The Architecture of Decay

October 31, 2016

Rachel Jones

Drexel University Thesis

Villa Savoye Before Restoration.

Victor Gubbins.

Imagined Villa Savoye with Graffiti.

Xavier Delory.

Villa Savoye after Restoration.

Montse Zamorano.

“Those memorial layers, often thick and difficult to decode, reward the

explorer with an opportunity for a visceral reading— a bodily

interpretation of the material and immaterial histories of places— where

‘decay implies not just evanescence but the accretion of experience’

(Lowenthal 1985, 179)” (Orange, 72).

Decay

The decay of buildings is an occurrence that is uncertain. A series of cause and effects that occur over time as nature works against the built

environment. This submission to the reign of natural law provides a sense of architecture in time.

Tides. Andy Goldsworthy. 1996

"The very thing that brought it [his art] to life, will bring about its death.“- Andy Goldsworthy

Shearing Layers of Change.

Stewart Brand. 1994.

Layers of Change

According to Stewart Brand the decay of a building occurs at different rates which means a building is always tearing itself apart.

Age Value

Art historian and philosopher Alois Reigl developed the concept of age-value to describe the value that a building accrues over time which is made

visible by patina among other things. This concept is based on an understanding of the contribution of decay.

Diagram of Reigl’s Values.

ERA Architects. 2011.

Imaginary View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre in Ruins.Hubert Robert. 1796.

Challenging Modern Preservation

By forecasting the process of decay through the influences of weathering, human interaction, and the progression of the context surrounding it this

thesis seeks to challenge the way architecture is preserved.

Role of the Architecture in Preservation

Through the idea of preservation architecture can play many different roles.

Architecture as

Preserver

Architecture as Memory

Found Object/Ruin

Found Object/Ruin

Site Specific Remediation

New vrs Old

3 Potential Sites

Birdseye of Carrie Furnaces.

whereandwhen.com

Petrified Forest State Park.

wikipedia.com

Found Object Deliberate Debris Growth from Decline

Navajo Code Talkers Museum Competition Proposal

In 2011 the National Navajo Code Talkers Museum and Veterans Center, which is currently located in Tuba City, Arizona had a Nationwide competition

for a Museum and Veterans’ Center to be located on Navajo Code Talker land a few miles east of Window Rock, Arizona.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

Kenji Kawano. 2005.

Time : Place

The Navajo Indians are a tribe that have centered their culture around their connection with nature. To them the Earth itself is a relic that contains not

only the present but also all the past and potential future.

“In the traditional Navajo view, life is a constant cycle of growth, death and new life, that flows in a circular motion - all things must begin and end at

the same point” (Bitsuie).

Antelope Canyon Navajo Park.

Moyan Brenn. 2011.

Methods of Inquiry

Digital and physical model studies of material relationships. Study/experiment with traditional building methods, natural resources, and the effects of

weathering over time.

OP CITY: Figuring the Urban Future and Its Audiences.

CityLAB. 2013.

Methods of Inquiry

Timeline studies of different scales of time. Highlight different scales in regards to program elements, users, the site, and the history of the Navajo

Code Talkers. Use the method of collage to knit different scales of time.

Site Analysis Collage.

Archinect.com.

A Temporary (but not Instant) City for 2 Million

Anthony Acciavatti. 2006.

Conclusion

Through the study of the Navajo Indian Code Talkers and their cultural heritage this thesis seeks to develop a museum that challenges the concepts of

modern preservation. This study of preservation is rooted in forecasting the inevitable changes of decay. It suggests that by forecasting these

inevitable changes a greater sense of memory, time, and place can be created and an even greater appreciation of the past existing as part of the

present.

Ray O. Hawthorne. Lupton, Arizona.

Kenji Kawano. 2003.

Bibliography and Selected Sources

+Bitsuie, Roman. “Holy Wind and Natural Law.” Indians.org. Glenn Welker, 21 Apr. 1995. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

+Cairns, Stephen, and Jane Jacobs M. Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture. Cambridge: MIT, MA. Print.

+"Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument." ERA Architects. ERA Architects, 9 Jan. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.

<http://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/>.

+Goldsworthy, Andy. Passage. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. Print.

+Mostafavi, Mohsen, and David Leatherbarrow. On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1993. Print.

+Orange, Hilary, Editor. Reanimating Industrial Spaces: Conducting Memory Work in Post-industrial Societies. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2015.

+Robert, Hubert. Imaginary View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre in Ruins. 1796. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Wikipedia.org. 24

Aug. 2007. Web. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Louvre-peinture-francaise-p1020324.jpg>.

+Shaw, Matt. "Behold a Vandalized Villa Savoye Plastered in Graffiti." Architizer. N.p., 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.

<http://architizer.com/blog/see-the-villa-savoye-covered-in-graffiti/>.

+Tuan, Yi-fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. Print.