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- Convenors:
-
Jorge Tomasi
(CONICET - Universidad Nacional de Jujuy)
Julieta Barada (CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel proposes a conceptual and methodological discussion of the established institutional criteria for architectural conservation, from the ethnographic comprehension of local practices and the articulation between different actors in case studies.
Long Abstract:
Architectural conservation has a long history sustained by the establishment of certain criteria based on Western and Eurocentric conceptions of architecture and its duration. These criteria are based on the discussions of the 19th century and were consolidated from the action of several international organizations (UNESCO, ICOMOS) in the middle of the 20th century, on the basis of aspirations of universality. Although these conceptions have been discussed and transformed over time, they have not implied radical conceptual changes. In turn, national states have deployed different policies and strategies for the conservation of their architectures, strongly influenced by the construction of rigid national identities. These views have tended to make invisible other ways of conceiving architecture, its practices, techniques and materials, in their durability by local communities. In this framework, the relationship between different actors involved in the becoming of architectures over time constitutes a field of conflicts in which academics and experts have the possibility of operating and influencing. Ethnography, as an integral approach, provides the tools for understanding local conceptions of conservation and the emerging tensions between communities, states and organizations. This panel will promote conceptual discussion on this field, while seeking to make visible alternative experiences of architectural conservation, considering their possibilities and difficulties. Participants will make brief presentations of their papers, which will allow a subsequent horizontal discussion from certain relevant issues.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Questions that have long been central to the practice of architectural conservation are particularly pertinent in the context of vernacular architectural traditions. The contribution will discuss these questions from an anthropological perspective.
Paper long abstract:
In recent decades, studies of architecture (including those traditions commonly called vernacular or traditional) have moved from an object-focused approach to a process-oriented one. At the same time, an understanding that the process that is architecture goes beyond processes of production (that is, those of design and making, which have received most attention thus far) and also includes processes of consumption (such as, dwelling, appropriation, deterioration and demolition) has also emerged. The ways in which these processes of production and consumption emerge, materialise and interrelate is of course different in different cultural and temporal contexts, resulting in a rich and dynamic tapestry of what may be called building cultures. It is clear that the practices that make up architectural conservation are part of the latter process of consumption, even if they often focus on those aspects that make up the process of production (materials, technologies, forms and so on). It is also clear that these practices have emerged out of a specific historical and cultural, European tradition. A processual perspective on architecture raises questions around issues that have long been central to the practices of architectural conservation in this specific European tradition, such as how to deal with processes of change or the concept of authenticity. These questions are particularly pertinent in the context of traditions that fall outside of the European architectural canon. The contribution will discuss some of the issues they raise from an anthropological perspective.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on local stances on the biography of houses among the Khmu of upland northwestern Laos, this paper attempts to complicate the notion of conservation.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on local stances on the biography of houses among the Khmu of upland northwestern Laos, this paper attempts to complicate the notion of conservation.
While in Laos Luang Prabang has been the centre of heritagization and conservation attempts, rural houses in the northern uplands of Laos have not been marked yet as particularly worthy of conservation, neither by external actors nor by local residents. Discussing the reasons for this lack of conservation efforts, it will be highlighted that rather than conservation, innovation stands at the forefront of national but also local discourses on houses – albeit in different terms.
In addition, houses, according to Khmu perspectives, are not pieces of architecture detached from their residents. Instead, with regard to the common bamboo and wooden houses, the biographies of houses and the occupying house groups are synchronous, and houses are not supposed to outlive their resident house groups. Accordingly, houses are frequently de- and re-composed or rebuilt. Now, that concrete enters the scene, houses that were never meant to be permanent, are becoming durable with yet unknown social effects. Bamboo houses are not vanishing, though; as a building type, they are unintentionally conserved in the form of makeshift houses that are upgraded or replaced when resources for building a ‘proper’ house are assembled.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents a possible understanding and valorization of architecture based on temporality. From an ethnographic approach, we propose an interpretation of the multiple dimensions of time in the production of domestic architecture in a series of communities in the north of Argentina.
Paper long abstract:
Valorization of architectures tends to be based on their materiality and spatiality, leaving out the temporal dimensions, intrinsic to their becoming. The views on conservation, in fact, have tended to a kind of immobilization of time. The objective of this paper is to highlight the value and understanding of architecture from the understanding of temporality, not only historical, but also from temporal scales of the instant, the everyday, the seasonal and the generational, in the inhabiting and production of architectures. These are constitutive not only of the materialities, but also of the subjects that produce, inhabit and carry meaning from their complex relationships.
The paper will be based on an ongoing doctoral research in a series of communities in the area of Nazareno, in northern Argentina, focused on a comprehensive understanding of domestic architectures. The methodology of this research is based on fieldwork with an ethnographic approach, starting from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, complemented with a technical record of the buildings. This approach highlights the centrality of temporality for a multiple understanding of the past, the present and the future. From this it will be possible to put in tension the institutional logics of conservation, to recognize how the communities themselves establish practices for the sustainability in time of their architectures, from temporalities framed in other possible ontologies.