Meraz Avila, Fidel Alejandro (2009) Architecture and Temporality In
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ARCHITECTURE AND TEMPORALITY IN CONSERVATION PHILOSOPHY: CESARE BRANDI Fidel Alejandro Meraz Avila, architect, MArch Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2008 Abstract In conservation of culturally significant architecture (CSA), awareness about problems of temporality and their consideration has been frequently approached with different perspectives. However, these partial explanations have usually focused on accounts of temporality that mainly approach the past and the present, and more rarely the future, but do not consider the complete spectrum of human temporality, nor explicit ontological bases. In this thesis, architecture emerges as a manifold being in constant becoming that compels human being to exercise permanently memory and assimilation. The main contribution is the proposal of an existential approach towards conservation as an intentionality grounded on the more fundamental attitudes of cultivation and care. Through 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 intentionality limited to architecture as a work of art. Following mainly Ingarden and Ricoeur, the results of ontological and phenomenological investigations about architecture and temporality demonstrate conservation in its modern form as a limited temporal intentionality. After these theoretical pre-conditions, the existential approach applied on the previously deduced dimensions of the space and time of Dasein – in Heidegger’s terms – proved the grounding of conservation on an existential interpretation of the more fundamental notions of cultivation and care. Making an analogy with Ingarden’s notion of the architectural work of art, CSA is ontologically analysed emerging to consciousness as a manifold 1 being that can be concretized in different ways according with the attitude of the receptor. 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. Partially supported on the obtained cases of remembered architecture, the hermeneutical approach concluded 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 to have 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. 2 Published Sections Part of the content of the research developed as part of this thesis has been presented and published in the following forms: Meraz, Fidel. “Memory and Assimilation. Philosophical issues in culturally significant architecture.” In Exploring Avenues to Interdisciplinary Research: From Cross- to Multi- to Inter-disciplinarity, edited by Rolf Wiesemes and Maria Karanika-Murray. Nottingham: Nottingham University Press, 2009. Meraz, Fidel. “Architecture and Temporality in Conservation Theory: The Modern Movement and the Restoration Attitude in Cesare Brandi.” Paper presented at the 10th International Docomomo Conference. The Challenge of Change. Dealing with the Legacy of the Modern Movement, Delft, Netherlands, 13-20 September 2008. Meraz, Fidel, and Laura Hourston Hanks. “Memory and Assimilation, Ontological issues regarding the phenomenology of the reception of culturally significant architecture.” Paper presented at the conference Architecture + Phenomenology, Haifa, Israel, 13-17 May 2007. Meraz, Fidel. “Social Memory and Assimilation, the conflictive conjunction of theories of conservation and architecture.” Paper presented at the conference La Dimension Social del Patrimonio, Buenos Aires and Salta, Argentina, 6-13 September 2006. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis would have not been possible without the support of many people. I thank very much my supervisors Laura Hanks and Raymond Quek for their constant and illuminating advice. I express thanks to CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) and SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) the Mexican institutions that funded these studies. I am grateful with The University of Nottingham especially the School of the Built Environment and the Graduate School for providing an excellent place to build this academic experience. I thank especially Gullermo Guzmán, a man that knows how to make the difference. I thank also Liz Bromley-Smith, Stephen Platt, Swinal Samant, and Bradley Starkey, for kindly consider my help for their courses. The research could not have been done without the opportune suggestions of different scholars. Jonathan Hale, my initial supervisor, for his way of presenting me paths and the oportunity of working in the Centre for Research in Architectural Culture (CRAC). Giuseppe Basile, for his insights about aspects of Brandi’s theories. Rene Tobe, for her opportune recommendations about Ricoeur. Concepción Márquez, for her way to estimulate me to explore philosophy as a way of life. Ricardo Martínez, for his original vision of some essences of architecture. I thank also Anna Maria Guiducci, Paolo Fancelli and Gabriela Switek, for dissinterestedly providing me with information that helped to enrich the research. I express gratitude for the support of José Manuel Mijares and Jesús Aguirre Cárdenas in UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). I am grateful for the support of 4 collegues in Nottingham Trent University in the School of the Built Environment, especially Helen Beswick, Paul Collins, Guillermo Garma, Marisela Mendoza and Alina Hughes, for providing me with another place to share this research and the invaluable oportunity of teaching with them. I show appreciation especially to Michael Bernie, Vale Carnevale, Rachel Grigor, Julie Godefroy and Diana Meraz Avila, for their help with proof reading and typing. One occupies a unique space, however; time is what we share; many thanks to my good friends Deborah Adkins, Liliana Campos, Guillermo Guzmán, Mauricio Hernández, Nina Hormazábal, Ricardo Martínez, Marisela Mendoza, Verónica Pinilla, Francesco Proto, Salvador Rodríguez, Florian Schepp and Maureen Trebilcock for sharing yours. I thank in a special way all the members of the Brotherhood of the Red Wine for having shared those Fridays to cultivate the friendship and to care about each other. Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my wife Vale, the excellent woman behind my work, without whom this would have never happened; my daughters Diana and Valeria who experienced with love my absence in my presence, and my parents, Rosario and Fidel, my sister Diana and my brother Diego, for their always-inconditional support. 5 List of figures and diagrams Figure 1-1 Thesis Structure. (Own diagram)............................................................................ 53 Figure 2-1 Creation of architecture as art deduced from Brandi's theory of schematism. (Own diagram) .................................................................................................................................... 84 Figure 3-1 Architecture in time deduced from Brandi's theories. (Own diagram) .................. 111 Figure 3-2 Jupiter, after a model attributed to Jean Raon, model about 1670; probably cast about 1680 - 1700. Getty Images (http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/images/l/00145001.jpg) ................................................................................................................................................ 123 Figure 3-3 Haghia Sophia will always be a byzantine church. Istambul, Turkey. (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3061/2739834043_d102d19895_b.jpg).................................. 123 Figure 4-1 Admissible concepts of being and their moments of existence according to Ingarden and the suggested location of architecture within the ontological system. (Table adapted from, Ingarden, Time and Modes of Being p. 93.) ........................................................................... 164 Figure 4-2 Narbonne Gate, Carcassone, France, Viollet-le-Duc. Project. (http://www.carcassonne.culture.fr/en/rt403.htm)................................................................... 167 Figure 4-3 Narbonne Gate, Carcassone, France. After restoration by Viollet-le-Duc. (http://flickr.com/photos/edmonton15/442613825/sizes/o/) ................................................... 168 Figure 4-4 St. Peter College, Cardross, UK, Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. (Drawing of the project phase)...................................................................................................................................... 170 Figure 4-5 St. Peter College, Cardross, UK, Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. Phase of living building. (http://flickr.com/photos/25385051@N04/2392674928/sizes/o/in/photostream/).................. 171 Figure 4-6 St. Peter College, Cardross, UK, Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. Phase of ruin. (http://flickr.com/photos/scottishchris/1893300135/sizes/l/) .................................................. 171 Figure 4-7 The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, David