SPOLIA

[Image of The Lateran Baptistry in Rome, from The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome, by Maria Fabricius Hansen]

We cannot remember without architecture. Like landscape or literature, architecture is part of our collective memory and identity. When we think of the great basilicas of the past, they embody the cultural memory of a place and an identity embedded in the very way a column is crafted. At the micro scale of a column, we learn that these buildings were in fact made of fragments, or spoils, transported from distant places. These fragments, pre-fabricated by other hands are like quotations in the story of a building's life. Depending on the nature of these spoils, they often reveal surprising histories about the building's acquisition of its parts. Using these fragments was a natural act in medieval architecture, where craftspeople would 'unanxiously' use their fore-fathers' works. This way, it was understood that the language of architecture has already been spoken and that using fragments was a verbatim quotation of a tradition of building.

A Classical Example, (from The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome, by Maria Fabricius Hansen):

[Image of Santa Costanza, from: The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome, by Maria Fabricius Hansen]

"At Santa Costanza, built as an imperial mausoleum in the mid fourth century, variation in the shafts and capitals was used to structure the circular interior space. The shafts carrying arches are of plain grey granite except the outer pairs flanking the entrance and, opposite, the pair flanking the opening towards the niche with the imperial sarcophagus. These shafts are of red granite, indicating an axial quality in the round structure. Moreover, at the opening towards the niche the inner pair of shafts is also distinct from the rest as they are of dark grey granite. Of the two sets of composite capitals used in the building, the grandest is placed in the inner ring, the simpler one in the outer, indicating a hierarchy in the interior, with the inner domed circle being more important than the surrounding ambulatory."


In the information age, this great performance is hindered by anxiety of imitation and quotation, often falling victim to the absolute demolition of a building or its construction from newly fabricated pieces. This habit is wasteful of embodied energy and a contributor to cultural amnesia. Though spolia is an ancient and timeless technique of sustainable construction, the present-day challenge is a contemporary application of this practical method of design.