Elements of Architecture: Assembling archaeology, atmosphere and the performance of building spaces

463 Pages·2016·10.66 MB·English

by  Mikkel Bille

Elements of Architecture

Elements of Architectureexplores new ways of engaging architecture in archaeology. It conceives
of architecture both as the physical evidence of past societies and as existing beyond the physical
environment. The book engages with the meeting point between these two perspectives, for
although archaeologists must deal with the presence and absence of physicality as a discipline
that studies humans through things, to understand humans they must also address the perform-
ances, as well as temporal and affective impacts, of these material remains. The contributions
in this volume investigate the way time, performance and movement, both physically and
emotionally, are central aspects of understanding architectural assemblages. It is a book about
the constellations of people, places and things that emerge and dissolve as affective, mobile,
performative and temporal engagements.
This volume juxtaposes archaeological research with perspectives from anthropology,
architecture, cultural geography and philosophy in order to explore the kaleidoscopic inter -
sections of elements coming together in architecture. Documenting the ephemeral, relational
and emotional meeting points with a category of material objects that have defined much research
into what it means to be human, Elements of Architecture elucidates and expands upon a crucial
body of evidence that allows us to explore the lives and interactions of past societies.
Mikkel Bille is Associate Professor at the Institute of People and Technology, Roskilde
University, where his research centres on the role of things and technologies from the recent
past in contemporary society.
Tim Flohr Sørensen is Assistant Professor at the Department of Archaeology, University of
Copenhagen, where his research is focused on archaeological theory and themes in prehistoric
and contemporary archaeology.
Archaeological Orientations
Series editors:
Gavin Lucas, University of Iceland, Reykjavík and
Christopher Witmore, Texas Tech University, USA.
An interdisciplinary series that engages our on-going, yet ever-changing, fascination with the
archaeological, Archaeological Orientationsinvestigates the myriad ways material pasts are entangled
with communities, animals, ecologies and technologies, past, present or future. From urgent
contemporary concerns, including politics, violence, sustainability, ecology and technology, to
long-standing topics of interest, including time, space, materiality, memory and agency,
archaeological orientations promotes bold thinking and the taking of risks in pressing trans-
disciplinary matters of concern.
Providing the comprehensive coverage expected of a companion or handbook, Archaeological
Orientationsaims to generate passionate, lively and engaged conversation around topics of common
interest without laying claim to new thematic territories. Archaeological Orientations asks
contributors and readers alike to take two steps back, to cautiously and carefully consider issues
from unforeseen, even surprising, angles. Archaeological Orientations embraces theoretical
provocation, cross-disciplinary debate and open discussion.
Other titles:
Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity
Edited by Alfredo González-Ruibal
Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past
Edited by Bjørnar Olsen and Þóra Pétursdóttir
Coming soon:
Art/Archaeology
Edited by Mike Pearson, Ian Russell and Michael Shanks
Elements of Architecture
Assembling archaeology, atmosphere and
the performance of building spaces
Edited by Mikkel Bille and
Tim Flohr Sørensen
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen selection and editorial matter;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the contributors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-77541-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64117-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Contents
List of figures ix
List of contributors xii
Acknowledgements xvii
1 Into the fog of architecture 1
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen
2 On behalf of form: the view from archaeology and architecture 30
Graham Harman
PART 1
Form and temporality 47
3 On shaping buildings 49
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen
4 Immanent architecture 53
Lesley K. McFadyen
5 Big affects: size, sex and Stalinist ‘architectural power’ in post-socialist
Warsaw 63
Michał Murawski
6 Architecture in ruins: Palladio, Piranesi and Kahn 84
Jonathan Hill
7 Building lives 105
Gavin Lucas
8 Archaeologies of an informal city: temporal dimensions of contemporary
Andean urbanism 121
Alison Kohn and Shannon Lee Dawdy
v
Contents
9 Brussels’ conflicting constructs (photo essay) 141
Mark Minkjan and Ingel Vaikla
PART 2
Atmospheres 157
10 A sense of place 159
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen
11 Lighting up the atmosphere 163
Tim Ingold
12 Traffic architecture: hidden affections 177
Jürgen Hasse
13 Affective architecture in Ardnamurchan: assemblages at three scales 195
Oliver J. T. Harris
14 A sense of architecture in the past: exploring the sensory experience
of architecture in archaeology 213
Serena Love
PART 3
Performance and process 231
15 Architecture in motion 233
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen
16 Politics of architectural imaging: four ways of assembling a city 238
Albena Yaneva
17 Homeless, home-making, and archaeology: “To be at home wherever
I find myself” 256
Larry J. Zimmerman
18 Into architecture: house-building and acentred personhood in
Maputo, Mozambique 273
Morten Nielsen
19 Sedimentation and sentiment: destabilizing architecture at the
post-industrial Mexican periphery 287
Jason Ramsey
vi
Contents
20 Performance architecture: absence, place and action 302
Nick Kaye
21 Reframing the ziggurat: looking at (and from) ancient Mesopotamian
temple towers 321
Augusta McMahon
PART 4
Disintegration and unfinishedness 341
22 Architecture becoming new spaces 343
Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen
23 Incipient ruination: materiality, destructive agencies and repair 348
Tim Edensor
24 For love of ruins 365
Þóra Pétursdóttir
25 Unfinishing buildings 387
Michael A. Ulfstjerne
26 The disconnected experience of some designed places 406
Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt
27 Failure? An archaeology of the architecture of nuclear waste containment 424
Rosemary A. Joyce
Index 439
vii
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Figures
1.1 Blur building 2
1.2 Neolithic Shaqarat Mazyad, Jordan 7
1.3 Temporarily moored mobility, Østre Højby, Zealand, Denmark 9
1.4 Shed stranded in the forest, Jämshög, Blekinge, Sweden 18
1.5 Unfinished office complex, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China 19
1.6 Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles, France 20
4.1 Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire: composite plan of several lower and
upper barrow features 54
4.2 Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire: longitudinal section showing several
lower and upper features of the axial divide of the barrow 54
4.3 Beckhampton Road, Wiltshire: composite plan showing several ‘pre-barrow’
and barrow features 56
5.1 The Palace of Culture and Science represented in numbers 64
5.2 Stalinist architectural ideologue Edmund Goldzamt’s diagram of the ‘new
Warsaw scale’ 68
5.3 The Radiating Palace: Nine Rays of Light in the Skyby Henryk Stażewski
(1894–1988) 72
5.4 Work of artist Zofia Kulik: Self-portrait with the Palace(1990) and Guardians
of the Spire(1990) 74
5.5 MichałKadlec is shown the stage mechanism underneath the Congress Hall
by PKiN press officer Ewelina Dudziak-Stalęga 78
6.1 Hadrian’s Tomb, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Antichità romane, 1756–1757,
vol. 4 86
6.2 Plan of Rome based on Forma Urbis Romae, c.203–211 AD, Giovanni Battista
Piranesi, Antichità romane, 1756–1757, vol. 1 88
6.3 Ichnographia, Louis Kahn’s own copy, Giovanni Battista Piranesi,Il Campo
Marzio dell’ Antica Roma, 1762 89
6.4 Ground floor plan. Louis I. Kahn, Fleisher House, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania,
1959 96
6.5 Model. Louis I. Kahn, Fleisher House, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1959 97
6.6 Perspective sketch of the Meeting House, 1962. Louis I. Kahn, Salk Institute
for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California 98
6.7 Entry court. Louis I. Kahn, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla,
California, 1965 100
7.1 Photograph of the historic turf farm of Grenjastaðir in the north of Iceland,
undergoing repair in 2006 109
ix