Reception again, or against reception? On the role of the circulation of images and architectural design: Ancient Near Eastern monumental urban landscapes between modernity and reconstruction

It is often assumed that Mesopotamian architectural forms have had a deep impact on the urban development plans for contemporary cities like New York in the 1920s as well as on modern visual and architectural culture in the West. How much of this alleged impact is in reality based on “reconstructed”...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Micale, Maria Gabriella
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repository:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/689659
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/689659
https://dx.doi.org/10.15366/isimu2019.22.009
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Architectural drawing
Graphic reconstruction
Monumental architecture
Modern reception
Ziqqurrat
Modernism
Expressionist architecture
Arqueología
Description
Summary:It is often assumed that Mesopotamian architectural forms have had a deep impact on the urban development plans for contemporary cities like New York in the 1920s as well as on modern visual and architectural culture in the West. How much of this alleged impact is in reality based on “reconstructed” or “imagined” ancient architectural forms? And how much of these monuments “reconstructed” on paper by archaeologists and architects was in reality influenced by their own knowledge of modern and contemporary architecture and urban development? This article explores if and how twentieth-century architecture was influenced by the drawings of the pioneers of archaeology and, inversely, how much twentieth-century architecture affected these archaeological drawings and their influence on the academic interpretation of ancient Mesopotamian architecture.