Architecture and Temporality in Conservation Theory: The Modern Movement and the Restoration Attitude in Cesare Brandi (original) (raw)

On the experience of temporality: existential issues in the conservation of architectural places

Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 2016

In discussions of the conservation of culturally significant architecture, awareness about issues of temporality and its theoretical import has been approached from varied, partial, perspectives. These perspectives have usually focused on accounts of temporality that focus on the past and the present-and more rarely the future-without considering either the complete spectrum of human temporality or its ontological bases. This article addresses this shortcoming with a phenomenology of conservation grounded on the fundamental attitudes of cultivation and care. After a phenomenological and existentialist analysis of Cesare Brandi's thought-focusing on his paradigmatic Theory of Restoration-his attitude comes forth as a limited instance of the modern conservation attitude that is concerned exclusively with architecture as art. This attitude results in a limited temporal intentionality. Following Ingarden and Ricoeur, the existential approach is here applied to the deduced dimensions of the space and time of Dasein-in Heidegger's terms-outlining the grounding of conservation on an existential interpretation of the more fundamental notions of cultivation and care. This interpretation suggests a solution for the modern impasse with an existential account of both the artistic grounding of architecture and its characterisation as the place that temporally accompanies Dasein. Architecture thus emerges as a manifold being, constituting existentially the space for the authentic human being, whose temporal consciousness compels it to cultivate and care about that space, thus enriching the possible approaches to conservation as a collective endeavour.

Thinking Architecture as Art: Cesare Brandi (1906-1988) and his Conservation Philosophy

Cesare Brandi dedicated great part of his theoretical reflections to identifying the essence of art. His concern was fuelled by the fact that the precious treasury of Italian art was at risk of disappearance after the World War II. As founder of the Istituto Centrale del Restauro, he was responsible for the protection of the architectural heritage. Therefore, the preoccupation in finding the most authoritative theory was more than justified and consequently his philosophical journey is one of the most consistent in the Italian art theory scene. His theoretical corpus overcame the Crocean idealism that preceded him and incorporated new approaches to study art, and architecture as art, such as phenomenology and semiotic studies. Since his philosophical journey seemed devoted to a theoretical understanding of art, this paper offers a mapping of how, by considering architecture as a work of art, Brandi approached, at least in his Restoration Theory, its conservation as the rest of the fine arts. We argue, he did not consider the qualities of architecture’s inhabitation within his theory, influencing for a long period the way in which Italian conservation culture considered the built environment. Architecture, by this influence, lingered in the middle for a long time, between the role of the dynamic and changing place of human dwelling and the one of support of the intemporal work of art.

Cesare Brandi (1906 to 1988): His concept of restoration and the dilemma of architecture

2019

This article offers a theoretical review of the origin of the concept of restoration in Brandi's view, proposing a critique centered on architectural restoration. Brandi's theoretical trajectory is outlined in his approach to the discernment of art in general and architecture in particular, centered around his Teoria del restauro (1963b). Through phenomenology, Brandi deduced the essence of the artistic phenomenon without including in restoration other human realities that are integrated into the architecture´s existence. His approach was phenomenological in method and ontological in its objectives. The fact that architecture constitutes an important part of human place and its artistic condition, nevertheless broadens the question of what constitutes this human habitable space and which constructions should be conserved.

Conservation Philosophy: Cesare Brandi and the Place and Time of Human Existence

In conservation of culturally significant architecture (CSA), awareness about problems of temporality has usually focused on accounts that mainly approach the past and the present, and more rarely the future, but do not consider a complete human temporality, or explicit ontological bases. In this paper, architecture emerges as a manifold being in constant becoming compeling human being to exercise permanently memory and assimilation. After epistemological and phenomenological analysis of Brandi’s thought – focusing on his paradigmatic Theory of Restoration – his attitude comes forth as a particular form of conservation limited to architecture as a work of art. By ontological and phenomenological investigations about architecture and temporality, the paper reveals conservation in its modern form as a limited temporal intentionality. After these theoretical pre-conditions, the existential approach applied on the space and time of Dasein – in Heidegger’s terms – proves the grounding of conservation on an existential interpretation of the more fundamental notions of cultivation and care. After the phenomenological analysis of memory, architectural conservation in its modern form is demonstrated as a partial account of human temporality that can be overcome considering human inhabitation in a creative way. Supported on the cases of remembered architecture, the hermeneutical approach concludes suggesting a solution for the impasse with an existential account of both, the artistic grounding of architecture and its characterisation as the place that temporally accompanies Dasein. Thus, architecture is ontologically demonstrated as a manifold being in constant state of transformation that participates of an unavoidable humanised temporality, appearing as a less ambiguous object of conservation. Hence, architecture is existentially demonstrated as constituting the space for the authentically concerned human, whose temporal consciousness compels to cultivate and care about, enriching the possible approaches to conservation as a collective endeavour.

Architectural Heritage and timeless time. For a temporary permanence

AGATHÓN - International Journal of Architecture Art and Design, 2018

Digitalisation has effects on technological processes and products, as in previous industrial revolutions. Among its disruptive consequences on society and on individuals, the emergence of a different concept of Time is already influencing the operative and, above all, theoretical field of the architectural heritage. Unusual forms of memory undermine the traditional vision of heritage, based on a linear vision of time, which clearly separates the Past from the Future, leaving to the Present a mere role of transporter. Some contemporary strategies may usefully be referred to the oxymoronic Temporary Permanency, because the presumed immutability, ambition of now obsolete rigid and abstract conservative objectives, has been overcome.

Architecture: from time of mind to time of nature

2020

Due sono le concezioni di tempo con cui desidero operare in questo articolo. La prima è il tempo umano, vale a dire il tempo del pensare, agire, immaginare e produrre. È il tempo della storia delle civiltà che si stratifica e accresce. È il tempo che si accumula spazialmente nelle città, in cui c' è uno strato sopra l'altro di civiltà storiche. È, inoltre, il tempo della memoria e del racconto storico, che sia storia della letteratura, dell'architettura, dell' economia, della scienza. La seconda concezione è il tempo della natura in cui non c' è accumulazione, bensì continuo fluire, trasformazione, sostituzione di tutto a tutto. È il tempo della nascita e della morte, quasi il tempo fosse un palcoscenico in cui le figure entrano ed escono. È infine il tempo del corpo, del nostro corpo, che nasce, cresce, decade e muore, lasciando posto ad altri corpi. Queste due temporalità confliggono. Ogni generazione umana, anzi ogni singola vita umana cerca un equilibrio in questo conflitto. Cerchiamo di dare una temporalità sensata e umana alla temporalità che gli eventi naturali ci concedono. Cerchiamo di immaginare e produrre cose che sviluppino, e se possibile migliorino, quanto abbiamo ereditato, per poi affidarlo a chi verrà dopo. La dinamica della cultura sopravvive alle singole vite. Le opere di Cézanne, Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, Bourgeois entrano nel racconto della storia della pittura e sopravvivono ai loro autori. Quando eleggiamo alcuni siti a patrimonio mondiale dell'umanità, li ordiniamo affinché possano raccontare il tempo del pensare e agire umani. Anche i siti naturali entrano a far parte del tempo umano, per il semplice fatto di

Found Spaces and Material Memory: Remarks on the Thickness of Time in Architecture

This chapter explores the capacity of architectural materials to express a sense of temporal depth by registering the histories of their own transformation in the processes of both construction and inhabitation. Examples of spaces that demonstrate both dimensions of material temporality can be found in the adaptive re-uses of former industrial buildings to create new cultural institutions, such as art galleries and museums. With reference to recent scholarship under the banner of ‘new materialism’ - alongside Carrie Noland’s analysis of the work of multimedia artist Bill Viola - I suggest that the powerful sense of time that is perceptible in the best examples of creative re-use might actually result from the ‘narrative gaps’ that emerge between old and new uses. In this dynamic process of transformation from one function to another the building becomes less a ‘tectonic object’ and more a series of ‘tectonic events’ - a complex layering of successive transformations, from raw material to re-occupied space. KEY SOURCES: Coole, D. H. and S. Frost, New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2010). Ingold, T., The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (Abingdon: Routledge, 2000). Johnson, M., The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Noland, C., Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

Impermanence and Architecture. Ideas, Concepts, Words

2018

Temporariness, in its different ways of interpretation, is an emerging theme of the contemporary architectural research and raises questions about the effects of new technologies, both tangible and intangible, on ways of conceiving and realizing spaces for contemporary living. In reconsidering the concepts of stability and permanence within the process that establishes a new relationship between architectural space and time, a design approach oriented to the experimentation of innovative solutions and new structures of living is urged, towards a building philosophy in which construction becomes an act of conscious and continuously definable transformation, which arrange the time of technique to the life of man and re-establishes the importance of the temporal dimension as an environmental issue of the project.