Forms of the rite, forms of architecture
INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR PAPERS
57 / 2021
FORMS OF THE RITE,
FORMS OF ARCHITECTURE
By Renato Capozzi e Claudia Pirina
ABSTRACT
The aim of this call is to encourage the exploration of the meaning concerning the relationship between the condition of the transition from life to death and the forms of architecture by young scholars and researchers from Italian or foreign universities (PhD students, fellows, fellows, postdocs, RTDA researchers).
The call, using the opportunity of recent images and reflections highlighted by the particular condition related to the current pandemic, will select several contributions able to complement the essays proposed by some architects or professors of the highest repute who have recently dealt with this theme. Participants can propose contributions relating to each of the two sections (rites that accompany, rites that hand down) illustrated in the following text.
CALL
Sigfried Giedion in The eternal present. The Beginnings of Art, wondering about permanence and the mutation of the form, individualizes the religion as the key to understand the attitude of the people in front of their destiny, especially to express that the «human desire […] inextinguishable and universal […] of a longer life, of a survival after death».
During the months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the images of mass graves, stacked coffins waiting to find a worthy burial or long rows of military trucks that take them away from loved ones, call for a new reflection on the tragic condition of the transition from life to death and on appropriate forms capable of reifying, in an also lay hierophany, the sacredness inherent to the abandonment and detachment from earthly transit.
The contingent condition has shown us the impossibility of carrying out the ‘funeral rites’. But what are funeral rites? As Alain warns us "[...] when responsibility hurts us, the nature, that dies without knowing it, is not enough to call us back to our human condition, and other things are needed, human things [...] well planted in the ground, equal by the two parties, and proceeding according to a rule. [...] Nevertheless, there is a common reason, daughter of the earth as we are, but being 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 for which everyone knows that must get up and look far beyond own pains. Not lying down or even on your knees. Life is a craft that must be done standing up».
Therefore, the rites, keeping us human, have to project us beyond, and architecture and its adequate forms have to put into action and on stage these sequences of acts linked to remembrance, detachment, memory, passage, to the sacred and the symbol.
Can the role of architecture then reside in the ability to ferry, through memory and the sacralization of the passage, the human transient condition into a permanent and lasting condition? And to overcome the trauma of death, which is both terror and wonder (Thaûma), by staging the rite?
In the issue of FAMagazine, some initial theoretical contributions, to which those objects of the call will be added, will define and investigate the architectural theme and its renewal in two sections: rites that accompany, rites that hand down.
The first section will investigate the ways, places and architectures assigned to the rite of passage from life to death, whether they are secular or religious, focusing on possible themes of architectural invention or reinvention, or on new typologies and models as the farewell hall or the funeral homes. The second section will focus attention on the places of representation of memory and on those architectures that, according to Étienne-Louis Boullée, «require, in a more particular way than others, the Poetry of architecture». From the ‘cemeteries of the poor’ to the 'monuments' of remembrance, the cities of the dead are frequently built in the image of the cities of the living, making manifest different cultures and traditions.
If in northern Europe cemeteries in the form of parks and gardens refer to the archetype of the Garden of Eden, in southern Europe it is the City of God that is welcomed in burial places as a reference for 'streets' and ‘squares’. Elementary forms and symbolic forms, on a domestic or monumental scale, immortalize the memory in the solemnity of places. In these spaces, however, recent re-semantizations and experiences aim to respond to new demands and needs resulting from the multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism of the population. Spaces for lay burials, or burials of different religions, therefore require a profound rethinking of burial places.
The cemeteries and crematoria are flanked by sanctuaries, memorials, mausoleums or monuments which, interpreting the dimension social (and sometimes political) of mourning, convey the icastic memory of specific collective events such as the one that involved the world in the months just passed and still in progress. Thus, the forms of representation and evocation of the absent and unattainable object are at the center of the architect's interest, the inescapable capability of architecture to educate and monère, of representing memory in the fixedness of the stones.
Participation in the call is open to non-structured national and international architectural scholars (PhD students, fellows, fellows, postdocs, RTDA researchers).
The call is split into two phases:
- a first phase (abstract proposal) in which scholars will be required to upload onto the platform a Word file containing an abstract of 3,000 characters, 5 keywords and the biography of the author(s);
- a second phase (full papers proposal) following the selection of the abstracts, in which scholars will be required to upload onto the platform the full paper of 13/15.000 characters, complete with a new abstract of 800 characters, 5 keywords, bibliography and biography of the author(s).
The articles must be accompanied by at least 1, at most 5 images. The symbol image to be associated to the essay must be indicated.
The selected papers will be submitted to the double-blind peer review procedure.
The decisions of the peer review will be communicated via email to the author.
The abstract may be submitted in one of the two languages of the journal (Italian or English): in any case, since FAM is a bilingual journal, the final full papers must also be provided with translation into the second language.
Both the abstract and the full paper must be written directly in the Word template download able from the platform.
For further information regarding the selection procedures see the Editorial policies section.
For further information regarding the submission of the proposal, see the Submissions section.
DEADLINES
The abstract must be submitted no later than January 9, 2021.
For subsequent deadlines see the summary Timetable.
PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES
The editor of the issue, in consultation with the Direction, will select the
items from among those that successfully pass the peer review according
to criteria of originality, relevance to the topic, organic number and size
of the file for a maximum of 6 articles.
The publication will take place in n. 57, 2021.
SUMMARY TIMETABLE
December 2, 2020 Open call
January 9, 2021 deadline for submitting abstracts;
January 18, 2021 deadline for communication of the selection of abstracts;
February 24, 2021 deadline for sending the full text in the first language (Italian or English);
March 28, 2021 deadline for communication of the outcome of the peer review;
April 14, 2021 deadline for sending the full paper translated (in the case of Judgment A)) or modified and translated (in the case of Judgment B))
May 11, 2021 Issue publication
Info: redazione@famagazine.it