Appel à contribution : « Archimaera, issue: Einfügen/ Insertions »

Call for Papers: Archimaera # 6: EINFÜGEN (INSERTIONS)

Architecture is always inserted into and dependent on a certain context. The specific place where it has been built, the immediate vicinity, the character of a part of town or a landscape leaves its mark on it. Besides that, architecture is connected to the history of a place or to historic continuities or breaks with the past that are visible in the change of styles, materials, or scale.

An important task of architecture has always been a negotiation between the new and the existing, whether dealing with single buildings or with whole districts of a city. The processes of preservation or replacement are connected to the continuation of existing structures, either by redeveloping, by adding parts or by changing their use. All these phenomena are forms of insertions. These can be motivated in various ways: The main reason can be the adding of parts that became necessary or were simply desired, or it can be repairs that urgently had to be undertaken. Insertions are possible in different scales: In a small scale, joints may discreetly hint at newly added materials, and in a large scale, insertions may comprise whole parts or new quarters of a city. Insertions may also be staged in very different ways: On the one hand, spolia or citations can indicate an intended connection to historic epochs or certain buildings, and on the other hand, a clear differentiation of newly added parts can manifest a dissociation towards the old.

Architectural interventions therefore stick to different strategies. Insertions and dissociations may namely be described and understood as a dialectic pair, because a harmonic addition is just as conceivable as a strict differentiation that makes an intervention legible. These different strategies find their common ground in the fact that they are judgements on the existing, be it reflected or not.

If architecture is understood as a historic process in which every work already bears the option of its continuation, insertions offer the possibility of completion. The act of inserting has always been accompanied by interpretation and forms of presentation, which makes obvious the importance of historicity for architecture: On the one hand, an architectural intervention itself becomes a part of a historical building process, and on the other hand, it expresses the planer’s attitude towards the existing. In addition, when asking for the importance of insertions, one could not only look at it from the perspective of a later age that is looking backwards. It is also possible to think of anticipated interventions in the future to an architecture that defines itself as “open” or “unfinished”. From this point of view, insertions would become an alternative concept to the idea of a total work of art, that is, an invitation to a dialogue between architects of different times and epochs.

archimaera # 6 is dedicated to the topic “insertions”: It invites architects and urban planners, artists, art historians and cultural historians for contributions dealing with the phenomenon of insertions. Apart from scientific contributions, artistic interpretations or projects are also very welcome.

Please send your proposals as an exposé of max. 2.500 characters or as a sample of work by 24th February 2014 to archimaera # 6, Adria Daraban and Rainer Schützeichel: einfuegen@archimaera.de

The editorial board will decide about the contributions until 15th March 2014. Accepted contributions have to be submitted as completed manuscripts until 15th July 2014.

Deadlines:
24th February 2014 (exposés)
15th July 2014 (full papers)
www.archimaera.de
www.archimaera.ch

URL de référence : http://arthist.net/archive/6807