Zona Film

Fictions are the narratives which articulate human civilisations’ cosmogonies. They are the foundational myths which describe and explain the creation of the world. These narratives serve as social binders, providing sense and meaning to human enterprise and core values to guide collective and individual behaviours. These myths rely on a series of devices, in particular artistic and cultural forms of expression, in order to be passed down and reinforced throughout generations. One of these devices is, of course, architecture.

By giving form to fictions through space, which is tangible, architecture makes them appear more durable, more permanent, more true. Myths, as any other social construct, are overlaid in space in order to give it a meaning that is consistent with a certain narrative, while rites are the codified ways in which spaces are inhabited according to their accompanying myths. These uses of architecture simultaneously translate and perpetuate their underlying narratives.

This text investigates three forms of fictions— the fiction of religion and the use of spatial symbolism, the fiction of the State and its relation to identity, and the fiction of the country and its interdependencies with the territory. By highlighting recurring architectural themes or language and their varying fictions through historical architectural examples, it aims to highlight architecture’s political role and its ability to reinforce, subvert, or rewrite existing fictions. In doing so, it hopes to raise awareness and calls out space makers to seize the narrative power of architecture in order to construct other possible futures.

“To build is to serve”

Hendrik Petrus Berlage

Alles Ist Architektur

In a 1968 publication in BAU Magazine, Hans Hollein proclaimed that everything which constitutes the physical world can be considered as architecture. “Architecture must be freed from buildings,” he says. In this 30-page manifesto comprising a selection of images at different scales reminiscent of landscapes or buildings and a short paragraph of text, Hollein invites readers to extend their understanding of architecture. “Everything is architecture.”

In turn, we proclaim that “everything is fiction.” We believe that the role of the architect, beyond creating spaces to serve society, is to represent, criticize and, ultimately, offer alternative fictions to the ones

UFO, Rebus Viventi all’Isolotto di Don Mazzi, Florence, 1970-1971