Reconstructing History

While some historians try to reconstruct past events using written documents and reports, one Harvard architecture historian is bringing back the past physically.

Professor of the History of Architecture Howard Burns of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) is directing a project based out of a museum in Mantua, Italy, designed to recontruct a full-scale model of an early Renaissance Italian architect's home. Using only 16th-century documents, a few drawings and analyses of Renaissance era houses still standing, Burns travelled to Mantua last summer with a "research cum-design cum-construction crew" of Harvard students to begin the project.

The construction of a model of the townhouse, which was torn down sometime before the 19th century, is part of an exhibition sponsored by the Palazzio Delte Museum in Mantua, featuring paintings, drawings and artifacts designed by Romano. Romano was one of the major Roman designers of townhouses, villas, silverware and tapestries during the 16th century.

Burns and a group of 13 GSD students and two Harvard fine arts graduate students were able to finish a 13-meter tall facade, and they will return to Mantua next June to complete the house, which is being built as an extension of the museum. The group is constructing the model on a wooden framework which Burns and his team covered with a plastic foam, painted to look like whitewashed stonework, Burns says.

"It was really exciting, because you saw something that hadn't existed for one doesn't know how many years rising before you. It jumped out from being a two-dimensional drawing to an impressive piece of Renaissance architecture that we had created," Burns says.

Putting together the structure was not as simple as the team had first thought. "Inside, the pallazio was nice and cool, but outside when we were doing the final work, it was 112-degrees," says Erik Anderson, one of the GSD students on the project.

"We were moving back and forth from pictures to actual buildings. We had to extrapolate the building and come up with a design. It was a very difficult feat," says Martha Cassel, a second year GSD student who worked with Burns. "It was an unusual combination of art history and studio work," she says.

Burns was first contacted to direct the project about a year ago, when the local government of Mantua asked GSD officials to recommend an architect to work on the reconstruction. Burns was chosen because he is an expert on the architects and building construction of the Italian Renaissance of the 16th century.

"When the project is finished, it will be one of the most interesting parts of the Romano exhibition and most representative of Guillio Romano's work," says Professor Sergio Cordibella, who is the deputy mayor of Mantua. "We hope to establish a permanent working relationship with the GSD and do more projects with it."

Cordibella says he hopes the GSD will work on other studies related to Mantuan architecture, such as a survey of the Duco Palace, which is centuries old and is the product of several great Italian architects.

Burns says he hopes to display an exhibit on the Mantua project in Gund Hall this spring, which would feature a small scale model of Romano's house and photographs of the construction site.

Teaching

At the GSD, Burns' course offerings reflect his interests in ancient and Renaissance architecture. He carries a typical teaching load at the school, supervising one full-year survey course and two half-year seminars on subjects such as Mesopotamian structures and ancient Greek and Roman buildings, as well as seminars on Renaissance and Baroque architechure, which is Burns' own specialty.

Burns says he changes his seminars' content each year to coincide with the work he has performed most recently; so, this year his fall seminar is about Romano.

Burns' main research interest is in the works of Andrea Palladio, an Italian Renaissance architect who designed homes for Italian nobles. His studies and analyses of this man have focused not only on his building structures but also on the social implications of the palaces and villas he designed and constructed.

"These two approaches--concern with the formal aspect of architecture and design and the social twist of that study--have been seen as very distinct, if not diametrically opposed," Burns says. "I think one can't understand the formal solutions and approach unless one understands the social side too. Studying buildings and formal aspects helps you to understand the social, and one shouldn't look at one without the other."

Working at the GSD has given Burns a different approach to the study of the history of architecture. "Here at the GSD, I'm working with architects that have perceptions and skills that an art historian doesn't have, and this has stimulated my own understanding of architecture," Burns says.

The GSD also puts much more of an emphasis on architectural history than other graduate architecture programs, Burns says. "There's a general awareness now that history forms an integral part of an architectural education. Its value is not so much to provide motifs but as a lab in which you can explore issues and arrive at a deeper understanding of what architecture is."

'Childhood Experiences'

Burns says that his interest in studying architecture and its history extends back to experiences he had during his youth. "I think [my interest in this field] goes back to childhood experiences. One of my earliest memories is of staying in an old hotel in Birmingham. I'd never been in a building on that scale before. I still remember the enormous corridors. Things like that really do form one's interests."

During his undergraduate years, Burns, who grew up in London, studied general history at Cambridge University. He then remained at Cambridge for several years, serving as a fellow in architectural history at King's College and studying there for a graduate degree simultaneously.

"I still find my history background useful," says Burns, who has been at the GSD for two years. "People come up with problems [in understanding different approaches toward design], and because I have that background, I am at least able to point them in the right sort of direction."

Before coming to Harvard, Burns served as a professor at the Courtauld Institute of the University of London, which combines a fine arts department with an art museum. "It's like the Fogg in the Harvard system," he says.

Undergraduate Awareness

Burns says he is disappointed that more students in the College do not cross-register and take GSD courses and seminars, most of which are open to undergraduates without any prerequisites. He cited the lack of GSD course listings in the undergraduate course catalog as one reason why few undergraduates take architecture and design classes.

"We like to have undergrads, especially because they have a different focus and can make a considerable contribution to seminars and lecture courses," Burns said.