It is quite remarkable how we are so obsessed with originality and innovation when it comes to art or most of our daily appliances, but when it comes to architecture the story changes rapidly. In our attachment to the authenticity of the artwork, the personality of the author and the story of the object, we insist on beholding only the original Rembrandt or the original da Vinci, but then why are we so ignorant of the autenticity of the very buildings we live and work in and the entire cities we inhabit?
Category: essay
Space in and out of Time part 02 – A SYSTEM
I passionately believe in the need for a theory and approach for a building to “grow”, adapt and develop in time and space as fast as society and technology does. I am continuously investigating the extend of oblivion and remembrance needed to foster sustainable urban, architectural and cultural progress.
This present second part of a series of essays named Space in and out of Time discusses a theory of a systematic growth in time of a building, based on extensive precedent research and drawn conclusions. In this part I am seeking a theoretical and design approach to allow for a building to develop in time and space, but still preserve its identity.
Space in and out of Time Part 01 – A POEM
I passionately believe in the need for a theory and approach for a building to “grow”, adapt and develop in time and space as fast as society and technology does.
I am continuously investigating the extent of oblivion and remembrance needed to foster sustainable urban, architectural and cultural progress.
In the following I trace a first train of thought – one of time and space, building and rebuilding and the meaning of doing so. It is a poetic study of architecture and building in time. Thereby I seek to learn the extend of the problematic and to express it with words and examples.
Future of Originality
The following is an attempt to grasp the contemporary wide spread disregard for copies and glimpse into a world of future copying, therefore also a world of future originality.
In a study by Angelika Seidel and Jesse Prinz at CUNY (the City University of New York) the researchers told test subjects to imagine that the Mona Lisa was destroyed in a fire, but that there happened to be a perfect copy that even experts couldn’t tell from the original. If they could see just one or the other, would they rather see the ashes of the original Mona Lisa or a perfect duplicate? Eighty per cent of the respondents chose the ashes. That is to illustrate the state of our almost obsession with originals and hate for copies. But this wasn’t always the case. Romans used to copy Greek art, in particular sculptures at an unprecedented rate and that was not regarded as forgery. There are countless roman copies of roman sculptures too – and with each copy a different concept comes to life. So how did we end up here? And where do we go from here – with the rise of digital technology and digital artworks – where is the boundary between original and copy? And when is it a copy we are talking about and when an instance of an object.
An architectural Fairytale
“The problem with heritage is not to preserve it, but how to live it. How to make it live.
Otherwise it is just a static monument of the past.
Through memory we can induce creativity and change.” – Paolo Baratta, 2016
—-CHAPTER 01—-
Fair Tales 