Inebriated Anastylosis

Lavoisier's Postulate for the Architecture of the Ritual

Abstract

The essay uses the scientific definition of Lavoisier's postulate on mass conservation «Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed» to comment on the design strategy of the pavilions built for Horst Arts & Music Festival (Vilvoorde, Belgium) by Leopold Banchini (Moon Ra, 2021) and by Fala Atelier (Folly for Sun and Sound, 2019). Both pavilions, inextricably linked in their realization since one is the reconfiguration of the other, explore the role of the ritual by devising spaces and backgrounds to temporarily accommodate the public for the duration of the event. These two architectures codify ritual spaces by identifying scenarios, devices, and uses. On the other hand, however, they update the definition of anastylosis, a tool borrowed from archeology that turns into a design matrix, to re-use what already exists. Anastylosis works through the reassembly of the parts, it does not stay true to the original but produces diversities resulting in an “inebriated” philological practice, which in the recycling of the technological abacus, defines original ways of translating into architecture the crisis of a «future that has changed its direction» (Benasayag, Cany, 2022, p. 38).