IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

To what degree can the spatiality of our architectural historical research be determined? As an architect and architectural historian, I see my research as a representation of something spatial, arising from the source material and given form by the methodology. For me, in my research into drawings of Seville (1723-1854), my time in archives located drawings and descriptions of architecture, notwithstanding other historians’ research. When mapping my research, a way of working with this material emerged, one that resonated with Henri Lefebvre’s trialectic of spatial practice. For after all, the object in focus is not the drawing in itself, but the architecture described therein as representative of the philosophy of the culture that built it. Using Lefebvre’s terms, this can be thought of as a ‘conceived space’, or the dominant space. Nineteenth century drawings of this are affected by the artist’s prior knowledge of the architecture represented, and their thinking is an intellectual framework, a ‘perceived space’. It is necessary also to consider each artist’s individual experience in Seville when drawing the architecture, their ‘lived space’, which is superimposed over space. All three parts exist simultaneously, and together produce space. The drawings are traces of this production, and it is through this the architecture of Seville is understood. This is not just theory: as Lefebvre suggests, the trialectic is inherently dynamic: its flexibility allows a closer reading of texts and images. This paper gives examples of how it allows knowledge to be approximated, deepening the understanding of the subject.