Tool 3 Putting the emphasis on knowledge of the area

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3 Tool II. Diagnosis Rehabilitating architecture as cultural dialogue: concepts and principals for discovering and renovating it Josep Muntañola PhD architect Lecturer at the Barcelona Higher Education College of Architecture (Technical University of Catalonia) Spain 1. Introduction The essential thing in the act of restoration is making something habitable once again, and the sad thing about some postures in defence of modernity is the reduction of the importance of restoration, due to an incompatibility between projects and history, or between the innovation of a future and the preservation of a past. In previous studies I have looked at how this supposed incompatibility conceals in fact, not a defence of modernity, which is not incompatible with a reinterpretation of the past, but is, in fact, just the opposite. This means a support for speculation in order to make the greatest possible profits with architecture within the framework of a market economy totally open and unfettered by any rules. This free enterprise economy is selfregulating in cases such as cars or computers, as those who accumulate to speculate then see how the price of these goods quickly falls, making hoarding pointless. And in the case of natural consumer goods, such as coffee or petroleum, there are more or less efficient control mechanisms. However, with land and buildings precisely the opposite occurs. Here there is a refusal to penalise the ownership of empty flats or the accumulation of properties in order prevent the price from falling, when it would do so immediately if a fiscal policy of a variable scale were to be adopted - as has been used in Denmark for many years now. Thus, the market does not have the same freedom because, in this case, the same sanctions should be applied as are successfully applied in other sectors of economies. Modern architecture, with exceptions, has not fallen into this trap. Alvar Aalto is exemplary in this and his life is a constant testimony that an incompatibility between modernity and tradition is a grave error. He says thus: Human life contains to the same degree tradition and new creation. We cannot throw tradition into the rubbish bin, claiming that it is something old which must be replaced by something new. Continuity is still essential to the life of man. Our old cities can be combined perfectly with new planning and with their interaction with nature (Schildt, Goran: Alvar Aalto de palabra y por escrito. Croquis Editorial, 2000) (Page 6). It is essential to understand that the analysis and preservation of the existing is not a brake on creativity and novelty, but rather, just the opposite, a condition and a stimulus for an innovative future. Alvar Aalto was not alone in defending this point of view which I Rehabilitating a traditional enclave without having realized a previous phase of analysis to determine its problems and possibilities in all their dimensions can lead to the taking of decisions that derive in irreversible obligations in the sustainability of the traditional enclave. define as dialogical 1: other important architects such as Carlo Scarpa, Richard Neutra and Francesco Venezia have also defended it. The stance of F.L.Wright is also of great interest. He always defended the compatibility between tradition and modernity right from the outset, stating in 1895 that the technical and artistic advances should be placed in the hands of the best craftsmen and the best brains of the tradition. It would be they who would know how best to innovate.2 This is totally distinct to the European posture of the period. 2. Conditions so that knowledge of the existing can be a basis for innovation To ensure good restoration, in-depth knowledge of the existing situation is required. However, what conditions must this knowledge meet in order to be useful and to stimulate a good dialogical project? It is alarming that this question has today so few answers and is supported by so little research. The late Catalan architect, Enric Miralles was perhaps one of the architects who best looked at these issues. In effect, what is important is that this knowledge is placed in its socio-physical dynamic, or between social history and its geography. 9

4 II. Diagnosis Tool The nature of the territory to be analyzed will determine the composition of the multi-sector analytic studies to realize with the objective of knowing and understanding it completely. means and how to arrive at this meaning. Only later can the dialogical complementarity which Alvar Aalto referred to before be achieved. Knowledge of the architecture of a place is hence the necessary condition in order to restore it correctly. To demolish a place and build it anew, in contrast, does not demand this knowledge. Herein lies the difficulty which makes it more difficult to accept the restoration, as it necessitates this prior analysis. But, as we have said, by destroying the existing there is a loss forever of irreplaceable stimuli for the development of a culture, and whole cultures. The same occurs with translation: if there were no translations, the minority languages would be lost and we would end up with a single language and with a huge linguistic and cultural impoverishment based precisely on inter-language dialogue. Languages (and architectures) which are completely isolated die. There exists here a surprising parallel with the question that knowledge must have a good translator. Knowing both languages and the cultural context of the original written piece, but, as the best theoreticians note,4 the translator must also submerge the new into the original language, seeking a dialogue between rhythms and tones. The aim is more than an identification of meanings than a literal word-for-word translation, which is impossible, particularly in the case of poetry, which equates translation with innovative poetry. Therefore, knowledge of the existing must be synthetic, it must be architectural. This is why Miralles says knowing an already existing city or a building is to understand its changes of form and use, and knowing its why. Or also when he indicates that the most specific and interesting functions of a place are discovered solely after many years of living in it.5 Developing a place, building, city or territory, demands, hence, knowing what it. How the Architecture of a place is known As we have said, knowing the architecture of a place is knowing the raison d être of its buildings, cities, landscapes, etc., not only knowing its image, its style, etc. Before restoring, one must thus first study and know what is to be restored. In this way we see the importance of scale and the delimitation of the field of knowledge required. One of the most common errors is to believe that a building ends in a building, and that a city ends in a city, etc. The first condition of knowing the architecture of something is to discover how the network of relations within a building is related to the network of relations between the building and its context: city, country, etc. Hence, an organization of spaces parallel to a facade in the 17th or 18th centuries, responds to a typology of a palace which sought to achieve a circulation with views over gardens, and Rural landscape in Greece Apamea region, Syria 94

5 Tool II. Diagnosis also connecting a chain of spaces in a theatrical fashion. This would have been meaningless without an architecture which connects a social order with an order of a geographical nature. This architecture ends up being imitated by country homes very far from the palaces of the Court. Therefore, it is the relations between use of the territory and social history which indicates what is the scale of architectural knowledge. There are passes in an urban nucleus which have a meaning in the sense of access to water and connection to the river. In modern times, these passes are no longer necessary to drink or obtain water. However: why shouldn t we maintain the connection with fountains and the river for reasons of sustainability and, as Alvar Aalto says, in order to facilitate the connections between the new and the old based on a correct use of nature? The raisons d être of architecture are based, thus, on a form of knowledge which synthesises space and time, on the one hand, and physical and social reality, on the other. These forms of knowledge are those which in dialogical theory are defined by their chronotopes, that it by the connections between social and, historical persons, on the one side, and the physical spacetime, of the calendar and astronomy, on the other. Hence, finding the architecture of a place, in order to restore it means finding its chronotopes 6. When there is a change of architecture in a city, its chronotopes are changed, and when there are several cities superimposed, taken together they are a sum of different chronotopes: Roman, medieval, etc. The sum or the superposition of different architectures with their specific form and function is precisely the architecture we are seeking. It is an error to only seek a single historical period as the sole reference used. There are more interesting periods than others from the perspective of knowledge of architecture, but it is from the place which is to be restored, where the overall situation should be judged, and not -the other way round- to value it solely from a virtual history what is sought is always and in any case valid. Let us look at an example: the Pyrenean region of the La Cerdanya, inhabited since prehistoric times has become a tourist area with Cerdanya-rustic Pyrenean style chalets, inexistent historically and today a pure post-modern, tourist invention. The highly complex and very specific architecture of this region went almost unnoticed. Despite the drawing up of numerous urban plans, the dialogical relationship with the past, which is not something of style, hardly exists. Why? Because everything in this valley, everything, was related and based on a gigantic game of vigilance, by being an area of passage, on the one hand, and a search for autonomy of subsistence, on the other, as it was an isolated region of passage of difficult access in winter dotted with small settlements. Consequently, there was a network of visual relations between all the windows and castles, towers and bastions and, in addition, the towns, or buildings of each settlement possessed a huge typological complexity in which there flourished a minimum level of services: bread oven, church, hostel, small shop, charcoal, etc. Without knowing this specific architecture of the valley, the pseudo-traditionalism interprets all of this medieval world as disorder or spontaneous development, without realising the profound chronotopical unit of its architecture, in no way, in the slightest way, spontaneous, but in fact necessary. And, I would like to add the idea of attention because this gigantic and kaleidoscopic architecture of La Cerdanya exists in three dimensions. The architecture of a building, territory, or city, is thus the result of a spatial-temporal network of relations between objects located geographically and subjects related historically. When we look an existing object to be restored, this object is like a magnifying glass, spyglass, or telescope from which we can understand the architecture which has made this possible.7 View of Casares, Andalusia, Spain Urban landscape in Alexandria, Egypt 95

6 II. Diagnosis Tool 4. The routes of recognition (Les Parcours de la Reconnaissance)8 The mental/educational chronotope It is very difficult to translate this posthumous book by Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher who in the last years of his long life left us excellent writings on architecture.9 Les Parcours de la Reconnaissance is an extremely beautiful text on the relations between actions and humans and their social value, that is, recognising oneself in the other from our wandering around the world. What has this to do with architecture? A great deal, as the relations between routes (the promenade of Le Corbusier) and the recognising oneself in the other human subjects is precisely architecture in its profoundest raison d être. Therefore, moving around an existing building or city is an attempt to understand, or recognising oneself in those spaces from the action itself (parcour) instead of other possible subjects. Each chapter of the book could serve as a theoretical guide for our proposal to restore appropriately, but I shall solely highlight the intelligent symmetry between memory and promise (utopia) which Ricoeur completes with the two opposing ideas: forgetting and betrayal. That is, an excess of memory halts the promise of something new, but forgetting prevents us from recognising ourselves in existing buildings which could be preserved. Forgetting all is the death of the memory and the total destruction of the past, with a distressing and uncertain future. The promise (utopia) complements the past and innovates it, but: how many times must modernity betray the promise of a better quality of life, better levels of social security, etc. in order to control its excesses? For example, the pressure on old tenants for them to leave, instead of giving life tenancies, etc.10 In conclusion, in each restoration project the routes of recognition must be established for the architecture which is worth preserving and so be able to dialogue with it from a present modernity. In diagram I, one can see this same phenomenological reality: the space-time of architecture as a triple dimension organised both from geography, from history, and from the project.11 The social use The geographical and territorial chronotope The project Diagram I: The three dimensions of the architecture The construction of space The social and historical chronotope sea-mountain connections, fishing-agriculture, etc. There are probably very few living examples left, but we must support the work in these remaining few in order to promote their reproduction, in a similar way as how animal and plant species have been successfully conserved from a very few living individuals. The complexity of these chronotopical relations present in conserved architectures must be incorporated into new settlements, or into the growth of old ones, without ever copying building styles or techniques, but rather imagining how to preserve the socio-physical and cultural relations in the interior of the new architectures, something which has almost never been done. Learning from the past never means copying it but rather understanding it: understanding its architecture, feeling that it is its own: cultivating it. It is therefore essential, in cases of preservation, to maintain the 5. Methodological principals for RehabiMed We could test a series of methodological principles for the area of the Mediterranean of RehabiMed, inspired by the above theoretical fundamentals. Put another way: how can we bring about the transformation of the Mediterranean coast by dialoguing with what exists, instead of destroying it? As a consequence, we must establish a spatial-temporal, sociophysical and chronotopical network of relations typical to the Mediterranean vernacular architecture: its relations with the activities in the sea, with the new tourist uses, with the necessary Abandoned courtyard-house in Birzeit, expression of community life, PNA 96

7 Tool II. Diagnosis quality of these relations between sea and mountain, between public spaces and the sea, between boats and traffic, between private and public, between natural and artificial, between night and day, between festivals and the non-festive, etc. There are anthropological and methodological studies which can help in this analysis of relations.12 Finally, it has to be decided how to invigorate these vernacular fabrics without destroying them, or in other words without destroying this network of relations, but rather, in contrast, invigorating them. It would seem to be something impossible, but it is not, as for many centuries it has been possible and so why not now? Because do we not accept modern life in previous architecture, before we bother to look at this possibility. Not all modern activities are possible in all existing architectures. The aim is to select in the comprehensive restoration plans which of these are possible and where they are possible. When a relation is broken and this rupture is accepted (for example, sea views), it is because it loses sense due to a profound cultural change, or because of other more important relations (for example, profits from land speculation). But, in no case, is it possible to build and restore without modifying, preserving or eliminating relations. Therefore, in any project of restoration, a prior analysis is essential of what relations need to be stimulated, which are to be eliminated and which are new and necessary. There is no doubt that this involves a hierarchy (an architecture ) of values. This is not a mechanical decision or even a solely scientific one, but rather, in addition, it is an ethical and aesthetic judgment.1 There are hundreds of lists of factors to take into account in a place, in order to assess or to restore it. However, as I have demonstrated in numerous studies,14 value is increasingly placed on the factors related directly to the economy: the price of land, Street market in Tunis, Tunisia possibility of work, proximity to shopping areas, etc. Although essential, these relations are not sufficient. Here below I have added several factors which are normally forgotten: a) Group of factors related to noise, air pollution or forms of radiation. Children and old people are particularly vulnerable. b) Group of physical-social factors and vandalism and social violence directly related to the appropriation of places and the presence of social and natural vigilance (not only the Police). c) Relations of the privacy public sphere, with specific needs in each age, sex, culture, etc. d) Historical-cultural relations which stimulate and make relations intelligible which are essential in the past or, in contrast, their destruction turn the restoration into something unintelligible or, even, something anecdotal or absurd. e) Relations between form and transport, and their complex articulations at different scales, including connection - extremely important- between visibility and spatial orientation, as their absence leads to all classes of accidents. And we could continue in this vein. 6. An example of rehabilitated landscape Together with the architect and historian Magda Saura I was able to carry out between 1990 and 1992 the rehabilitation of an exceptional seafront between the town of La Escala and the village of Sant Martí d Empuries. This project was the result of a confluence of historical factors: the arrival of the Olympic Flame to La Escala on route to the Olympic Games in Barcelona; the intersection of several administrations; and the agreement between the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Town Council of La Escala and the Getty Foundation of Los Angeles which provided a grant for the project thanks to the work done by Magda Saura. The project began with a special plan of protection, continued with an exhaustive study of the highly degraded state of the seafront between the Greco-Roman city of Empúries and the sea, and ended with the construction of the seafront which was respectful towards the sea, towards the ruins, towards the vegetation, planted by the Catalan Government at the beginning of the 20th century, and towards the dunes, the result of a protection plan of the ruins carried out at the end of the 19th century. The work was worth it, although the process was not without its multiple problems, as is commonplace in these cases in which so many interests converge. The essential point is that the final form was not an a priori form, but rather a result driven by the essential intention that the exceptional cultural landscape of the place should not lose its 97

8 II. Diagnosis Tool character, wealth of relations (sea-mountain, ruins and tourist use, public space and lack of disturbance from road traffic, etc.). I believe the quality in the socio-physical interplay of relations was maintained and consolidated, as the cars were by then invading the green areas and the sand. Not everything we wanted to do was achieved, but what was achieved, was thanks to the strength of the historicalgeographical study carried out beforehand and the profound knowledge of the architecture of the place. (see figures on following pages). I believe that it would be a place which Alvar Aalto would enjoy visiting today. 1 1 See Muntañola, J. Topogénesis. Edicions UPC, Barcelona, Original in French in Anthropos, Paris, This project was published in Quaderns d Arquitectura magazine 2 M. Pollack, ed. The Education of the Architect. MIT Press, Muntañola, J. Architecture Edicions UPC, (Texts in English and Spanish). 4 Messori, R. La Parola Itinerrante. Mucchi, Modena, See opus cit. note. Supra. 6 Muntañola, J. Architecture as a Thinking Matter. International Congress of Semiotics. Lyons, Saura, M. Pobles Catalans/Catalan Villages. Edicions UPC, Barcelona, Ricoeur, P. Les Parcours de la Reconnaissance. Stock, Paris, See Muntañola, J. ed. Architecture et Hermeneutique. (Original texts and unpublished in French and Spanish). Edicions UPC, Barcelona, In Barcelona there have been cases of this. 11 Muntañola, J. Las Formas del Tiempo. (In press). 12 Rapoport, A. Architecture, Design and Culture. (Text in English and in Castilian. Edicions UPC,Barcelona, Muntañola, J. Arquitectura, Modernidad y Conocimiento. Edicions UPC, Barcelona, Summary in conclusions of the European programme COST C2 ( ). Published by the European commission: Impact of Infrastructures on the Quality of Urban Form. Publication number: EUR Year ISBN: