Forms of ritual, forms of architecture
Renato Capozzi, Claudia
Pirina
Fig.
1 - Bas-relief known as the "death of Meleager". Marble, 2nd century
AD, possibly from a Roman sarcophagus. Borghese Collection of the
Musée du Louvre.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_Meleager_Louvre_Ma654.jpg..
Fig.
2 - The tomb of Caio Cestio in Rome. Photograph by Claudia Pirina.
Asking about the permanence and change of forms, in L’eterno
presente: le origini dell’architettura Sigfried
Giedion
identifies religion as the key to understanding the attitude of a
people towards its destiny, but above all to expressing that
«unquenchable and universal human desire [...] for a longer
life, for survival after death» (Giedion 1969, p. 7).
Religion, in its broadest sense, is therefore understood as that
«complex of beliefs, feelings, rituals that bind an
individual or a human group with what it considers sacred, in
particular with the deity» (Eliade 1982), whatever that may
be. The historian identifies its genesis in «man’s
aspiration to make contact with supernatural forces in order to know
the future» (Giedion 1969), tracing a relationship between
this aspiration and the primordial forms of art and architecture.
During the months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the images of mass graves,
of coffins piled up waiting to find a decent burial, or of long lines
of military trucks driving them away from their loved ones, prompt a
new reflection on the tragic but entirely human condition of the
transition from life to death, and on the appropriate forms capable of
reifying, in a hierophany that is also secular, the sacredness
engendered by abandonment and detachment from earthly transit. The
contingent condition has made it impossible for us to carry out our
«funeral rites». But what are funeral rites?
As Alain (1975, p. 109-110)
warns us «[...] when the stick wounds us, nature, which dies
without knowing it, is not enough to call us back to our job as men,
and we need other things, human things [...] well planted in the
ground, equal on both sides, and proceeding according to a rule. [...]
There is, however, a common reason, a child of the earth like us, but
which is the most beautiful fruit of the earth and the true God, if we
really want one, according to which courage bends together with the
body, and whereby each one knows that he must stand up and look far
beyond his own pains. Not lying down, nor on one’s knees.
Life is a work that is done standing up.
“Funeral rites” are therefore rites which, in
keeping us human, must project us beyond, while architecture, through
its appropriate forms, must take on the task of setting in place and in
scæna the repeated sequences of acts linked to
remembrance,
detachment, memory, passage, the sacred and the symbol.
Can the role of architecture in essence lie in its capacity to ferry,
through memory and the sacralisation of the passage, the transient
human condition into a permanent and lasting one? And in the task of
overcoming the trauma of death, which is both wonder and terror
(Thaûma),
by staging the ritual?
The initial proposal for this issue was to solicit a critical and
propositional reflection on the one hand on the ways, places and
architectures dedicated to the rites of passage from life to death, and
on the other hand to focus attention on the places of representation of
memory, on those architectures which, according to
Étienne-Louis Boullée (1967, p. 121),
«require, in a more particular way than others, the Poetry of
architecture». In the first case, in order to promote
possible responses to new secular instances as well as to the specific
needs dictated by the contingent moment, questions were posed regarding
possible themes of architectural invention or reinvention, or new
typologies and models such as “halls of farewell”
or funeral homes.
In the case, on the other hand, of places devoted to
the representation of memory, a reflection was launched on the
condition of the “cemeteries of the poor”, of
“monuments” to memory, of the cities of the dead,
frequently built looking at the cities of the living, making different
but comparable cultures and traditions evident. If in northern Europe
cemeteries in the form of parks and gardens refer to the archetype of
the Giardino
dell’Eden, in southern Europe it is the
Città di Dio
that is welcomed in burial places as a
reference and model for “streets” and
“squares”. Elementary and symbolic forms, on a
domestic or monumental scale, immortalize memory in the solemnity of
places, one example being Aldo Rossi’s Modena Cemetery.
Even in these spaces, however, recent re-semantisations and experiences
aim to respond to new needs and requirements resulting from the
multi-ethnicity
and multiculturalism of the population.
Spaces for secular burials, or for burials of different religions,
require a profound and progressive rethinking of the places and forms
of burial.
In addition to the private dimension of mourning, there is also the
social (and sometimes political) dimension of “collective
memories”, as Halbwachs would put it, staged in shrines,
memorials, mausoleums or monuments, which convey the iconic memory
(which is remembered with fixity) of specific events such as the one
that has involved the world in the months that have just passed and,
unfortunately, is still ongoing.
Compared to an initial hypothesis of organization of the issue into two
precise sections – rites accompanying the deceased in the
passage from life to death, and rites handing down the memory
–, the contributions received and selected showed how, on
many occasions, the two distinct moments of ritual, in architecture,
correspond to organic systems or architectural complexes expressing the
coexistence and correspondence of the two times. This degree of
complexity prevented the essays from being forced into such a binomial,
and led to a consequent operation of reconfiguration according to a
more complex order and index, grouping the essays according to similar
themes or categories.
In his opening text, Renato Rizzi explores the theme of the
“rite of Architecture” or the «ritual of
the Project». According to the author, the profound sense of
the project guides (or should guide) the architect in that
«ritual that pervades, in any case and everywhere, the acts
of our daily life as well as our innermost thoughts» and that
must be understood by focusing attention on three fundamental points:
«A- first of all on the semantic structure of the name
Architecture; B- on the paradigm of our time; C- on the overcoming of
western philosophy».
Following this, Renato Capozzi articulates the essay in an initial
reflection that retraces some philosophical and theoretical studies
(Ragon e Byung-Chun Han) on the general theme of the sacer and on the
concepts of death and rite in relation to architecture, and which
constitutes the prodrome of the subsequent comparison of two works that
exemplify, respectively, the rite of passage and the rite of memory:
the Tempio di cremazione
in Parma by Paolo Zermani and the Cemiterio
de
Fisterra by the Galician architect César
Portela.
Recognizing the «extreme evidence» that
distinguishes
the two projects, the text reveals «thematic and formal
differences», but also «subtle links of
meaning». Zermani’s skill in rendering
«in form the difficulty of transforming [...] the impalpable
matter of the sacred into an architecturally
constructed
space» is juxtaposed with the recognition of the settlement
qualities of Portela’s project, which revolutionize
«in no small measure the consolidated idea of the cemetery as
a separate, marginal place» to transform it into «a
happy place, teeming with life, where the memory of the dead can be
celebrated in the presence of nature». It is in the capacity
to «sacralise death and, at the same time, life»
that the intention and goal underlying these two works lie.
Studio Monestiroli’s projects for the enlargement of the
Cimitero Maggiore in Voghera and the one on the island of San Michele
in Venice form the core of Tomaso Monestiroli’s reflections
in his essay. In the project of these architectures the author
recognizes the founding role of some preliminary questions: what is
«the deep sense of the funeral rite»? And what are
«the appropriate architectural elements to represent
it»? By reading the elements of the two projects, their
composition, or the declination of the relationship between nature and
architecture, Monestiroli intends to propose answers to these
questions, highlighting peculiarities or differences. On the one hand,
in fact, the relationship with the place plays a primary role in
defining the “responsive form”, taking up the
legacy of Nordic cemeteries «in which the place of peace and
eternal rest is represented by the forest, where nature is the
protagonist of the sense of place». On the other hand, the
architectural elements, and once again the place, in the two projects
contribute to defining that dual character – private and
public – which, according to the author, must coexist in the
«place of farewell and the custody of memory».
A similar interest in the cemetery space is expressed in Paolo
Giordano’s reflections on the history of the Cimitero delle
366 fosse and the Sepolcreto
dei Colerici in Naples, with an eye to the
present and future of these extraordinary spaces that define a part of
the city. The close relationship between the architectural
configuration, the morphology of the site on which they are located,
and the natural element characterizes these burial spaces which, in
their different features, «well express the different
attitudes towards death and burial in the pre-Revolutionary monarchical
society of the 18th century and in the post-Revolutionary bourgeois
society of the 19th century». Against the architecture of
Enlightenment reason of Ferdinando Fuga’s Cimitero delle 366
Fosse «based on a rigorous anonymity incapable
of recalling
stories of lived life» Giordano contrasts the romantic park
of Leonardo Laghezza’s Sepolcreto
dei Colerici «of
irregular shape and dotted with tall trees, in whose enclosure various
types of tomb are scattered». Proposals for the restoration
and spatial reconfiguration of the entire system aim at a new order
which, starting from the study of the ancient layouts and the
subsequent selection of the one identified as most effective, would
make their different characters manifest.
Uwe Schröder broadens the concept of sacred space by proposing
an interpretation of «Simon Ungers’ Seven Sacred
Spaces from a sensual and symbolic perspective»
taken from
Étienne-Louis Boullée’s work. To the
categories identified and transposed in the terms Poetry, Object,
Measure, Proportion, Light, Character, Sublime, Schröder
directly associates the seven types of sacred spaces examined by
Ungers: the Basilica, the Cathedral, the Synagogue, the Mosque, the
Church and the Chapel. These binomials substantiate
Schröder’s conviction, echoed by Boullée,
that «buildings are designed to capture our senses and [...]
awaken feelings in us», and that borrowed from Ungers that
«to think sacred space is to think architecture in its purest
form».
The mystery of permanence is the theme investigated by Claudia Pirina
in the forms of the sacred and in those architectural devices capable
of relating man to the divine. This aspiration can be found in a series
of primordial archetypal forms of architecture which demonstrate that
«in the infancy of time, art was prayer»
(Parmiggiani 2010, p. 4). However, these forms are perpetuated over
time, in a circularity that becomes essence, stimulating reminiscence.
«Memory [in fact] does not mean past but thought. Bringing
together distant forms, in time and in the mind, bringing together one
time with another time, creating short circuits; another idea of
time» (Parmiggiani 1995, p. 170). Two works can be used as
examples for their ability to express another idea of modernity,
between archaic forms and new figuration: Jože Plečnik’s
Garden of the Dead in the Žale cemetery in Ljubljana and Edvard
Ravnikar’s Kampor Memorial on the island of Rab.
The idea of time permeates the contribution by José Ignacio
Linazasoro, who entrusts the description of the Valdemaqueda church
project with the task of exemplifying «the character that a
sacred space should have when seen through contemporary
eyes». The Basque architect recounts the genesis of the work,
borrowed from his own world of ancient and contemporary references,
juxtaposed with retroactive considerations aroused by the finished work
(useful for understanding its underlying reasons), and the description
and declination of those architectural devices that allow him to give
«the maximum intensity to the space with the least number of
means possible». The modulation of light and the conformation
of space through careful control of its structure, according to
Linazasoro, are those elements capable of transforming sacred space
into symbolic space.
The first part of the issue closes with two contributions which,
complementing each other, narrate the project for the double hypogeum
of Cattedrale di Caserta
by Francesco Venezia through the different
perspectives of the architect and the photographer. The laconic and
intense writing used by the Neapolitan architect to accompany the
project is flanked by the work of photographer Mario Ferrara who,
through a very short text and a series of photographs, demonstrates how
fertile the relationship between the two disciplines can be. Ghirri,
Basilico, Guidi are just some of the photographers who have had the
ability to weave relationships with architects, building an artistic
rapport with them and contributing to offering new looks at their work.
The hypogeum of Caserta icastically expresses many themes dear to
Venice, which, in Caserta, models space and modulates light,
accompanying the visitor along a route that becomes a transit to the
world beyond. The spatial sequence is articulated according to a
downward trend which, through light, then leads to an ascent towards
the outside. «The architecture, as you walk through it,
reveals itself as a rhythm of shadow, light and penumbra»,
interpreting “syracusan” sections «a
distant memory of a descent into the depths of the latomie of that
city».
Forms of the hypogeum and architecture of hollow spaces return in the
opening text of the second section devoted to articles selected through
call for papers,
in which Giuseppe Ferrarella uses the concept of space
as a place «carved out of the solid» to propose a
view that investigates analogies and differences between
Agrippa’s Pantheon (Apollodoro), the basilica of
Sant’Andrea in Mantua and the sacred mountain of Tindaya in
Fuerteventura. According to the author, the three projects can be
understood
as spaces «produced by massive forms and the logic of
subtraction of volumes» useful for triggering a reflection on
the sense of space in places dedicated to the sacred and to ritual.
Adriano Dessì’s text also deals with the act of
quarrying, investigating the essential identity between ritual and
space in the Sacred Well. The propitiatory rain rites present in the
Mediterranean give rise to such chthonic architectures, understood as
spaces «of catharsis, linked to the rite of descent, of the
return to the ‘source’ as a return to the
‘origins’». The text reflects on the
analogies between this world and the themes and projects of Francesco
Venezia and Aldo Rossi, who by their own admission draw direct
inspiration from that world. Aldo Rossi, with his extension of the San
Cataldo cemetery in Modena, designed with Gianni Braghieri, is also the
field of exploration of Claudia Tinazzi’s essay, which opens
a series of essays centred on a number of cemetery projects in which
archetypes, the relationship with ritual, with nature and with the city
and its distinctive forms are differently declined. If in the Chacarita
cemetery by Clorindo Testa, examined by Federica Conte, «the
endless path, where plays of light and labyrinthine corridors animate
the ‘eternal’ space underground» refers
to previously mentioned themes, in the project for the new cemetery in
Pesaro, analysed by BoKyung Lee, Luciano Semerani and Gigetta Tamaro
conceive and develop a symbolic space in which the forms of the project
resort to «the analogy between the forms of the
‘city of the living’ and the forms of the
‘city of the dead’». «The city
of the dead always relates to the city of the living through
morphological analogies and contrasts, in line with Islamic
cosmology» also in the ancient cemeteries of the Islamic
Mediterranean world in Eliana Martinelli’s text. Enclosures,
the relationship with the topography and urban structure are compared
with those of European cemeteries in order to bring out singular
analogies and differences.
The theme of the route is instead declined in the Nou cemeteries of
Igualada by Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós analysed by Carlo
Palazzolo and in that of Muda Maé in Longarone studied by
Andrea Valvason.
In the Catalan cemetery «the themes of the descent into hell,
the decomposition of bodies, the resurrection [...] are evoked [...] by
an architecture suspended between construction and ruin [in which]
personal and collective memories are stratified to give life to a
landscape which is not only geographical but also cultural».
This dual relationship also constitutes a founding element of the Muda
Maé project, which «takes the form of an ancient
necropolis rediscovered, a symbol of memory and rebirth following the
dramatic events caused by the Vajont disaster in October
1963». Excavations and trenches that strongly mark this place
are a counterpoint to the shape of the furrow engraved by the cemetery
on the ground that recalls memories and wounds that have not yet healed.
The core of Alessandra Carlini’s essay, on the other hand, is
the theme of the re-semanticisation of the modern cemetery in order to
give architectural form to the new practices of burial and dispersal of
ashes. The projects analysed, although at first glance they may seem
distant or even extraneous to the cases previously dealt with, redefine
the space of the enclosure and the relationship with the landscape and
nature, demonstrating that «as has already happened in
history, rethinking burial places means renewing the cultural values of
the community that creates them», proposing «new
archetypal forms» for ancient and unchanged instances.
A series of articles deal with remembrance in monuments or mausoleums.
Claudia Sansò sharply turns her attention once again to the
Islamic world and to the settlement principles of the Islamic tomb in
relation to the public space of the city transposed in Marc
Barani’s Memorial Rafic Hariri in which «the
tomb/mausoleum thus participates in the construction
of collective space, [...] to the point of becoming an occasion for the
redefinition of a public space, offering the places of death to the
unfolding of life»; the essays by Giuseppe Tupputti and
Gaspare Oliva respectively propose an interpretation of the Ossuary of
the Slavic Fallen of Barletta which «appears in the distance,
leaning on the edge of a slight slope facing the Adriatic»
and of the three Italian monuments post-Fascist regime by Aldo Rossi,
Gianugo Polesello and Luca Meda for Cuneo, by Giorgio Grassi and Luca
Meda for Brescia, and by Costantino Dardi with Giovanni Morabito,
Michele Rebora and Ariella Zattera for Milan. The collective dimension
of mourning expressed in these works contrasts with the private
dimension of the Brion Tomb designed by Scarpa and analysed by Fabio
Guarrera who «on the basis of the theoretical arguments
developed by Vittorio Ugo with reference to the problem of
architectural archetypes» proposes an
«archaeo-logical» reading of the sepulchral
complex, «with the aim of carrying out a
‘classification’ of the forms within the
monument».
Moving on to a different type of sacred space, Alberto Calderoni and
Luigiemanuele Amabile propose an interpretation of Neviges Cathedral by
the German architect Gottfried Böhm, which «brings
together and amplifies the representative need to celebrate the rite in
a strongly evocative formal expression that characterizes the urban
space, capable of weaving renewed relationships between the internal
space of the church and its exterior». The sacred space of
the Chapel type is the focus of Francesca Addario’s article,
which deals with the «sacredness of nature and interiority of
forms» through the analysis of some chapel projects in the
woods. The ancestral archetype of the sacred wood «deeply
rooted [...] in the imagination of man and the architect» is
recognized by the author as a «topical space in which
architecture reveals its presence» and in which the ideas of
Vitruvio, Alberti, Loos, Asplund and Tessenow find form.
Lastly, the issue closes with four articles that interpret the proposed
theme from different and original perspectives. From Carlotta
Torricelli’s reflections on the city, memory and monument
that investigate the form of absence in Luigi Snozzi’s
project for Braunschweig, attention shifts to Roberta
Esposito’s contribution that «analyses the form of
the mundus
as a foundation pit of the Roman city and, at the same time,
an architectural dimension capable of establishing a connection between
the infernal world of the dead and the supernal world of the
living». Gennaro di Costanzo, on the other hand, intends to
reflect on the archetype of the labyrinth and the cave
«around which the discourse on the Palace of Knossos is
articulated, a work built to accommodate the rites of passage between
life and death» and finally Susanna Pisciella’s
text critically retraces some reflections introduced by Renato Rizzi in
the opening text, which investigate the concepts of
‘limit’ and ‘death’ in various
works and texts by John Hejduk.
Finally, to return to the themes proposed for the construction of the
issue, we believe and we reiterate that it is precisely the forms of
representation and evocation of the absent and unattainable object that
are at the center of the architect’s interest through the
inescapable and inexhaustible educational and of monère
capacity of architecture as a
nova sed antiqua appropriate and
recognizable representation of the memory of man’s life in
the motionless fixity of stones.
References
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e un ragionamenti, (edited and translated by) E. Solmi.
Einaudi, Turin.
BOULLÉE É.-L. (1967) – Architettura.
Saggio sull’arte, introduction by Aldo Rossi.
Marsilio, Padova.
ELIADE M. (1982) – “Religione”.
Enciclopedia del Novecento Treccani. [online] available
at:<http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/religione_%28Enciclopedia-del-Novecento%29/>.
GIEDION S. (1969) – L’eterno
presente: le origini dell’architettura.
Feltrinelli, Milan.
PARMIGGIANI C. (1995) – Stella sangue
spirito. Nuova Pratiche, Parma.
PARMIGGIANI C. (2010) – Una fede in
niente ma totale, (a cura di) A. Cortellessa. Le Lettere,
Florence.