Experimental preservation
Preserving the future
Bungalow Germania (2014), Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis, 14th International
Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia
Architectural preservation has reached a point where
it has to go beyond questions of resurrection and
permanence. Now is the time to experiment. Now
is the time to break out and challenge conventions
of restoration and protection. We are witnessing a
paradigm-shift as we enter a time where not only our
perceived heritage is being protected, but even our
newly constructed environments. As an increasing
number of buildings become listed upon completion,
they enter an absurd state of presence, averting
any potential pain of seeing our ideals and models
fail the test of time, by immediately administrating
the painkillers of preservation. How then can
we create an environment that may broaden the
scope of architectural preservation, open to new
interpretations? This year’s assignment reexamines
the methods and tools of contemporary architectural
preservation and seeks an answer to this very question.
AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY
Looking back at the history of preservationist
practice and discourse, it becomes clear that two
main topics of controversy are the concepts of
Appendix, 120 HOURS 2015
authorship and authenticity. Is there - or indeed can
there be - a single author of a work of architecture,
or are there many? And given that all architecture
interacts with its context, what then of the claim
to authenticity?
A building does reach its final state upon completion.
On the contrary, it is the process of building that
comes to an end. The completed work, now brought
into context, becomes part of the social fabric and
emerges instead as an entity in constant dialogue
with its surroundings, all the while changing and
adapting accordingly. How then, can we determine
the level of authenticity when the very notion of
the “original” is fleeting at best? Over the course
of history, the answers to this question have been
many,andoftenconflicting.Notleastacrosscultural
borders, each with their own distinct set of beliefs.
The first instances of preservation as a tool for
conserving and transforming the built environment
appear in nineteenth-century Europe, during
a period of industrial and social revolutions.
The emergence of romanticism and historicism
brought about not only a wish to protect that
which is considered as historical, but also a
desire to improve it. Preservation became an
act of comprehensive historical appropriation
- an associative interpretation of our historic
heritage, re-enacting and activating history. This
tendency, on the one hand, extended the notion
of authorship and authenticity as something
transmittable,whilemaintainingthebeliefthatthe
creative author could determine and legitimise the
work of art as inseparable from time.
The drive to preserve our historical heritage gained
additional momentum with the emergence of a series
of legislations, most notably the Venice Charter of
1964. that sought to secure international decrees
on preservation. As a result, preservation came to
be regarded as a global phenomenon with universal
ideals, a practice that still dominates to this day

Splitting (1974), Gordon Matta-Clark
under the watchful supervision of institutions such
as UNESCO. Largely based on Western traditions,
however, its universal application can be questioned
in the face of other, especially Eastern, traditions,
where the notion of authenticity is a lot more fluid
and the question of authorship a lot less relevant.
“To restore an edifice means neither to maintain
it, nor to repair it, nor to rebuild it; it means to
reestablish it in a finished state, which may in fact
never have actually existed at any given time.”1
In his recent publication “Preservation is overtaking
us”, Rem Koolhaas argues that, throughout
modernity, the very idea of preservation is borne
as a testimony to the fact that the first laws for
preservation emerge in the richest phases of
modernisation. In the age of invention, improvement
and evolvement, there is an increasing tendency to
leave old things behind. Therefore “... the whole
idea of modernization raises, whether latently or
overtly, the issue of what to keep.”2
In recent decades, and spurred on by post-
structuralist thought and the ambiguities of
originality, the romantic paradigm of historical
aestheticism has met with criticism for its practice
of measuring a work’s authenticity based solely on
the criteria of architectural “authorship”. Indeed,
many would argue that it is high time to question
the determining role of the “sole architectural
inventor”. Citing Jorge Otero-Pailos, the idea of
architectural preservation is not only to reveal
something that is already present, but also to “...
disclose architectural dimensions of buildings that
were unintended by its “original”.3 According to
Otero-Pailos, historic preservationists are more
than extenders of some original architectural
intent, they are what he labels “creative agents”,
who engage with architecture and transform it into
something new.
The level of authenticity is thus put into question,
especially beyond our immediate notions of
originality and authorship as something permanent.
Needless til say, a work of art does not come about
by itself, it needs an instigator. But through our
experience and interactions, we ourselves become
both authors and designers of its meaning. Works of
architecture exist over multiple moments in time
and, as such, have no “correct” stages of being.
Preservation in this sense evolves from being mere
reconstruction, as its design intervenes with the
architecture in different stages of its being, and
questions its original physical emergence and its
source of inspiration.
EXPERIMENTAL ARCHITECTURE AS A PROFESSION
Earth Room (1977-), Walter de Maria
Experimental preservation takes on the pressing
need for expanding our notions and perspectives
on the overall conditions and significance that
constitute our common cultural heritage. As a
growing discipline within the field of architecture,
it not only revitalises the architectural debate,
but challenges our profession to seek out new
knowledge, methods and collaborative ventures
with other disciplines. In light of the expanding
field of preservation in general, armed with
a progressive mindset and unconstrained by
convention, experimental preservation can thus
lend new relevance to our profession. Perhaps even
as a profession unto its own, it could bridging the
gap between conservation and architecture, being
better equipped to bring new relevance to our
extensive cultural heritage.
MEMORY
Remembering and unlocking parts of our history are
essential components of preservation. In many ways,
architecture starts and ends with preservation. To
Gym hall, Pyramiden. Source: Northern Adventures

engage in the historical environment, we must take

into account the history of a place, and in doing
so, reflect upon the values borne from history and
past events that have shaped society’s collective
memory. In this way, architecture and preservation
become expressions of sets of memories, embodied
both in the individual as well as in the collective.
As such, perhaps the role -and social responsibility
– of preservation is to critically interpret and
conceptualise these memories.

In the case of Pyramiden, the site of this year’s

competition, the architecture as bearer of memories
becomes all the more important. The town was
deserted over the course of a few summer months
in 1998, and the chilling absence of living memory
is everywhere, from the empty production lines
and their eery silence, to the broken-glass windows
of the empty rooms. This paradoxical presence is
enhanced by the fact that these shared grounds
not only embody the memories of a unique Soviet
community outside of the Iron Curtain, but also
the remarkable human efforts of adaptation to an
Arctic climate. By reinterpreting Pyramiden in its
contemporary context, experimental preservation
can bring to life its remarkable history and impart
on it a lasting relevance for the future.

References

1.Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, “Restoration,” The Foundation of

Architecture: Selection from the Dictionnaire Raisonné, trans.
Kenneth D. Whitehead, New York: George Braziller, Inc. 1990,
p. 195, 209-12, 214-15, 216, 222- 23.
2.Rem Koolhaas, Preservation Is Overtaking Us, New York:
GSAPP Books 2014, p. 14
3.Jorge Otero-Pailos, “Creative Agents,” Future Anterior
1/2006, p. iii.