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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:
The principles of authenticity and integrity are at the basis of contemporary theoretical approaches to conservation. This paper will discuss the scope and complexity of these concepts from an ethnographic approach on a set of emblematic and historic architectures in northern Argentina.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of integrity, around the ideas of totality and intactness, and authenticity, related to inheritances, memoirs and their veracity, emerges from a temporality, that is, from a socially established conception of the events of time, within fundamentally western hegemonic frameworks. Architectures, for example, would have a beginning and an end that would establish a moment of totality, beyond events that may conjuncturally alter it. However, what happens to those architectures where becoming is the basis of their condition of existence? Is it possible to rethink these concepts, not only from the material features, but from the changing relationships between subjects and objects?
This paper approaches these questions based on an ethnographic and historical study of the towers in three colonial chapels, Susques, Uquía, Tabladitas and Coranzulí, in the current northern Argentina. Towers are highly emblematic architectures where it is possible to recognize complex intersection between Christian spatialities and materialities, and the logics of vernacular practices. From the analysis of different moments in the material becoming of these towers, it is possible to observe how totality is not established as an absolute stage, subject to conservation. Instead, it refers to moments, never definitive, within trajectories without the expectation of a pre-established ending. The addition and subtraction of its parts challenges the very idea of intactness and authenticity. An ethnographic approach to integrity from practices, and not only from material features, offers concrete possibilities for the conservation of these architectures.
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes the replacement of the traditional comprehensive paradigm of vernacular architecture with one that is more inclusive and culturally centred, in which expressions of modern industrial culture are recognized and where the subject community has agency and is effectively engaged.
Paper long abstract:
Built ethnological heritage is acquiring an increasingly participatory and open meaning, in agreement with new conceptualizations of cultural heritage and an understanding of tradition as a dynamic process. However, there is a contradiction between the regulatory documents associated with cultural heritage that advocate these principles, and the types of cultural expression or assets that they recognize and aim to safeguard. This paper aims to draw attention to these inconsistencies and proposes the replacement of the traditional comprehensive paradigm of vernacular architecture –excessively formalistic and focussed on constructions– with one that is more inclusive and culturally centred, in which expressions of modern industrial culture are recognized and where the subject community has agency and is effectively engaged. Furthermore it is t is argued that an understanding of this new architectural heritage be integrated without delay into the democratic structures of our societies. To this end, a process of change is required similar to that previously experienced by other cultural sectors, for instance, within the art world.