Fragmented Afterlives, examines how architecture persists through loss, reinterpretation, and repetition. Using the two cantorias by Donatello and Luca della Robbia as a lens, it investigates how history is not preserved as a stable truth, but continually reassembled through fragments, copies, reconstructions, and curatorial decisions. Originally installed above the sacristy doors of Florence Cathedral. The cantorias acted as two architectural voices in the same liturgical space, one rhythmic and expressive, the other ordered and harmonious. They formed a sculptural score in stone that relied on dialogue, proximity, and spatial tension.

The research follows the trail of both cantorias from their creation through dismantling, misuse, storage, and to their current museum presence in Florence and London. It examines various states of the works, the original, the reconstruction, and the plaster casts. Also how form, material, and meaning have changed over the centuries. Particular attention is given to fragments that were lost, incorrectly assembled, or misunderstood, as discussed in art historical research such as Georg Kauffmann’s work at the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz.

Casting operates as a critical method rather than a reproductive one. A cast is understood as a translation, it carries the memory of absence and the imprint of misinterpretation. The resulting work does not reconstruct a cantoria but constructs a new one. It fuses the fragmented afterlives of both original works into a single hybrid structure that occupies an uncanny space between origin and repetition.

This new cantoria arises from the confusion between the original and its afterlife. By merging the proportions and fragments of both works, Donatello and Luca della Robbia no longer stand apart but collapse into one another. This collapse of boundaries forms an architecture of uncertainty, where authorship, authenticity, and origin can no longer be cleanly separated.