Ran ben shaya 3rd year

THE NATURAL PARADOX An Essay In Two Parts

Ran Ben Shaya

History and Theory Will Orr

TABLE OF CONTENT

Foreword..........................................................................................................................................1-2

PART 1

FORESTS: ORIGINS & CONTRADICTION Introduction....................................................................................................................................3-4 “The Tale Of Giants” - Sylvan Origins............................................................................................5-6 The Profanity of the Forest & The Rise of The Civil World............................................................7 The Sacredness of The Forest..........................................................................................................8-9 Forest Etymology and The Sylvan Origin of Rome.......................................................................10 The Legend of Rome’s Foundation.................................................................................................11-12 Oslomarka - A Modern Paradigm of Forest - City Relationship..................................................13-14 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................15

PART 2

THE NATURAL & THE HUMAN ARTIFICE: OVERCOMING SECOND NATURE General Introduction......................................................................................................................16 Introducing First & Second Nature...............................................................................................16-17 The Place Where Stones Have Two Sides.......................................................................................17-18 The Verum Factum Principle..........................................................................................................18 Giambattista Vico’s ‘New Science’ Frontispiece...........................................................................19 Divergent Position..........................................................................................................................20 First Nature Through The Hands of Man......................................................................................20 Ekeberg Natural Reserve................................................................................................................21 First Nature - A Shift In Scale of Perception.................................................................................22 The Blue Wood Paradigm ...............................................................................................................22-25 Second Nature: Internal Complexities...........................................................................................26 The Return of Prosthesis................................................................................................................27 The Body..........................................................................................................................................28 The Building.....................................................................................................................................29-37 The City............................................................................................................................................38-39 What Next.......................................................................................................................................40 BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................................41

Natural. Seemingly intuitive word every average

person uses on a regular basis to describe their surroundings, personal belongings or the products which they consume. Yet all of this talk of ‘natural’ is convoluted and perplexed into the history and origins of humanity, it is in fact a form of ‘Pandora’s Box’ that is yet to be solved. Thus, this talk of ‘natural’ is to be thought of , discussed, questioned and doubted in the same regular fashion to which one uses it in elements of every day life.

This two part essay attempts to address the

historical role of the forest in the rise of human civilisation and as a consequence, the ‘Natural Paradox’ that has evolved and perplexed alongside the gradual modernization of the Western civil world and the domain of the city. While synthesizing themes and works of multiple philosophers, theorists and architects, I believe one must never forget to consider the intrinsic role of sensorial and instinctual intuition found in every human being. This, of course must come in tandem with theoretical thinking and historical observation to contextual it. Thus, How might rational thinking and instinctual being come together within the perpetual dialogue between natural and artificial, forest and city, human and non-human, ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’ ?

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Figure. 1 The Golden Age by Lucas Cranach the Elder

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PART 1 FORESTS: ORIGINS & CONTRADICTION Forests ;

arguably one of the most enigmatic and fundamental entities that have dominated the earth since time immemorial. A place and space of human origins, convoluted by contradictions and dichotomies of historical human perceptions of primordial nature. This first part of the essay will attempt raise a discourse around the western perception of forest-human relationship as it would be perhaps naive to establish a conversation on this matter in a general, a-contextual fashion(fig.2). The historical perception of the relationship between the forest and human realms may largely differ depending on the specific context to which they relate. Thus, within the scope of western (primarily European) discourse, forests sway between divergent roles: a prolific ground for the human imaginarium and as a contrasting entity to the definitive and unambiguous nature of the city, established within the clearing of the forest1.

The British anthropologist Tim Ingold Emphasises a crucial differentiation between Western and non-Western perception of the natural world in his book The Perception of the Environment, placing the two position as completely different departure points, which should not be treated as a singular position on the matter of human - natural relationships and more specifically within forest thematics.

Ingold writes:

“ Western ontology whose point of departure is that of a mind detached from the world,

and that has literally to formulate it – to build an intentional world in consciousness – prior to any attempt at engagement. The contrast, I repeat, is not between alternative views of the world; it is rather between two ways of apprehending it, only one of which (the Western) may be characterised as the construction of a view, that is, as a process of mental representation. As for the other, apprehending the world is not a matter of construction but of engagement, not of building but of dwelling, not of making a view of the world but of taking up a view in it2.

”

Figure. 2 “A comparison between ‘non-Western’ and ‘Western’ intentional worlds assumes the primacy of the Western ontology, with its dichotomy between nature and culture, or between physical substance and conceptual form.”

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1. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.7) 2 Ingold, Tim. The Perception Of The Environment. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. (p.42)

The differentiation between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ “intentional worlds”

(fig.2) that Ingold introduces, is a form of prerequisite for containing the discourse of forest-human relationship with a more cautious and perhaps less disregarding treatment of the subject. This separation is utilized here in order to avoid, on one hand, a form of comparative analysis of ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ perception of the natural world, and on the other, an invalid generalization of the natural world and its perception .

Taking up on the point of departure of western ontology (“...a mind detached

from the world”), how does urban life mitigate heavy utilisation of the forest while attempting to protect and preserve it at the same time? How could this complex relationship be better understood? How can a better understating of the contradicting facets of the forest in the eyes of western civilizations, strengthen the balance between utilisation and exploitation of the forest and the exploration and appreciation of its various characteristic?

Figure. 3 Woodpile, Michael Kena (1990)

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Figure. 4 ‘The Tale Of Vico’s Giants’. Ran Ben Shaya (2016)

‘THE TALE OF GIANTS’ - SYLVAN ORIGINS

The flood changed the face of the earth as it was. Wild, primeval forests spread

across the earth burying all traces of civilisation within their shadows. Noah’s descendants, the last remaining survivors of mankind, slowly morphed over the generations into nefarious creatures in the from of “giants”3, condemned to live a consciousness - less life of beastial freedom within the shadows of the forest canopies. The Giants were deprived of the intellectual and perceptual complexity of the human mind and possessed no sense of restraint, existing in a state of freedom form notions of terror and authority. Two long centuries from Noah’s time, the Giants knew nothing of what lies beyond or above the extents of the forest, until change began to occur. The earth grew drier, and water from the soil had risen to the skies. Roaring thunders reappeared for the first time since the great flood and the sky burst with lightning. As thunder grew strong and lightening flashed vigorously, terror sparked within the hearts of the Giants as they raised their eyes and became aware, for the first time, of the skies that lie beyond the canopies of the forest. As flickering light transversed through the dense closure of foliage, the Giants could only see undefined pulses of illumination with no definitive view of the sky. The Giants were naturally drawn to imagine the skies that they were where unable to clearly see. Through this moment of imagination, the sky above took the form of a vast animated body in their vacant minds, giving birth to the first element that redefined their faded humanity; Jove, the creator of the world, dwelling in the sky. The Giant’s perceived Jove as divine authority, concealing himself while communicating his will through means of celestial signs, redefining the forest as a realm of profanity, an entity that is obstructing the communication of his intentions.4 “…At the origin of the first universal institution of humanity, that is, religion, was a disclosure of logos, or horizon of sense. The world suddenly became meaningful. It became phenomenal. It became, precisely,a world - and no longer a mere habitat”.5 The above, semi-fictional narrative is paraphrased from the writings of Robert Pogue Harrison in his book: ‘Forest, The Shadows of civilisation’, on the work of enlightenment theorist Giambattista Vico.

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3. Vico, G. and Bergin, T. (1948). The new science of Giambattista Vico. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press (p.119) 4. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.5-6) 5. Ibid

The ‘Tale of Giants’ thematically utilises the biblical story of the Genesis Flood

following the descendants of Noah in a post flooded world, to construct a theory on the evolution of mankind and the emergence of civilisation form the depths of forest. Giambattista Vico was an 18th century Italian theorist and philosopher from Naples, historically renowned for his prolific book New Science that was first published in 1725. The New Science attempted to establish an understanding of the psychology and archaic relationship between humans and forests as a form of theoretical model subdividing the order and evolution of civilisation into five institutional stages; 6

“

This was the order of human institutions: first the FOREST after that the HUTS then the VILLAGES next the CITIES and finally the ACADEMIES “ 7

6. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.2) 7. Vico, G. and Bergin, T. (1948). The new science of Giambattista Vico. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press (p.79)

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THE PROFANITY OF THE FOREST & THE RISE OF THE CIVIL WORLD

Much of the historical discourse concerning the relationship between the

forest and human domain revolves around the contradictions that coexist in the perception and interaction of mankind with the sylvan environment through out the evolution of civilisation. From ancient history to modern days, forests have had a profound effect on civilisations both as cultural landscape and as a resource for industry and livelihood8 , which perhaps explains Vico’s intentional reference to the forest as an institution, as an entity that exists (or perhaps gradually ceases to exist) for the convenience of ‘man-kind’. The dictionary definition of ’institution’ is ”an organisation founded for a religious, educational, professional, or social purpose; An established law or practice”9. Institutions exist or serve a particular purpose for mankind, therefore they exist as a product of human activity. Vico positions the “universal institutions” of humanity - “Religion , Matrimony, and Burial of the dead “ at the centre of his theoretical model, therefore reasons the paradox of the historical perception of the forest as the catalyst of civilisation and its universal institutions ,but also it’s most ancient obstacle. As derived from Vico’s theory, the forest became an obstructing entity in the communication of gods intentions, suggesting that the emergence of man into the city is a result of religious circumstances that necessitated the existence of humans within the ‘clearing’ of the forest. The idea of the ‘clearing’ is deeply rooted in the historical foundations of cities. According to Vico’s theory, the universal institution of ‘Matrimony’ was a divine command to perpetuate the sexual union of mankind through monogamous ties for the continuation of the human genealogical line. This institution, framed within the religious restraint of monogamy could not sustain itself within the convoluted matrix of the wild forests of freedom, independence and lawlessness. Therefore in order to establish and protect the institution of matrimony under the open skies and the watchful eyes of divine authority, the act of making open space through clearing of pre-existing sylvan (originating or relating to woodlands) territories enables the human family to claim dominion over land10.(fig.5)

“ Where divinity has been identified with the sky, or with the eternal geometry of the stars,or with cosmic infinity, or with “heaven”, the forests become monstrous for they hide the prospect of god ”

This passage taken from Vico’s text

reinforces the perception of the clearing as a form of artificial abstraction of the human domain from its surrounding sylvan environment. It appears that Vico has focused his sight primarily on the abstraction of the forest from the city and its inherent profanity in relation to human’s religious practices, however there are other sides to this equation that relate to the sanctity of the forest and the profound dependency of historical societies upon it.

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8. Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. ,2008. Print.

9. Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/institution [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

10. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.6) 11. Ibid

Figure. 5 Depiction of the city of Nuremberg within a clearing of its surrounding forest.

THE SACREDNESS OF THE FOREST

In contrast to Vico’s perception of the profanity or monstrosity of the forest,

a different angle on the relation of religion to the forest exists in European history, one of sacredness, a source of divinity and its dwelling place. The perception of nature as temple and the forest in particular as sacred enclosure has been manifested in the historical European context as mentioned in Tacitus’s12 writings on the German barbarian tribe’s belief in the forest as the dwelling place of the ultimate god.13 Cornelius Tacitus was a prominent Roman historian who lived between AD 55 - 120. Within his prolific career, Tacitus authored an extensive anthropological study of the German Barbarian’s social, institutional and geographical characteristics in his book ‘Germania’ 14. While Tacitus preceded Vico in history, the study and analysis of the forest in relation to civilisation persisted throughout history altogether, building an understanding of the central role of the sylvan domain in human history. The following excerpt from “Landscape & Memory” by Simon Schama elegantly frames the writings of Tacitus on the Germanic tribes religious affiliation to forest in contrast to the civilised mode of religion within the city; “ Living as they did either in the depths of the forest or beside the reedy swamp, the Germans had managed, more by natural intuition than considered judgment, to preserve a world of timbered virtue. At its heart was a natural religion that believed it degrading to confine worship within masonry walls or to represent gods with human faces. Instead veneration of divinities that lodged within, and were indivisible from the natural phenomena like great oaks, was practiced in the open in holy groves” 15.

12. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.177) 13.Ibid 14.Tacitus, Hutton, M. and Peterson, W. (n.d.). Agricola. Germania. Dialogue on Oratory. 9th ed.

London: Harvard University Press(p.1) 15. Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and memory. London: HarperCollins.(p.84)

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Figure.6 ‘Worship in the Sacred Grove’ Reinier Vinkeles, 1788 - 1790

This dichotomy between forest and cities within western perception is not

exclusive to the aspect of religion, but perhaps merely a catalyst for its separation.

As changes occur in civilisations, cities grow and urban landscapes are formed, the barrier between forest and city continues to thicken, pushing the forest further away from the urban dwellers at the centre of the clearing16, forming a different kind of human civilisation detached both physically and emotionally from the forest as fundamental part of its ancestral origins. In essence the notion of inside and outside, interior and exterior, city and forest define the framework on which contrasts and contradictions materialise within the perception of the forest itself, through the eyes of a particular city,culture or region.

FOREST ETYMOLOGY & THE SYLVAN ORIGIN OF ROME

Perhaps questioning the etymological origin of the word ‘forest’ in itself sets

the basic framework to understand the dichotomies in forest-city dialogue.

Forest is derived from the Latin word ‘foris’, meaning “the area that lies outside the normal law”17 , while the Latin verb ‘forestare’ means ‘to keep out, to place off limits, to exclude’ which suggest the word has little to do with spatial or biological characteristics of the woods but rather a juridical term18 that signifies the abstraction of the forest from the extents of the city functioning as a an edge condition that defines the extents of the urban fabric . While this terminology emerged from the early middle ages, it clearly relates to Vico’s theory of origin of mankind as it denotes the perception of the forest as external element of civil life, the antithesis to the city. The evolution and growth of western cities was heavily dependent their surrounding forests for the consistent supply of construction and fuel wood, while contributing to the establishment culture and national identity19 of their civic surroundings. Having said that, etymology is not yet history, it must be placed within an adequate context to be better examined and historicised.

The sylvan history of Rome serves as ultimate western paradigm to observe and discuss the equation of the forest as the ‘outside’ unlawful territory of the city while also being its source of origin and nostalgic sentiment. The relationship of Rome to its sylvan environment has been historically ambivalent, swaying between its mythical rise and historical decay that are intrinsically linked to the forest. While the context of Rome’s foundation is perhaps mythical history rather than factual history, it clearly sheds light on the significance of the forest to the formation of western civilisations and the rise of the city as the primary dwelling place of ‘mankind’.

16.Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.247) 17. Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print (p.3) 18.Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.2) 19.Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print (p.11)

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THE LEGEND OF ROME’S FOUNDATION

The legend of the foundation of Rome tells the story of Romulus (771BC), an

arguably mythical character who was believed to have enclosed the seven hills of Rome within the singular vast wall, materialising the existing of its civilisation within the clearing of the forest that preceded its existence. The legend tells that Numitor, king of Alba Longa was usurped by his brother Amulius who murdered Numitor’s male offspring leaving his daughter, Rhea Silvia, his only remaining descendant. Amullius destined Rhea Silvia to become a virgin guardian of the sacred fire, ensuring that she would remain childless. According to legend, while Rhea Silvia was preforming her duty of protecting the sacred fire forced upon her

by Amullius, she was raped and impregnated at the altar of sacred fire by Mars, the Roman god of war. Soon after, Rhea Silvia gave birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus. Amullius, concerned with own political interests and horrified by the religious profanity of this monstrous birth, ordered the twin boys to be drowned in the Tiber.20 Despite Ammulius’s command, the murder of the infants was never carried out and the twin boys where left in a basket on the river bank. The twins were discovered by a mythic figure of a she-wolf, that came down from the forested hills, who cared for the infants and suckled them until a forest herdsman named Faustulus took it upon himself to take the infants into his care. As years passed, Romulus and Remus, heirs to the thrown of Alba Longa , grew up as brigand dwellers in the forest of Latium. Ultimately, Romulus grew strong in the forest and aided his paternal grandfather (Numitor) to take back the throne from Amullius,

Figure. 7 16th-century fresco of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus

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20. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.47-48)

after which he aspired to establish a city of his own - Rome. In order to build and populate Rome, Romulus declared the city an asylum within a clearing, open to all forest dwellers who yearned for a life of civil society and domesticated religion.

Thus as Rome grew stronger the city of Alba Longa perished21. Romulus, who once was a forest dweller seeking refuge and shelter in the forest, founded the city on the ironic notion of refuge form sylvan realm that protected him in his youth.

While the story goes far beyond the extent that was covered here, there is

an undeniable link in the foundation of Rome to the theory of Vico previously described. The ‘Forest’ from which man has originated, is obscured from civil life relegated from a space and place of livelihood, culture and inhabitation to the edge condition and resource supply of the emerging city within its clearing. Yet again, contradictions appear to be at the core of the historical relation of forest and cities. Just as Rome has risen in the clearing, alluring forest dwellers in to a civilised mode of life , it has also fallen to decay at the hands of German forest tribes who remained true to their sylvan habitat22. Through these historical insights into ‘human’ sylvan history, one might begin to understand the forest as a composition of multiple contradictions; both sacred and profane, cultured and wild, fearsome and seductive. Forest as place and space through which city culture, history and folklore have materialised23.

Figure.8 Teutoburg Forest AD 9 “Death in the forest”, Peter Dennis

21.Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print (p.48) 22. Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Fore st and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print(p.20) 23. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space And Place. Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 2014. Print.

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OSLOMARKA - A MODERN PARADIGM OF FOREST- CITY RELATIONS

In a more modern, contemporary context , the observation of these contradiction

and dichotomies previously discussed can be seen through a different European setting. The cities in the Nordic region have been historically maintaining a form of balance between contradicting aspects of their relation to their surrounding sylvan environment24. Nordic cities were often integrated with their adjacent forest environment, with a tendency for a more ambiguous understating of the existence of the city within the clearing of the forest as mentioned before but also struggling to maintain the balance between the forest as a resource and forest as a cultural foundation of the city.

Oslo, Norway is surrounded by approximately 170,00 square kilometre of

forest territory collectively called “Oslomarka”. According to statistics, 95% of the residents of Oslo has 300m or less to travel to the nearest green area of at least 0.2 ha in size25. Throughout its history, the forest of Oslo has been utilised for timber and charcoal production as well as fishing and hunting activities, while recreational activities began to emerge in the midst of the 19th century through the establishments of ski associations. Thus, alongside the rising population of the city, the recreational use of the forest became of equal importance to industrial activities. In different means from the religious connotation previously discussed in relation to the forest, perhaps a different kind of institutionalisation of the forest occurs in Oslo, alongside contradicting facets to its dialogue with urban local society, they require a certain kind of adaptation of the forest to the needs of the city and its inhabitants.

Figure.9 Teutoburg Forest AD 9 “Death in the forest”, Peter Dennis.

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24.Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print. (p.8) 25. Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print.(p.168)

For instance in the 1920s, Oslomarka underwent infrastructural adaptations

for the easier transportation of timber through the establishment of a network of roads26. This infrastructural intervention was added to the pre-existing method of timber floating across rivers within Oslomarka, altogether transforming the sylvan landscape into a semi-industrial zone. As population dramatically increased in Oslo from 18,000 in the mid 19th century to 450,000 toward the end of the twentieth century, the forest became a source of conflict. The city required larger volumes of drinking water which were primarily reliant on the same rivers used by the timber industry for timber floating. More over this increase in population juxtaposed with the physical vicinity of the forest to the city’s central territory led to the recreational enjoyment of the forest by over 600,000 people from Oslo and adjacent districts of the region27. Industry was no longer the dominating factor in the human-forest relation of the city, but rather the rising affection and recreational experience of the forest became an indispensable factor in peoples everyday life28. This relationship that Oslo has to its surrounding forest may be divided into two subcategories of users; those who depend on the forest for their activities (recreational,spiritual etc) and those who decrease forest areas as a result of their activities (industrial, resource extraction etc)29. Through the implementation of various regulations on the use of the forest, Oslo continues to pursue the balancing act between the industrial importance of the forest and the cultural hub that it has become throughout its history.

Figure.10 Askeladden and the troll drawn by Theodor Kittelsen.

“After Askeladden had been chopping wood for a little while, the troll came up to him and said: “If you’re chopping down my forest, I’ll kill you!”

Depiction of Norwegian folklore around the belief that trolls have historically dwelled within the forests of Norway.

26. Hummel, John, and Marc Parren. Forests, A Growing Concern. Print. (p.43-46) 27. Ibid 28. Ibid 29. Ibid

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This should not suggest that one or the other should cease to exist, as both

ways of utilising the forest bear importance to the local culture and economical sustenance of the city. Having said that, what it essential in these two conflicting facets of the human - forest relationship is precisely the search for balance between them. Perhaps Oslo is not a paradigm of a large 21st century European city; however it continuously places the forest as a central element within the identity of the city. The inhabitants are invested in the protection and utilisation of the forest altogether.

In the realm of theory concerning the sylvan origin of mankind there are no explicit answers perhaps for what is right or wrong. Contradictions and contrasts will continue to dwell under the forest canopies surrounding urban civilisations.

Western civilisation will perhaps continue to aggregate around growing cities and the clearing will continue to expand , but the challenge is to accept the contradictions of human relation to forest and search for a balance between the different forces involved.

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PART 2 THE NATURAL & THE HUMAN ARTIFICE: OVERCOMING SECOND NATURE We humans who have, emerged from the shadows of the forest; thrive, evolve

and innovate based on our innate discontent with the insufficient nature of our own bodies. We are increasingly becoming incapable of sustaining our lives without the auxiliary we apply to our limbs and our surrounding environment.

Thus, the very essence of humanity is its ability to construct, invent and survive within a form of separation from the primal, unmediated natural world. The artificial constructs of human inhabitation are so deeply engrained in western culture and its history, that we no longer perceive them as unnatural. Inevitably, the fundamental question of what mankind perceives as natural lies at the very core of cities as the prevalent mode of human inhabitation. As cities continue to expand within the clearing of its antecedent terrain, forests drift further and further away from the city centre, condemning the urban dweller to forget the primal source from which his current habitat originated. The force of civic expansion retains an obscure edge where history meets the earth, raising the imminent threat that is the loss of ‘pure nature’, the disappearance of boundaries and the innate human ability to sense30. Thus, Where does one still find unmediated and unaltered ‘primal nature’? How do we overcome ‘Second Nature’ and link back to the very essence of our being? To the place where stones have two sides and wood is not yet timber31?

INTRODUCING FIRST AND SECOND NATURE

In the following

excerpt from Deborah Cook’s book Adorno On Nature the writings and theoretical position of renowned German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno shed light on the relationship between people and nature and the role of history in establishing the strata within that relationship, commonly referred to as the ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’: “Nature’s historical character is evident in the growth, maturation and decline of natural things, but history also leaves its mark on nature when we treat natural things instrumentally and reduce them to their exchange value…history can be read in the increasingly aggressive behaviours to which civilisation gives rise when it demands that we constantly exercise rational control over ourselves and over external nature…. the idea of natural history makes visible the damage that has been inflicted on both human and non-human nature by our compulsive attempts to dominate nature to satisfy survival imperatives32”.

In the first part of this essay, the sylvan origin of Rome has introduced an

account of the rise of western civilisation within the uncompromising eye of the forest clearing. Rome is not a singular paradigm but rather an emblem of the abstraction of civilisation from its sylvan origins.33

30.Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print. (p.247) 31.Ibid 32.Cook, Deborah. “Critical materialism,” in Adorno on Nature. Acumen Publishing.2011.print. (p.17)

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33. In fact, Roman and Greek civilisations have promoted their own advancement at cost of relentless deforestation of the Mediterranean forests from which they have ascended.

Forest morphed into Roman agricultural lands and Athenian ship fleets forever

changing the perception of the natural and of human artifice34. In order to further establish an understanding of the paradoxical character of word - ‘Natural’, the view of the natural and the artificial must be discussed in broader terms that transcend beyond the scope of human - forest dichotomies. In this regards, the perception of “the natural” may perhaps be dissected in correlation with its role within the human and non-human realms. The emergence of the theoretical framework of First and Second Nature informs an understanding of the city in relation to itself and in relation to the unmediated nature that lies at the edge of its clearing.

Theodor Adorno defined ‘Second Nature’ as “ the negation of any nature that

might be conceived as the first”. Thus, how does one establish the basic concept of First and Second Nature in relation to Adorno’s remark? Does he mean that the very essence of Second Nature is its contradiction with ‘First Nature’? Where is the line drawn between the two?

‘First Nature’ is the material environment that enables and prefigures the social relations that characterise ‘Second Nature’. As the social world appears to have materialised ‘naturally’ through the course of human history it seems to the individual that these social relations are unchangeable, when in fact they are ultimately revocable as they function as a form of supplement to the immutable laws of primal nature that govern the human and non-human worlds altogether.35 The Perception and definition of ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’ as observed by Adorno appear to be intrinsically interlinked with a clear hierarchy put in place by civilisation. The natural, unmediated ‘First Nature’ is idealistically positioned as a prefigurement of social, institutional and practical constructs that compose the civil world. This from of instrumental purposiveness of nature strips it of its independence from human appropriation, thus, through human domination, nature is prevented from developing or functioning as it spontaneously would, which pertains to Adorno’s choice of the term ‘negation’ in his definition of ‘Second Nature’36. Perhaps that is precisely the reason why it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the modern city dweller to draw the line between ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’, hazed in the disintegrating condition of our primal instincts and senses that have enabled societies to survive in the wild.

THE PLACE WHERE STONES HAVE TWO SIDES

An anecdote introduced by Robert Pogue Harrison in his book ‘Forests - The

Shadows of Civilisation’ can beautifully demonstrate the diminishing place of First Nature in the blinded eyes of city dwellers. Pogue refers to the edge or outskirts of the city as the province in which a more ambiguous dialogue between First and Second Nature is still observable: “ The provincial dweller knows that if you pull a from out of the ground and turn it upside down, you are likely to find on its underside a covert world of soil, roots, worms and insects. A non-provincial dweller either never suspects or else tends to forget such a thing, for the stones that make up his city have already been abstracted from the ground, wiped clean, and made to order37”.

34. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print.(p.55) 35. Ibid 36. Ibid

37. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print. (p.246)

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This fundamental notion that within the realm of primal nature at the provincial

edge of the city, a stone has two sides, pertains to the essence of First Nature which is to an extent unknown and unintelligible to the human eye as it is the making of forces (who some might call divine or godly) that are beyond our full comprehension.

In this regards, the “Tale of Giants” by Giambatista Vico introduced in the first part of this essay may be observed with a more critical eye toward the underlying forces of abstraction of ‘Second Nature’ from ‘First Nature’. Vico’s extrapolated biblical story of the flood (refer to pg.5) transforms through his fictional extension to a form of mythical narrative on which he based his line of theory regarding the origin and abstraction of mankind from nature38. Vico claims that the beastial state of existence humans were relegated to in the post flooded world, merely allowed them to encounter nature as an incomprehensible agglomeration of unrelated particulars which they were incapable of interlinking into a meaningful construct; what one might call a world. At that state of bestial solitude, any sense of community or creative faculty were virtually nonexistent, but once a singular ‘act of nature’ unveiled the sky before the giants, that was a pivotal point in the process of re-humanisation and the foundation of the civil world. In essence, the process of inscription of meaning to natural phenomena (in this case the strike of thunder as a symbol of divine authority in Vico’s ‘Tale of Giants”) are inextricable elements that define the matrix of meanings of the civil world39. This core of Vico’s position on the matter, inherently rely on his philosophical distinction between the unknown and the known in relation to nature and human artifice.

THE VERUM FACTUM PRINCIPLE

Vico was known for establishing the principle of ‘Verum Factum’ to substantiate

his position on the distinction between the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ world.

Through the terminology of Verum - that which is true and Factum - that which is made, Vico argued that what is true and intelligible to the human mind can only ever be his own creation or embedded within the ‘man-made’. Vico claims that humanity can only fully explore and pertain to know the things that we make. The concept of ‘true’ is dissimilar to the concept of ‘truth’ within the ‘Verum Factum’ Principle, therefore to create something is not to comprehend its true essence but rather to enable the possibility of making it known. Thus, ‘First Nature’ is perhaps deemed as the unknown or perhaps the un-knowable as it was created by a non-human force (Vico refers to as God) and therefore can only ever be known to the creating entity behind the natural world. This notion relates to Vico’s ‘Tale of Giants’ through the idea that the civil world emerged only through the articulation of meaning assigned to natural phenomenons within a network of signs, symbols, rhetoric and social organisation that is abstracted from the unknown and unintelligible realm of primal nature, as beautifully summarised in the following passage by Laura Ephraim: “…The metaphorical products of collective human praxis rework and augment reality, infusing matter and motion with the meaning they previously lacked”40.

38. Ephraim, L. (2013). Beyond the Two-Sciences Settlement: Political Theory, [online] 41(5), (p.710-737). Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24571364 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

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39. Ibid 40. Ibid

Figure.11 Giambattista Vico’s ‘New Science’ Frontispiece.

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DIVERGENT POSITIONS

As seductive and convincing as Vico’s fictional narrative ( ‘Tale of Giants’) is,

it must be juxtaposed with divergent positions that demonstrates the lack of consensus on the relationship between the human and non-human realms. For instance, for 16th century French political philosopher Montesquieu, any form of primal nature, within the “Ages of Man”, is already ‘Second Nature’. Montesquieu argues that attempting to claim the existence of “pure” nature that is independent of human politics does an injustice to the shifting relationship between people and nature that ultimately constitutes the framework of any society41. Another instance, slightly different then that of Vico and Montesquieu, is the position of 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche claimed that “we combat our inborn heritage and implant in ourselves a new habit, a new instinct, a second nature, so that our first nature withers away”42, therefore he acknowledges ‘First Nature’ as a form of disintegrating nature in relation to humanity rather then saying that it is already ‘Second Nature’ by default when it comes to its place within the “Ages of Man”. Nietzsche positions the atrophy of ‘First Nature’ as an alarming issue within human history as Second Nature is inevitably weaker than the first43. The slightly divergent positions of these prominent thinkers of different eras suggests that humanity continuously struggles to reach a consensus on the very definition of what nature is. As it seems this ‘Natural Paradox’ will continue to perplex the human mind especially in light of the dramatic expansion of modern cities that are saturated with digital and technological stimuli.

Despite this attempt to define ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’, if one questions the current world and times in which one lives, does ‘First Nature’ still exists? or perhaps coexists in a world dominated by humans (‘Second Nature’)? If it indeed exists, how does one relate to the untamed, unmediated forms of ‘First Nature’, without compromising it with political, social or artificial mechanisms of the civil world?

FIRST NATURE THROUGH THE HANDS OF MAN

Acritical paradigm that demonstrates this contrasting tension and inevitable

hybridisation of First and Second Nature, can be observed in the means through which mankind materialises the idealistic appeal to the unmediated, natural world. The characterisation or acknowledgement of First Nature within the “Ages of Man” is produced through various regulations, institutions and practices which are of course an inherent part of human (Second) nature44. The ideal of ‘wilderness’ as a form of pure nature that is devoid of human intervention is in fact produced through legal regulations; the institutions of natural parks that inevitably generate a ‘ready made’ experiences of pure nature, demarcated and contained. This remark is by no means intended to devalue or discourage the yearning for untamed wild nature but rather to emphasises an awareness for the human practices that sustain it45.

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41. Archer, C., Ephraim, L. and Maxwell, L. (2013). Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural Through Politics. New York: Fordham University Press, (p.12) 42.Ibid 43.Ibid 44.Archer, C., Ephraim, L. and Maxwell, L. (2013). Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural Through Politics. New York: Fordham University Press. (p.15) 45.Ibid

Example of protective provisions applied to the Ekeberg nature reserve

Figure.12 Ekeberg Natural Reserve.

Example of a forest natural reserve in Oslo protected by means of political tools and legislation. This is an original site map drafted by Norwegian authorities, demarcating the extents of the natural reserve in Ekeberg, though no physical boundaries demarcate the reserve.

1.The vegetation, including dead bushes and trees, is protected from damage and destruction. It is forbidden to remove plants or parts from the reserve. New plant species must not be introduced.

Planting or sowing is not allowed.

2.Wildlife, including haystacks and hills, is protected from damage, destruction and unnecessary disturbance. Dosing of animals is not allowed.

3.No measures may be taken that may change the natural environment, such as construction of buildings, facilities, other permanent or temporary facilities, provision of caravans, brackets, boats, pipelines, land cables or sewers, road construction, dredging, cultivation, drainage and other types of dripping, extraction, filling or planning of mass, sewage treatment or other concentrated pollution, waste disposal, fertilization, liming and the use of chemical pesticides.

Foreclosure is prohibited. The listing is not complete.

4.Any destruction of the bedrock is forbidden, including hammer use, drilling, blasting and collecting samples from solid mountains. Likewise, it is forbidden to erase or paint characters, figures and the like on mountain or rocky blocks.

5.Motor freight, including start and landing of aircraft, is prohibited.

6.Cycling and horse riding outside the existing walkway are prohibited.

7.Use of the nature reserve for sporting events or other major events is prohibited.

8.Camping and tents are prohibited.

9.The Danish Environmental Protection Agency may, for reasons of the purpose of protection, by regulation prohibit or regulate the traffic in all or part of the nature reserve.

10.Fire burning and use of barbecue is forbidden.

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FIRST NATURE: A SHIFT IN SCALE OF PERCEPTION

As long as human civilisation continues to exist, perhaps the search and perception of ‘First Nature’ must shift from the territorial scale to a micro scale of fragmented elements within the natural world that still maintain their unmediated ‘as nature intended’ characteristics. The territorial scale forces humanity to deploy political tools to identify ‘First Nature’ as separate entity from the civil world which ultimately places the natural world at the mercy of humans.

Perhaps ‘First Nature’ is ultimately found within the smallest of scales; A fallen branch on forest floor, a decaying log near a forest creek, the trails of a wild animal or the scent of a changing season. This shift in scale is arguably a matter of individual perceptional change rather then societal or urban one. Each person is in charge of his own senses and has the liberty to stimulate them at any given moment. Therefore, perhaps the issue is not that ‘First Nature’ is overtaken by the ‘Second Nature’ of the human domain but rather that it is simply reduced in scale and therefore requires a more careful observation of the natural realm that surrounds us.

THE BLUE WOOD PARADIGM

In order to substantiate this statement I propose a paradigm I formed for personal experience, I call ‘The Blue Wood Paradigm’:

In the Nordic winter of November 2017 I was taking part in a research trip on an island off the southern coast of Norway called Lyngor. As I was walking through the un-pampered woods of this minimally inhabited island, I came across a peculiar piece of wood on the forest floor. This piece of wood was rotten and damp but it was unlike anything I had ever seen; the piece of wood was as blue as the sky, which, of course as an average city dweller appeared to me,for a brief moment, as a form artificial pigmentation. Quite quickly after encountering the ‘Blue Wood’, a kind of instinctual, inexplicable force took over me rectifying my initial doubt regarding the wood’s source of blue colour. Though I had no credible proof or source of information at that moment to establish weather wood was naturally or artificially pigmented my intuition led me to fully believe it was indeed a natural phenomenon. A few kilometres ahead in the woods, I came across a similar piece of wood with a similar ‘sky blue’ colour. This is when my intuition was reassured that human intervention had nothing to do with this piece of wood. While part of me was inclined to believe the blue colour within that first piece of wood was ‘fake’ or artificial, my instinctual intuitive side was urging me to think otherwise. Following some research on this peculiar natural phenomenon, I found that this type of blue pigmentation is synthesized by a particular type of fungi who finds its ideal habitat in decomposing wood found of the forest floor (fig.13). From that moment on, every time I step into a forest, I look for that flickering blue colour on the forest floor, perceiving ,I dare say, ‘First Nature’ on a minute,subtle scale.

This paradigm is meant to suggest that it is possible to perceive and experience

the force and intelligence of ‘First Nature’ with out fully comprehending it at a first glance, relying on pure innate intuition and senses which in themselves define our natural state of being independent of the cradle of the civil world.

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BLÅ BLUE

VED WOOD

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Sectioal Analysis of Beetle & Fungi habitat on a The Bark beetle carries and transport the fungal spores through a unique cavity in its mouth and allows it to distribute with the decaying tree it has attacked.

Adult Beetle mb

i o ti c R e la ti o n s

Bark Beetlecens

Ecology: Saprobic on well decayed, barkless logs and sticks, including those of both hardwoods and conifers; Grows or appears primarily on Pine, aspen, oak and ash.

Discoloration: caused by the production of the pigment xylindein synthesized by the the staining fungi.

Xylindein The blue/green discoloration identified on the tree artefact indicate the presence of xylindein; A quinone pigment responsible for the blue green charachteristics of the infected wood.

Larva Stage II

Larva Stage I

y

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Chlorociboria Aeruginascens

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Figure.13 Blue Wood Analysis

Pupa 2-4mm

M ay

The blue stain fungus travels from tree to tree on a special structure in the beetle’s mouthparts. This is its means to travel to new trees. The fungus helps the beetle by stopping the tree from producing its natural defense resin, and the beetles are hence able to mine and lay eggs while avoiding the tree’s defenses.

hi p

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Annual Cycle of Bark Beetle Reproduction Within the Infected Deadwood

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Exit Holes of Bark Beetle

Cavities created by bark beetles for laying eggs

urated areas indicated the parts tree artifact tha have not been d by the fungi.

The Wooden Artifact was collected on the Island of Lyngor on the south coast of Norway.

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a decaying tree trunk.

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Esthetical Appropritation of Blue Stained Wood

pwood (xylem) ined by Fungi Inner Bark(Phloem) Bark Beetle Habitat

Across history blue wood was a desired rare phenomenon used as an exclusive material for artwork and furniture peices, despite it being considered rotten wood.

Fungal Stians

14th and 15th century Renaissance Italian craftsmen used the wood to provide the blue/green colors in their intricate inlaid intarsia designs Decyaing Pine Tree - vulnerable to infection by Bark beetle and Blue Stain Fungi.

This process bear tremendous financial damges in the timber industry as this stained wood is declared damaged and unusuable for construction

14th century Italian inlaid wood intarsia using blue wood to depict blue elements of the landscape.

The highlighted parts show where the blue wood fragments where inlaid within the overall artwork.

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SECOND NATURE: INTERNAL COMPLEXITIES

The basic construct of ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’ discussed previously does not

yet cover the internal complexity of ‘Second Nature’ within the context of the human domain and more explicitly within the city, as introduced in part one of this essay (refer to p.13-14) through a brief study of Oslo’s relationship to its surrounding forest. While the city in itself as the prominent mode of civil life, is perceived as the primary physical manifestation of Second Nature, it is composed of several sub-stratas that shift form the scale of the human body, to the building and urban scales. According to statistics presented in Ricky Burdett and Dejan Sudjic’s book The Endless City in 201046, 10% of the human population lived in cities in 1900, 50% in 2007 and an estimated 75% in 2050. These informal stats suggest that cities are yet to reach the peak of their civic expansion,which of course has serious implications for the growing abstraction from the non-human realms at the provincial edge of cities. Cities will continue to verticalize and expand outwards, infrastructure will evolve and any relics of ‘natural’ green spaces may (hopefully not) be sacrificed for profit and maximisation of residential and retail spaces. Thus, that ‘Second Nature’ that lies under the concrete and tarmac of the urban domain will distance city dwellers from their natural heritage and sensorial perception of that which is non-human.

Figure.14 ‘The Endless City’ Book Cover Fwatring City Inhabitation Statistics

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46. Burdett, R. and Sudjic, D. (2010). The endless city. London [u.a.]: Phaidon Press.(Cover Page)

THE RETURN OF PROSTHESIS

As the focus of the relationship between the natural and the artificial draws

closer to the internal complexity of the city, the strata that composes ‘Second Nature’ funnels down into an architectural discourse that is informed by the theoretical and historical background introduced thus far in relation to the western human-nature relationship. Setting aside,if only for a moment, the precious but fragile realm of ‘First Nature’ in the “Ages of Man” and its intrinsic importance as the core of human nature, the relation between the natural and the artificial re-emerges within the inner construct of Second Nature itself. This position may be bolstered by Mark Wigley’s essay on ‘Prosthetic Theory’. Wigley opens his essay with the following remark: “ What is it to talk of prosthesis here in architectural discourse? Or, rather, what is it to talk of it again, for was not modern architecture simply the thought of architecture as prosthesis? Displaced from artifice into the artificial, architecture became a technological extension of the body that is neither natural nor cultural. Modern architecture is the space of the artificial”47.

Wigley’s remark introduces the notion of prosthesis as theoretical terminology to address the inherent notion of supplementation of the natural into a form of hybrid construct that could be seen perhaps as the very essence of the human nature, the body and the built environment. Wigley associates prosthesis to architectural discourse through the context of modern architecture which also corresponds to the modernization of cities throughout the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries.

Prosthesis, is an ancient Greek word that means “ addition, application, attachment”48 often misconceived, simply as a form of limb replacement for an impaired human (or otherwise) body.

Figure.15 Artificial Limb, 1850s. From Sigfried Gideon, Mechanization Takes Command.1948

47. Wigley, M. (1991). Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture. Assemblage.(7) 48. Liddell, H., Scott, R., Stuart Jones, H. and McKenzie, R. (2006). Greek-English lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Prosthesis is ultimately an architectural concept, composed of a source and its

supplement, a natural pre-existing core and an artificial - foreign element that supports that which cannot sustain itself. The prosthetic foreign element claims its domain by establishing the place to which it has been added which clearly demonstrates its suitability to its subjected body, however does not fully conceal its foreign nature49. Thus, while intentionally not referring ,at this point, explicitly to the human body, the hybrid construct of natural and artificial elements perhaps relate to the domain of ‘Second Nature’. Wigley reinforces his position on the architectural character of prosthesis by referring to Le Corbusier’s remarks in his book The Decorative Art of Today: “We all need means of supplementing our natural capabilities, since nature is indifferent, inhuman (extra-human), and inclement; we are born naked and with insufficient armour. . . . The barrel of Diogenes, already a notable improvement on our natural protective organs (our skin and scalp), gave us the primordial cell of the house. . . . Our concern is with the mechanical system that surrounds us, which is no more than an extension of our limbs; its elements, in fact, artificial limbs”50.

By means of artificial agency, the civil world is composed of various forms of

prosthetic relationships that extend and supplement the human body. Perhaps it is not the First Nature, the untouched wilderness that is insufficient for humanity in its own right, but rather the inherent human discontent with its physical body, that is incapable of sustaining itself independent of artificial intervention/supplementation. In regards to this statement, perhaps breaking down the prosthetic strata of the human domain can render a clearer framework through which to comprehend and discuss Second Nature. While the different scales are all interdependent and intertwined, it is perhaps beneficial to abstract the different scales of prosthesis, if only for a moment, to then reintroduce them as a whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts. Within this context of city and built environment, in relation to the provincial ‘pure’ nature that demarcates its borders, can city dwellers overcome the desensitising veil of Second Nature and revive the diminishing connection to primal nature no matter the scales through which it may occur?

THE BODY

Perhaps slightly indirectly, Freud alluded to the prosthetic tendencies of

humanity and the inherent need to overcome or physical limitations which have clearly been the primary catalyst for all major human artificial inventions designed to supplement the human body and its immediate habitual environment51. In his prominent book “Civilzation and its Discontents” (1929) Freud states: “With every tool (man) is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. Motor power places gigantic forces at his disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction; thanks to ship and aircraft neither water nor air can hinder his movements; by means of spectacles he corrects defects in the lens of his own eyes;

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49. Wigley, M. (1991). Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture. Assemblage.(7-9) 50. Ibid 51. Wigley, M. (1991). Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture. Assemblage.(8)

…In the photographic camera he has created an instrument which retains the fleeting visual impressions, just as the gramophone retains the equally fleeting auditory ones; both are at bottom materialisations of the power he possesses of recollection, his memory…the dwelling-house was a substitute for the mother’s womb, the first lodging, for which in all likelihood man still longs, and in which he was safe and felt at ease52”.

Thus, humanity possesses power. Power to manipulate and augment their

own primal, natural state of existence through comprehension and utilisation of natural phenomena and resources. This is arguably the very core of ‘Second Nature’, stemming from the human body itself and branching out to the larger scales that constitute the human domain altogether.

THE BUILDING

Scaling up from the physical prosthetic extension of the human body, the scale

of man-made enclosure (the dwelling house) that, as Freud mentioned, forms an artificial “substitute for the mother’s womb, the first [Nature?] dwelling”53. In the first part of this essay, Vico’s theory of the institutional succession of man was introduced in order to frame the historical process of abstraction of the human domain from the ‘pure’ natural realm of his ancestral origins. Vico claimed the Hut as the second institution of man after the Forest (refer to page.6)54.

The hut was historically introduced as the paradigm of the essential elements that compose architectural space, or more explicitly the idea of humans dwelling within an enclosure of their own making. Perhaps one of the most well known views on the idea of the ‘Primitive Hut’ was formulated by French architectural philosopher Marc Antoine Laugier. Laugier worked within the Enlightenment period; the same epoch of Vico’s New Science’s initial publication, an era known for rationalist thinking through science and reason. In his prominent text “An Essay on Architecture” published in the midst of the 18th century, Laugier argued against architectural opulence of his epoch, declaring the ornamental excesses of the Rococo Medieval Gothic Architectural styles redundant. Through this depiction of the primitive hut, Laugier established a hierarchy that defines the basic principles of classical architecture through its most essential components: the column, the entablature and the pediment. Laugier’s theoretical position on the primitive hut is established upon the notion that civilisation reaches an understanding of the fundamental principles of architecture through imitation of natural processes.

52. Ibid 53. Vico, G. and Bergin, T. (1948). The new science of Giambattista Vico. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press (p.79) 54. Cairns, Stephen. (2006). Notes for an alternative history of the primitive hut.(p.86-95)

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The influential frontispiece featured in the second edition of Laugiers “An

Essay on Architecture” (published in 1755) emphasises his deliberate choice to omit any hint of an agent guiding the construction process of the hut or for that matter, any reference to empirical evidence of historical or contemporary conceptions of ‘primitive’ building practices55. Thus, the introduction of the idea of the primitive hut establishes the conception of a building as a form of enclosure or shelter derived from the natural realm but also abstracted from it to an extent. The prosthetic relationship humans apply to their own body, is also embedded within the architectural enclosure that supplements the habitual environment of ‘mankind’ which, as Laugier frames it, is intrinsically informed by natural processes and phenomena. An 18th century rationalist, Laugier strived to “discover in structural tradition an absolute necessity, a pure and unadorned response to the laws of nature, employing material forms readily available in nature”56, essentially disregarding any notion of structural planning as part of the original conception of the architectural construct.

Figure.16 Frontispiece of Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l’architecture 2nd ed.

1755 by Charles Eisen

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55. Ibid 56. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene, Hearn M.F. (1990). The architectural theory of Viollet-le-Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. (p.24)

In contrast to Laugier’s reductive position on the construction process of

primitive architectural enclosures, French neo-gothic architect and theorist, Eugène -Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814 - 1879) , established his position on the origins of architecture through informed speculation on the earliest account of construction of man-made structures57. The contrast to laugier’s perception of the primitive origins of architecture is clearly evident in Le-Duc’s depiction of the first hut(figure.18), in which the structure itself is not abstracted from its process of formulation and construction. Le-Duc framed the origin of architecture as the human response to the need for shelter through application of rational planning and construction procedures58. Le-Duc characterised the primitive man as lacking sufficient intelligence to fully conceive, plan and construct a shelter abstracted from the primal natural environment, while implying that the scheme of the first building (as far as western discourse on the matter is concerned) unravelled as a gift from a higher intelligence (God?) presupposing the essential elements of the so called first primitive hut59.

In his book “ The Habitations of Man in all Ages”, Le-Duc elegantly elaborated on the process of formulation of the first hut, arguably, the first building and architectural archetype of the (western) civil world;

Figure.17 The First Shelter as Depicted by Viollet Le-Duc

57. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene, Hearn M.F. (1990). The architectural theory of Viollet-le-Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. (p.23-24) 58. Ibid 59. Ibid

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“ARE THEY HUMAN?”

A dozen creatures, heavy of limb, with skin of a livid

yellow,—the crown of their heads covered with scanty black hair falling over their eyes, and with hooked nails, —are grouped together beneath a bushy tree whose lower branches have been pulled downwards and secured to the ground by clods of earth. The wind is blowing violently and driving the rain right through this shelter.

Rush mats and skins of beasts afford a scant}’ protection to the limbs of these creatures, who with their nails tear portions of animals and quickly devour them (fig.17).

Night comes on and the rain increases. The strongest collect dead branches and long grasses, and pluck ferns and reeds, and heap them up against the wind ; then, with sticks and with their hands, they try to make the water that invades their retreat run off by throwing soil on the piled-up branches. Despite the violence of the storm, locked together like a nest of snakes, they all sleep except one, who keeps watch,uttering prolonged and plaintive cries through the nigh to keep away noxious animals.

When he gets sleepy, he awakens one of his companions, who takes his place. In the morning the wind has abated, but the rain continues to fall in a close drizzle.

The foot of the tree is under water. Then each one sets about looking for branches, reeds, and mud to raise the ground. Some reptiles, driven from their retreats, take refuge on the clods around the shelter, and are killed with sticks to serve as food for the family. Not far off, Epergos, seized with compassion at sight of this misery, selects two young trees a few paces apart. Climbing one of these, he bends it down by the weight of his body, pulls towards him the top of the other with the...

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help of a hooked stick, and thus joining the branches of the two trees, ties them together with rushes. The creatures that have gathered round him look on wondering.

But Epergos does not mean them to remain idle, and makes them understand that they must go and find other young trees in the neighbourhood. With their hands and with the help of sticks they uproot and drag them to Epergos; who then shows them how they should be inclined in a circle by resting their tops against the first two trees that had been fastened together. Then he shows them how to fill in the spaces with rushes, branches, and long grass interlaced ; then how their roots should be covered with clay, and the whole structure successively(fig. 2); leaving an opening on the side opposite to the wind that brings the rain. On the floor he has dead branches and reeds spread, and mud trodden down with the feet.

By the end of the day the hut is finished, and each family among the Nai’rriti wishes to have one like it.

Epergos, covered with sweat and dirt, then rests by his companion Doxius. “Why,” says the latter, “thus run counter to things as they are? ’’ Wouldst thou be for teaching the birds how to make their nests, the beavers to build themselves huts different from those they are accustomed to make?. Why thus alter the Creator’s work?’’ “ Who knows !” answers Epergos : “let us return here in a hundred thousand days, and we shall see whether these creatures have forgotten my instructions and live as they were living yesterday. If so, then I am wrong in meddling with their affairs, and I have not found what I have been seeking; but if they have profited by my suggestions,—if the huts we see then are better made than these, I have been successful, for in that case these creatures are not mere animals.” “ Folly “! “ returns Doxius ; “what then can they be ?” “ How can I tell?”60

60. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene, Hearn M.F. (1990). The architectural theory of Viollet-le-Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. (p.23-24)

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Figure.18 The First Hut as Depicted by Viollet Le-Duc

In Le-Duc’s depiction of the first shelter followed by the first hut, he emphasises

the process of construction and, more explicitly, the refinement of the man-made structures as the primitive men respond to climate and environmental factors of the chosen site.61

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61. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene, Hearn M.F. (1990). The architectural theory of Viollet-le-Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. (p.25)

The Iron Prosthetics

Moving forward from the primitive origin of architecture and the conception

of the first building in human history, one can refer back to the idea that ‘Second Nature’ within the city is comprised of various strata. These strata are embedded in the very structure of buildings, as evident in Le Duc’s work within the field of restoration. Le-Duc established a form of “prosthetic strategy”, though never claiming it as such. In Fact, Le Duc never referred to the bigger theoretical framework in which his methodology was positioned, which related to the prosthetic nature of the city and the role of his work as part of the sub strata of ‘Second Nature’, beyond the scale of the building itself62.

In his essay “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age - Viollet-le-Duc’s

Iron Architecture” Martin Bressani frames Le-Duc’s iron architecture within the scope of prosthetic terminology and identifying the sub strata of ‘Second Nature’ within the structure of a building in contrast to it’s original structure and the prosthetic intervention within it. Nineteenth - century architectural discourse may have been primarily invested in relation between the organic and the machinic, revolving around the topos of a structural iron frame concealed behind masonry skin.63 Le-Duc’s source of inspiration was clearly derived from human body as he describes: “ The organs of (man’s) best machines are generally made in conformity to the principles by which his body moves”64. Furthermore Le-Duc argued that while ‘mankind’ is not capable of absolute creation (that of which is the sole preserve of god/divine authority) but through utilisation of the human force of imagination reinforced by a close observation of nature, one may be able to produce a ‘second order’ (Second Nature) of creation in his craft. Le-Duc’s observations evolved into the building scale through his personal fascination with the ‘anatomy’ of medieval architecture and more specifically with the corporeality of the cathedral65, as he states:

“ We are struck by the interior organisation of these edifices. Just as the human body is held up and moves thanks to two simple, spindly supports, occupying the least amount of space possible near the ground, and complexifying and developing itself higher up as it must progressively contain a greater number of crucial organs, so the Gothic building is held on the simplest kinds of support, merely a sort of pinning whose stability is maintained only by the combination and development of its upper parts. The Gothic edifice can stand only if it is complete; one cannot cut off one of its organs without risking that it will perish, because it acquires stability only through the law of equilibrium.”66

Figure.19 Viollet-Le-Duc: Axonometric of A Nave

62. Bressani, Martin. “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age: Viollet-Le-Duc’s Iron Architecture.” AA Files, no. 68, 2014. (p. 43–49). JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23781454.

63. Ibid 64. Bressani, Martin. “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age: Viollet-Le-Duc’s Iron Architecture.” AA Files, no. 68, 2014. (p. 45-6). JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23781454.

65. Ibid 66.Ibid

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The comparative analysis Le Duc made between the human body and the structure

of the cathedral was an overarching theme of his entire architectural conception; and the inherent use of biological terminology, not with an outdated agenda of translation of the human body into architecture as an outcome of an imitative process but rather as an instinctive projection of man’s body organisation67. This intertwining between the human body and the building scale further reinforces the position of Second Nature as a construct of different layers and scales that are interrelated but also corresponding to the primal natural elements from which they originate.

Of all historical building typologies, Le Duc perceived the cathedral as featuring the closest translation of the human body into architectural form, established upon similar organisational principles that frame it as a “living structure in which each of the building components (Organs?) are involved in a dynamic play and counter-play of forces in perpetual search of equilibrium”68.

Following this theoretical and perceptual assertion for which Le Duc is historically know for, his speculative iron projects come into play, exploring the possibility of tampering with the pre-existing equilibrium of the architectural ‘living’ body through possibility of creating artificial ‘limbs’ or iron ‘crutches’ to replace traditional architectural elements.

Figure.20 46m-span polyhedral vaulted hall,

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67. Bressani, Martin. “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age: Viollet-Le-Duc’s Iron Architecture.” AA Files, no. 68, 2014. (p. 45-6). JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23781454.

68.Ibid

Figure.21 project for Hôtel de ville - cast iron structure, c. 1865

It is curious that Le Duc’s inherent desire to propose the necessity of anatomical

loss within the ‘body’ of a building for the sake of technological gain was never established within a bigger argument or statement on the condition of ‘Second Nature’ and the tension between the natural and the artificial within the city. The discourse on the notion of prosthesis in relation to the human domain has never been explicitly coined by Le Duc in relation to his speculative iron projects. These speculative prosthetic propositions stem from Le Duc’s ambition to tread the line between the historical, the organic and the machinic, to compose great assembly spaces devoid of vertical elements obstructing the wholesome sensation of a great gathering69. These ambitions failed to address the bigger question at hand, which was that these prosthetic interventions are in fact one of many layers of prosthesis overlayed on top of each other within the endless cycle of ‘Second Nature’ that drives humanity further away from its essential or basic state of being. Thus the city is a never ending agglomeration of prosthetic strata perpetually perplexing humanity to differentiate between what is natural and what is supplementary.

69. Bressani, Martin. “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age: Viollet-Le-Duc’s Iron Architecture.” AA Files, no. 68, 2014. (p. 45-6). JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23781454.

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THE CITY

The theoretical conception of the Primitive Hut as the initial response to the

innate human need for shelter has ultimately rise of the city as the primary mode of the human dwelling which unified the civil world with architecture as the fundamental language of its spatial and infrastructural manifestation. Thus the ‘Architect’ emerged as an ideologist of society, establishing his scope of intervention within city planning, articulating the role of form in regards to the public domain and in relation to its own morphology. The formal interrelationship and opposition between the architectural “object” and urban organisation are essential themes that characterise the Enlightenment discourse on architecture70.

As previously introduced, Laugier published “An Essay on Architecture” in 1753, enunciating his theories on urban design, eventually becoming a major paradigm of Enlightenment architectural theory. Laugier’s theories were established upon two main elements: the first is the reducing of the city to a natural phenomenon, the second was the application of the formal dimensions of the aesthetic of the picturesque to the city71. Thus, Laugier declared:

“ Whoever knows how to design a park well will have no difficulty in tracing the plan for the building of a city according to its given area and situation. There must be squares, crossroads, and streets. There must be regularity and fantasy, relationships and oppositions, and casual, unexpected elements that vary the scene; great order in the details, confusion, uproar, and tumult in the whole72.”

Laugier acknowledges the original purity embedded in the act of designing the

environment while also comprehending the inherent anti-organic quality of the city. In this regards, the means through which ‘mankind’ critically intervenes in ‘natural’ reality is the act of selection. These aspects of Human - Natural relationship, link back to the perplexing dialogue between ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’ and the notion of prosthesis as binding agent between the natural and the artificial, the source and its extension. Laugier’s interest in the intersection between the natural world and the human domain is evident in his known statement that

70.Tafuri, M. (1999). Architecture and utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (p. 3-4)

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71.Ibid 72.M. A. Laugier. (1765). Observations sur I’Architecture. The Hague. (p. 312-313)

“the city is to be viewed as a forest. City streets could be organised like forest roads and the forests of hunting woods could be translated into city plans.

The designed) forest provided the organisation principle for the modern city73”.

According to Tafuri in his book Architecture and Utopia, laugier most likely referred in his forest-city analogy to the diverse sequences of spaces that appear on Patte’s plan for Paris74.

Figure.22 Patte’s Plan For Paris

As Laugier rose to fame in an epoch of naturalistic affinity, the literal analogy

between the city and forest is perhaps understandable, but also alarming. As cities are inherently a form of abstraction form the natural realm, they are established on natural laws and principles, but they are far from encompassing the character of forests and ‘First Nature’ as a whole. This precisely the point to which the civil world must resist its own tendency for ‘hubris’, of thinking that we can substitute ‘First Nature’ by means of our own creation, design and artifice.

73.M. A. Laugier. (1765). Observations sur I’Architecture. The Hague. (p. 312-313) 74.Tafuri, M. (1999). Architecture and utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (p. 6)

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WHAT NEXT?

The discourse of this essay attempts to synthesize the ideas and theories of

prominent thinkers, philosophers and architects on the paradoxical character of nature. Though introduced in a slightly non chronological order, the scope of forest-human relationship and its position with the theoretical framework of ‘First’ and ‘Second Nature’ ultimately leads to a modern, contemporary concern with the subject. This essay attempts to cover and discuss themes from the works and writings of Vico, followed by Laugier, Le Duc and Freud (chronologically speaking) and into the works of more modern figures the likes of Adorno, Le Corbusier, Tafuri and Wigley ; all leading towards an understanding of the importance and the contemporary relevance of what I call ‘The Natural Paradox” from the seventeenth century and all the way to present day twenty-first century.

The question at the above title becomes relevant- “What Next?”, How will we relate and experience the sylvan/forest realms that still continue to inspire,frighten and sustain us? How will we overcome the short comings and consequences of ‘Second Nature’ that lays at the core of modernized city life?

Thus across the scales that compose human existence within the civil world;

The Body, The Building and The City, every man, woman and child must face the challenge of overcoming his own ‘Second’ Nature, if only for moments at a time, to experience primal intuition, the ability to experience the natural world by means of instinct prior to intellect and logical thinking. The future places us all in an increasing distance from our innate, primal set of skill, drawing deeper and deeper into the centre of the civic clearings, where almonds come in plastic bags, apple don’t fall from the trees and stones have long lost their multiple sides.

TO BE CONTINUED...

TO BE CONTINUED

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BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS 1. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print 2. Konijnendijk. Cecil C. The Forest and the City. Denmark: Springer Science + Business Media B.V. , 2008. Print 3. Hummel, John, and Marc Parren. Forests, A Growing Concern. Print.

4. Tacitus, Hutton, M. and Peterson,W. Agricola. Germania. Dialogue on Oratory. 9th ed. London: Harvard University Press.

5. Schama, Simon. Landscape and memory. London: Harper Collin.1995.Print 6. Cook, Deborah. “Critical materialism,” in Adorno on Nature. Acumen Publishing.2011.print.

7. Burdett, R. and Sudjic, D. (2010). The endless city. London [u.a.]: Phaidon Press.

8. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene, Hearn M.F. (1990). The architectural theory of Viollet-le-Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.(print) 9. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene. (1876). The Habitations of Man in all Ages. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington 10. M. A. Laugier. (1765). Observations sur I’Architecture. The Hague.

11. M. A. Laugier. (1765). Observations sur I’Architecture. The Hague.

12. Tafuri, M. (1999). Architecture and utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

13. Ingold, Tim. The Perception Of The Environment. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

ARTICLES

1.Wigley, M. (1991). Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture. Assemblage.

2. Cairns, Stephen. (2006). Notes for an alternative history of the primitive hut.

ONLINE 1. Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/institution [Accessed 6 Dec 2017].

2. Ephraim, L. (2013). Beyond the Two-Sciences Settlement: Political Theory, [online] 41(5), (p.710-737). Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24571364 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

3. Bressani, Martin. “Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age: Viollet-Le-Duc’s Iron Architecture.” AA Files, no. 68, 2014. (p. 43–49). JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23781454.

FIGURES 1.The Golden Age by Lucas Cranach the Elder. (2018). [image] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].

2.Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests - Michael Kenna, Woodpile. 1990.Photograph.(Cover Page) 3.Ingold, Tim. The Perception Of The Environment.Western/Non Western. 2000.Diagram.(p.42) 4.Water Colour Painting - ‘The Tale Vico’s Giants’. Ran Ben Shaya (2016) 5.Shama, Simon - Landscape and Memory.Nuremberg.1995.painting (p.94) 6.’Worship in the Sacred Grove’.Reinier Vinkeles,(1788-1790).Available at: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/ Latin/TacitusGermania.php 7. A 16th-century fresco, in Bologna, Italy, of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. (2017). [image] Available at: http:// www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/science/12rome.html [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].

8.McNally, M. Teutoburg Forest AD 9 - Peter Dennis.2011.Illustration. (Cover Page) 9.Map of Oslo. (2017). [image] Available at: http://bjorkeng.com/prosjekt.html [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017] 10. Askeladden and the troll drawn by Theodor Kittelsen.Illustration. Available at: http://www.trollshop.net/trolls/kittelsen/.

11. Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests - Giambattista Vico’s ‘New Science’ Frontispiece.1730. (p.1) 12. Map of Ekeberg Slope Natural Reserve.[Map] Available at: https://www.noblad.no/nyheter/ekebergskraningenvernet/s/2-2.09-1.5120871 13. Blue Wood Analysis.Ran Ben Shaya (2017) 14. Burdett, R. and Sudjic, D. The endless city. 2010. (Cover page) 15. Sigfried Gideon, Mechanization Takes Command. Artificial Limb.1948. Illustration.

16. Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l’architecture 2nd ed.1755. Frontispiece by Charles Eisen.

17. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene.The Habitations of Man in all Ages.The First Shelter.Illustration.1876.(p.5) 18. Viollet Le-Duc, Eugene.The Habitations of Man in all Ages.The First Hut.Illustration.1876.(p.6) 19. Bressani, Martin. Architecture and Historical imagination. Axonometric Nave.2014.

20. Bressani, Martin. Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age. Polyhedral Vaulted Hall.Illustration.2014.(p.49) 21. Bressani, Martin. Prosthetic Fantasies of the First Machine Age. Project for Hôtel de Ville.Illustration.2014.(p.48) 22. Patte’s Plan For Paris.[Map] Available at: http://www.quondam.com/17/1765.htm.

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