Laurence Łucasz

A Tower Against A Tower

(12 minute read)

La Torre de Merola, or Merola’s Tower, is a late 13th Century watchtower in the Catalonian Municipality of Puig Reig. According to legend, the tower was gifted to the caballero de Merola  (Knight of Merola) after he saved the wives and daughters of Catalonian knights from a siege as they celebrated the recent victory of conquering Valencia (Amandes, 2009). Following earth tremors in Catalonia in the 16th Century, only the north wall of the original tower remains and when in 2016 the wall was feared to be leaning too far, a restoration project was commissioned to preserve the heritage site. Completed in 2019, the timber frame reconstruction of the tower’s original volume both stabilises the remaining masonry north wall, and allows the public to ascend to, and look out from, where the watchtower platform once was. This text, by exploring a structuralist view of architecture, seeks to investigate how the mimetic restoration of Merola’s Tower changes the perception and language of the building, and of the tower in a 21st Century context.

The study of language in a structuralist sense was begun by C.S. Pierce in the 1860s, popularised by Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course In General Linguistics, 1916, and then reinvigorated following the 1959 English translation. Saussure develops Pierce’s concept of language as a system of relationships coded by “linguistic signs” which are “two-sided psychological [entities]” (Saussure, 1916). The ‘sign’ contains the ‘signifier’ and ‘signified,’ understood as label and concept, respectively. It was proposed that as long as society had a “collective, pre-personal system” of which signifier relates to which signified concept, language could be established, and two (or more) subjects could communicate (Kearney, 1994).

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss builds upon these principles, expanding Saussure’s study of relationships and representations to family structures and social behaviour. Lévi-Strauss uncovered “rules of exchange” and “prescriptive systems” (Lévi-Strauss, 1949) by which communities are structured, which, as Jonathan Hale explains, form “a symbolic language through which a community describes itself” (Hale, 2000). Lévi-Strauss also makes distinct the concept of ‘mythemes’ from Saussure’s ‘phonemes’, progressing away from phonetic associations and towards ideas of meaning being assigned to signifiers within a narrative, when in his 1958 Structural Anthropology essay he explores inherited mythological narratives within forms of creative expression.

Roland Barthes developed Lévi-Strauss’ concepts of contextual linguistic analysis, proposing that “words could be understood as part of a continuous chain or sequence, where they acquire meaning by their position and context, and through their relationship with other words in the same sentence” or “by categories or groups of words” in a given system. (Hale, 2000). By deriving systems to understand structure, Barthes and Lévi-Strauss formed the foundations for a ‘scientific’ structuralism, where their analyses would become universal and transferable. 

Structuralism was therefore at a point where it could be readily applied to the study and understanding of architecture, and so in the late 1960s, several texts emerged staging structuralist investigations of the city. Robert Venturi’s exploration of expression and operation with his examples of a decorated sheds – a structuralist rekindling of the ‘two cultures’ debate – makes the most direct link to structuralism within architecture, investigating inference and meaning associated with, and assigned to, building type, form, and embellishment. In this example, the decoration of the shed is the signifier to the activity (signified) inside. Martin Heidegger, while predominantly focused on phenomenology, also recognises the structuralist concepts of architectural analysis, using architecture to explain his linguistic concepts, stating that “language by naming beings for the first time, first brings beings to word and to appearance” (Heidegger, 1971). Christian Norberg-Schulz thus recognises “the primary purpose of architecture is hence to make a world visible.” (Norberg-Schulz, 1983). Architecture is the practice of defining ‘spaces’, ‘nodes’, ‘paths’, and ‘districts’, and in doing so, they become ingrained in architectural language which makes the signified activity visible, or recognisable, to a viewer. 

i: External Dialogue

Architectural structuralism both makes and uses collectively understood signs in the creation of buildings and Places. Consistently associated characteristics between function and form (inherited language) cause a building’s form to act as a signifier of its function, such that with enough fluency, gained through experience of buildings, we might be able to ‘read’ buildings. As with linguistic associations, buildings become an intuitive communication tool between architect and user – author and reader. Merola’s Tower is of the category (or language) of lookout towers. Standing at 14.8m, it is the tallest structure in its context of valleys, hills and shrubbery. This presents its standing of authoritative importance, as well as signalling to a viewer its function. A lookout tower is typologically characterised by a small footprint and tall platform; in Lévi-Strauss’ understanding, it adheres to a ‘prescriptive system’ used ‘to describe itself.’ From a viewer’s previous understanding of a lookout tower’s requirements, which act as indicators of the typology, one recognises this sign and calls to mind associations with this architectural language; a viewer knows this is a lookout tower.

As Saussure stated in his original linguistic theory: “language is always an inheritance of the past” and so we can expect the timber-frame restoration to be referential to the archetype of a tower, and also to its specific precedent (Saussure, 1949). In the way that each viewing platform matches the original tower’s vaulted internal levels, to the volume occupied by the building, the timber reconstruction mimics closely the original, demonstrating and celebrating its ‘inherited language’. It is also congruent with the established typology of a lookout tower, given its proportional similarity.

 Despite this careful unison the two eras of tower display, functionally, occupationally, structurally, and materially, they are completely distinct from each other. While also a form of lookout tower, the modern reconstruction is programmatically very different; the ‘lookout’ is over the greenery of the surrounding forested hillsides, a visual gratification for having climbed a tower, not to foresee attack. It is not contemporarily appropriate to construct towers for a warfare programme anymore, and so the reconstruction did not need to recreate such imposing, opaque mass. Its origins as a lookout tower were as a defensive structure and the original remaining masonry wall, 1.2m thick at its base, now shown against 5” thick timber columns, serves as a clear indication of this, both a tectonic requirement of the contemporary building standard but also as a robust and enduring symbol of strength. This wall is the signifier, read by an observer as a strong, defensive object. We understand its material weight from experience of other buildings and pre-emptively assign it a character and temperament. Our developed ‘vocabulary’ of building materiality allows us to intuitively understand its function. In historical context of Catalonian warfare, as well as material construction and structural organisation, we recognise the building as one idea of a tower. 

But the structure in totality now comprises of two. The second signified tower was built in the 21st century, with a modern trussed timber frame leaving members of the public exposed both to the elements but also to the views. The turn made at the top of each flight is an involuntary panoramic view of the surrounding landscape, miles from the nearest town. We recognise the reconstruction’s differences, we know is has been built recently, though after just 3 years the timber is weathering, in parallel to its 650 year-old counterpart with stones slowly growing lichen. We also understand that it encourages ‘looking out’ in a more leisurely, contemplative sense. Regularly interspersed viewing platforms, each encouraging the public to stop and admire, conjure experiences of climbing to mountaintop cairns, or looking out from the top floor of a skyscraper – the very human desire to get as high as possible simply to enjoy the view. Its purpose is read as one of whimsy, a far cry from the seriousness and commanding stature of the wall against which it is pressed. It is a very different idea of a tower.

ii: Internal Dialogue

Saussure made the argument for synchronic analysis of language over diachronic analysis, which is to say, investigating language within its contemporary context, rather than its evolution over time. “[Structuralism] represents a departure from diachronic studies of isolated linguistic phenomena to a synchronic study of unified linguistic systems (in other words, it moves from a study of the variation in linguistic units over time to a comparative analysis of different languages at one point in time)” (Assister, 1984). Saussure would argue there is more to be learned from investigating the simultaneity of the two eras of Merola’s Tower in the way they exist now, and the relationships and conflicts that symptomize having brought a 13th Century object into a contemporary context by leaning against it an open, lightweight, timber frame lookout tower. Rather than explore the individual evolutions of the two ‘isolated phenomena’, the emphasis should instead be on how they appear together in the contemporary view. Barthes’ systems of analysis – either to analyse something against the context of its system (syntax) or the context of its category (semantics) – becomes more relevant here, the synchronic analysis advocating a syntactic approach. It is not so much an analysis of the meanings abstractly assigned to architectural forms, rather the meanings they give themselves through context.

The natural context that the reconstruction at Merola’s Tower sits within is expansive and explorable. From the timber viewing deck, while static, one visualises the exploration, finding river paths and quirks within the landscape, and in doing so, one realises the expanse. The viewing decks and timber tower pull you into the natural context leaving, ironically, the most dramatic contrast to be between the old and new sections of the tower. Despite the reconstructed tower’s purpose being a physical connection to support the North Wall, its addition has created a dichotomy, each part a manifestation of the requirement at the time it was built. Together, they are a disharmonious argument between the ways of making a lookout tower, light against heavy, timber against stone, peacetime against wartime. The wall, as context for the timber frame, gives the entire structure a sense of fragility, both by material comparison, and by highlighting the wall’s weakness and need for support. The timber frame, as context for the wall, highlights its lack of elegance, refined structural paths, and visual permeability.

 The reconstruction has, however, been created sympathetically to its predecessor, replicating original volume, intermediary levels, and height, and so it is clear that the architects intended to create an imitative form, one which acknowledges what once was. Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset’s famous phrase “yo soy yo y mi circumstancia” translates to “I cannot be separated from my circumstances” and indicates the need for the reconstructed additions of Merola’s Tower to be individual but most importantly to reference and respect its ‘circumstancia’ – the North Wall. Roland Barthes writes that any work “is a tissue of quotations,” and the same is true of Merola’s Tower (Barthes, 1998). It is celebratory and referential of its origins without seeking to crudely recreate them. The reconstruction at the Torre de Merola show awareness of the immediate physical context, but the tower no longer has the same functional context. Catalonia is no longer under siege and to perfectly replicate the original tower would be unnecessary, even if the alternative marks a loss of holistic structuralist inference that a complete 13th century lookout tower provides.

iii: Mimesis

Mimesis is understood as the act of imitative re-presentation (not representation), typically in an exaggerated celebration rather than replication. Aristotle, unlike Plato, finds value in mimetic works, able to separate characteristics which make a piece of work valuable independently of its connection or fidelity to the ‘truth,’ here understood to be its imitative origins. The mimetic product “is a sort of action, not a quality” and as long as it is seen to perform a similar function, it is valuable in its portrayal (Aristotle, 335BC). Stephen Halliwell writes that mimetic work can have value when there exists “a shared agreement between the maker and the recipients of the mimetic work to suspend the norms of literal truth; but parallel in that its interpretation depends on standards of explanatory and causal coherence” (Halliwell, 2002). If the tower is to be taken as a mimesis of the original, a re-presentation of the lookout tower, then its interpretation, though different, can be regarded as valuable in its own right, freed of the ‘literal truth’ to its source material. This mimesis takes on new meaning when it is immediately contextualised with the ‘truth’ or origins of its imitation. Typically, imitations experience a geographical or contextual displacement from their origins but when placed next to one another, an observer is forced to confront the dialogue between the two sections, and the way in which they influence the syntactic inference of each other. Here, the reconstruction loses its equal standing, an observer no longer able to compartmentalise and separate the two, and the reconstruction is thus relegated to an imitation rather than given the status of a tower in its own right. While Aristotle argues it has its own value in isolation, Saussure’s synchronic structuralism provokes a contextualisation that intrinsically demarcates the timber reconstruction as secondary and subordinate.

In truth, it is, designed as a preventative measure against collapse for the original tower; it is foremost a subordinate and servant structure. The reconstruction attempts to re-present the form of the tower to an observer, but ultimately its function exposes it as a pragmatic and celebratory addition, unable to compete with the original’s stature. It brings the observer closer to the wall, the stair flights running close enough to reach out and touch it. It encourages inspection of the texture, colouration and material quality through its proximity and physical interconnection. Outwardly it shares functional program of the need or desire to look out, but inwardly, the newly created dialogue between the two speaks of respect and celebration from the new to the old. While not a symbiotic harmony of equal parts, it could be seen as an inter-generational harmony, the timber reconstruction acting as a respectful gesture to the past, thus modifying the tower’s nature towards the signs of ‘memorial’ or ‘museum’. 

Alternatively, René Gerard suggests the idea of ‘The Mimetic Mechanism’ whereupon two subjects are in rivalry. He proposes that a ‘model’ will first show desire towards an ‘object’, which designates the object of desire as desirable, whereupon the ‘subject’ will begin to desire it too, a concept he calls doubling, and “If two persons are fighting over the same object, this object seems more desirable to bystanders” (Hoover Institute, 2009). In this context, the two subjects are the two eras of the construction, and the object is the sign of ‘tower’ – they each have an idea and representation they wish to assign to the signifier of the tower. The tower’s reconstructed element is seen as the subject, chasing the model’s ideal. According to Gerard, “the heightened desire towards the object makes a bystander also wish to experience what it, the object, has to offer” (Gerard, 1982). If there is only one object, one claim to the sign of ‘tower’, there is created a theatrical relationship to fight and exist in conflict. “Eventually, the object disappears, and the conflict and antagonism become the focus” (Hoover Institute, 2009). By this reckoning, the conflict between the two representations of a tower, the origin and the imitation, each fighting for the sign of tower, heighten our desire to experience the tower, to use it, to lookout from it. We are drawn in by their conflict and begin ‘doubling’ too, “wishing to experience what it has to offer.” With Gerard’s understanding, observation of the tower moves from a passive to an active role, the observer first investigating the sign of a tower, but now actively drawn into the dialogue, and wishing to experience what the sign of ‘tower’ has to offer. 

The shift from third-party analytical perspective to engaged, participatory involvement shows a relationship between building and user which would not exist if such a dialogue did not exist; the reconstructed section of the tower creates a new object, with new structuralist influences on users and observers (or participants), within which both eras exist in competition. They are no longer two contrasting objects, but two conflicting subjects within a unified whole. This ‘whole’ has its own structuralist inference, read in its entirety as the stylistic attempt to preserve a heritage building. The interconnection reads as co-dependency, between the two halves, and between the people and the tower.

iv: Conclusion

With the preservation of the tower, is a preservation of local history, which in the state of Catalonia, with its rich cultural history, is an important aspiration. Now, more than ever, amongst rising political desires to separate from Spain, preservation of Catalonian culture is vital. Balchard remarks that buildings accumulate history and memory over time in such a way that “the past remains a substance of the present” (Bachelard, 1972). “Memory is not simply a photographic record of the past accessed by intuition but rather a cinematic act of narration” and so the Torre de Merola, with its theatrical internal conflict and varied structuralist narratives, is a ‘record of the past,’ a record of the legend of its origins, of the Catalonian warfare, of the tower’s demise, and of its continued protection by the Catalonian people (Russel, 2005). The reconstruction then, if nothing else, creates dialogue, between Catalonia’s history, between visitors to the tower, and between the parts of the tower itself, and in doing so, redefines the context in which the tower is seen. The inter-generational respect between the parts, or the ubiquitous desire to rise above the treeline and be perceived as the ‘tower’ reframes the Torre de Merola and makes it representative, a sign, of Catalonia’s past victories, and of the perseverance to protect these histories as Catalonia moves forward.

Bibliography

  • Amandes, J (2009). Les cent millors rondalles populars catalanes. Labutxaca
  • Aristotle (c.335BC). Poetica. 6.1450a, 14-24, emphasis added.
  • Assister, A (1984). Althusser and structuralism. London: Wiley (The London School Of Economics And Political Science). The British Journal Of Psychology. Vol. 35, No. 2. 
  • Bachelard, G (1976). La Dialectique de la Durée. Mohr Siebeck GmbH and co. KG. Philosophische Rundschau. Vol 22, No.3/4. Available from https://www.jstor.org/stable/42571226 [accessed 8 May 2022]
  • Barthes, R (1969). The death of the Author. Mantenia No.5
  • Gerard, R (1982) (English translation 1989). The Scapegoat. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
  • Hale, J (2000). Building ideas: An Introduction to architectural theory. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
  • Halliwell, S (2002). The aesthetics of memisis. Ancient texts and modern problems. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26342579 [Accessed 8 May 2022] 
  • Heidegger, M (1971). Poetry. op. cit., 73.
  • Hoover Institution (2009) ‘Insights with Rene Gerard’. René Gerard at The Hoover Insitution. [9 December]. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk [Accessed 6 April 2022]
  • Kearney, R (1994) Modern Movements In European Philosophy. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Levi-Strauss, C (1949) (English translation 1969). Elementary Structures of Kinship. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.
  • Levi-Strauss, C (1958) (English Translation 1968). Structural Anthropology. London: Allen Lane
  • Norberg-Schulz, C (1983). Heidegger’s Thinking On Architecture. Michigan: MIT Press. Perspecta, Vol 20 pp. 61-68. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1567066?origin=JSTOR-pdf [Accessed 7 May 2022]
  • Russel, C (2005). Fictive Memory: Bachelard on Memory, Duration, and Consciousness. Kronoscope. 5,1,3-20. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568524054005258 [Accessed 9 May 2022]
  • Saussure, F (1916) (English translation 1959) Course In General Linguistics. 2013 Edition. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [Accessed 4 April 2022].