Architecture and Existing Forms

This chapter deals with the relation between architecture and existing forms, both the artificial forms of buildings and urban settlements and the physical forms of nature. In particular, it deals with the relation between ‘new’ and ‘antique’ in the project of ‘re-construction’ of the form of those villages, situated in peculiar natural contexts, that are in a state of ruin or incompleteness. The reasoning is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to the explanation of the theoretical approach, based on the centrality of form in architecture and on specific ideas of ‘antique’ and ‘place’, which are both ‘existing’ forms. The ‘antique’ form, in its condition of ruin or incompleteness, is conceived as an ‘unfinished’ form, available to be ‘completed’ and capable of suggesting new forms and meanings rather than only as a ‘relic’ to be restored according to its original configuration. The condition of ‘not finished’ is considered as a potentiality, as an extraordinary opportunity for ‘re-construction’ and renovation of the architectural or urban form, according to its underlying morphological and spatial structure, rather than just a matter of methods and techniques of restoration and ‘conservation’. Regarding the ‘place’, it is especially considered for its geographical features, for the natural form of the ground conceived as the “etymological root” of the built form of the city. Since they express different topological conditions, the forms of the ground can suggest orientations, measures, rhythms; they can, therefore, be described by using the same categories used to describe the architectural and urban space. When architecture, a single building or an urban settlement, establishes a fundamental relation with a site, it exalts its natural features, making them meaningful and turning it into a ‘place’; at the same time, the natural features of a place confer a character on the built forms of architecture, which become significant through the relation with them. This is what we call the ‘virtuality’ of the existing forms in an architectural project. In the second part of the chapter, this relation between the new form and the existing forms in architecture is described through the illustration of the reconstruction projects of the ‘unfinished’ forms of the abandoned villages of Anavatos (Chios Island, Greece), Kita (Mani Peninsula, Greece) and Dodoši (Lake Skadar, Montenegro). Far from considering them exhaustive solutions, these projects have the value of explanation and validation of the theoretical point of view expressed in the first part.