Architecture and the Capriccio: Searching for Spatial Narrativity in Southern Italy

Abstract

How can memory, imagination and narrative be used to explore the potential, and depict the complexity of architectural sites? Architecture is naturally imbued with narratives, it exists within a discourse and physical environment which infiltrates every building with stories. In today’s climate of architectural practice, narrative is too often used as an afterthought or selling point for a design rather than deeply interrogated within the design process. Drawing upon narrativity, the grand tour, imagination, and the domestic ruin, this thesis explores the potential of spatial narrativity in architecture. It uses the phenomenon of one-euro Italian homes which have emerged in recent decades to serve as a vehicle for the exploration of such narrativization of space. It uses the methodology of the painting style of the architectural capriccio to design an architectural narration which navigates the intersection of the author’s mental grand tour to Italy and the actuality of place. A series of interventions are imagined through the lens of seven characters: the child, the traveller, the elder, the prisoner, the farmer, the student, and time. Each design draws upon various literary works and accounts of the grand tour, as well as historical and cultural precedents to inform a theoretical design which seeks to tell a spatial narrative. As part of this, fabric is interrogated for its temporal and phenomenological qualities. These designs contribute to a ‘capriccio’ which tells an imaginative narrative of place which serves to reinvigorate the existing site.