diretto la dialettica tra architettura e piattaforme digitali. La quarta, più pertinente ad un mio modo proprio di analizzare un fenomeno e prosecuzione di un progetto fotografico iniziato 24 anni fa, riguarda la produzione di una serie di fotografie scattate nei luoghi di interesse scelti nella città di Milano in cui si evidenziano sia il fenomeno della documentazione personale continua, sia alcune delle qualità estetiche e formali dei siti scelti. L’obiettivo della tesi è documentare un fenomeno, descriverne i meccanismi e discuterne le implicazioni per la disciplina architettonica. Perciò non si esprimono giudizi in merito sulla qualità architettonica delle opere citate. In questa tesi si è proceduto prevalentemente ad una osservazione diretta, fotografica, dei fenomeni in atto da parte delle persone in correlazione stretta con le architetture scelte. La tesi prende origine da un progetto fotografico personale che da anni registra fotograficamente il modo in cui le persone si fotografano negli spazi, dalla foto ricordo turistica ambientata, alle foto documentative qualsiasi, ovunque, prodotte dopo l’arrivo dei social network e l’espansione dell’utilizzo degli smartphone. Il racconto attraverso le didascalie sotto le immagini fotografiche raccoglie l’esperienza diretta di osservazione e nel caso delle analisi milanesi indaga vari aspetti oltre quelli meramente documentativi del fenomeno del fotografare da parte di un pubblico che concorrono alla dinamica di apprezzabilità e fotogenia dei vari casi verso quel tipo di fruizione.
Social media e produzione dello spazio costruito
DI MAIO, FRANCESCO
2025/2026
Abstract
Over the last two decades, the spread of digital platforms based on image sharing—Instagram foremost among them, followed by Pinterest, TikTok, and their various counterparts—has introduced a new variable into the production of the built environment, one that has acquired considerable significance. The visibility of a building is no longer measured solely by its physical presence within the city, the quality of its construction, or its recognition by professional critics. It is also measured, and in some contexts predominantly so, by the number of times that architecture appears as a backdrop in photographs taken by users, by its ability to generate shares, geotags, and hashtags, and by its potential to become a place people wish to visit, perhaps because they have already encountered it on a screen. This thesis aims to analyze the relationship between social media and architectural design along four main lines of inquiry. The first concerns the academic and professional literature that has documented and theorized the phenomenon: who has described it, through which conceptual tools, and with what conclusions. The second concerns the concrete cases in which this phenomenon can be observed: buildings explicitly designed to respond to the visual criteria of digital platforms, as well as architectural works that, although not conceived with this intention, have become objects of digital cult status, producing measurable effects on visitor flows, the reputation of places, and, in turn, subsequent design choices. The third line of inquiry focuses specifically on Milan, a city that, within the span of a decade, has seen the emergence of some of the most photographed and photogenic places in Italy and has directly experienced the interplay between architecture and digital platforms. The fourth, which is more closely related to my own approach to analyzing the phenomenon and represents the continuation of a photographic project begun twenty-four years ago, concerns the production of a series of photographs taken in selected sites of interest throughout the city of Milan. These images highlight both the phenomenon of continuous personal documentation and some of the aesthetic and formal qualities of the chosen locations. The objective of this thesis is to document a phenomenon, describe its mechanisms, and discuss its implications for the architectural discipline. Accordingly, no judgments are expressed regarding the architectural quality of the works cited. The thesis originates from a personal photographic project that has, for years, documented the ways in which people photograph themselves within spaces, ranging from contextualized tourist souvenir photographs to the countless documentary images produced everywhere following the advent of social networks and the widespread use of smartphones. The narrative developed through the captions accompanying the photographs draws upon direct observational experience. In the case of the analyses conducted in Milan, it investigates various aspects beyond the purely documentary dimension of photography, examining how public photographic practices contribute to the dynamics of attractiveness and photogenic appeal that characterize the selected sites and their modes of use. This thesis has been developed primarily through direct photographic observation of the phenomena enacted by people in close correlation with the selected architectural works.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/260158