The Materiality of Absence: Organizing and the case of the incomplete cathedral

Abstract

This study explores the role of absences in making organizing possible. By engaging with Lefebvre's spatial triad as the interconnections between conceived (planned), perceived (experienced through practice) and lived (felt and imagined) spaces, we challenge the so called metaphysics of presence in organization studies. We draw on the insights offered by the project of construction of the cathedral of Siena (1259-1357) and we examine how it provided a space for the actors involved to explore their different (civic, architectural and religious) intentions. We show that, as the contested conceived spaces of the cathedral were connected to architectural practices, religious powers and civic symbols, they revealed the impossibility for these intentions to be fully represented. It was this impossibility that provoked an ongoing search for solutions and guaranteed a combination of dynamism and persistence of both the material architecture of the cathedral and the project of construction. The case of the cathedral of Siena therefore highlights the role of absence in producing organizing effects not insofar they take form but because of the impossibility to fully represent it.

Building on visuals: Taking stock and moving ahead

“…In visual studies, what is here may be just as important as what is not here (Ingraham, 2017), as the absence may replace the presence in some situations (Giovannoni & Quattrone, 2017). However, this "grammar" is neither transparent nor universal yet the message must be understood by all audiences, despite the different knowledge backgrounds of individuals (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006).…”

Ac-counting for carbon emissions: simulating absence through experimental sites of material politics

“…While I argue that any calculation invokes something absent and acknowledge, in line with Giovannoni and Quattrone (2018), the value of bringing absence into the study of space and materiality, I want to emphasise the uniqueness of calculating something "absent" such as carbon emissions where absence takes form through simulations and where numbers acting on numbers, draw together both CO2 emissions (a non-visible presence) and prevented emissions (a non-visible absence).…”

“…Despite isolated attempts (see for example Vesty et al 2015), accounting for prevented carbon emissions remains a major and underexplored issue in environmental management studies. Theoretically it offers elements for challenging the metaphysics of presence as suggested by Giovannoni and Quattrone (2018). Their study, inspired by the lengthy construction of Siena Cathedral (1259-1357), explores how absence was the result of a continuous dialogue among the differing and contrasting rationalities of the planners.…”

“…Accounting simulations of prevented carbon emissions offer some scope for challenging the metaphysics of presence as suggested by Giovannoni and Quattrone (2018). In the case of the lengthy construction of the unfinished Siena Cathedral (1259-1357) described by Giovannoni and Quattrone (2018), absence is created by the impossibility of the materiality of the cathedral to embed all the multiple intentions, ideals, wishes, aspirations and competing rationalities of the planners. This impossibility produces incompleteness, then absence.…”

The construction of Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence in the fifteenth century: between accountability and technologies of government

“…Figure 1 depicts a beautiful section of Brunelleschi's dome authored by Sgrilli (1733). Unlike other projects for medieval cathedrals in which the unfinished cathedral signified the impossibility of a complete alignment among the civic, financial, architectural and religious representations of the artefact as conceived by its planners (see, for instance, the role of 'absences' and incompleteness in the building of the Siena Cathedral in Giovannoni and Quattrone [2018]) and in a context in which it was not uncommon for Gothic cathedrals to be left unfinished (Tagliaventi 2009), the project of the dome in Florence succeeded in meeting the consensus of almost all of the actors involved in its construction: Church, Republic of Florence, Wool Guild, and the local community.…”