Rosso, Michela

ROSSO, Michela

PORTO@iris (Publications Open Repository TOrino - Politecnico di Torino)

04 August 2020POLITECNICO DI TORINORepository ISTITUZIONALERevisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural History / Rosso M.. - In: ABEJOURNAL. - ISSN 2275-6639. - ELETTRONICO. - 1(2012).OriginalRevisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural HistoryPublisher:PublishedDOI:Terms of use:openAccessPublisher copyright(Article begins on next page)This article is made available under terms and conditions as specified in the  corresponding bibliographic description inthe repositoryAvailability:This version is available at: 11583/2525156 since: 2016-02-24T14:24:34ZInVisuABE Journal1  (2012)Varia................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Michela RossoRevisionist Histories and Their LimitsSeeking Alternative Representations of ArchitecturalHistory................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................AvertissementLe contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive del'éditeur.Les œuvres figurant sur ce site peuvent être consultées et reproduites sur un support papier ou numérique sousréserve qu'elles soient strictement réservées à un usage soit personnel, soit scientifique ou pédagogique excluanttoute exploitation commerciale. La reproduction devra obligatoirement mentionner l'éditeur, le nom de la revue,l'auteur et la référence du document.Toute autre reproduction est interdite sauf accord préalable de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législationen vigueur en France.Revues.org est un portail de revues en sciences humaines et sociales développé par le Cléo, Centre pour l'éditionélectronique ouverte (CNRS, EHESS, UP, UAPV).................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Référence électroniqueMichela Rosso, « Revisionist Histories and Their Limits », ABE Journal [En ligne], 1 | 2012, mis en ligne le 02 février2012, consulté le 02 février 2016. URL : http://abe.revues.org/131 ; DOI : 10.4000/abe.131Éditeur : Laboratoire InVisu CNRS/INHA (USR 3103)http://abe.revues.orghttp://www.revues.orgDocument accessible en ligne sur :http://abe.revues.org/131Document généré automatiquement le 02 février 2016.CC 3.0 BYRevisionist Histories and Their Limits 2ABE Journal, 1 | 2012Michela RossoRevisionist Histories and Their LimitsSeeking Alternative Representations of Architectural History1 A cursory overview of the recent literature in architectural history reveals a startling disparitybetween the increasing number of reprints of well-established reference books, only seldomupdated, and the almost complete absence of courageous new attempts to rewrite the historyof this discipline according to its latest and most innovative achievements. As a matterof fact, the flood of doctoral dissertations, architectural biographies, and hyperdetailedarcheological analyses of building processes and critical projects, based on first-hand archivalinvestigation, is never easily channeled into a comparable production of new publicationsaddressing the layman and neophyte. The latter’s rather conventional and conservativeapproach, the persistence of traditional periodizations, the recurrence of well-establishednames and theoretical frames of reference, confronted with the extreme sophistication and self-referentiality of more specialist works, could be interpreted as the result of a communicationgap between two different types of knowledge, and two different cultural markets—high andlow, elitist and mainstream—of architectural history.2 At least three paths of research have gained unprecedented legitimacy as the subject matter ofrevisionist histories. They can be singled out from among the modern trajectories previouslymarginalized or left out by the canonical discourse. Although the revisionist wave has involvedthe historical writing of other periods as well, the scope of the following overview is limitedto books and studies mainly concerned with the history of early modern and contemporaryarchitecture (15th to 21st centuries).3 A challenge to the Eurocentric and North American bias that has dominated the history ofarchitecture since its inception has elicited works that extend their geographical reach wellbeyond the western world, including previously unexplored countries and regions.1 Emergentcountries, such as China, India, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, have suddenlygarnered unparalleled scholarly attention. Among these works, a special place is occupied byessays that challenge current interpretations of the development of modernist architecture inthe Third World. They show how architectural and urban modernism, no longer consideredas simply another instance of Western expansionist aspirations, acted as a potent vehicle ofmodernization, economic development, and technological transfer, actively contributing to theconstruction of these countries’ national and cultural identities.24 A new demand for history coming from communities whose role has traditionallybeen excluded from the canonical discourse—women, ethnic minorities, economicallydisadvantaged groups—all claiming a specific place in the history of architecture andurbanism, has recently prompted a number of works. This research has significantly improvedthe critical perspective on the history of the built environment. These works, however, cannotbe fully understood when placed outside the context of specific multicultural societies, suchas the North American one. Profound social inequalities and vigorous opposition movementshave accentuated the public’s awareness of ethnic differences and social discriminations,fertilizing this field of investigation in Europe and elsewhere.5 New interest has been kindled in the so-called “other modernisms,” aimed at challenging thepervasive and persistent myth of the avant-garde by stimulating the critical reassessment offigures conventionally excluded by the canonical textbooks because of their open oppositionto the more orthodox and intransigent factions of modern architecture. A significant part ofthe architectural literature has therefore been rewritten and revised, especially in countriesthat were governed by totalitarian regimes. The controversial personalities of architects,technicians, and intellectuals whose works had been identified and sometimes confused withthe political instances of these non-democratic governments became the focus of accurate andpatient research, especially by younger generations of scholars.Revisionist Histories and Their Limits 3ABE Journal, 1 | 20126 But what is the real impact of these scholarly works on the general awareness of the historyof architecture? How do the most recent reference and text books reflect the findings ofthese highly sophisticated studies? In most cases, popular writing on architecture seemsimpermeable to the world of academic research. Why is it so? Will these studies affect theconsolidated narratives and official accounts of the architectural history of the 20th century?What relegates them to the world of academic elites, scientific journals, and consequentevaluation processes?7 However, certain new critical approaches have introduced innovative perspectives, capable ofstimulating the curiosity of a broader and less specialized audience. This is the case of somerecent books.8 The first one, written by the architectural historian Giorgio Pigafetta in 2007, advertises itselfas an alternative version of the history of architecture between the 15th and 20th centuries.3 Forthe author, the history of architecture can be narrated as the history of the principle of imitation,a pervasive, immortal, timeless idea that, like a karstic river, finds its way out from time to timedespite recurrent attempts to bury it. His Storia dell’architettura moderna is the history of howa code (the classical language of architecture) has continued to be adopted and interpreted byarchitects and builders over five centuries. This potentially fruitful historical material is thenused by the author as a narrative pretext for his original account of the architectural history ofthe last five centuries. The result is a tableau dotted by permanent factors and continuities ratherthan innovations, ruptures, and avant-gardes, a history in which the conflicting categories oftradition and originality, modernism and anti-modernism, invention and imitation, constitutea substantial part of its rhetoric.9 In Marco Biraghi’s Storia dell’architettura contemporanea,4 the label “modernism” ispeeled off, revealing a plurality of concepts that require a heterogeneous outlook, andimplicitly acknowledging the acceptance of diverse and distant experiences within this broadhistoriographical category. It is significant that this account of the history of architecture fromthe origins of the contemporary age (around 1750) to 2008 concludes with the chapter Nuoviriti, nuovi miti [“New rites, new myths”] where the author offers these twelve keywords,mottoes or slogans: Globalization, Architecture as a work of art, New Museums, Junk space,Signature buildings, Eco&Bio, Continuity, Near East, Lightness, Ove Arup, Star-chitectSystem, After Image. In the trans-historical perspective yielded by this highly pluralistic vision,each one epitomizes a theme relevant to the contemporary age.10 The episodic, fragmented nature of this narrative is taken to the extreme in volume one ofArchitettura del Novecento5 by Biraghi and Alberto Ferlenga. It is a collection of essaysby 120 authors which together compose a multi-form portrait of the architecture of the20th century, giving rise to a mosaic of 179 alphabetically arranged entries chosen bythe editors, including such general terms, concepts, or keywords as digital architecture,architectural books, materials, museum, landscape, monumentality, etc., along with a selectionof architectural magazines, seminal books, academic and research institutions, architecturalschools, public exhibitions, and prizes that have substantially influenced or even orientedthe course of the architectural history of the last one hundred years. Trying to avoid boththe excessive specialization and the encyclopedic aspirations that characterize two parallel,opposite, and supposedly obsolete trends of the literature in architectural history, the authorsdare a radical reformulation of the narrative codes of this discipline, clearly demonstrating thetremendous difficulties implicit in such a monumental and ambitious enterprise.Notes1 See for example the two new volumes on Brazil and Turkey recently published in the series Modernarchitectures in history issued by Reaktion Books.2 Duanfang Lu, Third World Modernism: Architecture, Development and Identity, London; New York,NY: Routledge, 2010.3 Giorgio Pigafetta, Storia dell’architettura moderna. Imitazione e invenzione fra xv e xx secolo, Turin:Bollati Boringhieri, 2007 (Nuova cultura ; 163).Revisionist Histories and Their Limits 4ABE Journal, 1 | 20124 Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. 1. 1750–1945, Turin: Einaudi, 1998 (Piccolabiblioteca Einaudi. Nuova Serie; 400) and Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. 2.1945–2008, Turin: Einaudi, 2008 (Piccola biblioteca Einaudi. Nuova serie; 401).5 Marco Biraghi and Alberto Ferlenga (eds.), Architettura del Novecento. Teorie, scuole, eventi, Turin:Einaudi, 2012.Pour citer cet articleRéférence électroniqueMichela Rosso, « Revisionist Histories and Their Limits », ABE Journal [En ligne], 1 | 2012, mis enligne le 02 février 2012, consulté le 02 février 2016. URL : http://abe.revues.org/131 ; DOI : 10.4000/abe.131À propos de l’auteurMichela RossoTurin Polytechnic, Turin, ItalyDroits d’auteurCC 3.0 BYEntrées d’indexIndex de mots-clés : historiographie, révisionisme, architecture contemporaineIndex by keyword : historiography, revisionism, contemporary architectureIndice de palabras clave : historiografía, revisionismo, arquitectura contemporáneaSchlagwortindex : Historiografie, Revisionismus, Zeitgenössische ArchitekturParole chiave : storiografia, revisionismo, architettura contemporanea

English

Revisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural History

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[Article] Revisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative
Representations of Architectural History
Original Citation:
Rosso M. (2012). Revisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative Representations of
Architectural History. In: ABE JOURNAL, vol. 1. - ISSN 2275-6639
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(Article begins on next page)
ABE Journal
1  (2012)
Varia
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Michela Rosso
Revisionist Histories and Their Limits
Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural
History
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Avertissement
Le contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive de
l'éditeur.
Les œuvres figurant sur ce site peuvent être consultées et reproduites sur un support papier ou numérique sous
réserve qu'elles soient strictement réservées à un usage soit personnel, soit scientifique ou pédagogique excluant
toute exploitation commerciale. La reproduction devra obligatoirement mentionner l'éditeur, le nom de la revue,
l'auteur et la référence du document.
Toute autre reproduction est interdite sauf accord préalable de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation
en vigueur en France.
Revues.org est un portail de revues en sciences humaines et sociales développé par le Cléo, Centre pour l'édition
électronique ouverte (CNRS, EHESS, UP, UAPV).
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Référence électronique
Michela Rosso, « Revisionist Histories and Their Limits », ABE Journal [En ligne], 1 | 2012, mis en ligne le 02 février
2012, consulté le 02 février 2016. URL : http://abe.revues.org/131 ; DOI : 10.4000/abe.131
Éditeur : Laboratoire InVisu CNRS/INHA (USR 3103)
http://abe.revues.org
http://www.revues.org
Document accessible en ligne sur :
http://abe.revues.org/131
Document généré automatiquement le 02 février 2016.
CC 3.0 BY
Revisionist Histories and Their Limits 2
ABE Journal, 1 | 2012
Michela Rosso
Revisionist Histories and Their Limits
Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural History
1 A cursory overview of the recent literature in architectural history reveals a startling disparity
between the increasing number of reprints of well-established reference books, only seldom
updated, and the almost complete absence of courageous new attempts to rewrite the history
of this discipline according to its latest and most innovative achievements. As a matter
of fact, the flood of doctoral dissertations, architectural biographies, and hyperdetailed
archeological analyses of building processes and critical projects, based on first-hand archival
investigation, is never easily channeled into a comparable production of new publications
addressing the layman and neophyte. The latter’s rather conventional and conservative
approach, the persistence of traditional periodizations, the recurrence of well-established
names and theoretical frames of reference, confronted with the extreme sophistication and self-
referentiality of more specialist works, could be interpreted as the result of a communication
gap between two different types of knowledge, and two different cultural markets—high and
low, elitist and mainstream—of architectural history.
2 At least three paths of research have gained unprecedented legitimacy as the subject matter of
revisionist histories. They can be singled out from among the modern trajectories previously
marginalized or left out by the canonical discourse. Although the revisionist wave has involved
the historical writing of other periods as well, the scope of the following overview is limited
to books and studies mainly concerned with the history of early modern and contemporary
architecture (15th to 21st centuries).
3 A challenge to the Eurocentric and North American bias that has dominated the history of
architecture since its inception has elicited works that extend their geographical reach well
beyond the western world, including previously unexplored countries and regions.1 Emergent
countries, such as China, India, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, have suddenly
garnered unparalleled scholarly attention. Among these works, a special place is occupied by
essays that challenge current interpretations of the development of modernist architecture in
the Third World. They show how architectural and urban modernism, no longer considered
as simply another instance of Western expansionist aspirations, acted as a potent vehicle of
modernization, economic development, and technological transfer, actively contributing to the
construction of these countries’ national and cultural identities.2
4 A new demand for history coming from communities whose role has traditionally
been excluded from the canonical discourse—women, ethnic minorities, economically
disadvantaged groups—all claiming a specific place in the history of architecture and
urbanism, has recently prompted a number of works. This research has significantly improved
the critical perspective on the history of the built environment. These works, however, cannot
be fully understood when placed outside the context of specific multicultural societies, such
as the North American one. Profound social inequalities and vigorous opposition movements
have accentuated the public’s awareness of ethnic differences and social discriminations,
fertilizing this field of investigation in Europe and elsewhere.
5 New interest has been kindled in the so-called “other modernisms,” aimed at challenging the
pervasive and persistent myth of the avant-garde by stimulating the critical reassessment of
figures conventionally excluded by the canonical textbooks because of their open opposition
to the more orthodox and intransigent factions of modern architecture. A significant part of
the architectural literature has therefore been rewritten and revised, especially in countries
that were governed by totalitarian regimes. The controversial personalities of architects,
technicians, and intellectuals whose works had been identified and sometimes confused with
the political instances of these non-democratic governments became the focus of accurate and
patient research, especially by younger generations of scholars.
Revisionist Histories and Their Limits 3
ABE Journal, 1 | 2012
6 But what is the real impact of these scholarly works on the general awareness of the history
of architecture? How do the most recent reference and text books reflect the findings of
these highly sophisticated studies? In most cases, popular writing on architecture seems
impermeable to the world of academic research. Why is it so? Will these studies affect the
consolidated narratives and official accounts of the architectural history of the 20th century?
What relegates them to the world of academic elites, scientific journals, and consequent
evaluation processes?
7 However, certain new critical approaches have introduced innovative perspectives, capable of
stimulating the curiosity of a broader and less specialized audience. This is the case of some
recent books.
8 The first one, written by the architectural historian Giorgio Pigafetta in 2007, advertises itself
as an alternative version of the history of architecture between the 15th and 20th centuries.3 For
the author, the history of architecture can be narrated as the history of the principle of imitation,
a pervasive, immortal, timeless idea that, like a karstic river, finds its way out from time to time
despite recurrent attempts to bury it. His Storia dell’architettura moderna is the history of how
a code (the classical language of architecture) has continued to be adopted and interpreted by
architects and builders over five centuries. This potentially fruitful historical material is then
used by the author as a narrative pretext for his original account of the architectural history of
the last five centuries. The result is a tableau dotted by permanent factors and continuities rather
than innovations, ruptures, and avant-gardes, a history in which the conflicting categories of
tradition and originality, modernism and anti-modernism, invention and imitation, constitute
a substantial part of its rhetoric.
9 In Marco Biraghi’s Storia dell’architettura contemporanea,4 the label “modernism” is
peeled off, revealing a plurality of concepts that require a heterogeneous outlook, and
implicitly acknowledging the acceptance of diverse and distant experiences within this broad
historiographical category. It is significant that this account of the history of architecture from
the origins of the contemporary age (around 1750) to 2008 concludes with the chapter Nuovi
riti, nuovi miti [“New rites, new myths”] where the author offers these twelve keywords,
mottoes or slogans: Globalization, Architecture as a work of art, New Museums, Junk space,
Signature buildings, Eco&Bio, Continuity, Near East, Lightness, Ove Arup, Star-chitect
System, After Image. In the trans-historical perspective yielded by this highly pluralistic vision,
each one epitomizes a theme relevant to the contemporary age.
10 The episodic, fragmented nature of this narrative is taken to the extreme in volume one of
Architettura del Novecento5 by Biraghi and Alberto Ferlenga. It is a collection of essays
by 120 authors which together compose a multi-form portrait of the architecture of the
20th century, giving rise to a mosaic of 179 alphabetically arranged entries chosen by
the editors, including such general terms, concepts, or keywords as digital architecture,
architectural books, materials, museum, landscape, monumentality, etc., along with a selection
of architectural magazines, seminal books, academic and research institutions, architectural
schools, public exhibitions, and prizes that have substantially influenced or even oriented
the course of the architectural history of the last one hundred years. Trying to avoid both
the excessive specialization and the encyclopedic aspirations that characterize two parallel,
opposite, and supposedly obsolete trends of the literature in architectural history, the authors
dare a radical reformulation of the narrative codes of this discipline, clearly demonstrating the
tremendous difficulties implicit in such a monumental and ambitious enterprise.
Notes
1 See for example the two new volumes on Brazil and Turkey recently published in the series Modern
architectures in history issued by Reaktion Books.
2 Duanfang Lu, Third World Modernism: Architecture, Development and Identity, London; New York,
NY: Routledge, 2010.
3 Giorgio Pigafetta, Storia dell’architettura moderna. Imitazione e invenzione fra xv e xx secolo, Turin:
Bollati Boringhieri, 2007 (Nuova cultura ; 163).
Revisionist Histories and Their Limits 4
ABE Journal, 1 | 2012
4 Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. 1. 1750–1945, Turin: Einaudi, 1998 (Piccola
biblioteca Einaudi. Nuova Serie; 400) and Marco Biraghi, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea. 2.
1945–2008, Turin: Einaudi, 2008 (Piccola biblioteca Einaudi. Nuova serie; 401).
5 Marco Biraghi and Alberto Ferlenga (eds.), Architettura del Novecento. Teorie, scuole, eventi, Turin:
Einaudi, 2012.
Pour citer cet article
Référence électronique
Michela Rosso, « Revisionist Histories and Their Limits », ABE Journal [En ligne], 1 | 2012, mis en
ligne le 02 février 2012, consulté le 02 février 2016. URL : http://abe.revues.org/131 ; DOI : 10.4000/
abe.131
À propos de l’auteur
Michela Rosso
Turin Polytechnic, Turin, Italy
Droits d’auteur
CC 3.0 BY
Entrées d’index
Index de mots-clés : historiographie, révisionisme, architecture contemporaine
Index by keyword : historiography, revisionism, contemporary architecture
Indice de palabras clave : historiografía, revisionismo, arquitectura contemporánea
Schlagwortindex : Historiografie, Revisionismus, Zeitgenössische Architektur
Parole chiave : storiografia, revisionismo, architettura contemporanea


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Revisionist Histories and Their Limits. Seeking Alternative Representations of Architectural History

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