Resilient matters: The cathedral of syracuse as an architectural palimpsest

Abstract

While every material artifact engages with time on various levels, palimpsests stitch together layers from several periods simultaneously. By physically expressing the passage of time, architectural palimpsests explicitly raise questions about the historicity of buildings. These questions concern cultural heritage studies and architectural historiography, and reverberate in renovation projects and design commissions. As yet, in architecture there is no theory that covers in a consistent manner the way palimpsests express historicity. This article approaches the diachronic essence of the architectural palimpsest, starting from the original use of the term 'palimpsest' in paleography. It distinguishes a set of features by which to explore buildings that can be labelled as palimpsests. By discussing the Cathedral of Syracuse through this lens, the article illustrates its various palimpsestic features and shows how an architectural palimpsest can embody resilience.