The Social Palace as a Medium for the Transfer and Transformation of Ideas in Early Socialism

Abstract

This essay offers an interpretation of Charles Fourier's phalanstery as a tool for transferring ideas. It examines how static architecture transforms into a concept and can act as a medium for the transcontinental travels of social ideas. Both buildings and their blueprints and illustrations are analysed as texts full of revolutionary political meanings. It examines attempts to use them in practice, in France and abroad, and the theoretical considerations on how they should be used. Material infrastructure was necessary to the establishing, functioning, and spreading of the propaganda of the political movement of the phalansterian school, which particularly distinguished early socialism and other ideological movements in the nineteenth century. This essay aims to contribute to the discussion on non-verbal speech acts in intellectual history.