Tradition and Architectural Representation

• Main Author: Marta Jecu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Museum of the Romanian Peasant 2017-11-01
• Series: Martor
• Subjects: art; architecture; vernacular techniques; post-digital materialities; tradition
• Online Access: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/martor-22-2017/martajecu/

Very often tradition has been reinvented in order to legitimize a certain ideology, discourse or political agenda and representation has played a crucial role in this process. Any representation is itself the product of a row of representations, and moreover a tradition – a process through which content is transported and created. For Cadava (2001: 39) the image is never closed, content and form are often based on an invented genealogy. In this article, I propose to focus on architecture and the way in which political content and ideology have been transmitted through the images architecture produces. These are intended to represent and apparently ‘re-produce’ certain traditions. My examples will focus on both the discipline of architecture (specifically recent practices of recreation of vernacular architecture and construction techniques) and artistic approaches to architecture.