Reconstructions

Cross-section of the Roman theater after reconstruction, Teatro de Sagunto, Giorgio Grassi, 19861994, Sagunto.

What are the reasons for reconstruction? How does reconstruction alter the use and meaning of the heritage
site? Which roles do the site and, more importantly, the imprint of the architecture on the site itself play?
To what extent must a reconstructive design comply with additional urban development? In 1985 Giorgio
Grassi and Manolo Portaceli were awarded the contract to restore the Roman theater in Sagunto, Valencia.
By the time the project got underway many restorative measures and alterations had already been carried
out so that the ruins looked like those of a Greek theater. Grassi and Portaceli reconstructed the theater
based on well-maintained documentation and the manipulated remains. At the heart of their work was the
desire to make legible the idea of the Roman theater once again. Since Spanish historic preservation laws
were not adequately observed, it was decided on January 19, 2008 to tear the reconstructed Roman theater
down within the next 18 months. Five years ago, when the reconstruction of Walter Gropius Directors
House in Dessau was up for discussion, Guillaume Paoli used the situation as an opportunity to more
closely examine the notion of reconstruction. Here form is crucial, as with many reconstruction projects, but
also in Dessau the question of use still remains unanswered. However, not only use but also tourism
and the reception of history are aspects that arent taken into enough consideration by the builders of fallen
monuments.

Reconstructions Displayer / 233

Giorgio Grassi

Reconstruction In Architecture
My relationship with architecture and its practice is
based on the (admittedly schematic) idea of an architecture founded on the specificity, autonomy, and
substantial unity of its experience in time. And this in
the sense that for me, that experience is exclusively
accountable to itself, to its own materiality and physicality as an autonomous and independent fact, and
to its essentially self-referential character, all of which
makes it, precisely, an experience that is fundamentally
unitary in time.
That this is the case is demonstrated by every work
of architecture worthy of the name. But every such
work also attests to the fact that it is conditioned by
or even dependent on those that preceded it, even
when it seems to have superseded or refuted them. All
historical experience of architecture is based on this
premise: the uninterrupted bond with ancient architecture from the Renaissance on (in this connection, it is
worth recalling the beautiful words of Adolf Loos: For
as long as humanity has felt the greatness of classical antiquity, the great architects have been bound
together by a single common idea. They think: the way
I build is the way the ancient Romans would also have
built. We know theyre wrong. Time, place, purpose,
climate and milieu thwart this ambition. But whenever
architecture is pushed further from its greatness by
the small ones, the ornamentalistsas happens again
and againthe great architect is there to lead it back
toward antiquity.).
What was said above naturally has consequences
precisely for the subject of reconstruction. The first
and most obvious consequence is that for me, there
is no significant difference between construction and
reconstruction. If the relationship to historical experience is a necessary and inescapable condition of a
project, then all projectseven if they proceed from
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different, even very different conditions, are in reality

reconstruction projects. Another consequence that
flows from these assumptions is that the fragment
(whether archaeological or not)and that is exactly
what a monumental ruin ishas no architectural value
in itself. An architectural fragment is always merely part
of a whole, part, that is, of a work that was designed to
express itself in all its completeness as an architectural
work. And as such, the fragment only has value as part
of that work.
In this sense, the original ruins of the theater of Sagunto
were the point of departure for our projectthey were
literally the stones on which we built. And this we didin
the first instance and in the most general s ensewith
the exclusive aim of restoring to those ruins what for us
was their sole legitimate task, to bring to light the true
form of the Roman theater of Sagunto.
All the resteverything that can be said about the ruins
as such, about their value as a historical memento,
collective or individual, about the evocation of the past,
the myth of the origins, etc., all of which in fact belongs
exclusively to the realm of intellectual reflection on, or
sentimental identification with, the world of the ruinshas
nothing to do with the ruins themselves or the architectonic fragment as architecture.
Our reconstruction effort was first of all based on the
original ruins of the theater of Sagunto, and then,
of course, on the type of the Roman theater (perhaps
the type of public building defined more precisely
and canonized by the entire experience of Roman
civic architecture). We built a theater in the manner of the Romans, and we naturally did so with the
means, the culture, and the eyes of our time (with
our own eyes): thus, it is precisely a Roman theater
built today.
In the 1960s and 70s, Sagunto underwent interventions
whose object was not the Roman theater but its ruins,
and whose aim was clearly to develop them into a
spectacle in their own right, to make them showier and

more prominent. Faced with these interventions, we

chose to eliminate those that led to a distorted reading
of the ancient artifact, while on the contrary preserving
those that did not conflict with its reconstruction as
it was: essentially, even if they were the product of a
belated Ruskinian interpretation of the ruins, they too
now belong to the buildings history, and to eliminate
them would have meant destroying a piece of that history unnecessarily.
With respect to the Greek theater, the Roman theater
was something entirely new and absolutely extraordinary. Its objectives were quite distinct, and hence
the result could only be a different, indeed completely
different, thing. Whereas the Greek theater is above all
its site, the Roman theater is exclusively its forma
form that is capable of adapting to and imposing itself
upon any site whatsoever. It is this absolute primacy of
the form in the Roman theater that led, indeed virtually
obligated us, to reconstruct Sagunto.
While there are innumerable more or less well preserved
Roman theaters scattered throughout the vast area
of the former empire, there are very few (Aspendos,
Sabratha, perhaps Basra) that are still in a position to
restore to us the specific quality of the Roman theater
as architecture.
The idea of the Roman theater is entirely contained
in its architecture, in its unmistakable volume and the
dizzying space of its enclosure, in its artificiality, which
is so obvious, so open and unabashed with respect
to its various objectives, so in keeping with its practical
purpose and subsequent development (the Renaissance theater and the teatro allitaliana). Even the
political idea of the Roman theater, its civilizing as well
as conquering function in such a vast territory, is
entirely contained in the canonical forms of the physical
structure of the theater.
The extraordinarily innovative character of the Roman
theater as physical structure contrastsand not without reasonwith the modest inspiration that, on the

contrary, characterizes much of Roman theatrical production when compared with that of the Greeks. Which
only confirms the primacy of the buildings architecture
over every other aspect of the theater in Rome.
There is a curious and revealing anecdote that is worth
mentioning in this context. At a conference held by
E.Souriau in Paris in the 1950s on the theme of Architecture et Dramaturgie, among the various influential
figures who spoke were Le Corbusier and Louis J
ouvet,
respectively the most famous architect and most influential man of the theater of the time, both of whom spoke
on the topic of the theater as architecture. The peculiar
thingbut not that peculiar on closer examinationis
that Le Corbusier argued that the entire meaning of
the theater lies not in its site but in the theatrical action
(for example, he describes the campielli in V
enice as
theatrical sites), whereas Jouvet attributes to the physical
structure, to its unique and remarkable space, the deepest and most authentic meaning of the theater, the very
special bond that links the spectator to what takes place
on the stage (Whether ancient or modern, it is in these
deserted structures [arenas, amphitheaters, or theaters],
as one suddenly enters them and is penetrated by their
strange emptiness and silence, that one can approach an
authentic idea of the theater.).
It certainly was not our aim in reconstructing Sagunto
to propose a model solution, something that might
teach others how its done, something that might
serve as an example for other projects, something that
might be repeated.
We had identified a few specific conditions in the
theater of Sagunto that seemed to us to be necessary
and sufficient for its reconstruction in keeping with our
aims (the completion of its volume within the context
of the city of today as well as that of its internal space
on the basis of what its remnants had to offer before
our intervention). These included the state of the ruins,
which had been irreversibly compromised by crude
mimetic interventions, and the relationship between
the ruins and their surroundings, which had fortunately
Giorgio Grassi / 235

preserved the conditions of the original structure vis-vis its site: the theaters ruins separated the area of the
forum, which lay above it, from the ancient city on the
hill below it.
Taking as our point of departure the idea of architecture
and of the relationship between project and historical
experience described above, our aim, right from the
start, was to put that idea and working hypothesis into
practice as directly and explicitly as possible in their
most didactic form, so that the procedure could emerge
clearly and unambiguously. The result and the result
alone would justify the procedure.
Only the realized project would show whether or not we
had been able to establish a coherent and positive
relationship with that extraordinary moment in the
historical experience of architecture that was precisely
Roman architecture. It alone would show whether or
not our project had succeeded in re-establishing that
alliance with the ancients that we find in all the great
architectural works of the past, without giving up the
specificity of our training and our affiliation with our time
but on the contrary binding ourselves to it even more
firmly; without, that is, giving up the freedom to express
ourselves with the means at our disposal today, without
concessions or expedients of any kind.
Why perform a comedy by Plautus or a tragedy by
Seneca today? Why do so if we have no idea how
they were performed at the time? Our words, our
gestures, our intonation, even our technical means
masks or microphones, natural or artificial light, etc.:
everything separates us from them; everything is different. The means we use to express ourselves are our
means; they are those of todayand they could not
be otherwise. Do we then lose something of those texts
by performing them? Or on the contrary, isnt that the
only way to rediscover what unites us and what permits
us to recognize and see ourselves reflected in them?
And if that is the case, why should we refrain from
doing so, since the only legitimate way that we have
to perform those texts is our own?
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But if that is the case, then why is there such an outcry

when there is talk of reconstructing an ancient monument? And why should we refrain from doing so, if the
only legitimate way that we have to reconstruct such
monuments is our own?
The result in the case of Sagunto may or may not be to
ones liking (that is none of my business), but it cannot
easily be claimed that it constitutes a perversion of the
ruins, a misunderstanding of their meaning and material, or an improper use of them, or that something they
formerly possessed has been taken away from them
and lost (isnt that just like maintaining that Plautus cannot be performed today because we dont know how it
was done at the time?).
The Roman theater is a well-defined architectonic type;
the period of its construction in the Roman world did
not last longlittle more than a century; but its vital
role has never ceased (the process of developing and
deepening the virtuality that was preserved by the
architectonic type of the Roman theater has never been
interrupted). It has reappeared whenever the theater
had need of it again: in Italy in Parma and Vicenza; in
Spain in the corrales; in London in the Globe; and so
on through the teatro allitaliana and its extraordinary
spread throughout the world. Whenever the theater
decided to take up residence at a site, it took shape in
the form that, although it was the first, already had
within itself everything it needed to adapt without
changing, without altering what, for Louis Jouvet, is
the very meaning of the theater of all times and places:
precisely its form, which is always new but in reality
always the same.
As for the Berliner Schloss, the situation is obviously
completely different. For example, one would be hard
pressed to maintain that it is a typical castle, a typical
example of a castle among the many in Germany or
Europe, that is, that it reflects a distinct and recognizable architectonic type. This is because in reality there
is no determinate type of the castle (in a certain region,
for example, and a certain time). Moreover, the Berliner

Schloss is exquisitely composite; its construction was

subject to a diverse, indeed extremely diverse, array
of influences over time (due to the clients, the architects,
changing economic conditions, etc.).
In other words, unlike the Roman theater of Sagunto
(and it is surely no accident that with very few exceptions, Roman architecture is an architecture without
individual architects), the Berliner Schloss represents
only itself. And from the point of view of its architecture, that makes it unrepeatable, practically but also
theoretically.
The only alternative would be to construct a copy of
itan exact copy, as similar to it as possible in its
good points as well as its bad. That is what was done,
for example, with the reconstruction of the campanile
of San Marco in Venice after its sudden collapse, an
approach that in this case was justified by the desire to
restore the architectonic composition of the square.
It is also what was done with the reconstruction of the
historic city center of Warsaw; in that case, by contrast, it was justified by the powerful ideological and
political motivation to put the war in the past. In both
of these cases, however, the architectonic value of
the reconstruction was clearly nil, since neither of the
two responses reacted in any way to the fact that they
were nonetheless still responses at the level of their
architecture.
Both of these theoretical motivations are at work in the
reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. The ideological
and political one is certainly the more powerful, even
if that of the architectonic restoration of the Lustgarten
is obviously the one it is easier to win acceptance for.
On the other hand, treating monuments as if they were
merely political symbols is not just simplistic but politically childish; and it is also always an act of gratuitous
violence. That is what the GDR did when it destroyed
the Berliner Schloss and built the Palast der Republik
in its place (a banal example of contemporary architecture, perhaps unworthy of being preserved but an

important piece of history nonetheless, which does not

vanish painlessly). But it is also what the city is preparing to do today in an effort to put things back in their
proper place, as the saying goesformally in their
proper place, and yet in the process obliterating a
piece of the citys history, which belongs to it in spite of
everything.
In fact, I believe that the point of view of the city and its
history is the proper one from which to view the issue
of the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. The castle
is an important part of the citys history, and in this
sense it is its mirror. Whatever is ultimately done
(whatever is constructed, destroyed, or reconstructed),
the castle will continue to represent that history faithfully. We must acknowledge this and accept it as a fact
that is independent of us, and decide if it is our task
today to make a futile attempt to blot history out by
reconstructing the castle in an uncriticaldeliberately
uncriticalmanner, or to highlight the special quality
that the building possesses by dint of having for so long
been a privileged witness to the history of the city.
I realize that this is something with which architecture
has very little to do, or at least on an issue like this one,
it is not in a position to express itself using its native
means. Nevertheless, architecture can draw from this
issue indications, suggestions, but also concrete elements for a critical reconstruction that is as valid as it
is necessary, helping to ensure that the new castles
forms are able to recount those changing and dramatic
events which they are no longer in a position to bear
witness to directly.
What, then, should we expect at this point from a
reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss? Certainly not a
building that is proud of itself and proud to be back as
if nothing had happened, the result of a hasty decision
to do whatever it takes to ensure that, in the end, the
building is in its place again and shown off to its best
advantage. Nor, however, should we expect a large
commercial and cultural center on an international
scale, a cultural hub, a convention center, etc., with
Giorgio Grassi / 237

all the amenities, that is, a large and complex structure

that could not possibly stand in any plausible relationship with a castle, be it old or new, and especially not
with a castle disguised as the old Berliner Schloss. Nor
evento return to a hypothesis already tried in its time
in provisional forma system of stage sets designed,
on the one side, to delimit the Lustgarten as it was
(but are we sure that thats the best solution for the
Lustgarten?), and, on the other, to hide behind them an
entire series of more or less necessary functions.
In my opinion, none of these responses is worthy of the
city of Berlin, neither of its new situation nor much less
of the city as it was before the demolition. I believe the
only viable alternative is the one that has already been
mentioned, that is, to replace the old castle with a new
one. A castle for Berlin on the same site, not bound
to the old one except by the fact that it too attempts
to present itself as a castle, not necessarily bound by
the forms or even the dimensions of the old one, a
castle that, while faithful to the aim of reconstruction,
also assumes the task of responding to the Lustgarten
of today, the elements of whose composition are the
same as they were when Schinkel built his museum,
with the sole exception precisely of the castle. A Berlin
city castle constructed today, with todays eyes and
means (for that matter, is there an alternative?). Frankly,
an almost impossible challenge, in my view at least
(however, one in which more than a hundred architects
were involved). A challenge posed to contemporary
architecture by an old monument that the Berliners
themselves perhaps never particularly liked and that
they may even have almost forgotten, a monument that

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not long ago they stupidly tore down, convinced that

they would be able to replace it with something more
suitable and appropriate to the times.
With a similar degree of faith in their resources and a
certain amount of thoughtlessness and presumption,
they are now preparing to reconstruct the Berliner
Schloss, with stage sets on two sides to delimit the
Lustgarten and the Kupfergraben, additional sets to
define the internal space of the Schlterhof, and behind
and in the midst of this improbable system of stage
sets virtually all that the area of the old castle can
possibly hold, which is necessary to finance the costly
operation.
And all of this despite the fact that the Berliner
Schlossthat old, exaggerated, and unwieldy structureis not at all the unique and irreplaceable piece
that it is said to be (with all due respect for Schlter,
Eosander, etc., what was lost was certainly no masterpiece, at least in my opinion). It was a freestanding
structure capable of holding its own beside the many
other ambitious freestanding structures in that area
(including the cathedral, the Nationalgalerie, the
Pergamon, the Bode, etc.), but certainly not beside
the Altes Museum, which faced it and which seems
to have attempted to ignore its unwieldy neighbor in
its own design. It was a building, one imagines, that
Schinkel would have preferred not to have before him
when designing the Lustgarten.
The text is based on questions via e-mail, Milan, March
05, 2009.

Guillaume Paoli

A New View of the Past

DISPLAYER It seems a specter is haunting architectural Germany: reconstructivism. Buildings long thought
to be extinct have been and are being built anew: the
Braunschweiger Schloss; the Potsdamer Stadtschloss;
in Berlin, the Alte Kommandantur, the Bauakademie
and the Stadtschloss; in Dresden, the Frauenkirche.
How do you explain the success of reconstructivism?
GUILLAUME PAOLI A new view of the past seems
to have arisen, and the reason is that our view of
the future has changed. There are no more avantgardes and no more hopeful prospects; this is true
in all areas of life. And with our perspective on
the future we also change our perspective on the
past. The past becomes a retrospective prophecy.
The process of reconstruction begins at the precise moment when the past is seen as a prophetic
construct. The paradox is that while reconstruction
promises on one hand to revitalize the past, on the
other it is an annulment of history. The devastations
and upheavals of the twentieth century are simply
erased.
How do you rate the influence of tourism on reconstructivism?
Highly. Tourists are people who are always looking
for authenticity, especially when its a matter of
seeking out contrasts to home. A good example of
touristic reconstructivism is the Goethehaus in
Frankfurt, which was rebuilt in the fifties. But in this
connection I also think of the caves of Lascaux,
which were closed because the hordes of visitors
grew too big, only to be reconstructed a short
distance away from the original. Millions of tourists
see these cave paintings, and many have no idea
theyre standing in a fake. This raises the question:
Why were the copies created just a few kilometers
away and not somewhere else entirely? I havent
been to the caves myself; I could look at them just

as well in a book or on a souvenir. Theres no point

in making a pilgrimage to a fake.
Is the term tourist even applicable to imitation tourist
attractions? Arent tourists the ultimate authenticityseekers?
Yes, probably the term post-tourist is more fittinga
neologism coined by the Bauhaus cultural theorist
Regina Bittner. Post-tourists are the ones who
visit replicas, reconstructions and copiesafter all,
most tourist attractions are replicas somehow, at
least in part. But why rebuild these inauthentic sites
in the same location when you could easily place
them somewhere else entirely? Of course, today
lots of reconstructions are virtual; you dont even
have to travel anymore. For a few weeks now its
been possible to take a virtual walk in the Roman
Forum on the internet, which you cant do in real life.
Post-tourists could be people who stay at home
and create their trips in cyberspace. That fits right
in with global warming and the energy crisis, too:
You save money, you stay home, and you can discover the world without emitting CO2.

Destructions
Are there reconstructions you consider wise or
unwise? What do you think of the reconstruction of
Dresdens Frauenkirche, for example?
The critical factor here is the political aspect. The
Frauenkirche was destroyed by Anglo-American
bombs, and thus for the good cause of democracy.
The reconstruction would have had fatal undertones of revanchism had it not been financed in
part by English contributionsas reparation, so to
speak. Not so the Berliner Stadtschloss. Because
it was demolished for the bad cause of socialism,
this symbol of Prussian militarism can be restored
without a qualm. Some graffiti on the destroyed
Palast der Republik made the message quite explicit:
The GDR never existed.
What do you think of the idea of rebuilding Walter
Gropiuss Direktorenhaus?
Guillaume Paoli / 239

First of all, I dont think Gropius would have been in

favor of rebuilding it. I considered the subject four
years ago, when the calls for reconstruction became
insistent. I incline to the proposal made by Filip
Noterdaeme, the artist who runs the Homeless
Museum in New York. He proposed rebuilding the
Direktorenhaus, giving it a ceremonial dedication
in 2026, having a plane bomb it into the ground
in 2045 and then having the GDR house rebuilt in
2056. Remember: The Direktorenhaus was built
in 1926, then destroyed in a bombing raid in 1945,
and in 1956 a GDR house was built on the site,
complete with gable roof. So Noterdaeme envisioned repeating the act of destruction every
hundred years. I think that kind of dynamic historicization is greata sequence of reconstruction and redestruction. Re-enacting the course
of history as a loop would be more authentic and
honest than a simple reconstruction.

subject unto itself, and for a long time the USA

hasnt particularly pursued the idea either, although
there was a tendency there to rebuild European palaces as copies. But that phase is over now, because
the Americans have their own identity and no longer
regard themselves as ex-Europeans. The idea of a
cultural heritage that must be protected originated
in Europe. History is the only thing the Europeans
have left; they no longer have the status of a world
power, and economically theyre not the strongest
either. Thats why its becoming more and more
important to cling tightly to the past.
The interview is based on a public panel on December
02, 2008 in Leipzig.

Matthias Hollwich, Rainer Weisbach (Eds.): UmBauhaus Aktualisierung der Moderne, Berlin 2004.

Why do you think so much reconstruction is being

done in Europe?
The preservation of monuments is a European idea.
In Asia they destroy a lot and cant understand
why we have so many old buildings and rebuild the
ones that have been destroyed. Africa is a whole

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Norbert Huse (Ed.): Denkmalpflege: Deutsche Texte aus drei Jahrhunderten, Mnchen 1996.
Werner Schmidt: Der Hildesheimer Marktplatz seit 1945. Zwischen Expertenkultur und Brgersinn,
Hildesheim 1990.
Walter Benjamin: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, Paris 1935/36.
Giorgio Grassi: Hypothese einer Benutzung und architektonischen Wiederherstellung des rmischen
Theaters von Sagunto. Und: Apropos der Restaurierung von Sagunto. Both in: Michele Caja,
Birgit Frank, Alexander Pellnitz, Jrg Schwarzburg (Eds.): Giorgio Grassi Ausgewhlte Schriften
19701999, Luzern 1986.
Nikolaus Bernau: Die Berliner Museumsinsel, Bauwelt, issue 22, Berlin 1994

Guillaume Paoli / 241

01

03

04

05

06

02

03 Aerial view of the construction site at the beginning and near the end of the re-building
of the Roman theater.
01 Plan del teatro saguntino. Plan with exact particulars of the individual parts of the
Roman theater.

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02 Detailed sketches of elements from the theater by J. Ortiz, 1807, Sagunto.

04 Aerial view of the stage and the stands, Teatro de Sagunto, Giorgio Grassi,
19861994, Sagunto.

05 Depiction of Pulpitum, Parodoi, Orchestra and Cavea, Teatro de Sagunto, Giorgio Grassi,
19861994, Sagunto.
06 Detail of a original pillar with added parts, Praecinctiones in the background.

Giorgio Grassi / 243

08

10

09

08 Roofing ceremony of the Meisterhuser in Dessau. The houses designed by Walter Gropius for the Bauhaus professors were finished in 1926.
09 The house of the director in the year 1931. Six years later, it was completely destroyed.

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10 Gropius House, 2001: the house with the double pitch roof has been there for the last 40 years.

Guillaume Paoli / 245