EDITORIAL
ARCHITECTURE AS FORM OF MEMORY Coexistences between persistence and transformation
Loris Rossi [PhD Architect and Urban Designer] Observatory of the Mediterranean Basin / Universiteti POLIS Tirana / Albania
20
Architecture as form of memory. Coexistences between persistence and transformation. Since the beginning of my research activity as an Architect and later as an academic, I always tried to challenge and question students from the school of architecture on the importance of our professional activities not just as a mere technicality, but also as a discipline able to transform the memory of a specific place in architecture poetry. Therefore, I will use my theoretical discourse regarding Design projects in interrupted city processes applied to my teaching methodology, to introduce the scientific conference section entitled “Co-Habitation with Memory”. To begin with, I will try to define the importance of the word memory in its relationship with architecture. The word memory in architecture becomes an operative instrument when the energy absorbed by a specific form or object, placed in its context, transforms itself in a device capable of reinterpreting a new human need. Every city, architecture monument, and landscape embody a sense of sequential order, an intrinsic persistence, frequently interrupted by different events. The secret is to look at architecture as a discipline, before considering it a scientific matter. Therefore, the sense of cohabiting with memory becomes more explicit when memory is introduced as a sense
of coexistence between objects and places coming from different authors and times, a form of sedimentation of ideas. Within this scientific conference, the word memory is analyzed through a specific condition of interrupted urban logics which many cities and architectural artefacts are facing today. A process in architecture or at the city scale can be considered interrupted when an initial state of wholeness is contradicted by external events such as political, economic ones, or population shrinkage. In this framework, the concept of memory in architecture leaves a profound absence of visible meanings waiting to be reinterpreted. This kind of phenomenon allows us to work within an imprecise edge, something unpredictable, in which a lack of predefined structure defines an opportunity for new architecture interpretations. One of the reasons why I’m discussing specific issues linked to the concept of memory in architecture, is because, on many occasions, I tried to connect professional practice and didactic experience. I believe that each student has an incredible energy and the ideas students bring to the table are an added value for our research interests. I consider myself lucky because teaching also means finding a specific methodology to provoke and stimulate student’s curiosity.
