What happens to urban spaces when they change? How do we interpret the narrative of a place to include drastic shifts like abandonment or public access? How can the labels we place on spaces drastically change how we interact with them and do these labels actually mean anything? These were questions that arose when I began looking back on some of the urban spaces we have traveled to while in Spain this summer. I began looking at places like Granada’s Alhambra and Guardamar’s Rabita and Fonteta and wondering why tourist like to visit these places and how do their labels both restrict and expand their possibilities as spaces in the future.
Granada’s Alhambra is extremely interesting because it represents a very private space turned public. The original intention of the palace was to house royalty and as such every room, every fountain, every flower was designed for that audience as a backdrop to their lives. It was never intended to be a place where hundreds of people from across the world gather to pace through its corridors snapping pics that they can show to their friends and families to prove that they were there for a couple of hours. And yet that is what it has become. Even more so, as a regulated public space where only those who buy a ticket can enter, societal expectation restricts the kind of activities the public can do there. You will never see someone juggle or children play or people just lounging around as you would at, say the Estanque Grande del Retiro, which was also a royal private space turned public (without the fees). Instead, you will see people sitting on clearly defined benches, speaking typically only to people they know, and often in an interesting form of contemplation or meditation on the beauty and history of the space. This esteem as one of the most beautiful and important landmarks in Spain has excluded the Alhambra from the spontaneity of real life. It has become a symbol rather than a space. Space is something in which life takes place in overtime. Time has stopped for the Alhambra, and so too life there exists only in memory.
What does this mean for the Alhambra and places like it? For spaces that have changed or lost their original function? Well, my personal opinion (and, really, this whole post is just my opinion) is that when this type of exaltation happens to space it ceases being Architecture in the functional sense of the word. Instead, it becomes Architecture as a definition of art. It has become a work that I would expect to learn about in an art history textbook rather than a place I will see people living their lives. And intern the value of the architecture has changed from its use to its interpretation in the same way we can learn from an expressionist painting or modernist sculpture.
The question then becomes, when planning and re-envisioning spaces like Guardamar’s Rabita and Fonteta, is what kind of architecture do you want to create? Do you want to create a space as an Architectural symbol, a place that people can learn from and hold dear but only from arm's length? Or do you want to create a space where life can occur at the expense of remembering the enormity of its history- now that it has its own meaning today? This is the impossible problem Architects and Archeologist have to overcome every time they work on a historic site and most solutions tend to lean one way or the other.
Which will we choose going forward?
I have no idea.
-Emily
Granada’s Alhambra is extremely interesting because it represents a very private space turned public. The original intention of the palace was to house royalty and as such every room, every fountain, every flower was designed for that audience as a backdrop to their lives. It was never intended to be a place where hundreds of people from across the world gather to pace through its corridors snapping pics that they can show to their friends and families to prove that they were there for a couple of hours. And yet that is what it has become. Even more so, as a regulated public space where only those who buy a ticket can enter, societal expectation restricts the kind of activities the public can do there. You will never see someone juggle or children play or people just lounging around as you would at, say the Estanque Grande del Retiro, which was also a royal private space turned public (without the fees). Instead, you will see people sitting on clearly defined benches, speaking typically only to people they know, and often in an interesting form of contemplation or meditation on the beauty and history of the space. This esteem as one of the most beautiful and important landmarks in Spain has excluded the Alhambra from the spontaneity of real life. It has become a symbol rather than a space. Space is something in which life takes place in overtime. Time has stopped for the Alhambra, and so too life there exists only in memory.
What does this mean for the Alhambra and places like it? For spaces that have changed or lost their original function? Well, my personal opinion (and, really, this whole post is just my opinion) is that when this type of exaltation happens to space it ceases being Architecture in the functional sense of the word. Instead, it becomes Architecture as a definition of art. It has become a work that I would expect to learn about in an art history textbook rather than a place I will see people living their lives. And intern the value of the architecture has changed from its use to its interpretation in the same way we can learn from an expressionist painting or modernist sculpture.
The question then becomes, when planning and re-envisioning spaces like Guardamar’s Rabita and Fonteta, is what kind of architecture do you want to create? Do you want to create a space as an Architectural symbol, a place that people can learn from and hold dear but only from arm's length? Or do you want to create a space where life can occur at the expense of remembering the enormity of its history- now that it has its own meaning today? This is the impossible problem Architects and Archeologist have to overcome every time they work on a historic site and most solutions tend to lean one way or the other.
Which will we choose going forward?
I have no idea.
-Emily
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