On vanished buildings

This group aims to explore the relationship between architecture and its history and historiography when dealing with vanished buildings, considering the disappearance of architecture as an architectural and historical challenge.

Socio-political conflicts, unequal power structures, the financialisation of the urban fabric, and throwaway attitudes in parallel with a disregard of preservation policies, often lead to demolition, vanishing along with the building the intangible stories and meanings conveyed by it. The gap between tangible and intangible value, however, is argued in the explorations of this group to underline the significance of architectural history as a contributor to the essence of the architectural object. We are, therefore, concerned with the following questions:

What is the role of architectural history even after the demolition of a building? How does the vanished architectural object relate to the narratives of architectural history? What sources, methods, and media hold the information that may be missing? And, to what extent sources, methods, and media can be inherently ambiguous or misleading in their space-making stories and make-believe narratives of architecture?

During the workings of this group, an emphasis is placed on the conceptual and methodological challenges that relate to the production of architectural history on buildings that no longer exist. The lack of information and inconsistency of the archival material, as well as the fact that fieldwork, observation, and the lived experience are no longer possible, call for other ways of conducting architectural research. We aim to discuss alternative methodologies and media that architectural historians utilise to investigate both well-known and less-known or neglected cases of architecture, spanning from different chronological periods and irrespective of their geography. These buildings may have vanished, yet they hold the potential of producing narratives that can be diverse, plural, and decolonial. These narratives may demonstrate an inherent ambiguity of the transposition of the building in words and images, positioning the building into a threshold between myth and reality, as well as “life” and “death.” They also raise environmental concerns juxtaposed with social and political dilemmas, while holding the potential to devise a future heritage, at a time when increasing efforts to breathe life into outmoded structures and to creatively reuse buildings from salvaged components try to prevail.

Buildings that no longer exist unfold stories that enhance a nuanced understanding of architecture, and they embody a plurality of interpretations, questioning what is worth saving for.