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sITA – studies in History and Theory of Architecture Cover Image

sITA – studii de Istoria şi Teoria Arhitecturii
sITA – studies in History and Theory of Architecture

Publishing House: Universitatea de Arhitectură şi Urbanism »Ion Mincu«
Subject(s): Architecture
Frequency: 1 issues
Print ISSN: 2344-6544
Online-ISSN: 2457-1687
Status: Active

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  • Issue No. 11
/2023 Cover
  • Year: 2023
  • Volume:
  • Number: 11

This issue of sITA reflects on topics that investigate or revisit the role of ruins in architectural theory and design, while at the same time considering the larger question of ruins and ruination as a predicament of our times. The volume opens with a conversation with renowned art historian and archaeologist Salvatore Settis.

Articles list
Ruins That Speak: Ageing Bodies, Collapsing Cities An interview with Salvatore Settis

Ruins That Speak: Ageing Bodies, Collapsing Cities An interview with Salvatore Settis
(Ruins That Speak: Ageing Bodies, Collapsing Cities An interview with Salvatore Settis)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Celia Ghyka
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, Visual Arts
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 15-22
  • No. of Pages: 8
  • Keywords: Salvatore Settis; Interview; artwork; architecture;
  • Summary/Abstract: Salvatore Settis is a most distinguished and highly reputed Italian art historian and archaeologist. His name resonates with some of the most important art history and humanities research centers in the world. Specialized in Italian Rennaissance and antiquity, in 1994 he became director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities (now the Getty Research Institute) in Los Angeles, a position that he held until 1999, when he returned to Pisa, where he would lead the Scuola Normale Superiore from 1999 to 2010. Since 2010 he has been Chair of the Scienti(c Council of the Musée du Louvre. He is also a member of the Académie Française, the Academies of Sciences in Berlin and Munich, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, and the American Philosophical Society. Having followed for years professor Setttis’s publications and exhibitions, I had the honor to meet him in Pisa, where he generously accepted to have this conversation for the present issue of our journal, dedicated to a topic that he had been pursuing for decades now, in many of his writings and exhibitions, mentioned in our conversation that follows.
The Inhabitability of Ruins: A Cultural History

The Inhabitability of Ruins: A Cultural History
(The Inhabitability of Ruins: A Cultural History)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Cătălin Pavel
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 23-42
  • No. of Pages: 20
  • Keywords: Simmel; Casa dei Crescenzi; Désert de Retz; Piranesi; Hubert Robert;
  • Summary/Abstract: In the present paper I collect some material for a cultural history of the inhabited ruin, still missing in the otherwise vast scientific literature on ruins. I argue that inhabitability needs to be acknowledged as a key characteristic of ruins, and that art historical and archaeological evidence substantiates the claim that there is no actual hiatus between the non-ruined and the ruined. Whether the rationale for dwelling in the ruins is pragmatic, symbolic, aesthetic, moral, sociopolitical or philosophical, the phenomenon needs to be mapped in detail. I take my cue from Georg Simmel, whose bewohnte Ruine has never been analyzed in depth, and complement it with Heidegger’s insights. I then discuss specific instances of inhabitable ruins from the Casa dei Crescenzi to Piranesi and Hubert Robert. Among the case studies are Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te, Clérisseau’s Stanza delle Rovine, and particularly François de Monville’s residential Broken column in the Désert de Retz. Ultimately, in this brief investigation I will address why and how ruins have been, since the Trecento, construed as inhabitable by trees, by people, and by other buildings.
Three Architectures, Three Times and Three Places in the Ruins of the Parthenon

Three Architectures, Three Times and Three Places in the Ruins of the Parthenon
(Three Architectures, Three Times and Three Places in the Ruins of the Parthenon)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Javier Pérez-Herreras
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 43-54
  • No. of Pages: 12
  • Keywords: primitive; Parthenon; structure; memory; journey;
  • Summary/Abstract: Inhabiting ruins is closely connected to discovering a memory. Memory is that room where, sometimes, our gaze lingers, looking for a time and a place of our own. Inhabiting is, then, moving to a place whose memory we aim to turn into our homeland. We propose three moves – three gazes – that sought that homeland in the same place: the ruins of the Parthenon. First, the move of a London engraver who captured the opulent fête that a minister of the Greek army offered to the French and English troops in those ruins in 1854. The Parthenon, in a renewed life, becomes the open window to a homeland of men whose time is as fleeting as the time of a dinner. Second, 50 years later, we discover the stop of two travelers – a painter and his father – in Athens. Their gaze on those same ruins turns the architecture into a clearing that binds heaven and earth together, in a time frozen by the hasty flight of those gods defeated by destiny. Finally, we explore the visit of an American architect 100 years after that London engraver who aimed to show us that same stone structure as a place halfway between old gods and new men, in a time that both decide to share again. The visit to these three gazes that inhabited the Parthenon will show that the memory inhabiting the ruins keeps, in its different lives, our renewed fates.
The Age of Ruinenlust An Exploration of Tourism and Ruins in the Urban Context, in Rome, during the Grand Tour

The Age of Ruinenlust An Exploration of Tourism and Ruins in the Urban Context, in Rome, during the Grand Tour
(The Age of Ruinenlust An Exploration of Tourism and Ruins in the Urban Context, in Rome, during the Grand Tour)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Efstathios Boukouras
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, Local History / Microhistory, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 55-70
  • No. of Pages: 16
  • Keywords: urban history; cultural heritage; historical geography; urban transformation;
  • Summary/Abstract: This study investigates the dynamic nature and influence of ruins in Rome, during the Grand Tour. Adopting an urban perspective, it employs a mixed-methods approach, aligning quantitative mapping of British travelers with qualitative assessment of cultural trends, physical adaptations, and representations of the city. Identifying the mid-18th century as a pivotal phase, this synergistic approach helps to illuminate how the city and its past were co-constructed and transformed simultaneously by hosts and visitors. This way, it emphasizes the impact of cultural shifts and socioeconomic changes on the interpretation of the city’s history. Overall, this research contributes to explaining how heritage, culture, and urbanism interconnect while underscoring the significance of early tourism in the dissemination of ideas during the formative years of modernity. These insights can be of use in current discourses and debates on issues like heritage commodification or over-tourism, by providing a more solid background and an interesting historical case study.
Ancient Places of Performance as “Realms of Memory”. The Case of Greece

Ancient Places of Performance as “Realms of Memory”. The Case of Greece
(Ancient Places of Performance as “Realms of Memory”. The Case of Greece)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Zeynep Aktüre
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 71-100
  • No. of Pages: 30
  • Keywords: realms of memory; modern Greece; nation-building; revival of Ancient Greek theatrical heritage; ancient performance buildings; modern interventions;
  • Summary/Abstract: In aerial views of the Acropolis of Athens, the Odeion of Herodes Atticus is the most present architectural monument on the South Slope while the theatre of Dionysus often appears as a void due to its unrestored state despite its acknowledged importance as the birthplace of Western drama and archetype of Greco-Roman theaters. This paper adopts Pierre Nora’s “realms of memory” framework to explain this disparity as the outcome of a national heritage management policy to preserve “first quality” Ancient Greek theaters in their unrestored state as lieux de mémoire for the modern Greek nation while restoring “second quality” Roman performance buildings as milieux de mémoire that bring the nation together in modern performances of Ancient Greek drama, as two aspects of the same desire to revive the Ancient Greek civilization in the modern Greek state. Supporting examples are found in restorations, for modern festivals, of Roman period odeia and of “polluted/desacralized” Greek theaters that had been modified for Roman amphitheater games, employing terminology suggested by Eleana Yalouri who coined also the “first-and-second-quality” distinction. Culture-based specificity and validity of the adopted framework is then discussed based on odeion restorations on the Aegean Islands that date from a period of Italian control instead of nation-building in modern Greece. This distinction is proposed to reveal the validity of Fernand Braudel’s “total history” paradigm that suggests surface phenomena (including architectural monuments) to be unintelligible without understanding the underlying economic, social, and political conjuncture that is, in its turn, largely shaped by geo-history. Concluding observations involve themes for future studies along this path.
Thessaloniki: The Modern Museum of an Ancient City

Thessaloniki: The Modern Museum of an Ancient City
(Thessaloniki: The Modern Museum of an Ancient City)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Alexandra Teodor
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 101-118
  • No. of Pages: 18
  • Keywords: spatial analysis; Greco-Roman urbanism; urban archaeology; urban cartography; urban museum;
  • Summary/Abstract: Started as an investigation on the common elements of the ancient and the contemporary city of Thessaloniki (Greece), this study is also an argument for the essential role of historical plans as complementary sources for urban archaeology – especially when the non-regenerable resource they represent, i.e., the historical urban fabric, has been predominantly lost. Based largely on two directions of analysis – the configuration of the street network, and the general layout of the palatial complex of Galerius, along with a brief assessment of the recent built stock evolution in the background –, the main conclusion is that what used to be, no more than a century ago, an authentic historical city that developed organically over two millennia, is now a wide historical center with a compromised urban fabric, a limited (if not already exceeded) potential for development, and serious problems in the interpretation of the historical city. These outcomes all stem from the urban planning approach and implementation over the course of the last century. The limited set of data employed in this study, consisting of one historical city plan, and a couple of archaeological plans focused on one relevant area of the ancient city, might be perceived as a basis for a narrow and distorted view. However, I view it as a representative sample for what could be only the tip of the iceberg in deciphering what was actually lost in the process. Rather than a gain for urban archeology, the process of urban development and renewal (particularly in the post-war period) is, in my view, a negative and irreversible interference with a historical site, transforming a living ancient-modern city into a modern museum of an ancient city.
On Ruins in 19th Century Romania

On Ruins in 19th Century Romania
(On Ruins in 19th Century Romania)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Horia Moldovan
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 119-138
  • No. of Pages: 20
  • Keywords: Romanticism; 19th century; Romania;
  • Summary/Abstract: Was there a concern for ruins in 19th century Romania? The development of the romantic spirit and the taste for the picturesque, circumscribed to a narrow cultural elite, triggered an interest for antiquities and ruins. This specific preoccupation was animated by the evocative role of a far and still little-known past, and also by the aesthetic value of the ruin. The increasingly lively interest for the research of national history and the early attitudes towards the preservation of its material remains founded a whole new chapter of the early-modern Romanian culture. Was there a cult of ruins in 19th century Romania? Towards the middle of the century, a significant literature of the ruin was flourishing – borrowed or indigene, developed in a meaningful Romanian lyric. However, the subject came to the attention of local antiquarians from a pragmatic perspective. The early archaeological excursions in Oltenia of Vladimir Blaremberg and Mihail Ghica, popularized in contemporary publications, represented a first step in the systematic approach to the ancient remains in Wallachia, which later became the basis for the Romanian Academy studies. #e “archaeological expeditions” of the mid19th century led by Alexandru Pelimon, Cezar Bolliac, Dimitrie Papazoglu, and Alexandru Odobescu accompanied by the painter Henri Trenk and, later on, those of Gheorghe Tattarescu, contributed to the foundation of a scientific knowledge, to a first inventory and in some cases, to the graphic documentation of the artifacts. By discussing these works, the article proposes several states of the architectural ruin in the Romanian 19th century: as an object of contemplation, as a source of historical information, as a vehicle of memory and aesthetic appreciation or, finally, as a means of political legitimation.
Making Built Heritage. Riegl’s Present Values in Adaptive Reuse

Making Built Heritage. Riegl’s Present Values in Adaptive Reuse
(Making Built Heritage. Riegl’s Present Values in Adaptive Reuse)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Nadin Augustiniok, Bie Plevoets, Claudine Houbart, Koenraad Van Cleempoel
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 139-156
  • No. of Pages: 18
  • Keywords: heritage conservation; architectural design; Karl Friedrich Schinkel;
  • Summary/Abstract: In response to the recent shift towards seeing the existing fabric as a resource, adaptive reuse is increasingly recognized as a valid strategy in heritage conservation. The built heritage is seen as crucial for the renewal and development of the built environment in an ecologically, economically and socio-culturally sustainable way. Ruins, however, are caught in a dichotomy between archaeological requirements and their invitation to our imagination and thus pose a challenge to our decision-making process on both a scientific and emotional level. This paper aims to investigate the reuse of ruins from a designerly/architectural perspective and more specifically how the intervention changes the values that can be attributed to the building. The methodology is a case study analysis of the Moritzburg in Halle/Saale, Germany, a Gothic castle ensemble with a long history of adaptations and reuses. This qualitative and practical study compares Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1829 proposal and Nieto Sobejano Architects’ recent 2009 extension. Hence, the two proposals represent the evolving meaning of cultural heritage and reuse in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. As a framework for comparison, we use Alois Riegl’s (1858-1905) considerations of present values. While aspects such as the completeness of a work of art, preservation of architectural characteristics and a distinct contemporary signature have remained the same, the recent adaptation also recognized the existing spatial quality.
Contemporary Spolia: Afterlives of Ruins in Fragments

Contemporary Spolia: Afterlives of Ruins in Fragments
(Contemporary Spolia: Afterlives of Ruins in Fragments)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Hale Gönül
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 157-174
  • No. of Pages: 18
  • Keywords: spolia; reuse of architectural fragments; afterlives of ruins; contemporary architecture; cultural cohesion in architecture; heritage preservation; reclaimed materials;
  • Summary/Abstract: The employment of spolia, building materials taken from ruined structures, has been a prevalent practice throughout the history of architecture. Reusing architectural pieces from ruins designates a relationship with fallen structures in terms of culture, building techniques and symbolic meaning. The employment of spolia is not only a pragmatic and economic use of materials since it entails the deliberate exhibition as well as the reconceptualization of the architectural fragment in its afterlife. Therefore, it performs as a way of cultural cohesion, appropriation, and continuity. Although use of spolia is conceived as a historical praxis, the habit also prevails in contemporary architecture. Many recent projects utilize the architectural pieces of ruins, either formerly existing on the construction site or elsewhere. The interest in spolia of contemporary design primarily resides in the desire to restore the connection with the place and memories of the past, illustrated by the works of Dimitris Pikionis and Carlo Scarpa in the post-war era. Within present-day building practices, the integration of spolia becomes a polyvalent act, which encompasses the establishment of links with previous values and the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, while achieving a harmonious adaptation to a new environment. Concurrently, it presents a novel aesthetic in which fragmentation, heterogeneity and complexity are all embraced. Within this scope, this article seeks to explore various means of spolia utilization in contemporary projects and to investigate the multifarious meaning and connotations that reuse fosters, by alluding to the heterogeneity and palimpsest-like context of the constructed environment.
The Circular Destiny of Ruins — The Case of the Convent of San Michele in Borgo, Pisa

The Circular Destiny of Ruins — The Case of the Convent of San Michele in Borgo, Pisa
(The Circular Destiny of Ruins — The Case of the Convent of San Michele in Borgo, Pisa)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Andrea Crudeli
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 175-184
  • No. of Pages: 10
  • Keywords: Massimo Carmassi; restoration; adaptive reuse; building adaptation; heritage conservation;
  • Summary/Abstract: During World War II, the medieval convent of San Michele in Borgo, located in Pisa, Italy, was destroyed by bombings. It has been considered for decades the primary post-war wound in the city center. From 1974 to 2001, architect Massimo Carmassi worked on the recovery of the ruins, first with a survey, then with a sequence of project proposals over more than twenty years. In 2001, close to the completion of the construction site, the complex was abandoned. Even though Carmassi later received the “Golden Medal for Italian Architecture” in 2015, also thanks to this project, the restored complex has turned paradoxically into a ruin again. After a recent investigation of the author’s archive in the Municipality of Pisa, unpublished projects emerged from the research, ranging from the initial proposals of the 1970s to the construction drawings of the 1990s. Thanks to a cross-reading of the various projects, and following a conversation with the author about the construction phase, a relationship between the ruin and the architect becomes apparent. This relationship consists of an innovative methodology that is deeply rooted in the theoretical restoration debate of that historical period in Italy. The paper explains how Massimo Carmassi’s main innovation has been to conceive the ruin as an active subject, an alive entity still capable of suggesting design topics and spatial solutions, both to be celebrated in the recovery project. The design principles adopted, the reinterpretation of the traditional technologies, and the intellectual linguistic dialogue, all converged into the image of a new integrated ruin, fulfilling Auguste Perret’s statement that “Architecture is what makes beautiful ruins.”
The Ruin as Phantasmagoria: The Faces of Nordingrå kyrkoruin

The Ruin as Phantasmagoria: The Faces of Nordingrå kyrkoruin
(The Ruin as Phantasmagoria: The Faces of Nordingrå kyrkoruin)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Katrin Holmqvist Sten
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 185-194
  • No. of Pages: 10
  • Keywords: medieval ruins; architectural history; tourism; nostalgia; phantasmagoria;
  • Summary/Abstract: In this article, the ruin of the medieval church in Nordingrå is investigated by questioning the function and meaning of the ruin today. Nordingrå, in the north of Sweden, is in the center of the World Culture Heritage area, #e High Coast, which annually attracts many tourists due to its scenic landscape. By using the notions of reflexive and restorative nostalgia by cultural theorist Svetlana Boym and rethinking Walter Benjamin’s idea of phantasmagoria in a rural context with the tourist as spectator, the transformation of the ruin from an abandoned site to a tourist experience is analyzed. A dialogue between the history of the ruin and the aims of The Swedish National Heritage Board reflects the perception of ruins in Sweden today. During the last renovation, an artistic project which mimics the Middle Ages and emphasizes the wish to attract and amaze visitors was added to this ruin.
Between Visible and Imagined City. Architecture and Ruins in Oswald Mathias Ungers’ Work

Between Visible and Imagined City. Architecture and Ruins in Oswald Mathias Ungers’ Work
(Between Visible and Imagined City. Architecture and Ruins in Oswald Mathias Ungers’ Work)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Martina D’Alessandro
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Archaeology, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 195-208
  • No. of Pages: 14
  • Keywords: palimpsest; history; Trier; archeology; contemporary city;
  • Summary/Abstract: Oswald Mathias Ungers’ position on the relationship between architecture and ruin is based on the same principles as his urban vision: a contradictory, dialectical, and non-homogeneous system. In OMU’s work, historical fragments define a new architectural concept conforming to contemporary urban form. He says: “I am an architect. Not a conservator of architectural assets, who focuses only on maintaining what still exists. And not a restorer, who tries only to recover what was once whole. As an architect, I am interested in realizing personal ideas, though inside the historical and architectural context.” OMU’s attitude to architecture and history clearly distances itself from a design that aims at integral reconstruction, mimesis, and evocation of ancient spaces. This attitude is demonstrated in several of his museum projects in archaeological context. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (1996-2000) and the Diözesan-Museum (1997) in Cologne, the Museum of Thermen am Forum (1988-1996) and the Entrance to the Kaiserthermen archeological complex (2003-2007) in Trier are a paradigm of thinking over the relationship between the “project” and “ruins.” Rotations, misalignments, and morphological sequences are, in this context, the autonomy of OMU’s design above the surface of history’s palimpsest.
“Berlin, a Housing Block by Bruno Taut Will Be Demolished”. Álvaro Siza in the “Taut City” (1975-1988)

“Berlin, a Housing Block by Bruno Taut Will Be Demolished”. Álvaro Siza in the “Taut City” (1975-1988)
(“Berlin, a Housing Block by Bruno Taut Will Be Demolished”. Álvaro Siza in the “Taut City” (1975-1988))

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Miguel Borges de Araújo
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Cultural history, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 209-224
  • No. of Pages: 16
  • Keywords: Modern Movement; ruin; design practice; reference; transformation
  • Summary/Abstract: Ruins are ultimately the end point of any architecture, but also often, whether literally or metaphysically, their origin. The ruin, as a reference conserved in a process of transformation, has been a key for understanding the work of the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza (1933-). The present article examines an encounter between Siza and the work of Bruno Taut (1880-1938) in three sections. First, it proposes that Siza prepared it by studying books by and about Taut; second, it conjectures a specific encounter between Siza and the ruins of a building by Taut; third, it suggests how the latter could have influenced Siza. Siza’s projects in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district between 1975-1988 presented his first opportunity to work abroad. Berlin – which Siza called, in tribute, the “Taut city” – was then a city under extraordinary circumstances: divided, ruinated, and under renovation. The article claims that although Siza’s interest in ruins and in Taut precedes his Berlin work, the sight of Taut (that is, of modern architecture) in ruins made the encounter memorable and stimulating. A crucial source is a 1977 article by Tilmann Buddensieg, which depicts the ruins of Taut’s apartment building in Kottbusser Damm 2-3 (1910-1911), also in Kreuzberg, damaged during WW2 and set for demolition at that time. At the last moment, Taut’s ruins were incorporated into a renovation by architects Inken and Hinrich Baller (1982). However, only the ruins, essential and transient, and not the renovated building, could have captured Siza’s attention.
Ruin Figures and Ruin Fields of the Contemporary: The Post-Industrial Parc à fabriques

Ruin Figures and Ruin Fields of the Contemporary: The Post-Industrial Parc à fabriques
(Ruin Figures and Ruin Fields of the Contemporary: The Post-Industrial Parc à fabriques)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Cristina Purcar, Andreea Milea
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 225-246
  • No. of Pages: 22
  • Keywords: fabricated ruin; ruined factory; taste for the ruin; fgure / feld dialectic; landscape design; post-industrial conversion; landscape painting;
  • Summary/Abstract: Between “the industrial” and “the ruin” there is both an apparently stark contrast and a less obvious affinity: on the one hand, the industrial is human labour geared towards efficient and prodigious fabrication, consuming energy into the raw material, while ruination is the very return of the outcomes of human industriousness towards the state of prime matter; on the other hand, industry tends to ruin “natural nature” by exploitation and pollution, superseding it by an artificial, mechanical nature. Thus, ruination and production have nature in common: a reinstalled nature versus a banished nature. This paper drafts an analogy between the post-industrial site, reinvented as (spontaneous or designed) park, and the romantic parc à fabriques. We outline connections, in terms of spatial configuration and cultural perception, between the fabricated ruins of the romantic aristocratic gardens, and the ruined factories of post-industrial sites. The argument develops in four sequences: (a) introducing the original parc à fabriques and the role of the ruin figure therein; (b) proposing an extended meaning, detached from the cultural context of its original use, in reading the industrial site as factory “park”; (c) discussing ruination in the context of decommissioned industrial sites, envisaged as both ruin fields and ruined fields; (d) proposing a taxonomy of ex-industrial sites, purposefully redeveloped as parks, as contemporary reinterpretations of the parc à fabriques. Besides the tight connection between the picturesque romantic park and painting, throughout the paper, the presentation draws not only on real places, but also on fine art representations. Through their mutual mirroring, in different epochs, real places and representations both reflect and create a taste for the ruin in natural field.
Landscaping Ecosystems or the Taste for a Nature in Ruins

Landscaping Ecosystems or the Taste for a Nature in Ruins
(Landscaping Ecosystems or the Taste for a Nature in Ruins)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Smaranda Todoran
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 247-256
  • No. of Pages: 10
  • Keywords: attachment; garden; pleasure; care; order; sense of time ;
  • Summary/Abstract: With Karl Foerster, Piet Oudolf, Alain Provost or Gilles Clément, to name a few of today’s renowned landscape designers, a sensibility towards fragile plants and ecosystems has taken over urban environments. A calm wilderness of a somewhat ruined nature often counterbalances geometry, inviting a possible question, in proximity of Bernard Tschumi’s remark on how garden models have preceded architectural models, that is, whether and how this taste for a seemingly spontaneous vegetation might influence or illustrate the built world. The paper tries to see the underlying motivation for the appearance of these urban landscapes, around several concepts, borrowed from the writings of Tschumi, Ruskin, Jean Baudrillard and Marc Augé. Pleasure and delight, as described by Ruskin, and now Tschumi, are emotions closely linked to the nineteenth-century romantic `mood of ruins`, bringing forward a notion of usefulness and uselessness that Baudrillard develops around the fascination for the old object. Whereas the objectual world illuminates a time that passes progressively, assuring a sense of origin and purpose, being reminded of the cycles of nature bypassing completely the man-made ruin, instead soothes our need of meaningful time passing, in a contemporary world that might not be able to produce ruins, as Augé puts it. How can then this preference for fragile ecosystems be interpreted? The paper proposes hypotheses on the kind of sensibility concerning time, pleasure, rationality and a sense of meaning for contemporary western societies that these tendencies in landscape design hint to, and on how they might influence architecture.
Authentic Ruins or Authentic Reconstructions?

Authentic Ruins or Authentic Reconstructions?
(Authentic Ruins or Authentic Reconstructions?)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Ákos Zsembery, Maja Toshikj
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 257-276
  • No. of Pages: 20
  • Keywords: authenticity; Hungary; reconstruction; restoration; ruins;
  • Summary/Abstract: Renato Bonelli, one of the fathers of “critical restoration,” clearly indicates that architectural restoration is a typically modern concept that consciously changes the appearance of a monument and aims to recreate the original appearance rather than restore it. In such interventions, which are not based on formal reconstruction, authenticity is based on an emphatic distinction between the original remains and the new addition, so that modern interpretative additions also create “contemporary” ruins, recreating the destroyed elements with modern “protheses.” But with the reevaluation of modern architecture, these didactic restorations are threatened. The dismantling of modern buildings after the Second World War and the reconstruction of historicized buildings that once stood in their place or the hypothetical reconstruction of medieval ruins are an increasingly common phenomenon in Central and Eastern Europe, carried out for the sake of tourism or “historical justice.” The completion of the ruins generally created a juxtaposition between the old and the new, while the rebuilding is subject to serious ethical questions similar to the case of demolition. In this article, the most current questions about the afterlife of ruins are presented mainly through examples of the reconstruction of ruins in Hungary. We highlight the false conclusions that lead from conservation to reconstruction in the name of sustainability. We explore the conflict of principles between the logic of distinction and the logic of total reconstruction. We examine the potential options for post-traumatic post-conflict ruin management in the light of new international recommendations. Using examples of hypothetical reconstructions, we will demonstrate the relationship between digital possibilities and the question of authenticity.
Dirty Ruins and Their Online Afterlives

Dirty Ruins and Their Online Afterlives
(Dirty Ruins and Their Online Afterlives)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Elena Rădoi
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, Visual Arts, Film / Cinema / Cinematography, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 277-296
  • No. of Pages: 20
  • Keywords: media theory; post-humanism; agential realism; feminist theory; ruin porn; objectifcation theory; Japanese animation; Suzume; The Boy and the Heron;
  • Summary/Abstract: Ruin porn proves, as the contemporary successor of Ruinenlust, that humans still share Georg Simmel’s fascination for ruins. However, modern ruin-enthusiasts of the Mediocene consume them through visual media, because “real ruins” are either musealized or too dirty to be accessed. They seem – unless staged by contemporary media – on the verge of losing their meaning. Similar to Bram Stocker’s Dracula, who lived in a Transylvanian “vast ruined castle” before transferring to Whitby Abbey, ruins seem like empty shells, gradually robbed by humans and metaphorically “eroded by time.” However, they “host” a multitude of life forms. Analogously to the simultaneously dead and alive Dracula, ruins are trapped in traditional dichotomies of nature-culture or absence-presence. Nonetheless, the doorless ruin takes dichotomies off their hinges by annulling the door as operative ontology and ceases to delimitate the inside and the outside. I argue that, either dirty crumbling objects or captured in (digital) media such as photography or film, ruins remain meaningful for both humans and non-humans. Ruin porn, which is online available, makes them everywhere accessible. Yet they objectify the ruin as their aesthetic has assimilated a universal visual grammar established by porn.
Oana Cristina Țiganea, The Rise and Fall of Romanian “Steel Fortresses” and the Case of Hunedoara, 1949-1999. Built and Environmental Legacies of Socialist Industrialisation

Oana Cristina Țiganea, The Rise and Fall of Romanian “Steel Fortresses” and the Case of Hunedoara, 1949-1999. Built and Environmental Legacies of Socialist Industrialisation
(Oana Cristina Țiganea, The Rise and Fall of Romanian “Steel Fortresses” and the Case of Hunedoara, 1949-1999. Built and Environmental Legacies of Socialist Industrialisation)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Dana Vais
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life, Book-Review, History of Art
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 299-304
  • No. of Pages: 6
  • Keywords: Oana Cristina Țiganea;review;industrial architecture;
  • Summary/Abstract: Based on a doctorate conducted at the Politecnico di Milano and a decade of research, Oana Țiganea’s book addresses the most famed socialist heavy-industry site in Romania: Hunedoara. Written from a heritage perspective, it aims at providing an exhaustive historical research on the tangible legacy of steel industry in Hunedoara at all scales, from the physical transformations at geographic level to building details, together with an insight into the intangible heritage of the specific culture and the social reality this industry has created. The book combines the most in-depth historical analysis with the widest perspective. While the focus is set on socialist Hunedoara, this case is also widely contextualized, both temporally and spatially – addressed over a longer time frame and on a wider territory. Its evolution is followed from the beginnings of metallurgic industry on this site, before the modern Romanian state even existed, to its rise as the very epitome of heavy industrialization in socialist Romania, and eventually to its post-socialist fall into the partial ruination we see today. By also investigating the two other major steel sites of Reșița and Galați and highlighting the networking feature of steel production under socialism, the book eventually gives the most comprehensive picture of the evolution of the steel industry on Romanian territory.
The Art of Urban Design. Post-Industrial Regeneration in the Work of Marcel Smets

The Art of Urban Design. Post-Industrial Regeneration in the Work of Marcel Smets
(The Art of Urban Design. Post-Industrial Regeneration in the Work of Marcel Smets)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Șerban Țigănaș
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, Review, General Reference Works
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 305-310
  • No. of Pages: 6
  • Keywords: Urban Design;exhibition review; Co-creative processes;
  • Summary/Abstract: The exhibition. The title of the exhibition is “The Art of Urban Design. Post-Industrial Regeneration in the Work of Marcel Smets”. Although one may be surprised by the unreserved description of urban practices as art, the levels of complexity, innovation, and competence manifested in the works are raising the results to the very level of artistic expression. Let’s look at the content of the exhibition as defined by its authors: “Encompassing three decades of recent urbanistic practice, the exhibit highlights the complex environments and co-creative processes at work in the renewal of the contemporary city. Rather than a métarécit of the prodigious career that connects the showcased projects, the exhibit occasions the opportunity of starring many individuals, organizations, and communities, grouped into professional or social constellations are generated by two kinds of gravity: on the one hand, the axiological weight of the city and, on the other hand, the undeniable attraction force exerted on contemporary subjectivity by derelict industrial and infrastructural places. The selected projects display a threefold diversity: (a) chronological – from the early ‘90s to the present; (b) typological – railway stations, port districts, urban river fronts, road infrastructure, and derelict industrial areas or public facilities; (c) geographical – projects from Belgium, France, Italy, and Portugal.”
Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha Curators: Jean-Louis Cohen and Vanessa Grossman; Scienti(c Consultant: Catherine Otondo; Exhibition project: Eduardo Souto de Moura and Nuno Graça Moura Casa da Arquitectura — Portuguese Centre for Archi

Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha Curators: Jean-Louis Cohen and Vanessa Grossman; Scienti(c Consultant: Catherine Otondo; Exhibition project: Eduardo Souto de Moura and Nuno Graça Moura Casa da Arquitectura — Portuguese Centre for Archi
(Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha Curators: Jean-Louis Cohen and Vanessa Grossman; Scienti(c Consultant: Catherine Otondo; Exhibition project: Eduardo Souto de Moura and Nuno Graça Moura Casa da Arquitectura — Portuguese Centre for Archi)

  • Publication: (11/2023)
  • Author(s): Alexandra Demetriu
  • Contributor(s):
  • Language: English
  • Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, Review, General Reference Works
  • Issue: 11/2023
  • Page Range: 311-315
  • No. of Pages: 5
  • Keywords: Constructed Geographies; Paulo Mendes da Rocha;exhibition;review;
  • Summary/Abstract: The exhibition “Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha,” Jean-Louis Cohen’s last curatorial project, is currently on view at the Casa da Arquitectura in Matosinhos, Portugal. For more than ten months, from May 2023 until February 2024, this display offers the unique opportunity to explore the life and work of one of Brazil’s most celebrated figures, Pritzker Prize architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Running in parallel with major architectural shows such as Pompidou’s Norman Foster or Herzog & de Meuron at the Royal Academy in London, the Mendes da Rocha retrospective stands out for its unique approach.
Short Description

sITA – studies in History and Theory of Architecture is a peer-reviewed journal, with both online and print versions and ISSNs. It is published annually by the “Sanda Voiculescu” Department of History & Theory of Architecture and Heritage Conservation at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest and covers a wide range of topics related to architectural and urban history and theory, focusing not only on Romania, but also on relevant regional and international issues.

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