IMPERFECT PAST
Fidelity and Confrontation
in Intervention
MASTER THESIS
FAUP | 2013-2016
tutor: Prof. PhD José Quintão
FAUP | 2013-2016
tutor: Prof. PhD José Quintão
We live in the pursuit of the right equilibrium between the heritage we receive and the legacy we will bequeath. In this balance we aim to understand Time, a mental construction, converted into the matter with which
architecture is built.
The architectonic intervention, as a collaborative space, is the place to measure possibilities of positioning towards Time. An imperfect past impels change, the constant variation of will, and the work developed on existing construction. We seek a position between fidelity and confrontation based on the construction of the idea.
The intervention project is used to study the collaboration with pre-existing architecture, an imperfect past, aware of the necessary critical and active positioning that the architect, as an interventive actor, shall express in the malleability of time through matter.
The structure of the work is organized as a double entry grid based on Krzysztof Pomian’s time topologies and Paul Ricoeur’s narrative phases. To each time topology — stationary, linear, cyclic — there is an assigned intervention project, in order to assess its suitability and pertinence. The narrative phases — prefiguration, configuration, refiguration — organize the exposition of each intervention project.
The “Stationary Topology” will be understood from the confrontation with Álvaro Siza and Roberto Collová’s intervention in Piazza Alicia and Chiesa Madre. The “Linear Topology” will have as case study Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg Courthouse extension. Leon Battista Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano, from the Renaissance, will be analysed through the lens of the “Cyclic Topology”. The chronosophy “Structures” questions the interventions’ classifications, through the study of Carlos Scarpa’s intervention at Castelvecchio. Besides this structured reading, a continuous one is allowed, inducing cross-referenced and comparative understandings between the interventions
and the topologies.
architecture is built.
The architectonic intervention, as a collaborative space, is the place to measure possibilities of positioning towards Time. An imperfect past impels change, the constant variation of will, and the work developed on existing construction. We seek a position between fidelity and confrontation based on the construction of the idea.
The intervention project is used to study the collaboration with pre-existing architecture, an imperfect past, aware of the necessary critical and active positioning that the architect, as an interventive actor, shall express in the malleability of time through matter.
The structure of the work is organized as a double entry grid based on Krzysztof Pomian’s time topologies and Paul Ricoeur’s narrative phases. To each time topology — stationary, linear, cyclic — there is an assigned intervention project, in order to assess its suitability and pertinence. The narrative phases — prefiguration, configuration, refiguration — organize the exposition of each intervention project.
The “Stationary Topology” will be understood from the confrontation with Álvaro Siza and Roberto Collová’s intervention in Piazza Alicia and Chiesa Madre. The “Linear Topology” will have as case study Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg Courthouse extension. Leon Battista Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano, from the Renaissance, will be analysed through the lens of the “Cyclic Topology”. The chronosophy “Structures” questions the interventions’ classifications, through the study of Carlos Scarpa’s intervention at Castelvecchio. Besides this structured reading, a continuous one is allowed, inducing cross-referenced and comparative understandings between the interventions
and the topologies.