Research Centre
Serena Dambrosio
Every year, around 3000 visitors to the Research Centre consult Het Nieuwe Instituut's collection for research, information or inspiration. From time to time, we ask one of them: what are you researching, and what have you discovered?
Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm a researcher in architectural history and theory. I understand architecture as a cultural phenomenon, and I have a particular interest in media and representation techniques as discursive tools. I grew up in Italy, where I trained as an architect, but I'm currently based in Chile, where I've been experiencing a different understanding of some fundamental aspects of western culture. I also write, teach and participate in self-organised groups of researchers, students, teachers, architects and artists to question conventional learning spaces in art and architecture. Currently, I'm a doctoral researcher in architecture and urban studies at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
What are you researching?
The research I've been carrying on for the last few years investigates the use of the idea of tabula rasa in 20th-century western urban and architectural culture. Specifically, I'm interested in the modalities and effects through which this idea was established in 20th-century urban discourse, naturalising a constant necessity for novelty through urban modernisation and renewal. This powerful image, present for centuries as a metaphor in western philosophical discourse, finds in the urban realm one of its most explicit material expressions: through the demolition and destruction of entire parts of the cities, the idea of tabula rasa puts into practice the imposition of new modern rationality over existing reality. This expression also takes the form of symbolic destruction through selective and exclusive representations of reality introduced by the rational use of new visual media and techniques in urban design.
I investigate this idea, questioning the relationship between two canonical figures of 20th-century architectural and urban theory, who were directly involved in its spread: Le Corbusier and Rem Koolhaas, and specifically their first and interconnected writings and ideas about urbanism. At Het Nieuwe Instituut, I was able consult the OMA Archive and, in particular, the original files of some urban projects linked to the materialisation of this idea as a strategy during the 1990s (Exposition Universelle in 1983, Mission Grande Axe competition in 1991, and Euralille between 1989-1994).
What form will the results of your research take?
The research will result in a written dissertation that I would like to publish once finished. At the same time, I consider this research a long-term investigation that I hope could evolve and, in the future, reach a wider audience through different kinds of media.
What's the most remarkable thing you've discovered in the collection?
Naturally, the Mission Grande Axe competition project's original boards were the most exciting discovery I made in the archive (OMAR 3905 - OMAR1130). This project is essential for my research because it's the first moment Koolhaas uses the idea of tabula rasa as an explicit theoretical tool to propose demolition as a possible urban renewal strategy. The curious thing is that this not very well-known project was actually absent from the official archive list. I found it slightly by chance while I was consulting other files.