AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.06.2003, Blaðsíða 34

Sigríður Björk Jónsdóttir, Historian and Art Historian
The City
of Memories
In 1966, Italian architect Aldo
Rossi wrote The Architecture of
the City, a book that has had
important influence on theories
about architecture and planning
in Europe and elsewhere. An
English-language edition was
published in 1982.3
In his book, Rossi defines the city
from its typology and emphasises
the dynamic activities of the city,
which is apparent in the changing
uses of buildings without radical
visual changes in the makeup of
districts or the appearance of
buildings. He also emphasises
the importance of memorials or
features in the city connected to
history and tradition. Finally, Rossi
discusses the „basic“ or simplified
form, which has a much wider
reference than to individual build-
ings or even to historic periods. In
this article, I shall use the defini-
tion „historic form“ but these ele-
mentary forms refer to the com-
mon history and memories of the
inhabitants of the city.
Rossi’s admiration for the stage
also had an influence on his atti-
tude towards architecture, and
his buildings are often more relat-
ed to stage settings where cer-
tain aspects are hinted in a very
simplified way. Many of his build-
ings have a silent and unreal look
with reference to stage settings.
He expressed the opinion that
architecture should be a stage for
the activities of the inhabitants of
the city.2
In this way, architecture should
only provide the framework for
daily activities and not influence
them in any major way.
Rossi did not agree with the ide-
ology of the modernists and did
not consider it necessary that the
form of a building should indicate
its use or „function." His buildings
are true to this attitude. It may be
an overstatement to say that he
totally declined that form and
function should go hand-in-hand.
He would rather emphasise that
in assessing and synthesising the
architecture of the city as a whole
it would be dangerous to make
too much of this simple causal
relationship. According to Rossi,
the city and its architecture were
not necessarily descriptive of
what took place and it was there-
fore not easy to „read“ the city.
He maintained that each and
every city had its own independ-
ent form of typology and it was
this typology that first and fore-
most should be conserved but
not frozen.
In most cases, the history of the
city is connected to certain hap-
penings and historically important
people and buildings. On the
other hand, its history is also
intertwined with every day history,
interaction and experiences by
the inhabitants of their environ-
ment at any given time; experi-
ences that never return. „History
exists as long as an object/build-
ing/place is in use or as long as
its form is still connected to its
use. When its use becomes dif-
ferent from that which its form
indicates history changes and
becomes memory. Or, the end of
history becomes the beginning of
memories."3
Planned disorder or
disorderly planned
The historic form is a form, which
is partially created by memories
and knowledge of the past and
contains an impartial connection
to the past. It is therefore difficult
to visualise how development and
innovative design can take place
according to this idea. In fact, this
is not necessarily the case but it
depends on the system, which
forms the common knowledge of
the past. Is this system homoge-
nous and in good balance, or is it
heterogeneous and unpredictable
by nature? Bath, England is an
example of townscape that is
typically homogenous. Most of
the buildings are built in the
Georgian style out of the same
materials and creates a very
strong, although rather uninspir-
ing, visual whole. In some
respects, it can be said that
Reykjavík is an example of the
latter, where everything is jum-
bled together, old timber houses,
concrete buildings, and modern
glass palaces. Many good
attempts have been made at cre-
ating homogenous districts in
Reykjavík, like the Norðurmýri dis-
trict and later Breiðholt, but indi-
viduality seems always to have
won in the end.
The main characteristic of
Reykjavík is its diversity, and this
diversity should be retained if a
good connection is to be main-
tained between the past and the
present. This diversity cannot only
be sustained by renovating old
buildings amongst other newer
ones and by building glass
palaces next to timber houses
and concrete villas. Conservation
of the historic form of Reykjavík
also depends on the inhabitants
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