Architecture and Narrative

Santrauka. Vienas svarbiausių istorinės architektūros bruožų – geometriškumas – buvo išryškintas modernizmo architektūros teorijoje. Remiantis geštaltpsichologijos teorija, elementarios geometrinės formos ir pagrindinės erdvinės charakteristikos
suvoktos kaip antropomorfinis architektūros aspektas: net ir šiandien jos laikomos architektūros kompozicijos pagrindu.
Nepaisant to, šiuolaikinės postmodernizmo ir dekonstruktyvizmo architektūros kūrėjai bei kritikai akcentuoja erdvinio naratyvo,
kuriamo ne tik erdvės percepcijos, bet ir erdvės santykio su socialinėmis ir kultūrinėmis reikšmėmis, svarbą. Naratyvo,
kaip architektūros kompozicinės ypatybės, naudojamos dekonstruktyvizmo ir postmodernizmo architektūros kompozicijose, pavyzdžių galime aptikti tiek užsienyje, tiek Lietuvoje.
Reikšminiai žodžiai: naratyvas, dekonstruktyvizmas, postmodernizmas, šiuolaikinė ir istorinė architektūra.

One of the most important features in historical architectural
compositions is geometrical rendition of architectural space and volume. This feature was highlighted in terms of architecture of Modernism. According to the theory of modern architecture and
Geschtalt Psychology, elementary geometrical forms and main
spatial features were underlined and accepted as anthropomorphic principle of architecture. Even today main spatial characteristics are accepted as a key principle of architectural composition. However, architects and critics of contemporary – post-modern and deconstructive – architecture emphasize the value of architectural
narrative achieved not only through perception of space,
but also by its relationship to social and cultural meanings and subtext of architecture. A narrative, as architectural feature, is realized in some compositions of the deconstructivist and postmodern architecture, both worldwide and in Lithuania.
Keywords: Deconstructivism, Postmodernism, narrative, contemporary
and historical architecture.

The  Old Synagogue facilitated some of the most pivotal events in apartheid history, namely,  the Treason Trial of former president Nelson Mandela, and the Steve Biko Inquest. For decades restoration proposals  have not been fruitful, due to the costs involved and the impractical reuse functions for the building and surrounding site.
According to the Ethnologue, 377 of the of the almost 7500 known languages,  have become extinct since 1950. In South Africa three languages have suffered extinction, namely, |Xam, Seroa and | |Xegwi, with  N |u,  Xiri and Korana considered endangered.
Although difficult to halt, the current statues of indigenous cultures can be directly attributed to westernization. Therefore it becomes important to document cultures, with the added benefit of extending its existence beyond the individual culture. Should the death of a language or culture be suffered, a well documented archive could ensure the preservation of its memory.
The purpose of the proposed centre is to preserve existing narratives that are culture-specific. The facility should assist in conveying messages more accurately, ensuring the continual retelling of the recorded narratives.

Santrauka. Straipsnyje aptariama įvairių religinės architektūros kompleksų – istorinių ir šiuolaikinių – kompozicija atsietai
nuo jų stilistinių bruožų. Pasirinkti būdingieji žinomiausi įvairių laikotarpių ansambliai pasižymi viena kompozicine ypatybe
– erdvės naratyvu. Numatyta formų patyrimo seka, erdvės sandara pasakoja skirtingą religinį pasakojimą, priklausomai nuo
to, kokie tikėjimo aspektai buvo aktualizuoti konkrečiu metu. Analizuojami pavyzdžiai įrodo, kad religinių aspektų įtaigumas
sakralinėje architektūroje yra neatsiejamas nuo meninės įtaigos aspektų. Kita vertus, tam tikrais atvejais šie aspektai yra mažiau
susiję su stilistinėmis architektūros priemonėmis, bet turi tiesioginį ryšį su tokiomis kompozicinėmis priemonėmis, kaip
numatyta lankytojo patyrimo seka ir formų semantika, t. y. erdvės naratyvo, kuriamo ne tik erdvės percepcijos priemonėmis,
bet ir santykiu su socialinėmis ir kultūrinėmis reikšmėmis.
Reikšminiai žodžiai: erdvės naratyvas, religinė sakralinė architektūra, struktūros analizė, istorinė ir šiuolaikinė architektūra.

The paper analyses architectural compositions of various religious complexes – historical and contemporary – apart from their stylistic features. The most prominent ensembles under analysis have one noticeably common feature – spatial narrative. The foreseen sequence of forms of experience and spatial structure
tell different religious narratives depending on which different aspects of faith were actualized in a given period. The analyzed examples stand in proof that suggestibility of religious aspects in sacral architecture are inseparable from their artistic suggestibility
aspects. In some cases, these aspects are less related to
architectural stylistic means, but have a direct connection to such components of architectural compositions as foreseen sequence of a visitor’s experience and semantics of particular forms, i.e.
architectural narrative, which is achieved not only through the means of perception of space, but also by the relationship to social and cultural meanings and subtext of architecture.
Keywords: spatial narrative, analysis of structure, sacral religious architecture, contemporary and historical architecture.

The following essay sketches varieties of imagination operative in the best architectural work. It was published in Warehouse Journal, a student-edited journal produced annually by the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba. Student editors for Warehouse 25 were, Alena Rieger and Ally Pereira-Edwards.

Participation in the conference "The Historiography of architecture in Greece during the 20th and 21st Century" that was organized by the Department of Art Theory and History, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens 22-24 May 2014.

During the last five years, the outbreak of the financial crisis has dramatically reduced the opportunities for architectural practice. In Greece there is a large number of architects that are seeking new strategies for survival and creative expression. In the same way that it happened several times during the 20th century in the international arena, the crisis and the limited employment opportunities in Greece encourage the development of architectural experimentation and reflection of the conditions for the practice of architecture. Nowadays a new trend is emerging which uses the architectural tools of analysis, synthesis and representation and focuses on theoretical design projects for the Greek space. This trend does not always offer solutions to the actual problems of space, but it has particular communicative power, critical attitude and a political dimension. This paper focuses on the architectural narratives that were formulated for Greek space during the last five years. It examines the content, the tools of expression and the language that is articulated in the new architectural narratives. Finally, it explores the prospects of this new trend to affect the aesthetic ideology and the design ethos of architecture in Greece.

A Best Academic Paper at the Integral European Conference, the primary investigation of this paper is: How can architects address climate change by designing to place people into rich and significant relationships with Nature? Architecture is a powerful mediator of the relationship between humans and Nature. Solving climate change will mean having people take action for nature. To have people act for Nature, they must care for it. To care for it, people first have to have a relationship with Nature, which requires experiences of Nature––via architecture. However, contemporary sustainable design in the US takes a particular prospect on Nature, one dominated by performance assessment, a valid but limited approach that leaves out ecological pattern, human experiences, and the cultural meaning of “connecting to Nature.” In doing so, it fails to communicate with most of its non-scientific audience and thus disempowers its mission to solve the climate crisis by design. Because building energy use is about half of the cause of greenhouse gases, the building community has the greatest opportunity to create solutions.
The most common contemporary interpretation (or explaining narrative) of sustainable design is that it is defined by its technologies and that improving technologies will lessen architecture’s impact on Nature, and further, that technology is most often defined as energy technology and measured in terms of energy performance. Untangling the stories driving energy use and technology in buildings across generations helps us understand the alternative stories that drive today’s “design with Nature.”
This article engages important, timeless questions from the cultural perspective where our collective stories arise: How shall we design to relate people to Nature, particularly with respect to energy? What is our understanding of this particular ‘Nature’ to which we want to connect and relate via design? What are our cultural stories and narratives that explain Nature and energy to us? The article explores different ideas of what people think Nature and energy are and their concomitant intentions for designing relationships to Nature. Each primary view gives rise to a variety of metaphors in language that can describe its understanding. When used consciously, these design metaphors are powerful tools for generating design solutions and for organizing the many smaller ideas contained in any design project. Each primary view uses its metaphors to construct a different story about energy and natural resources.
Keywords: metaphor, story, design intention, levels of complexity, traditional, modern, postmodern, integral, integral theory, nature, building energy use, climate change, carbon-neutral, net-zero

ATMOSPHERE 10 explores Fabrications. Fabrications implicate diverse artifacts and modes of making, together with the places, practices, contingencies and intentions that enable and contextualize making. In other words, this symposium will examine not simply what, how and why we make, but sites and situations of making. The aim is to explore how cultural and environmental circumstances become meaningful catalysts of design, building, teaching and research. This theme encompasses manifold concerns beyond the digital: complexities of urban and social fabrics; intricacies of environmental skins; potentials of building sites and workshops; as well as the stories and arguments through which we craft shared understandings of our fabricated world.

Abstracts due Nov 1, Symposium Feb 1-3, 2018 University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.

Keynote Speakers include: Brian MacKay-Lyons & Philip Beesley
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/brian-mackay-lyons.html
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/philip-beesley.html

Vidali, Maria, “Narrative, metaphor and fiction serving architecture and design”, EAEA15, Monograph of the 15th Biennial In- ternational Conference of the European Architectural Envisioning Association,Huddersfield, United Kingdom, edited by Danilo Di Mascio © Copyright the University of Huddersfield, 2021, p.287, September 1-3, 2021 .

Introduction
This article explores the farming landscape and village life in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean island with a long histo- ry of agriculture. In Kampos, one of the oldest farming villages of Tinos, bound- aries created by low stone walls and alleyways primarily define the farming landscape that permeates village life and its structure. The landscape appears semi-artificial, through the construction of countless boundaries, rows of cultiva- tion ridges and terraces. This article is about boundaries revealed through space, texts, movement and habit, Boundaries which represent areas -or rather situa- tions- enabling different co-existing levels of interaction that are ambiguous and can be transformed through negotiation. Negotiation is not possible without lan- guage and narrative. Language consists of communal metaphors, stories and fic- tional beliefs that bind and connect a small community together in a farming landscape where the quality of life remains closely connected to nature, architec- ture, and the interplay between private and public realm.
The presence, absence, and negotiation of boundaries in the village, as well as the life that flourishes between them and their relationship to men, women and ownership, unfold through fictional and scholarly narratives drawn from interviews with the villagers from Kampos. Through these narratives, we see how a different situation of ownership and bonding arises when boundaries in space are obscure or create a liminal in-between space of negotiation and com- munication.

Far from fixed and predetermined, an interior is always in flux. It is contingent, dynamic, and interdependent through relations to its participants and the temporal forces that affect it.
This paper discusses the way in which an interior design practice has adopted the indeterminacy of interiority - a condition of constant production, assembled and affected by the built environment, objects, information, media, and personal interactions that we encounter.
By adopting a certain level of ‘incompleteness’ of material and form, the practice developed a series of diagrammatic and scenographic tools that allow a specific engagement with complexity and flux. The openness of the diagram is a generative tool within the design process, a maker of new convergences and knowledge, rather than simply a communicator of prior understanding. It provides a conversational space in which collaborative ideas can interplay and intersect..." not only an abstract model of the way things behave in the world but a map of possible worlds" (Allen, 1998, pp.16).
Layered upon these diagrams is an assembly of scenic fragments that draw people into the work, a mise-en-scène of objects and actions that intentionally seeks to activate the role of the participant in a scenographic negotiation of space. It becomes a performative encounter through the assemblage of scenes, providing a critical space for collaboration and the opportunity to externalise an otherwise internal subject. The interior produced simultaneously becomes both real and fictional, a mediator between the self and others.

Proceedings of the Second International Seminar, 'Telangana through Ages: Perspectives from Ancient and Medieval Periods, Hyderabad, edited by Shrikant Ganvir, Hemant Dalavi and Harshada Wirkud (General Editor: N.R. Visalatchy), pp. 48-62. Hyderabad: Department of Heritage, Telangana, 2019
The central focus of this paper is the dramatic discovery in the year 2002/3 of architraves of a free-standing, post-and-lintel type of limestone toraṇa (arched portal) of exceptional beauty from the Phanigiri Buddhist complex in the State of Telangana in South India.  The Phanigiri toraṇa holds a very special place in the history of early Indian architecture because it has no surviving parallel in all of Deccan and South India. In this article, I discuss the historical importance of this unique toraṇa in the context of Buddhist visual culture at Phanigiri and next, analyse its place in early Indian Buddhist art and architecture. Integrating more recent field documentation, research, and a close study of the fragments with my earlier work on toraṇas,  a reconstruction of the Phanigiri toraṇa is proposed.

This article is created out of the architectural space and narratives of village life. The narratives concern the interiority of life in Kampos, a farming village on the Greek Cycladic island of Tinos, on the day when the village celebrates the Holy Trinity, its patron saint. The village area on this festive day is depicted in the movement of the families from their houses to the church, the procession from the patron saint's church to a smaller church through the main village street, and, nally, in the movement of the villagers back to specic houses. Through a series of spatial and social layers, the meaning of the communal table on the day of the festival, where food is shared, is reached. A series of negotiations create a dierent space, where the public, private and communal blend and reveal dierent layers of "interiority" through which this community is bounded and connected. In this article, I follow the revelation and discovery of truth through ction, story or myth, as argued by the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.

Several pedagogical experiences in architecture bring literary inputs to teaching, through a multidisciplinary curriculum with courses explicitly focusing on these relationships. Other pedagogical scenarios, even if admitting the relevance of literature references into design, have blended these semantic and structural translations implicitly in their teaching processes. The main goal of this article is to acknowledge the many voices of an implicit transfer between literature and architecture within a learning scenario at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes do Porto (Fine Arts School in Porto) along with practice.Here, a process of modern acculturation was key, while aiming at modernity filtered by the local culture and tradition, and vice versa. One of its essential figures, Fernando Távora (1923-2005), recurrently quoted Fernando Pessoa while sharing his ideas with students. Reflecting on life and architecture, space and the world, Távora’s discourse was intuitively pedagogical. Fernando Távora embedded literature in his learning and teaching, while being highly engaged with everyday experience and practice. Távora integrated in his lifelong learning the writings of Fernando Pessoa, which among others implicitly contributed to the School of Porto. The article reflects on written essays of Fernando Távora and Alexandre Alves Costa and on architectural works by Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. For the first, we will consider a specific period in the school, when architects had to complete written and designed pieces to become professors, while for the latter we will pick few architectural examples that illustrate the main argument of this paper.

Θα ήθελα να παρουσιάσω πτυχές του αγροτικoύ τοπίου της Τήνου, μέσα από τον χρόνο, το τοπίο και το αφήγημα. Η μελέτη αυτή αποτελεί μερος της διδακτορικής έρευνας: Liminal- ity, metaphor and place in the farming landscape of Tinos: the village of Kampos.
Το αφήγημα στη μελέτη αυτή χρησιμιποιήθηκε ως ενα εργαλείο έρευνας, όπως αυτό έχει υιοθετηθεί από τη φαινομενολογία και την ερμηνευτική, σε συνεργασία με ανθρωπολογικές και εθνογραφικές μελέτες και ακολούθησε κατόπιν ιστορικής έρευνας, έρευνας αρχείου συμβολαίων, διαθηκών και λεγάτων, συνεντεύξεων, καταγραφής χώρων και προσωπικής εμπειρίας.
Τα συμβόλαια, οι διαθήκες και τα λεγάτα που αφορούν την ιδιοκτησία της γης και του νερού, παράλληλα αφορούν ένα σύνολο κανόνων, αρχών και αξιών. Έτσι αποτελούν μέρος ενός διακριτικού τρόπου με τον οποίο οι κάτοικοι του νησιού αντιλαμβάνονται και ερμηνεύουν την τοπογραφία του χωριού τους/ της περιοχής τους, ως μια πρώιμη, τυπική μορφή τοπικού αφηγήματος. Όπως αναφέρει ο κοινωνιολόγος Crossley, η γλώσσα "μας δίνει μια κατανόηση για τον κόσμο συμπηκνόνωντας και χαρτογραφώντας συγχρόνως”.

Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a highly technological, sustainable function, though disconnected with humanity and environmental reality. Can young architects still conceive of and create spaces communicating the complexity and novelty of life? How could architecture be taught and perceived before the built work? I aim to explore how architectural education could respond to the development of a perception of what life is, within the spatial and social complexity of architecture. For this purpose, I would like to use the case study of a small village of the Cyclades; my argument is that studying big architectural drawings and maps, reading architectural descriptions of village landscapes or city areas, or applying sociological and anthropological principles to places is not enough. Only in these ways, students/young architects cannot acquire a profound understanding of what place is or how life evolves in it. Through narratives connected either with the reality of the village landscape or urban reality, I realized the value of metaphor as a natural language sharing a communal way of living connected with the natural and built environment. Consequently, metaphor, narrative and fiction are presented as tools. They offer students/young architects a broader and deeper understanding of what the world they will design for really is, and alleviate them from the preoccupation of what this world should be, as required by contemporary social and political commandments. They equip architects with a way to interpret the local tradition or urban structure into a contemporary way of living and innovation, without responding to architecture and dwelling through form and fashion – instead, they force them to tap more into the social and ethical function of architecture, a “meaningful regionalism” related with humans and the environment.

The strong presence of architecture in Borges' fictions called for a study of their narrative structure. The intention was to examine the contribution of spatial models to his literature and the ways in which his stories can serve as tools to understand architecture. The analysis revealed a narrative strategy based on the relationship between the linear progression of the text,

This article focuses on a small community in the village of Kampos, on the Greek island of Tinos in Greece. In studying the history of the island of Tinos and its villages, it becomes evident that the relationship of the villagers to the land and the landscape is vital for an understanding of the architecture and of daily life. Hierarchy and the allocation of land plays an important role. What is life like for the inhabitants of a farming landscape? This cannot be answered only through architectural drawings, or by studying descriptions of the village's architecture nor by analyzing anthropological references. Through narratives that bring out the reality of the village, one becomes aware of the value of metaphor as the natural language of a communal life that is inextricably connected to the natural, built environment, which in turn is connected to ownership and a different perception of the value of land. Different and more grounded versions of reality emerge through metaphor, narrative and fiction. They equip architects with a way of interpreting local tradition as a contemporary way of living and innovating, instead of responding to architecture and dwelling through form and fashion. In other words, they force architects to tap more into the social and ethical function of architecture, to engage in "meaningful regionalism" in Perez Gomez's terms, related to humans and the environment. The methodology of narrative, metaphor and fiction developed in this paper focuses on an aspect of the crisis facing architecture today: In the search for a highly technological, sustainable function of architecture, what is built remains disconnected from humanity and environmental reality. In the methodology proposed, place can be perceived and understood through various versions of reality. This allows the role of the architecture behind a built work to be interpreted as incorporating the wider complexity of life. By adopting fiction and narrative through the use of phenomenology and hermeneutics, the intention was to introduce another architectural dialogue, based on language, words and narrative, as what Perez-Gomez calls a "space of experience".