Provenance in Architecture: A Dictionary reframes architectural history through 101 concepts — from "Acquisition" to "Will" — tracing how buildings and architectural artefacts move, survive, are destroyed, and are transformed across time and geography.
About This Book
Provenance has long been a live question in art history and restitution politics, but applied to architecture it opens an entirely different set of problems. Buildings are composite, immovable, yet strangely mobile — dismantled, relocated, looted, copied, and reinterpreted. This dictionary maps that complexity through 101 thematically arranged entries, each isolating a concept that bears on how architectural objects acquire and shed meaning as they circulate. The result is both a reference work and a theoretical intervention: a new vocabulary for architectural history that takes seriously questions of migration, ownership, material transformation, and cultural memory. Essential reading for historians, theorists, and practitioners engaged with heritage and the built environment.
Key Features
- 236 pages structured as a conceptual dictionary spanning 101 entries from "Acquisition" to "Will"
- Edited by Uwe Fleckner and Mari Lending
- Published by Hatje Cantz, ISBN: 9783775761147
What You'll Discover
- How the concept of provenance — developed in art historical and legal contexts — reveals new dimensions when transposed into the social and material life of buildings
- The way architectural artefacts move through intricate trajectories, from complex origins to uncertain destinations, challenging assumptions about fixity and place
- A critical vocabulary for writing architectural history that foregrounds circulation, destruction, survival, and transformation rather than static authorship
- How questions of migration and cultural movement are embedded in the physical and political lives of architectural objects
About the Author
Edited by Uwe Fleckner and Mari Lending, both scholars working at the intersection of art history, architectural theory, and cultural provenance research. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 236
- Dimensions: 250 x 180 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783775761147
- Publisher: Hatje Cantz
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architectural historians, heritage practitioners, theorists working with cultural memory and restitution, and designers engaging critically with the material and political lives of the built environment.