![fig 2
Information Influence: C-Chair
by Open Source Architecture
exemplifies the role of
information as an influential
factor in the formation of the
object. The model emerges out
of inanimate objects such as
points, lines, and surfaces.
These objects, by themselves,
are empty containers which act
as memorizers of information.
Once they are placed within the
context of a spatial and temporal
axis, they are imparted with
information, such as location,
direction, and connections. As
these basic building blocks are
established and well defined, a
gradient switch responds to areas
where the human body comes into
contact with the chair surface.
C-chair associates two distinct
topological systems, the tree
and the rhizome. Since both
systems are built from common
building blocks, an interface
between the two is natural. The
interface becomes a point cloud of
densities which define zones of
structural support. The rhizome
proliferates by growing homologous
strands, and genetic switches
regulate the stochastic drift of
speed, direction and density. A
clustering technique regulates
the hierarchical structure of
the tree. One by one, points are
moved from one cluster to another
until the system stabilizes to
form a minimal overall Euclidean
distance. The more complex
organism, the tree, inherits the
established knowledge of the less
complex organism, the rhizome, and
this knowledge is encapsulated as
an object-oriented machine. Some
methods are reused and others
are augmented or overridden.
This analogy of architectural
codification to living organisms
is not a coincidence. In comparing
genetic encoding with software
encoding, we find striking
similarities between the theory
of evolutionary development in
biology and software techniques
such as object-oriented design
(Carrol, 2005). (Image Credits:
Open Source Architecture, 2009).
fig 2a
C-Chair. Sequence of Cluster
Formation and Binarization
fig 2a
Aaron Sprecher
extend at all scales simultaneously, from the intrinsic structures of
material to the macro-scale of environmental phenomena. Architecture
stands now at the confluence of informational streams that generate a
continuum of knowledge across all disciplines. (fig 3)
Informed Architecture: Sensitive Organism
From Frederick Kiesler’s topological surfaces to Greg Lynn’s curvilinear
shapes, architecture is offered the possibility of perceiving our reality
in terms of behavioral and responsive architectural mechanisms rather
than shallow images of reality.
Described in his seminal article “A Home is not a House” the prolif-
eration and specialization of building systems prompted Reyner Banham
to describe the house as a “baroque ensemble of domestic gadgetry [that]
epitomizes the intestinal complexity of gracious living” (Banham R. 1965).
This analogy of mechanical and electrical services to systems regulating
the living organism is striking because it suggests that the accumulation
of energetic functions, as diverse as climatic, wireless and grid-based,
implies the disappearance of the form, image, and representation of
architecture as we know it.
In this article, François Dallegret’s drawings for Banham are a tribute
to this conglomeration of mechanical, electrical, and structural systems,
with their associated requisites and interactions (Banham R. 1965).
This vision of the house as an exhilarating skeleton marks the advent
of a design paradigm of performance for architecture of life, energy and
(de)regulated behaviors. Similar to a living organism, Banham’s archi-
tectural object emerges out of energetic streams, organic veins forming a
unitary system of interwoven and interacting sub-systems which combine
effectively toward the whole. Banham and Dallegret’s mechanical systems
are characterized, indeed defined by their behaviors, capabilities, sets of
innate and imparted knowledge.
E02](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-32-320.jpg)
![01/
E03
Georges Teyssot
Our starting point is a well-known story. During the 1990s, while
many American architects were reading the English translation of Gilles
Deleuze’s study The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1993), Greg Lynn
edited an issue of Architectural Design (1993) on the topic of Folding
in Architecture. In his introduction, “Architecture Curvilinearity: The
Folded, the Pliant, and the Supple,” Lynn called for curvilinear forms.3
This invocation led to the provisional assertion of a “blob” architecture,
the official birth of which seems to be marked by Lynn’s subsequent article
in ANY magazine (1996), where he argued that tectonics was “out” and
obsolete, while topology was “in” and sexy.4
Lynn also thumbed his nose
at a series of personalities who were fighting rearguard battles, defending
what remained of the idea of Semperian tectonics. Moreover, during the
1990s, new tools for 3-D modeling offered by numerous computer appli-
cations (Maya, Form*Z, Rhino) made it possible for architects to literally
multiply the folds in their projects.
The Monad’s Window
One might ask what architects discovered in reading Deleuze’s interpre-
tation of Leibniz, the most important aspect of which was the monad.
In the Monadology (1714), Leibniz gives the name monad to the simple
substance.5
This singular individuality, a folded membrane, carries all
actions and thoughts that will unfold over time. Each monad collects
and reflects the whole world, and operates as “a perpetual living mir-
ror of the universe.”6
Michel Serres, in his famous thesis on Leibniz,
and more recently, Bernard Cache, have argued that Girard Desargues’
mathematics provided a model for Leibniz’s monad.7
Inventor of infini-
tesimal calculus, Leibniz could easily have consulted Desargues’ work.
An architect, engineer, and mathematician, Desargues was a founder of
projective geometry, which offers a mathematical model for the intuitive
notions of perspective and horizon by studying what remains invariable
in projections. Outlining the concept of the “invariant,” he gives his
name to the “Desargues theorem,” focusing on homological triangles.
His disciple was the engraver Abraham Bosse, author of a Treatise on
Projections and Perspective (1665), who later taught linear perspective
to stonecutters, carpenters, engravers, manufacturers of instruments
and, less successfully, to painters.8
The perspective that Bosse teaches
implicitly introduces the idea of infinity, in that he uses parallel lines
with an infinitely extending vanishing point to construct perspective.
Moreover, permeated by the knowledge of Desargues, Bosse develops a
method for tracing shadows, which was inspired by his master.9
(figs 1, 2)
AN ENFOLDED
MEMBRANE
GeorGes TeyssoT
3
Folding in Architecture, new
introductions by Greg Lynn and
Mario Carpo, rev. ed. (Chichester,
West Sussex; Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-
Academy, 2004); a facsimile, based
on the vol. 63, no. 3/4 (1993)
issue of Architectural Design.
4
Greg Lynn, “(Blobs) or Why
Tectonics is Square and Topology
is Groovy,” ANY, 14, (May 1996):
58–61.
5
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, The
Monadology, [1714], trans. Robert
Latta (1999), [access date June
2011], http://www.rbjones.com/
rbjpub/philos/classics/leibniz/
monad.htm.
6
Leibniz, Monadology, [1714], §56.
7
Michel Serres, Le Système
de Leibniz et ses modèles
mathématiques: étoiles, schémas,
points, (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1968),
166–167; 3rd ed. (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de Presses, 1990);
Bernard Cache, “Desargues and
Leibniz, in the Black Box. A
Mathematical Model of Leibnizian
Monad,” Architectural Design,
“Mathematics of Space”, George L.
Legendre, ed. vol. 81, 4, (July /
August 2011), 90–99.
8
Abraham Bosse, Traité des
pratiques géométrales et
perspectives enseignées dans
l’Académie royale de la peinture
et sculpture ... (Paris: chez
l’auteur, 1665).
9
René Taton, L’œuvre mathématique
de Girard Desargues, (Paris:
Vrin, 1951; repr. Lyon: Institut
Interdisciplinaire d’Étude
Épistémologique, 1988); Jean G.
Dhombres and Joël Sakarovitch,
eds. Desargues en son temps
(Paris: Librairie scientifique
A. Blanchard, 1994); Sakarovitch,
Épures d’architecture; de la
coupe des pierres à la géométrie
descriptive. XVIe–XIXe siècles
(Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1998),
83–86, 137–140.
Chapter 01 Structuring Information](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-40-320.jpg)
![cIosoo pnv~t... room.
df.Icorated with a 'dral"'l'Y
div9<s~ied by 1okIs'
commoro rooms, with
'several small open·
ings:' the live senses
The Baroque House (an allegOrY)
01/
E03
fig 3
they are all perspectives on the same one, differing according to the dif-
ferent points of view of the monads.”18
This is, of course, an allusion to
anamorphoses, curiosities typical of the baroque, defined by the play
of perspective obtained by a reflection in a curved mirror or through a
mathematical procedure, that only reveal a drawing’s subject when the
viewer stands in a particular spot. “Each body feels the effects of every-
thing that happens in the universe,” and this, everywhere, whether in
the past or the present, extends to “what is distant both in space and in
time,” writes Leibniz.19
Hippocrates liked to say that there is one com-
mon flow, one common breathing, and all things were in sympathy: “But
a soul can read within itself only what is represented there distinctly; it
could never bring out all at once everything that is folded into it, because
its folds go on to infinity,” writes Leibniz.20
Bodies are folded substances
every bit as much as souls are; but, like a hyperbola, the fold of souls goes
on toward infinity. “Thus, although each created monad represents the
whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body that is exclusively
assigned to it.”21
The monad – and this is the paradox – is a living mirror of
the universe, but it also possesses an “organized body,” a kind of “divine
machine or natural automaton.”22
The monad is alive and is endowed with
a capacity for internal action, capable of representing the world from its
particular point of view. As a “Living Mirror,” it is regulated by harmonic
relations, and ordered like the universe. For Leibniz, substance being in a
“perpetual state of flux,” the monad acts as a medium.23
Yet, monads have
no causal interactions among themselves, nor do they interact directly
with real phenomena, perceived jointly with the other monads. Hence
the paradox: “perception” provides the very substance of the monad, but
without any external influence.24
Like automatons moved by a spring, all
created monads have internal perfection, which ensures their autonomy.
They are self-sufficient.
18
Ibid., §57
19
Monadology, §61.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., §62.
22
Ibid., §64.
23
Ibid., §71.
24
Ibid., §14.
fig 3
Allegory of the Baroque House,
in Gilles Deleuze, The Fold:
Leibniz and the Baroque, trans.
Tom Conley, [1988], (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press,
1993), 5. Courtesy of University
of Minnesota Press.
Georges Teyssot
Chapter 01 Structuring Information](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-42-320.jpg)
![During the seventeenth century, with René Descartes and Blaise
Pascal, geometry is one of the most innovative aspects of science, and it
governs the spirits. As Michel Serres explains in LesystèmedeLeibniz (The
System of Leibniz, 1968), amongst geometry’s applications are perspective
and its inverse – the tracing of shadows, which was useful for painters,
engravers, and architects. Leibniz seeks to connect with an assortment
of encyclopedic knowledge, at the center of which one discovers the epis-
temology of Desargues’ work. Leibniz’s terminology reflects Desargues’
principles – while at the same time drawing upon his own philosophical
language, which allows one to ask if Desargues’ principles are indeed the
models of Leibniz’s categories. This questioning would indicate one of
the sources of the Leibnizian system. As Serres wrote:
“One knows how to ‘concretize’ a point of view, a place and a situation,
an elevation (figure and situation of an object), the determination of a
correspondence, the relation of appearance between an objective point
and a prospective point, the character of representation of this appear-
ance, and so on. Everything happens as if the reasons and principles of
perspective … were epistemologically expressible in a language that is
none other than the philosophical language of the Monadology.”25
Serres warns, however, that there isn’t a single model: “This does not
imply that The Monadology is only a metaphysical translation of Desar-
gues’ epistemology…. [T]here are also other translations; the perspective
template is just one model among others. From this model to the structure
of TheMonadology, there isn’t a one-to-one relation, but a one-to-multiple
relation.”26
For Cache, it is not sufficient to merely affirm that the monad
is a viewpoint on the world; one must provide a geometric construc-
tion that implements a principle internal to the monad’s closed box, in
accordance with Alberti’s perspective, which presented the capacity to
connect objects and subjects in space.27
For Leibniz, in their complete-
25
Serres, Le Système de Leibniz…,
166–167, our translation; the
italics are in the original.
26
Ibid., 167, n. 1, our translation.
27
Bernard Cache maintains that
“Desargues does it in two ways:
through perspective and by
projective geometry, which are
two very different approaches
(even if they present a unity
for “contemplative” persons); in
Cache, op. cit.
fig 5
View of a curiosities cabinet
(Wunderkammer) from: “A series of
illustrations...of Levin Vincent’s
collection”, in Levin Vincent,
Wondertooneel der nature [Marvels
of Nature] (Haarlem: Sumptibus
Auctoris, 1719). Photo: Snark /
Art Resource, NY.
fig 5
Georges Teyssot
Architecture in Formation
38
39](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-43-320.jpg)
![01/
E03
ness, “monads have no windows, through which anything could come
in or go out”28
– although Horst Bredekamp challenges this assertion in
his book, The Window of the Monad (2008).29
The first stage of Leibniz’s
monad, described in a drawing of 1663, represents the relations between
soul and body with the shape of a Pythagorean pentagram.30
As Deleuze writes in The Logic of Sense (1969), “This surface topology,
these impersonal and preindividual nomadic singularities constitute the
real transcendental field.”31
For Leibniz, “the individual monad expresses
a world according to the relation of other bodies with its own, as much as
it expresses this relation according to the relation of the parts of its own
body [between themselves].”32
This expresses the harmonic relationship of
parts (of the body) to the whole. Deleuze goes on to write: “[This relation-
ship] presupposes the distribution of pure singularities according to the
rules of convergence and divergence. These rules belong to a logic of sense
and the event…. Leibniz went very far in this first stage of the genesis. He
thought of the constitution of the individual as the center of an envelop-
ment, as enveloping singularities inside a world and on its own body.”33
The monad is a folded membrane, a receiver organ for picking up the
world. But, it is also an enveloping substance, a sort of skin.
Plica ex plica
Deleuze’s research on topological singularities continues in The Fold.
Deleuze himself draws the monad in the form of a two-storey, baroque
house.34
On the ground floor are common rooms, with five openings (one
door and four windows) representing the five senses plugged into the
world. However, the upper floor has no window: there is a dark room,
lined with “stretched canvas ‘diversified by folds’,” which represent innate
forms of knowledge, as well as receive “vibrations or oscillations” con-
veyed from the lower floor.35
The closed cabinet is an allegory of baroque
space, which projects into infinity, but moves along two distinct branches,
28
Leibniz, Monadology, [1714], §7.
29
Horst Bredekamp, Die Fenster der
Monade: Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz’
Theater der Natur und Kunst,
(Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2008), 2nd
edition.
30
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Leib-
Seele-Pentagramm,“ [1663], in
Hubertus Busche, Leibniz’ Weg
ins perspektivische Universum:
eine Harmonie im Zeitalter der
Berechnung (Hamburg: Meiner,
1997), 59; and in Horst Bredekamp,
Die Fenster der Monade, 18.
31
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of
Sense, trans. Mark Lester with
Charles Stivel (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1990), 109.
32
Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 110.
33
Deleuze, ibid., 111.
34
Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz
and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley
(Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1993), 5.
35
Deleuze, The Fold, 4.
fig 6
Projecting inscriptions through
a set of lenses; in Athanasius
Kircher, Ars magna lucis et
umbrae (Rome: H. Scheus, 1646),
912, p. 34. Courtesy Werner Nekes
Collection, Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany.
fig 6
Georges Teyssot
Chapter 01 Structuring Information](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-44-320.jpg)
![“as if infinity were composed of two stages or floors: the pleats of mat-
ter, and the folds in the soul.”36
The lower floor is pierced with windows,
while the upper floor is blind and closed, with the ability to resonate, “as
if it were a musical salon translating the visible movements below into
sounds up above.”37
(fig 3)
Serres and Deleuze make clear that Leibniz’s theory of an intelligent
membrane is made possible by discoveries such as the fluidity of matter,
the elasticity of the body, and spring mechanism.38
In a flexible body,
the elasticity of the parts forms a succession of coherent folds, infinitely
dividing into increasingly smaller components, as they subdivide into
bending movements. As Leibniz outlined: “The division of the continuous
must not be taken as of sand dividing into grains, but as that of a sheet
of paper or of a tunic in folds, in such a way that an infinite number of
folds can be produced, some smaller than others, but without the body
ever dissolving into points or minima.”39
Deleuze adds: “the model for
the sciences of matter is the ‘origami’ … or the art of folding paper.”40
He
could have mentioned also a treatise on “How to Fold Napkins,” such as
the one published by the German Master-Cook, Mattia Giegher, published
in Padua in 1639.41
(fig 4)
The monad is two stories, the one at the bottom made of organic mat-
ter, “an organism … defined by endogenous folds.”42
For Deleuze, folding
and unfolding does not mean simply a tension-release, like in a spring,
or the contraction-dilation that occurs in a liquid, but leads to phases of
enveloping-developing, or involution-evolution. He writes, “The organ-
ism is defined by its ability to fold its own parts and to unfold them, not
to infinity, but to a degree of development assigned to each species.”43
Quoting the work of the Belgian biologist Albert Dalcq, Deleuze reveals
that his own particular reading of Leibniz approaches the field of epigen-
esis.44
He also mentions D’Arcy Thompson’s book on morphogenesis.45
Of
course, the seventeenth-century theory of preformation and duplication
is distant from the theory of twentieth-century epigenetics, but in both
36
Ibid., 3.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., 4; Serres is mentioned by
Deleuze on page 9, n. 18.
39
Leibniz’s dialogue, Pacidius
Philalethi, [1676], C, 614–615;
quoted by Deleuze, The Fold, 6.
40
Deleuze, The Fold, 6.
41
Mattia Giegher (Matthias Jäger),
Li Tre trattati (Padua: P.
Frambotto, 1639), 3 parts in 1
vol.
42
Deleuze, The Fold, 7.
43
Ibid., 8.
44
Deleuze mentions to: Albert
Dalcq, L’œuf et son dynamisme
organisateur (Paris: Albin Michel,
1941); Deleuze, The Fold, 164,
n. 24.
45
« D’Arcy Thomson » [sic], Deleuze,
Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque
(Paris: Éditions de Minuit,
1988), 138. D’Arcy Wentworth
Thompson, On Growth and Form,
[1917, abbreviated ed. 1942], ed.
John Tyler Bonner, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995;
1961).
fig 7
“Theatrum catoptricum,” engraving,
in Athanasius Kircher, Ars magna
lucis et umbrae, in X. libros
digesta....(Amsterdam: Apud
Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge
& haeredes Elizaei Weyerstraet,
1671), 2nd augmented edition, 776.
Courtesy Werner Nekes Collection,
Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany.
fig 7
Georges Teyssot
Architecture in Formation
40
41](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-45-320.jpg)
![“The architectural ideal is a room in black marble, in which light enters
only through orifices so well bent that nothing from the outside can
be seen through them, yet they illuminate or color the decor of a pure
inside…. The Leibnizian monad and its system of light-mirror-point
of view-inner decor cannot be understood if they are not compared
to Baroque architecture. The architecture erects chapels and rooms
where a crushing light comes from openings invisible to their very
inhabitants.”55
The monad represents the autonomy of a pure inside, “an inside with-
out outside. [But] it has as its correlative the independence of the façade,
an outside without an inside.”56
There is a severing between an outside
(the facade) and a totally enclosed inside, lined with wall-mirrors, as in
the catoptric boxes from that period. These include a “Drawing Machine”
that projects an image on transparent paper, a “Catoptric Theater” in the
form of a mirror-lined box that multiplies anything in it to infinity, and
a “Magic Lantern” that reveals a soul in purgatory – the set of projectors
designed and presented by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher in the two
editions of his monumental Ars magna Lucis et Umbrae (The Great Art
of Light and Shadow), the first published in 1646, the second in 1671.57
(figs 6, 7)
In this regard, one could mention the closed cabinet, or “Conclave
Catoptricum,” a near-perfect illustration of a Leibnizian monad on two
floors that appears in Johannes Zahn’s volume, titled Oculus artifi-
cialis teledioptricus (1702).58
On the ground floor, a hexagonal room
opens out to the world through five windows (the sixth side presumably
occupied by a flight of stairs). On the upper floor, a peripheral corridor
leads to a door opening on a closed cabinet, lined by eighteen mirrors
and receiving indirect light through translucent, alabaster-lined open-
ings. The cabinet’s flooring is covered with marble, while its vault is
decorated either with mirrors or painting. Zahn’s conclave offers a good
55
Deleuze, The Fold, 28.
56
Ibid.
57
Anthanasii Kircheri, Ars magna
lucis et umbrae, in decem libros
digesta, (Rome: H. Scheuz, 1646);
Ars magna lucis et umbrae, 2nd
edition (Amsterdam: J. Janssonium
at Waesberge, 1671). See Joscelyn
Goodwin, Athanasius Kircher’s
Theatre of the World (London:
Thames & Hudson, 2009).
58
“Conclave Catoptricum,” in
Johannes Zahn, Oculus artificialis
teledioptricus: sive Telesopium,
[…], (Nuremberg: Lochner, 1702).
fig 9
fig 9
A public demonstration by Bell
Laboratories of their new video
telephone, August 1956. Photo:
Snark / Art Resource, NY / Art
Resource, NY.
Georges Teyssot
Architecture in Formation
42
43](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-47-320.jpg)
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Chrono-topology
To view milieu, itself the result of individuation, one is obliged to consider
the individual and its environment. In Individuation and its Physical-
Biological Genesis, in the chapter on “Individuation and information,”
there is a section focused on “Topology and ontogenesis,” where Simondon
exposes “the topological condition … paramount in the living condition
for life.”86
Contemporary, biological studies of the cell’s permeability
allowed Simondon to formulate hypotheses on a chrono-topology: “The
living membrane … is characterized … by what separates an interior state
… from an exterior region.”87
While filtering what passes through, and
preventing the access to other bodies or substances, the membrane is
polarized. Therefore, milieu takes the specific sense of a third biological
term, neither inside nor outside, placed halfway in the middle.88
Deleuze
was inspired by Simondon’s theory of the membrane, while attempting
to construe his assumptions about pre-individual singularities.89
In The
Logic of Sense (1969), Deleuze notes that “membranes are no less impor-
tant, for they carry potentials and regenerate polarities.… The internal
and the external, depth and height, have biological value only through this
topological surface of contact.”90
This will lead to considerations about
the folded surface of the cell, and allows Deleuze to assign a biological
value to the famous sentence of Paul Valéry’s famous statement: “The
deepest is the skin.” Then, Deleuze inserts a long quotation extracted from
Simondon’s thesis: “The characteristic polarity of life is at the level of the
membrane…. The entire content of the internal space is topologically in
contact with the content of external space at the limits of the living.”92
Simondon’s conception presupposes the existence of a pre-individual
reality, because “what appears in the individuation is not only the indi-
vidual, but the couple individual-milieu.”93
An example of individuation is the process of crystallization: the
passage of a substance from a metastable, amorphous state to a sta-
ble, crystalline one. Individuation, therefore, precedes the individual.
Simondon argues that the simple model of crystallization may be used
to understand the process of individuation throughout physical and bio-
logical systems. The difference between animate and inanimate matter
is that animate matter manages to sustain certain metastable states that
allow a perpetual individuation in the organism. We perceive a distinc-
tion between matter and form, organism and environment, species and
individual, but these are merely manifestations of a single process of
becoming, metastable and pre-individual, which constitutes the real.94
In Deleuze’s terms, a metastable substance is a difference in itself, and
individuation is a process in which difference differentiates itself.
Simondon will thus uncover and illuminate genetic principles, con-
temporary to real processes, by first investigating theories of matter (crys-
tallization), and then theories of life (membrane).95
He concludes his
work with a theory of form: “A technical operation institutes an internal
resonance while matter takes form, by means of energetic conditions and
of topological conditions; topological conditions can be named form, and
energetic conditions express the entire system.”96
In this view, topology
and chronology coincide in the individuation of the living. They are not a
priori forms, but the dimensionality of living while it is individualizing. For
Simondon, they satisfy the very conditions for us to think about morpho-
genesis.97
Indeed, it is his analysis of genetic processes – brick, membranes,
or crystals, for example – that allows us to rethink spatial categories like
inside and outside, depth and height, transparency and opacity, top and
bottom,frontandrear,lightandheavy,mobileandimmobile,fastandslow,
smooth and striated, and so forth. Suddenly, basic architecture (basement
and attic, wall and partition, floor and ceiling, passage and disruption,
ground and roof) can see its meaning enter into baroque metamorphosis
to transmute into a topological surface of contact.
86
Simondon, L’individuation, 225,
our translation.
87
Ibid., our translation.
88
Victor Petit, “L’individuation
du vivant …,” Cahiers Simondon,
no 1, ed. Jean-Hugues Barthélémy,
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 47–75,
see 57.
89
Gilles Deleuze, “On Gilbert
Simondon,” in Deleuze, Desert
Islands and Other Texts,
1953–1974 (Los Angeles & New
York: Semiotext(e), 2004): 86–89;
Sauvagnargues, Deleuze, 26–28.
90
Deleuze, The Logic of Sense,
103–104.
91
Paul Valéry, “L’Idée fixe,”
[1931], in Valéry, Œuvres, II,
(Paris, Gallimard/La Pléiade,
1960), 215.
92
Gilbert Simondon, L’individu et sa
genèse physico biologique, (Paris:
PUF, 1964), 260–264; cited by
Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 104.
93
Simondon, L’individuation […]
forme et d’information, 24–25, our
translation; Barthélémy, Simondon
..., 41.
94
Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and
Guattari, 62.
95
Sauvagnargues, Deleuze, 244.
96
Simondon, L’individuation, 45, our
translation.
97
Ibid., 228.
Georges Teyssot
Chapter 01 Structuring Information](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19120095-250516131057-0f63afbd/85/Architecture-In-Formation-On-The-Nature-Of-Information-In-Digital-Architecture-Pablo-Lorenzoeiroa-50-320.jpg)
Architecture In Formation On The Nature Of Information In Digital Architecture Pablo Lorenzoeiroa
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- 7. Architecture in Formation, On the Nature of Information in Digital Architecture Editors: Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher Copy Editor: Michael Wen-Sen Su Graphic Designer: Atelier Pastille Rose Crowdsourcing Diagrams: Chandler Ahrens and John Carpenter Translation: Barbara McClintock Editorial Collaborators: Eduardo Alfonso, Zulaikha Ayub, Luo Xuan, Kristen Too Typeset in Letter Gothic, Tiempos and Univers Printing: TJ International First published 2013 By Routledge 2 park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada By Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business ©2013 selection and editorial material, Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained within this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. Illustration credits: The editors and publishers would like to thank the individuals and organizations that gave permission to reproduce material in the book. Every effort has been made to contact and acknowledge copyright holders. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not acknowledged here and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future printings or editions of the book. Trademark notice: Product and corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Architecture in Formation, edited by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher
- 8. Routledge, Taylor and Francis, New York architecture in Formation On the nature Of InfOrmatIOn In DIgItal archItecture Edited by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher
- 9. Table of ConTenTs Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher, Introduction E01 Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa, Form:In:Form. On the Relationship Between Digital Signifiers and Formal Autonomy E02 Aaron Sprecher, Architecture in Formation: On the Affluence, Influence, and Confluence of Information Chapter 1 Structuring Information: Toward an Architecture of Information E03 Georges Teyssot, An Enfolded Membrane E04 Mario Carpo, Digital Indeterminism: The New Digital Commons and the Dissolution of Architectural Authorship E05 Patrik Schumacher, Parametric Semiology: The Design of Information-Rich Environments E06 Bernard Cache, William Hogarth’s Serpentine Line E07 Mark Linder, Literal Digital E08 David Theodore, Oedipal Time: Architecture, Information, Retrodiction E09 Evan Douglis, Ten Exaltations for an Excitable Planet E10 Rocker-Lange Architects, Serial Multiplicities E11 Antoine Picon, Digital Design between Organic and Computational Temptations Chapter 2 Information Interfaces: Data and Information I01 George L. Legendre, Interview P01 Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Exit P02 Mark Burry, Unwrapping Responsive Information P03 Yehuda E. Kalay, Beyond BIM: Representing Form, Function, and Use P04 Omar Khan, Black Boxes: Glimpses at an Autopoietic Architecture P05 Jason Kelly Johnson / Future Cities Lab, Thinking Things, Sensing Cities P06 Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Maider Llaguno Munitxa, $tr€$$€d €uro E12 Michael Wen-Sen Su, Future Gestures Chapter 3 Responsive Information I02 Alessandra Ponte, Interview P07 Anna Dyson / Bess Krietemeyer, Peter Stark / CASE RPI Electroactive Dynamic Display Systems (EDDS) P08 Philippe Rahm, Gradating Spaces: Plot, Contour vs. Sfumato, Dimming in Architecture P09 Lydia Kallipoliti and Alexandros Tsamis, Vacuum Wall P10 Neeraj Bhatia / InfraNet Lab Soft Infrastructural Systems as a Template for Arctic Urbanism P11 Jenny E. Sabin / LabStudio, Branching Morphogenesis P12 Luc Courchesne / SAT, Posture: An Experiment in Multifold Reality E13 Chris Perry, anOther Architecture: The Responsive Environment 10 22 35 47 53 61 69 73 77 85 93 140 103 110 116 120 124 128 132 137 185 145 150 156 164 168 172 176 180
- 10. Chapter 4 Evolutionary Information I03 Karl Chu, Interview P13 Eisenman Architects, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe P14 Preston Scott Cohen, Geometry vs. Architecture P15 Eiroa Architects, Cartopological Space: Post-Structuralist Form in Formation P16 Michael Hansmeyer, The Sixth Order P17 Chandler Ahrens / Open Source Architecture, Informed Performance: Form Generation According To Polyvalent Information P18 Andrew Saunders, Baroque Parameters E14 Alexis Meier, Computation against Design? Toward a New Logicocentrism in Architecture Chapter 5 Extensive Information: Material Information I04 Ciro Najle, Interview P19 Nader Tehrani / Office dA NADAAA The Material, the Geometric, and the Structural P20 Satoru Sugihara / ATLV, Thom Mayne / Morphosis Irregularity and Rationality Mediated by Agents: Modeling Process of Phare Tower P21 Reiser + Umemoto, O-14 P22 Roland Snooks / Kokkugia, Self-Organised Bodies P23 Philip Beesley, Feeling Matter in the Hylozoic Series E15 Achim Menges, Coalescences of Machine and Material Computation Chapter 6 Information Affect I05 Greg Lynn, Interview and projects by Greg Lynn FORM P24 Matias del Campo, Sandra Manninger / SPAN, Ecopressures P25 Michael Young, Involutions and Atmospheres P26 Eric Goldemberg, Andrew Santa Lucia and Naomi Scully / Monad Studio The Wolfsonian Satellite Pavilion: Lincoln Road Capacitors P27 François Roche, An Architecture des humeurs P28 Ruy Klein, Klex E16 Martin Bressani, On the Surface: Notes Toward an Architecture of Affect P29 John Carpenter and Chandler Ahrens Growth and Ecological Data Visualization Biographies Index Acknowledgements 189 194 200 206 212 218 224 231 285 238 246 254 258 264 268 275 286 296 302 306 310 316 323 330 334 350 352
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- 12. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher Introduction Architecture in Formation comprises a dialog among architectural theorists, historians, and experimental architects based on the many and complex relationships between information processing and its representation. This collection of historical examinations, critical essays, and design projects pro- vides a cross analysis that aims to re-conceptualize the current state of the discipline of architecture as it has become, of late, increasingly structured around advances in computation. We follow the trajectory of a critical, alternative axis deviating from the way digital technology has usually been understood since its widespread adoption in the 1990s. While previous trajectories privileged a visual logic, thus repressing digital architecture to a merely representational role, we emphasize the architectural specificity of a disciplinary potential, which recognizes the role of computation in actually processing the relational capacity of systems and structures. Our ambition is to produce both a historical venture against the mere actualization of technology and an intellectual understanding of the digital project through the more generalized notion of Information. However, we are not proposing to dismiss visual and formal logic. Rather, we hope to foster the integration of these levels of cognition and representation with deeper, usually inaccessible, relational structures. An architecture of information implies the constitution of a critical, interme- diary, and abstract interface-space that is capable of transforming the discipline by mediating the relationships among cognitive structures, codes, informa- tion processing, and form. The associated disciplinary shift drives a general movement toward engaging an emergent, formal aesthetic that is based upon profound structuring relationships. In particular, due to the increasing ease of writing and manipulating computer programming codes, the architecture community recently began to question the hidden, form-giving roles of soft- ware developers, thereby precipitating a new “deconstruction” of software structures to produce novel, unexpected modes of architectural design. Yet, this questioning also provoked the emergence of a form of structuralism, one that would have to be displaced in order to avoid the idealistic dimension of the architectural object – even as the object itself becomes invisibly embed- ded into reactive and dynamic systems. Such an object-system, then, would necessarily consider architectural design in terms of latent possibilities. In this volume, the architectural questions inferred by information struc- tures and interfaces have been framed through our combined dialectical and editorial voices, the result of which necessarily redefines both the limits and nature of the discipline. Specifically, our dialectical positions address the intrin- sic, disciplinary notions of representation, information standardization, and formal autonomy, as well as extrinsic notions regarding the boundaries of the discipline. This dialectical approach is investigated in four forms: interviews, curated essays, project essays and experimental projects, the summation of which generates the necessary conflicts, contradictions, and continuities capable of reorganizing certain fundamentals of the discipline as it continues to expand through computation. With regards to current, alternative scenarios, this collection of essays and projects also aims to critique the current dialectical reasoning that has emerged with the pervasive use of computer codes and information process- ing. Rather than presenting a counter argument, however, we have sought to organize discourses relative to deeper conceptual and perceptual struc- tures without privileging one for the other, the result of which is the integra- tion of different arguments into a more complex spectrum of architectural inTroduCTion
- 13. performance. In response, Architecture in Formation proposes addressing both of these perspectives with the objective of achieving a potential synergy between the two, especially with respect to the experimental projects featured in this book. Considering this collection of projects and essays, one may well question whether the architecture of these experimental practitioners actually indexes technological or cultural questions relative to architecture. For us, the more interesting problem has been that all of the participants in this book deal with technology in such a way that for any decision they made, there was an associated aesthetic appreciation dependent upon these topological levels. For instance, architects working with visual logic tend to dismiss the underlying structuring of form, which is also structured by technology through representation, while architects merely dealing with relational logic tend to dismiss the autonomy of form once it is constituted, thereby dismissing the quality of the constituted object and its capacity to affect reality. This book consists of six chapters. Each chapter begins with an interview and ends with an extended critical essay. Together, they frame the chapter’s specific discourse inquiring the nature of information. By specifically fostering a progression from conceptual to perceptual structures, each chapter reveals a particular cartography of influences and cross relationships of the featured theorists, historians, and practitioners. This cartography takes the form of a crowdsourcing diagram depicting the informational content of each chapter, thereby offering alternative, formal readings of the chapter. The six chapters are: Chapter 1, Structuring Information, introduces the historical, theoretical, and conceptual backgrounds underlying current architectural explorations of various information systems, codes, and cognitive structures. In this chapter, architectural historians, theoreticians, and experimental practitioners ques- tion the multi-layered role of information in architecture – all the way from its most abstract layers to the most concrete ones relating to bodily affection, by reflecting upon the many and complex relationships between information processes and architecture. The resulting discussion forms an initial topological level, which is used to organize the overall structure of the remaining chapters. Chapter 2, Information Interfaces, explores the nature of abstract systems that process data and induce information. This chapter includes an overview of relational systems in architecture – in particular, the mathematical principles and protocols that layer information, even as they simultaneously question the generative capacity of interfaces to translate, mediate, and induce relation- ships within the architectural project. Primarily concerned with information visualization and representation, this chapter features projects dealing with issues ranging from the multiplicity of interfaces to the manipulation of rep- resentational information across various computational platforms. In order to expose the deepest topological levels of this exploration, we have chosen to highlight the works of practitioners who are recognized for their innovation at the level of the architectural interface, i.e. – the system of representation structuring the way we conceive space, by experimenting with the structur- ing of form relative to emergent representational strategies. These strategies come together to establish a second topological level that apprehends the computer codes and mathematical logic inherent to computational architec- ture, thereby enhancing our understanding of its relational logic. Chapter 3, Responsive Information, investigates interactive systems in the context of the contemporary production of spaces and environments. This third topological level features experimental projects and essays expressing the potential of responsive systems in terms of their spatial and program- matic organizations. Chapter 4, Evolutionary Information, addresses questions regarding both the use of evolutionary protocols in architecture and the innovations arising out of evolutionary, time-based architectural systems and topologies. In this chapter, we feature experimental practitioners who work with minimal expression in spatial organization in order to redefine novel typological relationships that recognize the presence of the body in order to induce affection. This fourth topological level therefore addresses the architectural conformation of syn- Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher 8 9 Architecture in Formation
- 14. thetic solutions in order to activate a critical disciplinary displacement relative to both artificial evolutionary processes and architectural systems. Chapter 5, Extensive Information, focuses on the extensive aspects of informa- tion systems through an investigation of the various processing logics derived from forces acting upon materials – even as these systems challenge categories and intuitive assumptions. Together, considerations of material actualization and digital fabrication mark a movement away from merely speculating upon the physicality of objects, and toward exploring the informational systems acting at the core of material formation. As part of the discourse of this fifth topological level, the notion of material physicality is considered in the context of organizational structures – some of which resist the separation between deeper levels of content and their material expression, and some of which activate a higher level of abstraction by resisting the linear understanding of forces, organizations, and materials. Chapter 6, Information Affect, extends the preceding discourse on materiality, while also scrutinizing the role of deep structures – both relative to the output of information, and within the context of spatial perception. This sixth and final topological level features architectural experiments founded upon the many connections between information and affect, i.e. – between the architectural object and its influence upon the subject. Accordingly, considerations of rela- tional structures are displaced in order to privilege the performative aspects of form – maybe even motivating formal excess. Each of the above chapters comprises multiple topological levels of discourse. Together, the six chapters develop a series of progressive layers modeled upon Gregory Bateson’s and Michel Serres’ understanding of reality, which considers reality in terms of multiple topological levels of information. Thus, this book is organized according to a series of categories that extend, enrich, and redefine the relationships among information processing, image and non-image, form and system on multiple, but incremental, topological levels. These levels are organized to critically structure the way architecture deals with information by presuming to build up a body of knowledge, which temporarily reconfigures the limits of the discipline. The resulting topological levels can then question more conventional architecture strategies in wide- ranging ways – from deep structures concerned with concepts, to structures concerned with perception; from the structuring of information relative to systems of representation and the structuring of relationships, to bodily affection; and from even deeper structures dealing with the constitution of an autonomy that transcends the mere linear indexing of information, to the crossing of information that explicitly recognizes transdisciplinarity in adap- tive architectural solutions. Additionally, the topological levels of each chapter sometimes coincide across various essays and projects, and sometimes overlap across chapters, thus putting into question the nature of digital architecture in terms of its similarities and differences among the many practices and critical positions shaping the field today. Fostering a progression from conceptual to perceptual structures, the structure of this collection reveals a cartography of influences and cross relationships among the featured essays, projects, theorists, and practitioners. This cartography activates formal problems that go beyond the initial assumptions established by the chapter divisions. With respect to establishing a specific, ideological position, this book attempts to develop a critical questioning of form and information through its collection of interestingly heterogeneous voices. As a result, some essays and projects developed themes we had suggested, while others explicitly problematized these themes. We hope the reader finds the resulting book to be effective at productively juxtaposing the work of the world’s leading architectural practitioners, theorists, and researchers, who are undertaking today’s most innovative design research and experiments. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Aaron Sprecher Introduction
- 15. fig 1 Parametric negative-dialectic information exchange between a natural pseudo-Cartesian rock formation and an artificial topo-logos. Groundscraper for Punta del Este, Uruguay. Eiroa Architects-BA, Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa 2009–2011. Architecture in Formation Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa 10 11
- 16. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa FORM:IN:FORM ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIGITAL SIGNIFIERS AND FORMAL AUTONOMY Pablo lorenzo-eiroa Architecture in Formation aims to consolidate, reorganize, and critique what has constituted a revolution in the discipline over the past ten years. This revolution is based on a growing recognition to acknowledge deeper structures in architecture. Information technologies presented a new paradigm to architectural representation through the possibil- ity to work directly with deeper relational structures such as computer codes. This revolution is reacting against late post-structuralisms that rely only on visual judgment without acknowledging deeper relational structures. This transformation is built from a renewed advancement in digital architecture representation and architecture organization, moti- vating a fully integrated systemic approach ranging from bits, to codes to the structuring of relationships. Although, this cultural transformation seems to be propelled once more from a historical cyclical purge reacting consistently between two opposing forces. Media communications have advanced a sensibility and education based on the understanding of a visual logic that was highly beneficial to architecture – a visual arts discipline based on formal logic. Media has separated visual appeal and affection from the underlying proto- cols engineered to manipulate mass behavior. Therefore the visual is no longer a paradigm for reference, as underlying codes have now become referential. Instead of replacing visual logic for a new relational logic, an alternative axis must depart from understanding of critical relationships across perceptual structures and deeper conceptual structures. Late post- structuralist tendencies have progressively hidden conceptual structures in favor of perceptual structures rather than focusing on syntactical organizational problems that investigate alternative displacements of disciplinary fundamentals. Disciplinary fundamentals of architecture, including both representational structures and syntactical structures that organize space, must be acknowledged and then displaced. If architects do not recognize the underlying logic of the interfaces and displace the given source codes of algorithms to create their own, their work is trapped by a predetermined set of ideas, cultural projections, and aesthetic agendas contained within those interfaces. Similarly at the architectural level of the project, if architects do not displace the logic of systems from which they work, and further do not recognize implicit emerging spatial typolo- gies or underlying relational structures, their work becomes trapped by predetermination. However, before explaining this new structuralist movement pro- moted by information technologies, it is interesting to first question its emergence relative to a historical cycle. It seems necessary to critique the E01
- 17. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa historical cyclical pendulum between contrasted positions predestined to continuously renew the discipline. Any reactionary force is equally problematic and presents a temporary balance without critiquing the problems that provoked such reaction. The content and structure of this book addresses a criticism of this historical cultural cyclical reaction. Therefore this emerging new structuralism is understood as a revolution, but is also aimed to attack deeper levels of this assumed historical process. A New Structuralism as a Continuity from Post-Structuralism The pendulum reactionary force of post-structuralism emerged in the late 1950s against the previous abstraction and predetermination of structuralism. Since the 1990s it has been deviating from deconstruc- tion’s conceptual premise of 1968: to develop a full decomposition of any assumed disciplinary fundamentals. Disciplinary fundamentals have been progressively disregarded instead of being revolutionized. This necessity to acknowledge deeper fundamentals correlates with the emerging new structuralism manifested by the possibility to work directly with computer codes. Structures are transcendental common relationships among cultural objects and constitute the basis of occidental culture. Structuralism has been criticized for generating categories that reference conventions, which obscure real differences. This is the first problem to identify in information technologies, since the processing of information enhances an emerging structuralism that has to be acknowledged but also resisted. In Deleuze’s idea of difference without concept (Deleuze G. 1994) dif- ferentials are understood as real differences, as he notes the value of the curvature in itself, independent from other assumed referential categories. Intellectuals like Foucault argued for both structuralist and post-structuralist theories, and each discipline would have to address the tendency of known types, that if not frontally displaced, continue to prescribe order. Post-structuralism initially emerged as a reaction to the homogeniz- ing quality of structures, but also defined experience negating relational logic. Alois Riegl establishes the conceptual categories “optic” as psycho- logical and “tactile” as empiric that synthesizes as haptic (Riegl A. 1901). The concept of haptic relates to the idea of affection,1 a post-structuralist concept that for Deleuze is independent of the subject, an apperceptive experience of the body (Deleuze G. 1970). There is no argument against such a position that relies on the reality of the object independent from intellectual interpretation. But induced by media, architecture is erod- ing its disciplinary knowledge and its capacity to stimulate experience as a physical spatial affection that is de-sensitized due to the disjunction between subject and place. This position is critical of inconsistent late post-structuralist formal- isms that disregard deeper relational logics without accounting the index- ing of systems that constitute form, problematically ensuring stability at deeper levels. But this position is also critical of what a new structuralism is activating, understanding information visualization as a process of rep- resentation of external content, which does not recognize the autonomy of form once it is constituted – negating any artistic empowerment. This position defines an architecturally based formal expression aimed to work with structuring relationships but also to recognize an empowerment that leads to affection. Therefore, achieving higher levels of architec- tural performance by thinking of this emerging new structuralism as a continuity from the previous series of post-structuralist displacements. This concept presents a background for the first manifesto: There is a necessity to rethink the relationship between post-structural- ism as a critique of determination and a new structuralism as a continuity, disclosing deep structures to the foreground addressing their role in qualifying affection. 1 Affection (affectio) is said directly from the body, while the affect (affectus) refers to the mind. Concept used by Spinoza and Deleuze as an empowerment, an external body that acts over our body and not a simple modification. Aesthetics has been often referred to merely questions of perception but such artistic fundament has been integral to conceptual questions in the work of many artists. 12 13 Architecture in Formation
- 18. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa Form:In:Form Information technologies enable the communication between computer interfaces. According to von Bayer, information theory bridges all forms of knowledge through binary translation (von Bayer H.C. 2003). Information theory investigates this form of communication through mathematics. Computer interfaces calculate, organize, and transfer sets of data that communicate a message that, translated through interfaces, conveys information. A bit is the minimum unit of data signal. Signs organized through code sequences represent the content, message, or information. Even if a code may change the signal remains the same, as the relational logic of the code acquires importance and relevance over the binary sign. Architecture form, and as a consequence architectural space, is standard- ized, homogenized, and parameterized through information processing. As a result of the possibilities of information technologies, architecture is now an integrated informed organic system: a responsive interface that organizes information forming spaces-environments. Any language mediates reality, and determines the way that we think. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein L. 1921) reveals the problematic relationship between language and the world, demonstrating the limits of representation. For Husserl, mathematics as a formal ontology replaces reality, thereby constructing a set of inde- pendent conditions (Husserl E. 1929). Charles Sanders Pierce’s linguistic representation can be understood through his triadic signs: Icon (like- ness), Symbol (convention), and Index (actual connection) (Pierce, C.S. 1893–1913). Pierce understood logic as formal semiotics. Ferdinand de Saussure defines the Sign (the basic unit of language) as the relationship between the Signifier (sound-image) and the signified (the referent, the meaning) (De Saussure F. 1916). Jacques Derrida’s critique of Saussure’s equation is that structuralism disseminates categorical thought, since for Derrida a sign is understood as the creation of signifiers, an artificial construction independent from what it is being named (Derrida J. 1982). Georges Teyssot’s recent understanding of Saussure’s sign qualifies the slash that prescribes the relationship between Signifier and the signified as a curve, a topological relationship in the algorithm “sign=S/s” convey- ing a bond for signification, as in poetry (Teyssot G. 2010). Roland Barthes declared the end of authorship when he defined language as a system of predetermination of content (Barthes R. 1977). Alain Badiou questioned any existing information outside a system, since there is no language that is complete (Badiou A. 2005). And the problem is that even though Chomsky’s linguistics influenced the way architects understand formal systems (Chomsky N. 1957), from the relevance of syntax that open up semantics, his ideas did not enter representation relative to informa- tion processing. Conrad Fiedler opposed the Kantian idea that art was a lower form of cognition, since artistic form constitutes an autonomous logical system which its purpose is not to mean through translation or representation (Fiedler C. 1949). A vectorial line drawn in the computer screen is not a line. It is rather a series of computed codes that simulate a three-dimensional beam of light projected into a two-dimensional screen. The image of this line is therefore a representation of an external binary calculation from its means of constitution. Since there is no information without representation, the reduction into codes results in a structuralism that replaces architecture. While interfaces process information, at the same time they re-structure extrinsic content to fit its medium, activating a topological loop that in the end informs reality. Computer Signs (binary codes) represent infor- mation that is actualized through Interfaces (computer languages are mediums that activate symbolic form) that inform Form (index), acti- vating a responsive loop between information and representation where interfaces as signifiers induce form through binary codes, activating the topology: form:in:form. But the actualized signifier acquires a certain autonomy independent from the indexed set of codes, inducing further relationships. fig 2 Infrastructure proposal that affects environmental forces to induce landscape opportunities in an ecology of natural feedback, exchanging information and energy. Mississippi River Delta 2006, ARC 177 Students Elan Fresler and Cooper Mack, the Cooper Union and parametric diagrams by Professor Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa. E01
- 19. Architecture in Formation Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa fig 3 14 15
- 20. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa fig 3 Each interface builds topographies of information intended to be addressed within the logic of the project. Artificial ecology of natural sedimentation that promotes landscape interventions to connect Buenos Aires and Colonia. Ecoinduction for the Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires, Eiroa Architects-BA, Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa 1999-2011. fig 4 Representational structures, interfaces, and organizational types. From left to right and top to bottom: binary code, genetic diagram, radial organization, bypassed radial organization, network structure. Mathematical scripting, flow diagram-algorithm, grasshopper visual algorithm, bifurcating structure, lattice structure. Parametric script, perspective-interface diagram, grid, striation, logarithmic grid. Diagrams by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa. fig 4 E01
- 21. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa The implementation of structuralism expands a technological- mathematical paradigm diminishing artistic philosophy and aesthetic theory. One of the fundamental innovations in art was the abandonment of abstracted representation in favor of concrete art. In this form of art, content is not seen as extrinsic but rather as generated by coordinating the set of conditions that index its formal logic, thereby opening up cultural problems and inducing relationships once it is constituted. In this sense, there is a unique art intrinsic to each medium, material, com- munication, technique, reality, context, frame that is only possible at a certain moment in time. Computation eliminated this dimension in art, and the current digital revolution is contingent upon this recognition. In information visualization and information mapping, formal strategies often are conceived independently from the data they are representing. In this reversible paradigm, form is unmotivated from its capacity to induce cultural change. These representational strategies have yet not accounted for the fact that a map is a deterritorialization machine that by describing a territory implicitly recreates it. Architecture has motivated a self-referential modern consciousness since the Renaissance, problematizing representation. Algorithms are now critiqued for predetermining form, but historically speaking, perspective has been striating Western modern space since the Renaissance with similar consequences (Panofsky E. 1924–1925). Brunelleschi’s perspec- tive produced a parametric space and was critiqued by many architects. Andrea Palladio critiqued perspective’s artificiality, proposing a frontal layered space that interrupted its cone effect. Panofsky’s perspective analysis identifies the ambition for a structuring of space and objects through mathematics, as the tiles in the floor in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Annunciation of 1344 diminish parametrically. Lorenzetti brings the deep structure of the interface, perspective, to perform at the same level of the narrative of the painting. The vanishing point indexes the presence of God mediating between the Angel and Mary, coordinating multiple fig 5 Topological displacements overcome the predetermination of implicit representational structures and organizational structures. Cartesian departing structure and representational system transcended by inducing continuity among the three axes. A departing nine square grid structure is displaced by progressive non- determination, activating spatial affection. Design II students Che Perez, Henry Barrett, Johae Song, Phong Nguyen, Kristinn Vidarsson, Binham Li and Cory Hall, The Cooper Union, Head Professor and Coordinator Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa, with Assistant Professors James Lowder, Lydia Kallipoliti and instructor Katerina Kuourkuola 2010-2011. Graduate and Undergraduate computation design seminar students Harry Murzyn and David Varon, The Cooper Union, Professor Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa. fig 5 16 17 Architecture in Formation
- 22. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa topological levels and therefore achieves a higher artistic signification. Las Meninas by Velazquez of 1656 paradoxically displaces the linearity of perspective by the artist placing himself inside the painting, build- ing up a topological space with the viewer. Modernist architects used axonometric projection to resist perspective subjectivity, and proposed a parametric mathematical projection model where XYZ induce a uni- versal machinic object-space. John Hejduk displaced this homogeniz- ing parameterization in axonometric projection as a main generator in the logic of his diamond houses. These works recognized how reality is artificially structured by representation. Thus by displacing the structure of the medium, these artist and architects creatively proposed a cultural project questioning representation and any linear implementation of the dominant technological paradigm. Digital representation created a revolution in architecture comparable with perspective in the Renais- sance but its structuralism has not been displaced, neither has it been questioned culturally within the discipline. Opposingly, computation induced several displacements to the dis- cipline that were not culturally questioned. Dynamic digital representa- tion produced a vectorial isotropic space and a dynamic architectural object, negating gravity and as a consequence the ground condition was progressively displaced and recently has been ignored in architecture. Site-specific interventions motivated different architectural relationships with the ground surface searching for a topo-logos of spatial differentia- tion. Surface modeling extended this disciplinary cultural process into the progressive autonomy of the surface from the ground. Nurbs-based geometry enabled the possibility to work with calculus and degree cur- vature, which then facilitated the manipulation of complex topological surfaces that ultimately informed spatial topology. The interdisciplinary incorporation of animation-based software enabled the possibility of manipulating form in relation to its topological history. But these capacities also provoked problems, as anthropomorphic fig 6 Cartopological space: typological Cartesian variations through relative topological displacements. House IIa, Eiroa Architects NY 2011. E01 fig 6
- 23. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa architecture has been informed by elastic geometry tools for character animation. The computer screen has shifted the horizontal surface of the draft- ing table defined by XY and Z as extrusion, to the vertical. The computer displaced the tectonics of the floor plan, activating XY as a picture plane and Z as depth, assimilating architecture with cinema in which depth and not vertical extrusion defines space. This new relationship promoted a late-post-structuralism based on a perceptive-visual iconographic logic that replaced structural reasoning. Contrarily, algorithms are now break- ing with the visual logic, bringing back a mental pensiveness across the parametric project based on structuring relationships. Visual algorithms were successful in developing interfaces to mediate between abstract computer codes, bridging scripting and the relational logic implicit in algorithms. This process brought computation a step closer to a formal logic by visually structuring relationships by layering information. Computation, mathematics, and form have independent cognitive principles but are based on common metaphysical organizational struc- tures including bifurcations, grids, networks, and other relational typolo- gies. Formal invention must deal with the mechanisms of information processing in order to displace the prescriptive logic of interfaces and to activate a cultural discourse intrinsic to architecture. Computation and Authorship2 Software interfaces and codes constitute implicit frames where artistic expression begins. If the mediums of representation have such a power to regulate the work, then interfaces are spaces of differentiation. As such, interfaces can activate a performative aspect in the work, trigger- ing a formal generative capacity. Part of this problem is how a project starts, as the first sign in a project may already be structured by systems of representation. It is quite clear that if architects do not break or displace the given source codes in order to create their own, then their work is trapped by the predetermination of a set of ideas contained within those interfaces. While many architects try to address non-determination, formal excess and “random” computing processes present a trap for the activation of personal aesthetics. While the underlying logic of the interface remains untouched, the designer confuses visual noise with predetermined organization. This statement questions authorship in the design process – if structure is predetermined by the interface, the designer is merely interpreting a variation that completes the implicit combinations that the metaphysical project of the interface proposes, placing the programmer as the author. It seems that this trend will eventually affect legal author- ship as certain programmers may claim copyrights over the geometry produced within interfaces, thereby opening up a full set of issues for the practice of the discipline that will become increasingly problematic in generations to come. This problem of predetermination can be explicit or implicit. Pre- determiation has become increasingly significant as architects have changed models of drawing through software in favor of computational algorithms. When computing algorithms, scripts, or connections in relational software a predetermination is explicit as the designer edits given codes or creates his/her own codes addressing means to organize information and processes that compose the form of the project. This explicit structure must be challenged for the design to acquire autonomy independent from its initial parameters. Architects that develop their own script partially resolve some of these questions, as far as they are able to distinguish what is computable from what is not and if they are able to displace the reversible logic of algorithms linearly structured through bifurcations. However, when an architect draws “freely” using computer inter- faces, this predetermination is implicit in the way the interface pre- scribes parameters. Subjective aesthetic agendas are filtered through the 2 Authorship relative to computation was one of the first problems the author raised in the ACADIA 2010 conference at the Cooper Union that he co-chaired. Mario Carpo’s The Alphabet and the Algorithm published in 2011 refers to similar problems. 18 19 Architecture in Formation
- 24. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa parameterization of tools, visualization, interaction, and the form of the interface. Although, a posteriori visual judgment is always necessary for a critical displacement, and this cannot be computed in advance, giving relevance to drawing. Reversible logic is part of computation’s determin- istic project, however, architectural form acquires a relative autonomy independent from this processing of information. Once form is consti- tuted it acquires a set of syntactical relationships, and at this point it is necessary to address a post-deterministic process aimed to surpass the initial machinic parameters, engaging a non-reversible logic. This recognition can enable solutions that open up possibilities for new forms of representations. By progressively displacing the structure of the interface, these interfaces can revolutionize into new paradigms of representation, activating the second manifesto: In order to avoid any semantic representation of extrinsic content, it is imminent to activate a topological loop between representation and actualization, acknowledging the parameterization of the interfaces that striate the logic of what constitutes the work. Architecture, in its fullness, may be possible at that time when the interface operates at the same conceptual level as the architecture that it structures, building up an autonomy, a single reality, only possible within the framework of the discipline – specific to its intrinsic knowledge. This autonomy has not yet entered the digital. The Role of Relative Displacement The predetermination of interfaces can also be related to the predeter- mination of typological organizational structures that prescribe space. Topology has become the most critical project against the predetermi- nation of linear structures. For Nietzsche, topology implies a genealogy, a displacement of “relative forces” and the typological, a variation in absolutes values (Deleuze G. 1962). Typological organizational structures such as bifurcations, net- works, grids and other common organizations need to be displaced and transcended for new models to emerge, avoiding the totalitarism of cat- egorical types that if not acknowledged remain implicitly untouched. Any formal process should overcome the arbitrariness of the point of departure. Therefore, progressive topological displacements must seek for that break in a conceptual differentiation, aiming for a structural change typologically significant to transcend the simple variation of the form of their initial implicit or explicit structures. This reading proposes a series of implied conclusions for a critical understanding of the relationship between typology and topology and the possibility of a criticism to over- come their predetermination. Eisenman’s formal methods in the 1970s developed an increasingly complex diagram from basic displacements, however the origin, or the first organizational structure while it is being displaced, it is not transcended throughout the process. Alejandro Zaera- Polo described Eisenman’s process as a machinic diagram (Zaera Polo A. 1997) where computed solutions open up non-critical relationships like those emerging in the Berlin Memorial. Gregg Lynn’s animate form theorizes relative topological variations claiming that any solution in the series is equally valuable (Lynn G. 1999). Preston Scott Cohen’s Tel Aviv museum overcomes aleatory machinic variations by the displacement of generic structures in the building, since its topological transformation arrivestoanindexedLightfallwhichrecognizesthepresenceofthesubject. This solution attempts to resolve the implicit project in the imple- mentation of the relative, which its ultimate aim is to displace absolute values. This is the argument for the third manifesto: The implicit project in parametric variations is to resolve within relative topological displacements such a structural typological change that is able to critique and transcend the departing implicit or explicit organi- zational structure. E01
- 25. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa Revolution or Progress? Technology as Culture There are many unresolved questions in contemporary digital architecture that are the result of a linear implementation of information technologies without a cultural dimension. Architecture as a cultural discipline has based its advancement on a continuous state of revolution. Heinrich Wölfflin described the group of architects that reacted to the Renaissance as Baroque, defining a historical oppositional structure which would cyclically repeat from one revolu- tion to the other (Wölfflin H. 1888, 1929). This relationship differenti- ates artistic disciplines from science, which base their advancement on continuous progress. Today, in redefining the digital project, architects working directly with information codes must first identify this contra- diction in the current digital architecture revolution. Digital architecture has been redefining its project as a progressive infinite continuous force, asserting a continuous actualization of architecture’s avant-garde by indexing the most recent technological innovation. Digital architecture is aiming for a certain stability in this process, providing a false idea of continuous revolution replaced with a sense of progress, where cultural values, such as aesthetics, became equally informed and exchangeable with technological innovation. This provides the initial argument to the fourth manifesto: Architecture must stop defining its avant-garde renewing itself cyclically by actualizing technology. Architecture must invert this relationship to actively inform technology from a cultural position. In:Formed Ahistoric Architecture Architecture has relegated its cultural project to technology. There are several consequences and the main one relates to the role of the history of the discipline. Recent generations may consider architectural history irrelevant. This is quite verifiable in the current state of architecture discourse, where innovation is referenced by an advancement over previous digital form generation or digital representation techniques without addressing a cultural displacement that would activate content in the work. The implicit condition is that computation has induced an ahistoric architecture. If architectural canons can be related to cultural constructions that become active by formal logic then this implies the possibility of an incorporation and accumulation of meta-architecture history implicit within computation. What is implied for architecture knowledge is that if computation is successful in incorporating all possible strategies, tech- niques and philosophies of form within architecture history, these would be implicit in the structuring of form programmed in the latest release of computer software. This assumption is the implied fundamental that is manifested in current technologically informed avant-gardes: there would be no need for a historic precedent since the departing structure of the software would have these characteristics implicit in the interface. Several architectural canons were informed by representational techniques. Architecture cannot be tested solely by addressing formal principles through computation, and canons were also informed by other questions. Algorithms are informing architecture, but computa- tion is often more useful rather as a catalyst to guarantee the calculation of a consistent systematic formal logic across a project. This machinic logic ensures systematic order and the un-motivation of the designer’s personal socio-cultural projection that is often seen as a constraint to emerging conditions intrinsic to the architecture of the project. If there is any relationship between formal advancement, representation, and architectural canons it has been through digital representation during the last twenty years, setting up precedents for an ahistoric architecture. The issue is whether computation will catch up with implicit cul- tural demands. This dilemma may present a possibility that inverts the equation and places culture as an implicit force informing technology References Badiou, Alain (2005) Being and Event. New York: Continuum. trans. Oliver Feltham Barthes, Roland (1999 orig. 1977) “The Death of the Author” Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang. trans. Stephen Heath Carpo, Mario (2011) The Alphabet and the Algorithm. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press Chomsky, Noam (1957) Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton Deleuze, Gilles (1983 orig. 1962) Nietzsche and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, trans. Hugh Tomlinson Deleuze, Gilles (1988 orig. 1970) Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights Books. Deleuze, Gilles, (1994) Difference and Repetition, The Athlone Press Limited. Derrida, Jacques (1982) “Différance,” Margins of Philosophy. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. De Saussure, Ferdinand (1986 orig. 1916) Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court. trans. Roy Harris. Fiedler, Conrad (1949) On Judging Works of Visual Arts. Los Angeles: University of California Press Husserl, Edmund (1969, orig. 1929) Formal and Transcendental Logic, The Hague: Nijhoff. Cairns, D., trans. 20 21 Architecture in Formation
- 26. Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa Lynn, Greg (1999) Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press Panofsky, Erwin (1997 orig. 1924–1925) Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books. trans. Christopher S. Wood Riegl, Alois (1985 orig. 1901) Late Roman Art Industry. Roma: G. Bretschneider. Teyssot, Georges (2010) “The Membrane and the Fold” Life in:formation… ed. Aaron Sprecher, Shai Yeshayahu and Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa. New York: ACADIA 2010. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001 orig. 1921) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. New York: Routledge Classics. trans. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wölfflin, Heinrich (1888) Renaissance and Baroque. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, trans. Kathrin Simon Wölfflin, Heinrich (1932 orig. 1929) Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. New York: Dover Publications, trans. M D Hottinger von Bayer, Hans Christian (2003) Information, New Language of Science. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press Zaera Polo, Alejandro (1997) “Eisenman’s Machine of infinite resistance” El Croquis 83. Madrid: El Croquis Editorial by sensing and anticipating cultural challenges. Computation not only informs implicit formal processes, but classifies and creates signifiers – re-defining architecture. Software then becomes a meta-ahistorical de- territorialization machine that encompasses the discipline by finding novel means to constitute form. E01
- 27. Aaron Sprecher An organism is a system. (…) It is a river that flows and yet remains stable in the continual collapse of its banks and the irreversible erosion of the mountains around it. One always swims in the same river; one never sits down on the same bank. The fluvial basin is stable in its flux and the passage of its chreodes; as a system open to evaporation, rain, and clouds, it always – but stochastically – brings back the same water. What is slowly destroyed is the solid basin. The fluid is stable; the solid which wears away is unstable – Heraclitus and Parmenides were both right. Hence, the notion of homeorrhesis. The living system is homeorrhetic. Michel Serres on the organism as an information system, Hermes, 1982 22 23 Architecture in Formation
- 28. ARcHITEcTURE IN FORMATION: ON THE AFFLUENcE, INFLUENcE, AND cONFLUENcE OF INFORMATION aaron sPreCher Toward an Informed Architecture With the advent of modern science and the perception of natural phe- nomena in terms of uncertainties, the discipline of architecture has undergone a similar shift – from a stable, idealistic expression of the real world, to the unleashing of performative systems that reflect its instabili- ties (Blackmore J. 1995). This perennial interest to transform the fixity of the architectural model into a system of potentialities has generated many theoretical assumptions that often referred to the nature of living organisms as a source of information processing (Wiener N. 1954). Just to name a few, Patrick Geddes’ “Life-conserving Principles” (1915); Frederick Kiesler’s“CorrealismandBiotechniques”(1939);RichardNeutra’s“Survival Through Design” (1954); Superstudio’s “Microevent/Microenvironment” (1972) and Markos Novak’s “Transarchitecture” (1995). Their theoretical assumptions share a conception of architectural performance seen in terms of the capacity to reflect and draw from the complexity of the natural organism. While they have emerged in differ- ent contexts of knowledge, these assumptions have in fact generated an approach to architecture that is intricately associated with its capacity to stream and generate information. The affluence, influence and conflu- ence of information are three notions associated with the exponential role of technology in today’s architectural production. Their respective attributes have generated an anxiety that no longer arouses from the will to represent our reality but from the desire to literally generate it. It is here proposed to review some arguments about the reasons why architecture always cared to integrate the spheres of information. As the French philosopher Michel Serres asserts, the living organism acts similarly to an open system that can only be assessed rather than defined because of its recombinant qualities (Serres M. 1982). It renders a reactive system in quasi-equilibrium where the intense affluence of infor- mation, influence of systemic parameters and confluence of knowledge incessantly erode, reform, and transform its existence. This consideration of the living organism as an information system provided a breeding ground, almost literally, for visionary researchers who did not hesitate to assess the architectural object as a responsive, reactive and mutative organism. In the past 30 years, architects such as Greg Lynn, Karl Chu, and more recently Francois Roche provided the research community with remarkable results on the potential to embed evolutionary principles at the core of the object. At the same time, critical theorists such as Georges Teyssot, Antoine Picon, and Mario Carpo engaged with defining the con- sequences of the increasing influence of information technologies on the Aaron Sprecher E02
- 29. 24 25 fig 1
- 30. discipline of architecture. The visionary work of these practitioners and theorists prefigured the digital euphoria of the 21st century. Now that the digital savvy milieu of architects has lived on the ecstasy of the first days, it is time to look again on the nature of information that propels today’s informedarchitecture. Here, the term “informed” suggests that architecture is more than ever sensitive to the affluence, influence and confluence of information as defined by Michel Serres. These three conditions are indeed prevailing in the mutation of the architectural object into something that increasingly resembles a techno-engineered organism. An organism profoundly influenced by the inherent intensity, instability and transdisciplinarity of technology. Affluence With the accelerated “informatization” of the human society and econ- omy in the postwar period, architecture has engaged in an exponential integration of information technologies (Nora S. and Minc A. 1981). One of the consequences of this condition has been the emergence of an architectural production increasingly preoccupied with reaching a critical degree of morphological, structural and material precision. Such precision reflects the ability for information to intensify its presence into the deepest structure of matter. More importantly, this intensification of information affluences has augmented the symbiotic relation between the form and its function. Such a system is indeed increasingly specialized due to the selective processing of information that continuously modifies its very own nature and accelerates its evolution (Atlan H. et al. 2004). The architectural system thus conceived is endowed with an exponential capacity to absorb information assets while relentlessly combining them in order to guarantee its functional performance. Yet, such an architectural system is far more than a Petri dish of information bits. It foremost operates as an open system of influences that continuously reinvents itself. (fig 1) Influence Considering the exponential capabilities offered by the information technologies, architecture has been engaged into redefining its modes of production and the nature of its expression. Following Michel Serres’ assertion, the architectural object increasingly resembles an organism that is responsive to its own internal nature and the external conditions of its surrounding. In this hyper-mediated environment, what used to be the collective gives way to the connective, the rigid structure to the open system, the condition of causality to non-linearity. Such an environment is generated by a wide range of information influences that render a reality in constant mutation; a reality shaped by potentialities, instabili- ties, and probabilities. Considering architecture as an expression of the human environment, the idea of a world shaped by probabilities is crucial because it implies that the architectural organism evolves in a non-linear fashion. In other words, its existence does not reflect a structure of cause and effect but rather induces complex evolutionary processes. In recent years, this consideration has triggered new modes of design thinking that share a similar objective, namely increasing the capability to reflect on a wide variety of generative influences. These new modes of design thinking include automated processes such as structural shape annealing mechanisms, genetic algorithms, and cellular automata. While consider- ably augmenting our perception of the real, the architectural organism renders a world of evolving phenomena shaped by unstable influences. The architectural organism thus conceived does not simply imply that new modes of production have emerged. It foremost implies that the discipline of architecture has marked an epistemological shift prompted by the current technological confluence of knowledge. (fig 2) fig 1 Information Affluence: I-grid is a design performance by Open Source Architecture located at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Olive Drive in West Hollywood, California. Its computational protocol expresses the transformation of an existing billboard into manifold morphologies. Initially based on an incremental grid, an evolutionary algorithm produces a series of iterated mutations that index the affluence of information assets. The 50-foot- high I-grid expresses the notion of instability inherent to its info-engineered nature. The resulting composite image is based on a collection of vectors that aim at emphasizing the movement from the idealistic model to the statistic object. The final image was produced on the basis of a color code where each and every iteration could be identified while composing the overall system. I-grid features a new form of interactivity stimulated by information streams that are intensified (data compression) across multiple virtual computing grids and extended (data decompression) on the physical surface. Information here becomes a unique vector that blurs the conventional dialectics between private and public realms, computers and the city. Instead, it suggests the formation of a system that proposes nothing more than abstraction, an abstract space of information. (Photo Credits: Open Source Architecture, Los Angeles, 2008). Aaron Sprecher E02
- 31. Aaron Sprecher Confluence This continuum has radically transformed the nature of the practice. By embracing a great diversity of information and technologies, the archi- tectural entity went from a static to a dynamic condition in the past 30 years. It now resembles an energetic system, meaning that its existence depends on the addition and association of parameters, each representing a potential condition for the reconfiguration of its intrinsic nature. Above all, technology has exponentially increased its ability to add parameters, therefore producing models that are, too often idealistically, qualified as “emergent.” This notion of emergence is often used to describe an architectural entity that expresses a formal complexity produced by increasingly blurred computational operations. And yet, the redundant use of this notion is not surprising in view of a contemporary reality that appears more and more unstable and mutable. In today’s architecture studio, designers continuously acquire terms and languages that are borrowed from the sciences. This change in prac- tice does not imply that architecture has turned into a new science, but rather that its tools have become increasingly scientific. These scientific procedures have gradually transformed the deceiving nature of diagrams into computational codes that stem from the confluence of a wide range of disciplines. Associating the notion of confluence of knowledge to the design activity suggests that architecture can no longer remain an autonomous discipline. It now embraces the immensity of information networks. One of the consequences of this transdisciplinary condition is expressed by the current proliferation of new design activities in fields such as material and fabrication research, interactive and immersive media, and most noticeably, biologically inspired modeling (Linder M. 2005). In other words, the expansion of information assets implies that architecture is increasingly influenced by other fields of knowledge. Its concerns are no longer constrained to a particular dimension but instead fig 2 26 27 Architecture in Formation
- 32. fig 2 Information Influence: C-Chair by Open Source Architecture exemplifies the role of information as an influential factor in the formation of the object. The model emerges out of inanimate objects such as points, lines, and surfaces. These objects, by themselves, are empty containers which act as memorizers of information. Once they are placed within the context of a spatial and temporal axis, they are imparted with information, such as location, direction, and connections. As these basic building blocks are established and well defined, a gradient switch responds to areas where the human body comes into contact with the chair surface. C-chair associates two distinct topological systems, the tree and the rhizome. Since both systems are built from common building blocks, an interface between the two is natural. The interface becomes a point cloud of densities which define zones of structural support. The rhizome proliferates by growing homologous strands, and genetic switches regulate the stochastic drift of speed, direction and density. A clustering technique regulates the hierarchical structure of the tree. One by one, points are moved from one cluster to another until the system stabilizes to form a minimal overall Euclidean distance. The more complex organism, the tree, inherits the established knowledge of the less complex organism, the rhizome, and this knowledge is encapsulated as an object-oriented machine. Some methods are reused and others are augmented or overridden. This analogy of architectural codification to living organisms is not a coincidence. In comparing genetic encoding with software encoding, we find striking similarities between the theory of evolutionary development in biology and software techniques such as object-oriented design (Carrol, 2005). (Image Credits: Open Source Architecture, 2009). fig 2a C-Chair. Sequence of Cluster Formation and Binarization fig 2a Aaron Sprecher extend at all scales simultaneously, from the intrinsic structures of material to the macro-scale of environmental phenomena. Architecture stands now at the confluence of informational streams that generate a continuum of knowledge across all disciplines. (fig 3) Informed Architecture: Sensitive Organism From Frederick Kiesler’s topological surfaces to Greg Lynn’s curvilinear shapes, architecture is offered the possibility of perceiving our reality in terms of behavioral and responsive architectural mechanisms rather than shallow images of reality. Described in his seminal article “A Home is not a House” the prolif- eration and specialization of building systems prompted Reyner Banham to describe the house as a “baroque ensemble of domestic gadgetry [that] epitomizes the intestinal complexity of gracious living” (Banham R. 1965). This analogy of mechanical and electrical services to systems regulating the living organism is striking because it suggests that the accumulation of energetic functions, as diverse as climatic, wireless and grid-based, implies the disappearance of the form, image, and representation of architecture as we know it. In this article, François Dallegret’s drawings for Banham are a tribute to this conglomeration of mechanical, electrical, and structural systems, with their associated requisites and interactions (Banham R. 1965). This vision of the house as an exhilarating skeleton marks the advent of a design paradigm of performance for architecture of life, energy and (de)regulated behaviors. Similar to a living organism, Banham’s archi- tectural object emerges out of energetic streams, organic veins forming a unitary system of interwoven and interacting sub-systems which combine effectively toward the whole. Banham and Dallegret’s mechanical systems are characterized, indeed defined by their behaviors, capabilities, sets of innate and imparted knowledge. E02
- 33. Aaron Sprecher fig 3a fig 3 28 29 Architecture in Formation
- 34. Aaron Sprecher fig 3 Information Confluence: n-Natures is a fiber-based prototype developed at the crossing of multiple computational platforms (Mathematica© and McNeel Rhinoceros©). Such an engineered prototype epitomizes the current confluence of knowledge between multiple disciplines; in this case, mathematics (Dr. Edward Mosteig, Loyola Marymount University), computational design, material research, and digital fabrication (Open Source Architecture and John Bohn Associates). Pressured by computational tools that were primarily developed in other domains of knowledge, today’s architectural production is no longer autonomous but depends instead on a wide range of research domains. The expansion of information and its associated technologies implies that design is increasingly porous to other fields of knowledge. The discipline is consequently confronted with a large amount of parameters that are relayed, processed, and re-sampled by sophisticated computational protocols. Investigating the diversity of information assets associated with the architectural object, This experiment consists of generating a fiber-based material system that reveals the three-dimensional spatial nature of the Riemann-Zeta mathematical function. The main trait of n-Natures rests on the fusion of the deterministic nature of the mathematical function, the empirical information regarding the unique geometry of the gallery space, and the physical requirements of the tensile material system. As such, determinism and empiricism are two distinctive approaches that the team members defined at the inception of this project. (Photo Credits: Kevin Deabler, Rhode Island School of Architecture, Providence, 2009). fig 3a n-Natures. Models determined by variations in cross-sectional curves and hull line densities. fig 3b n-Natures. Top: Asymmetric conditions produce vectors out of plane (planes 2 & 4) each pair of W lines produces unique vector forced to resolve at wall point 1 (or 2); Middle: Symmetric conditions on plane 3; Bottom: Axonometric of boundary conditions and cross-sectional curves at planes 1 to 5. fig 3b E02
- 35. Aaron Sprecher fig 4 All projects by Open Source Architecture (Chandler Ahrens, Eran Neuman, and Aaron Sprecher). www.o-s-a.com 30 31 Architecture in Formation
- 36. Aaron Sprecher References Atlan H., Canto-Sperber M., Charpak G., Dupuy J.P., Mongin O., Omnes R. and Serres M. (2004), XXXIX Rencontres Internationales de Genève, Éditions L’Âge d’Homme, Geneva, pp. 13–26. Banham R. illustrated by Dallegret F. (1965), “A Home is not a House,” in Art in America, New York: Volume 2, pp. 70–79 Blackmore J. (1995), Ludwig Boltzmann – His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900–1906, Book One: A Documentary History, Kluwer, Dordrecht Heisenberg W. (1999), Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, New York: Prometheus Books Linder M. (2005), “TRANSdisciplinarity”, Hunch magazine, no. 9 Nora S. and Minc A. (1981), The Computerization of Society, Boston: MIT Press. Serres M. (1982), The Origin of Language: Biology, Information Theory and Thermodynamics, in Hermes – Literature, Science, Philosophy, London: The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 71–84 Sloterdijk P. (2000), Essai d’Intoxication Volontaire, Paris: Hachette Litterature, p. 91 Wiener N. (1954), The Human Use of Human Being, New York: Double Day & Company, p.17. We follow here Norbert Wiener’s definition of information that is “the content of what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to it, and make our adjustment felt upon it.” fig 4 Architecture as Nature: ParaSolar by Open Source Architecture is a phototaxic installation featuring 80 proposals on the future of Tel Aviv. Its inflated components negotiate and react to parameters related to solar exposure. (Photo Credits: Yaron Kanor for Open Source Architecture, Center for Performing Arts, Tel Aviv, 2009). Today, with Dallegret’s mechanical systems turning into operational sets, the former diagram has turned into an operational code. With the ever-increasing integration of computational capability, it is now largely accepted that the architectural object is generated out of operational pro- cesses that are often inspired by other disciplinary fields such as biology and genetics. Like the DNA of living organisms, architectural reality as codified rather than diagrammed implies that it has become energetic. Its codes are dynamic and reactive to the ever changing modalities of the external environment and internal capabilities of the architectural model. Architecture, as nature, induces vital mechanisms of manifold informa- tion streams, simultaneously memorizing, associating, and connecting parameters that regulate the living and evolving designed organisms. In the past 50 years, roughly since the advent of information sciences and technologies, architecture has undergone a profound transformation of its status. And yet, from Dallegret’s Environment-Bubble and Super- studio’s Microevent/Microenvironment to today’s morphogenetic desires, architecture remains fascinated with life, nature, and the complexity of our human reality. The intensive affluence of information, the evolving influence of environmental conditions and the transdisciplinary con- fluence of knowledge are three prevailing conditions to the existence of current architectural productions. These conditions act in the most pro- found structures of today’s informed architecture. They have gradually transformed the object into a sensitive organism that has the potential of being mutative to its own existence and environment. The architectural organism thus conceived is now ready to embrace the “ambient spheres” of life (Sloterdijk P. 2000). (fig 4) E02
- 38. 01 STRUcTURING INFORMATION: Towards an arChiTeCTure of informaTion
- 39. Georges Teyssot “Topology becomes the dominant … discipline.” Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,” (1955).1 “Infolding: imagine working through into depths with the help of a media that provides instanta- neous feedback and thereby allows infolding with time, memory, energy, relation… A topology that uses rhythms intermingling and flowing around and through each other would let us build walls secondarily, rather than as categorical dividers. TV networks do not have walls…” Warren Brodey, “Biotopology 1972,” 1971. 2 1 Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,” The Architectural Review, 118 (December 1955), 354–61, quote 361; reprinted in Banham, A Critic Writes: Essays by Reyner Banham, ed. Mary Banham et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 7–15. 2 Warren Brodey, MD, “Biotopology 1972,” Radical Software, v. 1, n° 4, (Summer 1971), 4-7, accessed April 2012, http://www. radicalsoftware.org/volume1nr4/ pdf/VOLUME1NR4_art02.pdf Architecture in Formation 34 35
- 40. 01/ E03 Georges Teyssot Our starting point is a well-known story. During the 1990s, while many American architects were reading the English translation of Gilles Deleuze’s study The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1993), Greg Lynn edited an issue of Architectural Design (1993) on the topic of Folding in Architecture. In his introduction, “Architecture Curvilinearity: The Folded, the Pliant, and the Supple,” Lynn called for curvilinear forms.3 This invocation led to the provisional assertion of a “blob” architecture, the official birth of which seems to be marked by Lynn’s subsequent article in ANY magazine (1996), where he argued that tectonics was “out” and obsolete, while topology was “in” and sexy.4 Lynn also thumbed his nose at a series of personalities who were fighting rearguard battles, defending what remained of the idea of Semperian tectonics. Moreover, during the 1990s, new tools for 3-D modeling offered by numerous computer appli- cations (Maya, Form*Z, Rhino) made it possible for architects to literally multiply the folds in their projects. The Monad’s Window One might ask what architects discovered in reading Deleuze’s interpre- tation of Leibniz, the most important aspect of which was the monad. In the Monadology (1714), Leibniz gives the name monad to the simple substance.5 This singular individuality, a folded membrane, carries all actions and thoughts that will unfold over time. Each monad collects and reflects the whole world, and operates as “a perpetual living mir- ror of the universe.”6 Michel Serres, in his famous thesis on Leibniz, and more recently, Bernard Cache, have argued that Girard Desargues’ mathematics provided a model for Leibniz’s monad.7 Inventor of infini- tesimal calculus, Leibniz could easily have consulted Desargues’ work. An architect, engineer, and mathematician, Desargues was a founder of projective geometry, which offers a mathematical model for the intuitive notions of perspective and horizon by studying what remains invariable in projections. Outlining the concept of the “invariant,” he gives his name to the “Desargues theorem,” focusing on homological triangles. His disciple was the engraver Abraham Bosse, author of a Treatise on Projections and Perspective (1665), who later taught linear perspective to stonecutters, carpenters, engravers, manufacturers of instruments and, less successfully, to painters.8 The perspective that Bosse teaches implicitly introduces the idea of infinity, in that he uses parallel lines with an infinitely extending vanishing point to construct perspective. Moreover, permeated by the knowledge of Desargues, Bosse develops a method for tracing shadows, which was inspired by his master.9 (figs 1, 2) AN ENFOLDED MEMBRANE GeorGes TeyssoT 3 Folding in Architecture, new introductions by Greg Lynn and Mario Carpo, rev. ed. (Chichester, West Sussex; Hoboken, NJ: Wiley- Academy, 2004); a facsimile, based on the vol. 63, no. 3/4 (1993) issue of Architectural Design. 4 Greg Lynn, “(Blobs) or Why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy,” ANY, 14, (May 1996): 58–61. 5 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, The Monadology, [1714], trans. Robert Latta (1999), [access date June 2011], http://www.rbjones.com/ rbjpub/philos/classics/leibniz/ monad.htm. 6 Leibniz, Monadology, [1714], §56. 7 Michel Serres, Le Système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques: étoiles, schémas, points, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), 166–167; 3rd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Presses, 1990); Bernard Cache, “Desargues and Leibniz, in the Black Box. A Mathematical Model of Leibnizian Monad,” Architectural Design, “Mathematics of Space”, George L. Legendre, ed. vol. 81, 4, (July / August 2011), 90–99. 8 Abraham Bosse, Traité des pratiques géométrales et perspectives enseignées dans l’Académie royale de la peinture et sculpture ... (Paris: chez l’auteur, 1665). 9 René Taton, L’œuvre mathématique de Girard Desargues, (Paris: Vrin, 1951; repr. Lyon: Institut Interdisciplinaire d’Étude Épistémologique, 1988); Jean G. Dhombres and Joël Sakarovitch, eds. Desargues en son temps (Paris: Librairie scientifique A. Blanchard, 1994); Sakarovitch, Épures d’architecture; de la coupe des pierres à la géométrie descriptive. XVIe–XIXe siècles (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1998), 83–86, 137–140. Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 41. It remains to succinctly describe TheMonadology, which is a synthesis of the Leibniz’s thought. A monad is “a simple substance ... that has no parts,” for monads constitute “the true atoms of Nature”.10 Natural changes and transformations in a monad occur as a result of “an internal force, which one might call an active force.”11 A monad is the site of changes in “what we call perception.”12 To describe monads, Leibniz introduces the Aristotelian notion of Entelechies, actuality, from entelekheia – active, effective energy. For Aristotle, the soul is the entelechy of the body. It is where the sources of the body’s internal activities reside, guaranteeing them a certain perfection, assuring them an autonomous existence (autar- cheia), and allowing them to act like “immaterial automata.”13 Nature has given highly effective perceptions to animals that correspond to each of the five senses, as well as other senses that man does not comprehend. Animals are provided with sense organs and “what happens in the soul represents what goes on in those organs.”14 The lower animals possess empirical knowledge every bit as much as man does, but man is endowed with Reason, and can acquire Science, for we are dealing here with what is called a “‘rational soul’ or ‘mind’ in us.”15 Atoms, which are all different, come together to create the whole array of bodies found in nature, whose movements God orders so as to produce the best of all possible worlds.16 It follows that “this interconnection, or this adapting of all created things to each one … brings it about that each simple substance has relational properties that express all the others, so that each monad is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.”17 To explain the paradox of the diversity of worlds, where each monad represents the universe, only differently, Leibniz uses the example of point of view: “Just as the same town when seen from different sides will seem quite different – as though it were multiplied perspectivally – the same thing happens here: because of the infinite multitude of simple substances it’s as though there were that many different universes; but 10 Monadology, §3, online translation. 11 Ibid., §11 (“active force” was crossed out in the original); Leibniz’s emphasis. 12 Ibid., §14. 13 Ibid., §18 14 Ibid., §25 15 Ibid., §28 & 29 16 Ibid., §55 17 Ibid., §56 fig 1 Abraham Bosse, Manière universelle de M. Desargues, pour pratiquer la perspective par petit-pied... (Paris: P. Deshayes, 1648), p. 100. Courtesy Werner Nekes Collection, Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany. fig 2 Jean Dubreuil, La perspective pratique, nécessaire à tous peintres, graveurs, architectes, brodeurs, sculpteurs, 2nd edition (Paris: Chez Jean Du Puis, 1664). Courtesy Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Institut de France, Paris, France. Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN) / Art Resource, NY. fig 1 fig 2 Georges Teyssot Architecture in Formation 36 37
- 42. cIosoo pnv~t... room. df.Icorated with a 'dral"'l'Y div9<s~ied by 1okIs' commoro rooms, with 'several small open· ings:' the live senses The Baroque House (an allegOrY) 01/ E03 fig 3 they are all perspectives on the same one, differing according to the dif- ferent points of view of the monads.”18 This is, of course, an allusion to anamorphoses, curiosities typical of the baroque, defined by the play of perspective obtained by a reflection in a curved mirror or through a mathematical procedure, that only reveal a drawing’s subject when the viewer stands in a particular spot. “Each body feels the effects of every- thing that happens in the universe,” and this, everywhere, whether in the past or the present, extends to “what is distant both in space and in time,” writes Leibniz.19 Hippocrates liked to say that there is one com- mon flow, one common breathing, and all things were in sympathy: “But a soul can read within itself only what is represented there distinctly; it could never bring out all at once everything that is folded into it, because its folds go on to infinity,” writes Leibniz.20 Bodies are folded substances every bit as much as souls are; but, like a hyperbola, the fold of souls goes on toward infinity. “Thus, although each created monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body that is exclusively assigned to it.”21 The monad – and this is the paradox – is a living mirror of the universe, but it also possesses an “organized body,” a kind of “divine machine or natural automaton.”22 The monad is alive and is endowed with a capacity for internal action, capable of representing the world from its particular point of view. As a “Living Mirror,” it is regulated by harmonic relations, and ordered like the universe. For Leibniz, substance being in a “perpetual state of flux,” the monad acts as a medium.23 Yet, monads have no causal interactions among themselves, nor do they interact directly with real phenomena, perceived jointly with the other monads. Hence the paradox: “perception” provides the very substance of the monad, but without any external influence.24 Like automatons moved by a spring, all created monads have internal perfection, which ensures their autonomy. They are self-sufficient. 18 Ibid., §57 19 Monadology, §61. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., §62. 22 Ibid., §64. 23 Ibid., §71. 24 Ibid., §14. fig 3 Allegory of the Baroque House, in Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley, [1988], (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 5. Courtesy of University of Minnesota Press. Georges Teyssot Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 43. During the seventeenth century, with René Descartes and Blaise Pascal, geometry is one of the most innovative aspects of science, and it governs the spirits. As Michel Serres explains in LesystèmedeLeibniz (The System of Leibniz, 1968), amongst geometry’s applications are perspective and its inverse – the tracing of shadows, which was useful for painters, engravers, and architects. Leibniz seeks to connect with an assortment of encyclopedic knowledge, at the center of which one discovers the epis- temology of Desargues’ work. Leibniz’s terminology reflects Desargues’ principles – while at the same time drawing upon his own philosophical language, which allows one to ask if Desargues’ principles are indeed the models of Leibniz’s categories. This questioning would indicate one of the sources of the Leibnizian system. As Serres wrote: “One knows how to ‘concretize’ a point of view, a place and a situation, an elevation (figure and situation of an object), the determination of a correspondence, the relation of appearance between an objective point and a prospective point, the character of representation of this appear- ance, and so on. Everything happens as if the reasons and principles of perspective … were epistemologically expressible in a language that is none other than the philosophical language of the Monadology.”25 Serres warns, however, that there isn’t a single model: “This does not imply that The Monadology is only a metaphysical translation of Desar- gues’ epistemology…. [T]here are also other translations; the perspective template is just one model among others. From this model to the structure of TheMonadology, there isn’t a one-to-one relation, but a one-to-multiple relation.”26 For Cache, it is not sufficient to merely affirm that the monad is a viewpoint on the world; one must provide a geometric construc- tion that implements a principle internal to the monad’s closed box, in accordance with Alberti’s perspective, which presented the capacity to connect objects and subjects in space.27 For Leibniz, in their complete- 25 Serres, Le Système de Leibniz…, 166–167, our translation; the italics are in the original. 26 Ibid., 167, n. 1, our translation. 27 Bernard Cache maintains that “Desargues does it in two ways: through perspective and by projective geometry, which are two very different approaches (even if they present a unity for “contemplative” persons); in Cache, op. cit. fig 5 View of a curiosities cabinet (Wunderkammer) from: “A series of illustrations...of Levin Vincent’s collection”, in Levin Vincent, Wondertooneel der nature [Marvels of Nature] (Haarlem: Sumptibus Auctoris, 1719). Photo: Snark / Art Resource, NY. fig 5 Georges Teyssot Architecture in Formation 38 39
- 44. 01/ E03 ness, “monads have no windows, through which anything could come in or go out”28 – although Horst Bredekamp challenges this assertion in his book, The Window of the Monad (2008).29 The first stage of Leibniz’s monad, described in a drawing of 1663, represents the relations between soul and body with the shape of a Pythagorean pentagram.30 As Deleuze writes in The Logic of Sense (1969), “This surface topology, these impersonal and preindividual nomadic singularities constitute the real transcendental field.”31 For Leibniz, “the individual monad expresses a world according to the relation of other bodies with its own, as much as it expresses this relation according to the relation of the parts of its own body [between themselves].”32 This expresses the harmonic relationship of parts (of the body) to the whole. Deleuze goes on to write: “[This relation- ship] presupposes the distribution of pure singularities according to the rules of convergence and divergence. These rules belong to a logic of sense and the event…. Leibniz went very far in this first stage of the genesis. He thought of the constitution of the individual as the center of an envelop- ment, as enveloping singularities inside a world and on its own body.”33 The monad is a folded membrane, a receiver organ for picking up the world. But, it is also an enveloping substance, a sort of skin. Plica ex plica Deleuze’s research on topological singularities continues in The Fold. Deleuze himself draws the monad in the form of a two-storey, baroque house.34 On the ground floor are common rooms, with five openings (one door and four windows) representing the five senses plugged into the world. However, the upper floor has no window: there is a dark room, lined with “stretched canvas ‘diversified by folds’,” which represent innate forms of knowledge, as well as receive “vibrations or oscillations” con- veyed from the lower floor.35 The closed cabinet is an allegory of baroque space, which projects into infinity, but moves along two distinct branches, 28 Leibniz, Monadology, [1714], §7. 29 Horst Bredekamp, Die Fenster der Monade: Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz’ Theater der Natur und Kunst, (Berlin: Akad.-Verl., 2008), 2nd edition. 30 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Leib- Seele-Pentagramm,“ [1663], in Hubertus Busche, Leibniz’ Weg ins perspektivische Universum: eine Harmonie im Zeitalter der Berechnung (Hamburg: Meiner, 1997), 59; and in Horst Bredekamp, Die Fenster der Monade, 18. 31 Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 109. 32 Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 110. 33 Deleuze, ibid., 111. 34 Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 5. 35 Deleuze, The Fold, 4. fig 6 Projecting inscriptions through a set of lenses; in Athanasius Kircher, Ars magna lucis et umbrae (Rome: H. Scheus, 1646), 912, p. 34. Courtesy Werner Nekes Collection, Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany. fig 6 Georges Teyssot Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 45. “as if infinity were composed of two stages or floors: the pleats of mat- ter, and the folds in the soul.”36 The lower floor is pierced with windows, while the upper floor is blind and closed, with the ability to resonate, “as if it were a musical salon translating the visible movements below into sounds up above.”37 (fig 3) Serres and Deleuze make clear that Leibniz’s theory of an intelligent membrane is made possible by discoveries such as the fluidity of matter, the elasticity of the body, and spring mechanism.38 In a flexible body, the elasticity of the parts forms a succession of coherent folds, infinitely dividing into increasingly smaller components, as they subdivide into bending movements. As Leibniz outlined: “The division of the continuous must not be taken as of sand dividing into grains, but as that of a sheet of paper or of a tunic in folds, in such a way that an infinite number of folds can be produced, some smaller than others, but without the body ever dissolving into points or minima.”39 Deleuze adds: “the model for the sciences of matter is the ‘origami’ … or the art of folding paper.”40 He could have mentioned also a treatise on “How to Fold Napkins,” such as the one published by the German Master-Cook, Mattia Giegher, published in Padua in 1639.41 (fig 4) The monad is two stories, the one at the bottom made of organic mat- ter, “an organism … defined by endogenous folds.”42 For Deleuze, folding and unfolding does not mean simply a tension-release, like in a spring, or the contraction-dilation that occurs in a liquid, but leads to phases of enveloping-developing, or involution-evolution. He writes, “The organ- ism is defined by its ability to fold its own parts and to unfold them, not to infinity, but to a degree of development assigned to each species.”43 Quoting the work of the Belgian biologist Albert Dalcq, Deleuze reveals that his own particular reading of Leibniz approaches the field of epigen- esis.44 He also mentions D’Arcy Thompson’s book on morphogenesis.45 Of course, the seventeenth-century theory of preformation and duplication is distant from the theory of twentieth-century epigenetics, but in both 36 Ibid., 3. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 4; Serres is mentioned by Deleuze on page 9, n. 18. 39 Leibniz’s dialogue, Pacidius Philalethi, [1676], C, 614–615; quoted by Deleuze, The Fold, 6. 40 Deleuze, The Fold, 6. 41 Mattia Giegher (Matthias Jäger), Li Tre trattati (Padua: P. Frambotto, 1639), 3 parts in 1 vol. 42 Deleuze, The Fold, 7. 43 Ibid., 8. 44 Deleuze mentions to: Albert Dalcq, L’œuf et son dynamisme organisateur (Paris: Albin Michel, 1941); Deleuze, The Fold, 164, n. 24. 45 « D’Arcy Thomson » [sic], Deleuze, Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1988), 138. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form, [1917, abbreviated ed. 1942], ed. John Tyler Bonner, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; 1961). fig 7 “Theatrum catoptricum,” engraving, in Athanasius Kircher, Ars magna lucis et umbrae, in X. libros digesta....(Amsterdam: Apud Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge & haeredes Elizaei Weyerstraet, 1671), 2nd augmented edition, 776. Courtesy Werner Nekes Collection, Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany. fig 7 Georges Teyssot Architecture in Formation 40 41
- 46. 01/ E03 of these conceptions the organism is considered. Deleuze writes, “as a fold, an originary folding or creasing, (and biology has never rejected this determination of living matter, as shown nowadays with the funda- mental pleating of globular protein).…”46 With preformism, “an organic fold always ensues from another fold, at least on the inside from a same type of organization: every fold originates from a fold, plica ex plica.”47 Thus, in the monad, bodies are downstairs (perception, feelings) and the soul is upstairs. An elevation, or an exaltation, has occurred: “a change of theater, of rule, of level or of floors. The theater of matter gives way to that of spirits,” or that of souls.48 There is a staircase between the two planes, because floors are like folds, “not a fold in two – since every fold can only be thus – but a ‘fold-of-two,’ an entre-deux, something ‘between’ in the sense that a difference is being differentiated.”49 Therefore, “any localization of the soul in an area of the body … amounts rather to a projection from the top to the bottom … in conformity with Desargues’s geometry, that develop from a Baroque perspective.”50 Without openings, monads are the perfect “black box”51 of the baroque age. “Essential to the monad is its dark background: everything is drawn out of it, and nothing goes out or comes in from the outside.”52 The baroque monad must be compared to a series of places and devices typi- cal of that period, that is, “a cell, a sacristy, a crypt, a church, a theater, a study, or a print room,”53 to which one could add a cabinet for exhibiting a collection of natural or exotic items (Wunderkammer). Alternatively, one could include the camera obscura, with its small aperture through which light passes and is reflected off two mirrors, projecting an image on a sheet or a screen. In Deleuze’s list of baroque contraptions, there are also transformational decors, painted skies, trompe l’œil adorning the walls, glass cabinets (Spiegelkabinette), an infinite alignment of mirrors (glaces à répétition), and so on.54 Subsequently, Deleuze describes the architecture of the monad (fig 5): 46 Deleuze, The Fold, 10. 47 Ibid., 10. 48 Ibid., 11. 49 Ibid., 10. 50 Ibid., 12. 51 As described in: Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1961), xi. 52 Deleuze, The Fold, 27. 53 Ibid., 27–28. 54 Hans-Dieter Lohneis, Die deutschen Spiegelkabinette: Studien zu den Räumen des späten 17. und des frühen 18. Jahrhunderts, München, Tuduv, 1985. fig 8 “Conclave Catoptricum,” in Johannes Zahn, Oculus artificialis teledioptricus: sive Telescopium (Nuremberg: sumptibus J. C. Lochneri; Bibliopolae: typis johannis Ernesti Adelbulneri, 1702), 2nd edition. Courtesy of ETH-Bau Library. fig 8 Georges Teyssot Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 47. “The architectural ideal is a room in black marble, in which light enters only through orifices so well bent that nothing from the outside can be seen through them, yet they illuminate or color the decor of a pure inside…. The Leibnizian monad and its system of light-mirror-point of view-inner decor cannot be understood if they are not compared to Baroque architecture. The architecture erects chapels and rooms where a crushing light comes from openings invisible to their very inhabitants.”55 The monad represents the autonomy of a pure inside, “an inside with- out outside. [But] it has as its correlative the independence of the façade, an outside without an inside.”56 There is a severing between an outside (the facade) and a totally enclosed inside, lined with wall-mirrors, as in the catoptric boxes from that period. These include a “Drawing Machine” that projects an image on transparent paper, a “Catoptric Theater” in the form of a mirror-lined box that multiplies anything in it to infinity, and a “Magic Lantern” that reveals a soul in purgatory – the set of projectors designed and presented by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher in the two editions of his monumental Ars magna Lucis et Umbrae (The Great Art of Light and Shadow), the first published in 1646, the second in 1671.57 (figs 6, 7) In this regard, one could mention the closed cabinet, or “Conclave Catoptricum,” a near-perfect illustration of a Leibnizian monad on two floors that appears in Johannes Zahn’s volume, titled Oculus artifi- cialis teledioptricus (1702).58 On the ground floor, a hexagonal room opens out to the world through five windows (the sixth side presumably occupied by a flight of stairs). On the upper floor, a peripheral corridor leads to a door opening on a closed cabinet, lined by eighteen mirrors and receiving indirect light through translucent, alabaster-lined open- ings. The cabinet’s flooring is covered with marble, while its vault is decorated either with mirrors or painting. Zahn’s conclave offers a good 55 Deleuze, The Fold, 28. 56 Ibid. 57 Anthanasii Kircheri, Ars magna lucis et umbrae, in decem libros digesta, (Rome: H. Scheuz, 1646); Ars magna lucis et umbrae, 2nd edition (Amsterdam: J. Janssonium at Waesberge, 1671). See Joscelyn Goodwin, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009). 58 “Conclave Catoptricum,” in Johannes Zahn, Oculus artificialis teledioptricus: sive Telesopium, […], (Nuremberg: Lochner, 1702). fig 9 fig 9 A public demonstration by Bell Laboratories of their new video telephone, August 1956. Photo: Snark / Art Resource, NY / Art Resource, NY. Georges Teyssot Architecture in Formation 42 43
- 48. 01/ E03 illustration to Deleuze’s drawing of Leibniz’s monad, in which “the upper level is closed, as a pure inside without an outside, a weightless, closed interiority, its walls hung with spontaneous folds that are now only those of a soul or a mind.”59 (fig 8) The folds of the brain’s circumvolutions are baroque works of art and the monad is organized according to two vectors, one deepening down and the other rising as a thrust toward the upper region.60 The two vectors, one metaphysical, the other physical, comprise a similar world: they live “in a similar house.”61 If the monad exists as an absolute interiority and, like the mirrors in Zahn’s conclave, materializes as an inner surface with only one side, it nonetheless presents another. Actually, for Deleuze, the monad has “a minimum of outside, a strictly complementary form of outside.”62 In other words, topology can resolve the apparent contradiction as a partition, a supple and adherent membrane forming a fold, a torsion that provides “the exterior or outside of its own interiority.”63 Hybrid Form Today, as Deleuze suggested, one issue remains: the question of how to live in the world. The “topological” condition of contemporary living does not allow the difference between inside and outside to survive. It has erased, or at least shifted, the limits between private and public: “what has changed now is the organization of the home and its nature.”64 In his conclusion to The Fold, Deleuze points out that, in the future, we will need “to overtake monadology with a ‘nomadology’.”65 This paradoxical situation – one in which a closed space restores to us the outside of our interiority – describes the condition of our screens, those catoptric boxes that are now part of our ever more interactive environ- ment. Confronted by what Gilles Lipovetsky and Jean Serroy define as the “global screen,”66 what appears on our screens today forms what we might call a virtual space of ghostliness.67 Crisscrossed by hundreds of streams and constantly thought about from outside, the topological space of the network “is never in things or in people, but in the impossible verisimilitude of what lies between them: encounters, the proximity of what is most distant, the absolute dissimulation in our very midst.”68 In Michel Foucault’s words, such a fictive space therefore “consists not in showing the invisible, but in showing the extent to which the invisibility of the visible is invisible.”69 As universal tools of work, but also as devices supporting percepts and affects, the screens that populate our dwellings and houses only function by means of the topological torsion of a virtual space, whose closure allows contact with an absolute exteriority acting like infinite folds – successive interlockings that can’t help but unfold, allowing us to plug in, not to the outside itself, but to the outside of any proper interiority. Between the two stages of the monad, which are folded twice (body and soul), there is a between-fold, a folding, a zone that acts like a hinge, surface, interface, crease, or seam.70 (fig 9) Criticism of the substantial subject (the “me” of psychology and the “I” of metaphysics) occurred through exploration of new impersonal individuations, those pre-individual singularities that Deleuze effectively discovered in Gilbert Simondon’s main doctoral thesis, defended in 1957 and published in part in 1964 as L’Individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Individuation and its Physical-Biological Genesis).71 For Deleuze, Simon- don’s essay offered the first rationalized theory of impersonal and pre- individual singularities. Breaking with stable ontologies of substance, Simondon formulates a philosophy of individuation in becoming, at the center of which the human subject occupies only a limited place.72 The pre-individual is “a being who is more than a unit.” Simondon writes: “The pre-individual being is a being in whom there are no phases; a being in whose center individuation takes place is a being in whom a resolu- tion appears through the being’s distribution into phases, thus putting everything in a state of becoming.”73 After Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, Simondon was to 59 Deleuze, The Fold, 29. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 111. 63 Ibid., 111. 64 Ibid., p.158. 65 Ibid., 158. 66 Gilles Lipovetsky and Jean Serroy, L’Écran globale: culture-médias et cinéma à l’âge hypermoderne, (Paris: Seuil, 2007). 67 Jacques Derrida, The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New Internationale, trans. Peggy Kamuf (London: Routledge, 1994), 3–8. 68 Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot: The Thought from Outside, trans. Jeffrey Mehlman and Brian Massumi (New York: Zone Books, 1987), 23–24; first published as “La Pensée du dehors”, Critique, no. 229, (June 1966): 521–546. 69 Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, 24. 70 Deleuze, The Fold, 120. 71 See the new edition of Simondon’s main thesis: Gilbert Simondon, L’Individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information (Grenoble: Millon, 2005). This edition combines L’Individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964) and L’Individuation psychique et collective, published in 1989; the text is Simondon’s reworked doctoral thesis defended in 1957. 72 Anne Sauvagnargues, Deleuze. L’empirisme transcendental (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009), 26–27. Georges Teyssot Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 49. contribute to an undermining of the paradigm of the individual being by re-posing the problem in terms of the whole set of processes, the forging and emergence of the real, that lead to individuation. “Individuation is the operation itself of the pre-individual; it is the pre-individual itself in operation.”74 To describe this phenomenon, one must be able to reconsti- tute pre-individual nature as the source of all existence, the principle of genesis, which places nature before things and individuals – the source of their begetting.75 To the question, “What is an individual?” Simondon replies: “One cannot, strictly speaking, talk about an individual, but only about individuation; we need to go back to the activity, to the genesis, instead of trying to apprehend the fully-formed being in order to discover the criteria by which we know whether he is an individual or not. The individual is not a being but an act, and a being is an individual as an agent of this act of individualization by which he manifests himself and exists.”76 What Simondon is asking us to do is to consider nature not as a priori, but as a construction-in-becoming. Pre-individual nature has to be constructed to take account of all processes. The transition from nature to the individual can be constructed by broadening the concept of nature to the whole set of realities prior to individuation, whatever the level of complexity, and by managing to define unbalanced sys- tems, known as “metastable” systems. The notion of “metastability” was taken from the notion of entropy, specific to the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener.77 Metastability is the concept Simondon creates to describe the phenomena of entropy specific to thermodynamics, to Wiener’s cybernetics, and to the theory of information, and which represents a system that has not yet exhausted its potential difference by increas- ing order or information (like Erwin Schrödinger’s negative entropy or Léon Brillouin’s negentropy).78 One needs to see nature as “the reality of the possible”79 – that is, as what is likely to cause something to exist. This reality of the possible cor- responds to a “real potential” that distinguishes it from both the possible and the virtual, suggesting that the notion of virtuality be replaced by the notion of “the metastability of a system”.80 Simondon makes clear in his complementary thesis of 1958, Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (On the mode of existence of technical objects), that “the potential is one of the forms of the real, as completely as the actual is. The potentials of a system constitute its power of becoming without deteriorating,” by resist- ing the phenomenon of thermodynamic entropy.81 These potentials “are not the simple virtuality of future states, but a reality that drives them to be. Becoming is not the actualization of a virtuality … but the operation of a system having potentials in its reality.”82 Simondon consequently establishes an important distinction between the possible, the actual and the virtual: the possible doesn’t “contain” the actual already, just as nature does not include all beings virtually, and the latter are not the realization of a given nature. As mentioned before, the possible does not already contain the actual before emerging, for every individual is an event. In Deleuze, that which affects the passage of the virtual into the actual is the intensity (or intensive quality) whose essential activity is that of indi- viduation.83 His intensity is best understood after considering the concept of individuation, which Deleuze takes from Simondon. Simondon uses information theory to describe individuation in physical and biological systems, showing that traditional distinctions between form and matter, individual and milieu, animate and inanimate, must be reconceived in terms of information in order to take account of the reality of the process of individuation.84 Moreover, Simondon proposes to stretch individuation beyond the individual being, and to extend it to a broader nature – to whose identity it contributes. Thus, Simondon speaks of individual-milieu, a hybrid form, loaded with potentialities and singularities: “The indi- vidual, arising from a situation of genesis, seems to be finally just a kind of crease, a fold that, while unfolding, would unfurl the whole nature.”85 73 Simondon, L’Individuation, 67, our translation; see Jean-Yves Chateau, Le Vocabulaire de Simondon, (Paris: Ellipses, 2008), 48. 74 Chateau, Le Vocabulaire de Simondon, 49, our translation. 75 Didier Debaise, “Qu’est-ce qu’une pensée relationnelle?,” Multitudes (5 May 2005), online: http:// multitudes.samizdat.net/Qu-est- ce-qu-une-pensee (accessed June 2011). 76 Simondon, L’Individuation, 191, our translation. Jean- Hugues Barthélémy, Simondon ou l’Encyclopédisme génétique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2008), 18–19.77 Barthélémy, Simondon, 20. 77 Barthélémy, Simondon, 20. 78 Sauvanargues, Deleuze, 243. 79 Simondon, L’Individuation, 305, our translation. 80 Ibid., 313, our translation; Barthélémy, Simondon, 21. 81 Gilbert Simondon, Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (Paris: Aubier, 1958); repr. with an added preface by John Hart and a postface by Yves Deforge (Paris: Aubier, 1989, 2001), 155–156, our translation. 82 Ibid., our translation. 83 Gilbert Simondon, “The Genesis of the Individual,” in Jonathan Crary & Sanford Kwinter, eds., Incorporations (New York: Zone Books, 1992), 297–319; Gilbert Simondon, “Technical Mentality,” trans. Arne De Boever, Parrhesia 7 (2009): 7–27. 84 Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and Guattari (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 61. 85 Debaise, “Qu’est-ce qu’une pensée relationnelle?,” our translation. Georges Teyssot Architecture in Formation 44 45
- 50. 01/ E03 Chrono-topology To view milieu, itself the result of individuation, one is obliged to consider the individual and its environment. In Individuation and its Physical- Biological Genesis, in the chapter on “Individuation and information,” there is a section focused on “Topology and ontogenesis,” where Simondon exposes “the topological condition … paramount in the living condition for life.”86 Contemporary, biological studies of the cell’s permeability allowed Simondon to formulate hypotheses on a chrono-topology: “The living membrane … is characterized … by what separates an interior state … from an exterior region.”87 While filtering what passes through, and preventing the access to other bodies or substances, the membrane is polarized. Therefore, milieu takes the specific sense of a third biological term, neither inside nor outside, placed halfway in the middle.88 Deleuze was inspired by Simondon’s theory of the membrane, while attempting to construe his assumptions about pre-individual singularities.89 In The Logic of Sense (1969), Deleuze notes that “membranes are no less impor- tant, for they carry potentials and regenerate polarities.… The internal and the external, depth and height, have biological value only through this topological surface of contact.”90 This will lead to considerations about the folded surface of the cell, and allows Deleuze to assign a biological value to the famous sentence of Paul Valéry’s famous statement: “The deepest is the skin.” Then, Deleuze inserts a long quotation extracted from Simondon’s thesis: “The characteristic polarity of life is at the level of the membrane…. The entire content of the internal space is topologically in contact with the content of external space at the limits of the living.”92 Simondon’s conception presupposes the existence of a pre-individual reality, because “what appears in the individuation is not only the indi- vidual, but the couple individual-milieu.”93 An example of individuation is the process of crystallization: the passage of a substance from a metastable, amorphous state to a sta- ble, crystalline one. Individuation, therefore, precedes the individual. Simondon argues that the simple model of crystallization may be used to understand the process of individuation throughout physical and bio- logical systems. The difference between animate and inanimate matter is that animate matter manages to sustain certain metastable states that allow a perpetual individuation in the organism. We perceive a distinc- tion between matter and form, organism and environment, species and individual, but these are merely manifestations of a single process of becoming, metastable and pre-individual, which constitutes the real.94 In Deleuze’s terms, a metastable substance is a difference in itself, and individuation is a process in which difference differentiates itself. Simondon will thus uncover and illuminate genetic principles, con- temporary to real processes, by first investigating theories of matter (crys- tallization), and then theories of life (membrane).95 He concludes his work with a theory of form: “A technical operation institutes an internal resonance while matter takes form, by means of energetic conditions and of topological conditions; topological conditions can be named form, and energetic conditions express the entire system.”96 In this view, topology and chronology coincide in the individuation of the living. They are not a priori forms, but the dimensionality of living while it is individualizing. For Simondon, they satisfy the very conditions for us to think about morpho- genesis.97 Indeed, it is his analysis of genetic processes – brick, membranes, or crystals, for example – that allows us to rethink spatial categories like inside and outside, depth and height, transparency and opacity, top and bottom,frontandrear,lightandheavy,mobileandimmobile,fastandslow, smooth and striated, and so forth. Suddenly, basic architecture (basement and attic, wall and partition, floor and ceiling, passage and disruption, ground and roof) can see its meaning enter into baroque metamorphosis to transmute into a topological surface of contact. 86 Simondon, L’individuation, 225, our translation. 87 Ibid., our translation. 88 Victor Petit, “L’individuation du vivant …,” Cahiers Simondon, no 1, ed. Jean-Hugues Barthélémy, (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 47–75, see 57. 89 Gilles Deleuze, “On Gilbert Simondon,” in Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953–1974 (Los Angeles & New York: Semiotext(e), 2004): 86–89; Sauvagnargues, Deleuze, 26–28. 90 Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 103–104. 91 Paul Valéry, “L’Idée fixe,” [1931], in Valéry, Œuvres, II, (Paris, Gallimard/La Pléiade, 1960), 215. 92 Gilbert Simondon, L’individu et sa genèse physico biologique, (Paris: PUF, 1964), 260–264; cited by Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 104. 93 Simondon, L’individuation […] forme et d’information, 24–25, our translation; Barthélémy, Simondon ..., 41. 94 Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and Guattari, 62. 95 Sauvagnargues, Deleuze, 244. 96 Simondon, L’individuation, 45, our translation. 97 Ibid., 228. Georges Teyssot Chapter 01 Structuring Information
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- 52. 01/ E04 Mario Carpo All that is digital is variable, and all that is digitally variable is poten- tially open to interaction, communality and participation. In the course of the last ten years digital culture at large has enthusiastically albeit belatedly embraced all kinds of collaborative tools; this new emphasis on shared agency is a key aspect of what has been called the Web 2.0, and communal making is fast becoming a dominant technical and cultural paradigm of our age. With one significant exception: architecture. Architects have for the most part neglected or rejected the new digital commons, and digital design culture seem to have chosen its own pecu- liar way to liquidate humanistic and modern authorship – one which is not based on social bonds and communality, but on the quest for a new alliance among technology, complexity, indeterminacy, and the some- times mysterious capacity that some natural and social systems have to self-organize and thrive against all odds.1 Mechanical machines make objects; digital machines don’t. As the name suggests, digital machines, in the first instance, just produce numbers – sequences of numbers, also known as digital files. These numbers must eventually be converted into objects, or media objects (texts, images, or music, for example), but this conversion requires the subsequent interven- tion of actors, networks, and tools that are, in most cases, independent from the maker of the initial digital file. Users of digital tools have always been aware of this ontological difference between mechanical making and digital making. At the very beginning of the digital turn, Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Cache famously defined the new technical object of the digital age as a generic object – an open-ended mathematical notation designed for interaction and variability, which they called Objectile.2 As in the Aristotelian theory of science, an Objectile is a class or family of object, but no object in particular. Scholastic thinkers held different views on this matter, but in the case of digital making, the class (genus) may become an event, or individual, through the addition of predicates, which today we often call specifications. A peculiar aspect of digital mak- ing is that the limits for the possible variations of some specifications, or parameters, can be set from the start, hence the term parametricism, which is today often used to denote this mode of design. In the course of the last ten years, digital culture at large has enthu- siastically, albeit belatedly, embraced all kinds of digital interactivity and collaborative tools. This new emphasis on shared agency is a key aspect of what has been called “Web 2.0”, and has prompted a com- plete reinvention of the digital economy after the dotcom crash at the turn of the century. The reasons for this delayed surge of collaborative DIGITAL INDETERMINISM: THE NEW DIGITAL cOMMONS AND THE DISSOLUTION OF ARcHITEcTURAL AUTHORSHIP mario CarPo 1 The first part of this essay refers to arguments I developed in The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011), 4, “Epilogue: Split Agency,” 123–128; and in “Digital Style,” Log 23 (2011): 41–52. This essay was commissioned by the office of David Chipperfield for publication in the Critical Reader to accompany the 13th exhibition of architecture of Venice Biennale (2012), Common Ground. It was rejected by same after delivery. 2 Gilles Deleuze, Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1988), 22–26; English translation: The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 15–19. Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 53. making in the digital domain were probably technical as well as social. But, when it became clear that, on the Web, every consumer of data can be a data producer, and every user can be a maker – as well as an editor, self-appointed curator, and referee for any existing body of data, many users started to use the Web to do just that, with tremendous cultural, social, and economic consequences. The interactive Web offers unlimited possibilities for tapping the wisdom of crowds, and for aggregating the opinions and knowledge of many. This goes well beyond the simple collecting and averaging of data. Particularly in the making of media objects, the old statistical ways of mean finding have been replaced by a new, open-ended mode of “aggregatory” versioning, where the collective knowledge of a community is garnered by inviting all agents to edit one another – in theory, ad libitum atque ad infinitum; in practice, under the stewardship of some form of curation. Against all odds, there is evidence that this unauthorized mode of mak- ing can be quite effective. Open-source software made collaboratively by many, but by none in particular, often works better than competing proprietary, commercial software. The authorial Encyclopaedia Britan- nica has recently stopped to exist in print, but collaborative Wikipedia is thriving. Based on the simple principle that more people know more, if there is a way of garnering their lore, Wikipedia’s strategy of digital aggregation promises to convert the shortcomings of each into the wisdom of many – just like in Adam Smith’s classical economics, the “invisible hand” of the market converts the egoism of each into the common good. The success of Wikipedia, and of similar case studies, may seem anecdotal. Yet, interactive aggregation and participatory versioning are fast becoming a pervasive, and possibly dominant, technical and cultural paradigm of our age. Aspects of it occur, more or less conspicu- ously, whenever and wherever digital tools are used – which is to say, today, everywhere, and all the time. This is why we are – slowly – get- ting used to technical objects of all kinds that are never finished nor ever stable; which are designed for permanent evolution and variations, and seem to live forever in trial mode, always waiting for the next patch or fix – to some extent working most of the time, but never entirely or fully predictably. Alexandre Koyré famously saw precision, it all its forms, as the hallmark of modernity.3 Just as industrial, mechanical modernity needed and fostered precision, it would appear that post-industrial, digital postmodernity is reviving an ancient techno-cultural paradigm of approximation, redundancy, and endless revisions – now carried out by electronic computation, not by manual craft. Lawyers and economists have already started to tackle the many paradoxes of electronic version- ing and mass-collaboration. The old authorial notions of intellectual property, copyrights, and royalties, which, not coincidentally, rose in synch with mechanical printing technologies, are famously unusable and often meaningless in a digital collaborative environment.4 Yet the aesthetic implications of this new digital “style of many hands”5 have received little attention; among the design professions, almost none. This is not by coincidence. Digital design theory spearheaded and pioneered the digital turn. In the 1990s, architects like Greg Lynn and Bernard Cache were at the forefront of technical and cultural innovation. But, in the 2000s, when digital culture went 2.0, architecture did not fol- low suit. With few exceptions, which will be discussed below, there has been no participatory turn for digital design. This may be partly due to technical factors: architectural notations must be frozen, at some point, in order to be built, and can seldom be open-ended. But the burden of heritage may have played an even bigger role. Architectural design is the brainchild of Renaissance humanism. Humanists, Leon Battista Alberti first and foremost, invented architecture as an art of drawing, and the notion of the modern architect as a new kind of humanist author – a thinker and a maker of drawings, not a craftsman and a maker of build- ings. For better for worse, this early-modern cultural revolution made 3 Alexandre Koyré, “Du monde de l’’à peu près’ à l’univers de la précision,” Critique 28 (1948): 806–823; reprinted in Koyré Etudes d’histoire de la pensée philosophique, Cahiers des Annales, 19 (Paris: A. Colin, 1961), 311–329. 4 On “copylefting” and other digital alternatives to analog copyright laws see for example Lawrence Lessig, “Re-crafting a Public Domain,” Perspecta 44, Domain, (2011): 177–189. 5 See Carpo, “Digital Style.” Mario Carpo Architecture in Formation 48 49
- 54. 01/ E04 architecture what it still is: a high added-value intellectual profession. Most architects today still see themselves as authors in Albertian, human- ist terms, and the Albertian, authorial definition of architectural design as an art of drawing – a notational art – is today enshrined by the laws, customs, and social practices of most countries around the world.6 Hence, it is not surprising that so many digital designers in recent times have been testing and trying, more or less deliberately, design strate- gies aimed at curtailing, taming, or effacing the participatory potentials of digital parametricism. The most common case in today’s digital scene is that of an author that first designs an open-ended system (an Objectile, or generic notation), then finalizes it all alone, picking a limited number of perfectly finished design solutions of which she will be, in a sense, the double author: first as the inventor of a general parametric system, then as an end-user of the same. Without going to such extremes, the normal mode of use of today’s parametricism allows for such a limited range of variations that all end-products of a given design environment tend to look the same, regardless of their degree of customization. As most offices working this way also happen to favor a legacy repertoire of curving lines and smooth surfaces derived from the spline-dominated design software of the 1990s, many of the objects they create also appear similar to one another, hence corroborating the claim, strongly restated of recent by Patrik Schumacher, of parametricism as a comprehensive theory, and of a spline-based visual environment as the ineluctable stylistic expression of digital making.7 But not all the cultural and technical reasons that prompted the rise of digital spline-making in the 1990s may last forever. Today’s digital designers might conceivably choose to leave many more design options open to subsequent interactive or collaborative choices, increasing the degree of indeterminacy embedded in a parametric design system, or the share of authorial responsibility devolved to others. In this instance, similar to the initiator of an open-sourced software project, who writes the first code then monitors all its edits and changes, the primary designer would become, in a sense, the curator of an ongoing collaborative proj- ect, designing it at launch and then steering its course: watching, prod- ding, and occasionally censoring the interventions of all co-authors (or interactors) to follow. While many examples attest to the success of this collaborative design strategy in fields such as software development, and increasingly in the design development of physical objects, its instances in architectural design are rare. Some digital designers pride themselves on using open-source software, but few or none on authoring open-ended design – architectural notations that others could modify at will.8 In fact, the most radical Web 2.0 applications in architectural design have not been devised by designers, but by the building and construc- tion industry. The family of software known as Building Information Modeling, originally a management tool used to facilitate costing and the exchange of information between architects and contractors, is fast becoming a fully-fledged design platform, and imposing its collabora- tive logic to all involved.9 While the traditional design–bid–build process embodied the Albertian way of making by design and by notation, today’s BIM model translates a new mode of building by collaborative leader- ship, which, in turn, resembles and almost reenacts the collaborative way of building that prevailed in most European building sites before the Humanist invention of the modern authorship. As the author that is now being done away with used to be called the architect, it stands to reason that not all architects may enthusiastically endorse this new technology. Indeed, designers often blame BIM software for its philistine, bureaucratic approach to architectural design. Yet architects who resent, more or less overtly, the digital dimin- ishment of their modern authorial privileges often seem more keen to envisage a lesser degree of design determination when it is to the benefit of a higher order of indeterminacy – one which many designers today 6 Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm, esp. 71–80. 7 Patrik Schumacher, “Parametricism and the Autopoiesis of Architecture,” Log 21 (2011): 63– 79; see in particular p. 63. See also Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A New Framework for Architecture, Vol. I (London: Wiley, 2011); and The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A New Agenda for Architecture, Vol. II (London: Wiley, 2012) 8 Carpo, “The Craftsman and the Curator,” Perspecta 44, Domain (2011): 86–91; Eric von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), esp. 103–105. 9 See Peggy Deamer and Phillip G. Bernstein, ed., Building (in) The Future: Recasting Labor in Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010), esp. Bernstein’s essay “Models for Practice: Past, Present, Future,” 191–198; see also Bernstein, “A Way Forward? Integrated Project Delivery,” Harvard Design Magazine 32 (2010), 74–77. Mario Carpo Chapter 01 Structuring Information
- 55. Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
- 56. from whom it took its name. It was afterwards formed into a grove. It was the resort of Plato, and hence his disciples took the name of academic philosophers. Beyond is the Serapeon of Canopus, with the Sacrarium of Jupiter Serapis at the end, built in imitation of the canal connecting Alexandria with Canopus, a city of Lower Egypt, twelve miles east of Alexandria, at the west or Canopic mouth of the Nile. On the right are some remains of the Hippodrome; and towards the entrance of the Serapeon, the Baths. From here we reach the Stadium, where the foot races were held. We now come upon a lofty wall of opus reticulatum, nearly six hundred feet long. This was one of the walls of the Poecile Stoa, in imitation of the grand portico at Athens of that name, famed for its fresco-paintings of the battle of Marathon by Polygnotus, and as the seat of the school of Zeno the philosopher, who took the name Stoic from frequenting this portico. This portico was built on an artificial platform, and the wall can be traced all round; underneath are the Hundred Chambers of the Guards. From our right of the wall, we enter the Prytaneum, in imitation of the council hall of that name at Athens, where the fifty deputies of the republic lived and held office, each five weeks in turn. Through this we reach the Aquarium, a circular edifice with an octagonal platform in the centre, with openings for fountains and statues; to the left of this were the Greek and Latin Libraries. Having now rambled over the extent of this famous villa, and picked up a memento of our visit, we may truly exclaim—"Sic transit gloria mundi." The tramway back to Rome is taken from the end of the road leading from the villa. PORTA ESQUILINÆ. (Porta Maggiore.) Here the Via Prænestina diverged from the Labicana; and Claudius, who was obliged to convey two new streams—the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus—over these roads, erected for this purpose a massive gateway, which spanned both roads at once with a double arch. This is the splendid monument afterwards taken into the Aurelian Wall, in the time of Honorius and Arcadius, and converted, by the erection of a mound in front, into a kind of bulwark. It now forms one of the city gates, under the name of the Porta Maggiore. In each of the three piers supporting the attics with the channels concealed in the interior is a small gateway, over which a window, with a gable roof resting on rustic pillars, is introduced. By this arrangement, not only is a saving of materials effected, but the six construction arches thus acquired impart a greater degree of stability to the structure.
- 57. PORTA MAGGIORE. View larger image. The first inscription on the aqueduct of Claudius mentions the streams conveyed into the city by the emperor upon these arches. From it we learn that the water in the channel which bore his name was taken from two sources,—the Cæruleus and the Curtius, forty- five miles off; and that the Anio Novus, which flows above the Aqua Claudia, was brought hither from a distance of sixty-two miles. The second inscription relates to the restorations of Vespasian; the third to those of Titus. This gateway is the earliest specimen of the rustic style. It was named, by those going out, by which arch they passed through on their way either to Labicum or to Præneste. Coming in, they called it by the hill to which they were going. "After I had said that he entered by the Cœlimontane Gate, like a man of mettle he offered to lay a wager with me that he entered at the Esquiline Gate" (Cicero v. Piso). Directly in front of the middle pier of the Porta Maggiore lies a monument, discovered in the year 1838, on the removal of the mound referred to. It is THE BAKER'S TOMB. The man who erected his own monument on this spot was a baker, who seems to have made a considerable fortune as a purveyor. According to the good old custom, he was not ashamed of his calling, but built a species of trophy for himself out of the utensils of the trade by means of which he had attained to wealth and respectability. The hollow drums of pillars, for instance, let into the superstructure, which rests upon double columns, seem to
- 58. represent vessels for measuring fruit; and the inscription found beside them agrees with this opinion, as it states that the mortal remains of Atistia, the wife of Eurysaces, were deposited in a bread-basket. In fact, everything was represented that appertained to a baker's trade. This is rendered the more interesting from the circumstance of several of these representations seeming to belong to the present time—people in this sphere in Italy usually adhering to the customs transmitted to them by their forefathers. The inscription on the architrave, stating this monument to be that of M. Virgilius Eurysaces, purveyor of bread, is repeated three times. A relief of the baker and his wife, also the remains of the Gate of Honorius, are to be seen on the right of the road. To the north of the tomb three old aqueducts, Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, can be seen passing through the walls of Rome. VIA LABICANA is an interesting excursion. Leaving Rome by the Porta Maggiore, we take the road on the right, Via Labicana, as we can return by the other, Via Gabina, or Prænestina. For the first mile the road runs parallel with the Claudian Aqueduct; then, bending to the left, there are some very picturesque remains of the Aqua Hadriana, A.D. 120, restored by Alexander Severus, A.D. 225, as recorded by Spartianus. At the second mile is Tor Pignattara, the so- called TOMB OF HELENA (?). This ascription is altogether a mistake. Helena was buried in the city of New Rome (Constantinople), and not outside ancient Rome. "Her remains were conveyed to New Rome, and deposited in the imperial sepulchres" (Socrates, E. H., i. 17). The sarcophagus found here is more likely, from its reliefs, to have been that of a soldier than a woman. The sarcophagus, of red porphyry, is now in the Hall of the Greek Cross in the Vatican. The remains of the tomb consist of a circular hall with eight circular recesses. A church, dedicated to SS. Peter and Marcellinus, stands within it, beneath which are the catacombs of these saints. At the sixth mile is Torre Nuova, surrounded by pine and mulberry trees. At the Osteria di Finacchio (ninth mile) a by-road leads to the Osteria dell'Osa, on the Via Gabina (two miles). Visitors leave their carriage here, and order it to go two miles further on, to (opposite) Castiglione, on the Via Prænestina, where they meet it after visiting GABII, founded by the kings of Alba, and taken by the Romans, under Tarquin, through the artifice of his son Sextus. It was deserted in the time of the republic, but recovered under the empire, to fall once more before the time of Constantine. At the end of the ridge are remains of the Roman Municipium and Temple of Juno of the time of Hadrian. The buildings of Castiglione occupy the site of the ancient city. The principal ruin is the Temple of
- 59. Juno Gabina. Virgil tells us "it was situated amidst rugged rocks, on the banks of the cold Anienes." The cella is composed of blocks of stone four feet by two feet; the interior is 50 feet long; the pavement is of white mosaic. Close by are the ruins of the Theatre, and some Ionic columns. Considerable remains of the ancient walls can be traced. The fresh, green basin below the ridge was once a lake, and was drained about twenty-five years since by Prince Borghese. It is curious that there is no mention of the lake by classical authors. It is first mentioned in reference to the martyrdom of S. Primitivus, who was beheaded at Gabii, and whose head was thrown into the lake. This was in the fifth century. Perhaps the lake did not exist in Tarquin's time, and was formed by some freak of nature after the desertion of the city. Returning to Rome by the Via Gabina, after passing the stream Osa, about two miles, we come to a fine Roman viaduct, Ponte di Nona, consisting of seven lofty arches, built of rectangular blocks of lapis gabinus of the time of the kings. At the eighth mile is the medieval Tor Tre Teste, so called from the three heads built in its walls. Here Camillus overtook the Gauls (Livy, v. 49). About two and a half miles from Rome, at the Tor dei Schiavi, are extensive ruins of the Villa of the Gordian Emperors, consisting of a large reservoir, the circular hall of the baths, and a circular temple, 43 feet in diameter, called Apollo. The inside is relieved by alternate round and square niches; the crypt beneath is supported by one pier. Between this and Tor dei Schiavi, three rooms at the base of a circular edifice have been opened; the floors are composed of black and white mosaic. On the right, about a mile further on, is the circular tomb, 50 yards in diameter, of Quintus Atta, the comic poet (B.C. 55); the interior is in the form of a Greek cross. PORTA S. GIOVANNI. (Mr. Forbes's carriage excursion-lecture at frequent intervals.) FIRST EXCURSION. VIA APPIA NOVA. This road was made in the time of the Antonines, to relieve the traffic on the Via Appia, and was called simply a New Way. Several tombs of the time of the Antonines line it, but none of earlier date. At the right of the gate is the ancient Porta Asinara, the best preserved of the brick gates. At the second mile the road is crossed by the Via Latina, turning up which, on the left, we can visit THE PAINTED TOMBS.
- 60. One, discovered in 1859, is covered with beautiful paintings and stucco reliefs—eight landscapes, with groups of men and animals, with small arabesque borders, beautifully finished. The reliefs on the vault represent the Trojan War, and figures of Hercules, Chitaredes, Jupiter, with the eagle and centaurs hunting lions, &c. Near by, discovered at the same time, is THE BASILICA OF S. STEPHEN, founded about A.D. 450 by Demetria, a member of the Anician family. It was rebuilt by Leo III., A.D. 800. A bell tower was erected by Lupus Grigarius about thirty years afterwards. The ground plan can be easily made out, as also the remains of the altar and baptistery. In front of the tribune is a vault, entered by stairs, similar to those in most of the Roman Catholic basilicæ, where the martyrs were buried. The basilica stands amidst the ruins of a large Roman villa of the Servilii and Asinii, discovered by Signor Fortunati. Returning to the main road, we soon pass the Tor Fiscali, a medieval tower, and then the Osteria Tovolato; then we get some fine views of the ruined aqueducts. THE AQUEDUCTS. CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT. View larger image. Sixteen aqueducts supplied the city with water and irrigated the Campagna. The principal streams were the Aqua Appia, B.C. 312; Anio Vetus, B.C. 272; Marcia, B.C. 145,—on the top of its arches, near Rome, were carried the Aquæ Tepula and Julia; Virgo, B.C. 21; Claudia, with Anio Novus above, A.D. 38–52. The Romans, finding the water from the Tiber and the wells sunk in the city unwholesome, built these aqueducts, to bring the water from the hills that surround the Campagna; but their situation and purpose rendered them exposed to attack during war, which partly accounts for their destruction. Four of them still supply the city
- 61. with water:—The Aqua Marcia, which has its source near Subiaco. From Tivoli it passes through pipes to Rome, which it enters at the Porta Pia. It was brought in by a company, and opened by Pius IX. on the 10th of September 1870. The Aqua Virgo, built by Agrippa, B.C. 21, has its source near the eighth milestone on the Via Collatina, restored by Nicholas V. It supplies the Trevi Fountain. The Aqua Alseatina, built by Augustus, A.D. 10, on the other side of the Tiber, has its source thirty-five miles from Rome, at the Lago Baccano. It was restored by Paul V., and supplies the Pauline Fountain. Acqua Felice, made by Sixtus V., A.D. 1587. Its source is near La Colonna, formerly the source of Hadrian's Aqueduct. It runs parallel with the Claudian and the Marcian, near Rome, in some places being built out of their remains and on their piers. Pliny says: "If any one will diligently estimate the abundance of water supplied to the public baths, fountains, fish-ponds, artificial lakes, and galley-fights, to pleasure-gardens, and to almost every private house in Rome, and then consider the difficulties that were to be surmounted, and the distance from which these streams were brought, he will confess that nothing so wonderful as these aqueducts can be found in the whole world." THE ROUTE. We now pass, on the left, a tomb of the Antonines; then an osteria, on the site of the Temple of Fortuna Muliebris, where Coriolanus was over-persuaded by his wife and mother. On our right is a ruined aqueduct, which supplied the Villa of the Quintilii, whose picturesque ruins we have previously passed. We now soon reach the ascent to Albano, and strike the old Appian Way at Frattocchie, where Clodius was murdered by Milo. (See Cicero pro Milo.) At the twelfth mile, on the right, are the ruins of Bovillæ. Several unknown tombs line the road. At the intersection of the Via Appia with the town limits stands an ancient tomb, formerly considered to be that of the Horatii and Curiatii, those champions of their age. Now it is more correctly held to be THE TOMB OF POMPEY THE GREAT. For we know from Plutarch that his ashes were carried to Cornelia, who buried them in his land near Alba, though Lucan (viii. 835) complains that he had no tomb— "And thou, O Rome, by whose forgetful hand Altars and temples, reared to tyrants, stand, Canst thou neglect to call thy hero home, And leave his ghost in banishment to roam?" The town occupies the site of the ruins of the Villa of Pompey, and the Albanum of Domitian. The best view of the Mediterranean is to be had at ALBANO,
- 62. reached by rail in one hour from Rome. It is a favourite resort in summer, on account of its pure air, elevated position, and the delightful rambles that can be made in its neighbourhood. In winter it is frequented by all the Forestieri, who are to be seen there daily in carriages and on donkeys, doing all the attractions of the locality. From this point the tour of the Alban Hills, taking in all places of interest, can be most conveniently made. The peasants' costumes are very attractive. The town itself is not a centre of interest; a few ruins are shown in some of its streets, but they are neither very visible nor authentic. VALE OF ARICCIA. In the ascent to the town from the station, on the right is a beautiful valley, once a lake, but now drained, called the Vale of Ariccia. It is not known when it was drained. It is thus alluded to by Ovid ("Fasti," iii. 263):— "Deep in Ariccia's vale, and girt around With shady trees, a sacred lake is found; Here Theseus' son in safe concealment lay, When hurried by the violent steeds away." Passing through the town, we come to the Viaduct of Pius IX. (1846–1863). Just before reaching the viaduct, the old Appian Way branches off to the right, descending the side of the Vale of Ariccia. Several remains of tombs exist at this point, notably that of Aruns, the son of Porsena of Clusium. TOMB OF ARUNS. This ruin agrees exactly with the lower part of the Tomb of Porsena at Clusium, described by Pliny (xxxvi. 19). He says: "But as the fabulousness of the story connected with it quite exceeds all bounds, I shall employ the words given by M. Varro himself in his account of it. 'Porsena was buried,' says he, 'beneath the city of Clusium, in the spot where he had constructed a square monument, built of squared stones. Each side of this monument was 300 feet long and 50 feet high, and beneath the base, which was also square, was an inextricable labyrinth.... Above this square building there stood five pyramids—one at each corner and one in the middle—75 feet broad at the base and 150 feet in height,'" &c. The present ruin is 49 feet long on each side and 24 feet high, surmounted at the angles with four cones, and one larger, in the centre, 26 feet in diameter, in which the urn was found in the last century. ARICCIA. The ancient ascent to Ariccia was the Clivus Virbii, so called from Hippolytus, who, on being restored to life by Diana, took the name of Virbius.
- 63. "But Trivia kept in secret shades alone Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown; And called him Virbius in the Egerian Grove, Where then he lived obscure, but safe from Jove." Virgil, Æneid, vii. 774. The ascent was a noted place for beggars, as recorded by Persius (Sat. vi. 55) and Juvenal (Sat. iv.). The village is three-quarters of a mile west from Albano, surrounded by beautiful woods. At its entrance is the Palazzo Chigi, built by Bernini, in the midst of a fine park; fee, half- franc. The ancient town lay lower down the hill, where some of its remains can still be traced. Horace (Lib. i. Sat. 5) tells us that for slow travellers it was the first halting-place from Rome. "Leaving imperial Rome, my course I steer To poor Ariccia and its moderate cheer." Francis. In the vale, just under the town, was the TEMPLE OF DIANA ARICINA, which Vitruvius (iv. 7) says was circular. The story of this temple is given by several classic writers. "Hippolytus came into Italy and dedicated the Temple of Aricina Diana. In this place, even at present, those who are victors in a single contest have the office of priest to the goddess given to them as a reward. This contest, however, is not offered to any free person, but only to slaves who have fled from their masters" (Pausanias, ii. 27). In 1791 a relief representing the scene was found at the circular ruin, and is now at Palma in Majorca. The temple was near a little stream from a source under the second viaduct, known as the FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA, which supplies the lake. The nymph was overcome by the death of Numa, as Ovid tells us: "Other woes, however, did not avail to diminish Egeria's grief; and, lying down at the very foot of the mountain, she melted into tears, until the sister of Apollo (Diana), moved to compassion, made a cool fountain of her body, changed into perennial waters." "His wife the town forsook, And in the woods that clothe Ariccia's vale lies hid." Met. xv. 487.
- 64. "There, at the mountain's base, all drowned in tears, She lay, till chaste Diana on her woe Compassion took: her altered form became A limpid fount; her beauteous limbs dissolved, And in perennial waters melt away." Met. xv. 548. "O'er their rough bed hoarse-murmuring waters move; A pure but scanty draught is there supplied; Egeria's fount, whom all the muses love, Sage Numa's counsellor, his friend, and bride." Fasti, iii. 273. After two miles of a picturesque and shady road, crossing four viaducts, and commanding beautiful views, we arrive at GENZANO. Its excellent wine is renowned, and this, together with its flowers and beautiful situation, are its sole attractions. The flower festival, held the eighth day after Corpus Christi, is fully described in "The Improvisatore." Up a path by the side of the Palazzo Cesarini we obtain a fine view of the LAKE NEMI, which occupies an extinct crater. The lake is three miles in circumference, and 300 feet deep, and passes out by an artificial emissarium, made by Trajan. The water is calm and marvellously clear. Trajan erected on this lake a floating palace, 500 feet in length, 270 feet in breadth, and 60 feet deep. It was of wood, joined with bronze nails, and lead plated outside; the inside was lined with marble, and the ceilings were of bronze. The water for use and ornament was supplied from the Fount Juturna by means of pipes. Signor Marchi, a Roman, in 1535 descended in a diving-bell and explored this curious palace, which had sunk beneath the waters. He left an account of his discoveries. (See Brotier's "Tacitus," Sup. Ap., and Notes on Trajan.) A large fragment of the wood-work is preserved in the Kircherian Museum. On the opposite side is the small medieval town of NEMI, picturesquely situated upon a hill above the lake. On the sides of the lake are the remains of villas built of opus reticulatum; and in the sixteenth century some of the wood-work, tiles, &c., of Cæsar's Villa—begun, but afterwards pulled down because it did not suit his taste—were found, and are preserved in the Library of the Vatican.
- 65. "Lo, Nemi! navelled in thy woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundations, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears A deep, cold, settled aspect naught can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake."—Byron. THE TEMPLE OF DIANA NEMORENSE. On the plateau at the east end of the lake, to our left of Nemi, his excellency Sir John Savile Lumley, the British ambassador, has recently made some most interesting excavations—uncovering the vast area of the Temple of Diana at Nemi, and at the same time discovering numerous objects of interest, which proved without doubt to whom the shrine was dedicated. The front of the temple was formed with a portico of fluted columns, and its rear was towards the lake, so the temple faced east. The whole Artemisium shows traces of many restorations, not the least interesting being that made by Marcus Servilius Quartus, consul A.D. 3, whose tomb is on the Via Appia (Tacitus, "A." ii. 48; iii. 22). When Iphigenia, priestess of the Temple of Diana at Tauris in the Crimea, fled with her brother Orestes, they carried off the statue of Diana, to whom all strangers cast on the coast were sacrificed, and founded a temple near the Lake of Diana, now Nemi, on the Alban Hills (Ovid, "Ep." iii. 2; "Met." xv. 485). "The temple is in a grove, and before it is a lake of considerable size. The temple and water are surrounded by abrupt and lofty precipices, so that they seem to be situated in a deep and lofty ravine" (Strabo, v. 3, 12). THE FOUNTAIN OF JUTURNA. This issues from the hill under the village, and serves the mill on the border of the lake. "Tell me, nymph Juturna, thou that wast wont to minister to the grove and looking-glass of Diana" (Ovid, "F." iii. 260). "The springs by which the lake is filled are visible. One of them is denominated Juturna, after the name of a certain divinity" (Strabo v. 3, 12). A ramble through the woods brings us to the adjoining lake at Palazzolo, which is generally seen in the distance from the opposite side of the lake. PALAZZOLO. "And near, Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley."
- 66. Situated on Lake Albano, or it may be reached from Albano or Marino by other roads passing round the Lake Albano. It is a Franciscan monastery. In its gardens is a tomb supposed to be that of Cneius Cornelius Scipio Hispanus, B.C. 176. A path through the woods leads up to Monte Cavo. THE ALBAN LAKE is 150 feet below Lake Nemi. Its outlet conducts its waters to the Tiber. This lake also occupies the crater of an extinct volcano; it is six miles round, and of unknown depth. The outlet was made at the time the Romans were besieging Veii, B.C. 394, to lower the waters which threatened to flood the Campagna. It is 1509 yards in length. Situated on the bluff overlooking the lake is CASTEL GANDOLFO, formerly the summer residence of the popes. Its palace was erected by Urban VIII. This palace, and the charming situation, are its only features of attraction. On the opposite shore, which can be reached either from Palazzolo, or by a path from the Albano or the Marino end of the lake, is the supposed site of ALBA LONGA. Built by Ascanius 1152 B.C., destroyed by Tullus Hostilius 666 B.C. Virgil tells us that on Æneas consulting the oracle at Delos, the oracle replied,— "Now mark the signs of future ease and rest, And bear them safely treasured in thy breast: When, in the shady shelter of a wood, And near the margin of a gentle flood, Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground, With thirty sucking young encompassed round, The dam and offspring white as falling snow,— These on thy city shall their name bestow, And there shall end thy labours and thy woe." Æneid, iii. 388. Again, when Father Tiber appeared to him, he says,—
- 67. "And that this mighty vision may not seem Th' effect of fancy, or an idle dream, A sow beneath an oak shall lie along, All white herself, and white her thirty young. When thirty rolling years have run their race, Thy son Ascanius, on this empty space, Shall build a royal town, of lasting fame, Which from this omen shall receive the name." Æneid, viii. 70. Again, after Father Tiber had disappeared, and Æneas, having invoked the god, fitted out two galleys to go up the Tiber to Evander: "Now on the shore the fatal swine is found. Wondrous to tell, she lay along the ground; Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung— She white herself, and white her thirty young!" Æneid, viii. 120. Thus, according to Virgil's own showing, the sow was found on the banks of the Tiber; how then could the shores of the Alban Lake be the site of Alba Longa? Ought we not rather to look for that site on the banks of the Tiber below Rome, where the sow was found, according to the voices of the oracle and the river-god, and the record handed down by Virgil? On the other hand, we are told Alba Longa was "built by Ascanius, the son of Æneas, thirty years after the building of Lavinium. Alba stood between a mountain and a lake: the mountain is extremely strong and high, and the lake deep and large. When one part of the lake is low upon the retreat of the water, and the bottom clear, the ruins of porticoes and other traces of habitation appear, being the remains of the palace of King Alladius, which was destroyed by the lake rising. Alba Longa was demolished by Marcus Horatius, by command of Tullus Hostilius" (Dionysius, i. 66. See Livy, i. 29). From Castel Gandolfo a pleasant road by the lake leads to Marino, passing through a wood after leaving the lake. Just before entering the town we come to a wooded glen, the ancient VALLIS FERENTINA, where the diet of the Latin states assembled to discuss the interests of peace and war. A stream runs through the valley, and in the spring which feeds the stream, at the head of the valley, Turnus Herdonius, Lord of Ariccia, was drowned by the command of Tarquinius Superbus. MARINO, celebrated for its wine, is perched on an eminence 1730 feet high. It was a great stronghold of the Orsini, and afterwards of the Colonnas, whose towers and palace still
- 68. stand. The principal street is the Corso. At the top, on the right hand side, is a house decorated with curious mosaics and bas-reliefs, surmounted with a Madonna. At the bottom of the Corso is the Cathedral of S. Barnabas, in which is a picture of S. Bartholomew, by Guercino. The fountain close by is picturesque, composed of half female figures supporting the basin, out of which four figures rise supporting a column. Over a beautiful route of four miles we reach GROTTA FERATTA, AND CICERO'S TUSCULAN VILLA, which is now a Greek monastery, founded in 1002 by S. Ninus. In one of its chapels are frescoes from the life of the saint, by Domenichino, restored by Camuccini in 1819. Fairs are held here on the 28th of March and 8th of September, drawing large crowds from the neighbourhood as well as from Rome. The villa stands on the site and is built out of the remains of Cicero's Villa, which he purchased of Sylla the dictator at a great price. To the south of the hill upon which the villa stands is a deep dell, falling into which is the stream of the Aqua Craba, mentioned by Cicero, now called the Maranna or running stream; and the plane-tree still flourishes here as it did in his day. Cicero likewise mentions that he had statues of the muses in his library, and a hermathena in his academy, and these statues were actually found here. The scenes of his "De Divinatione" and "Tusculan Disputations" were laid here. They were not addressed to any public assembly, but he used to retire after dinner to his so-called academy, and invited his guests to call for the subject they wished explained, which became the argument of the debate. These five discussions or conferences he collected and published as the "Tusculan Disputations" after the name of his villa, which was in the Tusculan territory, but not at the city itself. The subjects were,—Contempt of Death; On Bearing Pain; Grief of Mind; Other Perturbations of the Mind; Whether Virtue be Sufficient for a Happy Life. It was here that he received news of his proscription. A pleasant drive soon brings us to the foot of the hills, passing on our way several tombs, and the ruined castle of the Savellis, a medieval stronghold of the tenth century, called Borghetto, of which only the outer walls are standing. Two miles below, on our right, are the ruins of an immense reservoir of the aqueducts coming from the Alban Hills, the Tepula, 126 B.C.; the Julia, 34 B.C.; and the Severiana, 190 A.D. It is known by the name of the Centroni. Just below the bluff on which it stands, the stream of the Aqua Craba, coming from Rocca di Papa, falls into the Almo coming from Marino; united, they flow through an old tunnel under the road beyond the bridge. We now strike the Via Tusculana or Frascati Road. On the left are the picturesque ruins of the Villa of Septimius Bassus, consul 317 A.D. It is known by the name of Sette Bassi, or Roma Vecchia. Part of the villa is of the time of Hadrian. About two miles further on, on our right, is a tumulus, Monte del Grano, in which was found the splendid sarcophagus now in the Capitoline Museum, which contained the Portland Vase. It is not known to whom it belonged. We next cross the Naples railway, and pass under Porta Furba (Thieves' Arch), supporting the Acqua Felice. Looking back through the arch, there is a beautiful view. Here we can see the arches of the aqueducts distinctly:
- 69. on the left, under the arch by the fountain, the Claudia and Anio Novus; and on the right the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia. The stream in sight is the Maranna. From here the lane to the right, a pleasant drive, leads to the Porta Maggiore, whilst that straight on strikes the Via Appia Nova, near the Porta S. Giovanni. SECOND EXCURSION. (Mr. Forbes's excursion by rail and donkeys at frequent intervals.) To return, we take the road above, to the point where the Grotta Feratta road strikes off to the right; then the road ascends to Frascati; but there is nothing of interest en route. Much time is saved by taking the rail to Frascati, which brings us into the town, near the Piazza and Cathedral. FRASCATI, of all the Alban towns, is most frequented, on account of its proximity to Rome, from which it can be reached by rail in half-an-hour. The town itself is uninteresting. In the cathedral is a monument to Prince Charles Edward, erected by his brother, the Cardinal York, who was bishop of this diocese. The beautiful villas in the vicinity are well worth visiting, affording cool retreats in summer. These are, Villa Montalto; Villa Pallavicini; Villa Conti; Villa Borghese; Villa Ruffinella; Villa Muti, long the residence of Cardinal York; Villa Sora; Villa Falconieri; Villa Angelotti; and Villa Mondragone. On the road to Monte Porzio, viâ Manara, under the town, is the pretty little Villa Sansoni, once the residence of the Chevalier S. George, the would-be King James III. of England and VIII. of Scotland. The antiquities of Frascati are few. In walking up from the station, opposite the hospital, in a garden, is a grotto called the Nymphæum of Lucullus; and in a piazza, where the donkeys are usually mounted for Tusculum, is a circular tomb called the Sepulchre of Lucullus. Lucullus distinguished himself in the Social War. He was consul 74 B.C., and for seven years conducted the war against Mithridates. He died 56 B.C., and was buried by his brother on his estate at Tusculum,—the offer of a public funeral in the Campus Martius being declined. "Lucullus had the most superb pleasure house in the country near Tusculum; adorned with grand galleries and open saloons, as well for the prospect as for walks" (Plutarch). Opposite the house of the Chevalier S. George are some remains of a villa of the time of Augustus. In ascending the hill from Frascati, we pass along by a shady road, passing through the Villa Ruffinella (the property of Prince Angelotti, who has made a new road up to it). Under the porch are some remains brought from Tusculum.
- 70. TUSCULUM. A city of great antiquity, now in ruins, founded by the son of Ulysses. The remains of the forum, reservoir, and walls can still be traced. The ancient citadel stood on the artificial rock, which is now surmounted by a cross, 212 feet above the city. The view is magnificent. The height is 2400 feet above the sea. Tusculum was destroyed in 1191, after repeated attacks by the Romans, who razed it to the ground. It was the birthplace of Cato. Ascending by the old road, still paved with the blocks of lava stone, passing by an old tomb, we arrive at the amphitheatre of reticulated work, 225 feet by 167 feet broad. The construction shows it to be of the time of Hadrian. Above, some massive remains of the same construction have been dignified by some as the site of Cicero's Villa. We have thoroughly explored these remains, and proved them to form a large reservoir for water, of the time of Hadrian. Beyond was the Forum, the Diurnal Theatre, the Reservoir, and the Citadel. To the left, before entering the theatre, a short distance down the old road, is a fountain erected by the ædiles Q. C. Latinus and Marcus Decimus, by order of the senate. Near it is a reservoir with a roof like a Gothic arch, formed in the primitive style of one stone resting against another. From here a specus runs back into the hill to the spring. Here also can be examined the walls of the city, formed of square blocks of sperone, evidently rebuilt at a later date, as the walls to the left in the ditch are polygonal, agreeing with the date of the city. The hill of Tusculum is formed of volcanic matter, which has in some parts been so hardened as to form a stone, sperone lapis Tusculanus, and which, from the condition of the ruins, must have been largely used in the buildings of the city. The visitor who has come up from Frascati, and wishes to return there, had better do so by another path through the woods, by the Camaldoli Monastery, to the Villa Mondragone, then by the Villa Borghese to Frascati, a pleasant route. From Tusculum, a charming path through the chestnut groves leads up to Monte Cavo, avoiding Rocca di Papa, the ancient Fabia, which can be seen on the return. ROCCA DI PAPA is situated on the brink of the great crater which, the natives say, was formerly occupied by the camp of Hannibal. Fabius kept the hills, and Hannibal the plain. It takes its name from the proprietors, Annibile, and had nothing to do with Hannibal. It is a small town, but well suited for a summer residence. From here we ascend to MONTE CAVO. The ascent is made in three-quarters of an hour. There is a wooded ascent along the Via Triumphalis, by which the Roman generals ascended in order to celebrate at the Temple of Jupiter Latialis. The ruins of this temple were converted partly into a monastery by the Cardinal York, and partly into the Church of S. Peter's at Frascati. The ancient name of this mountain was Monte Latialis, and the ancient road that went over it, Via Numinis, the initials V. N. in the pavement telling us the name. It is 3200 feet above the sea. About three parts of the way up, from a ledge off the road, a beautiful view of the Alban Lakes can be had—forming, as it were, a pair of eyes. The view obtained is unequalled,
- 71. comprising the sea and coast from Terracina and Civita Vecchia, Rome and the Campagna, and, immediately beneath us, the Alban Mountains—one of the most interesting views in the world, every spot around being full of historical associations. Here, as it were, we can take in the whole panoramic view of the history of Rome. The surface of the mountain, on which stood the shrine of the god, extends to three thousand square yards. Besides its religious and architectural purposes, this area was used as a collector for rain water, which first ran into a piscina limaria to be purified, and then through a subterranean channel to a reservoir, the capacity of which amounts to one thousand cubic yards, having still some hydraulic regulators of lead, with their keys and pipes, on which the names of Maximus and Tubero, consuls in 11 B.C., are engraved. The return journey is made down the direct road from Rocca di Papa to Frascati, passing the Ponte degli Squarciarelli, over the Aqua Craba, at the point where the roads turn off to Marino, Grotta Feratta, and Frascati. PORTA OSTIENSIS. (Porta S. Paolo.) This is the most picturesque of the gates of Rome. It consists of a double gateway, the outer (of the time of Theodoric) with one, the inner (of the time of Claudius) with two arches, flanked with towers. On the right is the PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS, erected by his heir, Pontius Mela, and his freedman Pothus. This imposing structure was faced with smoothly hewn slabs of marble, and stands on a basement of travertine measuring 95 feet in diameter. It is 115 feet high. This monument, erected some twenty or thirty years before the Christian era, was indebted for its preservation to the circumstance of its having been incorporated by Aurelian with the line of his fortifications. The confined burial chamber (the paintings on the roof and walls of which are now almost obliterated) is reached through the doorway, introduced at some height on the north side. As is usually the case with tombs, in order to prevent spoliation, there were no steps leading up to the door. The west entrance is of more modern origin, dating from the time of Alexander VII., who caused it to be broken through the wall, although the ancient original doorway already afforded the means of ingress. The lower portion of the monument was cleared from the rubbish, which had accumulated to the height of twenty feet, at the same time; and the two fluted columns, resting upon travertine bases, were also dug up. Still more remarkable is the discovery of
- 72. the remains of the colossal statue of C. Cestius, consisting of the foot and arm, now in the Hall of Bronzes in the Capitol Museum. Keeping the straight road, we come, on the left, to THE CHAPEL OF SS. PETER AND PAUL. A relief over the door represents their parting, where this chapel now stands. The inscription says:— IN THIS PLACE SS. PETER AND PAUL SEPARATED ON THEIR WAY TO MARTYRDOM. AND PAUL SAID TO PETER, "PEACE BE WITH THEE, FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH, SHEPHERD OF THE FLOCK OF CHRIST." AND PETER SAID TO PAUL, "GO IN PEACE, PREACHER OF GOOD TIDINGS, AND GUIDE OF THE SALVATION OF THE JUST." THE CHURCH OF S. PAOLO. The first church built, in the time of Constantine, to commemorate the martyrdom of S. Paul. It was destroyed by fire on July 15, 1823; its restoration was immediately commenced, and it was reopened in 1854 by Pio Nono. The festa days are January 25th, June 30th, and December 28th. The principal entrance towards the Tiber is still unfinished. Before the Reformation it was under the protection of the kings of England. It is the finest of Roman churches, and the visitor cannot fail to be charmed with its beauty; it is one vast hall of marble, with eighty Corinthian pillars forming the nave, reflected in the marble pavement. The grand triumphal arch which separates the nave from the transept is a relic of the old basilica; and the mosaic, Christ blessing in the Greek manner, with the twenty- four elders, is of the fifth century, given by Placidia, sister of Honorius, in 440. The mosaic of the tribune was erected by Pope Honorius III., 1216–27; it has been restored since the fire. On either side are statues of S. Peter and S. Paul; around the church, above the columns, are portraits of the popes, from S. Peter, in mosaics. The altar canopy is supported by four pillars of Oriental alabaster, given by Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt. A marble staircase leads to the subterranean chapel, where are preserved the relics of the martyrs Paul and Timothy. The altars at each end of the transept are of malachite, given by the Czar of Russia. The painted windows are worthy of attention, as also a beautiful alabaster candelabrum saved from the fire. The walls and numerous chapels are adorned with paintings and statues of the present day, giving a good idea of the actual state of art in Rome. By applying for the key in the sacristy, visitors can see the beautiful court of the thirteenth century, which will fully repay inspection. Prudentius, who saw the original basilica in its glory, thus describes it:—
- 73. "Imperial splendour all the roof adorns; Whose vaults a monarch built to God. and graced With golden pomp the vast circumference. With gold the beams he covered, that within The light might emulate the beams of morn. Beneath the glittering ceiling pillars stood Of Parian stone, in fourfold ranks disposed: Each curving arch with glass of various dye Was decked; so shines with flowers the painted mead In spring's prolific day." Passio Beat. Apost. This description will apply equally well to the present basilica. The church is 396 feet long from the steps of the tribune; width of aisle and nave, 222 feet. The façade of the basilica, the upper part of which has lately been uncovered, is toward the Tiber; it consists of a beautiful mosaic which has taken thirteen years to complete, and is the finest production of the Vatican manufactory. The whole is surmounted by a cross, under which are the words Spes Unica; below it is our Lord enthroned, with SS. Peter and Paul on either side below the steps of his throne. A scene symbolic of the New Testament is below. A rock occupies the centre, from which flow the four rivers of the Apocalypse; on the summit is the Lamb supporting the cross. The cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem are on each side, whilst flocks of sheep between the palm-trees are symbolic of the apostolic college. Below, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel typify the Old Testament. The whole, a triangle, is bordered with a mosaic of fruit and foliage. At the back of the church is THE REMURIA HILL. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that Remus took his stand upon the Aventine and Romulus upon the Palatine; if so, they would both have commanded nearly the same horizon, and messengers need not have been sent from one to the other to tell the number of birds seen. Romulus stood on the Aventine, and Remus on the hill before us, the Remuria. "Remus pitched upon the ground now called from him Remuria. This place is very proper for a city, being a hill not far from the Tiber, distant from Rome about thirty stadia" (Dionysius, i. 85). "Romulus buried Remus at Remuria, since, when alive, he had been fond of building there" (Ibid., i. 87). This hill is called to the present day La Remuria. The road straight on past S. Paolo leads to the
- 74. TRE FONTANE, or Three Springs, which are said to have sprung forth when S. Paul was executed on this spot, his head rebounding three times after it was cut off. Three churches have been built here, but they are not of much interest. The rambler can return to the city from S. Paul's by tramway, fare six sous, to the Piazza Montanara. To the left the Strada delle Sette Chisse leads to the Via Appia, near the Church of S. Sebastiano. THE VIA OSTIENSIS. (Mr. Forbes's carriage excursion at frequent intervals.) Instead of turning to the left to the Three Fountains, keep straight on. This is the pleasantest and prettiest road out of Rome, but the views are not so commanding as on some others. On the hill to the left was the Vicus Alexandrinus, where the Lateran obelisk was landed; at Tor di Valle we cross the stream that comes from the Vallis Ferentina,—the bridge is of the time of the kings; then the Rivus Albanus, the outlet of Lake Albano; we next cross the Decima stream; beyond, the Via Laurentina, at the Osteria of Malafede, turns off to the left. We descend to the valley of the Malafede, which is still crossed by the VIADUCT OF ANCUS MARTIUS, called Ponte della Refolta. It is worth while to get out of the carriage here and turn into the field at the gate on the left, over the bridge, to see this piece of ancient work, formed of great blocks of tufa stone of the time of the kings, having some repairs in opus reticulatum of the republic. The paved arch over the stream is in good preservation, and is older than the Cloaca Maxima, but not so well known. It is evidently the work of Ancus Martius, who made the port of Ostia, and consequently the road to get there. At the top of the hill above we get the first view of the sea and the last of S. Peter's. We now pass through the woods and along an ancient causeway through the salt marshes to the modern village of OSTIA, fourteen miles from Rome. The ancient remains are beyond. Founded by Ancus Martius, it was the great port and arsenal of ancient Rome, with which it rose and fell. Ascending the tower of the castle in the village, an extensive view of the Latin coast and the surrounding ancient forests may be had. Several rooms in the castle have been turned into a museum of fragments found in the excavations. The castle was built by Julius II., 1503–13; and besides this there is nothing of interest in the miserable village. The Street of Tombs leads to the ancient city. The principal objects of interest are the Porta Romana and Guardhouse, houses in the city, tombs and columbaria, Temple of Cybele, the Temple of Vulcan, street with portico and warehouses, the Horrea with the Dolia, the Imperial Palace, baths
- 75. containing many beautiful specimens of mosaic pavement, Temple of Mithras, in which the altar is still standing, the Arsenal, &c. SKETCH PLAN OF THE EXCAVATIONS AT OSTIA. View larger image. The recent excavations were commenced at Ostia at the close of 1870 upon a system more in accordance with the requirements of archæological science and the tendencies of topographical discoveries than had up to that time been practised. All idea of speculating— as had been until then the chief aim of the popes—in the statues and precious objects that might be found, was renounced, and instead it was proposed to uncover, by steady and continued effort, the ruins of the buried edifices; especial attention was bestowed upon those along the banks of the Tiber, as they had played an important part in the career of the city. The earth was first removed round the large edifice known as the "Imperial Palace," bordering on the Tiber; its principal entry, upon the bank of the river, although decorated with a more elegant front, constituted only a common doorway. Three spots, which bore the aspect of stairs leading down to the river, have been excavated: firstly, upon the line from the Temple of Vulcan to the river; secondly, at a basin to the right side of this line; thirdly, at the other extremity of the basin, adjoining the Imperial Palace. At the first point was found the street which terminated at the banks of the river with a flight of steps. Upon removing the soil, a street was discovered paved with immense flagstones, fifteen yards wide, including the porticoes that flanked it on both sides. The porticoes are six yards wide, and are built with pillars of arched brick, decorated at the lower extremity with bas-reliefs, and at the upper with cornices of terra-cotta, lace design. In their interior are large compartments for warehouses, with a depth of six yards below the level of the pavement. This street leading from the river to the Temple of Vulcan is one hundred and fifty yards long. The lateral walls subsist up to the height of seven yards, and the rooms of the porticoes still preserve their ceilings, the pavement of the first floor being mosaic. Another street, parallel to the above, was struck at the second point, also running from the river, and paved with large flagstones; it has a width of five yards, and on each side large warehouses. On the left side are a series of pillars adorned with cornices, having a height
- 76. of seven yards, and a lateral width of two yards. As the street advances into the city, along the entire course are shops and warehouses, conveying the grandest idea of the life, activity, and commercial traffic that must have prevailed in the city. At the third spot were found the traces of a large stairway, leading to a terrace reared above the level of the river. To this stairway two streets lead, the first six yards wide, and proceeding from the interior of the city; the second, ten yards, running parallel to the Tiber, each side being occupied with warehouses. These are the three main streets lately thoroughly uncovered and examined, and which, while affording an accurate plan to modern eyes of the time- honoured city, unite, with its other ruins, tombs, and mosaic pavements, to make Ostia one of the wonders of the day. CASTEL FUSANO is a seat of Prince Chigi, two miles to the left of modern Ostia, just inside the pine-forest. There is nothing further to see. There is a pleasant ramble of about two miles down to the sea. N.B.—Permission must be obtained of the prince, before leaving Rome, to enter the woods. Seven miles beyond Castel Fusano is Tor Paterno, the site of the younger PLINY'S VILLA. "Seventeen miles from Rome; so that, having finished my affairs in town, I can pass my evenings here without breaking in upon the business of the day. There are two different roads to it: if you go by that of Laurentum, you must turn off at the fourteenth mile; if by Ostia, at the eleventh." (See Letter to Gallus, ii. 17.) Three miles inland is Capocotta, the site of Laurentum, the capital of Latium. Five miles off is Pratica, the ancient Lavinium, founded by Æneas. LIST OF EMPERORS. REIGNED. Years. B.C. A.D. Augustus 40 27–14 A.D. Tiberius 23 14–37 Caligula 4 37–41 Claudius 13 41–54 Nero 14 54–68 Galba 68–69
- 77. Otho 69 Vitellius 69 Vespasian 10 69–79 Titus 2 79–81 Domitian 15 81–96 Nerva 2 96–98 Trajan 19 98–117 Hadrian 21 117–138 Antoninus Pius 23 138–161 { M. Aurelius 19 161–180 { L. Verus 8 161–169 Commodus 12 180–192 Pertinax 193 Julianus 193 Niger 194 Septimius Severus 18 193–211 Albinus 4 193–197 { Caracalla 6 211–217 { Geta 1 211–212 Macrinus 1 217–218 Elagabalus 4 218–222 Alexander Severus 13 222–235 Uranius 223 Maximinus 3 235–238 { Gordianus I. 238 { Gordianus II. 238 { Pupienus Maximus 238 { Balbinus 238 Gordianus III. 6 238–244 Philippus 5 244–249 Marinus 249 Jotapinus 249 Decius 2 249–251 Trebonianus Gallus 3 251–254 Æmilianus 253 Volusianus 254 { Valerian 7 253–260 { Gallienus 15 253–268 Macrianus 2 260–262 Regillianus 2 261–263 Postumus 9 258–267 Lælianus 267 Victorinus 2 265–267
- 78. Marius 268 Claudius II. 2 268–270 Quintillus 270 Aurelian 5 270–275 Vabalathus 5 266–271 Tetricus 5 268–273 Tacitus 1 275–276 Florianus 276 Probus 6 276–282 Bonosus 280 Carus 1 282–283 { Carinus 1 283–284 { Numerianus 1 283–284 Julianus 284 { Diocletian 21 284–305 { Maximianus 19 286–305 Carausius 6 287–293 Allectus 4 293–297 Constantius I. Chlorus 1 305–306 Galerius 6 305–311 Severus 1 306–307 Maximinus 5 308–313 Maxentius 6 306–312 Alexander 311 Constantinus I. (the Great) 31 306–337 Licinius 16 307–323 { Constantinus II. 3 337–340 { Constantius II. 24 337–361 { Constans I. 13 337–350 Nepotianus 350 Vetranio 1 350–351 Magnentius 3 350–353 Decentius 2 351–353 Constantius Gallus 3 351–354 Julianus II. 2 361–363 Jovianus 1 363–364 WESTERN EMPIRE. Valentinianus I. 11 364–375 Valens 14 364–378 Procopius 1 365–366 Gratian 16 367–383 Valentinianus II. 17 375–392
- 79. Theodosius I. (Emperor of the West as well as of the East) 3 392–395 Maximus 5 383–388 Eugenius 2 392–394 Honorius 28 395–423 Constantius III. 421 Constantinus III. 4 407–411 Constans 3 408–411 Maximus 2 409–411 Jovinus 2 411–413 Sebastianus 1 412–413 Priscus Attalus 7 409–416 Johannes 2 423–425 Theodosius II. (Emperor of the West as well as of the East) 2 423–425 Valentinian III. 30 425–455 Petronius Maximus 455 Avitus 1 455–456 Majorianus 4 457–461 Libius Severus III. 4 461–465 Anthemius 5 467–472 Olybrius 472 Glycerius 1 473–474 Julius Nepos 1 474–475 Romulus Augustulus 1 475–476 EASTERN EMPIRE. Valens 14 364–378 Theodosius I. 17 378–395 Arcadius 13 395–408 Theodosius II. 42 408–450 Marcian 7 450–457 Leo I. (Thrax) 17 457–474 Leo II. 474 Zeno 17 474–491 LIST OF KINGS OF ROME. A.U.C. B.C. Romulus 1 753 Numa Pompilius 716 Tullus Hostilius 673
- 80. Ancus Martius 640 Tarquinius I. 616 Servius Tullius 578 Tarquinius II. 534 HISTORICAL PERIODS. B.C. Foundation of Rome April 21, 753 Rome ruled by kings 753–510 Republican period—consuls 510–27 Dictatorship instituted 501 Decemvirs governed 540 Gauls take Rome 398 Consuls re-established 366 Rome governs the whole of Italy 266 Carthage destroyed 146 First Triumvirate 60 Cæsar assassinated 44 The Empire ruled from Rome 27 B.C.-306 A.D. Empire divided 337 Fall of Western Empire 476 Rome the capital of United Italy 1870
- 81. VISITOR'S ROMAN DIRECTORY ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED. GUIDE TO USEFUL INFORMATION. Owing to constant changes in the information desired by Visitors, Mr. S. Russell Forbes publishes The Directory and Bulletin fortnightly, in which will be found all the latest information required—church ceremonies, city news, and recent discoveries, etc. The editor cannot hold himself responsible for any changes, hours of entry, or arrangements of contents of Museums. The shops recommended are from personal experience; their prices are fixed. The following are correct to the moment of going to press:— Archæological Association—93 Via Babuino, 2o po Archæological Society (British and American)—76 Via della Croce. Arts, British Academy—22A Via S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Artists' Colourman—Dovizielli, 136 Via Babuino. Articles of Religion—Valenzi, 76 Piazza di Spagna. ARTISTS IN ROME, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN. Artists are invited to send their names and addresses for insertion; also notice as to change of studio, etc. PAINTERS E. Benson American 21 Via Quirinale. D. Benton American 33 Via Margutta. C. C. Coleman American 33 Via Margutta. Henry Coleman English 33 Via Margutta. F. R. Coleman English 33 Via Margutta. Mrs. Carson American 107B Quattro Fontane. W. Lane Conolly English 17 Via Margutta. Glennie English 17 Via Margana. W. S. Haseltine American Palazzo Altieri.
- 82. C. Poingdestre English 32 Via dei Greci. W. A. Shade American 123 Via Sistina. A. Strutt English 81 Via della Croce. L. Terry American Vicolo degl' Incurabili. J. R. Tilton American 20 Via S. Basilio. E. Vedder American Villa Fern, outside Porta del Popolo. P. Williams English 65 Via Babuino. SCULPTORS. E. Battersby English 10 Via dei Greci. H. Cardwell English 52 Via Margutta. J. Donoghu American 19 Via Palestro. M. Ezekiel American 17 Piazza Termini. Mrs. Freeman American 30 Angelo Custodi. R. S. Greenough American 54 Via Margutta. A. E. Harnisch American 58B Via Sistina. C. B. Ives American 53B Via Margutta. E. Keyser American 83 Via Margutta. Miss Lewis American 70 Via Babuino. L. Macdonald English 2 Piazza Barberini. R. Rogers American 53 Via Margutta. F. Simmons American 73 Via S. Nicolò da Tolentino. W. W. Story American 2 Via S. Martino. C. Summers English 53 Via Margutta. I. Swinerton Isle of Man Palazzo Swinerton, 2 Via Montebello. Miss Varney American 51 Via Margutta. ARTISTS, NATIVE AND FOREIGN. Aldi Painter 13 Via S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Alt Painter 72 Via S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Altini Sculptor 92 Via 20 Settembre. Amici Sculptor 20 Passeggiata di Ripetta. Anderlini Sculptor 33 Vicolo Barberini. Benzoni Sculptor 91 Via dei Bastioni. Bertaccini Painter 72 Via Sistina. Bigi Sculptor 42 Via Flaminia. Bompiani Painter 14 Passeggiata Ripetta. Buzzi Painter 5 Via Margutta. Corrodi Painter 8 Via Incurabili. Curion Painter 75A Via Quattro Fontani. Costa Painter 33 Via Margutta.
- 83. Ethofer Painter 16 Passeggiata Ripetta. Faustini Painter Villa Fern. Ferrari Sculptor 38 Piazza Barberini. Franz Painter 96 Piazza S. Claudio. Gallori Sculptor 113 Via Margutta. Grandi Painter 37 Via Porta Pinciana. Guglielmi Sculptor 155 Via Babuino. Leonardi Painter Via Quattro-Fontane. Maccagnani Sculptor 44 Via Flaminia. Maccari Painter 222 Via Ripetta. Mantovani Painter 39 Via dell' Anima. Martens Painter 72 Via Sistina. Masini Sculptor 37 Passeggiata Ripetta. Mazzolini Painter Via S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Molinari Painter 13 Vicolo S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Monteverdi Sculptor 8 Piazza Indipendenza. Regis Emma Painter 33 Via Margutta. Scifoni Painter 37 Via Tritoni. Simonetti Painter 8 Via S. Apollinare. Tadolini Sculptor 150A Via Babuino. Vertuni Painter 53 Via Margutta. CARRIAGE TARIFF. ONE HORSE. TWO HORSES. OPEN. COUPE. LANDAU. Day. Night. Day. Night. Day. Night. l. c. l. c. l. c. l. c. l. c. l. c. Course or ride inside walls 1 0 1 20 1 20 1 30 2 0 2 50 In the one- horse carriages more than two Persons pay extra. 0 20 0 40 0 20 0 40 Course to Tramway 1 20 1 60 1 40 2 0 2 50 2 80
- 84. outside Porta S. Lorenzo. Calling off the Stand to take up, one quarter of a course extra. Calling and not engaging, half a course must be paid. The hour, inside the walls. 2 0 2 20 2 25 2 50 3 0 3 50 Every quarter over the hours 0 45 0 50 0 55 0 60 0 70 0 85 Outside the walls up to the second milestone 2 50 3 0 4 0 Every quarter over the hours 0 50 0 60 0 80 To the Cemetery of S. Lorenzo 2 20 2 70 2 50 3 0 3 50 4 0 Every quarter over the hours 0 50 0 65 0 60 0 70 0 85 0 95 GALLERIES, MUSEUMS, AND VILLAS OF ROME.
- 85. GALLERIES. OPEN EVERY DAY. Barberini 12 till 4 Capitol* (entrance, ½ lira) 10 till 3 Lateran 10 till 3 S. Luke 10 till 3 Vatican (permission) (Closed on Saturday.) 9 till 3 Monte di Pietà 8 till 3 MONDAY. Borghese 9 till 3 Corsini (at Easter every day) 9 till 3 TUESDAY. Doria (on festivals the day following) 10 till 2 Spada 10 till 1 Colonna 11 till 3 WEDNESDAY. Borghese 9 till 3 Rospigliosi 9 till 3 THURSDAY. Colonna 11 till 3 Corsini (at Easter every day) 9 till 3 Spada 10 till 1 FRIDAY. Borghese 9 till 3 Doria (on festivals the day following) 10 till 2 SATURDAY. Colonna 11 till 3 Rospigliosi 9 till 3 Corsini (at Easter every day) 9 till 3 Spada(entrance, ½ lira) 10 till 1 Farnese (by special permission of the French Ambassador). MUSEUMS. OPEN EVERY DAY. Capitol* (entrance, ½ lira) 10 till 3
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