The Sempiternal Nature of Architectural Conservation and the Unfinished Building and Drawing Federica Goffi Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Architecture and Design Research Marco Frascari Paul Emmons Jaan Holt Susan Piedmont Palladino Marcia Feuerstein Stephen Fai February 19th 2010 Alexandria, Virginia Keywords: Time, Architecture, Conservation, Drawing, St. Peter’s, Renaissance Copyright © 2010 Federica Goffi The Sempiternal Nature of Architectural Conservation and the Unfinished Building and Drawing Federica Goffi ABSTRACT Conservation is today often interpreted as the preservation of a still-shot, an understanding informed by the belief that by displaying photographic memory of the past, it is possible to gain access to it. Naturalistic representation is unequivocal and presents the onlooker with a single meaning. The dominance of the photorealistic image as model for memory, should be challenged by undermining the notion that architectural representation is a portrayal of likeness, restoring its full potential as an iconic representation of presence. A micro-historical study of the Renaissance concept of restoration, focused on Tiberio Alfarano’s 1571 ichnography of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, offers an alternative paradigm in order to inform, critically, contemporary theory and the practice of the renewal of mnemic buildings. The hybrid drawing (1571) extends beyond the opera of graphic architecture, realizing a real effigy. Alfarano factured a track-drawing, providing memory traces on the drawing-site, which, acting like a veil, bear marks of the building’s presence within time. The ichnography makes visible a ‘hallowed configuration’, conceived as a substratum for the imagination of conservation. This defines a collective daydreaming strategy, from which multiple authors can imagine possible futures. Ambiguity and polysemy inform the drawing, generating an equivocal space where unforeseeable inventions occur by the process of future predictions by recollecting memories. This invites merging multiple stories. Grasping the significance of Alfarano’s drawing, one begins to comprehend the mistaken belief in the primacy of photo rendering to access a building and conserve its essence. Any essence cannot be achieved through exact visual reconstruction, rather through a chiasmus of past and present form, expressing allegoric significance. The retrospective and prospective character of the architectural-conservation process can be experienced through the intermediacy of hybrid-drawings directing the gaze simultaneously in two directions; a pre-existent condition engages in dialogue with future design. This is a condition absent from today’s practice, where measured drawings and design drawings are often kept separate. Seen this way, architectural drawings could rejoin these two temporal conditions, through metaphoric or literal transparency, and allow for a real transformation within continuity of identity. DEDICATION t o a l l t h e a n g e l s a b o v e a n d b e l o w t o A c h i l l e & R e n a t a f a t h e r a n d m o t h e r iii ACKNOWLDGEMENTS “nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed” Luke 8:17 The author of this dissertation expresses the most sincere heartfelt acknowledgments to her mentor Doctor Marco Frascari, for opening her sight to gaze. I learned to open up to the unexpected and wonder along the horizon! Thank you for countless illuminated words, offered along my winding & wondrous way! The path leading to the altar was not straight, yet just for that all the more enjoyable. Inspiration and delight find no equal in your guidance. I treasure your joining of the art of thinking well, building well and living well. I also wish to thank Paola Frascari for encouraging me, and for recommending going back to the real places of the dissertation and for her support to our PhD program in Architectural Representation and Education at WAAC! I wish to thank all the committee members at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. A thank you goes to Professor Paul Emmons, whose insight has been inspiring and thorough, precise and generous! A thank you to Director Jaan Holt whom makes Washington Alessandria Architecture Center a living witness to the ideas exposed in this dissertation. To Professor Susan Piedmont-Palladino whom reminded me of the practice of making as it relates to thinking. Thank you also to Prof. Stephen Fai from the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, for providing a critical angle, relating to the interrelationship between architecture and religious studies, which was so essential. To Prof. Marcia Feuerstein a special thank you for reminding me of visible and invisible joints in the work. I wish to express a most heartfelt thank you to His Holy Excellency Monsignor Vittorio Lanzani whom generously opened the doors of the Archivio della Fabrica di San Pietro to a most humble researcher! For reading patiently my thoughts and providing invaluable guidance and for his generous time spent in conversations about Alfarano’s drawing, which have inspired my work. I am sempiternally grateful! I am also grateful for numerous gifts, first and foremost for a precious digital color copy of Alfarano’s drawing, which was granted by Monsignor Lanzani in support of the work continued at a distance from St. Peter’s. I wish to thank Dottoressa Simona Turriziani Director of the AFSP, whose passion for research made her the most invaluable guide for my work at the archives. Her unparalleled support for the research, has been throughout the years of paramount significance and the results would have been very different, had I not had the fortune to receive her generous, selfless and caring help. I wish to thank also Sister Teresa formed Director of the AFSP, who was the first a few years ago to allow me in the archives and help me, together with Dottoressa Assunta di Sante. iv I wish to thank Dottor Pietro Zander, Director of the Ufficio Tecnico della Fabbrica di San Pietro, for patiently listening to my ideas and advising, and for kindly providing scholarly support for my research, through numerous and fruitful discussions at the presence of Alfarano’s drawing. I wish to thank Doctor Barbara Jatta, Director of the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana for pointing out valuable prints and documents in their archives, opening many doors to knowledge, and for the time spent looking and analyzing the original drawing and print during my visits at the archives, providing essential information to document them. A sincere and profound thank you goes to Prof. Nazareno Gabrielli, former Director of the Vatican Museums for his expert visual analysis of the drawing of Tiberio Alfarano executed during one of my visits, revealing new precious details. I wish to thank Doctor Paolo Vian, Director of the Manuscript Department at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, for allowing me access to the BAV and for helping me locate Alfarano’s drawing in 2005. A thank you goes to Master Restorer Mario Tiburzi and Oscar Cocciolo from the Restoration Laboratories at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, for their precious advice. A thank you goes to Doctor Marzia Faietti, and Doctor Giorgio Marini respectively Director and Vice Director of the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence for making available precious resources and for their support for my research. I am particularly grateful to Doctor Marini for patiently looking at the Renaissance drawings of St. Peter’s Basilica with me during one of my visits at the Archives, and for providing his erudite insight and valuable intellectual support for the research. I am also grateful to the GDS for providing color reproductions of Maderno’s drawing of superb quality in generous support of my work. A thank you also to Massimo Pivetti and his kind assistance during the research in the archives. To Monsignor Vittorio Boldorini from Genoa, who has been a spiritual mentor since my early years of high school and patiently listened and guided my way in work and life. A heartfelt thank you goes to Architect Louis Brillant from Montreal, whom patiently read and annotated my dissertation with precious comments, all of which will give more to think in the years to come. A thank you goes to my former colleagues and students in RISD whom offered a place for me to discuss and diffuse early ideas about this dissertation, particularly former Director Brian Kernaghan, current Director, Prof. Liliane Wong and to a missed Prof. Henry Fernandez, Prof. Markus Berger, and last but not least Victor Serrano, and all other students whom have creatively tested ideas with me. v A thank you also to Nuria Schonberg Nono, whom reminded me through our conversations about the work of her husband, Avant Gard Composer Luigi Nono, of the importance of listening, which I tried to put in practice along the way, listening to my advisors and to the multiple voices, reading into the drawing and providing multiple synchronic, equidistant and parallel viewpoints which have enriched the reading of it. The corporate nature of a patient assembling is reflected in a patient listening to readers and advisors with whom I have had an opportunity to work with, first and foremost Marco Frascari, whose Janus vision lead my way back and forth. To my present colleagues at Carleton University, Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, for providing a forum for the teaching of the ideas in this dissertation. This school inspires a renewed understanding of the interrelationship between theory & practice, making & thinking, architecture & conservation. The school of thought nurtured at Carleton questions and investigates architectural conservation and its possible incorporation in architectural making through different mediums inclusive but not limited to writing, drawing, modeling architecture.