The Meaningful Emptiness of the Canon

Abstract

The methodological approach proposed in this article is to suggest some proper ways to establish the existence of the historiographic canon on Modern Architecture. The quantitative and qualitative usage of the works mentioned in the main consecrated historical narratives is considered along with their insertion in the timeline and periodization proposed in each of these sources. An established canon is an a priori immovable feature that challenges any methodological attempt to effectively change it. The inflating of the canon with the insertion of “new” selected information is not enough: it is also necessary to question the very core of the implicit methodological framework of a current canon by understanding how, by whom, and according to which explicit or hidden narratives of prestige and geopolitical power, anything – buildings, urban spaces, facts, authors etc. – is granted a “canonical” status. The consolidated written narratives on Brazilian Modern Architecture history have been selected as a first case study to understand the making of a particularly durable and fixed canon. It is proposed as a starting point to systematically confirm the existence of the canon, and to foster the possibility of change, by contemplating the meaningful voids of emptiness the it obliquely defines.