“Architecture and Fire” – Book Launch (Stamatis Zografos), Film Screening (Louis Benassi) and Sound Piece (Hector Castells-Matutano)

UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, London

22 OCT 2019

Architecture and Fire: a Psychoanalytic Approach to Conservation develops a conceptual reassessment of architectural conservation through the study of the intimate relationship between architecture and fire. The book is founded on new interdisciplinary research navigating across the boundaries of architecture, conservation, archival theory, classical mythology, evolutionary theory, thermodynamics, philosophy and psychoanalysis.

The book launch was accompanied by the screening of Black Umbrella, a 16mm film triptych by the experimental filmmaker Louis Benassi. Black Umbrella, a key reference for this book, comprises re-edited footage of fires in London discovered accidentally in a stockpile of discarded 16mm film.

Sound artist Hector Castells-Matutano performed Fire, an immersive sound piece inspired by principles and theories developed in Architecture and Fire.