Historiography of Architecture

This paper examines the inception and development of the Ancient Greek Cities (AGC) research project (1963–77) of Constantinos A. Doxiadis and addresses the novelty of its methodological approach to the study of classical urbanism. With the AGC project, Doxiadis launched a comprehensive study of the ancient Greek built environment to provide an overview of the factors involved in its shaping. The project produced 24 published volumes — the first two laying out the historical and methodological parameters of the ensuing 22 monographs with case studies — as well as 12 unpublished manuscripts, and through international conferences initiated a wider dialogue on ancient cities beyond the classical Greek world. It was the first interdisciplinary study that attempted to tackle the environmental factors, together with the social and economic ones, underpinning the creation, development and operation of ancient Greek cities. Doxiadis’s innovative approach to the analysis of the ancient city was indebted to his practice as an architect and town planner and was informed by his theory of Ekistics. His purpose was to identify the urban planning principles of ancient Greek settlements in order to employ them in his projects. This paper examines the concept and methodology of the AGC project as well as the ways in which Doxiadis used the study of ancient cities in relation to his contemporary urban/architectural agendas, and explains this important moment in the historiography of ancient Greek urbanism.

Las historias del arte generales escritas por historiadores anglosajones presentan un mapa de la arquitectura gótica en el que España brilla por su ausencia. En este artículo se indaga cómo, cuándo y porqué se inicio esta tradición de marginación del gótico español, concluyendo que se remonta al historiador de la arquitectura victoriano James Fergusson. Por una parte, Fergusson argumentó que los edificios españoles eran imitaciones imperfectas de modelos europeos, y por otra que los españoles eran una raza semítica carente de genio artístico e incapaz de crear una arquitectura de valor. Estos argumentos de tipo formal y etnológico le llevaron a concluir que la frontera sur del gótico acababa en los Pirineos y debería excluir España. A un nivel más profundo, sin embargo, lo que de verdad se estaba cuestionando no era el mapa del gótico, sino el de la Europa occidental, y si España merecía ser incluído en él.

The surveys of art history written by anglophone scholars picture a map of the Gothic architecture that leaves Spain out. This paper inquiries into when, how, and why this marginalization begun, tracing it back to the Victorian historian of architecture James Fergusson. On the one hand, Fergusson argued that the Spanish monuments were imperfect imitations of European models. On the other hand, he claimed that the Spaniards were a semitic race, lacking artistic genius and unable to create any architecture of worth. These formal and ethnological arguments led him to conclude that the southern border of the map of Gothic architecture should end at the Pyrenees and exclude Spain. At a deeper level, however, what was really at stake was not the extension of the map of the gothic, but of Western Europe, and whether Spain deserved to be included in it.

Esta copia del artículo contiene correcciones de varias erratas contenidas en la publicación original. En numerosos casos, ésto ha afectado la maquetación pero no la paginación.

The article examines the Observations in a Tour to Portugal & Spain, 1760, by John Earl of Strathmore & Thomas Pitt, Esq., in the context of the discussions about the origin of the Gothic in the eighteenth century. One of the most popular theories argued that the Gothic had an Arab origin, a theory that has been traditionally attributed to Christopher Wren. This article draws attention to a different and earlier version of the theory which proposed Spain as the cradle of the Gothic. It argues that Thomas Pitt had the mission to determine whether this theory was supported by Spanish medieval monuments. Although Pitt does not appear mentioned in printed histories of Gothic architecture, his refutation of the theory was crucial for the rejection of an Arab origin of the Gothic where it mattered most, in the medievalist avant-garde at Cambridge. It also placed the interaction between Islamic and Christian works and artists at the heart of the study of Spanish medieval art and architecture.

Architectural historiography is one of the most important areas in architecture, and the main problem is that in Iran, it is not considered by domestic historians as it should; on the other hand, the existing historiographical works, which are mainly the result of the work of Western historians, are less criticized and their strengths and weaknesses are unclear. Therefore, in this research, as one of the historians influencing the history of Iranian architecture, Andre Godard’s historiographical works will be criticized and investigated. These works used as a reliable source for the study of Iranian architecture have not been reread and criticized, its criticizing is necessary. It is not clear that what aspects of the Iranian architecture is investigated by the historian based on his particular attitude and his historiography method and which aspects are neglected. Therefore their review clarifies the existing defects, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can be a guide for mapping the history of Iranian architecture by Iranian historians.
The objective of this research is to criticize and investigate Andre Godard’s historiography considering the fields and context of his historiography and how to reflect these fields in his historiography works. In this research, extraction of data from the written works of Godard’s historiography is a large part of the research process, and therefore the grounded theory that is a theory derived from the data collected and analyzed systematically during the research process was selected as the method of this research. The results of this study indicated that Andre Godard influenced by the fields of his era has investigated the historiography of Iranian architecture with a particular attitude which affected type of his recognition from Iranian architecture and in general, he can be introduced as a partial thinking historian, product-centered and regardless of the influential fields in architecture, Physics-centered, regardless of architectural aspects.

The first workshop of the Delos Network took place at the University of Birmingham on March 17, 2018. The Delos Network is a collaborative research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that brings together an international network of scholars, architects and planners to re-interrogate the history, legacy and impact of Constantinos Doxiadis and the Delos Symposia (1963-75). The aim of the first workshop was to investigate the ways which the urban and environmental ideals expressed in the context of the Delos Symposia related to contemporary understandings and interpretations of history, tradition and technology. For more details: https://delosnetwork.com/workshop-1-delos-ideals/ . The videos of four out of eight presentations can be viewed at the Delos Network's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVpvTnuGg1IjPSW3XEQwBbeainIVZmuuY

To cite this article: Furquim Werneck Lima, E. (2020). Por uma historiografia da arquitetura teatral moderna e contemporânea no Ocidente. Artcultura, 22 (40), p. 48-74. https://doi.org/10.14393/artc-v22-n40-2020-56960.

This is the author's version of the article published in ArtCultura. Please refer to the published text when you quote from this article.

Abstract
An accurate exam on the Western history of theatre architecture in the modern and contemporary period proves the almost complete absence of critical works requiring an urgent need for historiographic studies that expands research in this area. Architectural historians in the 20th and 21st centuries do not devote themselves to the study of the theatrical building - an object of canonical treatises in the Renaissance and the 17th century. Grounded in Michel de Certeau's historiographic concepts (1975), this article aims, above all, to analyze methodological and ideological processes applied by three architecture historians and three theater theorists who have addressed the theme in some way, and under what different theoretical approaches, in the sense of arguing that the historiography of architecture for the modern and contemporary performing arts is practiced in contemporary times by theater theorists with greater intensity than by architectural historians.

Keywords: historiography of architecture; theatre architecture; history of theatrical space, Certeau, Tafuri.