New evidence of a Roman road in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) based on high resolution seafloor reconstruction

This study provides new evidence of the presence of an ancient Roman road in correspondence to a paleobeach ridge now submerged in the Venice Lagoon (Italy). New high resolution underwater seafloor data shed new light on the significance of the Roman remains in the lagoon. The interpretation of the data through archive and geo-archaeological research allowed a three-dimensional architectural reconstruction of the Roman road. The presence of the ancient Roman road confirms the hypothesis of a stable system of Roman settlements in the Venice Lagoon. The study highlights the significance of this road in the broader context of the Roman transport system, demonstrating once more the Roman ability to adapt and to handle complex dynamic environments that were often radically different from today.

TWO APPROACHES TO RESTORING HISTORICAL BUILDINGS AND ENVIRONMENTS FOR THE THEATRE FUNCTION

The architectural reconstruction and technical refurbishing of the new facility of the School of Performance were concerned with accommodating the needs of teaching, production, and performance in a found space, the basement of Ryerson University’s Student Learning Centre with utilizing of the state-of-the-art technologies. Kyiv Academician Theatre of the Podil, one of the leading drama theatre companies in Ukraine, has finally got the permanent home with the state-of-the-art performing facility. However, the fact that construction of the building was sponsored by the Roshen Company owned by Petro Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine, as well as the appearance of the theatre’s exterior caused a lot of public controversies. The experience of these reconstructions was reflected in two documentary films presented at the Our Theatre of the World section of Prague Quadrennial in 2019.

Joe Lampton’s north‐south divide: Remembering place and space in Man at the Top (1970‐72)

This article considers the depiction of region and materiality in Thames Television’s Man at the Top (1970‐72). Dealing with the present by looking to the past, the series critiques the architectural reconstruction that changed the face of the country during the post-war years and beyond. This transformation is seen through the jaundiced eye of series protagonist Joe Lampton, a 1950s anti-hero recycled for a more uncertain age. He finds himself caught between the pull of tradition and the push for progress ‐ forces aligned respectively with the industrial North (his native Yorkshire) and the cosmopolitan South (his contemporaneous London-based life). Why, in the broader context of the early 1970s, must Lampton’s North be identified with the past? How does materiality work to frame remembrance? The article responds to these questions by mapping the series, along with television culture more generally, onto its socio-political moment. It arrives at conclusions via a constructionist analysis that draws on ‘New Left’ inflected discourses, on the one hand, and philosophies relating to collective memory and materiality on the other.

THE ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF ARCHITECTURAL RECONSTRUCTION – HUNGARIAN CASE STUDIES

Modernist practice, the modernist way of conservation and restoration, is against historicism, against reconstruction. The main rule is: deceit, forgery, falsification is forbidden. Despite this, some reconstructions were undertaken in Hungary, and recently the pressure for reconstructions has become even greater. Unfortunately, the categories of listed buildings, open-air museums and Disneyland are sometimes mixed up by the public and even by decision makers.

Methods, Techniques and Approaches to Post-War Architectural Reconstruction

This Research explores similarities and differences between techniques and approaches to post-war architectural reconstruction. An overview of various different social, political and cultural difficulties and obstacles that architects needed to consider while making adequate design proposals will be presented and discussed. Moreover, the Research focuses on greater public reaction, understanding and acceptance of new design solutions, especially considering the population who are intimately and emotionally connected with the pre-war design.The main empirical method is through case studies, examining a variety of different architectural structures that were reconstructed following the armed conflicts. Moreover, the Research is not limited to a single time period or a single geographical zone; it will analyze and synthesize findings from various different cultural and regional environments. Case studies will include examination of Dresden Frauenkirche (Germany), Atomic Bomb Dome (Japan), Neues Museum (Germany) and Cadiz Castle (Spain). The Study strives to extract the guiding principles of reconstruction, sorting them into several different overall techniques: faithful reconstruction, intervention, patching and passive monument creation. However, the Research does not favor one technique over the other, instead it offers a critical overview of their implementation and suitability for reconstruction by considering given cultural and social circumstances.