Land sculpture has arguably existed for thousands of years, in which case studies such as Nazca lines (see photo) and Indian burial mounds were identified as one. These ancient augmentations of the land surface could be ceremonial, or symbolic in nature. Nevertheless, these sculptures exhibited spatial qualities inherent in architecture and landscape design, and inform us about the increasingly ambiguous distinction between them.

Since the beginning of the academic year, the new chair of Urban Architecture offers studios in the Architecture track. The graduation theme of this year is spolia. A term from archaeology, spolia are the left-overs or ‘spoils’ of a building, which find themselves back in a new structure. The students were asked to introduce themselves together with a personal piece of spolia.  The spoils, taken to the studio by students, illustrate that every-day artefacts can change function,  carry emotional narratives or transform in meaning.

During the Christmas Holidays, I was trying my best to avoidwatching dull family movies on the couch. The ones I dislike most are adventure movies with heroic protagonists,like in Indiana Jones and The Mummy. What triggers me most in these movies isthe representation of the archaeologist as a handsome, tomb-discovering acrobat.In these movies, the archaeologist is combatting and unveiling the traces ofthe past, reading landscape, object and architecture like a true detective. Asdesigners of the built environment, our interest similarly lies in the readingof traces, albeit, gratefully not receiving the status of a pop-culture hero indoing so.