23.04.2024
Snickare, Mårten: Colonial Objects in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond
Rezensiert von Angela Fischel
The Architecture of Copies | Copies of Architecture.
In November, 2001, the church of Södra Råda in southern Sweden, a 13th-century timbered structure decked with unique Gothic wall paintings, was destroyed in a fire. Following the catastrophe, the Swedish National Heritage Board’s decided to reconstruct the monument with the aim of learning about medieval building techniques through a panoply of reproductive activities, from the imitation of medieval wood-cleaving methods to 3-D model building. The recreation of the church itself was, however, rhetorically downplayed as a goal, since historicist reconstructions were deemed inauthentic.[1] The painstakingly executed copying means were thus used to justify the faithful yet degraded – compared to the original – copied end, which is due for completion in June of 2022.
Purportedly lacking the ontological qualities of originals, copies, imitations, and simulacra have gathered associations of inferiority in Western thought starting with Plato. Yet in practice, diverse modalities of copying have long stood at the core of the architectural profession: from the large-scale reuse and revivals of classical antiquity and through the educational circulation of ornamental details up to the present day, architecture has advanced through stealing, borrowing, and appropriation as much as through innovation. Reproductive practices have also served as crucial elements in investigations of architectural remains and the conservation of heritage monuments, from the copying of ancient inscriptions by sixteenth-century antiquarians to the full-scale casting in plaster of entire ancient structures by nineteenth-century archeologists.
The phenomenon of the copy as it relates to architectural spaces has had innumerable expressions in different periods and cultures across the West: the Roman built world was dominated by imitation of Greek models; religious shrines, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, became the prototypes for churches in medieval Europe; the Early Modern period’s very establishment of architectural authorship was often supported by a selective appropriation of the Classical orders; the nineteenth century’s replications of medieval monuments was part of national-historical memory building; and modern and postmodern architecture heavily relied on repetition and pastiche respectively.
The Architecture of Copies /Copies of Architecture conference aims to revisit the borders between the copy and the prototype, acts of imitation and of variation, and to examine the knowledge production and preservation processes involved in the act of architectural replication and other attendant phenomena.
[1] Eva Löfgren, “Reconstruction as Enchantment Strategy: Swedish Churches Burnt, Rebuilt and Rethought,” Ethnologia Europaea 50, no. 1 (2020): 52–72, https://doi.org/10.16995/ee.1895.
PROGRAM:
DAY 1
Thursday 22 September, 09.30-16.00
Rooms: 1584-226 &126, Kasernen, Langelandsgade 145, 8000 Aarhus C
09.40-10.00
Welcome and Introduction
10:00-10.50
Mari Lending, Professor, Institute of Architecture, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design: “Serialized Originals”
10:50-11.00 Coffee Break
11:00-12.00
Costanza Beltrami, Departmental Lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Art History, St Catherine's College, University of Oxford: “Spain, Scotland, and Beyond: Reproducing Spanish Architecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum”
Kalliopi Amygdalou, Senior Researcher, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, Athens: “Replicas and Reconstructions in the Service of the Nation”
12:00-12.40 Lunch Break
12:40-13.30
Susanne Müller-Bechtel, Dr. phil. habil., The Young Forum at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig: “Drawing as an Epistemic Practice: Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle and his Drawings after Italian Wall Painting before 1550”
13.30-14.30
Ronah Sadan, PhD Fellow, School of Communication and Culture – Art History, Aarhus University: "From Trace to Replica: Copying Wall Paintings in Denmark, France and China, 1840 – Today"
Nick Walkley, PhD Fellow, Institute of Architecture, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design: “Tracing a Trajectory: The Urnes Portal from Icon to Origin in the Study of Architectural Ornament”
14.30-14.45 Coffee Break
14.45-15.45
Emily C. Burns, Director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of the Art of the American West and Associate Professor of Art History, University of Oklahoma: “Dioramas, Architectural Copies, and African-American Spaces, 1900-1940”
Nuno Grancho,
Postdoctoral Researcher and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, Centre for Privacy Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen / Visiting Researcher, The Royal Danish Academy, School of Architecture, Design and Conservation: “Privacy in Architecture of Copies in Danish Colonial India”
15:45-16.00
Conclusion
DAY 2
Friday 23 September, 09.30-16.00
Room: 1585-119 (Lille Sal), Kasernen, Langelandsgade 143, 8000 Aarhus C
09.40-10.00
Welcome and Introduction
10:00-10.50
Maria Fabricius-Hansen, Professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen: “Challenging Originality: The Appropriation, Reuse, and Copy of the Ancient Past in Western Architecture”
10.50-11.20
Jarle Tollefsrud, PhD Fellow, Institute of Architecture, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design: “The Quest for a Lost Space: The Reimagination of a Medieval Hall at Akershus Castle”
11.20-11.30 Coffee Break
11:30-12.30
Panagiotis Farantatos, Assistant Professor, School of Communication and Culture – Art History, Aarhus University: “Even Better than the Real Thing? Disputed Paternities and Creative Adoptions”
Vasileios Kitsos, Visiting Researcher, Department of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Stockholm: “Red 1928/ RED 2022”
12.30-13.30 Lunch Break
13.30-14.20
Panayotis Tournikiotis, Professor, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens: ”Original Copies and Other Issues on Art and Architecture”
14.20-14.30 Coffee Break
14.30-15.30
Mandana Bafghinia, PhD Student in Architecture/Geography and Urban studies, Université de Montréal/Université Lumière Lyon 2: “The Skyscraper Summit as Simulacrum”
Kasper Lægring, Postdoc, School of Communication and Culture – Art History, Aarhus University: “Replicating the Urban Lifeworld – and its Implications for Architecture”
15:30-16.00
Conclusion
To participate in the conference please register within September, 15th.
Quellennachweis:
CONF: The Architecture of Copies | Copies of Architecture (Aarhus, 22-23 Sep 22). In: ArtHist.net, 06.09.2022. Letzter Zugriff 15.05.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/37294>.
