Poetic Rupture: Wonder in the Prosaic Palimpsest.

A response to Richard Sennet’s call for a generation of wonder in that which exists in order to counteract the overwhelming force of capitalist desire, Poetic Rupture acts as both a social agent and a means with which to strengthen (sub)consciousness. With wonder defined as, the feeling excited by something strange; a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and sometimes awe it is the emotive response of the passerby to an estrangement of the familiar that drives the architectural criteria.

A case for an improvised deconstruction of the existing building stock, of a hermeneutic reconfiguration of undervalued structures as a means with which to dismantle mythologies and power structures. The thesis interrogates how the insertion of negative space into the prosaic palimpsest can foster remembrance and self discovery and bring about an empathetic revolution that aligns the built environment with the dynamism of societal consciousness.

Onwards from the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, a reductive language of cuts is employed in alignment with literary device to frame an architecture of metaphor and material culture.

Located in the Bonfim neighbourhood east of Porto’s historical centre, the thesis takes place within CCStop, a once service station and commercial centre now inhabited by musicians, concerned with aligning the found architecture with its experimental inhabitation. The formalising of the autonomous DIY rehearsal spaces and provision of informal performance space at the core of a recomposed Stop provides a platform for remembrance and empathy through self expression in the public realm.