Introduction
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : architecture
Personnes citées : Reyner Banham, John Desmond Bernal, Frank Gehry, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
Texte intégral
1In the case of the first two papers of this session—one depicting architecture as being conceptualized in terms of another art (that of rhetoric: Pauwels), the other architecture as the concretization of legal relationships (Carvais and Van der Vijver)—one realizes how thoroughly building is embedded in the broader span of practices of human culture, although in the first case the construction is a voluntary one—architecture might just as well be conceptualized as parallel to painting, for example, as in the case of Rietveld, or sculpture, as in the case of Frank Gehry—while the second is one of social necessity—it is only in the abstract that everyday architecture can escape from a tight grid of legal restrictions. The papers of Pinon and Magalahaes Rocha complicated this model of chosen or imposed transgression, the first questioning how our discipline has framed itself historiographically, the second drawing a parallel with a specific instance, that of the scientist/political activist John Desmond Bernal, who insisted on the subjectivity of technical “truth” all the while practicing important science. The last paper, Kenley’s, was especially specific, focusing on a single instance from the critical writing of the late Reyner Banham, and exploring the implications of modernism’s dearly-held illusion that there might exist a “machine esthetic”—that technique and art had common ground—that here a boundary need not exist. In this case, Banham traced the extra-architectural links operative to show how architecture is unique, introducing his wonderful simile of a building being like a tree, for long use; a machine (for example, an automobile on the consumer market) like a fruit, for short use, and for that reason vivid in design. Like Pinon and Magalahaes Roche, Kenley argues how deceptive and contingent extra-architectural crossovers may be. This folds back on Pauwels paper—yes, an architect can try to be a rhetor but will the result be convincing?—and on to Carvais and Van der Vijver—if architecture isn’t just design, then the community rightly makes it part of its concrete infrastructure—the social equivalent of Banham’s immemorial tree may be a code of laws.
2From the standpoint of a traditional art history text, these papers are frustratingly heterogeneous—but from that of the more recent model of the urban history text, they make refreshing sense. Building is a very complex activity which draws on many concerns to achieve a span of consistencies. To write its history is to write an array of distinct, parallel histories—and to relate them. A conference session is not a book, however, and in this context such heterogeneous contributions as these are just what is needed, as long as some work of relation becomes possible. In the end such extra-architectural links and parallels serve less to diminish architecture down to a mere part of a larger whole, than to bring out the various aspects of its broader character, often quite subjectively as in the case of the construct “machine esthetic.” From this standpoint, the texts we heard presented began from the architects seeking a model within which to elaborate their ideas and the community seeking to discipline it through law, followed by speculation—like the blind men exploring an elephant—about how such multiple realms presented themselves to subjects caught up in them. Finally, we were presented with an example of an observer, Banham, glimpsing the profound tentativeness of this whole enterprise to begin with.
Auteur
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Repenser les limites : l’architecture à travers l’espace, le temps et les disciplines
31 août - 4 septembre 2005
Alice Thomine-Berrada et Barry Bergdol (dir.)
2005
Actes du Ve congrès national d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art
Bordeaux, 21-24 octobre 1999
Béatrice Bouvier, Anne-Marie Châtelet, Sabine du Crest et al.
1999
Bronzes grecs et romains, recherches récentes. Hommage à Claude Rolley
Martine Denoyelle, Sophie Descamps-Lequime, Benoît Mille et al. (dir.)
2012
Architecture et théorie. L’héritage de la Renaissance
Actes de colloque
Jean-Philippe Garric, Frédérique Lemerle et Yves Pauwels (dir.)
2012
Plumes et Pinceaux : Discours de femmes sur l’art en Europe (1750-1850) — Essais
Mechthild Fend, Melissa Hyde et Anne Lafont (dir.)
2012
Patrimoine photographié, patrimoine photographique
Raphaële Bertho, Jean-Philippe Garric et François Queyrel (dir.)
2013
Keys for architectural history research in the digital era
Handbook
Juliette Hueber et Antonio Mendes da Silva (éd.)
2014
La Collection Cacault
Italie-Nantes, 1810-2010
Blandine Chavanne, Chantal Georgel et Hélène Rousteau-Chambon (dir.)
2016
Autour du fonds Poinssot
Lumières sur l’archéologie tunisienne (1870-1980)
Monique Dondin-Payre, Houcine Jaïdi, Sophie Saint-Amans et al. (dir.)
2017
Dialogues artistiques avec les passés de l'Égypte
Une perspective transnationale et transmédiale
Mercedes Volait et Emmanuelle Perrin (dir.)
2017