Scandalous Artefacts: Visual and Analogical Practice between Architecture and Archaeology

If architecture is a design-centered discipline which proceeds by suggesting propositional constructions then, this thesis argues, archaeology also designs, but in the form of reconstructions. This thesis proposes that whilst practitioners of these disciplines generally purport to practice in future-facing mode (for architecture) and in past-facing-mode (for archaeology), elements of architecture and archaeology also resemble one another. This thesis speculates that some of these resemblances have remained explicit and revealed whilst others have become occluded with time, but that all such resemblances share homological similarities of interconnected disciplinary origin.
Available in the space between disciplines related through homology, is a logically underpinned, visually analogical practice. This interdisciplinary practice springs from Barbara Stafford’s notion of an “analogical universe” using the abductive logic of C. S. Peirce to rationally support it. Defined as “scandalous,” a term derived from Claude Lévi-Strauss, this practice which I term ‘propositional reconstruction’ defines my approach to design and historical analysis in this thesis.
The thesis is constructed across “sites of encounter,” through which my visually analogical practice is informed, consisting of historical analysis and design in the form of propositional reconstructions.
The prologue and epilogue describe the work of Raphael at Villa Madama, which, I argue, provides a historical model for practising between architecture and archaeology. Chapter 1. Reconstruction introduces the key aims, objectives, context and methodology of the thesis. Chapter 2. Discipline and 3. Undiscipline provide an overview of architecture and archaeology as design disciplines whose resemblances, they posit, are expressed through drawing practices. Chapter 4. Resemblance and Chapter 5. The Analogist unpick the logical systems which I argue underpin interdisciplinary practice. Chapter 6. London Stone Reconstructed describes my own visually analogical practice for working between architecture and archaeology while Chapter 7. Chimaera closes with a propositional reconstruction relating to London Stone described through interdisciplinary drawings.