Incorporating Spolia: The Façade as Artifact and Frame

Abstract

This thesis explores an architectural response for an urban site that incorporates the dismantled façade stones (spolia) of the site’s previous building into two dialectical devices: a ramp and a camera obscura. Each device allows the stones to act as both artifact (individual object with an embedded history) and frame (structure that invites a reading of its context). Spatial and temporal concepts from film provide theoretical guidance for the dialectical structure of the architectural design approach. A constant navigation between pairs of opposing forces (capturing/projecting, introvert/extrovert, operator/device, artifact/frame, object/subject) results in a pair of architectures, one a cinema + digital archive and the other a film school, between which a public space is activated as an outdoor amphitheatre. The two buildings simultaneously act as object (artifact) and subject (frame) in an attempt to locate and express a redefined historical continuity for the site.