FORA: Associative Architecture

Abstract

This thesis sets out to discover whether both revealing and constructing architectural realities on a historically-rich site would reflect the indeterminability of architectural history and knowledge as an absolute, knowable quotient. Set in Istanbul, a city imbued with a palimpsest and layered history of the different empires that have ruled it – all having an influence on its architecture. The area surrounding the Column of Constantine in Cemberlitas is the focus of this thesis. Architecturally, its history embodies the Derridarian concept that ‘knowledge,’ in this case architectural knowledge, is essentially incomplete as it is reliant on an endless chain of references.1 This thesis sets out to discover whether it is possible to design a complex architectural ‘poetic image’ that evokes the architectural history of the site and the wider city to be ‘recalled’ and captivated in the imagination of the visitor by the mental and physical passage from one referential form to another. This design research was informed by small studies of monumental architecture significant to architectural history and an investigation into the site’s history revealed that below the current ground level lay the remains of Constantine’s Forum and an ancient Greco-Roman necropolis. The design process looked to conserve and reveal these in situ remains as urban space and create a contemporary monumental architecture building as an Institute for the Architecture of Istanbul. It proposes to house exhibition spaces for architectural artefacts and a substantial archive and library of publications, drawings, models, maps, photographs and architectural ephemera. The design process drew on the tradition of the architectural capriccio to form a matrix from which to design. Longitudinal sectional drawings of the city’s monuments were laid out on site and underwent a three-dimensional collaging process whereby elements of the capriccio were ‘lost,’ built-up, fragmented, broken-down and destabilized, resulting in rarely identifiable elements of the original monuments. The dialogue generated between the differing treatment of the fragments and the in situ remains created multiple narratives that were mutually supporting and yet independent.2 The shifts of references between the contemporary city, the surrounding Ottoman and Byzantium monuments, the displayed artefacts (now re-contextualized), the archive holdings, the in situ archeology and the constructed capriccio elements comprising the building, result in a breeding ground for the imagination that generates an theatre for ‘remembering’ the depth of the city’s architectural history and its shifting and indeterminable quality.