Cornell Journal of Architecture, vol. 4

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Preface

Introduction

There is a subtle fonn of alannism associated with the tenn 'journal' . Journals of medicine and journals of lawn care all assume the presence of a forum in urgent need of timely infonnation.

A journal even etymologically promises to be a daily event. (One might assume from this that judging from the time between The Cornell Journal ofArchitectures, the days up in Ithaca must be very long indeed.) Accepting the coercion of immanent crisis, one then detennines the value of a journal by its ability to adequately represent recent thoughts on a subject, not through unsubstantiated speculation, but through the presentation of complete bodies of work that are capable of leading to larger, more complete works. The quality of a journal, then, is primarily a function of the finality of the work presented within.

Architecture, when it is to be considered a discipl ine that aspires to the engagement of another's intellect, has an obligation to pose itself as a finality . Whether the ultimate manifestation of a work of architecture is a virtual construction (a drawing or a model) or an actual construction (a building), it is the reification of the end of a complex, promiscuous past. Just as it is impossible to have an unrehearsed conversation or debate consisting of incomplete sentences - or at least impossible to have one that is not simply a cartoon of a conversation or debate - the finality of an object of architecture is prerequisite to its being adequately engaged in a critical manner.

Inadequate criticism, I would suggest, is a criticism that proposes a predetennined, autonomous critical posture that does not adapt to the object sponsoring the intended discourse. Inadequate criticism may be the result of an inadequate critic orof an inadequate object: of acritic whose critical methodology is a closed, finalized system, or of an object that fails to pose a finalized, consumable episteme.

Still, it is endemic to numerous current design methodologies that works remain incomplete and unreified. Perhaps the principal reason for this phenomenon is the tendency for architects, theorists, and faculty members - no doubt earnest in their concerns about architecture and education - to endlessly problematize architecture in the interest of probing its deficiencies and expounding on its failures. The result of such problematization is the impression among many students that architecture is impossible, that one can at best produce a proximate icon suggestive of an architecture that is, unfortunately, absent at this time . Rigid critical structures are then employed, commandeering the undeveloped projects into the service of the critic/theorists' own polemics.

This volume of The Cornell Journal of Architecture depicts a school that teases some edges of architectural investigation, plunges into the continued discourse surrounding the centuries-old work of a master architect, and struggles to reconcile numerous pasts - of architecture, of pedagogy, of its own history - with a viable present. The following works tend to be more conclusive - thereby not preemptive of discourse - than inclusive.

This Journal occurs at the end of a very long day. It does not posture as an urgency. (Perhaps it resembles the journaux that lent their compositional and representational structures to the collages of Braque and Picasso; no longer newspapers, glue on canvas caused them to give up their momentary and disposable characteristics.)

This Journal exists as an enthusiastic reaffinnation of the possibility of architecture as an art, as finalized object, and as sponsor of a variety of suggestive critical engagements.

A decade after publication of the first issue of The Cornell Journal of Architecture a retrospective glance is due. Michael D. Markovitz '82, editor of volume 1, clearly defined its objective: "the Journal will continually engage in critical assessment of the present state of architectural education." With this objective in mind, Paidia , volume 4 of The Cornell Journal of Architecture, proposes a paradigmatic use of the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus. The title and subsequent quatropartite organization of this Journal has specific referents in this dialogue. Just as Plato locates his paidia - an enquiry into the development of human intellect - within a representative framework of the four inspirations, this Journal locates its paidia - an enquiry into the process of an architectural education - within the discourses of history, theory, criticism, and praxis.

The Journal is divided into four components. Far from being separate and distinct, these components are interwoven and interconnected, and together aim to represent architectural education at Cornell. The ambiguities and antinomes that exists between history , theory, criticism, and praxis provide an opportunity to address the logical and psychological distinctions of this process. The component discourses for a moment reveal that which makes architecture meaningful and allows for critical assessment of the academy.

The discursive complex necessitates dialectical engagement which is by no means conclusive.

The objective here is not pedagogical but only to provide a possible context for an initiation of the seminal enquiry. The pursuant debate is dialogic, discursive, and dialectical. The stage is set. Is this the paradigm of Paidia?

Val K. Warke Chair Department of Architecture Cornell University

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The Editors The Cornell Journal of Architecture 4

Staff

Contents 6

GridiFrameiLattice/Web: Giulio Romano's Palazzo Maccarani and the Sixteenth Century Colin Rowe

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Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio on Common Ground: The Palazzo Thiene and the Basilica at Vicenza

Editors ImranAhmed Merritt W. Bucholz

Kurt W. Forster

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Andrea Palladio's Vicenza: Urban Architecture and the Continuity of Change Martin Kubelik

58

Rhetorical Uses of the Object Shayne O'Neil

66

Sigurd's Resistance: And Other Stories

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"Good-Life Modernism" and Beyond: The American House in the 1950s and 1960s: A Commentary

Managing Editors Shahed Muhith Thomas J. Wong

Per Olaf Fjeld Mark Jarzombek

94

Substructure of The Voice of Authority Jerzy Rozenberg

106

A-Locations/Pre-Occupations

Faculty Advisors Mark Jarzombek Vincent Mulcahy

John Zissovici

112

States of Emergence: Place in a Post-Guru Context Arthur A. Ovaska

122

Exploring the Periphery: Parallel Perceptions in the Design Studio Andrea Simitch

132

Theater for the Com media dell' Arte John P. Shaw

144

Theater Stage, Carnival Square Val K. Warke

156

Drawing on Rome: A Fourth Year Archjtectural Design Studio in the Eternal City

Staff Kerem Aksoy Timothy D. Galvin Augustine Ma Mark R. Motl Kenneth J. Ong Yiannis Romanos Andrea Sparks

John Miller and Edmond Bakos

166

Undergraduate Theses

178

Graduate Urban Design Studio

192

Graduate Architectural Design Theses

198

Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio: A Sixteenth Century Diversion

Urbanism, Landscape And The City: Introduction by Matthew 1. Bell

Introduction by Martin Kubelfk and Bette L. Talvacchia

200

Comment, Criticism, Challenge: A Colloquium

208

Notes and Credits

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Journal Class 1988 1989 1990

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Grid/Frame/Lattice/Web Giulio Romano's Palazzo Maccarani and the Sixteenth Century

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Colin Rowe

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iulio Romano' s Palazzo Maccarani is dated G

by Frederick Hartt 1521 -1523, and of course there is always a problem as to what such dates

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Giulio Romano, Palazzo Maccarani. Rome: Engraving by Lafrery GiuJio Romano, Palazzo Maccarani, Rome: Engraving by Falda Giulio Romano, PaJazzo Maccarani. Rome: Facade

An increasingly basic component of building for something like the last hundred years has been the steel or concrete frame. grid. or skeleton; and. for the most part. the results have been less than satisfactory. A basic element of sixteenth-century masonry construction was the frequent employment of a frame. grid. or lattice as a structural metaphor; and the results. generally. continue to be interesting. It is a matter of curiosity that twentieth-century architects have been largely blind to the richness and suggestiveness of maniera precedent which. quite often, seems to be closely allied - peripheric composition. etc. - to what they have been attempting . This may have been because of the Neo-Classical exposition of modern architecture offered by so many (we have taken up where the eighteenth century left off) and, particularly, offered by Emil Kaufmann in hisVon Ledoux bis Le Corbusier. Then Kaufmann's Three Revolutionary Architects went a long way to establish that various 'revolutionary' architectural happenings in the Paris of the 1780s were absolutely precursive of twentiethcentury innovations conducted under the auspices of Cubism. Constructivism and De Stijl.

But what matter?

It is still glaringly obvious that. however much one aspect of Le Corhusier may derive from the late eighteenth-century hotel particulier. his intrinsic resources remain maniera.

Pity it is that, with his Neuchiitel origins and his Ruskinian education, he should have had no access to Vignola - except as a monster of the Ecole des Beaux Arts; but was he not always and simultaneously, 'modern' , pre-modern and Post Modern? With good reasons and because of elective affinity. almost at the beginning he equated himself with Michelangelo; and what follows is, more or less, a highly removed substantiation of his claim. The slave writhes in the marble block to which Michelangelo has consigned him; and. in the same block. there is also tormented Giulio' s Palazzo Maccarani - not to mention the Dominican monastery of La Tourette .

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mean. I However, Giulio left Rome for Mantua in October 1524 and it seems plausible to assume that much of the building was complete by that date. An engraving of the house was published in the mid-sixteenth century by Lafrery (fig. 1) and again in the mid-seventeenth century by Falda (fig. 2), both recording somewhat different ideas as to what it looks like (Lafrery accentuates the verticals, Falda the horizontals); but since Palazzo Maccarani is a north-facing house with the upper parts of its facade developed in low relief, none of its photographic presentations have done much justice to the complexity of its ideation (fig. 3).

Then it should further be noticed that though in a prominent location, after about 1700, Palazzo Maccarani increasingly failed to engage attention.

Simply, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it came to escape the eye; it became part of the Roman background; and it is only fairly recently that it has re-emerged as a building of importance. German picture books of the 1920s give it little attention;2 as late as the early 1940s Nikolaus Pevsner does not refer to it; and I suppose that my own rather exaggerated consciousness of this house derives from the appearance of Frederick Hartt's monograph on Giulio of 1958. Of the Italian historiography of the building. regrettably, I know very little; but I believe that it must be safe to assert that present awareness derives mostly from Hartt.

Evidently, Palazzo Maccarani depends for its principal facade motifs on that group of Roman palaces inspired by the last phase of Bramante' s career - most notably the Casa Caprini (fig. 4), demolished by Bernini for the construction of Piazza San Pietro.

Ideally, these houses are majestic and serious, five windows wide, with a basement and a mezzanine of shops - tough and rusticated - that supports a piano nobile almost excessive in its declamation. Down below, in the piano rustico, there is one theme of society that is celebrated; but, up above in the piano nobile, with its aloof distinction of walls and columns, there is an alternative (and intellectual) social distinction that is advertised.

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Such is the paradigm; but, in Raphael's Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli, of circa 1515 (fig. 5), Bramante's basic distinctions already come to appear blurred, and now piano rustico and piano nobile have come to share a common delicacy.

Down below the bugnati become streamlined; they cease to be savage; they begin to declare an entirely new message; and, correspondingly, interventions upstairs - horizontals beginning to contradict verticals - may be the preliminary announcement of themes that, perhaps, Bramante could scarcely have imagined.

However, Maccarani expands on the topic of Caprini and Vidoni by yet another reference.

Reaching back beyond Bramante, it annexes aspects of the facade of Palazzo della CancelIe ria of circa 1490 (fig. 6). Not too many; but, in the low-relief style of its upper floors, perhaps enough to indicate an affiliation.

Probably, too, while considering the morphological pedigree of Palazzo Maccarani, the Palazzo Bresciano should be cited (fig. 8), not only for the trabeation of its downstairs openings. which Maccarani more emphatically exhibits; but also for its addition of an attic storey to the Bramante-Raphael formula.

Nevertheless, whatever fastidious local complication may also have been introduced, however provocatively elegant the rustication, the three stages of the building - basement, piano nobile, attic - remain sharply articulated; and there can be no doubts as to their respective functions in the hierarchy of the facade. The name Baldassare Peruzzi has been traditionally invoked in connection with Palazzo Bresciano, and some of its more enigmatic details might support this attribution;4 but, if Cas a Caprini may evoke the world of Julius II and Palazzo Vidoni that of Leo X, if their respective strengths and refinements may correspond to the regimes of these two Papal personalities, then what more remains to say about Palazzo Bresciano (also attributed to Raphael)?5 With Palazzo Vidoni it belongs, of course, to the world of Leo; but, at the same time, do not its so many footnotes on Bramante-Raphael begin to rehearse that dissolution of their confident assumptions, which is made almost complete in the great subversive act of Palazzo Maccarani?

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Donato Bramante. Palazzo Caprini. Rome: Engraving by Lafrery

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Raphael , Palazzo Vidoni -Caffarelli. Rome: facade Andrea Bregno, Palazzo Riario (della Cancelleria), Rome: Facade Giulio Romano, Villa Lante a1 Gianicolo. Rome : Elevation Palazzo Bresciano. Rome: Attributed to Baldassare PeNui and to

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Raphael. Engraving by FaJda I'ldazzo Alberini (Ciociaporci-Segni). Rome: Attributed to Guil io Romano. Engraving by Lafrery

With Bresciano and Maccarani brought into conjunction, it will now be expedient to approach Palazzo Alberini (otherwise Cicciaporci-Segni) where passages of detail comparable to Maccarani receive a preliminary display. Palazzo Alberini is best to be explained via the agency of Lafrery's engraving (fig. 9); but, then, just who was the architect? Lafrery presumed the impossible he thought that it was Bramante; and then there were the attributions to Giulio, rejected by both Wolfgang Lotz and Frederick Hartt. 6 The date, ISIS, was impossible - for Giulio; but then there comes along Paolo Portoghesi who seems to opt for a later date; and there might be some obligation to think about this.7 If not Giulio, then what brilliant, destructive, and vanished reputation was here concerned? Is the latest attribution - to Raphael - to be accepted?

Certainly the two upper floors of Palazzo Alberini are an approximate prevision of what was going to occur at Maccarani. Cornices and entablatures become condensed; the axes of pilasters are enigmatically projected in the fonn of panels, and the wall of the upper floors is organized in a system of three closely implicated relief layers. Palazzo Alberini is a far more important premonition of what Giulio was to do at Maccarani than the much more 'careful', and brilliant, Bresciano.

Meanwhile, there is one further building that may serve to illuminate the strategies that are presented at Palazzo Maccarani. According to Hartt, Giulio's exquisite Villa Lante, on the Gianicolo, dates from before 1523 (fig. 7);8 and very noticeable on the loggia facade is the tracing of an exceptionally delicate grid serving as the merest suggestion of a link between the loggia and upstairs windows. But, then, there are the downstairs windows which receive the intimations of the gridded scene up top and project downwards something of its traces.

But now to approach the much more lurid Palazzo Maccarani - it is infinitely more assertive. There are three storeys, apart from the basement, their respective heights not very distinguishable. The piano rustico is divided, ruthlessly divided, by an immense Doric doorway; the piano nobile is set up in terms of

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coupled pilasters with separate podia for windows. The Casa Caprini rustication is of massive, static blocks; in Palazzo Vidoni a rapid horizontal motion was introduced; but in Palazzo Maccarani rustication is discontinuous, comprised of vertical strips with gigantic interlocking lintels, and on the lintels are balanced the horizontal oblongs of the mezzanine windows. Then the upward thrust of the vertical strips is sustained by the pilasters and is further emphasized by the deliberately willed 'deficiency' of their entablature and cornice.

And, above all this, what at first reading may appear to be pilasters finally disclose themselves to be no more than frames in a system of paneling that operates just as much in the horizontal as it does in the vertical dimension.

After more than four hundred and fifty years language exhausts itself in the contemplation of Palazzo Maccarani, and the attempt to record such phenomena as these becomes almost dismissable as hopeless. According to Ernst Gombrich (but, in what follows, I do not know how much is him and how much is me) at Palazzo Maccarani there is no distinction between the carrier and the carried.9 Members emerge from the building block only to be drawn back into it again. The portal is swallowed; rustication overwhelms the finer architectural membering; pilasters become not only the articulations but also the prisoners of the building mass. Elegance and savagery are both at work. There is the rational, intellectual order of the column grid, and there is the explosive, primeval order of the rustications. The primitive building that is here present is constrained in a sophisticated corset. It palpitates, it is volcanic, it is about to erupt; but, in the end, it concedes to a cerebral order of things.

Bramante kept these two worlds apart. In Casa Caprini the savage, rustic world fonned the basis for the 'civilized' achievement of the piano nobile. Raphael hoped to hannonize these worlds. In Palazzo Vidoni he imposed the same linear elegance upon them both. But, with Giulio, they have now become two worlds that burst into blatant collision. A momentous step has been taken. Whatever the High Renaissance synthesis might have been, irretrievably, it is now at an end.

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So much is almost to conclude a first phase of argument; and in what will later be said about the sixteenth-century grid-frame-Iattice-web, it should become apparent that this is something very different from the fifteenth-century grid of Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi' s normative and mathematical perspective grid establishes a network of lines that prescribes a position for all of the figurative elements that might be introduced. Lines are drawn on the floor of the architectural or pictorial space, and columns or human forms became rooted in this network.

They became interpolations of the grid, and there can be no doubt about their location. 10 No, the sixteenth-century grid is decisively different and may best be approached by the introduction of pictorial evidence. Thus, Bramante's Casa Caprini and Raphael's School of Athens (fig. 10) may be considered related events; and, if the School of Athens celebrates the High Renaissance achievement of a deep space in which human figures and architectural detail move equipped with their own internal animation (now quite independent ofthe Brunelleschian grid), then Casa Caprini may be constructed as a representation of this deep space condensed within the limits of a facade. It is an affair of arches below, columns in the round above, and then the energetic projection of the entablature. If it is not hopelessly absurd to talk about the space of a facade, then Casa Caprini is a facade presenting a deep space. But when one comes to examine Palazzo Maccarani, upstairs almost all significant depths and all rotundities have vanished in favor of a system of layers in low relief.

Now, this condition of a flattened facade in Rome may, only too obviously, be compared with the contemporary contraction of pictorial space in Florence; and Rosso's Volterra Deposition might make the point (fig. 11). The School of Athens is dated 1510-1511, the Volterra Deposition 1521.11 In other words, they are separated by the same length of time as that which elapsed between the buildings of Bramante and Giulio. So Giulio grids his building and Rosso grids his picture; and, in both cases, there has occurred a loss of depth and middle distance, a compression of action into a shallow relief layer in which angularity of archi-

tectural episode and figures prevails. At Volterra the organization is rectilinear. There is a crucifix, and there are ladders; but the attendant figures are also conditioned by the same implied grid from which the only exception is the slumping body of the dead Christ.

It might, of course, be said that it is altogether too easy to make a grid out of a cross and a couple of ladders; and who could not agree? But at exactly this same time there is the Pontormo Pieta in the Cappella Capponi at Santa Felicita in Florence (fig. 12); and here, one may observe the same collapse of deep space, the same compression of figures toward picture plane, a comparable pursuit of angular gesture. Pure accident, this coincidence of architectural and pictorial phenomena? Perhaps not. 12 This much is to establish the polemic of Palazzo Maccarani. Just as Villa Lante is, maybe, the first of those airy, openwork structures that distinguish the cinquecento, so, maybe, Palazzo Maccarani is the first dramatic presentation of those gridded, framed, or paneled wall surfaces which were even more characteristic of maniera achievement particularly in Central ItalyY ut now for a brief and relaxed gallop among the more accessible illustrations of what B here is called the sixteenth-century grid.

At Velletri we are in the provinces; and, in the Municipio of approximately 1575 (fig. 13), we may see the grid presented with a devastating simplicity. There are almost no moldings.

There is almost nothing - a basic presentation of the frontal surface, backed up by the complete absence of any detail around the sides.

There is a kind of mad and elementary excitement about the blind arcade, also, in the conflict between the two entrances and the two cordonate. Minimalist, it displays, above all, an excessive presence. This is the grid, or frame, as received by a sophisticated disciple of Vignola. 14 But now to approach Vignola himself. At the Loggia dei Banchi in Bologna, 1565-1568 (fig. 15), one may observe the pilasters down below that are equipped with profusely developed capitals - though with only the most tenuous and abbreviated of entablatures - and then II

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Raphael. School of Athens. Stanza della Segnatura. Rome Rosso. Deposition, Volterra Jacopo Pontormo. Pie,,}. Santa FelicitA. Aorence Jacopo Vignola and Giacomo della Porta. Palazzo Comunale.

Velletri: Elevation Jacopo Vignola. Villa Famese. Caprarola: Garden facade Jacopo Vignola, Loggia dei Banchi. Bologna: Elevation

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one might begin to construe the behavior of the upper wall, where what one is disposed to think must be pilasters receive no trace of anything like a capital and, instead, merge into something like an entablature to become - backed up by another relief layer - the framing of a series of panels.

Derived from the repertory of Palazzo Maccarani of course all this is; but this ambiguous parti is then further strapped together by an obtrusive horizontal motion, that of the mezzanine and its supporting apparatus. But, also, the typical bay of this facade becomes augmented by significant local manipulations.

Minor, but highly assertive, motifs interlace the composition; and, of these, the most notable must be the inversion of the serliana. In both the mezzanine and upstairs the window in the middle is not arched. Instead, being trabeated, it can scarcely prevail over the flanking and arched openings that are its necessary companions; and a result of this peripheric emphasis is to spread a peculiar condition of animation throughout the entire vertical surface. The strapping predicates a flatness; and, out of this condition, the only details that emerge protuberant are the capitals of the pilasters down below and, more unexpectedly, the pediments of the central windows up top.

However, in terms of elaboration of grid, the Loggia dei Banchi is little more than a preface to what is exhibited at Caprarola (1559) where, in spite of the apparent identity of all facades, their complexity is most readily to be examined from a position in the gardens (fig. 14).

Except for the highly specialized drama of the entrance front, ostensibly the facades of Caprarola are a highly standardized affair of one order piled up on another; but a more than casual scrutiny discloses this to be scarcely the case.

For, below, there are pilasters that do not project very far; and, then, traveling behind these, there is a business of further members with which the pilasters are inextricable connected.

So, down below, there is already revealed the presence of contrary systems of organization; the ordonnance of the pilasters and their entablature is basically contradicted by the behavior of a presumable minor arcade. This is a flat cardboard cut-out affair, and within it the great

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projection of the window heads that it encloses establishes a horizontal reading across the facade almost as assertive as the entablature itself.

If interpretations of the lower level favor a movement of the eye from side-to-side, in the upper level it is a vertical reading that is imposed on the spectator. The windows become as though they were items on so many skewers; and although down below the wall surface is frontally presented, up top there are almost th(! implications of a dal di sotto in su perspective.

Given sufficiently patient analysis, no doubt much the same could be said about the courtyard facade of Villa Giulia (fig. 18). It is a testimony to comparable strategies.

The Collegio Romano, of about 1582 (fig. 19), generally attributed to Ammannati, in a rough way also belongs to the phenomena that are the present subject of scrutiny; and two further Ammannati buildings may also be added to the evidence. In Lucca the Palazzetto della Provincia, of 1577-1583 (fig. 20), implies the presence of a grid or frame by means of the checkerboard syncopation of its facade; and in Rome the courtyard of the Palazzo di Firenze (fig. 22) displays a structure intimately related to that which is to be discovered in Vignola's work. Pilasters are backed up by strips, downstairs and upstairs; and, as with Vignola, the wall appears to have been subjected to some kind of anatomical dissection.

Similar inferences are to be found in Peruzzi's loggia facade for the courtyard of Palazzo Massimo, of 1532 onwards (fig. 16), where an underlying gridded structure is highly explicit. The strange, undecorated, intermediate area (which responds to the barrel vault behind) appears visually problematic until one assumes the existence of a skeleton up and down which the accessories of architecture can slide, and this skeleton becomes all the more evident when it is recognized how clearly this area between the two loggias is allied with the attic or mezzanine up top. For now, the Doric and the Ionic orders become almost like so many items of clothing - pants or sleeves - or, more provocatively, the building becomes something like a skin that simultaneously both conceals and discloses the musculature and the bone structure lying behind it.

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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Z4 25

Baldassare Peruzzi. Palazzo Massimo. Rome: Counyard Andreas Vesalius. Dr Human; Corporis Fabrica: Plate 27 Jacopo Vignola. Villa Guilia. Rome: Counyard Banolommeo Ammannati. CoUeSio Romano. Rome: Facade Banolommeo Ammannati. Palazzello della Provincia, Lucca: Facade Andreas Vesalius. D~ Humani Corporis Fabrica: Plate 21 Banolommeo Ammannati. Palazzo di Firenze. Rome: Facade Balclasson: Peruzzi. Palazena Spada. Rome: Facade Pyrma Ligario. Casino de Pie IV. Rome: Facade Annibale de' Lippi . Villa Medici. Rome: Garden Facade

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Vesalius, the great anatomist of the period and physician to the Emperor Charles V, published his De Humani Corporis Fabrica in 1543; and his plates on the process of dissection (figs. 17 & 21), stripping the human figure down - from skin, through muscles, to bone - might be a commentary upon so many sixteenth-century buildings. Specifically, it might be a commentary on Vignola, Ammannati, and what is going on at the Palazetto Spada (fig. 23), where the usual apparatus of multiple relief layers makes an early appearance. 15 Nor is an elaborate display of columns necessary to stipulate the activity of this grid-frame-Iattice. For instance, it occurs in Pyrrho Ligorio's Villa Pia, of circa 1560 (fig. 24); and, equally, this taste for rectilinearity is exhibited by the garden facade of Villa Medici (fig. 25).

Neither is this taste simply central Italian.

Like so much else in the Veneto, of course, it arrived up there somewhat late; but Palladio's Palazzo Porta-Festa of about 1549 (see fig. 32) provided much more than a mere footnote to Bramante's Casa Caprini. Although vitally important for the international distribution of Bramante's paradigm, with Palladio there are none of the central Italian provocations.

There is no question oflow relief; but, this being noticed, the grid still results in an influential presence. The columns of the piano nobile produce a series of interruptions of their entablature and cornice; and these interruptions are then transmitted into the attic.

Palladio's Palazzo Barbarano (see fig. 26) and Scamozzi's Palazzo Bonin-Thiene (see fig . 29) might make commentary on later Venetian manipulations. Allowing for the asymmetrical disposition of Palazzo Barbarano as built, both show, with their superimposed orders, an approximately identical distribution; but, in Palladio, local accents are less obsessive. For instance, the Ionic order downstairs rises to an uninterrupted entablature, whereas in Palazzo Bonin the axes of the Corinthian columns are vertically projected so as to destroy any simple commitment to horizontal continuity. By these and other means, Scamozzi records a pronounced conflict of the horizontal and the vertical; he

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is above all else the intellectual writer of footnotes and the results of his editorial process are to secure a building of great and refreshing astringency. Operating on a fundamentally Palladian vocabulary, his somewhat alembicated mental condition is more approximate to that of Vignola.

But apart from the facade, internally, similar spatial distributions are also to be observed, and thus, from 1520 onwards, Giulio Romano was involved with the decoration of the loggia at Raphael's Villa Madama (fig. 27) and, about 1527, he was responsible for the loggia of the Palazzo del T6 (fig. 28).

But, in these two works so close together in time, may we just not observe the significant difference between the curvilinear and rotund taste of the High Renaissance - apses, pendentives, cross vaults, domes - and the more aggressive and rectilinearized products that so quickly followed? highly casual survey the evidence the origins of rectilinear strategies in Afterforthis

the sixteenth century all seems to lead back to Michelangelo. The basic motif for the typical bay of Vasari's Uffizi, of 1560 onwards (fig. 33), is derived from the loggia of Palazzo Massimo (the river facade is presumably a. heavier orchestration of Giulio's Villa Lante); but the space of the Uffizi as a courtyard or street (fig. 30) - conceptually it is a sort of wire cage to which every part of the building responds - can only seem to be the inevitable result of Michelangelo's Laurenziana of 1525 onwards (fig. 31); and, here, the implications of a three-dimensional grid, or cage, are particularly assertive.

But something very similar is also to be observed in Michelangelo's interpretation of Antonio da Sangallo's courtyard at Palazzo Farnese (fig. 34). In this courtyard Sangallo's proposals were fully realized only on the ground floor; and then, from 1546 onwards, Michelangelo proceeded to 'correct' what he found (fig. 35). What he introduced is a plane traveling through the two upper storeys, introducing flatness in the second stage with flatness and trabel'.tion in the third; and it is the third floor that provides this space (perhaps

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29

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30 31 32

Andrea Palladia. Palazzo Barbarano. Vatenza: Drawing by Bertotti Scamoz.li Raphael, Villa Madama. Rome: Loggia Guilio Romano. Palazzo del Te. Mantua: Loggia Andrea Palladio. Palazzo Bonin路Thiene. Vicenza: Drawing by Bertolli Scamozzi Giorgio Vasari . Uffi zi. Aorence: Courtyard Michelangelo. Laurenlian Library. FJorence: Interior of reading room Andrea Palladio. Palazzo Porta Festa. Vicenza: Engraving by Bertoni

33 34 3S

Scamozzi Giorgio Vasari. Uffizi. FJorence: Typical bay Antonio da Sangallo. Palazzo Faroese. Rome: Drawing by Sangallo Michelangelo and Antonio da Sangallo. Palazzo Famese. Rome :

27 28 29

Courtyard

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34

15

via exaggerated height) with its overwhelming intimations of rectilinearity. Sangallo evidently intended the courtyard to be something like the Colosseum turned inside out; but, by Michelangelo's interventions it became something radically different.

The entrance facade of Palazzo Farnese also exhibits comparable manipulations (fig. 36). Here it is possible that Sangallo intended the central window of the piano nobile to become a triumphal arch (fig. 38) perhaps on the model of a drawing for a palace in that long-since-vanished Famese town of Castro (fig. 37).16 But, primarily through added height and the activity of the central window, Michelangelo, again , produces a relentless trabeation.

Then, since it may be amusing to contemplate Michelangelo's long struggle with members of the Sangallo family, in this connection there must be cited the flanking palaces of the Campidoglio (fig. 40), where it is often said that the giant order made its first appearance. But this is to ignore the elder Antonio da Sangallo's Palazzo Tarugi at Montepulciano (fig. 41). Not necessary to say that Michelangelo could have known this although it will be sufficient to notice the relationship and the difference.

At Montepulciano columns are semiround and protuberant. On the Campidoglio they become pilasters, aggressively flat. On the Campidoglio (as at the Palazzo Farnese) arches are wished away, and the whole rectilinearized composition is expanded by the abruptness of the cornice and then, beyond this, by the balustrade and by the figures that it supports. But, on the flank, the typical bay becomes compressed and flatness becomes corrugation (the extra bay added by Carlo Rainaldi) (fig. 39). In other words, the typical bay can expand or contract; and so we have expansion-contraction, the grid, or lattice, behaves like an accordion or concertina.

However, in his commentaries on others, Michelangelo may, of course be taken further; and the contrast of the Medici Chapel , of 1519 onwards (fig. 42), with Brunelleschi' s Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo (fig. 43) is the painfully evident move.

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Michelange lo and SangaJlo. Palazzo Famese. Rome: Entrance facade Anlonio da Sangallo. Palazzo Ducale. Castro: Facade Antonio da Sangallo. Palazzo Famese. Rome: Detail of central window of piano nobil,.

Palazzo de Conse",atori. Rome : Side boy added by c arto Rainaldi Michelangelo. PaJazzo de Conservalon. Rome Palazzo Tarugi. Monlcpulciano: Enlranee facade Michelangelo, Medici Chapel. San Lon:zo. florence Brunelleschi. Old Sacristy. San Lorenzo. A orence Guiliano da Sangallo. Uffizi 279A. Palazzo dei Penilenzieri. Rome : Drawing by SangaJlo Baptistry. Tomb of Pope John XXIII. Ao rence Michelangelo. Model of proposed Facade of San Lorenzo

44

In the Medici Chapel, between the orders of the lower wall and the pendentives of the dome, there is now interpolated an upper stage, so that the space becomes vertically attenuated and the activity of arcuation becomes diminished. Brunelleschi's pietra serena entablature is now split apart, interrupted by a white plaster equivalent to the rest of the wall. Then the shape of the windows, leading the eye upwards, introduces a false perspective (more dal di sollo in su). And, further, there are the wall tombs, which, by contrary perspectival implications, are absolutely locked into place.

In the Florence Baptistery, the early fifteenth-century tomb of the anti-Pope John XXIII by Donatello and Michelozzo, of 14251427 (fig. 45), is almost like a big piece of furniture. Given energy, one may feel that one might shift it around and that it won't too much matter where it is located. But Michelangelo' s tombs are implacably related to the vertical surface. They are emanations of it and in no way to be detached from it.

Still continuing to move backwards in time now leads to the facade of San Lorenzo, of 1515 or thereabouts, and to Michelangelo's model for it in Casa Buonarotti (fig. 46).

Intended to supersede Giuliano da Sangallo's proposals, there is a rarely published drawing, Ujfizi 279A (fig. 44), attributed by Giovannoni to Giuliano that may indicate Michelangelo's point of departure. 17 It shows a rectangular composition - superimposed orders three bays wide with a central pediment - and, possibly, this drawing might have constituted the basis for Michelangelo's operations. But, whether or not this could be the case, it is rewarding to look at how he translated such material for his purposes.

Primarily he adds height by the introduction of an attic or mezzanine between the two orders. A premonition of maneuvers that are going to occur at Palazzo Massimo, Caprarola and elsewhere, the appearance of this attic, or mezzanine, both extends and distends the field of activity. Not only does it contribute height (as at Cappella Medici); but it also seems to contribute breadth and incidentally - flatness. And, thus, with further

46

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17

memberings - like the tight lacing together of the side bays up top - it acts to enforce the reading of Michelangelo's project as a grid.

But, meanwhile, this flattened and gridded surface is then equipped with further intimations. The flanking doors down below, with their curved pediments, collaborate with the central aedicule up above, with its own curved pediment, to introduce an entirely crucial triangulation - again involving a reading of perspective recession.

So, somewhat rashly, it will now be argued that this San Lorenzo proposal, generally spoken of as Michelangelo's first major architectural performance, a scaffold for the display of sculptural apparatus, is very much a result of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512 (fig. 47), in its turn a scaffold for the display of pictorial apparatus.

Before Michelangelo the Sistine ceiling presented a night sky studded with stars (fig. 48); and perhaps the most incredible aspect of the change that he effected (as in the Medici Chapel) is the immense amplification of scale. De Tolnay lists the strategies available in the early sixteenth century for a painted ceiling over a volume of this kind. ls These were: 1. The illusionistic solution as in Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi in the Palazzo Ducale at Mantua (fig. 49). Later employed by Correggio in the Duomo at Parma and brought to a culmination in the late seventeenth century in the vault of Sant'Ignazio, this became the favorite solution. Apparently the space is opened to the heavens; and, up above, there float around a variety of angels, saints, putti, allegories, etc.

2. The painted simulation of coffering Raphael and Sodoma's strategy for the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura, of 1511 (fig. 50).

3. Pinturicchio's tactics for the ceiling of the Piccolomini Library in Siena, later adopted by Peruzzi at the Farnesina for the ceiling of the Sala di Galatea (fig. 51).

In this version - possibly the most logical - there is floated a big central panel about which the accessories congregate.

18

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Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel. Valiean Sistine Chapel. Vatican: Reconstructed view as of 1508 (after Steinmann) Mantegna. Camera degli Sposi. Palazzo Ducale. Manlua Raphael and Sodoma. Stanza della Signatura. Palazzo Vaticano.

Rome Baldassare Peruzzi. Sala di Galatea. Villa Famesina. Rome Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Vatican: Nude Youth above the Libyan Sibyl 51. Peter's Cathedral, Rome: Detail of apse

But, according to De Tolnay, Michelangelo would have nothing to do with any of these. Instead, on the vaulted ceiling he imposes a rectilinear and attenuated galleria.

De Tolnay suggests that in doing this, in opposing the curves of the vault with a rectilinear structure, Michelangelo both affirms and contradicts the shape of his surface. 19 Figurative motifs emerge as vital energies conceived to be immanent in the ceiling itself. The ceiling is a monolith carved in relief with at least three planes. There is the gravitational role of the prophets and sybils pulling down the architectural skeleton and explaining the shape of the vault; and then there is the levitational role that pilasters, putti, and caryatids all implicate.

But, at the same time, there is the band of the ignudi, possibly the binding force that holds the whole organization together; and about the ceiling in general, De Tolnay uses the same language as does Hartt with regard to Giulio Romano's frescoes of the Sala di Constantino.20 He speaks of a trellis; and, of course, this reading of the Sistine may be further assisted by the disparate vanishing points of each and every paneJ.21 Meanwhile, it may be interesting to look at the background against which the nude figures are placed (fig. 52). First of all, there is a frontal plane which is flat and rather wide.

II might be equated with a pilaster. But then, behind this, there is a further surface and, behind that, yet another before the observer escapes from the domain of simulated 'architecture' to arrive at the surface of 'pictorial' subject matter.

There seems to be a conspiracy of silence to regard the Sistine ceiling not as the work of architecture that, most indubitably, it is; but, being 'painted', apparently 'architecture' it can never be. However, we might attempt to overturn thi s 'conspiracy' by looking at a detail of the apses of St. Peter's (fig. 53). Almost exactly it replicates the modanatura of the Sistine. There are pilasters and then layers upon further layers. In other words, the modanatura of the ceiling almost completely previsions what was later to occur in what can scarcely be denied to be an 'architectural' construct. If, in the chapel, Michelangelo

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recti linearizes and opposes the vault, at St. Peter's he uses something like the idea of the gridded palaces of the Campidoglio for the purposes of an attack on a centralized church.

And it is this collision between the apsidal surfaces and the cutting behavior of the grid, each acting to warp and distort the other; this interaction of constraint and expansion; this dialectic between the flat and the round that must receive ultimate attention.

Meanwhile, in contrast to the Sistine Ceiling, it should be obligatory to notice Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura and, one really has to say, its lamentable corner (fig. 54).

Two deep-space frescoes are arranged at right angles together - with nothing to intervene and to separate - and about this deplorable scene, it is comparatively easy to imagine the confusion of Raphael and his garzone when the Sistine Ceiling was disclosed in 1512. Quite simply, brilliant though they might have been, they had not done it right; and, to observe the reaction, one need only pay attention to Giulio's Sala di Constantino, of about 1520 (fig. 55). For, here, a solution to 'correct' the corners is adopted. The corners of the room become occupied by simulated deep niches in which various popes, allegories, and virtues sit around (fig. 56). Abundantly they disclose their Michelangelesque origins; and, around this framework, the frescoes - the Vision of Constantine, his Battle, his Baptism - are located.

But, walking through the Sala di Constantino some forty years ago, people shuddered. It was an expression of crudeness and VUlgarity. Bernard Berenson said as much; but, nowadays, one may wonder. For, whatever its defects might be, in terms of its sophisticated spatial development, the Sala di Constantino should, surely, be linked to the Medici Chapel. Of approximate date, which came first? Giulio under the insistent influence of Michelangelo? Or Michelangelo himself?

The dates (there is confusion about these) are almost the same; but both are specimens of the first delivery of a famous sixteenth-century spatial part; and, as such, it is astonishing that they have not been so related. 22 Did Giulio do it first, or did Michelangelo?

20

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Raphael. Stanza della Sogna.u,.. Palazzo Va.icano. Rome Guilio and assistants, Sala di Constantino. Palazzo Vaticano. Rome Giulio Romano. Sala di Constantino. Pafazzo Valicano. Rome: Po~ Urbon /fresco Le Corbusicr. Vers Une Archittf ture: Drawing of St. Peter's Paris Nogari. Vatican overdoor

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57

By historians of architecture this question, like the issue of Michelangelo's remorseless trabeation, has scarcely been addressed. On the whole, and recently, historians of architecture have preferred to involve themselves with the empirical details of particular commissions rather than with the empirical detail of particular temperaments, and on the whole, we may be thankful that so they have done. Research - in the archives - diminishes the poss ibilities of dangerous speculation.

However, like speculation itself, research can never be neutral. Whatever attempts may be made to clean it up it will remain theory impregnated. There will be rewarding discoveries that may be made; but, in spite of these, the 'researcher and archives' will still find exactly what he or she wishes to find.

So, there can never be absolute certainty; but, all the same, having talked about Michelangelo - the flat versus the round, the rectilinear versus the protuberant - it may still be permissible to resurrect a drawing from Le Corbusier's Vers Une Architecture (fig. 57) and the overdoor in the Vatican from which it derives , by Paris Nogari, 1536-1601 (fig. 58).

It presents everything that I have been ineptly trying to say. With Le Corbusier/Nogari there is Michelangelo's Saint Peter's (as it never could be) set in a vast plenum of gridded space.

All over again, but dare one say it (?), it is the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the grid imposed upon it.

No other conclusions to be drawn .

•

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21

Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio on Common Ground The Palazzo ThieDe aDd the Basilica at ViceDza Kurt W. Forster

22

o mention Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio in one breath is to ask for trouble, because popular view and scholarly opinion on this subject are in rare agreement: in the course of this century, the gulf between Giulio and Palladio has steadily widened to such extent that they now represent sharply divergent, even diametrically opposed, tendencies in cinquecento architecture.

One need only recall Sir Nikolaus Pevsner's interpretation of Giulio as the arch-mannerist whose style is alternately described as whimsical or "cheerless, aloof and austere" in its excess, asymmetry, distortion, and contradiction.

"Scorn" for "proportions in architecture which are satisfactory to our senses" and the atectonic character of his thinking are sufficient grounds for banishing Giulio from the pantheon of true renaissance artists.路 Rudolf Wittkower contrasted Palladio's achievement with "Giulio Romano's almost pathological restlessness" and "Michelangelo's extreme tension." And while the vaunted qualities of Palladio's buildings their "orderly, systematic and entirely logical" character - assume a timeless validity, the capricious character of Giulio's work merely illustrates the decadence of its age. 2 This familiar interpretation portrays Giulio as an artist synonymous with mannerism and puts Palladio in a class by himself. At a stroke, Giulio virtually ceases to exist as anything but a "symptom" and concedes to Palladio the timeless honor of genius.

There is no question that significant differences beyond those of generation and region exist between the two artists, but instead of accounting for them in vaguely psychological terms, it may be possible to explain them in precise historical ones. Even the broadest distinction between Giulio and Palladio, between an artistic polymath and a professional architect, suggests more about profound transformations in renaissance artistic practice than it reveals about differences of personality. The familiar view of Giulio as an artist who sought to escape his fate as an epigone by breaking apart what he could not keep together, must be countered by the recognition of his highly inventive approach to the creative dilemmas that constantly arose around him. Far from perverting

T

Andrea Palladio. Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: Section from I Quattro Libri dell'Archittttura Titian. Portrait olGiulio Romano (present location unknown)

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the achievements of Bramante and Raphael, Giulio extended the bounds of Roman artistic practice to a variety of new tasks and, in concert with his patrons, orchestrated all the visual arts to extraordinary effect. That he was apparently the patron's first choice for chief architect of St. Peter's after Sangallo' s death - a post instead assumed by Michelangelo - and that he was consulted at length about the rebuilding of the Palazzo della Ragione in Vicenza - a commission that eventually fell to Palladio, establishing his reputation - goes to show that Giulio's achievement in architecture was considered of the first order, at once modem and exemplary.

The circumstances of Giulio' s and Palladio 's patronage cast a sharp light on the differences that have long been seen to distinguish their work. Giulio's position at the Gonzaga court in Mantua demanded more than competence and ingenuity in all the visual arts; it required managerial abilitities as well. 3 While he moved within the ambit of the intricacies and intrigues of court life, Giulio ultimately labored for one chief patron, Duke Federico II. As heir to Raphael's practice and as a virtuoso in his own right, Giulio represented a new type of artist, the kind Popes Julius II and Leo X brought to prominence in the first two decades of the sixteenth century. Giulio came to Mantua surrounded by the aura of Rome and preceded by his reputation as the brightest star in the constellation of Raphael's workshop. His experience in several branches of the visual arts and his connections to eminent patrons made him desirable at a court of the Gonzaga's cultural ambitions. At a time of great difficulties for the Rome of Pope Hadrian VI, he was also an obtainable quantity. Federico Gonzaga received him with the highest expectations and soon gave him sweeping responsibilities. The scope and variety of Federico's assignments could only be fulfilled by an artist ofthe Roman stamp, and it is telling, despite the obvious, that Giulio chose to be known in his new position as Giulio Romano (fig. 2). His persona, like that of Raphael, combined exceptional ability with rare affability. He also demonstrated great facility both in choosing individual collaborators and in administering entire equipes. That he was also at ease in his dealings with patrons could

only make his often immensely complicated tasks more tolerable. In all these regards, Giulio represents the embodiment of the Roman high renaissance artist, cutting a sharp contrast to the newly (re)emerging specialists in the various branches of the arts, especially in architecture.

It is not with Giulio, but rather with Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Serlio, Sanmicheli, Alessi, Vignola, Palladio, and Scamozzi that we encounter the new cinquecento architect whose high degree of professionalism required him to compile treatises of increasingly technical and ideological bent. Palladio is a prime case in point: we may regard him as a stonemason bornagain as architect through the ministrations of his early patrons, who continued to groom him over the years as part of their effort to remake Vicenza. Such privileged circumstances assimilated the architect to the patron's own perceptions of architecture and its purposes. What might be intended to foster the architect is just as likely to fetter him, as Palladio himself expressed with forebearance, if not resignation, in the opening chapter of his Secondo Libro: "but often it is necessary for the architect to adjust himself more to the desires of those who are spending their money than to what one should observe."4 Not the least among the motivations to publish his own works must have been Palladio' s effort to reconcile his authentic and complete ideas with their frequently partial, altered, or disfiguring realization. Palladio' s professional life suffered the contradictory demands of his own pursuit of art and his patrons' interest in harnessing the architect's talents to their own ends. These contradictions, unavoidable as they were, took on a sharper edge for an architect who virtually owed his belated professional education and advancement to the initiative of his patrons. Palladio emerged as an architect under the tutelage of non-architects, and his perceptions - both of himself and of his professional identity - may have come to differ noticeably from those of traditional practitioners. Several factors contributed to this outcome: Palladio's professional development from stonemason to mature architect occurred only gradually, making his one of the most unusual architectural careers of his time. s His participation in the

23

grandest civic project of Yicenza - the renovation of the dilapidated Palazzo della Ragione - was patiently arranged for by his patrons as an opportunity to groom their own architect. For Palladio, it created the opportunity for an overdue professional education and secured for him a lifetime of patronage. At the beginning of this process, Palladio was still working as a mason for Giangiorgio Trissino; by the end of it, he had furnished the plans for the new palaces of his patrons Porto and Chiericati. During the decade of the I 540s, Palladio covered enonnous ground, visited Rome several times , studied ancient architecture, as, in his own words, "a diligent investigator, knowing ... of nothing other than that which has been made with reason, and fine proportion,'>6 and began to plan a series of modest but consequential rural estates.

How can one avoid the fallacies of purely stylistic distinctions between Giulio and Palladio to which I alluded at the beginning with reference to Pevsner and Wittkower? Fortunately, both architects were involved, in succession, on two of the same building projects. To be sure, Giulio's contribution to these projects must be extrapolated from documentary and comparative evidence, but it nevertheless yields telling aspects of his thinking and practice. The evidence of Palladio's participation is more tangible, even though, in one instance, equally fragmentary .

Both of these building projects were major undertakings, one private, the other civic. While Giulio 's share remains controversial in one and invisible in the execution of the other, both provide, nonetheless, a finn basis for analysis.

A bird 's-eye view ofYicenza, drawn in the year of Palladio's death, allows one to identify at once two of the largest building sites: Palazzo Thiene (fig. 3) and the so-called Basilica (fig. 4).7 On these two projects Giulio and Palladio were successively engaged and, for the younger architect, they represented occasions for exposure to Giulio's comprehensive thinking. Even a mere torso of the planned Palazzo Thiene claims prominence in the view of Yicenza, and the city's property assessment of 1564 echoes the grandeur of its architecture when it describes the property as "a house, built in stupendous, superb and decorous manner, designed and appointed in a masterly and diligent way, with

24

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many and diverse rooms and cellars, a well, and a stately courtyard with two wide portals; and those rooms and cellars are all beautifully vaulted and commodious to use with their many and variegated mantelpieces ... , most beautiful and spacious halls and corridors .... "8 The assessor's rhetoric had a basis in fact: the Thiene property carried the highest tax valuation in all of Vicenza and its owners were by far the richest citizens in town. Palladio included the Palazzo Thiene in his Quattro Libri (fig. 5), drawing attention to its central location in town and its intended free-standing plan: "questa casa e in iso/a," that is to say it is surrounded by four streets. No other palace in Vicenza matched either its magnificent scale or its architectural qualities, accentuated as they were by symmetrically spaced bays on the facades, a forcefully rusticated elevation, and a classical order of pilasters on the piano nobile (fig. 7).

Only in Rome did palaces of this kind exist, and even there they were either of relatively recent date or still under construction. The Palazzo Riario, known as the Cancelleria, and Bramante's project for the massive Palazzo dei Tribunali set the scale and pointed the way in their adoption of the castle typology with integrated corner towers for new princely residences, or for urban institutions such as the Senator's Palace on the Capitoline Hill. 9 While the resemblance of the Palazzo Thiene to these Roman examples might be considered generic, its architectural realization was strikingly modem and inventive to the point of eccentricity.

The peculiar features in the design of the Palazzo Thiene were not lost on Inigo Jones, who took extensive notes and made his own sketches on the pages of his copy of Palladio' s Quattro Libri (fig. 6) during his visit to Vicenza in 1613, stating flatly: "Scamozo and Palmo saith that thes des ignes wear of Julio Romano and executed by Palladio and so yt seemes."iO The rusticated vestibule (fig. 8) with its rough-hewn column shafts and the heavy bugnato of the courtyard struck Jones as "of Julio Romano and the manner of all ye Pallas yt Palladio setes yt downe as his owne." These remarks should neither be ignored nor dismissed out of hand.

Since they were first taken into serious consideration by James Ackerman and others,

orthodox Palladio scholars have continued to relegate them to insignificance, as does Lionello Puppi with his categorical assertion that "this building was described and illustrated by Palladio in the Quattro Libri ... with an abundance of illustrations and notes ... ; Vasari confirmed Palladio's authorship with expressions of highest praise, ... Palazzo Thiene therefore does not pose any problems of attribution. "11 Yet Puppi' s tortuous arguments rest upon the premise of a strong dose of Giulio's influence on Palladio as well as upon a certain suspension of disbelief. None of Puppi' s several points carry conviction: Palladio's text and illustrations on the Palazzo Thiene are neither abundant nor especially informative; on the contrary, his explanations remain unrewarding and the plan and section must be ranked among the most unreliable and internally inconsistent in the Quattro Libri.

More is in doubt with this project than its halting and fragmentary execution. Palladio's explanations are in fact so sparse that Inigo Jones made good use of half empty pages for his ample annotations and corrective sketches. As long as the Palazzo Thiene is considered exclusively within the domain of Palladio's oeuvre, it will continue to perplex. It fits so uncomfortably with the master's other work that every scholar seeks a way around the Thiene project in an attempt to reconcile its grandiose plan and sophisticated concept with its chronological place as Palladio's earliest major work and as one of the first of his urban palaces. Here, the problem of attribution, which is based on a local chronology, intersects with the history of a specific building type, which rests on a broad filiation of architectural ideas. For what was attempted in the Palazzo Thiene was nothing less than a synthesis of recent developments in the design of palatial residences with the archaeological study of the ancient domus. This synthesis, betraying the patron's feudal ambition, reveals remarkable architectural knowledge and skill. Who is the true inventor behind the project? Without exception, Palladio scholars have recognized reflections of Giulio Romano's architecture in numerous aspects of the Palazzo Thiene, but they have tended to explain them as either generic or as traces of a passing phase of Giuliesque influence upon Palladio, who was

Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: East facade Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: Vestibule Donato Bramanle. Palazzo Caprini. Rome (destroyed): Engraving

after Lafrery 10 11

12 13 14

Giulio Romano. Palazzo Stati-Maccarani. Rome: Engraving after Lafrery Giulio Romano. Elevation of the Casa Pippi. Rome: Drawing by G. Antonio Dosio Giulio Romano. Design for the city gate at Palazzo del Te, Mantua Palazzo Thiene. Vit::enza: Courtyard piers Palazzo Ducale. Mantua: Rustica (or Estivale), detail of south elevation

10

26

in his early thirties and still in the fonnative stages of his education as an architect. It may be useful to suspend for a moment the compulsion to view the palace as the work of Palladio and to instead consider which of its aspects relate to what we know about the architecture of Giulio Romano.

In fact, every notable feature of Palazzo Thiene finds its counterpart in earlier designs

by Giulio. The facades are articulated with a rustication that contrasts the heavy emphasis of material and mass on the ground floor with the imitation of smooth ashlar and the tall composite order of the upper story. Rustication was much more than a favorite motif for Giulio: it amounted to a fundamental exposition of his thinking on the very nature of architecture. The bearing wall and its articulation as matter were indispensable to Giulio's concept of secular buildings, which, following the lead of Bramante, laid stress on tectonic coherence - realized by means of forceful courses of bug nato - and rhetorical contrast between inert mass and individualized sculptural members. Bramante's Palazzo Caprini (fig. 9) set the widely influential example, and his unexecuted Palazzo dei Tribunali would have provided its grandest summation. Giulio adopted this concept as early as the Roman Palazzo Stati-Maccarani (fig. 10) and as recently as the Rustica (or Estivale) of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua (fig. 14), begun in 1538. In these works the impression of mass and solidi ty intrinsic to Giulio's architecture is produced by piling course upon course of rough-hewn blocks rather than merely changing the appearance of the wall surface. At the Palazzo Thiene (fig. 13), this concept of erecting a wall with massive, rude layers of stone recalls Giulio's house on the Macello dei Corvi in Rome (fig. 11) and his designs for city gates in Mantua (fig. 12).12 Characteristic of both these examples as well as other works ofGiulio's is the unornamental use of rustication. Rustication serves to render the wall virulently present as the very stuff of architecture, rather than as ornamental surface.

At the Palazzo Thiene, as already in the Roman examples of the Caprini, Vidoni-Caffarelli, and Stati-Maccarani palaces, the ground floor elevation consists entirely of courses of bug nato,

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with portals and windows defined by rustication instead of by independent framing elements (fig. 16). This is true even in the portals of Giulio's Roman house and at the Palazzo Stati, where the intrusion of rustication into the portal frames only dramatizes its dominance (fig. 17). The classical vocabulary is reserved for the piano nobile, but here, too, Giulio often allows the balance to tip in favor of the wall, for example on the facade of Palazzo Stati (see fig. 10), where the order of pilasters on the second floor yields to a thin layer of blank frames on the third, or, when the classical apparatus of a window aedicula is subverted, as in the Palazzo Thiene (fig. 18).

Fot the window aediculas of the piano nobile, Giulio adopted the classical apparatus of triangular and segmental pediments resting on half-columns, but he subverted their independence with the massive intrusion of blocks of stone: each ionic column is, in fact, composed of drums alternating with cubes; the five blocks forming the lintel rupture the entablature and invade the pediment (fig. 19). In every particular of this peculiar aedicula, the substance of the wall, in the shape of cubes of ashlar or rusticated quoins, prevails over the sculptural members and their classical norms. The type of this aedicula coincides with one of the intensely personal designs Giulio displayed on the narrow facade of his own house in Rome (fig. 21). Except for its attic, the entire elevation of the Casa Pippi on the Macello dei Corvi was rusticated and its single large aedicula played the role of a signature motif heralding the paradoxical nature of Giulio's architectural ideas. 13 The importance of this fragment of a facade in Rome for the elevation of the Palazzo Thiene requires no great elaboration.

If key features in the elevation of the Palazzo Thiene are clearly in accord with Giulio's built and painted architecture, in the design of the courtyard they can be matched, piece for piece, in Giulio's but not in Palladio's work. The rusticated columns of the vestibule (see fig. 4), which Inigo Jones flatly identified as "of Julio Romano," extend the coarse bugnato into the interior of the palace and connect its facades with the monumental rustication ofthe courtyard. Here, the piers consist of rough-

28

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

1,

Cittadella, Mantua: Detail of inlerior hall of city gate Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: Portal Palazzo Stati-Maccarani, Rome: Portal Palazzo ThieDe. Vicenza: Detail of piano nobil~ Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza: Window aedicula of piano nobile Palazzo del Te, Mantua: Detail of Sala dei Cavalli Reconstructed facade of the Casa Pippi. Rome: executed by Howard Bums et aI. for the Giulio Romano exhibition. Mantua. 1989 Palazzo Thien<. Vicenza: Courtyard Palazzo del Te. Mantua: Detail of courtyard

hewn slabs, uneven in thickness and irregular in their alignment (see fig. II). To be sure, a building of such scale and expense precluded execution in the literal terms of its design, but the lowest courses of the courtyard elevation and the piers are actually made of solid blocks of stone. Apart from Sansovino's Venetian Mint, where the treatment of the courtyard echoes the rustication of the facade in a far more muted manner, the Palazzo Thiene stands alone in exemplifying the irruption of full rustication in the courtyard of a building.

Rustication of this scale and almost brutal strength would perhaps befit a major public building rather than a private palace, and yet other aspects of the building conspire to effect this impression. The impact of its projected size alone gains by the sheer height of the upper story (fig. 22), where exceedingly taillogge clearly never intended for glazing and therefore more powerfully sculptural in effect than their current appearance suggests - dramatize the contrast between the overpowering mass of the ground floor and the elegance of the second story. The articulation of the courtyard comers consists in the peculiar meeting of two minor bays (see fig. 39). Giulio Romano never avoided, but on the contrary, rather seemed to have preferred such 'weak' conjunctions, as both the fictive architecture of the Sala dei Cavalli (fig. 20) and the actual elevation of the courtyard at the Palazzo del Te (fig. 23) confirm. Moreover, the highly unusual interior space of the city gate at Cittadella (fig. 15) in the form of a grandiose vaulted sala possesses a fully articulated elevation in which two minor bays are similarly juxtaposed in the comers.

Its unique status in Vicenza notwithstanding, the Palazzo Thiene does not derive its grandeur from mere exaggeration of generalized typological features to the exclusion of local traditions, but rather from an exceedingly clever balance of altogether new and long-familiar elements. Just as Serlio married Roman models to conspicuously Venetian traditions in his proposal for the residence of a grand Venetian nobleman (fig. 24),14 so the architect of the Palazzo Thiene neither imposed recent Roman practice nor followed reconstructions of the 21

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vestibulum in ancient houses when he designed the vestibules. but turned. instead. to distinctly local prototypes. IS Conversely. all matters of scaling. materials. internal articulation. and. of course. all manner of facade details proclaimed the presence of nobility. One may well wonder why Vicentine patricians would introduce a residence of such overpowering presence into the city (fig. 25). In fact. while the aristocratic status of the Thiene was secure. rebellion and close association with open enemies of the Serenissima had tainted their standing vis-a-vis the Venetian sovereign.

For as long as they had been invested by Emperor Frederick III with fertile foothill territories. the Thiene had pledged their allegiance to enemies of Venice. Count Antonio and Gian Galeazzo were among rebel leaders during the wars of the League of Cambrai. and. after their defeat in 1513. Galeazzo was granted a pardon by the Venetian senate only at the urgent pleadings of his wife. Members ofthe family's next generation served the emperor as well as the king of France. while others. like Count Brunoro and Giulio. went into voluntary exile during the 1530s.1 6 When in exile. the Thiene usually sojourned in Mantua. the major imperial stronghold in Italy. before the province of Milan was brought under direct imperial administration by Charles V. The first Count Thiene.

Clemente. married Lisca da Lisca from Mantua. and his descendent Brunoro. who served the Marchese del Vasto. took Ippolita Gonzaga di Bozzolo as his second wife. while Teodoro Thiene married Isabella Gonzaga. A number of documents in the private Thiene archives dating from 1542 further attest to the close rapport between the Thiene and the house of Mantua. where the brothers wished to invest in "idoneifondi stabili tiberi, & aloidati nella Citta, () Territorio di Mantova, ' .. ,"17 Surely familiar appellations such as Duke Federico Gonzaga's addressing Count Lodovico Thiene as "amico carissimo" satisfy more than merely rhetorical conventions. The agreement between Marcantonio Thiene and his building contractors also survives: dated 10 October 1542. it obliges the masons Pietro and Girolamo to secure supplies and labor for "the construction of a palace on new foundations for the Thiene

24 2S 26 27 28

Sebastiano Serlio, Design for. Palace of. Venetian Nobleman: Section

Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza: Wooden model according to Palladio's J Quattro Libri deU'Architettura Andrea Palladio, Study for the Viii. Pisani, Bagnolo Palazzo Italiano, Landshut: Detail of coffered vault in vestibule Palazzo del Te. Mantua: Vestibule and view along principal axis

26

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brothers in the street of St. Stephen .... "18 The Thiene owned most of the property comprising an unusually wide city block, including a stately residence of relatively recent date.

The building contract of 1542 has puzzled Palladio scholars because of the incongruent relation between the magnitude of the project and its early date. Still in his early thirties, Palladio's capacity to integrate the divergent tendencies in recent architecture had not yet matured to the degree that it would by the middle of the decade. His studies for the Villa Pisani at Bagnolo (fig. 26) betray the tentativeness of his moves in shaping the project, and the result of his efforts remains composite, rather than integrally composed. That the Thiene brothers, widely travelled and themselves well-versed in architecture, should have turned to a local stonemason for the design of their grandiose new palace may defy probability as well as documentary evidence. The document in question identifies Palladio as a stonemason (Andrea quondam Petri lapicida) and also as witness to the contract; for this reason alone he is not likely to have worn yet a third hat as architect of the project. The sheer magnitude of the enterprise and the pioneering introduction of grand Roman building ideas into Vicenza would have prompted the Thiene to seek proven talent outside their territory.19 It would have been the predictably shrewd move one would expect of nobles whose supra-local ambitions and anti-Venetian leanings marked their lives, and ultimately fated the entire undertaking.

Nothing would have been more likely for the Thiene than to consult the eminent architect of the Gonzaga who, by Vasari's account, had reached the height of his fame and was much in demand for the design of palaces in other Lombard cities. In fact, it is just such a palace design by Giulio Romano that one needs to bring into comparison with the Thiene project in order to gauge its precise historic position.

In 1536, when the Palazzo del Te had progressed as far as it ever did in its time, Duke Ludwig of Lower Bavaria spent Eastertime in Mantua as the guest of Federico Gonzaga to whom he was related through the marriage of his aunt to Federico I Gonzaga. Ludwig spent several days in Mantua and its environs,

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and he conveyed his impressions at once in an enthusiastic letter to his brother Duke Wilhelm IV: " ... we supped at the new palace Federigo [Gonzaga] is building [the Palazzo del Te], and I do not believe," he continued, "that there is a palace to be seen anywhere such as this one, with its precious rooms and wings, including paintings .... "20 Ludwig's letter is a valuable record for a number of reasons: it shows that one of the purposes of such palaces was the all-important one of impressing foreign visitors, not to mention the emperor himself. These visits followed, as did Ludwig's, a carefully planned itinerary that usually began at outlying estates and culminated in festive receptions and visits to the Palazzo del Te (fig. 28). So effective was this autocelebrazione of Duke Federico's that his Bavarian visitor desired nothing so much as to erect a similar building in his own town of Landshut on the Isar river in Lower Bavaria.

The rulers of Bavaria had long sought to obtain precise information about the arts which had brought such fame to the court of their Italian relatives. In 1532, they requested permission for their emissary to secure drawings of Federico Gonzaga's "edificia, hortos, equos et alia huius modo delectationis genera,"21 they followed with queries about stuccatori and painters, and in 1534, Duke Ludwig sent the Netherlandish painter Herman Posthumus to study with Giulio Romano, because he recognized in him "un depentore di rara et eximia excel/entia."

In the spring of 1537, Duke Ludwig laid the cornerstone of the so-called Palazzo Italiano in Landshut, a building that remained, to quote only one German historian, "a totally isolated phenomenon not only in the context of the town of Landshut but also in that of the entire history of German art, because of its essentially Italian character which avoids all compromise with the German manner."22 This negative assessment only underscores the palace's authentically Mantuan character (fig. 27). Such a result could only be achieved with Lombard workmen, and, indeed, Duke Ludwig spared no expense or effort to secure qualified builders from Mantua.

An Italian surveyor arrived as early as January 1537, accompanied by an assistant. "Master

31

Sigmund" received 280 gulden annually over a period of seven years, as well as room and board at the inn. Between one and two dozen workmen labored on the building site some eight to nine months annually for distinctly better pay than their German counterparts. 23 Even construction materials had to be prepared according to Italian practice. Tens of thousands of bricks, shaped in special molds and made to different sizes, were fired, and marble, lead, copper, nails, and glass were imported in quantity. Precisely because Ludwig's residence (fig. 29) remained totally foreign to his Bavarian contemporaries may it be considered a genuine link between Giulio Romano's Mantuan architecture of the mid-1530s and the progetto di massima for the Palazzo Thiene in Vicenza.

Shielded from the towns ide by the so-called Deutscher Bau, or German palace, Palazzo Italiano includes an amply proportioned courtyard with a three-sided colonnade (see fig. 37), while its main facade towers over a narrow street following the course of the river (fig. 33).

Despite its somewhat crowded location, the palace elevation rises, seven bays wide, over a rusticated base to a tall second story, accentuated by Tuscan pilasters and prominent window frames. Topped by a lintel and frieze-like attic, the palace's facade system is familiar from Roman models (fig. 30), but sufficiently distinctive in its overall proportions and in the handling of many particulars to explicitly reveal the handwriting of Giulio. Undoubtedly, Federico Gonzaga must have prevailed upon Giulio to prepare plans for the project of his famous guest. and Giulio could thereby return to the kind of grand enterprise that had eluded him since he left Rome. the design of a major urban palace.

Giulio divided the huge expanse of the main facade rhythmically by four pairs of Tuscan pilasters, but on the south elevation (fig. 31) only one pair of pilasters occurs. and it does not occupy the comer. This deviant. yet highly calculated solution could have been extended over the entire length of the facade without rhythmic interruption. As a result of the varying intervals between windows. Giulio could accomodate mantlepieces and rooms of uneven dimensions on the inside, while creating an

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intriguingly asymetrical system of bays on the outside. He had already put this strategy to effective use at the Palazzo del Te, but the particular syncopation of bays on the south facade of the palace at Landshut has no exact counterpart in Giulio's earlier work, and thus goes to show that this is no mere imitation but rather an original solution, as only he could have invented it.

The rustication ofthe ground floor (fig. 32), in alternating wide and narrow courses, accentuated by heavy quoins and prominent keystones - not to overlook the dropped keystone of the portal - carries the stamp of Giulio ' s design, as do the bases and capitals of pilasters and columns (fig. 34). Giulio does not exaggerate the character of individual architectural components, nor does he simply distort their relationships: he extends the limits of their conventional use and subtly alters their interplay while maintaining the terms of the classical apparatus. As he distinguishes selectively among the different courses of rustication and between individual bugne, relationships spring into relief and project new motifs into the familiar framework of design (fig. 35). Around the windows, and along the corners of the ground floor, some blocks or bugne are extruded further from the wall than others, creating a distinctive pattern, as Giulio employed it on the upstairs windows of the Mantuan Rustica (fig.

36) as well as on the attic of his project for the city gate at Palazzo del Te (see fig. 14). But Giulio's use of rustication reaches further than such motifs would suggest and extends into the very nature of the facture by which it acquires the qualities of softness and brittleness at one and the same time. Both at Landshut and Vicenza, the bug nato is rendered primarily by means of irregularly hewn brick and stucco in imitation of actually rusticated stone. While this imitation bugnato suggests great malleability - and yields, therefore. an impression of softness the structural exposition for which Giulio marshalls rustication produces the contrary impression of hardness (see fig . 16).

The colonnaded courtyard elevations are each centered within themselves (fig. 37). This centering brings very subtle differentiations into play, including slight variations of the

33

intercolumnia - as in the instance of the west wing's central arch, whose wider span can be registered with the naked eye - and it oddly de-emphasizes the comers. The comer solution in the courtyard gives rise to a peculiar closure on the ground floor and to an unorthodox engagement between two narrow bays (fig. 38).

As a result, the comer solution at Landshut conceptually anticipates that of Palazzo Thiene, where size, proportion, and articulation greatly intensify its lateral compression (fig. 39). The internal layout of the palace at Landshut reveals equal ingenuity, and while it may suggest a certain infonnality more appropriate for country estates than urban palaces, it is in fact patterned on the hierarchical sequence of carefully proportioned spaces so characteristic of renaissance decorum. The parallel alignment of suites of differently sized chambers does not preclude strict enfilades (fig. 43) and cleverly centered doorways connecting the most prestigious rooms. In fact, a similiarly calibrated processional sequence results from the shifting composite of uneven spaces. Most of all, the familiar sequence of rooms in expanding dimensions of approximately one to two to three remains as clear behind the west facade of the palace in Landshut (fig. 40) as it is in the east wing of the Palazzo Thiene (fig. 41). Similarly, Giulio clustered rooms into apartment complexes, both in the south wing of the palace at Landshut and on the east side of the Troia wing (fig. 42) that was under construction in Mantua between 1536 and 1539. The two grandest spaces at Landshut, the Italian salone and the stately loggia (fig. 44), exceed their respective counterparts at Mantua (fig. 45) in size but cannot match them in pictorial splendor.

Of course, Landshut could not do without the varied mantlepieces of beautiful marble. or the play of strikingly coffered ceilings with their rich pictorial decoration.

The Palazzo Italiano at Landshut for the Duke of Bavaria fully embodies Giulio's ideas on palace architecture in the mid-1530s. and. occupying precisely the years between the architect's major Mantuan buildings and the breaking of ground for the Palazzo Thiene in 1542. provides the missing link in the history ofGiulio's architectural thinking. The Landshut

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palace could have stood in Mantua, had the Gonzaga commissioned such a structure. But only in the early 1540s, when the Thiene decided to build a grandiose new residence, was Giulio given an opportunity to return to the theme of palace design that had occupied him in Rome. In the scaling of its elevations and in the inventive play of the bug nato, the Palazzo Thiene carried the Roman palace typology to its hitherto grandest realization in Lombardy.

In its typology and character no less than in its highly distinctive parts, the Palazzo Thiene exhibits the strictest connection with Giulio's work. These traits are precisely those Palladio attempted to 'correct' when he published the palace in his Quattro Libri (fig. 46), creating, in the process, the kind of confusion that led Inigo Jones to painstakingly record incongruities and outright inaccuracies with respect to the existing building. Jones' slightly exasperated assertion that "these designs were of Julio Romano, but executed by Palladio," cannot be substantially denied today. At the Palazzo Thiene, Palladio's hand is plainly evident in details of the upper floor, for example in the pilaster order with its capitals and cornice, and in the window and loggia balustrades, but it seems clear that a master plan by Giulio Romano underlies the initial concept of the building and the execution of most of its first story. Giulio's absence from Vicenza and his death in 1546 allowed Palladio to assume ever increasing responsibility for its execution over the course of at least another decade. That Palladio elected to include the palace in his Quattro Libri is not surprising when one considers the eminence of its owners, the share Palladio can rightly claim in its realization, and the importance it had for Palladio's professional development from lapicida to architect and theorist.

Two months after the Thiene assumed Palladio, among others, to work on the construction of their new palace, Giulio Romano was called (again) to Vicenza as a consultant on the renovation of the logge of the Palazzo della Ragione (fig. 47).24 The Mantuan architect's involvement with the principal public edifice of Vicenza puts the comparison of

35

Giulio's and Palladio's architecture on a firmly documented basis. In his role as consultant.

Giulio was preceded by Sansovino in 1538.

Serlio in 1539. and Sanmicheli in 1541, but his views on the renovation of the Palazzo della Ragione were tabled as theirs had been, until Palladio's proposal won formal approval in April 1549. This familiar, if tortuous, story is occasionally cast in the terms of a "competition," but the actual events took more complicated turns, revealing more about the political workings of the Vicentine council than about its architectural preferences.

In the two weeks Giulio spent in Vicenza during December 1542, he developed several alternative solutions to the pressing problems of structural improvement and renovation of the Palazzo della Ragione (fig. 48). Above all, he took a firm stand in favor of keeping the old building and as much of its dilapidated logge as possible: "non si debba patire de ruinare il palazzo cum speranza da refarne uno piu bello. "25 Giulio admonished the city council a second time on this very point when he adamantly stated "non consentirei mai infar altro novo dissegno de ruinar lafabrica per haverne a far novo modo." He demonstrated a keen awareness of the historical significance which had accrued to the character of this late gothic building, however badly its appearance and its structural integrity may have suffered over the years. His respect for the historic character of the building - which he characterized as "terzacuta e tedesca" - also led him to seek remedies for pressing financial issues. Giulio' s submission opens with urgently needed structural reinforcement, moves on to examine the utility of the Palazzo della Ragione in the heart of the market, and addresses the question of appropriate decor. He proposes to correct the cause of structural failure in the ground floor logge by enclosing their widely spaced columns in solid pillars; he would further buttress the core of the palace by moving the stairs, which lead to the assembly hall on the western side (toward the Duomo) and thereby gain commercially valuable space. Giulio also advances three different plans for the improvement of cross-passages beneath the assembly hall and along the porticus on all three sides of the

building. According to his plans, the internal traffic corridors should be entirely reorganized and treated as "vie," or covered streets, so that the insular structure of the Palazzo della Ragione ceases to represent a massive urban obstacle and becomes instead the town's centerpiece. The consequences of this approach extend far beyond the immediate project and offer a glimpse of Giulio' s thinking in matters of urban renovation. He concludes with a lightly penned suggestion for urban transformations of a kind the Vicentines must never have imagined when he suggests raising the level of the Piazza dei Frutti behind the palace while simultaneously lowering that of the Piazza dei Signori. Consequently, the Palazzo della Ragione would have come to occupy a low podest in the middle of a large public square, a grand piazza which, according to Giulio's proposal, should also be ringed by a continuous porticus. Formally and functionally, this proposal is not as utopian as it might at first appear: a grandiose effect would have been achieved with rather modest means, for Giulio's interventions on the Palazzo della Ragione amounted to little more than structural consolidation, while the piazza could have been created essentially by moving earth from one side to the other and by obliging property owners to fund a comprehensive restructuring of their frontage. Giulio had gained a great deal of experience with the renovation of historic structures and with urban improvement, especially during the years immediately preceding the Vicentine projects, when he raised the street level in the southem sector of Mantua after the flood of 1538, and soon thereafter broached the massive renovations at the monastery of San Benedetto Po (fig. 49). We should be less surprised by the scope and ingenuity of Giulio's proposals for Vicenza than by the expectations he had of his patrons.

For Giulio's plans were presented in solicitous terms, phrased in such a manner as to invite a sure and direct response on the part of the Vicentine council. In Mantua, Giulio enjoyed an open partnership with his patron Duke Federico, and it was as typical of his Mantuan modus operandi as it was ill-suited to the circumstances in Vicenza that Giulio offered 46

36

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Andrea PalladiD. Palazzo Thiene: Elcvation from I Qualtro Libri ckll'Archittnura Palazzo della Ragionc. Vicenza: RecooSlJUCled elevation before and after Palladio' s intcrvention (after a drawing by Bellio) Giulio Romano '5 autograph memorandum on the renovation of Palazzo dell. Ragione. Vicenza. 1542 Guilio Romano, San Benedetto Po: South elevation

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three alternate designs for the council's consideration: "Anchora mi e parso bene fare a/cuni altri dissegni di piante nelle quale sf dimostrano Ii modi tutti diversi che mi son suvenuti nella mente . ... " Both courtesy and professional reputation obliged Giulio to set his projects before Duke Federico in such a manner as to proffer choices, or at least to insinuate options. He owed it to his reputation as an artist, characterized by Vasari as "capricdoso, vario, abondante ed universale,''26 to dazzle with imaginative conceits and to sway his patron by the richness and ingenuity of his ideas (see fig. 2). Giulio's strategy, which had undoubtedly become second nature in his dealings with Duke Federico, caused vexation and dissent in the Vicentine council, whose factions advanced their interests through cumbersome procedures. They could not be expected to react quickly and propel Giulio toward one of the "modi tutti divers;" by which he solicited his patron's response. At the time they were put forward, the very manner of Giulio's recommendations may have doomed them to failure.

Giulio's project was soon set aside to gather dust. Six years later it was officially defeated - or so the story is told. On 11 April 1549, the stage for the final approval ofPalladio's project was carefully set by his powerful Vicentine sponsors. Of the three models under consideration, Rizzo's "model/um vetus" was long outdated and no real contender. The "model/um quondam domini Julii Romani architect;" of 1543 offered the only alternative to Palladio's, and its designer had by then already been dead for over two years. It cannot be doubted that Palladio's submission fully reflected the convergence of ideas long debated among opposing factions - the Val marana, Chiericati, Thiene, and others - who were now reconciled in their role as his principal advocates. Palladio's project was not brought before the council for selection but rather for ratification. It represented an inordinate investment of effort, including a special course of study for its architect, now over forty years old, and innumerable trials and changes, including the construction of a full-scale mock-up of an entire bay. In contrast to Giulio's cautious approach to the old Palazzo

37

della Ragione and his grand scenographic scheme for the surrounding piazze, Palladio did away with as much of the old gothic prospect of the building as possible by enveloping it in a modem rendition of an ideal architectural ~mtiquity. This single-minded concept, based as it was on a unique identification of the building as the Basilica which, in Palladio's own words, "significa casa regale," riveted attention so completely on this new urban centerpiece that anything in its ambit would yield to its majesty (fig. 50). Hence his scheme did not require renovation of the urban setting as Giulio had envisoned. His had been an eminently practical and economical restoration of the old Palazzo della Ragione, whose colorful appearance would have been preserved, "senza guastar niente de loperafatta. senza pontellare et senza periculo alcuno." In his deposition, Giulio comments only on certain particular aspects which must have been more amply illustrated on his plans. According to the documents, he left at least eight plans, elevations, and sketches with the council. Any reconstruction of his proposal remains in part conjectural, but the principal components and their purposes are clearly identified (fig. 52): on the ground floor, the old columns of the logge were to be encased in "pillastri," while, on the upper level, the row of arcades was to remain virtually unchanged. In this way, the two levels were sharply distinguished from one another. The piers are the embodiment of structural support and would surely have been treated to rustication, conceivably in Veronese marble and not unlike the local model of the massive piers supporting the ancient Arena. With his acute sense of economy and visual effect, Giulio would have eliminated columns on the ground floor - the level of the marketplace; and, by contrast, he would have accentuated the significance of the pre-existing columns on the upper tier - the level of the council hall. This solution reveals Giulio at his best: he is never at a loss inventing the simplest means to achieve sophisticated ends, keeping an eye on both cost and effect.

Palladio's studies enter at precisely this stage in the rethinking of the renovation. The earliest surviving drawing (fig. 51) for the

project (RIBA XVII/22) differentiates a markedly rusticated ground floor arcade with twin pilasters from a smooth-surfaced upper story with Ionic half-columns framing distinctive serliane. Despite the disappearance of the serliana motif, the study RIB A XIII/9 (fig. 53) suggests a subsequent stage of the scheme, in which Palladio includes a frieze in the lower order and imparts greater prominence to the classical members by supplying finer moldings and harmonizing upper and lower bays. In view of his final design, it may appear puzzling that its key feature - the serliana should have been lost along the path of its evolution, but if one considers the principal advance of RIBA XIII/9, namely the nearidentity of upper and lower story, one recognizes that the serliana needed to be divorced from its designatory role - to wit, Palladio's "Basilica significa casa regale" - before being elevated to the single motif of the entire building by a declamation of its exclusivity (fig. 54).

In the Basilica as we see it today, the upper and lower levels essentially repeat each other, de-emphasizing the distinction between their orders while casting the motif of the monumental serliana in the role of protagonist.

What had been a hierarchy of elements, treated

by Giulio with strictest economy, was progressively eliminated in favor of an unisono solution in the course of Palladio' s elaboration of the project. The employment of the serliana, justifiable on grounds of structure and lighting, progressively lost its privileged role as an aulic element through extravagant repetition.

Palladio's assertion that the "Basilica significa casa regale" begs the obvious question: "Who is the king in this royal building?" In politically impotent Vicenza, the Basilica rose as a manycolumned monument to an impossible political dream of independence and cultural autonomy.

It was a splendid shrine, masking the true status of the city as a mere dependent of Venice just as it enclosed and hid the brick pile of the old Palazzo della Ragione, exceeding the grandiloquence of its gesture in its utter lack of purpose. As a surrogate political program, the construction of the Basilica, according to the scheme Palladio had so carefully developed in concert with his promoters, also created a

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Andrea Palladio, Basilica. Vicenza: Elevation from I QUlJIlTO Uhr; d~JI'ArchjtellurQ

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Andrea Palladio. drawing of an early project for the Basilica Author's reconstruction ofGiulio Romano's proposal fortlle renovation of Palazzo della Ragione. Vicenza Andrea Palladio. drawing of a project for the Basilica Andrea Palladio. Basilica. Vicenza: Detail view Aerial view of Vicenza centering on Palladio' s Basilica

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program for architecture which transcended, by far. the immediate purposes of the project.

Whereas Giulio had proposed an economic reparation, obviously trusting the purposefulness of his efforts and thereby misjudging the hidden agenda of the Vicentine council, Palladio was led to start anew and move in a different direction: he began by remaking the existing building in an entirely different image.

Through the laborious process of its development, Palladio produced a result whose real paternity could be attributed to the process of its generation rather than to the architect alone.

He was formed as a professional and as the "creature" of his patrons in the process of shaping the collective figment that lent Vicentine polity a surrogate identity. The architectural result is deeply marked by the circumstances of its gestation, but its character assumes contradictory terms: by its position in Palladio's work, the Basilica occupies a uniquely distinctive time; by its place in history, it remains vague, not to say, timeless. Palladio produced a novum, both derived and delivered from history. In the simplest terms, the Basilica is a white elephant, an ideological shell (fig. 55). Against its ostensible purpose, it enshrines an absence of political power. The very hollowness of the political institution is made apparent by the Basilica's architectural quality as a screen, albeit an accessible one, with majestic galleries and passages whose spaces resonate with a power that never occupied it. It is all there, but without purpose: a moment that lasts because it never happened. â&#x20AC;˘

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Andrea Palladio's Vicenza Urban Architecture and the Continuity of Change

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Martin Kubelik

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n the early sixteenth century, Vicenza was

a sleepy provincial town (fig. I) with little Ito distinguish it from many other northern

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Vicenza. aerial view from the West Vicenza. area of the Roman Teatro Berga. aerial view Tearro Berga. Vicenza: Plan according to Palladio (Vicruvius. I diu; libr; dtll ' aTchittllUTa di M . Vitrul';a. Iradull; el ('ommen/ali do monsignQr Barbaro eleno patriarca d' aquiltggio. Venice 1556. p.154)

Italian cities, both in its cultural position and its urban structure. Dominated politically by Venice, the capital of an economically declining empire,l Vicenza was not even comparable to its two immediate neighbors: Padua, a thriving university town, and Verona, a key commercial meeting point at the intersection of two important trade routes. Vicenza did have two short-lived moments of "international" cultural glory: one when a university was founded there, only to be transferred within a few years to Padua;2 the other when, in 1537, Pope Paul III chose Vicenza as the site for the council of the Counter Reformation, which his successor, Paul IV, moved to Trent. 3 Vicenza's political unimportance in this period is devastatingly commented on in just two words by Emilio Franzina in the most recent history of the city, an eight-hundred-page opus, in which he describes it blatantly as "una citta minore."4 What, then,was the urban structure of this minor provincial capital into which Andrea Palladio was to insert his buildings? Franco Barbieri suggests that: The process of the formation of an urban organism - a process for which it is very difficult to collect and unite the often contradictory evidence - must have followed, in Vicenza, the general pattern of most medieval western towns. s Vicenza must have shown the typical mix of remnants of Roman origins in its buildings' footprints, the tightly knit, irregular fabric of any medieval town with its fortifications and a few palaces built in the style of the early Renaissance. Its Roman origin 6 is still visible in the dominant east-west axis (the straight line of the Decumanus - today's Corso Palladio, fig . I), and in the later houses built on the original foundations of the Roman Teatro Berga (fig. 2),1 documented like other structures, in reconstruction drawings by Andrea Palladi08 that were publi shed by Daniele Barbaro (fig. 3).9

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The oldest medieval nucleus (fig. 6) is defined and restricted by the tenth-century city wall (fig.6a),10 which was expanded in the thirteenth century to accomodate population growth during the preceding two centuries, II at both the east and west ends of the Decumanus (fig. 6b), reflecting the rivalry between Verona and Padua respectively. The Veronese defenses in the east were formed by a castle (fig. 6c), in the remnants of which were constructed, at later dates, the so-called Territorio (see fig. 31 ),12 Palladio's Teatro Olimpico, and, in an extension of the city wall encompassing radiating streets, the Borgo San Pietro. I ] The Paduan defenses in the west comprised reinforcements of the medieval castle, the Castello Scaligero (fig. 6d); 14 the construction of a Rocchetta (fig. 6e)15 slightly further out of town - also measured and drawn by Palladio (fig. 8)16 - and, in an extended city wall encompassing the Rochetta and a gridded urban extension, the Borgo Porta Nuova. 17 The definition of pre-Palladian Vicenza was completed by an extension of the city walls in the north that had been undertaken by the Venetians in the fifteenth century but was never finished (fig. 6f).18 Within this well-defined urban fabric Palladio l9 inserted his public buildings20 and palaces 21 - an urban fabric of extreme tightness with barely an open site, narrow medieval streets, and complex conditions of property ownership. Although it is datable to the year of Palladio's death, 1580, and therefore is not ideal for our understanding of pre-Palladian Vicenza, the Pianta Angelica (fig. 9)22 very clearly reveals this urban tightness. The frontispiece of Dragonzino 's Nobilta di Vicenza (fig. 4), published in 1525,23 provides another indication ofthe situation. 24 Before considering how Palladio coped with these circumstances, it is worthwhile to examine briefly how preceding generations of architects and clients had forged the visible image of the city.

As an ensemble typical of this development, one could take the group of palaces on the Piazza S. Stefano. The Palazzo Sesso-ZenFontana (fig. 5) was originally a Romanesque structure of the thirteenth century with alterations carried out in the fourteenth century.2S

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These original building phases can be seen in the portal and in various bricked-up windows, the frames of which were left visible on the facade. Its current stylistic manifestation derives from the late fifteenth century, when the floors were raised and red Veronese marble windows in the sixth order of Venetian Gothic 26 were inserted. The palace was not tom down when, stylistically speaking, a "new" palace was needed, but as much of the existing structure as possible was kept and adapted to suit the new model. The same can be said for the neighboring Palazzo Negri-de Salvi (fig. 7).27 Here again the Romanesque core was kept - still visible in the corner turrets when the palace was given a proto-Renaissance appearance. The fact that the portal was not shifted to dead center of the facade, but was retained in its asymmetrical position, demonstrates the necessity to counterbalance the client's desire to have a palace in the latest style with the economic reality of keeping building costs down. A re-centering of the portal would have meant substantial additional reorganization of the interior, at a cost obviously not merited by the representational needs to have a palace in the latest mode. It can therefore be argued that not only were new palaces built in the most current fancy dress, but the desire to have a palace in the latest style led to the adaptation, modification, and, sometimes - but only sometimes - to the rebuilding of a family palace. This attitude must be understood as part of the Vicentine nobility's tradition of manifesting representational desires in their family palaces. It is this tradition that Palladio faced when he received his commissions, and within which he had to operate to satisfy his clients' desires.

The fact that he could offer them the dernier cri through his knowledge of classical antiquity,28 the fact that he could manipulate this style to individualize specific commissions, could only have been a great asset; but the basic necessity of satisfying this representational attitude, which was inscribed in the larger historical framework of the local tradition, must also be recognized when approaching his contribution to the urban development of Vicenza.

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Vkenca: Woodcut from lhe early si",eenth century Pa'ano Sesso-Zen-Fonlana. Vicenza: Facade Vicenza. schemalic town plan showing chronology of city walls (Adapled from Franco Barbieri) a: Original city walls b: Expansions of city walls to the East and West Castello San Pietro c: d: Casleilo Scaligero e: Rochetta f: Expansions of city walls to the North by Venetians Palazlo Negri -de Salvi. Vicenza: Facade Rochena. Vicenza: Plan by Palladio Vkcnla. bird's-eye view from 1580 Vicenza. Plan of Town Center with 5 palace plans superimposed: As published by Palladio a: Palazzo Valmarana Palazzo Barbaran-da Pono b: c: Palazzo Thiene Palazzo da Pono-Festa d: e: Palazzo Chiericati Vicenza , Plan of town center with 5 palace plans superimposed: As executed a: Palazzo Valmarana PaJazzao 8arbaran-da Porto b: c: Palazzo Thiene Palazzo da Porto-Festa d: e: Palazzo Chiercicati

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It has recently become popular to also speak of Palladio as an urbanist. Cevese, for example, proposes rather sophisticated urban considerations in support of Palladio's six-bay solution for the Loggia del Capitaniato, arguing that lining up the side facade of the Loggia with the Basilica Palladiana was of greater importance than considering the functional requirements of the Loggia itself.29 It is therefore necessary to try to understand what sort of urban considerations might have been in the architect's mind in the sixteenth century. The banal- yet true - observation that in the sixteenth century, awareness of urban considerations was less developed than in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries - because of both the development of architectural and urban thinking over the centuries and practical and legal considerations - will not suffice. It would, however, be equally wrong to deduce that there was no sensitivity to urban issues at that time. It is this word 'sensitivity' that holds the key to understanding Palladio's insertion of his bui ldings into the Vicentine urban context. How is his 'urban sensitivity' to be understood? On the one hand, one could try to define in each specific case the difference between what the commission might have been in its functional and representational implications and how the building was infact executed, which, although certain indicators do exist in individual cases, is a near-to-impossible task. On the other hand, one should and can compare the executed buildings to their subsequent publication in Palladio's I Quattro Lihri dell'Architettura of 1570. 30 That method seeks evidence of Palladio's urban sensitivity in the dialectic between theory and practice. It presupposes that the plans, sections, and elevations Palladio published do not represent the actual commissions he received, but are instead elaborations made for didactic purposes on specific solutions derived from specific commissions. Thi.s case has been argued elsewhere. 31 Superimposing some of the plans from the Quattro Libri on the plan of the town core of Vicenza reveals the impossibility of the practical realization of these plans (fig. 10). This dialectic between didactic theory and practice becomes clear, at least in scale and scope, in a comparison of the buildings highlighted in figures 10 and 11.

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Before attempting to make some generally valid statement about Palladio's urban sensitivity and his contribution to urban development, a few specific cases should be examined. For the Palazzo Valmarana-Braga (fig. 17),32 three essential divergences can be discerned between the executed building and the published plan: 1. The executed building has a substantially smaller program than the one published in the second book of the Quattro Libri," as can be seen in the overlay in figure 15, originally published by Ackerman. 34 Only the front wing and the stairs to one side of the courtyard were infact constructed.

Missing are the remainder of the courtyard, the rear wing with its side connectors, the garden, and the stables.

2. The garden is abridged in the Quattro Libri (fig. 16). Palladio published its dimensions as 60 by 120 feet. The row of dimensions forming the width of the building at the beginning of the garden, however, even taking wall thicknesses into account, does not result in either 60 or 120 feet, but rather something inbetween. 3s If only the ratio of 60: 120 is assumed, suggesting the didactic ideal of a garden proportioned 1:2, then, depending on which side of the garden reflects the 1, two substantial impositions onto the existing medieval fabric result, the larger one extending into Palladio's building for Montano Barbarano, begun just a few years later (fig. lOa & lOb).36 Speculation about the feasible form of a garden for this palace will appear later in this paper.

3. Most important, as far as the visual impact on the public domain is concerned, the facade follows the line of the pre-existing street rather than lying perpendicular to the walls behind it, as published by Palladio (fig. 15).

This last discrepancy between built structure and published plan begins to explain the nature of Palladio's urban sensitivity. It is surely not sufficient to simply state pragmatically that he adhered to the property line, the course of the street, and the site at his disposal. Of course all of this is true, and of course Palladio had to deal

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Palazzo Barbaran-da Porto. Vicenza: Overlay of executed plan and plan published by Palladia (fig. 14) Palazzo Barbaran-da Porto, Vicenza: Elevation from 1761

Palazzo Barbaran-da Porto. Vicenza: Didactic plan and elevation (Andrea Palladia. I Qualtro Libri de/I'Arch;tettura. Venice 1950. Vol. 2. p. 22) Palazzo Valmarana-Braga, Vicenza: Overlay of executed plan and plan published by Palladia (fig. 16) (According to Ackennan)

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Palazzo Valmarana-Braga. Vicenza: Didactic plan and elevation (Andrea Palladio./ Quattro Libr; tk/I'Arch;tettura. Venice 1950. Vol. 2. p. 16)

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Palazzo Valmarana-Braga. Vicenza: Facade

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Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: Sixteenth-century facade

Palazzo ThieDe, Vicenza: Plan of ground floor. The gray shaded walls are the part of the palace built by Lorenzo da Bologna. the black shaded walls are executed by Andrea Palladio. based on the design by Giulio Romano (see note 40; adapted from Licisco Magagnato) Palazzo ThieDe, Vicenza: Didactic plan (Andrea Palladio. I Quattro Libr; de/I'Arch;tettura. Venice 1950. Vol. 2. p. 13)

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with those factors. But his solution generated a different set of problems. The fact that the walls behind the facade do not run perpendicular to it made it impossible to build rooms in the desired and published ideal proportions. Conformity to the existing line of the street therefore also demonstrates a certain attitude toward these problems. Whether it is determined by urban sensitivity remains an open question after one looks at just this one example. The point in the plan at which Palladio resolves the problem of the dialectic between the nature of the medieval town fabric and the client's desire for classical proportioning will become a key factor in understanding his attitude between Public and Private, between Urban and Internal.

The same types of divergences can be established in Palladio's addition to the palace for Montano Barbarano,37 even if these divergences are very different in their particulars.

Two major differences in plan have an impact on the urban situation: I. The asymmetric positioning of the main entrance has clearly to do with the fact that, as Palladio himself writes in the Quattro Libri,38 after construction had begun, the client bought an additional strip of land sufficient for two more bays to the left of the main facade and wanted his new wing enlarged accordingly (fig. 13). His unwillingness to shift the main entrance to the center must have had something to do with the additional costs involved - an economic pragmatism similar to that already demonstrated in the solution to an identical problem at the Palazzo Negri-de Salvi about seventy years earlier.

2. The angle of the building between the Contra Porti and the Contra Riale is not at right angles, as published (fig. 14), but follows the lines of older streets (fig. 12).39 In this case the dialectic between pragmatics of site constraints and adherence to ideal proportioning of interior spaces is further complicated by the fact that an older palace on the site, obviously not slated for destruction since it was only a few decades old, had to be functionally incorporated into what was to become the main representational part for the client.

The same problem of mediating between ideal plans based on right angles and existing streets reappears at the Palazzo Thiene (fig. 18),40 at the comer where the Contra San Gaetano and the Stradella della Banca Popolare, as they are known today, intersect. And, again, it is resolved by adapting the facade so it lies parallel to the streets and not at right angles, as can be seen in the north wall of the comer room and in the room immediately west of it (fig. 19). In the Quattro Libri41 Palladio published that same comer as a right angle (fig. 20).

In the dialectic between theory and practice these three examples follow a similar pattern in adaptation to the specific urban situation. Facades and comers are adapted to the pre-existing situation; as far as possible, major rooms retain the ideal proportions mentioned in theory. In the comer of the courtyard of the Palazzo Thiene, where the two so-called 'Palladian' facades are juxtaposed - they are kept at right angles - and Palladio deals with the irregularity forced upon him by the urban context in marginal rooms or wall thicknesses. In the Palazzo Valmarana the first row of rooms facing the street are irregularly shaped (fig. 15); in the Palazzo Thiene the octagonal shape of the comer room is retained and only the thickness of the wall is irregular at that point, just as in the room immediately to the west (fig. 19). In other words, Palladio allows the existing street structure to remain and ideal proportions permeate the core of the palaces in courtyards and representational rooms, seemingly an ideal solution to the clash of medieval fabric and classical thinking. In fact, this very form of thinking can be explained as a 'classical' solution to such problems. In Book Six, Vitruvius writes: All the above-mentioned symmetrical relations should be observed, in these kinds of buildings, that can be observed without embarrassment caused by the situation ... but in cases of confined space, or when there are unavoidable obstructions, it will be permissible to make diminutions or additions in the symmetrical

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relations - with ingenuity and acuteness, however, so that the result may not be unlike the beauty which is due to true symmetry.42 How else can one interpret the word "situation" if not as the specific site constraints of every individual commission. In the Italian version, the one known to Palladio through his collaboration on Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius, the words are even clearer specifically for the tight urban context: "Ma se della strettezza .. ."43 It should therefore be possible, even on the basis of these three cases, to speculate on how Palladio would have built the overall palace, had that in fact been the commission he received. At the Palazzo Thiene the feasible solution seems fairly straightforward. The orthogonality of the project published in the Quattro Libri both extrudes over and does not fill the whole insula (fig. IOc). But by justifying the plan to fit the urban block, it is possible to adjust the didactic publication to fit the site (fig. 22c). The interior courtyard retains its orthogonality, and the problems of irregularity can be resolved by varying the wall thicknesses. The only problem that remains unresolved is how far into the Roman Decumanus Palladio would or could have built.

In the neighboring Palazzo Barbaran, a Ushaped palace would have been built following the existing street lines, incorporating the site of the earlier palace, and, most probably, with a centrally placed main portal (fig. 22b).

In the case of the Palazzo Valmarana the term 'speculation' is most apt. Despite extensive recent research on property ownership in mid-sixteenth-century Vicenza,44 the extent of Valmarana ownership in the Pozzo Rosso area is still not entirely clear. Figure 22a, however, shows one of the many feasible solutions for the design published in the Quattro Libri. It even offers the possibility of speculating about a mews in the rear, with a stable entrance from one of the alleys there, and perhaps even a private entrance to the garden, now far removed from any ideal symmetrical position in the plan.4~ Again, it has to be stressed that this is only one possible solution that would respect

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Palazzo da Pono-Festa. Vicenza: Plan of ground nOOf, the executed section is shown in gray Vicenza. Plan of town center with 5 palace plans superimposed, according to one hypothetical way their didactic publication (Andrea Paliadio. 1 Quattro Libr; d<II'Archiultura, Venice 1570. Vol. 2) could have bc:cn realized by adapting the plans to fit site constraints . a: Palazzo Val marana b: Palazzo Barbaran-da Pono c: Palazzo Thiene

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Palazzo da Porto-Festa Palazzo Chiericali Palazzo da Porto-Festa. Vicenza: Facade flanked by Casa Scaroni on

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the right and the older cia Porta palace to the left Palazzo da Porto-Festa. Viccnz.a: Didactic plan and secrion (Andrea Palladia . I Quallro Lib,.; d~/I'A,.c h iutlu,.a. Venice 1950. Vol. 2. p. 8)

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sixteenth-century ownership lines as far as they are known. Other speculative solutions would be just as possible.

Palladio takes a different approach in the case of the Palazzo for Iseppo da Porto (fig. 23).46 Again the palace as published (fig.24) is substantially larger than what was built. 47 Only the smaller wing, the one facing Contra Porti, was constructed. In my opinion, with the probable addition of a courtyard, the entire commission 48 is that shown in gray in figure 21. The adjoining fifteenth-century family palace had to be functionally incorporated into the new ensemble. But in this case, the interior walls are perpendicular to the facade, and the urban context is preserved by building parallel to the older palace, even if it extrudes marginally, to help emphasize the importance of the new wing. This solution has obvious advantages: it is no longer necessary to manipulate internal spaces to capture the irregularities of the plan, and the side facade of the adjoining Casa Scaroni is taken into consideration. Its original Venetian Gothic windows were, according to Barbieri,49 a superb example of the late Gothic in Vicenza, though the extant ones were inserted in the nineteenth century. No doubt Magagnato's statement is also correct:

the triangle of land between the current main facade of the Palazzo da Porto Festa, the side facade of the Casa Scaroni, and the Contra Porti (fig. lld).st When considering the Palazzo Chiericati, it is necessary that one consider it in all three dimensions at once and not to restrict discussion initially only to the plan. But this means that certain semantic clarifications must be made, that should be considered valid only for this discussion. The three-dimensional insertion ofthe building into the urban context will be referred to as its character; the architectural detailing, important because it often defines the actual links to pre-existing, neighboring structures, will be referred to as the styling with which the intervention was performed. Character concerns the volumetric insertion into the medieval context of tight voids and heterogeneous solids and concerns the intention of the visible impact on the urban fabric. Styling accounts for the expression of decorative and ornamental particulars, which operate on a smaller scale but which can, and, depending on intention, must have a direct impact on character.

The different character, and through it Palladio's ability to adapt to the urban context, can be shown in a comparison of any of the four palaces discussed so far and the Palazzo This palace does not act like a stage Chiericati. The Palazzi Valmarana-Braga, Barbaran-da Porto, Thiene, and da Porto-Festa set, as for example the Palazzo are all closed in their character toward the Valmarana, and it was therefore positioned in such a way as to be streets, the urban fabric, and the public domain. oblivious to the course of the They open to the interior of the palace, to the street . . . emerging on the left and private or semi-private domain, to the courtyard recessed on the right, giving it the - typologically, in other words, to the classical impact of being the facade of a deep perystilium, adhering in their overall disposition architectural block. 50 to the casa degli antichi. 52 At the same time, these palaces reflect an urban awareness in the But this statement is not enough, for it does way they respect the medieval town fabric, in not take into account all those considerations the way Palladio inserts them into the building of urban sensitivity discussed in the other tradition of Vicenza, its social setting, and its examples. Was this solution forced upon Palladio medieval streets, with sometimes barely by property lines, or was it created exclusively passable alleys. In the styling of these palaces according to his and/or his client's desire? The he at once changes the scale of the facades and answer to this question is essential in an attempt their visible image and impact. to understand Palladio's attitude to the urban Exactly the opposite attitude is taken at context. Unfortunately a definitive answer will the Palazzo Chiericati (fig. 30), and perhaps only be possible when it is known who owned through this contrast some deductions can be

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drawn about how Palladio balances urban sensitivity with classical ideals and about which of the two is in fact dominant in his design intentions. The character of the Palazzo Chiericati is open towards the public domain - it extends its facade toward city life. Why? The pragmatic answer is that the site was narrow and did not allow the development of a courtyard palace. The main facade overlooks a large square and participates in the definition of this square in its public life, and thus respects this particular urban situation. The realization of this different character is nothing new,53 but it does merit another look with regard to the question of urban sensitivity. At first glance Palladio seems to succumb to the only design solution possible for such a site.

However, on a similar site at the other end of the medieval city, by simply turning the main entrance away from the public square, the Piazza Castello, and into the adjoining street, the old Roman Decumanus, Vincenzo Scamozzi a few decades later built a palace conforming more closely to the classical typology, the Palazzo Thiene-Bonin-Longare. 54 Scamozzi was able to do this by turning a wide and shallow site into a narrow and deep one, that is, by shifting the main entrance around the corner. At the Palazzo Chiericati, Palladio did not opt to do this.55 Instead, he not only opened up the facade but also started construction at the southern end of the site, away from the Decumanus, so as to preclude any later change in the building's orientation.

Furthermore, his client had to petition for the rights to build over public property; these rights came with the stipulation that he create an arcade open to the public. 56 The Piazza Matteotti, historically the Piazza delta l'Isola, is and was an important open space in everyday Vicentine life. It is the beginning, or the end, of two major eastwest links through the city. The one is the old Roman Decumanus, crossing in a direct and straight but narrow line the amorphous medieval city footprint. The other is just such an amorphous passageway connecting welldefined square with well-defined square in an irregular fashion. Thus the Pi~zza delta l'Isola is linked with the Piazza Castello by

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Piazza Matteotti. Vicenza: Section (Adapted from Paolo Balbi et al.)

Palazzo Chlcricati. Vicenza: Didactic plan and elevation (Andrea Palladio, I Quattro Libri de//' Archilettura. Venice 1950, Vol. 2. p. 6) Palazzo Chiericati. Vicenza: Elevation from circa 1598 by Heinrich Schickhardt Palazzo Chiericati and surrounding houses: After Palladio's intervention and before the palace's extension in the late seventeenth century

(Adapted from Paolo Balbi et al.)

Palazzo Chiericati and surrounding houses: After the completion of the extension and before the demolition of Ihe last house and Miglioranza's facade added in the early nineteenth century (Adapted from Paolo Balbi et al.)

Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza: Facade Piazza detta l'Isola (Piazza Matteoni), Vicenza: Plan of 1655 showing the transfonned Castello San Pietro with the later Territorio on the far right and the Palazzo Chiericati on the top center Piazza Matteoui. Vicenza: Engraving from 1611 31

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way of the Piazza Biade, the Piazza dei Signori, today's Piazza delle Poste, and the Piazza del Duomo. Apart from performing this important urban function, the Piazza detta l'Isola also served as the port of Vicenza, as the major transportation link to Padua and Venice and from there beyond to the Levant. The major facade of the Palazzo Chiericati faces this port across the open space of the piazza. A seventeenth-century map (fig. 31) still shows parts of this docking area for barges, boats, and transport ships, which gradually became filled with houses as the importance of water transport declined, to be finally closed in during the last century.57 In one way, the facade designed by Palladio and completed only a century later58 opens not only onto a Vicentine square and the river (fig. 25), but also toward the terra/erma and further east towards Venice and its dominions in the Levant. It is therefore not enough to admire this facade for its formal traits, for its harmonious proportions, and for its exceptional chiaroscuro effect, but one must also appreciate its statement on an urban and, in fact, on an extra-urban level.

On a theoretical level this assessment was already valid during Palladio's lifetime, as can be seen in a series of his drawings 59 and in his subsequent didactic publication (fig. 26).60 Further, it also holds on the level of actual building in that part of the Palazzo Chiericati executed under Palladio's supervision that demonstrates his sensitivity to the specific opportunities and problems offered by this commission. His intervention in the Piazza detta l'Isola is superbly documented in an elevation of about 1598 by the German architect Schickhardt (fig. 27).61 The recent reconstruction by Balbi and others (fig. 28),62 based on a mid-seventeenth-century map (fig. 31 )63 of the row of houses on this side of the square, shows Palladio's integration of the fragment of the palace into the existing row of houses with only the petitioned arcade extruding from it. Even in the late seventeenth century the urban context was preserved as far as possible, as can be seen, again, in a reconstruction by Balbi and others (fig. 29) that was based on a seventeenth-century

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drawing by Monticolo (fig. 32).64 It was only Miglioranza's intervention in the first decades of the nineteenth century 65 that created the current configuration, which, however well proportioned and ingenious his lateral facade may be, demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the urban context and a total lack of urban sensitivity by tearing down the last remaining house and making the Palazzo Chiericati a comer building, something it was never intended to be.

The example of the Palazzo Chiericati clearly shows how important it is to examine the third dimension in an attempt to understand Palladio's urban interventions. At first glance, when the character of his palace architecture is compared to that of preceding palaces, it seems vastly different and not at all sensitive to urban issues. An extreme example can be found in his Palazzo da Porto-Breganze (fig. 33).66 But this contrast is misleading. His interventions must be seen in light of historical tradition, the one exemplified at the beginning by the ensemble of palaces on the Piazza Santo Stefano. It is part of the tradition of building in the latest mode; it is part of the tradition of building a representational family palace.

Forssman observes (with regard to the Palazzo da Porto-Festa): The great dimensions reduce the passerby to a modest size. The rusticated stone gives the building a heroic character suitable to public buildings or habitations of nobility, not to a middle-class dwelling. 67 He is of course right. No doubt Palladio introduced a new architectural style to the city, one based on classical antiquity. No doubt this is precisely what his clients wanted in order with their ambitions for self-representation. In his implicit criticism, Forssman ignores both the social status of Palladio' s clients, who were truly invested nobles rather than members of a middle class, and, more important, the established tradition of building and rebuilding in the latest mode, which was carried out as economically and feasibly as possible. It is after all this attitude of urbanism

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which transcends all considerations of architectural style when understood in the historical development of an individual city rather than seen only through the myopic vision of an individual architect's contribution.

When it comes to the question of the detailing of these palaces, to their styling, one has to start questioning Palladio's respect for the pre-existing fabric. The way he allows the sixteenth-century courtyard facade at the Palazzo Thiene to slam into the earlier one (fig. 34) does not apparently express sensitivity.

And 'although it is impossible to justify this brutality, one can yet again at least try to understand it, as it is in this instance explained by the attitude Palladio shows in his own work.

He typically showed little respect for a dogmatic solution when an undogmatic one proved essential for a certain character that he desired. For example, when it was necessary to express a central risalt at the Palazzo Chiericati and the optimal solution was to extrude it by a column radius, he thrust together two classical columns to achieve the moreimportant overall character of the building.

This is not totally comparable to what happens in the courtyard of the Palazzo Thiene, but it does show the lack of respect for dogmatic styling in the interest of overall character.

In summarizing these considerations about sensitivity to urban issues, it is clearly possible to see how Palladio inserts his palaces into the contextual situation of the city both two dimensionally and, in overall character, three dimensionally. It is the third dimension that ultimately created the visual impact Palladio was to leave on Vicenza. The actual square footage that Palladio covered in Vicenza (figure 35 illustrates the buildings certainly attributable to Palladio, and figure 36 the buildings with which he might have been involved) might suggest a more insignificant role than he actually played. Visual impact, and through it a paradigm for future generations of architects, is determined not only by quantity and style, but by scale, didactic success, and the social, cultural, and political role played in the life of the city by the buildings that form the image. The question of scale has already been addressed, but

33 34

35 36

Palazzo da Porto-Breganze. Vicenza: Facade Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: North-east comer of courtyard Vicenza. aerial view of town center with the palaces executed by Palladia marked Vicenza. aerial view of town center with the palaces executed by and attributed to Palladio marked

Palladio's didactic success and the reasons for it need still to be discussed in greater depth, as does the use of his buildings in the social, cultural, and political life of Vicenza.

The last can be dealt with in brief. Both major governmental buildings in Vicenza, the one for the Venetian military commander, the Loggia del Capitaniato, and the other, the symbol of desire for local rule by the Vicentine aristocracy, the Palazzo della Ragione (Basilica Palladiana), glaring at each other in their political rivalry across the major town square in Vicenza, are surely sufficient evidence of the impact that Palladio's architecture had on the political life of the city.68 Equally definitive, the Teatro Olimpico, although hidden in a medieval fortress 69 and therefore having no overt physical impact on the urban fabric of the city, had an enormous influence on social and cultural life and must be understood as a continual presence that influenced thinking about architecture in Vicenza. 7o The question of the influence of Palladio' s didactic success has to be analyzed on two levels. First of all, one must reflect on the more-general influence that his theoretical work, the Quattro Libri, had on architecture and architectural thinking in general, not only in Vicenza. The problems inherent in this question can be summed up with the unfortunate word Palladian ism, too often used, misused, abused, and misunderstood (as is the word Palladio)71 and sufficiently criticized elsewhere,72 so that it will suffice here to observe that it now means nothing. However, the impact that the Quattro Libri has had on architecture throughout the Western world cannot be denied. Hundreds of examples were gathered in the 1980 exhibition on Palladio' s architectural heritage in the world. 73 On a more immediate level, in Vicenza itself it is worthwhile to look at his influence more closely. Using purely stylistic criteria, one would have to jump to the period of Vicentine neoclassicism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It will be necessary to do this, but the continuity of the urban architectural tradition in Vicenza, as outlined above, can be documented in the interim.

Again, this is not exclusive to Vicenza. What

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can be shown, however, is that stylistic expression becomes more and more inbred in the immediate local examples the city has to offer. In the seventeenth century, although Palladio was already being revived, as is revealed in the completion of the Palazzo Chiericati, it was much more the influence of pre-Palladian architecture in Vicenza that could be felt. For example, the composition of the facade of the Palazzo Squarzi-Navarotto of the early seventeenth century (fig. 41), sometimes attributed to the circle of Antonio Pizzocaro,74 is heavily influenced by both the Vicentine early Renaissance, by something like Lorenzo da Bologna's Palazzo Thiene (fig. 42)'5 (as can be seen by comparing the windows of the main story ofthese two palaces) and (for the lower part of the facade) by something like Gian Domenico Scamozzi 's Palazzo Testoni-Bisognini of about 1550 (fig. 44).76 In other words, when Palladio's work returns as the major paradigm in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, one has to understand this not only as a general return to neoclassical style in western architecture, but also as something specifically influenced by the Vicentine situation: gradually changing attitudes toward continuity based in local traditions.

A few examples are necessary to understand the immediacy of the Palladian impact, especially since later architects would have his executed work directly in front of their eyes on a daily basis. The built facade of Palladio's Palazzo da Porto-Festa (see fig. 23) is the direct model, only marginally altered, for the Palazzo Fiocardo-de'Troi, of 1799, by Carlo Barrera (fig. 43).77 The same Palladian palace, however, in a reconstruction of the un-executed facade (fig. 37), played the same role in the Palazzo Franco of about 1830, by Antonio Piovene (fig. 40).78 Earlier than that, in 1782, Dttone Calderari placed a near copy (slightly reduced in the number of bays) of the main facade of the Palazzo Thiene (fig. 38) - as deducible from the Quattro Libri - a few hundred yards further down on the Corso Palladio in the vestige of the Palazzo ZillieriLoschi-dal Verme (fig. 39).79 In this case, as at the Palazzo da Porto-Festa, even Palladio's

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37

1R

37

Palazzo da Porto-Festa. Vicenza: Modem reconstruction of facade

38

facing Contra dei Stalli Palazzo Thiene. Vicenza: Reconstruction of main facade facing Cono Palladio based on evidence in Andrea Palladio. I Quattro Libri d~//,Ar('hi't>1lura ,

41 ..&2

Venice 1570 Palazzo Zilicri-Loschi-dal Verme, Vicenza: Facade Palazzo Franco. Vicenza: Facade Palazzo Squarzi-Navarotto. Vicenza: Facade Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza: Fifteenth-century facade, elevation detail

..&3 44

before 1872 Palazzo Fiocardo-de'Troi. Vicenza: Facade Palazzo Testoni-Bisognini. Vicenza: Facade

39

40

42

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grid shift away from the street can be seen in the unaligned facade. The list of examples could be extended. Beyond the change from creative thinking, these palaces exhibit little of that urban respect revealed by Palladio' s executed buildings: in all three cases the sites were first cleared of all pre-existing structures to allow for the construction of these monuments, regardless of the urban context. Where has the Palladian sensitivity to urban issues gone? It will not suffice to argue that this attitude extends beyond Vicenza, and that the nineteenth century had different priorities regarding extant urban fabric than did the sixteenth.

Continuity, yes, but a continuity heavily taxed by a change of attitude. This change is also reflected in the more-chauvinistic search for sources, which has now totally degenerated into the town's own architecture as a pattern book. In the past this search had extended outside Vicenza, outside the Veneto, as practiced not only by Palladio, but by all major sixteenth-century architects of that region, such as Sanmicheli, Sansovino, and others. This changed in the eighteenth century. Ottone Calderari, for example, was proud that he stayed in Vicenza most of his life and only made one short trip to the south. The new chauvinistic attitude was aided and abetted by the presence of the original Palladian architecture in the city at a time when his didactic influence was felt all over the Old World, and later, also in the New World.

Outside reaction seemed to justify this local outlook. Calderari was honored a year before his death by membership in the French Institute, not because of his success as an architect in France, let alone anywhere outside the Vicentino, but because of his so-called successful copying of the Palladian style in the neoclassical period in Vicenza itself.80 One of the most significant changes of attitude was the change in the didactic scope of architectural publication. It is not surprising that the example of the Quattro Libri as a theoretical work had to be copied by the Vicentine Palladianists. Ottone Calderari was honored posthumously by the publication of his theoretical output edited by all the major local neoclassical figures. 81 But the content

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of that treatise has a totally different scope than Palladio's. The Palazzo Cordell ina (fig. 45),82 designed in 1776, can serve as an ideal example. It was obviously inspired by Palladio's Palazzo Barbaran-da Porto, just a stone's throwaway. As in the Palladian model, only a part of an ideal was built, in this case the front wing. In this eighteenth-century example, however, the size of the commission can be deduced from a Calderari drawing showing the executed wing and the projected courtyard (fig. 48),83 the latter never completed but left only as a stub. The theoretical publication of this palace (fig. 47), prepared

by Calderari, had to follow the examples set

by Palladio in his theoretical publication; the project had to be elaborated upon and extended. 84 But in contrast to Palladio's examples, the project shown fits an actual site extending beyond the executed wing. Both treatises, in other words, elaborate for didactic purposes. Both consider real clients and the extensions of real commissions, but Palladio extrapolates beyond realism to present classical solutions from which one must learn on an abstract level. His case study is only the departure point for a generalizing graphic statement from which one can approach more globally valid ideas. Calderari, on the other hand, presents specific solutions in which the case study remains only an example. In order to learn from it in generally valid terms, the reader is forced to extrapolate and abstract.

The so-called theoretical solution is valid for this one example only, and the lesson to be learned from it directly is valid for this one site only - perhaps a result of looking chauvinistically only at local problems throughout one's whole creative life.

Palladio is, in other words, a key figure in the development of urban architecture in Vicenza, both because of what he built and because of his impact on later generations.

He must also be seen as a catalyst for continuity. His success in both areas can only be understood through his ability to insert his work into the local tradition. He continued a gradual change; he himself did not revolutionize anything. He was and still is, unfortunately, all too often viewed as an

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absolute innovator. If he is seen as a father figure by many of the architects and artists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Vicenza, as he is depicted in an anonymous painting showing his arm being grasped by Calderari (fig. 46):85 it is they who gave him the image of a demigod. This nineteenth-century image of a demigod required an iconographically loaded tomb in 1845 86 and a relocated skeleton to place therein, still not known for certain to be Palladio ' s.s' And, finally, in 1859, not just an intellectual but also a physical pedestal had to be consecrated (fig. 49),88 a pedestal epitomizing the artificial value of image and superficiality in contrast to substance and content. The longer he is allowed to stay on this pedestal, the louder will be the bang when it finally topples and crushes him under it.

What Kurt Forster presents in his re-attribution of the Palazzo Thiene89 is not merely the first justified crack in the stone, but also its Heavy Tilting. More is bound to come. Palladio's greatness lies in a different understanding of him as an architect: in his ability to have remained down to earth, to have remained a realist, to have inserted his creative abilities into the local tradition, and thus to have satisfied and enthused his clients. He does not belong on this artificial pedestal with his feet removed from the ground, and it is more than likely that had he been given the chance, he would have regarded himself so situated with towering skepticism. 90 â&#x20AC;˘

Palazzo ConIcllina, Vicenza: Facade Otton, CalduDri t Andr,Q PalladiD uniti ndla gloria , Painting: Sometimes atttibuled to Anlonio Rossi Palazzo Cordellina, Vicenza: Didactic plan by Ottone Calderari Palazzo ConIcllina, Vicenza: Plan of ground floor. project by Ottone Calderari Statue of Andrea Palladio.Vicenza: FOlo Montage

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Rhetorical Uses of the Object

Shayne O'Neil THEATUS TO A FRIEND

It has been observed that though the ancient philosophers expressed their doctrines in the form of dialogues, this kind of composition has been ignored in later ages. Systematic argument, such as it is practiced today, clearly places one in a methodological and didactic position. To present any kind of theoretical matter in conversation hardly seems natural; and while the dialogue-writer may wish to give greater freedom to his performance and avoid the semblance of Author and Reader, one may be led into an equally unfortunate appearance and present the image of Teacher and Student. Furthermore, while the dialoguejorm may be able to explore difficult topics with greater ease, its lengthy preparation demands so much time that an audience will hardly think themselves compensatedfor the simplicity and precision gained.

Yet, there are some topics to which dialogue-writing is peculiarly suited and where it is still preferable to the direct method of composition. Certain matters of theory which remain obscure and uncertain seem to direct us quite naturally to conversational exchange. Reasonable individuals may be allowed to differ where no opinion is final. Contrary views, even when debate appears unnecessary, provide a satisfying amusement. And hopefully if the subject is interesting, both clarity and enjoyment may follow.

Happily, this circumstance can be found in the subject of contemporary criticism. For very few topics recently have gained the attention and been the focus of so much disputation. Yet so fascinating is this subject that it is difficult to restrain one's restless inquiry; this despite the fact that only uncertainty and contradiction have as yet been the outcome of our most persistent investigations.

Thus it is that I recalled a particular conversation between Peisetarios and Epimetheus. Your interest you then said was so aroused, that I must of necessity, enter into a greater account of their reasonings and record those various arguments they advanced regarding this difficult topic.

I should add that my youth at the time rendered me a mere auditor of this discussion, and that curiosity, natural (0 that early station in life, has so inscribed in my memory the course oftheir exchange, that I hope I shall not leave anything out or misconstrue any part of it in the recital.

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Characters of the Dialogue:

PEISETARIOS, EPIMETHEUS, THEATUS

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Theatus: You surprise me Peisetarios. Don't you have a response to Epimetheus' eloquent speech? Isn't there something in his account that you might praise? Or even anything you might refute, if you disagree?

Epimetheus: Of course, modesty naturally prevents me from acknowledging

evaluative apparatus of a separate agency called criticism.

However, this is not to say that criticism as I've just described it was wholly innocent. That is, it didn't arise nor did it cease merely because of the existence of the object it illuminated. It had its own life, its own laws and structures. While it may therefore have mediated between a created work and a public, it was never merely a reflex of the other two.

Yet recently, this claim to a separate identity for criticism has apparently changed. No longer satisfied with its mediative role, it now appears to relinquish all of its former commitments to explain and judge.

And perhaps most difficult of all, in this abandonment, the critic assumes a role not unlike that of his former subject, the author. The argument justifying this role-change might be summarized as follows: criticism's separation from its subject has always been a rouse - a mere preface to a reuniting of the two. Its previous claim to an analytical understanding of its subject is a pretense of knowledge. What it has always sought is not distance from its subject but possession of it, or perhaps more appropriately, dissolution into it. In a spiral of mutually reinforced identities, the ends of criticism and of the produced work therefore become one. The critic effaces himself before the object and the object qualifies the critical understanding.

your praise while suspicion suggests your flattery has another purpose. So go ahead and ask whatever you want.

Peisetarios: Well, bless me, Epimetheus. Now, would you do me a favor?

Peisetarios: Indeed, it is true Theatus, that there are some questions I'd be eager to ask Epimetheus particularly with regard to what he was just saying about criticism and the methods and subjects appropriate to it.

Theatus: I'm sure then that Epimetheus won't refuse to reply to any inquiries of yours, isn't that so Epimetheus?

Epimetheus: It would clearly be cowardly of me to ignore Peisetarios' questions especially if greater understanding is what he seeks.

Peisetarios: That is very kind of you, dear Epimetheus, coming from someone of your authority and with such sanguine confidence in their reasoning abilities.

Peisetarios: Dear Epimetheus, your suspicions are ill-placed, for my questions arise from the most genuine desire to understand the nature of current criticism and the dilemma as you describe it, that it finds itself in.

But you see, as you were talking, I got a bit lost.

Theatus: Well, Epimetheus, could you then recount once again for all of us, what criticism is from the beginning.

Epimetheus: All right Peisetarios, I don't mind repeating my views on this and other matters if they are still unclear. If you recall, I observed that traditionally criticism was held to be a kind of investigation and an evaluation of a subject. What the critic sought to do was to analyze with knowledge and propriety this subject in order then to interpret the meaning and intentions of its author. Further, because this analysis required estimation of its merit, the critic had also to define criteria or rules of judgment. Only then could a work's success be measured when compared to other like works.

Now along with these other activities, there had long been another assumption about criticism and the critic. This held that in order to analyze and judge a thing, the critic must work outside the realms of both the producer of the object and its intended audience. What the critic did was to mediate between the two. Grasping something's meaning when not understood directly then permitted the critic to interpret it, albeit filtered through the

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Please don't laugh at me if I'm a bit slow at grasping what you say and keep asking questions; but try to be tolerant and considerate as you answer them.

For you see, if I follow the course of your argument, then you seem to suggest that criticism in its present form has no object at all. And if it lacks an object, then it ceases to be an activity distinct from those practices which it formerly addressed. However, certain disciplines such as literature, poetry, or art continue to produce novels, poems, or paintings, do they not? Well then, if criticism is attempting to assimilate itself with these other activities, does it now simply disappear or does it continue to exist in a new guise?

And if the latter is the case, what kind of thing does it produce which is distinct from what it did before? I know these questions are quite obvious from what you've just said, but I would be very grateful if you would indulge me by answering them as clearly as you can.

Epimetheus: It would certainly be unforgivable of me, Peisetarios, to merely present you this summary and then not answer your other questions.

As I just observed, the critic now must decide what it is that criticism does. In part this requires the critic to either redefine its prior facilitative role or admit that it has no independent role at all. While there is hardly agreement among critics, some however, have embraced a very different and novel assumption regarding criticism's place. Thus, certain critics have suggested not only that it must give up its previous analytical and evaluative functions; but as I just noted, in an effort to reunite criticism

with its prior subject, some have even claimed that it must itself become another inventive pastime. Here the topic to be addressed by criticism is not a subject outside its own workings. Instead, its appropriate domain is just these workings themselves. The critic and criticism thus take their place alongside other works made by other producers. The only difference now is that this critical subject is something completely internal and selfreflexive with a meaning limited to its own behaviors.

Theatus: I think we're all beginning to see what you mean, Epimetheus.

But like Peisetarios, I too wonder what this change implies for criticism.

Thus, I have always assumed that what the critic did was to produce a work of a special kind, that is, a text. And while the focus of much criticism is also textual and about language, for example, literature, not all of these things are either written or spoken. Paintings, sculptures, or buildings are frequently the subject also of criticism, but unlike the critical text or other textual subjects, they have little seemingly to do with language.

Now if criticism as you say, has recently relinquished its independence from its former subjects and sought to become merely another expressive activity, how can this actually happen? Specifically, how can the critical text which you now describe as criticism's 'object' take its place next to other non-textual objects or even other non-critical texts? Isn't there still a difference among these things even if we do acknowledge them to be works made by a producer?

vanish, so did those disciplinary divisions formerly separating one expressive activity from another. What persisted was just that complex of language uses - other texts, codes, and discursive practices making up this newlyfound realm of 'pure' textuality.

So, to finally answer your question, Theatus, if texts are indeed the only distinction between what has meaning and what does not, and if criticism specifically has to do also with texts, then it no longer makes sense to exclude what the critic does from what other producers of texts do. This, it would seem, is how the critic might well justify the change that I just described.

Theatus: I suppose I'm beginning to see that my question is not an easy one to answer.

Epimetheus: Indeed, it is not, my dear Theatus. But listen further for now Peisetarios has another question he'd like to ask.

Peisetarios: Yes, Epimetheus, that's true though I too am in awe of the complexity of what seemed so simple a matter when we began. And I am grateful to you for your account of what textuality is and how it has altered the critic's task. But now if you could reveal the same insight, not to mention brevity, in explaining what these changes imply for the critic, I should be even more appreciative.

Epimetheus: I'd be happy to Peisetarios. Clearly, despite the critics recourse Epimetheus: Your question, Theatus, is quite to the point. And only fear of straining the patience of my listeners prevents me from giving you a fuller account. Yet I do not think I shall digress too much if I reply with a very brief review. As you might recall, the shift I've described regarding criticism began as much from a changed definition of its very content as of its methods.

What this changed content assumed was that terms such as 'work' or 'object' were hopelessly antiquated. What these and other things produced by authors had in common were simply their intended meanings. Thus, rather than talk about their origin, their circumstances of making, or even their authorship, one spoke most comprehensively when referring solely to the so-called 'space' between a meaningful event and its audience. Furthermore, because neither the identities of these events, nor audiences were thought to be stable, this space came simply to define a realm of ephemeral and endlessly proliferating meanings. To distinguish this newly revealed situation. the term 'textuality' was proposed. And to emphasize the role of meaning over its many diverse vehicles, the expression 'text' could now be applied. Texts simply referred to what had meaning without the impulse to define the particular form meanings took. Whether their expression was in fact written, spoken. or merely shaped made little difference.

Of course, with this redefinition, not only did individual subjects

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to this new domain of textuality and how it allows criticism to redefine itself, it doesn't come without problems. What confronts the critic now might best be described as a state of productive indeterminacy. Here questions of who does what and in which order are left deliberately vague. Given this circumstance, two options seem available to criticism: either it can admit to being one text among many, yet permit itself to become transparent before another text when elucidation is required; or it can abandon obedience all together and create another text claiming the subtlety of its workings bear a likeness to some other work, albeit far more complex. Either way, the critic' s predicament can be summarized by this confession: that if one's text can reproduce and even exceed the meaning of its host, then perhaps the latter may after all resemble the meaning of one's criticism. Obviously, the only certainty in this self-reflexive gambit is the growing sense that neither the original nor the critical text are what they once appeared to be.

Peisetarios: So, what then is left of the critic's subject? Even if it has relinquished its previous content or object, as you call it, criticism must still be 'about' something, must it not?

Epimetheus: Of course, but this is where the argument becomes even more

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intricate. Maybe the direct answer to your question, though critics themselves will disagree, is that criticism is most fitting when it addresses its own structure and function as text. Thus in place of a work with a fixed meaning, location, or producer, the critic assumes the role of auditor before an object of infinite plurality -a 'text-object' if you will. The critic now dutifully records whatthis text does, how it does it and finally measures the extent of its effectiveness.

However, as you might imagine, the results ofthis change are quite predictable.

Since the relationship between the critic and the text are wholly internal, the resulting document remains a mere transcription of the means of interpretation.

Alas, an inventory of the critic's intended methods becomes its own content; the system adopted in order to understand another text, is now itself the text.

Peisetarios: Well then, what understanding can such a criticism offer its audience if this is so?

Epimetheus: A very limited one, I'm afraid my dear Peisetarios. Because now critical methods and content are no longer distinguishable, their relationship if we can still call it that, must simply be self-confirming.

Definitions direct the audience to the method. Insight is circumscribed by one's understanding of its use. Put quite simply, one encounters the text through the critic's methodological apparatus and the critic likewise exhibits the text as an example of its exercise. The index of the critic's success is just that skill revealed in reformulating one text as the selfconscious expression of another.

Clearly, the expediency of this merger for both critical and recipient texts should also be obvious. The critic can claim access to a thing otherwise removed from immediate scrutiny; and for the host-text, it means confirmation not from an outside authority, but from within its very own structure.

Peisetarios: Yes, I suppose what you say may be true. But come now, what then are the consequences of this new internalized criticism? For if I have understood you correctly, this tum towards textuality was meant to eliminate that separation dividing criticism from its recipient subject, is that not so?

Thus it could then define itself as an activity producing a text just like other activities? And perhaps most importantly, it could take its place among the diffuse network of practices making up social meanings in general?

However, having gained this status, criticism, according to your account, has chosen to concentrate upon its own textual workings as its new subject. Even when it engages another text, the new text which results is still about its own relationship to this prior one. So then, what is to prevent this more recent form of criticism from exchanging one privileged isolation for another? I'm sure Epimetheus, that you have anticipated this next question, so I shall now be quiet.

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Epimetheus: That is good of you Peisetarios, for I was about to conclude my talk with a reply to this very problem. So do be patient. For as you recall, I said that criticism is able to unite its own activities with those of its former subjects only if it reformulates what it does, to be just another instance of what these other activities do. The claim that authors or producers after all make 'texts' rather than specific works or objects then allows the critic to define criticism as just another form of text-making. The benefits of this general redefinition should be clear. As another producer, the critic can abandon his previous mediating role. And having given this up, it can also abandon its prior role of analyzing and judging other's work from a distance.

Yet now, having done this and having then joined the larger context of producers, it must also redefine the thing which it makes. And as I just noted, many critics would say that what they produce is a text, or more precisely a text about its own functions.

So far, I hope my account has been clear. However, where the greatest problem for this recent criticism arises is just in this last point.

Since greater inclusiveness of meanings and their communication would seem to be one of the primary ends of this tum towards textuality, is it not ironic that exclusivity of method threatens to undermine this very goal?

That is, in defining the subject that criticism shall address, is not this choice of its own form and methodology a very restricted one? Clearly, not all critics have interpreted their subject this narrowly. To the contrary, some while rejecting criticism's previous ambitions, have sought to embrace a much more complex object of focus. Still, there are many who would claim that internal coherency demands priority; that this demand and the obstinate unwillingness to entertain realities surrounding the critical text are a necessary price.

Yet this insistence, if not somewhat contradictory, is indeed costly.

Even if methodological order can be achieved, does not this apparent indifference to context render its subject a curious surrogate? By removing the critical text from a far too messy circumstantiality, absence of these realities makes their importance even more obvious. Instead, a pretended ignorance supplants the insight that might otherwise be expected. The critic would appear left then with a text - an artifact without seeming cause, duration, or even audience.

So if I may conclude, the problem of this recent criticism is finally its very success. That is, it has so effectively distanced itself by concentrating upon its own formal operations, that its re-entry into the greater realm of meanings, practices and other works or texts becomes unimportant. The irony here is that knowing as much as we do about the workings of this new 'textobject', we are left still understanding very little about its other 'pre-texts' who its producer is, what its cultural setting may be, and what historical circumstances allowed it to take place. Closed and self-immured, what curiosity then can there be left, critical or otherwise, for so impoverished a work?

Peisetarios: Are you then finished, Epimetheus? For I don't want to interrupt

Peisetarios: Indeed, I'm surprised at you Epimetheus. For I thought you

your account, particularly one delivered with such conviction?

might tell us how we might reconcile this problem. Instead, you have left us not with a possible solution but with a still greater dilemma than even I imagined. But as you were talking, another idea came to me.

I was reminded of the ancient philosophers before the advent of this vexing issue we call criticism. And I began to recall those qualities thought necessary to anyone attempting to inquire, judge, or produce something for an audience or public.

Epimetheus: No, no. I'm quite finished though I hope I may now have clarified what I said earlier. But at this point, I'd be eager to listen to your reply even if this topic still alludes you.

Peisetarios: That's very kind of you, for you have been very tolerant in answering Theatus' and my questions. Moreover, I think I do begin to understand what has troubled me about recent accounts made by certain critics. And you have outlined an argument which though difficult, makes this understanding even more thorough. Yet you concluded your remarks just now without saying what must be obvious to us all.

Epimetheus: And what, my dear fellow, might that be?

Peisetarios: Quite simply, that criticism and the critic have still to define a purpose and an identity appropriate to this emerging textual setting. Now you implied that criticism might be able to do this in one of two ways. Let me try to summarize those ways.

Epimetheus: Please, I wish you would.

Peisetarios: The first would demand that it define itself in terms of its particular methods of investigation. The second way would require criticism to explain its activities by the particular works, objects, or texts that it investigated. Yet both ways, as you've pointed out, make defining identity or purpose difficult. Thus if the critic chooses the first course, methodology with its practices threatens to replace the very subject it sets about to examine.

And this, as you have made quite obvious promises an isolation equal to the clarity of the means achieved. Or perhaps it is the work, not the method, which aids critical definition. However, even if this is called a text, this assumes that all things so named will remain stable. And this, as you again observed, is not always the case. Some texts are about other texts; some are not. To merely call them that is not to insure that their meanings likewise remain unchanged.

Epimetheus: I see Peisetarios, that you have listened well and described succinctly the problem which I have labored to outline. For it is true that the real crisis as you noted, is in the definition of criticism itself and what the critic does. And no matter how one may seek to resolve it, the result is always the same: criticism remains a specialty in need of justification and the critic lingers as a sponsor at best tolerated, at worst dismissed. Is it any wonder then that criticism at the moment should wish to disappear.

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Epimetheus: Well, go on Peisetarios and tell us though I don't know where these reflections will get us.

Peisetarios: Let me continue then. For according to these thinkers, an individual had to possess two characteristics in order to carry out these activities. First, one must know the good or the end to be sought; and secondly, he must know the souls of his hearers, so as to appeal to their particular interests and purposes. Only when a person knew these things, could one then be said to have mastered their subject.

Now what is so remarkable about this kind of knowledge was that it referred to no specific subject matter, no single method and no proper set of principles. Instead, it was an understanding directed to an end or final cause.

What was acquired by the individual with this understanding was finally a faculty - an ability to observe in any given instance, the available means of argument and persuasion necessary to communicate an idea.

Epimetheus: So what you're saying Peisetarios, is that for the ancients, defining a subject meant not only knowing what it is, but knowing the character and construction of speech able to express it? And what then of the person with this knowledge? What role could they have? For without a method or a subject, you seem to imply that they become no more than experts, even care-takers of language and its uses.

Peisetarios: Maybe I can answer these questions Epimetheus, by returning to the problem you posed before I digressed. We concluded that criticism in its most recent form, suffered a crisis of identity and purpose. I then pointed out that neither method nor specific object helped the critic to define what it was he did.

Now, my reason for recalling the ancients, was to suggest perhaps some other way of doing this. So far, we have talked a great deal about 'works', 'objects', and 'texts'. And few would disagree that this last term promises to embrace a whole set of practices overlooked by the others which criticism can address. Still, we have said nothing yet about the effects of these other things. Thus, part of the problem of defining what criticism is and what the critic does may be deciding which of these terms most effectively

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conveys certain meanings. In this instance, the critic may be distinguished simply by the knowledge of which fonns are most appropriate to achieving a given purpose. And because these fonns might best be described as arguments, the critic then becomes a judge of their use.

The advantage of this approach is obvious. To begin with, it allows one to see the critic neither as a sponsor or worse - a usurper of other works or texts. Rather, he may be seen in the humbler guise of a mere attendant, an overseer if you will. What the critic surveys is purely language. What distinguishes this language is that it seeks to convince or persuade. Here the critic is defined not by the subject nor discipline but by use.

What the critic does is to monitor these uses, refine their practice, introduce new individuals to their application and finally defend them from outside encroachment. One might even say that the critic's identity is inseparable from these tasks. And because the fields to which fonns of argument apply are so numerous, so presumably are the fonns themselves for which the critic is responsible. Indeed there may be as many kinds of works or texts produced by the critic as there are types of persuasion appropriate to a discipline.

Epimetheus: I now see why you might refer to the ancient philosophers for assistance in this matter. And I can also begin to understand how their conception of argument might help. But come now Peisetarios. Doesn't this generality of persuasive fonns and uses create another set of problems?

For how then can criticism preserve any sense of itself if what it does has so many varied applications? Either its techniques are specific and can only address a very few disciplines but not the many that you claim. Or they are extremely broad but too abstract to commit themselves to any immediate subject. Criticism thus either hardens into a selective but ultimately benign autonomy or it expands beyond recognition.

Peisetarios: I see that you have anticipated the obvious limitations Epimetheus. But be patient if you will, for I shall continue. Now, might not a large part of the crisis you described about recent criticism and the text begin with the very use of the word itself; that maybe the issue here is not which type of criticism can be defined but whether definition of the term is possible or even desirable. Curiously, our efforts so far have assumed that there is such an activity. Yet for all of our labors, none of the practices so far have proved suitable. Might it therefore not be more productive to regard the word criticism as a simple tenn of expedience. Thus, rather than refer to methods or objects, could one not, for example, see it as a name specifying certain behaviors of language - behaviors adopted by particular groups in order to inquire, judge or express certain meanings. What these behaviors entail in any unique instance, would be less important. What would, however, be

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of the greatest significance would be anticipating their outcomes when directed to a specific audience.

Epimetheus: So the problem as I've presented it is not criticism's loss of specificity but the kind of specificity to be sought, is that correct?

Peisetarios: What I'm proposing, Epimetheus, is nothing less than a redefinition if you will. That the critic's effort to explain what it is he does might better be directed to the consequences of a specific choice of argumentation. And this can only be detennined if he knows the means most able to convince a public of the merits of an argument. Let me give you an example. When one seeks to understand a subject, say biology, history, or metaphysics, to know something about organisms, past events or cosmologies, one studies a treatise on the subject, is that not true? Yet analyzing how each subject is presented and how it is argued for would appear to be a very different task, am I correct? So then, to know a subject, one must also know how it must be represented to be understood.

This much as I mentioned, the ancients have taught us.

But now, can not that same wisdom be applied to our current predicament? The ability of old which I described, surely did not cease with their passage. What I'm suggesting here, my dear Epimetheus, is that the art of persuasion, that subject we call 'rhetoric' may indeed help the critic to redefine what is fundamental to criticism. For centuries, this art has been an esteemed means of investigating, evaluating, and proposing a diffuse set of topics. Rarely limited to just one field, it studies modes of expression, forms of speech, means of observation particular to a desired end. And maybe most importantly of all, it studies these practices in the actual contexts in which they are received; that is, now a given work, may plead, incite, or convince in moments of genuine contest. To define this work as written, spoken, or instantiated in material fonn. however, is not the issue. Measuring the result of their use, to the contrary, is. So to answer your question Epimetheus, specificity of a work's affects upon a pUblic, not the work, would seem the appropriate question.

Clearly, the redefinition of criticism and the critics task that I'm suggesting is radical only in its conventionality. What it desires my dear Epimetheus, is reflection; that is, to recall how any means of analysis, judgment, or interpretation must first decide the tenns of its own efficacy. And perhaps this is why rhetoric has always concentrated upon particular forms or uses of language. Surely, it does this not to call attention merely to discursive techniques, devices or objects alone.

Though an understanding of these things is desirable for any producer, their capacity to induce or convince others is absolutely essential. Thus when an inventory of available means is matched to their effectiveness,

only then. perhaps. can one return to a given subject to appraise their use.

Finally. let me add one more observation. With all of this talk about rhetoric's role in contemporary criticism. one might have the mistaken impression that what I'm describing is a science; that the study and analysis of persuasive means is something fixed and determined for all disciplines. So when the critic seeks to find what is common to his practices. he too will scrutinize them according to 'scientific' methods.

Yet. I'm convinced that nothing could be further from the truth. Here the ancient philosophers again may have understood rhetoric's role when they described it not as a science but as an art. The construction and delivery of an argument was for them not only a matter of method but also of strategy. To be issued properly. the one arguing must be practiced in skills of observation to gauge its impact. Not only the reactions of others but also the posture of the presenter is fundamental in this exchange. The lesson. therefore. for the critic in this is hopefully clear: that criticism in its practice is less a science than an art. One might say simply that it is inventive in its use while scientific in the study of that use.

Epimetheus: Your point is well taken. I will admit. but what now is your reply to my original argument Peisetarios?

Peisetarios: Earlier. we agreed that any effort to define criticism simply in terms of its subject or its methods was hopeless. Now we are prepared to consider another definition. What distinguishes it is its strategic rather than its methodological point of departure. By strategic. I mean a criticism shaped not by its references nor how these are to be addressed. but one that can answer why a thing should be addressed at all. This point begins with no particular theoretical bias. However. this is not to suggest that it is without assumptions. To the contrary. it assumes the most basic ambition of declaring what it is one wants to communicate and then choosing those techniques best able to carry it out. In a curious way. maybe one's theory arises precisely from this choice and not the other way around.

Epimetheus: So then. there is no single activity. no method and no object about which criticism is identified?

Peisetarios: Obviously. Epimetheus. from what I've just said. the practices of persuasion typical of criticism will be as varied as are the matters to which they are directed. At best. its identity is located by the many forms of argument it adopts. Not all of these forms. however. will achieve the same results. Here the critic must be inventive. He must discover ways of addressing a subject and avoid the presumption of just

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one method's success. However. once a technique is found. once its effectiveness to communicate a meaning is studied for an audience. then perhaps some relative identity of means will emerge for the critic.

I will acknowledge right here that not everything we presently call. for instance. a work of literature. of art. or even of architecture. will be recognizable as such when placed in this larger rhetorical context. Whether embraced by the critical argument or simply its focus, these things will certainly change. They will be reformulated, put to different tasks, related to other practices hardly imaginable at the moment. Though unprecedented. however. the ingenuity revealed in their invention is really quite familiar.

The skills of the ancient rhetoricians make this obvious. But it seems that one of the most damaging features of our current debate when limited to methods. or objects of criticism is to hide this other tradition from us.

So Epimetheus. to take up where we began. if there is really any crisis in contemporary criticism. it must surely be with the definition itself. So if a sign of this crisis is criticism' s momentary effort to collapse or substitute its own activities for that of a more conventional 'work' or 'object'. then this is hardly surprising. This much you 've made quite clear to me.

But now what I hope may also be clear is that both critics and their detractors share some equal responsibility for this sorry state. For both it would seem partake of the same limited view of what critical activity does and how it effectively does it. Here. recourse to theories of mere 'textuality' without greater mention of the settings in which texts operate. seems of little help. Just maybe. if we are to speak either 'textually' or 'objectively' at all, it might be more helpful to think of the critical subject as a dynamic field made up of many things to which reference can be made.

However, my suspicion now is that silence may prove the best anecdote to our continuing anxiety about criticism's definition.

Epimetheus: That warning I suppose is directed to me?

Peisetarios: No. no. Surely not. To the contrary Epimetheus. you have helped me immensely to understand a problem that has vexed me for a very long time. And while I was prepared to ask you only questions. you have performed the marvelous task of helping me answer my own queries.

For that Epimetheus. I am most grateful.

Nevertheless. I now fear my own conclusions may have been a bit premature. For you see, uncertainty is to be expected in someone like me; but if you experts show the same uncertainty and there is no relief from our vacillations. then this is truly upsetting. Farewell my dear Epimetheus. I hope my reply did not change your opinion since it would be frightful indeed to find you convinced by the ruminations of a simple â&#x20AC;˘ novice like myself.

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Sigurd's Resistance And Other Stories

Per Olaf Fjeld

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I took off after classes in an ancient Volvo with L astfourNovember of my students and headed for an early church by Sigurd

Chapel in Stora Tuna. Kvamsveden. Sweden

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Lewerentz in the North of Sweden. I had studied the building through drawings and photographs, but for reasons unknown I had a strong urge to inhabit his work, and only a visit could fulfill this desire. It was a tiring ten-hour drive along dark country roads. At last the car stopped in front of an allee of old oak trees, and from that point I knew the way. As I walked into the garden of frozen winter trees, I was reminded of signs chiseled into the wood of o.ld Norwegian Stave churches. My movements and thoughts were the same as those of my ancestors. I was the sign carved into an allee of trees leading to a door already open. Upon entering the church, I adjusted an awareness that was already present, as the actual visit was just a final realization of prior thoughts. The knowledge before departure and the time of preparation allowed by the length of the trip were equal parts of a total comprehension . The journey served as a method to understand architecture.

Once, we accepted that our formal perception required time to mature. To seek was regarded as a creative act. Preparatory time was integrated into natural pauses and rhythms of the day, utilizing the time inherent in the method of work . The preparation time was not measured by the value of the result. The moment time entered into our value system, the period allotted to preparation needed to be justified, as its value as time was then equivalent to the resulting object. The preparatory time has been reduced to a measured component of the actual process. We have never been able to reclaim this interval before production, so we search instead for a method that will compensate for this loss in our creative consciousness. We are about to cast all our expressions from the same mold. More than ever, inspiration feeds from the same content. We have narrowed our diversity, as the difference is no longer within content, but rather in the way the content is expressed.

We have a primeval need for an identity of place and transform this need into a sense of room. This search for room is equal to that of food , light, and rest, as it is through room we acquire a position in an unending landscape, a sense of stability. The room binds us to a notion of time, as the essential qualities of this room remain unchanged .

Today the notion of room is often illusive. We stand outside its boundaries and struggle to make this room correspond to our sense of time. In the present industrial world, the distance between the notion of room and the actual room derived from a concept of mass seems insurmountable, as we still desire a traditional space identity. In this situation we are left no choice but to rely upon the room of abstraction, as its physical counterpart ceases to project a strong identity of place.

We seem to focus upon the process of change for the sake of change because it sanctions a further production. Change may not have any other quality than continuous modification upon an existing perception of room, and that is quite different from a clarification of relationships created through a deeper understanding of place. We have come to regard them , however, as one and the same.

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Borgun Slavechurch: Ship

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At one time we had a deeper understanding of our basic building materials. The choice of construction interacted directly with the inherent characteristics of material. This entailed an explicit understanding of material, because within the material was also the understanding of scale.

This basic knowledge gave each room a clear identity through scale. The dialogue between the earth, and the material, and the construction dictated a method of building and not a process translated directly into repetition.

The building qualified a particular structure through material, as the choice of construction carried significance only as a tool to realize room and not as an expressive entity in itself. A direct confrontation with room was a prerequisite to determine architecture's essential qualities. Construction has gradually evolved a room-concept of its own, but surprisingly attention has turned toward the facade rather than toward the room itself. The architectural intention has shifted to a concept of construction as an expression of the facade, thus subordinating the status of room. Variety in an experimentation with material, and consequently with construction, proliferated once the exterior and the interior facade became the focal point, but this energy was not directed toward a further realization of room. The process draws from the outside in. In many ways this is a critical question of basic architectural attitudes, as room now has a subordinate status. Through process we have transformed most materials into a phenomenon of mass relating directly to production. The repetition found in this mass material is quite different from the repetition found in traditional crafts directed toward the realization of room. Mass material carries a process freed from the identity of the indigenous material and scale, and thus possesses the potential of construction far beyond the identity of the original material. Yet, despite this, the room-concept remains untouched. The question then arises whether future construction methods will uncover a new realization of room or continue to manufacture new masks for old room-concepts.

We have given process form by accepting it as a determining 路 expression. This new substance of expression has neither beginning nor end, as it lacks physical resistance, but rather projects an image through abstraction. Process implies a new concept of time, not chronological, finite, and resulting in an object, but as an ongoing ritual. The mass identity evolving from process is now competing with objectness, but its expression remains within process. Once the earth constituted all matter that was substantive. The moment we mastered its mass dimension we translated the earth's measurement into an abstraction, and usurped its sequential process as our own.

The new tools of information convey their messages faster than ever.

Absorption of this information, even at this early stage, appears to be extremely channeled, as there is no variable background against which to receive information nor preparation time to connect to sources other than the information tool. In acknowledging precision solely through a fixed answer, all the small bits and pieces that make up an exacting, yet manyfaceted, interpretation are dismissed as their value is realized long after the fixed answer provided by accepted channels. Soon we are trained to assume that a final result exists without its background, and merely states an absolute truth interpreted through accepted tools. Insecurity, hope,

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3

Fortun Stavec hurch: Detail from a wa ll

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and failure, fall outside the grasp of these modern tools, but such experiences widened the span of, and gave integrity to, information. This is not to say we must return to past methods, but that we need to recognize our present deficiencies. We must accept uncertainty as a viable element in a creative process and instead form certainty into a question of its own in order to reach beyond an immediate time aspect. This skepticism toward certainty, to question, is perhaps our new time of preparation.

The traditional architectural tools that once aided in the understanding of room and construction have taken a new form. The new tools deliver both process and image with such a rapidity that traditional craft falters for it cannot hope to supply such an infinite number of choices so quickly.

We accept the image output of these tools indiscriminately, whether it is from an existing structure or the result of the tool's process, as presentation is soon equated with reality. The quality of room adapts to those elements that can be projected upon a two-dimensional surface. We are no longer in architecture, but looking at architecture. Those elements than can only partially adapt to this process are set aside, as their reality is not compatible with the tool's image. The image is released from physical and cultural determinates, and is answerable on ly to the technological capacity of the tool. The image becomes the central source of inspiration.

Projects that abstract upon an abstraction pose a viable question within architecture.

Architectural tradition has implied a common belief and base from which we evaluate work, but this accepted certainty has limited new work to existing formulations. Once tradition has no other relationship to the earth than as a source of material, the past is manifested through production, as the material result guarantees a continuation of the past. This production is more a retelling of familiar objects realized through new and more-advanced tools and their capacity to aid production, and not the further understanding of the object. We have accepted an element of infallibility in the idea of tradition, and therefore seldom question its qualities in relation to a changeable time aspect. Occasionally architecture attempts to investigate content outside the realm of tradition, away from aesthetic. These established measurements are still our tools, but their adjustments and interaction are open. The new tools of visualization may change structure, but they cannot alter the nature of room. To open and broaden this discussion, the critic must not measure from the past, but state an active awareness towards the present. Tradition is not necessarily without mistakes. In any tradition the underlying nostalgia directly inspires repetition rather than an examination of content.

We live in an age in which events are given a distance. We often lack direct confrontation as we regard reality through layers of representation.

This delineation is an attempt to imitate a closeness that is nonexistent. In a sense it is a simulation of an experience in which the actual event is of secondary importance. Perhaps through language we can still sense a direct dialogue with process, as language continues to be an integral part of presentation, but most other disciplines have removed much of both substance and ritual in process through an abstract imagery of the final product. Through representation we are trying to recapture a comprehension of substance by way of representation's process. We now view

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4

Roov en Stavechurch: Rune inscription and Imol

process through machines, like waiting for the sand to run out of an hour glass. It is only through the final product that we can participate emotionally.

The conception and formation of an object are now abstracted through an enclosed mechanical process. Both its representation and its first critique are one and the same, and set a posture for later judgments. We can view work from a distance without risk. The actual object is almost a byproduct of iconography. The room rendered by representation is immediately set in a framework of memory because it draws from a source already in the past. As we adjust our conception of the empirical through memory, the resulting room is experienced singularly. In this way the universal perception of room relinquishes its communality for an isolated room perception. The relationship between man and room takes the form of the collector and his museum. In the concept of representation (a secondhand experience) everything belongs to the past, and thus the present as well as the future has no viable language from which to project an image other than through memory.

Architecture's conscience swings as a pendulum of social sensibility.

With few exceptions the last clear peak was in the early stages of Functionalism, when architecture still defined a commitment beyond immediate gratification. The multilayered agreement to realize a work leads to an inventive production. Life was offered a meaning through architecture. Functionalism still stands today as the last singular attempt to combine universal needs within the confines of nature as a limited concept of mass, but the balance between the inventive and mass-production is tenuous. At the moment, the architectural task is more diffuse, as time has not reclaimed an updated function that puts forward a deeper meaning than changing the architectural mask. We have an awareness of urban problems and of pending ecological disasters throughout the world, but the profession does not seem to grasp or concentrate upon these issues other than on a short-term basis. These issues are not addressed through architectural content. We need intentions that carry a perception of human fallibility and thus inspire beyond immediate needs and stress those needs that stand outside or beyond our own sense of time. Intention is therefore a good word, because it exists before production and states a clear direction.

The moment we compare architecture with rooms of abstraction, we question the earth as our unqualified base. The origin of room is therefore on trial, as we are seemingly bored with constructive reality. and more than a century passed a strike of a unique situation and architecture was still operating a transformation of facts into the unmeasurable to retain the authority of the mind the builders of space I have thought to adapt upon the imperial donors

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Architecture is still the earth's tenant. It may make bargains, add and subtract from existing places, and forget to pay its due, but architecture continues to project from the earth as a base. Every structure is dependent upon the earth's resistance, and it is this resistance that clarifies both material and construction. Perhaps it is the security in knowing there is still a resistance that gives architecture the freedom to experiment. At the same time, these fashionable barn-raisings may not be enough to meet the demands of the future. We have not addressed the earth, we have merely accepted it. Nor have we faced the transformation away from the single to the sequential space evident in an urban context.

Fonun Stavechurch: Several details on a plank

Once I had a friend who was not able to select. He just went on. In the end he reached a state of complexity that was inaccessible , since he was only able to view himself from a distance . One day he simply disappeared as there was no other place to go.

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75

"Good-Life Modernism"

And Beyond The American House in the 1950s and 1960s: A Commentary Mark Jarzombek

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THE "ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES" OF GOOD-LIFE MODERNISM

n 1952, Architectural Record published a list of "eighty-two distinctive houses" in an effort to document and lend support to what the editors confidently called a "revolution" in American architecture. Modernist principles, so it was pointed out, had coalesced with the time-honored virtues of domestic design to create an architecture so convincing as to seem to exemplify the way of the future. And indeed, the eighty-two houses painted a clear picture; one could call it Good-Life Modernism.

Of elegant, lightweight appearance, the houses all had spacious lawns, patios, generous roof overhangs, well-equipped kitchens, separate rooms for children, and large, uncluttered living rooms with walls of glass opening to the outside. In the living room there was an obligatory stone or brick fireplace (fig. 2), its rhetorically exaggerated massiveness and rusticated texture meant to stand in contrast to the smooth wall surfaces of the rest of the house. Invariably, the vertical shaft of the chimney would punctuate the low and staggered profile of the roof. The editors pointed to an "appreciation of local materials," "a hospitality of the outof-doors," and "a minimum of ornamentation, while providing for [the] mechanical equipment, services, and comforts Americans value so highly.'" In 1954, Architectural Record updated the list, but the principles remained the same. 2 Houses such as the one in Westchester County, New York by Edelbaum & Webster (fig. 3) continued to "fit a better way of life," "exploit the panoramas," "provide a sense of spaciousness," enable entertaining, and afford "good living for small servantless families."

A house on Long Island for "an average family of four" designed by John Hancock Callender and Allen & Edwin Kramer was singled out for special praise. It had been commissioned by House & Garden in 1951 as a demonstration house, a "House of Ideas" as it was called. Thousands came to visit it. The Architectural Record article commented on its "great sense of space and openness," "crisp black and white trim," and "state of the art intercommunication system installed throughout the house." But, as the editors explained, this house was designated a "House of Ideas" not simply because of its design qualities, but because it was built in accordance with the historiographic proposition underlying the new architecture; it synthesized the best of both the European International Style and the American Ranch Style (fig. 4).3 The argument, in its seductive simplicity, seemed reasonable enough:

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Loui s I. Kahn. Projecl for the Weber de Vore House. 1954 Henry Hill. Tamalpais House. San Francisco. 1949: View of living room

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Edelbaum & Websler. House in WestcheslerCounty. 1952

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This extremely pleasant and livable house, officially known as "House & Garden's House of Ideas," suggests one idea that is perhaps especially worthy of note. Its design seems to indicate a careful fusion of many better qualities of two widespread style influences - the crisp, clean lines of the International Style, and the rambling openness of the popularized Ranch House Style. Yet, it has eliminated the severity of the one, and the ungainliness and awkward combination of materials frequently found in the other (pp. 104-109).4

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Of the various journals contributing to the definition of Good-Life Modernism, House & Home could be considered the flagship. First published in 1952, it advocated a programmatic fusion of the modernist aesthetics with a revitalized American suburban consciousness. Its pages, full of bold-faced type, pronounced the "new approaches" that were to bring "vitality" back to American house design, to use the words of the editors who explained the journal's purpose in the first issue. Deliberately avoiding the jargon of the avant-garde, House & Home sought to home in on a basic, common sense version of modernism. To explain "what customers want," good buildings were compared to bad, and checklists were provided to make it simple to spot the difference. According to a 1954 checklist (fig. 5), for example, houses in the new style typically had to have open planning, low-pitched roofs, indoor-outdoor living, two bathrooms, and walls of glass in the living room.

House & Home stressed that architects and clients perceive of architectural expression not as a unique individualistic statement, but as a means to articulate community identity and values. This argument was not based on an ideal of social solidarity, but was the by-product of an attempt to integrate the house once and for all into the realm of consumer goods. Good-Life Modernists did not aim to make houses for the privileged few, but for the mass market. The journals, therefore. had to create a clear image of what the consumers "want" as well as to guarantee that architects would rise to the occasion and fill the newly-created demand.

To make houses that could be bought and sold, architects and clients had to recognize the overlapping domains of aesthetics and marketplace. Thus the attempt at making modernism palatable to the all-American family was no abstract postulate. On the contrary, House & Home was created as a platform for a conflation of interests that included construction industries. banking establishments. architectural schools. and even museums. all of which collaborated to generate the massive dose of cultural administration needed to push Good-Life Modernism into the realm of everyday life. Good-Life Modernism. far from being a spontaneous development. was defined. sponsored. and funded by a nexus of interests of unparalleled dimension.

By drawing a tight circle around the newly emerging housing market. enmeshing the consumer in the characteristic ambiguities of manipulation and need. the forces behind Good-Life Modernism attempted to speak to the suburban middle-class with the authoritative voice of consensus.

Museums were instrumental in this process that defined as well as legitimized the commercial reality underlying the Good-Life Modernist aesthetic. The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. for example. with funding from the Gaylord Container Corporation. held an exhibition of household objects in 1947, blatantly entitled Good Design is Your Business with the implication that 'good design' is good business. With pride, its organizers point out that the "development of the consumer mind is proceeding with increasing speed.'os The success of Good-Life Modernism was very much dependent on these shows. which. as it was expressed in a show in California in 1952. "attempted to organize an attitude of mind. a state of living in terms of the objects that create the environment within the house."

One designer phrased it succinctly: "The public has to be led firmly

78

4

8

George and William Keck. KunstadteT HOII"". Highland Park. Illinois.

1954 Checklist from Houst.{ Hom<. July 1954 Charles Eames. furniture exhibition allhe Museum of Modem An. New Yorl. 1946 Marcel Breuer. Exhibition House in the Museum of Modem An garden. New York. 1949 Mie, van der Rohe. Brick House Project. 1924

9 10

Mies van der Rohe. House at the Berlin Building Exposition. 193.

Marcel Breuer. Robinson House, Williamstown, Massachusens.

5 6

4

1946

~rs

want

Here are the dJief fe3tures of five most popular houses Check your own designs against them:

D D D D D D D D D D D

Rear or side living room Minimum of three bedrooms One-story on slab Open planning Low-pitched roof Provisions for outdoor living Bigger and more windows Wide overhangs on two sides Central entrance In four of the five, sloping ceilings In two , two bathrooms

(and one hdS roughed-in plllmblng [or added half-bach) her slgTu!Jcdnt trE'nds: beam

.. llngc:;, walls of glass instMd of mere

holes punched in the hl'dll.s, In eqrai. dooe dIld windcw unJts.

I------

.......'il

Living Room Kitchen Bedroom

Kitchen Dining Living Room Bedroom

9

Living Room Bedrooms

Dining Room Kitchen

,

! i' I

L _____________ .--I

exactly where it wants to gO."6 The Albright Knox Art Gallery actually created an index "to aid the consumer in his or her search for household objects of good design. "7 The index promised "to satisfy your sensual perceptions" while "sharpening your intellectual apprehensions" of modem life. The user of the index should be grateful: "You can't go far astray that way."

The Museum of Modem Art in New York was also actively engaged in keeping the consumer from' going astray.' In 1951-1952, it held an exhibit entitled Good Design that was less an exhibit than a glorified trade show 'educating' Americans to the new architecture and its furnishings.

In fact, in putting the exhibition together, the Museum of Modem Art combined forces with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago to present "the best new examples in modem design in home furnishings" (fig. 6). To make sure Americans knew that their new furniture required a new house, the Museum of Modem Art commissioned Marcel Breuer in 1949 to build an exhibition house in the gardens of the museum (fig. 7). Gregory Ain designed another one the following year. The houses stood in bizarre contrast to the urban site.

The push on the part of journals and cultural institutions to introduce Good-Life Modernism into consumer culture elevated into general consciousness the fonnal vocabulary that, in the 1930s and 1940s, was being developed in the work of Marcel Breuer, Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, and Gregory Ain, among others. By the 1950s, however, the great masters of modem architecture in America played only a minor role in the actual implementation of Good-Life Modernism, which was taken up by many who have long since vanished into obscurity. Among the real protagonists, those mentioned, for example, in the first issues of House & Home, were: Edward L. Barnes (New York), Giorgio Cavaglieri (Connecticut), Gordon Drake (California), Edward Elliott (Michigan), Landis Gores (Connecticut), Henry Hebbeln (New York), Roger Lee (California), George Matsumoto (North Carolina), Warren Platner (Michigan), Edward Stone (Arkansas), and Cowell & Newhaus (Texas).

The origins of the fonnal language used by these architects lay essentially in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe.

But Good-Life Modernism transfonned the prototypes into something different. For example, horizontal planes, low profiles, and fireplace hulks typical of the Prairie Style were maintained, but the complex interweaving of space, upper-floor bedrooms, and pinwheel organization of the plan around the fireplace were not. Furthennore, Wright's houses were too individualized, too custom-tailored, and too expensive for the middleclass of the 1950s. His fussy textures, myopic details, and expensive furnishings were also avoided; they went, after all, against the grain of the economic realities steering modernism.

The other prototype was Mies van der Rohe's Brick House (fig. 8).

But here, too, differences bring to light the unique fonnal language of Good-Life Modernism. Van der Rohe designed the living room and bedroom of the Brick House as one fluidly interconnected zone separated from the office, labeled Wirtschaftsriiume on the plan. In the context of the American suburb, the position allotted by Mies to the office - the office now being outside of the house in the city - became the bedroom.

10

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

79

The resultant distinction between living space (which in Good-Life Modernism includes the kitchen) and bedroom area became one of the unquestioned organizational principles of Good-Life Modernism. Van der Rohe's plan for a house featured at the Berlin Building Exposition in 1931 (fig. 9) also left the bedroom much too open to the living room to suit proponents of Good-Life Modernism. Furthermore, it relegated the kitchen to a side closet. The Robinson House by Breuer (fig. 10) reflects the American transformation: a cluster of cellular bedrooms separate and distinct from the open living room, dining room, and kitchen area. The Robinson House numbered, predictably, among those "eighty-two distinctive houses."

The myth that domestic modernism spread from California to the rest of America deflects from a proper understanding of the difference between Good-Life Modernism and earlier domestic modernism.

Admittedly, Neutra and Schindler collected such talented followers as Harwell Hamilton Harris, Gregory Ain, J. R. Davidson and Raphael Soriano, but by the early 1950s even they were minor figures in a cause taken up by many. As a consequence, though Schindler, Neutra, and Breuer were among the first to develop the formal language of Good-Life Modernism, their work is not equivalent with Good-Life Modernism itself, largely because their work during the 1930s and 1940s was done for a select clientele. Only after the war did the banking, commercial, and political institutions embrace domestic modernism and see to it that GoodLife Modernism was more than a limited experiment for the chosen few.

The earliest indication of the new marketing strategy can be seen in Tomorrow's House. how to plan your post-war home now. published in 1945 by George Nelson and Henry Wright, editors of Architectural Forum.

One of the earliest manifestos of domestic modernism, it proudly pointed out that it need not discourse on abstract theories, as the growing number of houses demonstrated the inevitable rise of modernism. The book addressed not only those who planned and built new houses, but also. and quite specifically, "every mortgage banker." All should be convinced that modernism is the "true" form of American traditionalism, not the antiquated and unliberated traditionalism of the colonial style. The difference in sentiment toward modernism between the 1930s and 1950s is best reflected in the two exhibitions held by the Museum of Modem Art in New York: the Built in the U.S.A. - Since 1932 exhibition of 1945. and the already mentioned Good Design exhibition in 1951. Though the 1945 show was conscious of "our maturity," the catalogue still found it necessary to defend modernism, explain its forms, and legitimize its historical necessity. Few architectural journals made any references to it.

In 1951, however, the museum found itself cashing in on the success of an exhibition that received wide coverage in the architectural journals.

The formal language of Good-Life Modernism was, therefore, not the product of a universal Zeitgeist. as Heinrich Wolfflin might have envisioned it; nor was it driven by a nebulous Kunstwollen, as Alois Riegl might have argued. Rather it was confirmed, legitimized and implemented by a formidable cultural apparatus that required a coherent formal language as a means of controlling the vast and highly lucrative postwar housing market.

80

2.

DOMESTIC MODERNISM: AMERICA VERSUS EUROPE

espite the success of residential modernism in the 1950s - the buildings still dot the landscape in all parts of the country - it has never D received much critical attention. The following books, for example, ignore it altogether: American Architecture and Urbanism (Vincent Scully, 1969), American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Marcus Whiffen, 1969), 1mages of American Living: Four Centuries of Architecture and Furniture as Cultural Expression (Alan Gowans, 1964), and Modern Movements in Architecture (Charles Jencks, 1973). The implication is that 1950s modernism was a low point in American architecture. The lacuna in the history of architecture that surrounds Good-Life Modernism is perplexing, given the powerful forces that contributed to its success.

Only the California Case Study Houses, which represent a mere fraction of Good-Life Modernist theorizing, have begun to be studied. The Case Study Houses, however, are peripheral to Good-Life Modernism, which in the 1950s was far beyond the experimental stage. To interpret the Case Study Houses as a vanguard of American modernism is, on the one hand, to attribute the rise of domestic modernism to a few committed designers, and, on the other hand, to fail to recognize that the Case Study Houses, in some sense, ran counter to Good-Life Modernism, which by that time had already established a clear-cut and lucrative response to domestic needs. Good-Life Modernism hoped to legitimize and anchor these needs, not search for idiosyncratic and potentially unprofitable alternatives.

The failure to recognize Good-Life Modernism as an artificially implemented grass-roots development lies partially in the fact that domestic modernism was viewed not as an American phenomenon, but as an extension of European modernism, which, even in the 1950s continued to be billed as a phenomenon that transcended national borders. While Sigfried Giedion's A Decade of New Architecture (1951), for example, was an eyewitness account of the dramatic success of American domestic modernism. it was also a demonstration of Giedion's failure to differentiate between European and American postwar domestic modernism. In his book, American buildings were either totally absent or only marginally represented by categories such as working, education, hospitals and urban planning. The category of single-family dwelling, however, was dominated by Americans.

Giedion was untroubled by the split. He still believed that, as a totality, modernist architecture continues to demonstrate the universal "inner reality of this period" and the continuing historical imperative of the "fundamental truth" of modernism. 8 In actuality, American domestic modernism had no parallel in postwar Europe, where modem architecture was too closely linked with the political left or with bleak postwar urban renewal projects to acquire broad middle-class support. Though occasionally houses similar in form to American houses can be found, they are the exception rather than the rule. The McCauley House (1950) in Bel Air, California (fig. 13), contrasts sharply with the tightly-packaged interiors of most European suburban houses of the time (figs. 11 & 12).

11 12 13 14 IS

One family house. Brussels. 1948 House on a hill. Domach, 1953 Arthur B. Gallion, McCauley House. Bel Air, California. 1951 Le Corbusier. Lafenitre en longueur: Sketches from the Five Points of Modem Architecture Illustrations from House &: Home. September 1954

13

3. ILLUSIONS WITH SPACES. The two thumbnail sketches above show the same room, drawn to exactly the same scale. The reason the room at left looks cramped and the room at right airy and spacious is that the spacious one borrows space from every conceivable source-from outdoors (through a glass wall), and from adjoining rooms (because partitions stop short of the ceiling). Actual space is the same; apparent space has been enormously enlarged.

....

.

...

..... . .

~

,.

1. ILLUSIONS WITH UNES. These two rectangles are identical in shape. But since it is much easier for the ~e to travel horizontally than vertically, the rectangle at left looks short and squat, the one at right long and sleek. This principle applies especially in facade design: in houses, as in ladies, the waistline is crucial (though in a different way).

14

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

The difference between postwar European and American house design was more than a matter of style and convention. Overseas, modernism was only marginally linked with domesticity. The French journal Construction Moderne, for example, did not discuss a single family residence during the 1950s and 1960s. Modernity was equated with communal needs and aspirations, not with the individualistic needs of the family. In Werk-archithese, Bauen+Wohnen and au jourd' hui, discussions on houses did appear, yet here too houses took a backseat to multifamily dwellings, hospitals, churches, and sports centers. Domus and Maison Franr;aise, the only European journals dedicated exclusively to the problem of the house, were, in comparison with American counterparts of the early 1950s, consistently indifferent to an ideology of suburban domesticity. Like the English Architectural Review, these journals offered a broad spectrum of articles ranging from the history of ancient architecture, to street furniture, schools, contemporary painting, and ephemeral architecture. In contrast to the European journals House & Home and Architectural Record made their commitment to an ideology of domestic modernism loud and clear. In the early 1950s Architectural Record discussed at least one house in every issue, with titles such as "Livability on a Small Hilly Lot," "Small House Designed with Spaciousness," and "A House with Emotion."

That many of the houses discussed in European journals were American - "Una Casa in Beverly Hills" (Domus, December 1952), for example - only goes to show that the sea-change that once brought modernism to America was now working in reverse. By the 1960s, the modem American house was viewed by Europeans as an exotic import item. Some architectural firms in Switzerland still specialize in these American-styled houses.

In the light of the mystique of modernity's internationality, however, the difference between European and American postwar modernism remained obscure. Sherban Cantacuzino in his book Modern Houses of the World (1964), perpetuated the myth of modernity's internationality by displaying American and European domestic architecture together, all in one run-on collection of houses. The various buildings Cantacuzino discussed - from the United States, Germany, Spain and Japan - may share formal language, but the underlying differences between the situations in Europe and the United States were ignored.

In Europe, the marketing industry, far less developed than in America, never encroached on the domain of one-family houses. The reasons were economic and cultural. In Switzerland. for example, most residences are owned by banks and corporations to the extent that 75 percent of the Swiss are renters. In France and Germany the situation is less extreme, yet here, too, the house is rarely interpreted as an affordable consumer item. As a consequence, there is little need for journals like House & Home that address owners and contractors, and no need for a cultural discourse elaborating the connections between domesticity, architectural theory and the consumer market. Furthermore, rigorous amortization and depreciation laws, lengthy mortgaging periods (seventy-five years in Switzerland, for example) and tough construction laws that made cheap, lightweight construction in some places a legal impossibility, hindered

15

81

the development of a suburban-domestic-modernist aesthetic. But in America, reforms of amortization laws passed by Congress in the early 1950s, new buyer-friendly mortgaging procedures, an indigenous tradition of lightweight wood construction and the growing popularity of materials such as plywood allowed modernism to enter into the broad domestic arena like hand into glove.

To insinuate itself into domestic consciousness, Good-Life Modernism had to distance itself from the prewar modernist disdain for bourgeois culture; principles and strategies were maintained, but without the perceived contamination of a theory that might alienate the middle-class.

As a consequence, journals consistently tiptoed around everything that sounded too esoteric. Ideology was masked by pragmatism. Le Corbusier's la Jenetre en longueur (fig. 14) was justified not as a modernist directive, but in terms of "sleekness"; a house, like a woman, "needs a waistline" (fig. 15).9 Interiors with open connections to the outdoors make rooms appear "less cramped" but also make houses "sell better" (fig. 16).

Though many of the articles focus on "special problems," the solutions were never complex. The living room, for example, as it was discussed in one article, was to be organized around three principal elements: television, fireplace, and, of course, the "view into the garden" through a large expanse of modem windows (fig. 17). During the American Institute of Architects convention in 1952 Al Lewitt, one of the most important builder-architects of the 1950s, expressed the confidence of builders who had taken over modernist theory and practice from the architects.

"More could be done to the face of America by a few hundred builders who have a few simple explanations than can be done by all the thousands of architects because the architects are not in touch; they have no control over the millions who are buying and building."

The newly created discourse of reasonableness - the Trojan horse, so to speak, by which modernist principles were introduced into the housing market - meant that the European contribution to modernist theory was altered beyond recognition. None of the American journals discuss the history and theory of modernism in any substantive way, but that, alas, was part of the strategy. A more serious and accurate representation of the events leading up to the advent of modernism - particularly the socialist and leftist associations of some of the early modernists - would have defeated any potential for success in the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. A European might look on the American rewriting of the modernist text with haughty scorn and would therefore fail to recognize what happened: in the very misprision of its origins, Good-Life Modemism seemed to be fulfilling one of the original goals of modernism, a unification of art and material culture.

Despite the creation of a discourse of reasonableness aimed at masking modernity from itself, Good-Life Modernism did not abandon the utopian vision of modernism. The prosaic world was never allowed to slacken into a mere contractor's how-to aesthetic. The presentations, carefully crafted and insistently repetitive, focused beyond the everyday on a mixture ofboosterism and utopianism, which in tum was informed - but only obliquely - by a modernist ideology that envisions a new world beginning in the here and now. Interjected in the pages of House & Home's photos,

"WE BUILD THE SALES TALK INTO THE HOUSE!"

16 17 18 19 20

Advertisement from Hous~ & Hom~. January 1952 Illustration from House &: Home. September 1954 Illustration from Hous~ &: Home, May 1952 Letter from !louse &: Homt'. May 1952 Title page of The Comp/~u 800k of Home Modernizing, J953

16

COOD LIVliVG ROOMS MUST SOLVE SPECIAL PROBLE}JI/S owadays, mm路l living rooms have three view~-two of them inside, one of them outdoors:

Ii"t, a view of the TV set;

second, a view of the fireplace ;

and third, a view of the garden through a glass wall

In a good living room you do not have to move the furniture around (and thus scar the floor and wear out the carpet, every time YOII want to look at your favorite TV program. or watch th~ fire, or look out of the window. 1.1 a good living room. these three views are all visiLle within a 90路 arc from wherever you sit.

17

82

This house is just what we ' ve been looking for . . . but what about its resale value? better! We've used only top-quality, nationally advertised products . . . like Kentile Floors

18

,It.

Thu~ aft _ O\'U 100,000 of you-alWIl WIIfIIk, ir JOII rt.lite how rull, fufure 01 '''_ AlnerlcOfI _nil Ito",. "" In coIl.~IY.

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home

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• increase the value

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... To help ~ the indllllrill nNNtioft ill howIint-wilA .11 ;b pmmite (w better liti,,! at '-eeotl_ ",,",uiBtion ~ihleonJ., by ~ti", the uduleCtl' QOIfInbulioa or limplilird -Jula, deI:qcn, the build.!n' CDIIh'ibli lion in line CUMllTllnillll, .nd If.. .oWl ..,.' OMlribulJOll of • ...tard pen.

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p, bi imed by H. S. STUTIltAN CO.. :'iEW YORK 10, N. Y. di" "bu,,d by G'R\)t:'< (ITY ROOKS, r. \RDEN CITY. N. Y.

19

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

plans, analyses, advertisements, and discussions on mortgaging procedures were morale-boosting assessments of the economy (fig. 18). "Are you getting ready for the coming boom in quality houses?" the editors ask in 1954, predicting not only that by the end of the 1950s millions of new "quality houses" will be built, but that these houses are already part of a fundamental transformation of American society; by the year 2000 "low quality houses" associated with "poverty" would no longer exist. Utopia was on the march.

House & Home, and its diverse subscription membership of builders, realtors, bankers, lenders, and suppliers, hoped that "collective hands" would spread the acceptance of "good new ideas" (fig. 19).10 An architect from Pennsylvania succinctly spelled out the ideal scenario. He describes how clients walk into his office looking for a traditional house design. "So what do I do? Well, I start out by telling them that they are all wrong [in] asking me, a 1952 builder, to build them a nineteenthcentury house .... I take their folder of magazine pictures, sketches, photos, etc., and throw it in the wastebasket. I spread before them my latest copy of House & Home, and sure enough, that picture on the front starts to get them. The deeper into the magazine we go, the more excited they become and from there on, they're pushovers."l1 The author is speaking tongue in cheek, for he feels that too many Americans still hold on to their antiquated life-styles for modernism to really be successful. The editors of the journal responded by admonishing him to keep faith; he too would soon be among those who benefit from the modernist boom.

For those who were not planning to buy a new house, there was always the possibility of "modernizing." Samuel Paul and Robert Stone were among the first to recognize the challenge and in 1952 produced The Complete Book of Home Modernizing (fig. 20), a book that deserves a place among the other great texts of architectural theory. Samuel Paul was the consummate Good-Life Modernist architect, with over 30,000 families living in dwellings designed by him. The book, complete with before-and-after photos, explained how "to carry out a successful modernizing campaign in your home" and transform the house so that it will have a "smarter appearance, more space ... [while providing] richer living satisfaction for the whole family."12 As the authors pointed out in their introduction, "Here, for the first time within the covers of one book, families planning to modernize will find a bird's-eye view of the whole field of creative home transformation, a close-up of modem materials, new appliances and latest construction methods which make it possible and a complete guide to the proper planning and successful completion of a modernizing program." The authors hardly miss a beat; they go from "What Modernizing Means" to "Health and Safety" to "Beauty and Aesthetics" to "How to Finance Modernizing Work."

What happened in the United States in the 1950s was very much home-grown; Good-Life Modernism, once introduced and cultivated, took well to its soil. From today's perspective, one sees all too clearly that the cultural apparatus behind Good-Life Modernism though it may have produced a bourgeois ego as never before existed, simultaneously devalued it by the hard sell that aimed at making resistance seem superfluous in the face of its imminent triumph.

20

83

3.

JOHNSON AND EAMES

o sooner did Good-Life Modernism appear to be a self-enclosed cultural system than it began to be challenged. The architects involved N in this protest were not so much against modernism per se - that is its style or even its aesthetic - as they were against its domestication. It would be too facile to point out that these architects were part of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. The critique of modernism took place on a broad international scale. The American response, however, was directed at a unique situation, a suburban architecture that nurtured an ideological commitment to future bliss in the cradle of uncritical domestic comfort. The opposition to Good-Life Modernism seemed at the time confused and discordant. Only in retrospect does it emerge as a concerted re-evaluation of the American domestic realm.

The first winds of change came with the growing popUlarity of camp, as exemplified by Bruce Goff's house in Aurora, Illinois in 1948 (figs. 21 & 22) for Betty Ford, Director of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Its curved lines, whimsical flourishes and organic shapes defied the welltrodden principles of Good-Life Modernism. Schindler was moving in the same direction with his last houses of the 1950s. Camp, an architecture whose patrons were the laid-back new rich, was not for everyone. But that was exactly its attraction. Victor Lundy, one of the first rebels, said "I want my buildings to be exuberant, not safe, lovely, cubular things."

Yet camp architecture was less a critique of the historical imperative embedded in Good-Life Modernism than a reaction to it. The social vision of Good-Life Modernism was left intact, but the cultural elite was ever more eager to differentiate itself from it. In other words, camp represented the weakening of the cultural elite's resolve to continue participating in the grand scheme of Good-Life Modernism. Nevertheless, camp did not reject the aesthetic of domesticity fundamental to Good-Life Modernism.

Two houses that, though they fit into this category, can be seen as the beginnings of a more focused critique of Good-Life Modernism, are the Glass House and the Eames House. They represent the first attempts to redefine domesticity. That the two houses were built by architects for themselves demonstrates that the agitation against Good-Life Modernism was very much from above.

The Glass House, built in 1949, was one of the first houses to sound a challenge. It is different from houses Philip Johnson was then building for his clients, houses much more in line with Good-Life Modernism.

The Hodgson House (fig. 23), for example, was not only included in the 1954 list of "distinctive houses," but was even discussed in House & Home (August 1954) in the category patio house. The dramatic fireplace, integration of inside and outside, restrained volumetric effects, subtle use of natural materials, and differentiation between public and private were praised in the article, which clearly meant to teach these virtues to a broad audience of contractors and home owners (fig. 24).

The Glass House (figs. 25 & 26) - its current fame, a post-1960s phenomenon - was much slower in finding acceptance. It is conspicuously absent from both House & Home and the list of "eighty-two distinctive houses" from Architectural Record.

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Bruce Goff. Beny Ford House. Aurora. Illinois. 1948 Beny Ford House: Exterior view PhilipC. Johnson. Hodgson House. New Canaan, Connecticut. 1953 Hodgson House: View into living room Philip Johnson. Glass House. New Canaan. Connecticut. 1949 Glass House: Exterior view

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Though the Glass House is often billed as another example of Johnson's European modemism, it should be understood as an ironic challenge to the stereotypes already then becoming evident in American domestic modernism. From the perspective of architectural theory, one could view the structure as an exaggerated version of Marc Antoine Laugier's primitive hut (albeit expensive and exclusive); from the perspective of 'Pop' culture, an ontological showroom; and, from the perspective ofthe petty bourgeoisie, an ironic version of the gute Stube.

Implicit in all these allusions is a critique of Good-Life Modernism, for the house portrays a life cleansed of the barnacles of consumerism, sentimental domesticity, and suburban posturing. Johnson brought modernism to its ultimate purity, detached it from everyday life, and transformed it into an instrument of anti-domesticity.

The Glass House was unacceptable as a model for Good-Life Modernism, as it stood apart - not far, but just far enough - from the social vision of Good-Life Modernism. Admittedly, American modernism was devoid of fiery European socialism, but it did have a social vision nonetheless, one claiming to be in keeping with the American spirit. House & Home, for example, propagandizes an ideology offamily life, of a clean and orderly domestic environment, of responsibility to the suburban aesthetic, of a hands-on, do-it-yourself approach, and of an unshakable faith in an improving world. The Glass House is not only a bachelor pad, but freely mixes themes of aristocratic elitism, Emersonian escapism, and surreal reductivism, all themes alien and even antagonistic to Good-Life Modernism.

A small testament to the fact that this house was an anomaly can be found in a statement by Jaquelin T. Robertson, former Dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Robertson grew up in a house designed by the great early twentieth-century neocolonialist William Lawrence Bottomley, who designed houses on the model of European villas for the Virginia upper crust. Fittingly, it was the son of one of Bottomley's patrons who recognized an affinity between the Glass House and the houses of Bottomley.

I still remember vividly my first trip to New Canaan, Connecticut, as a first-year architecture student at Yale to see 'modern architecture'. Many of the current favorites were there, and we spent the day with all those dreadful flat-roofed, little wooden shoe-boxes said by my instructors to represent the most advanced and enlightened aspects of architectural thinking and design. It was enough to tum one away forever ... to banking or selling cars or anything! At the end of the day, architecture was just barely saved for me by Philip Johnson's Glass House.

There was such a thing as architecture in this modem desert after all! Yes, only Johnson survived that dreadful burning excursion, and I told him, much later, that he had the only serious 'modern estate'. In saying that, I, of course, was comparing him in my own mind not unfavorably to Bottomley; that is, against the standards that Bottomley had found in the Virginia tradition and given to me. 13

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Just as with Johnson, whose public commissions were different from his own house, Charles and Ray Eames' Billy Wilder House, of 1950, and the Max de Pree House, of 1954, are also closer to the principles of Good-Life Modernism than their own house, built in Pacific Palisades, California in 1949 (fig. 27). Whereas Johnson stretched the logic of modernism to distance himself from the rising tide of everyday consumerist modernism, Eames took the opportunity to explore head-on the problem of the domestic environment within a modernist context.

Though the house is often listed among examples of modernism because of its use of steel and glass, it is an attempt to re-identify values inherent in the American house without falling into the uncritical realm of GoodLife Modernism that typified many of the other Case Study Houses.

Implicit in the building is a critique of the reductivist language of consumerism, which, in its stereotyped and all-Americanized form of the 1950s, instead of defining American life, tended to equalize it out of existence. Thus, whereas the Glass House exaggerates conceptual purity to cleanse the house of banal domesticity, the Eames House allows domestic energy to sprout almost carelessly within its spaces. The house becomes an expression of a diaphanous quality of life; it is full of nooks, crannies and movable panels in which, and along which, the paraphernalia of the Eameses' life has settled. Objects, books, and toys collected for use in films and projects, along with memorabilia, kitsch, shells and the like, became part of their surroundings. Some are more public in nature and more visible, others more private and further removed. As a consequence, many desirable aspects of the Victorian tradition are still very much alive, such as relaxed clutter, comfort, and a certain indifference toward opinion. Absent is the conventionality of Victorian interiors on the one hand, and the stilted orderliness associated with Good-Life Modernism.

The photograph of Charles and Ray Eames standing in the framework of the unfinished house, smiling and proud (fig. 28), seems to suggest a reference to the Vitruvian thesis of the unity of man, proportion, and space.

In actuality the Eameses are challenging this notion. Whereas in the Vitruvian world the meaning of architecture comes from its ability to stand in for and replace the human spirit, here meaning begins only after construction has stopped. The photograph, therefore, represents that instant in time after which the construction has been completed but before the conquest of the interior. As time passes, the house increasingly takes on the personality of its owner and creator. The object world mirrors the private realm and in the process changes, acquiring an ontological presence of its own. Though all houses reflect their owners, here the architecture anticipated the slow sedimentation of life over time. The solemn Vitruvian man dominating his well路 proportioned space is replaced by a zesty couple eager to fill the architectural void behind them. Whereas in the Vitruvian model architecture aspires to be a representation of an inherent spirituality, here the spiritual borrows its permanence from the world of small-scale objects elevated into prominence by architecture (fig. 29).

History and monumentality are not embedded in the design in the form of a grand scheme, but rather brought to the design in the form of an infinite array of personal memory components.

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Charles and Ray Eames. Eames House. Pacific Palisades, California.

1949 Eames House: Charles and Ray Eames at the construction site Detail of the Eames House and Studio

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Pennsylvania, J948 Louis I. Kahn. Project for the Weber de Vore House. 1954

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Ash.nti hamlet. Ghana, Afric.: Plan

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THE CRITICAL RESCUE OF THE AMERICAN HOUSE

he Glass House and the Eames House were not conceived as fullfledged alternatives to Good-Life Modernism; they were private T essays that suited the unique vision of their designers. Only in the late

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1950s and 1960s did architects begin a broad counteroffensive to GoodLife Modernism.

The design that turned the comer, questioning the very nature of the American house, was Louis Kahn's Weber de Vore House (1954) (fig. 31).

The earlier Morton Weiss House, of 1948 (fig. 30) still has all the earmarks of Good-Life Modernism: a generous living room, a solid-looking fireplace, easy traffic flow between rooms, stone floor pavings, lightweight construction, and loose overall profile. The Weber de Vore House takes bold strides in new directions and pronounces a radical rethinking ofthe domestic environment. The plan is amazingly simple; a wall forms the backdrop for six eighteen-foot-square boxes. The residential nature of the structure is articulated simply through the relative placement of the boxes.

Not only has Kahn's own impressive body of civic architecture detracted from his contribution to domestic architecture, but so, too has the Neoplatonist jargon in which Kahn himself embedded his work. In looking for the form or the design, one can fail to recognize the radical break between the Weiss House and the de Vore House. The earlier house is described as an example of "The discipline of service, the freedom of spaces," words that portray exactly the Good-Life Modernist sentiments of the American middle-class. With the de Vore House, Kahn is more analytical. "In searching for the nature of the space of a house might they not be separated a distance from each other theoretically before they are brought together."14 The de Vore House is the first project to challenge the paradigm set up by Mies van der Rohe's Brick Country House. Fluidity of space, legibility of function, the hearth topos, and the organicist distinction between public and private have all been rejected. The repetition of identical spatial elements alone articulates the functional dynamic. The house is no longer a modernist machine, with its various parts designed according to the inner functional dynamic of suburban family life, but a conglomerate of smaller houses. The living room, for example, is like a house, Kahn explains. The de Vore House thus no longer postulates a condition of suburban enlightenment, but rather aims to bring about an anthropological understanding of communal living. It makes allusions not to the conventional notion of modernity, but to African tribal huts (fig. 32).

With the Norman Fisher House (1960) (fig. 33), Kahn continues the critique of his own earlier work. From the viewpoint of Good-Life Modernism, the Fisher House does not even read as house; it is too selfcontained and the facade too austere with its narrow slit-window. Nor is there even a lamp or rain guard over the entrance door. The house further defies the Good-Life Modernist idea of a design fabric extending into the landscape. Kahn packages public and private spaces tightly into their respective cubes and places them at an aggressive angle to each other.

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Louis I. Kahn. Norman Fisher House. Hatboro. PeMsylvania, 1960 Olav Hammarstrom.Hammarslrolll House.P1an: Hou .. & Home. July

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EI Lissitzky. Two Squar<s. 1922 Louis I. Kahn. Norman Fisher House. Hatboro. Pennsylvania, 1960:

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Interior view Nonnan Fisher House: Elevation Charles Moon:. Moore-Heady House. Orinda. California, 1962 Femand Leger. Country Outing. 1954 John Hejduk. House. early 1%Os Temple of Poseidonia. Paestum. 100 B_C. Andrea Palladio. Vill. ROIonda. Vicenza. 1566

The theme was not unfamiliar to Good-Life Modernism as can be seen in the Hammarstrom House (fig. 34), for example. Yet, gone are the patios and horizontal windows and the equation of living room with outdoors.

Furthermore, the joint between the two cubes is too precise and calculated for Good-Life Modernist sensibilities. The energy that pervades the Fisher House reminds strongly of El Lissitzky's 2 Squares (1920) (fig. 35).

Although the two boxes make not the slightest concession to indooroutdoor space, they do not ignore the surroundings. A change of height in the string course along the entrance facade gestures in an elegant contrapposto to the hillside sloping downward to the right (fig. 36). And in the living room, the built-in bench next to the fireplace becomes a veritable throne celebrating the grandeur of nature (fig. 37). The architecture does not invite the inhabitant to be in nature by means of big picture windows and broad patios, but rather frames the inhabitant against the backdrop of nature.

Another house that challenged modernist notions about form and function was the Moore-Heady House, of 1962 (fig. 38). If the Glass House initiates a critique of Good-Life Modernism from above, Charles Moore's Moore-Heady House does so from below. Of similar dimension as the Glass House, it is a large, bam-like structure with moveable exterior walls and windows. As in the Glass House, there are no doors on the inside (except for the toilet), but distinguishing it from the Glass House are two baldachin-like constructions defining the living room and the bathing area respectively. Whereas the Glass House is a high-society hut, the MooreHeady House is a counterculture shack. Built with bravura cheapness, it is infamous for its leaky roof, cold drafts, and rattling window panes, and thus it is hard today to appreciate the impact this house had in both America and Europe at the time of its construction.

Moore's well-known interest in "sense of place" takes its departure from this project, which initiated his investigation into the disjuncture between place and function. The modernists, generally speaking, held to the idea that each function required individual expression. The Moore-Heady House, which confronts this thesis head-on, can be placed on a par with Fernand Leger's Country Outing (1954) (fig. 39), where the convention of outline and color is challenged in a similar way. Shapes are not identical with the outlines ofform but float freely in space. Just as the objects are disengaged from their color, so it is with forms and their functions in the Moore-Heady House; instead of one following the other, each has its own trajectory. In some instances forms and functions overlap, as with the bathroom in the Moore-Heady House or the tree stump in Country Outing. In cases where they do not, a loose fit is readily accepted. In this sense, the Moore-Heady House, more than simply a counterculture version of the Glass House, stands on the other side of a historical divide in architectural theory.

With John Hejduk' s projects of the 1960s the emphasis shifts away from a question of form and function to a phenomenological investigation into the problemofplace. Hejduk's so-called House (fig. 40), is one of the outstanding theoretical accomplishments of the decade. It is part of a series of unbuilt investigations which include the 1/2 House, the Red-Yellow House, and the Good Neighbor House. The simplicity of House is deceiving. It is a purely historiographic proposition. Not only does it evoke the theoretical origins of architecture, namely house-as-shelter, but because it is a naos surrounded by

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colwnns that support the roof, it reaches back to the roots of Greek architecture (fig. 41). The organization of the columns, however, is Palladian, abstracted from the VillaRotonda(fig.42). In this sense, the house combines archaic directness with cultivated nobility, totally bypassing all the concems ofGood-Life Modemism.

Through the new conceptual optic of Hejduk's architecture, GoodLife Modernism was once and for all revealed for what it was. It had falsely proclaimed itself the authentic voice of domestic life. It had legitimized itself by means of a questionable means of consensus and an artificial discourse of reasonableness. And finally, it had co-opted architectural theory into the services of cultural manipulations that ossified theory and standardized it for general consumption. Above all, in Hejduk' s work that grand postwar attempt to create afresh bourgeois enlightenment is revealed as a sham enterprise that side-stepped rather than addressed the difficult problematic of the relationship between architecture and society.

Hejduk's plans, therefore, explore the concept of 'houseness', while at the same time denying sentimentalizing definition of the domestic realm.

House 10 (1966), for example, takes '3/4' spaces and punctuates them with '3/4' objects (fig. 43). Everything is connected by a long corridor along which an amoeba-shaped space is attached. Instead of 'less is more' we seem to be given the ironic proposition that '3/4 is more', implying that theory is not oneto-one with practical reality. Hejduk intensifies the disjuncture between 3/4 places and their function by exploring the equally intriguing disjuncture between words and space. The program for 3/4 House listed alongside the plan - "Garage, Walk, Entry, Living, Dining, Kitchen, Gallery, Storage, Bathroom, Bedroom" - would satisfy any realtor's listing for a one-bedroom house. But as concepts the words evoke wholeness: a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen. The architect, fracturing space in the three-dimensional sense, but unable to fracture space in the conceptual sense, opens our eyes to the conventions that govern the relationships between words and architectural space. 3/4, an alienating measure that wants to emphasize the theoretical nature of the discourse, is therefore, equivalent to a Brechtian statement. As in Brecht's plays, alienation is employed to point out that the play is not equivalent with reality, but a theoretical proposition.

The most radical experiments with the American house were the early designs by Peter Eisenman. Whereas Eames, Kahn, and Hejduk responded, in the final analysis, to the question oflivability, Eisenman rejects such considerations altogether. The fact that columns in his House II (1969) thrust themselves upwards in unfortunate spots is immaterial (fig. 44). The house denies both function and form. To guarantee this, Eisenman does not 'design' the house, but' generates' it with a series of twenty-four transformations that, in their repetition and arbitrariness, thematize the insistent alienation of the design from all human, site, and functional considerations. The transformations, which bit-by-bitdrain space from the initial volume, are much more than formal games; they remove the design stepwise not only from the discourse of modernism (i.e., form and function) but also from life. The fact that the house is 'unlivable' is supposed to be understood as "not his fault." Absence of place is part of the theoretical program that intended to critique a society that was then engaged in a brutal war, and that was at war with itself. The photograph Eisenman published of House II in a grey and cold winter landscape is his comment on the times (fig. 45).

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John Hejduk. House 10. 1966 Peter Eisenman. House II transformations Peter Eisenman. House II. Hardwick. Vermont. 1969 Robert Venturi. Signs of Life. 1976

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In Eisenman 's critique, architects should refusetobecome agents for Good Living. The design should erect barriers against Good Living and, if anything, simulate the fragmented arbitrariness of the world. The resultant architectural object purposefully challenges the anthropological urge to settle and to define aplace. Like Franz Kafka'scastle-alsocoveredby adustingofsnow-House II frustrates attempts to inhabit it. Kafka's inability to gain access to the castle, the domestic alter ego for which he searches, can be interpreted as the textual counterimage of Eisenman's work. It is your task, not mine, Eisenman seems to be suggesting, to find a place for yourself in this dehumanized world.

Eisenman and others, in their attempt to expand investigations of house forms, turned their backs on the conventional; but not so Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who bravely entered the American interior, in particular the trite living rooms of the middle-class. Signs ofLife (fig. 46) ridicules the allAmerican interior by raising it to a pseudo-monumental status. Whereas on a deserted island, 'signs of life' might be a cause for joy, here 'signs of life' envisioned in the ironic context of an all-too-familiar living room setting speaks of mankind's entrapment within the realm of the signified. The signs, perversely larger than life, hang from the ceiling over the furniture, identifying the world of architectural things, on the one hand, as interchangeable and replaceable, and, on the other hand, as frightfully permanent. The middleclass, with its now-revealed language of taste-signs, is shown in its attempt to co-opt objects to speak better of its urge to control. In this man-made world of object-words, functional requirements, such as comfort and light, are secondary to the hidden language which is carried by means of a subterfuge into the seemingly introverted and nonreferential world of the living room. Signs ofLife thus not only reveals the trite, petty, and constrained interiors of establishmentarian life, but monumentalizes them, rendering the rhetorical nature of the everyday world obvious while simultaneously casting it into doubt.

Signs ofLife brings into focus the difference between things produced and things valued. Values are social commodities whose importance lies not in their identity as products, but in the ever-changing relativity of social linkages.

Objects, in being 'valued', signify the larger cultural system in which they are placed. Thus there is a difference between the signs one sees on the street and cultural signs by which a society identifies itself. The former have a single overt reference. TIle latteremergeonly assigns that were not conceived as such. Furniture and other objects in a room, for example, serve as frightfully accurate signs of cultural mindsets, since they are eminently readable within acertaincultural context, even though they are never explicitly intended to be used within the context of a cultural discourse. Placing signs (as physical objects) over the fumiture makes overt the silent process that relies 011 the hidden forces of suppressed articulation.

In misplacing the 'sign' into the realm of actual signage, Venturi creates an architecture free from the constraints of hidden hegemonic syntax. It is freed, however, only from its collusion with silence, for in exposing and thus weakening the power of hidden meanings, Venturi's signs point to the troublesome reality of modem life. The fetishistic insistence on congruence reveals an actual lack of happy correspondence between words and things, desires and expressions, and social values and marketplace economics.

The shifting realm of indicators that is the theme of Signs of Life finds its primary architectural manifestation in the collision of the public and private domains, as in Venturi's Lieb House (fig. 50), where, accidenta1ly-on-purpose,

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some windows are designed from the interior and others from the exterior, revealing elements of both. In this world of misplaced architectural modifiers that glorify the bourgeoisie while making it uncomfortable, the Vanna Venturi House (1961) stands out by far. The famous photo of the facade with Vanna, Venturi's mother, sitting in front shows a house as inhabited, that is, all the 'signs' are in place (fig. 47). Is the mother a 'sign of life', or only a piece of signage, like the potted plant? To make the puzzle more complex, Venturi overlays on the facade a commentary on the classical system of proportion.

The geometric signage, extrapolated from the curved molding and the lintel, is a residual and fragmentary reference to architectural theory's hybrids that posits man as measure of all things (fig. 48). In Leonardo's scheme (fig. 49), for example, the man moves his legs elevating the center from the pelvis to the navel; in Venturi's scheme, the circle is also levitated over the square, but here, the architects place afeminist spin on the problem. The standing man is replaced by a seated woman who represents the stubbom and unuprootable nature of domesticity. Her feet are not part of the circle and rest unambiguously on the ground. That spot, together with the center of the circle focused on her lapand more precisely on the spine of an open book which she is reading -define the essential qualities of her matriarchal identity: place, birth and knowledge.

Venturi and Braun's architecture exposes the sadness as well as the happiness of being human and ultimately the irony in the laudable yet often pathetic search for human dignity. It speaks simultaneously of power and powerlessness. Architecture's power derives from its ability to unmask the world and to remove the forces that, on the one hand, hold together words and things in their complacent, unrevealed, natural state, and, on the other hand, separate private and public realms. The powerlessness of architecture derives, however, from architecture's inability to resolve the social and cultural equation. Venturi's architecture, as a result, tends to home in on architectural skin, for the skin of the building celebrates not only the disjuncture between inside and outside - a comment on the failure of man's attempt to control the world - but also the ironic permanence of the 'GoodLife' based on the residual anthropological mystery of its signs.

To reveal society as manipulative and calculating, architects have to contrive countermanipulations and miscalculations, Venturi seems to argue, but without lapsing into absurd or self-gratifying expressionism. This critique of the Good-Life Modernist acceptance of social conventions, which led to Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture ,culminated in the Trubek House (1970), on the shore of Nantucket Island (fig. 51). The house is a brilliant architectural commentary on the All-American life. On the outside the house was meant to read as indigenous American, consciously imitating late nineteenth-century Shingle-Style houses, examples of which Venturi pairs with illustrations of the Trubek House in some of the publications. The house is not, however, meant as pure imitation, but rather as an exaggeration of the convention, an enlargement of it, holding onto the image of' American House' as if for dear life. And, upon entering, one sees why; on the inside a powerful force has disrupted its organization. The effect is as if the high tide, swept in by a gale, had burst into the living room and forced everything back creating a jumble of architectural flotsam and jetsam against the rear wall. A single column managed to hold its ground; its counterpart, on the other side of the room, was lost to the tempest.

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CONCLUSION

ot all architects of the sixties belong to the group that attempted to salvage

the theoretical dialogue. Charles Gwathmey, Michael Graves, and Richard N Meier confuse virtuosity with authentic critical statement. Eames, Kahn, Venturi,

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Robert Venturi , Vanna Venturi House. Chestnut Hill. Pennsylvania.

1961 Vanna Venturi House: Diagram leonardo da Vinci. proponions of the human figure Robert Venturi . Lieb House. Loveladies. New Jersey, 1967 Robert Venturi . Trubek House. Nantucket. Massachusetts. 1970

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and Eisenman,however, based their work on insightful investigations into the bonds that link society and architecture. They studied how these conventions were created and how they could berevitalized. Kahn sought anthropological meaning; Moore broke apart the modernist contlation of form and function; Eisenman rejected anthropological elements; Hejduk challenged the conventions that purport to relate space and words; Venturi studied the cultural impulses that deform architectural thought Some of the approaches are diametrically opposed to one another and during the 1960s were not seen as having a common focus. Students would defend one against the other. Yet, from the perspective of the late I980s, it becomes clear that they all aimed at bringing new vitality to the American House. Each attempt in its particular way, took account of those traits of modernity that were incompatible with Good-Life Modernism, and this afterGood-Life Modernism had claimed to be the final revelation of modernism unto itself. The architects of the 1960s, however, didnot - nor ever intend to-replace Good-Life Modernism with a programmatic alternative; theirs was not a vision that could be implemented in the manner of a new all-encompassing domestic aesthetic. On the contrary, they saw their contribution as a rescue of theory from the clutches of practice.

The real contribution ofthe 1960scan therefore, only be seen against the backdrop of Good-Life Modernism. Its lure was its prornise to heal the rifts between subject and object by creating an architecture without pain, displacements, residual wants or unfulfllied desires. The logic of this illusion began with the ostensibly innocuous attempt on the part of Good-Life Modernists to help the middle-class become a patronal class by preparing a specially crafted version of modernity. Good-Life Modernism demanded that Americans heighten their aesthetic sensibilities and cleanse themselves of the impulse towards kitsch and historicism. But it also demanded acceptance of the purported status quo of modernism and a lowering of the threshold ofcultural skepticism. Relying on the unique American myths of shared equality and individualistic market-mindedness, architectural firms, banks, and museums, together with the rapidly expanding construction industry hoped not only to articulate an unchangingly valid aesthetic for the new patronal class but also to provide the buildings that would' cash in' on that aesthetic. 'Theory' was reduced tostereotypedresponses so that the â&#x20AC;˘practice ' ofcultural administration could implement itself all the more effectively. The result was a trompe l' oeil in which the middle-class, satisfying itself with its appearance as patrons, failed to recognize that in actuality it was at the mercy of forces over which it had very little control.

By the 1970s, Good-Life Modernism was stripped of its claims to theory.

But the success left the new architecture without its dialectical antagonist, and as the critique played itself out, it spiraled from reactionary historicism and mannerist impressionism to the super-realist struttings of deconstruction.

Theory, no longer a cultural system of interconnected truths, as it was for Good-Life Modernism, came to be envisioned as working hypotheses, changing in accordance with the results. Theory mongers, searching now for congratulatory applause from the culture voyeurs, fight their quixotic struggle â&#x20AC;˘ far removed from the site of the real battle.

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· .. the page is nine inches by twelve, please abide by the grid whenever possible.

Editors

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As the method developed, I was led to take a random phrasefrom which I drew images by distorting it a little, as though it were a case of deriving them from the drawing of a rebus . ... I drew a series of images from the distortion of some random text. . . I used anything at hand.

Raymond Roussel

Long Shot: The screen is black. From far away the sound of an approaching train, it is whistling "now nearer now further off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest."

Near and near.

Middle Shot: The screen is still black but now getting lighter. "In the monotonous gray" we can distinguish coming into focus the railroad tracks. The sound is deafening.

Close Up: From an oblique angle: the wheels of a train passing by. The axis of the camera is nearly parallel to the tracks so it appears that the train is about to enter the cinema.

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Intertitlc:

M. S.

AIH 11111'( IIIH.

Rapid pans, left to right, obliterate by their speed the subject matter: an urban landscape which dissolves into an arboreal, vegetative texture (perspectiva naturalis).

My first anarchistic effort was what we now call the close-up.

M. S.

M. S.

Thinking in pictures stands near the unconscious.

Sigmund Freud

A pair of adoring parents feeding a baby. The father, wearing a dark vest and a white shirt, his tie loosened to reflect the comfort of a bourgeois in the bosom of his family, is feeding the child. The mother is happily looking on while stirring her coffee. The parents seem imprisoned in some cosmos other than ours, unaware of our existence, i.e. the camera.

The child however, whose gaze at first was completely focused on the food, having had enough, turns toward the camera and offers to share it with us. The sound is that of a film projector running.

Resume on Juliette, now alternating with close-ups of a cup of coffee.

Voice Over: Perhaps an object can provide a link, can enable one to go from one subject to another and so to live within society, to be together. But then, given the fact that my thoughts create rifts as much as they unite, given the fact that my words establish contacts by being spoken and create isolation by remaining unspoken, given the fact that there is such a vast gap between the subjective certainty I have of myself and the objective reality that I represent to others, given the fact that I always find myself gUilty although I feel I am innocent.

c. U.

A spoon is stirring up the cup of coffee. It is withdrawn. A small circle of foam is left swirling round on the surface.

M. S.

Rapid pans, left to right an urban texture but now with cars and people. Over the din of the street a dialogue between a man and a woman is recorded backwards.

L. S.

A street. Houses fly past us, lamp standards, advertisement kiosks. Cars, pulled over to the side in alarm, are passed. People stare at us. Before us are two engines, fully equipped with hoses and ladders. We are bringing up the rear of the procession in a crew car. The first engine bends sharply around the comer, shows us the full length of its flank, disappears; then the second. Now we ourselves take the curve at full speed: in a broad bow the houses fall back to the rear, the square in front of the Courthouse presents itself to the view. An excited crowd mills around outside of the building. Out of the gates bursts the stream of fugitives. The fire engines have driven up at action stations, the crews have jumped off, and, in a purposeful, practiced higgledy-piggledy, they are rolling out the hoses, elevating the ladders. Fade to:

c. U.

Iris out on a woman's hand writing. However, the position of the camera prevents us from seeing the text.

Even with garbage one can utter a cry.

Kurt Schwitters

Voice Over: The iron that at first became the rail, the journey, soon becomes the terminus, the end, the new, transient home. The horizontal rotates to the vertical. "Construction fills the role of the unconscious."

Fade out to black.

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D. W. Griffith

M. S.

The traditional approach is to interpret, decipher or order reality according to an ideal law we possess.

Rapid pans inside a building. From the green-gray texture there occasionally emerge fragments of railings, steel mullions, glass, but the quick movement prevents us from possessing them; we are the dizzying speed of advance. The sound of a typewriter.

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\I S ( II

Maurice Merleau-Ponty M. S. The sound of the typewriter continues. We are now moving through an office; rapid pans of desks, walls, filing cabinets, drafting tables, all submerged in the optical flow from which they fleetingly emerge to penetrate our body and dissolve. Telephones ringing and the whir of printers is overlaid upon the sound of typewriters.

When I examine myself and my method 0/ thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift o//antasy has meant more to me than my talent/or absorbing positive knowledge.

Albert Einstein

,

Intertitle:

HO'-.I01 R'

P'IU ~S-'Ol S I路 R " ( 'IS'!

Medium Long: A young woman smoking a cigarette and dreamingly blowing the smoke over the palm of her other hand. She is seen sitting against a nearly black background which prevents the identification of the location. As she watches the smoke, the figure of a young man appears kneeling on her hand and addressing her in a pleading fashion. The image amuses her greatly, and she tries to catch it. It vanishes as her hand goes to seize it.

M. L. Night. Rapid pans of a city street glistening in rain. Intermittently we can catch glimpses of otherwise unrecognizable individual human figures rushing in different directions. The plasma of rapid motion is interrupted by certain 'events': sequences of brief close-ups of a telephone booth, bus stop, mail box, newspaper dispenser, store window, etc ....

In t e r t i tI e :

A R (' III

IU

I I R~.

u;

\I, S I

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II , Ll S \1

M. L. As above, the sequence of street shots continues while a voice over reads on in whispers:

God is perspective and hierarchy; Satan's sin was an error o/perspective.

Josie Ortega y Gasset

Voice Over: The architect has so little freedom to maneuver that he doesn't always allow for vandalism in his design. Lavatories are focal points for vandalism. Their design illustrates the need for an interplay of management, planning and design decisions. It is possible to design a vandal-resistant lavatory. Much of the damage to doors can be reduced at little extra cost simply by recognizing what is likely to happen to them in ordinary day-to-day use. Open-plan designs used in recent buildings make surveillance by police and public much easier.

L. S. / M. S. / c. U. Rapidly oscillating images of a printing machine pulsating from the abrupt changes in screen sizes that fracture the photographic homogeneity of the constituting images while linking elliptically a multifocal triad of identifiable spaces.

L. S.

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

Interior of 'scientists' laboratory. The 'scientist,' wearing a white apron, with a cigarette dangling from the comer of his mouth, is preparing to use a bellows connected through a hose to a head - identical to his own - standing on a table in a nearly black alcove. As he starts puffing the bellows, the head begins to gasp and sputter as it swells. The scientist

97

now calls on an assistant to take over, but the young man pumps too vigorously and the greatly inflated head explodes, smashing half of the laboratory. The Gymnopedies of Eric Satie.

Shutters shut and open so do queens.

Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut and so shutters shut and shutters and so. And so shutters shut and so and also. And also and so and so and also.

Intertitlc:

pl{()~ I SSIO' \I

PI{ \(

II< I

Gertrude Stein M. S. / M. S. Rapidly oscillating images of a typewriter and a television screen. The typewriter is seen over the shoulder of the typist, of whom we can only see the rapidly moving hands; the television screen presents a moving, undulating, non-objective electronic 'event'. Over the sound of the typewriter and the feedback of the television set ....

Voice Over: (Monotonously reciting): Contract administration, supervision, inspection, partial contract administration, full-time contract administration, standards of care, responsibility for safety, ship drawings, architect's certification for payment, retainage, problems with overpayment to the contractor, substantial completion, final completion, problems with continuing construction after occupancy, record drawings, detrimental reliance, unjust enrichment, professional services: warranties and guarantees, stature of limitations, statute offrauds, fit-up, history of building codes, building codes contrasted with fire codes, units of exit width, travel distance, panic and psychological reactions, equivalent life safety.

I reject eve/yorder. every concept. I distrust every abstraction. erery doctrine. I don't believe in God or in Reason.

Witold Gombrowicz

Intcrtitle:

If I am speaking only the language I have been taught what will ever serve as a signal that we should listen to the voice ofunreason claiming that tomorrow will be other, that it is entirely and mysteriously separated from yesterday.

( h i I·

11'0'

\

11\11

•••

L. S.

A chariot drives out of the Ishtar gate of Babylon and races into the desert.

L. S.

A train speeding along a track.

M. L. A man standing in a chariot racing to screen left.

M. L. From the window of a train we follow a car racing to catch up.

L. S. / M. L. A rapid oscillation between the train speeding along the tracks and the man racing in the chariot.

Andre Breton

Intcrtitlc:

Till

AI{(

11111·( I

C. u. / C. U. A rapid oscillation between an Arcimboldesque head and a Raul Hausmann photomontage of a profile: The Enigma. A voice over recites the text below which appears simultaneously in the fonn of subtitles: Architect, WM, GWM, MWM, SWJM, young old, middle-aged, attractive, tall, short, fat, ugly, handsome, sensitive, caring, sincere, beautiful, affectionate, alive, discrete, romantic, amusing, positive, successful, Mies look-alike, passionate, responsive, shapely, imaginative. well-built. sensual, accomplished, slender, artistic, honest, open. athletic, voluptuous, virile, responsible, fun-loving, exotic, rugged, uninhibited, avant-garde,

98

lonely, handsome, clean, muscular, seeks a producer. director. photographer. artist, businessman. entrepreneur. older gentleman. European philosopher. professional. avantgarde artist. for adventure. serious relationship. lasting encounter. occasional drinks. togetherness. Enjoys classical music. jazz. books. movies. museums, photography. painting. fractals. outdoors. philosophy. cozy evenings. linguistics. Reply in confidence.

L. S.

Iris in. The steps. People looking.

M. S. People looking out. Medium close shot of people looking out. back to camera.

Two workers look out.

A lady.

A cripple.

People point things out to children.

An elderly man mops his face. An old woman.

Girl students wave.

Two women.

Children are lifted into frame.

Old man watching.

I am a Kino-eye. I am a builder. I have placed you, whom I have created today, in an extraordinary room which did not exist until just now, when I also created it.

c. U.

M. Andre Breton is not M. OzenJat' s servant (what he said).

Eric Satie

A child shouting.

The cripple shouting.

Medium Close Up: People reeling back.

Dziga Vertov

c. U.

The cripple closer.

Legs collapsing.

M. S. The crowd rushing down.

c. U.

Shot of legs. as people fall to their knees.

Strength lies in improvisation.

M. S. People rushing to the barrier.

A man falls into frame.

Legs of soldiers.

Shot from above of volley. backs (of soldiers) to camera.

People running down steps. away from camera.

L. S.

Walter Benjamin

Panic on the steps.

L. S. / M. S. / c. U. Rapid pans moving in different directions. The subject matter varies greatly and comprises both interior and exterior and day and night shots which are unified by the nature and speed of movement. The multiplicity of layers and the different directions combine to evoke a sense of the uncanny.

L. S.

Moon against a night sky.

M. S. A man standing on a balcony with a cigarette dangling from the comer of his mouth. looks up at the moon.

C. U.

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

The face of a young woman sitting; beside her. but nearly outside of the camera frame. a

99

man is standing. The man, using two fingers, takes hold of the woman's left eye while his other hand brings a straight razor across it.

L. S.

Moon against a night sky with a wisp of a cloud crossing it.

c. U.

An eye being cut open with a razor.

M. C. U. A rapid oscillation between a rusting mechanical object of unspecified use and its upside down view. In the interstices the ghost of Einstein.

Intertitle:

L. S.

EI(,UII{\, EI(,~II路I{\, E('('ull{\

A military trio walking up a staircase.

M. C. U. The bust of a statue holding a wreath.

M. C. U. A partial view of the statue holding a wreath.

M. C. U. The statue's hand with the wreath.

I n t l' r tit Ie:

H (I I' I

0 ~

II I S (' (I I , I I{ \

\ 'II

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Full Shot The statue now holding the wreath with both hands. Sharp upward angle.

F. S.

The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition and music is the driving force behind this intuition . .. my new discovery is the result of musical perception.

Albert Einstein

Another sharp upward angle of the statue holding the wreath.

Intertitle:

c. U.

All \\'\IHI{ FI'II(lI{O\l( II

KI'I{I 'SId

Kerensky's face in high contrast illumination, viewed in a downward angle.

M. C. S. The statue holding the wreath with both hands.

c. U.

Kerensky's face viewed from above.

M. C. S. The statue holding the wreath with both hands.

100

F. S.

Sharp upward angle of the statue.

F. S.

Same, different angle.

L. S.

Kerensky ascending a staircase at the top of which a line of uniformed men awaits him.

As one of the uniformed men moves toward Kerensky, the two military men that follow Kerensky appear in the foreground. Kerensky salutes the group at the top of the stairs.

I have been impatient to put to test the idea I have formulated of the kind of Art which our era demanded. an art that would deliberately sacrifice the external model to the internal model, that would resolutely give perception precedence over representation.

Andre Breton

Intertitlc:

TilE TS\I~'s 0\\"\ I-\)()I\II-. "\

M. C. U. Rapid oscillation of two frame fragments of the following shots: A Man shaving; a Woman applying mascara; a Man brushing his teeth; a Woman washing her hands; all shot from different angles in the same brightly lit bathroom space.

Voice Over: X's voice: Empty salons. Corridors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick carpets. Heaving hangings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glasses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass partition, letters, a letter lost. Keys hanging from their rings, in their assigned place, lined up in successive rows, numbered door keys. 309,307,305, 303, chandeliers. Chandeliers. Beads. Unsilvered mirrors. Mirrors. Empty corridors as far as the eye can see ....

F. S.

c. S.

The girl retreats and lifts up a tennis racket with which she threatens the man. The man picks up two ropes and approaches her dragging behind him with these two ropes an exceedingly heavy load of mats, melons, two priests, two pianos, each draped with a oozing carcass of a donkey. The girl rushes out from the room slamming the door on the hand of the man who pursues her.

I have seen in the clouds and in spots on a wall what has aroused me tofive inventions.

A hand trapped in a door; from a hole in the middle of the palm a colony of ants crawl out.

Leonardo da Vinci

L. S. / M. S. / c. U. Dollies of streets shot from a quickly moving car superimposed over each other.

/reject every order, every concept. I distrust every abstraction, every doctrine. I don't believe in God or in Reason.

c. U.

A monkey's face. It looks from side to side than ducks out of frame.

L. S.

A pan across the roofs of Paris.

M. S. A cannon on a rooftop with the rooftops of Paris in the background. Two men, in slow motion, leap into the frame from both sides. The one on the left is Eric Satie, the one of the right is Francis Picabia. The two men land by the cannon and tum to the camera.

Is this man lin1illnd: (A) a structural wall

(m~~

) an enclosure wall (0) a sound oontrol wall (E) a fire control wall?

Rapid oscillation of two frame fragments of the following shots: Witold Gombrowicz L. S.

A beautiful spring day. From the comer of the tennis courts we see a man and a woman playing tennis.

M. S. The woman playing tennis in frontal view ....

M. S. A moving shot. The vantage point of the woman playing. The camera personifies the body through a set of unexpected movements.

c. U.

Downward angle upon a table filled with books, stacked on their edge in long rows.

The hands of a browser come into view and the camera dollies with them across the table.

Voice Over: With supered sound of the tennis courts:

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

101

Benjamin Perret: For me, Riopelle is the cloud which serves as parachute for the steel shell of a building constantly in the process of construction.

Elisa Breton: For me, it is the activity at ports, with the noise of cranes and the smell of tar.

Andre Breton: For me, it is the art of the most astute trapper. Traps set out only for burrowing animals but also for the animals of cloud-formations. What reconciles me to the idea of a trap, which is not among my favorite objects, is that these are also traps for traps. Once these traps have been trapped, a high degree of freedom will have been attained.

With all due respect for words, given the habits they have contracted in so many foul mouths, it actually takes courage not only to write but even to speak.

Francis Ponge

Elisa Breton: I'm not sure about the port, after all. More like a mine.

L. S. / M. S. / C. U. Interior. Day. Two frame fragments of a man sitting in a comfortable easy chair reading a book. The crystalline-faceted structure of his presence is interrupted occasionally by short oblique pans of the site.

[ stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could [ indicate any claims that [ might rightly advance in any direction. [ have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myseifbe carried along by this tram, norfor the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shopwindows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

Franz Kafka

Voice Over: In the 20th Century, the stability of Time and Space, which has been around since the 'beginning' dissolved into a myriad of possibilities, ambiguities and uncertainties which principally rendered all previous instrumentality either useless or suspect and demanded a creative invention of unsurpassed magnitude. The pursuit of Architecture is no longer possible as the achievement of the definitive becomes now a search for the "flatness of depth."

M. S. Around a long table strewn with papers a group of men including George Boas, Marcel Duchamp, Frank Lloyd Wright and Darius Milhaud are discussing art.

G. B. Why do you fellows who are artists make these things?

M. D. It's an urge. It's not explicable in any way .... When we say "art for all," we mean that everybody is welcome to look freely at all works of art and try to hear what I call an aesthetic echo. We imply that art cannot be understood through the intellect, but is felt.

M. S. Members of the San Francisco Art Association listen intently.

G. B. Perhaps the artists would be willing to retort to the critics. Mr. Wright, what can an artist learn from a critic?

F. L. W. He can learn the futility of criticism and to avoid the critic by all means in his power.

M. D. (to a critic) You are translating works of art into words, which is not necessary because art is a language in itself.

In t e r tit Ie:

T IIf< 1\1 () \ "

L. S. / M. S. Brief durations of the following image appear in quick succession: Cowboys, tanks, nuclear explosions, newsmen, fire trucks, couples kissing, torpedoes, football games, submarines, architectural ads, Academy leaders, game shows, blank film, fashion shows, .unrelated intertitles, military maneuvers, war. Each image lasts a fraction of a

102

What [listen to is worthless: there is only what [ see with my own eyes open - and even better closed.

Georgio de Chirico

To be really important a work ofart must go completely beyond the limits of the human: good sense and logic will be missing from it.

Giorgio de Chirico

second and the cacophony of accompanying sound builds into an "apocalyptic crescendo."

There is only one way out: to speak against words.

Jean Epstein: Long shots can be short. Interrupted paroxysms move me, like stings. Until now I have never seen pure 'photogeneity' lasting more than a second. Therefore, we can only assume that it is a spark which occasionally passes by without a strike. This dictates a cutting-up far more subtle than the sort one is used to in the best American films. The beauty of a face preparing to smile far exceeds the smile itself. Cut! I like lips that are about to speak but are yet silent.

Francis Ponge

M. S. Slow pans of unfocused luminescence, each of different chroma, dissolving into each other.

There is only one solution, and that is to turn one's back on the American Cinema.

Jean-Luc Godard

Voice Over: The flow of black waves, smoothly building up, forming a semi-diagonal line as the camera pans with them. The flow of this line, faster now and forming more of a vertical pattern than a diagonal one. With quickening tempo the line of mounting water moves toward a vertical pattern as the white crust of toppling waves begins to appear. The whitened tops of the waves suddenly reach the zenith of their vertical composition. The contrasting horizontal of the waves head on approaching and ...

Exploding horizontally against black rocks in the foreground .... And exploding in all directions with no visible rocks but only burst of water filling the frame.

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which follows that irregularity - that is to say the unexpected, surprise and astonishment are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

Charles Baudelaire

Faced with the unutterable, words disintegrate.

And ever new. out of the most quivering stones, music builds her divine house in useless space.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

103

A -Locations / Pre-Occupations

John Zissovici

Aboriginal Creation myths tell of the legendary totemic beings who had wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path ... rocks, waterholes -

and so

singing the world into existence. I

... the constructed nature of its reality...

'/ ' / " .' lI :',' , ( ~L 'i, I, \[1

106

\

1,III.,

( ' 1,\1 ~ _

1'1:

"Already ... in advance, the image owed something to this moment.''2

of its reality, and its subsequent relocation within the framework of architectural production is set before the students as the focus of the studio.

The mythical landscape of the twentieth

The projects start out by taking one of two

century can be thought of as the vast fields and

photographs of 'lost' objects and transposing it

streams of images of the world, into which the

into an 'accounting', a dramatic discursive action

reality of the world has been transformed in the

that builds upon the image's internal structure by

media. Through the persuasive and pervasive

retracing the paths of its becoming. While this

repetitiveness with which society proliferates

exercise seems to solve no immediate problems

representations of its values, the mythical landscape

(the projects merely fill the void that precedes

of modem life has acquired its own naturalness.

their existence), expansive mappings enable the

The rocks and waterholes of the old myth have

ambiguities between the object and the re-

been replaced by signs and representations. As

presentation to emerge in concrete form. Through

technical and scientific progress allows for the

speculati ve proposals for the occupation of these

unlimited transformation of nature, technology-

forms the projects mirror the formations of myths,

the mechanism through which the world as image

and so become predictive myths "that you can

is perpetually reaffirmed by the media - is

actually live by: how to cope with ... the whole

revealed to be both perpetrator and hidden ground

series of enciphered meanings that lie half-

of our mythical landscape, this 'second nature'. J

exposed within the urban landscape, within the

"Myths [today] are nothing but this cease-

communication landscape we all inhabit and to

less ... insidious and inflexible demand that all

some extent contribute to."5 Like all myths, they

men recognize themselves in this image ... which

stand as "exemplary models for all significant

was built of them one day as if for all time. For

human activity.''fi Their lessons are like an after-

the Nature, in which they are locked up under the

image, a reverberation of all that has been set in

pretext of being eternalized is nothing but a Usage.

motion. Our engagement, or reading of these

And it is this Usage, however lofty, that they

projects, can be seen as a ritual re-enacting, an

must take in hand and transform."4

active participation in the myth.

The interruption of the endless flow of

Each student begins with one of two images

images and the appropriation of a fragment of

of lost ships, victims of man-made and natural

this new landscape for closer examination, reflect

disasters.

both the central concern and field of operation of

investigations into the nature and role of represen-

the architectural problem. The explorations of

tation in the context of a 'museum/monument' as

this fragment aim to expose the constructed nature

well as in the architectural production.

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

These are put forth to challenge

107

"So the professor preferred his first idea which, while exploiting the previous discovery, of which he was justly proud, in an original manner, also attracted him because ofthe novelty the projected picture would derive from the use of fragments shaped and coloured entirely by chance, with no artistic desire or premeditation."7 The first image (fig. I) is a composite of 108 separate photographs chosen from some 70,000 produced by a camera sled with three continuously operating still cameras trolled endlessly over the (now forever immobile) Titanic, resting at the bottom of the Atlantic. It shows a surface marked by variously located cuts, folds, and wrinkles with a row of regularly shaped holes along its long axis and is readily recognizable as an "aerial" view of the deck of a large ship with its clearly delineated bow.

The lines of its

contours, however, are uneven, and what would be thought to be the stem shifts from a jagged edge to a blurry fading out offocus and light into the surrounding dark tone of the ocean floor. This, in fact, is where the hull split in two as the Titanic sank, with the actual stem portion ending up hundreds of yards behind the hull, out of the picture. Each of these 108 photographs was individually adjusted to match the angle and depth of the others in order to create the most precise portrayal that advanced technology can produce.

The National Geographic article describing the extensive effort of documenting the wreckage ends with this reassuring sentence: "Only two

TJ, " JUtt' P

"lCUf"IJ'P

instead of body 9

small pieces (dashed lines) are missing.''8 Caleb Sloan

108

More notable than how little is "missing" is how much has been added. For the process of fitting together the pieces of the mosaic has imposed its own fragmenting structure along those it had intended to identify as having been caused by the disaster. Like a death mask cast from a mold that was improperly mixed and fitted on the deceased, the portrait produced is a record finally unable to eradicate the materiality of its own production. It thereby obscures the features disaster has ultimately affixed to the Titanic and so avoids its own sinking into the "absolute inertia of the perfect moment."1D The second image (fig. 2) is composed of ten separate photographs taken by a still camera moved incrementally in a straight line over a long uncovered pit. It shows an assemblage of slatted panels roughly laid out in the shape of a long narrow boat with a distinctly pointed bow and (again) a seemingly damaged stern. These pieces are resting at the bottom of a shallow rectangular pit approximately 11: 1 in proportion.

A single slender oar rests on the topmost layer.

This vessel is thought to have been Cheep's sacred boat, dismantled, stacked in the order of its construction, and buried near the pharaoh 's tomb to take him on his journeys in his next life. This boat, 142 feet long and made from 1,220 components, was eventually restored and exhibited

in its own museum. But a second boat, virtually

in favor of a joining of beings which carries no lesson: the simple collision of things II

identical both in its features and its means of burial , was found nearby. Because of its deteriorated condition, this boat was deemed

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

109

unworthy of restoration, and the small hole drilled into its burial chamber to allow the insertion of a small video and still camera was resealed.

This photograph is now left shuttling perpetually between two undecidable states of representation and the pair of irretrievable boat fragments for which it has become a substitute.

With respect to the first boat it is a record of its dismantled and destructed state that has since been eradicated through reconstruction. For the second boat the image accurately portrays its present state (inaccessible because of its burial) without ever having recorded it.

"In order for all this machinery to become intelligible, it was not a code that was needed, but a stepping back which opened the field of vision, removed these mute figures to a horizon, and presented them in space. It was not necessary to have something additional in order to understand them, but something subtracted, an opening through which their presence would swing back and forth and reappear on the other side. They had to be presented in a replica identical to themselves, yet one from which they were separate. The rupture of death was needed.

There is only one key and that is the threshold."12 The process would then function to protect and to release ... [it] would not determine the central configuration of the work, but would only be its threshold, to be crossed the moment it is drawn. 13

110

John Flores

The projects begin with a collapsing moment at the crossing where each photograph, with its gaps in representation, false impressions, and narrative air pockets, has already shifted toward a loss of referentiality, that state of the already not yet. It is the student's task to inhabit the image and trace his or her own Ariadne's thread through the maze of these disruptions. By probing the pathlike network of faults and slippages and subsequently subjecting them to precise acts of 'bodily' paintings and mutilation that characterize certain rites of passage, they gradually lead the image through a journey of transition into the third dimension. Through attentiveness they give â&#x20AC;˘inevitability' to the quality of production. What emerges is a spatialized fragment, an enigma, that as yet cannot be situated. Further constructions elaborating and renaming aspects of this new topographic structure initiate a process of reintegration that propels the emerging artifact toward its eventual encounter with a final resting place. It is through this confrontation with site Caleb Sloan

that issues of scale (obscured already in the original photograph) begin to resurface, alternately imposing on, and extracting out of, the newly spatialized fragment unexpected forms of

Thus are constructed and crisscrossed the mechanical figures of the two great mythic spaces so often explored by Western imagination: space that is rigid and forbidden, surrounding the quest, the return, and the treasure (that's the geography of the Argonauts and of the labyrinth); and the other space - communicating, polymorphous, continuous, and irreversible - of the metamorphosis, that is to say, of the visible transformation of instantly crossed distances, of strange affinities, of symbolic replacements (the place of the human beast). 14

inhabitation. Like the images themselves, these projects refer back to the sites and historical moments that engendered them but now also to the time and topography of the photography. They build on representation rather than through it. â&#x20AC;˘

Diana Zaglio

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

III

States of Emergence Place in a Post-Guru Context

Arthur A. Ovaska CONTEXT :

Circumstance 8.2 Circumstances , total situation , existing conditions or situation , set of conditions , environment 233 , context , status quo , whole picture , full particulars , ins and outs

CONTEXT :

Environment 233

CONTEXT :

Zussamenhand , Wortlaut , Text Mileu , Gehalt In diesem susammenhand , zusammenhanglos

CONTEXTUAL :

Kontext

CONTEXTURE:

Gevebe , (Auf)bau, struktur , Gefuge , Zussamensetzung , Gliederung r-~--'---r-~---r--,e

~~~~-"':::;~-+--1 d ~w-~~~r-~--~~~~C

f'r--+-..L--BI--f-__ F-If="'--t

b

I-~I--t--=l"-::'-jl"i ~~--t

a

o ZUSSAMENHANG:

112

1

2

3

4-

5

6

Connection , Connection

GEWEBE:

tissue , web , texture , textile , fabric , netting , structure

MILEU :

environment , surroundings , background , sphere , society , local colour

STUDIO

Life down on the farm has changed since the old days, and although the hands are still familiar with the old way of doing things and the old portraits are still hanging on the walls, the newer hands are interested with what's going on in town, in search of a new identity.

The centripetal design process involves a given set of constraints of the place within which a problem is to be solved, working from the peripheral-interface toward a goal or vision for and of that place (as if there cannot be any other solution), and the building of a formal logic to support that solution (as opposed to open ended and selfreferential problems).

The emergence of architectural concepts from the place as opposed to the superimposition of foreign ideas. The reinforcement and amplification of concepts latent within the nature of the place.

The process of interpretation and the understanding of the larger context and the role of any concept within that context.

1918

1919

man

The process of transformation, both in time and in form, and the understanding of the design process as the never-ending and never-refined series of transformations of a concept, distilled and reformulated to adapt to given conditions.

1919

The place and the public realm - the understanding of the work of architecture in the city. Monument, texture, and the role of the building in its context.

1920

A

FARM

VIEW

OF

THE

UNITED

STATES

1922

1923

1926

1926-28

1929

t

.11__

TRACTORS

1950 50 ,000 漏

CHAUNCY 0

HARRIS

D

1953

Non路buildings and marginal sites - appropriateness of buildings versus spaces (and gardens) and the solving of urban problems through architectural innovations.

PROJECTS

uring a recent chairperson search at Cornell D it became quite obvious that an image exists of a place which no longer does - a coherent school of contextual formalism focused in its objectives, and easily identified and adhered to by its disciples. Returning disciples were quite surprised to find that this image pervades outside of rather than in the place itself. Projects and problems are taking many different directions; one would now have a difficult time finding a Cornell student who could draw a freehand exploded-axon of Villa Garches from memory.

Yet, somehow the label still exists.

The assignment of the Finger Lakes Formalist label on Cornell's Architecture school reminds one of an attempt to describe the appearance of an American, or, better yet, of Chauncy Harris' famous 1950 tractor map of A Farm View of the United States - an overly specific view distorted by its frame of reference, but a compelling image nevertheless. In fact the Architecture school at Cornell is in a state of emergence and transformation, the result of which has not yet congealed.

These studio projects are but one of the multi-faceted investigations of this state of emergence, architecturally and pedagogically concerned with issues of place and transformation, and with the role of these concepts in a larger design curriculum.

These projects represent a pedagogical goal of the contemplation of timelessness and stress the essential concepts of permanence and place in architecture and urbanism. In a time when drawing and publication seem to be the goals of the architectural scene this might seem reactionary or difficult to grasp for the student who sees ink-on-mylar as the end product of a problem. These projects attempt to conceive of place as the medium in which the Architect works and from which ideas emerge. rather than from the drawing or the model.

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THE FIRST YEAR DRAWING COURSE

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DRAWING IN CONTEXT/COLLAGE

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MODELS FROM DRAWINGS-OF-PLACES

These projects from the first year drawing cour e deal with the introduction of the idea of drawing and coli aging in context (in this case a self-created context), completing partial collages with drawing and vice-ver a, as well as the visualizing of space and place through the building of models from drawings, testing their accuracy and heightening the sense of depth in the twodimensional plane.

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There is no verbal communication before there are sounds of words with meaning. Similarly there is no writing before there is an alphabet. For the same reason there is no visual formulation before there is visual articulation.

Also, nobody considers the inarticulate sounds of a child as language, and nobody accepts his scribblings as writing. But, curiously enough, many are inclined to accept such scribblings as self路 expression and therefore - as ART. Slowly but finally many are discovering that self路expression is something other than self路disclosure.

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Space vs. Place: Program vs. Memory

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These third year projects emphasize the concepts of amplification of place and the design of the urban scale in buildings and gardens. Three dimensional landscape forms, gardens, water, and other non-figure-ground phenomena are central issues to the variety ofthe urban scale and the role of buildings in the landscape.

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115

HOUSING

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NORTH-CAMPUS HOUSING, CORNELL

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NEUENBERGERSTRASSE, BERUN

Although not presently in mode, the problem of housing and the making of dense urban texture will re-emerge as an inevitable concern of architects.

The making of neighborhoods or quarter within larger urban figures, as opposed to the making of civic monuments, is essential to the understanding of and to the role of housing in the city.

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Through the invention of program to generate an appropriate facade to a major public urban space, this project investigates the relationship between program, face, and the public realm. The student is encouraged to speculate on the methods used to solve a difficult urban problem.

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DISCOVERIES

c a s e s a given tale relates a series of unfolding episodes discovered through a NARRATIVE.

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the connection. the splice. the in-between. defines the characteristics of the details.

a suggestion: " ... an element. a detail of actuality. a 'close-up' of actuality. which. in juxtaposition with other details serves as a determination of the entire fragment of actuality."

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the detail. the suggestion. allows for the reinforcement of. and the variations within. the form.

the realization of an idea is manifested by the sequence of (episodes) IMAGES. each (episode) image is composed of a collection of details. of 'suggestions'. architectural form can be generated by a series of unfolding images that mark an impression. uncovered through a NARRATIVE. an awareness emerges of the function of NARRATIVE in architecture.

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cas e s a two-dimensional IMAGE can be perceived as a mask. a three-dimensional investigation reveals its potential fonnal and material meanings.

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a critical relationship exists between two-dimensional REPRESENTATION and a three-dimensional ACTUALITY. a three-dimensional exploration of a two-dimensional representation can lead to a discovery of potential FORM.

the ILLUSION of the single two-dimensional IMAGE can be transferred to a series of two-dimensional illusory IMAGES which can be transmitted into the third dimesion. the constant transformation of what is perceived as static defines the potential of illusion in architecture. the resultant third dimension decodes the illusion. the (investigator) spectator re-introduces illusion through MOTION. 03c

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Theater for the Commedia dell'Arte ......

John P. Shaw

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his architectural problem proposes a resurrection of Commedia dell' Arte in its probable birthplace, Venice. We assume that the Commedia legend retains enough vigor to rise again and that the omniscient patron familiar to all academic studio fantasies has offered us the site of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum with its unfulfilled promise of a colossal palazzo overscaled to present Venetian sensibilities. Belief in such a benefactor may dull our normal skepticism enough to allow us to toy with the idea of building on the Grand Canal and to suggest an economic parable about the resurgence of Commedia dell' Arte and Venetian tourism. It may further argue the appropriateness of installing Commedia' s particular brand of artifice among the buildingmasks that line the Grand Canal.

Commedia dell' Arte was an active form of theater from the middle of the sixteenth until the late eighteenth century. It began in Italy and spread throughout most of Europe. Strolling troupes of performers improvised satirical skits, clowned, and performed acrobatics at festivals and carnivals in streets and piazzas. Performances were also held on temporary stages and occasionally in theaters like Palladio's Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Scamozzi's theater in Sabbionetta. Over a period of time a set of stock characters emerged complete with distinct personalities and predictable antics that gave definition to the Commedia. Merit as well as effrontery gained the attention of the nobility, who not only began to support the troupes but lent them a measure of respectability. Later, plots were outlined to be filled out by extemporaneous dialogue, and stage decor came into play, but the essence of Commedia theater remained its cast of familiar dramatis personae.

From its bawdy beginning Commedia dell' Arte evolved into an art form that exerted major influences on later European theater - and perhaps some of its personages, such as Harlequin, Punch (Scaramouche), and Pierrothave attained the status of enduring archetypes.

Its style and techniques have been recalled by silent films, and more recently, by Mel Brooks and Monty Python. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are surely twentieth-century Commedia characters who exploit the possibilities of film in ways the early Commedia actors would

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I saw the characters of the Commedia dell' Arte: Harlequin and Columbine, Brighel/a and Pantaloon, Scaramouche and Truffaldino; the Doctor with a corkscrew fora beard; the Captain, who, being Spanish, had a jet-black moustache.

Vt: reminded me how the Italian players - the real ones!- had been masters of extempore who would decide what to play, and how to play it, a mere five minutes before the curtain rose.'

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The Com media dell' Arte Theater problem evovled from two thesis projects; the site came from John Coyne's design completing the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, and the program was suggested by Sharon Chung's Commedia dell'Arte Theater in New York. The work here was done in a third year undergraduate studio in the fall of 1988.

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

undoubtedly have relished. Com media dell' Arte' s appeal survives and finds many reincarnations in our time; thus it is re-established in its old Venetian haunts in a structure that postures as the lower part of a palazzo by way of a mask that disguises its modest reality (a Commedia eye mask standing in for a face?).

The goal of the project is to design a theatrical establishment that would allow people to escape into a realm where the spirit of Commedia dell' Arte prevails in all parts of the complex.

Included would be facilities for the resident Commedia troupe, a cabaret-restaurant, a nightclub, a bar, a garden theater, and a Commedia museum, as well as other invented program elements. Masquerading characters could meet their audience at the front dock, by the Rialto Bridge, or near Santa Maria della Salute.

Harlequin or Pantaloon would draw them into the apparently improvised entertainment and then lead them through a performance â&#x20AC;˘staged , in a sequence of spaces and illusions encompassing much of the physical realm of the site and building.

All forms of entertainment in the building should contribute to the experience of spectacle and theatrical contrivance. The tone is to be set by impudent improvisation, and since spontaneous interplay between actors and observers is fundamental to Commedia stage business, patrons would visit the enterprises to see and be seen, to amuse and be amused, orto be outwitted, humiliated, stimulated, challenged, and even enlightened all in the spirit of Commedia dell' Arte. Visitors to the bar or cabaret could catch glimpses of Commedia characters hoodwinking their caravan of followers or even find themselves the subject of Com media trickery when they unexpectedly spot their own image mockingly displayed on large video screens. Audience as well as actors would move along the processional route followed during a performance. Along the way major scenes would be staged before a seated audience, yet roving performances could take place simultaneously, intersecting and displacing each other like rival Commedia troupes crossing paths in a roadway or public place.

A pivotal architectural objective is to transfer the spirit of street theater indoors. Thus it is suggested that creating spatial analogues of streets

133

and piazzas within the building would sponsor improvisation and a broad type of dramaticism in which framing, observing, and staging situations would allow the reversal of actoraudience roles characteristic of outdoor Commedia performances. Le Corbusier's notion of "promenade architecturale" comes to mind with its richly three-dimensionalized, yet spatially lucid, processional routes where ideas of seeing and being seen from many vantage points could be orchestrated and recapitulated.

Underlying the Commedia opus is a belief that subjects and methods of inquiry can be consciously formulated in studio problems to enlarge students' knowledge while challenging their creative resourcefulness. Certain givens and constraints add depth and complexity to a problem. When the solutions are woven into the fabric of the design, they can strengthen, even help establish an architectural argument. In this case the site offers such possibilities. Retaining the existing land-based access in the comer of the site forces a tension with the symmetry imposed by the front boat dock and present rusticated base. The students are encouraged to regard the Peggy Guggenheim Museum facade base as an antagonist and to behave toward it as Harlequin would (rather than Brighella), by outsmarting rather than destroying, it. These and other requirements sponsor spatial invention and become, of necessity, ways to force the building plot to thicken.

One needs to acknowledge opportunities for complexity and spatial ambiguity without overstating them, however, since spatial chaos can easily be confused with ambiguity or even embraced as an unassailable intention. On the other hand, the synthetic nature of solutions may also cast a homogenizing mantle over particulars and allow them to be ignored or swept away in reductive and single-issue concepts. Both extremes miss the mark by circumventing rather than addressing the given problem.

As a way of approaching this probably overly ambitious agenda, a series of short exercises of limited scope and duration is introduced that features selected issues and methods from the overall corpus. The description of the four exercises that start the Commedia investigation follows.

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One by one he lifted the characters of the Commediafrom the shelves and placed them in the pool of light where they appeared to skate over the glass of the (Mies) table, pivoting on their bases of gilded foam, as if they would forever go on laughing, whirling, improvising.

• Scaramouche would strum on his guitar.

• Brighella would liberate people's purses.

• The Captain would swagger childishly like all army officers.

• The Doctor would kill his patient in order to rid him of his disease.

• The coils of spaghetti would be eternally poised above Pulchinella's nostrils.

• Pantaloon would gloat over his money bags.

• The lnnamorata, like all transvestites everywhere, would be mobbed on his way to the theatre.

• Columbine would be endlessly in love with Harlequin - "Absolutely mad to trust him."

And Harlequin ... the Harlequin ... the arch improviser, the zany, trickster, master of the volteface ... wouldforever strut in his variegated plumage, grin through his orange mask, tiptoe into bedrooms, sell nappiesfor the children of the Grand Eunuch, dance in the teeth of catastrophe . .. Mr. Chameleon himselj.2

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INTERPRETATION OF A PAINTING

aneau, Callot, Picasso, Gris, and Severini are but a few of the many painters who found Commedia rich subject matter. The costumes and masks, as well as the characteristic poses acted as stimuli for, and preemptive agents of, abstraction. Although some of the examples shown resonate at many frequencies in all phases of the project, they relate more directly to the later exercise concerned with comic persona since the painting interpretation exercise is concerned with abstract compositional investigations rather than Comrnedia subject matter.

Each student is asked to select a painting and analyze its composition and visual characteristics in terms of their potential as clues for architectural interpretations. The painting is to be used as the generative basis for notions of theater, though not as a theater. Through a series of visual abstractions the painting should be transformed into a three-dimensional spatial configuration evoking experiences of 'theater'. The resulting abstraction should retain perceivable connections to the painting while being released from its narrative or pictorial subject matter and possess ideas visually decodable by means of architectural parlance. Composition, focus, contrast, light, figure-field, frame, setting, center, movement, drama, and expression of ideas and feelings are some of the conditions of theater investigated via the painting.

The exploration involves large overlapping areas of concern to all three areas - painting, theater, and architecture. Discovering a kind of spatial theatricality is the immediate preoccupation. It is subsumed, however, by the need for a disciplined way of seeing and formulating that involves extraction (in this case, from the painting) as well as invention of the many constituent parts of a visual argument. Reinterpreting the painting is not just a stimulus to the imagination, but an exercise in close observation with an architectural bias. Aptness of the interpretation therefore becomes a preeminent consideration just as in a theater production.

The subject matter in the painting should neither inhibit nor grant immunity to overriding concepts and is comparable to the program and site of a work of architecture.

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

Collage. Michael Posner

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THEATER TYPES AND DESIGN FOR A PLAY

his exercise is intended to introduce the students to current audience-perfonnance configurations and to an investigation of their characteristics by designing two different theater settings for a specific play. Since the purpose of the exercise is to discover the limitations and possibilities of two basic theater types, it has a literal connection to the overall problem. By designing for the needs and ideas of a particular theatrical work, a student will more likely come to understand the spatial implications of the two theater types.

Students research audience-performance arrangements, technical-support requirements and conventions, and sizes and audience capacities in order to develop some familiarity with a complex building type. Designing for a particular play brings into much sharper focus the meaning of proscenium theater as opposed to theater-in-the-round (to select two typical examples). The proscenium is like a framed picture plane that assumes an 'averaged' single viewpoint. Stage sets with two-point perspective imply rotation out of the grid of the frame. No such frame exists in the round, where a transparent volume of acting space with imaginary definition is surrounded by a 'background' of audience members. In the round the audience seated in the field of vision tends to provide the primary perspective reference, even when lighting is locally focused, but multiple perspectival and foregroundbackground relationships can be generated even with limited vertical scenery (which is held to a minimum to avoid obstructed views).

Such an examination points out the parallels between the way a theater configuration both stimulates and constrains interpretations of a play and the way a particular physical context figures in the development of a work of architecture.

Accommodating Commedia dell' Arte' s unique fonn of theater stretches the limits of contemporary spatial types, but knowledge of theater conventions provides an essential frame of reference that can be stretched and elaborated to invent physical layouts appropriate to the street theater genre.

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COMIC PERSONA

n this exercise we discover more about I Commedia at its very heart by designing a set of its stock characters, which never vary no matter what the plot. They are easily identified by their costumes, personality traits, and physical characteristics. Brilliant performance can vivify the individual prototypes yet each evolved over several centuries into a distinct persona, some with archetypal status.

After an initial study of the personality descriptions and historic images of individuals and ensembles from Commedia material, each student chooses three typical characters to interpret by means of a series of sketch investigations and representations.

In the next step these interpretative designs are further developed in model form so as to transform the realistic images (that might serve for a costume design) into abstractions of the essential personality traits and identifying costume signs for each character. An attempt is made to fmd and test the validity of three-dimensional ideas that perceptually express the character equivalents of, for example, the sinister Zanni, Brighella, with his obsequious sneer and ready dagger, or the Captain with his swaggering, machismo veneer that covers an inward cowardice.

In designing the persona it is possible to employ established iconic elements and to transform them or to search out and discover forms that have the appropriate characteristics and are visually legible. It is beneficial to design not only individual characters but also ensembles of two or three. Thus character interaction and group dynamics are not only equal in status to star billing but also bring with them forms of reciprocity, vulnerability, incompatibility, and so forth, registering visually both the individual uniqueness and the essential interdependence of all the personae.

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

DoctOr, Thomas J. Wong

HarleqllIn. Thomas J. Wong

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137

SET PIECE

he last of the four short exercises asks the students to design a "set piece" of stage scenery as the scenic core for the many acts of a Com media production. It is to consist of one or more units that can be maneuvered by stagehands and a mechanical lift.

The assumption is that the set piece could be transformed by opening, folding, or rotating to serve as the centerpiece for a wide range of interior and exterior scenes. A village street or square, a cottage interior, a garden pavilion, a grand salon, and other basic dramatic locations are to be established by the same elements with the addition of furniture, small scenic props, drapes, scrims, backdrops, and lighting. Formal systems are needed that offer the greatest number of significant variations, such as folding screens consisting of frames (with or without surface infill), to provide perspectives that close to suggest interior or exterior spaces or open to imply depth and spatial continuity. Some students prefer a set piece consisting of a thick wall or compacted object that can be opened up to contain space and extended by use of fold-out or add-on appendages such as stairs and platforms.

Establishing or inferring many types and degrees of spatial definition by use of minimal elements is the main issue. Not only is economy of means necessary, but also at least an empirical knowledge of geometry and perspective to create the impression that pieces of stage scenery have changed identity when placed in new configurations.

Abstraction rather than literal representation is likely to be the best means of dealing with elements that must be ambiguous or even fickle because of their capacity for more than one iconic identity.

Furthermore. the investigation requires working and thinking three-dimensionally, since it involves spatial illusion, both theatrical and architectural.

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Set piece transformations. Sarah L. H. Chid

138

. Phillip A. Straughan

COMMEDIA

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n the halls of academia it is common to assume with unconscious puritan fervor that the senses, including vision, are in a much lower league than the mind. Visually registered ideas are generally suspect, if acknowledged as ideas at all. Yet certain ideas of astonishing subtlety and uniqueness are best, or sometimes only, conveyed visually. (For instance, Vuillard employs simultaneous flatness and pictorial depth to endow the subject matter of his paintings with new and heightened meaning.)

Theater, however, manages to straddle the realms of the mind and the senses. For example, it operates in terms of two notions of frame the first, a noun connoting a physical border, (i.e., the proscenium or even the composition of actors onstage); and the second, the verb to frame, (i.e., to formulate). Conventional wisdom often opposes these two definitions, claiming that the verb implies an intellectual activity, while the noun is associated with mechanical skill and artistic willfulness. This bias afflicts the world of architecture as well, where there is nothing comparable to the playwright's script to grant it intellectual credibility. Architecture is popularly thought to be a technical and programmatic scheme with an 'aesthetic' overlay.

Though theater does have its distinguished authors to fall back on, theater critics are likely to judge a particular production as merely a more or less successful physical manifestation of the literary work it represents, a mere signifier of an established and more important signified. Their view reflects an attitude wherein discourse is thought to be contained in the text, which is then given an 'artistic' interpretation. They overlook the possibility that the true measure of quality in a theatrical work might lie in the degree to which the complex and disparate visual, textual, and emotional aspects are made inter-

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dependent by an elegantly unified formal gestalt in such a way that neither the eyes (senses) nor the mind can lay claim to exclusive territories. This view argues that the two conditions of frame are indeed serving with comparable impact, but in different ways. the same overall concept. From an outsider's point of view this is certainly the aim of good theater. This dual definition of frame provides the major basis for criticism of the Commedia design exercises and final building design, insisting as it does on legibility of the disparate architectural subplots as well as the whole design. Since frame can also mean to doublecross we remind ourselves that just as an architectural work's program ofrequirements tests its veracity, the production of a play similarly serves its script. There is, however, a further compelling obligation in both art forms to unite the disparate elements and conflicting tendencies by a single vision.

Whole areas of theater and painting are coincident with architecture, but the boundaries and exigencies of each need recognition and scrutiny to avoid naive (though sometimes exciting) misrepresentations. A case in point is the insistence that the architectural-spatial interpretations sought in the painting analysis retain perceivable connections to the original painting, while evoking a sense of theater.

Alternatively one could subscribe to the current preference for using narrative as the instrument of transformation. This latter process can be an effective stimulus to ideas but. if overextended, too easily lends itself to essentially verbal formulations that are not always confirmed by the eye. It may end up simply leading to an alternative painting, albeit with a long rhetorical pedigree. As in theater, an ideal interpretation would push both verbal and visual buttons, but for many students visual certitude is the more elusive, so they

resort to verbal explanation to provide the missing connections. As fundamental as narrative is to theater, architecture ultimately has to stand without the aid of accompanying spoken or written text.

At the same time that Commedia dell' Arte is a good vehicle for approaching issues of theater design, it also represents a fascinating variety of creative structure. Its tradition evolved via its well-known characters, who provided the framework for its special brand of enterprise and invention.

It has sustained its appeal for centuries by relying on a combination of familiarity and wit. Each character has known traits and patterns of behavior. (Brighella does not behave like Punch except as a ploy.) This expectation animates and enlivens a performance, as the inevitable is either played out or foiled by clever maneuver.

An analogy to architectural design emerges here, one not to be confused with a revival of the type of commentary that relies heavily on assigning human attributes to buildings (like character - the critical favorite in the 1940s - or friendliness - leave that for computers).

The analogy is in the observation that personal imagination and spontaneity can be particularly effective when they are responses to a culturally familiar condition or framework, and they are less effective when they become self-referential and exclusive.

Like theater, architecture can become so intensely personal that it has a limited range of appeal and becomes a polemic addressed to an in-house audience. At a time when there seems to be an abundance of self-proclaimed geniuses who overwhelm their building creations with idiosyncratic art, as puzzling by design as the game of croquet in Alice in Wonderland, Commedia offers a refreshing type of alternative wisdom. It calls to mind the now legendary twentieth-century archetypes Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and company.

It is the characters, not the story lines that have become cultural icons. The characters turn the observer of any age into a confidant or sidekick who is in on the manner but guessing the means they will employ to reverse the latest round of outwitting.

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The film and theater examples rely on a shared understanding between performers and observers to hold attention and facilitate improvisation. Harlequin's easy recognizability allows him to be perceived in live performance as fluctuating between myth and reality, an attribute that may account for his (and his co-adventurers ') sustaining power. Brilliant acting and improvising overlaid on the standard Commedia characters was what ultimately gave life to a performance, so it might be surmised that the brilliant performance and the identifiable persona involve a symbiotic, or dependent, relationship. Likewise, a set of recognizable architectural components may be perceived to fluctuate between a normativeconventional meaning and a particularinnovative one. When the particular is an interpretation or transformation of a convention, it can gain legibility through the prototype to which it refers. If the attempt at innovation tries totally to circumvent precedent, it is apt to refer inadvertently or naively to a lesser order of things and to lose impact for those not initiated into its form of particularity.

In order to ring true, the Commedia characters had to be based on universal human traits and behavior patterns, no matter how distorted or idiosyncratic they have become in later interpretations. This brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges' observation (in a lecture in Austin, Texas, in January 1983) that it is certainly possible to contrive metaphors by comparing any given thing to any other thing, but there is a category of what he called essential metaphors that are more universally, and even crossculturally, endowed with a ring of truth. "The moon is a ship in the sea of the sky" was one of his examples. Essential metaphors have a potency lacking in arbitrarily contrived ones.

Of course, the border between "essential" and "nonessential" metaphors is impossible to pin down. However, given the complexity of his own prose, Borges' formulation makes a persuasive case for seeking a common frame of reference amid current tendencies to retreat into privately staked out obscurity. It might be inferred, therefore, that when a personal statement in architecture ignores more widely held views, it may risk being unrecognizable

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and thus quickly slip from memory or out of fashion.

As exaggerated as Le路 Corbusier's writings and large-scale designs seem, his buildings rely for the power of their arguments on clearly formulated architectural issues and questions. He had a capacity, even a passion, for close observation as the triggering device for ideas, and he demonstrated, both through his sketches and built works, a keen awareness of the composite subtleties to be observed in architectural antecedents. His ideas sprang from a consideration of such fundamental questions as materials and elements of construction as they mold space, articulate movement, and intersect with light and shadow, yet the most compelling distinctions that are found in his work are often in his implicit restatement of conventions. He was unique among his peers in his sensitivity to the historically determined notion of formal and spatial directionality, and he outfitted his buildings with directional characteristics like fronts, sides, and backs that rendered them capable of assuming complex and interactive roles. This contrasts noticeably with the modernist tendency to make buildings that are singular, freestanding objects, of necessity alone onstage.

While pursuing the Commedia analogies we also note that a work of architecture gains a large measure of its credibility from its 'troupe' and has a low probability of making it entirely on its own. Many objects in the built world are uninteresting precisely because they are stars, unable to act in ensemble. While we have more than our share of portentous architectural manifestos about the future that show contemptuous disregard for present conditions, we might be better off with parodies to guide us in a less heavy-handed way through the present, by referring to supporting, or even leading, compatriots. After all, architecture is never redefined by individual or group intention, but slowly and cumulatively by its own history, and ultimately it plays in ensemble whether or not it was conceived in such terms. Harlequin's maneuvers to outwit allies as well as adversaries are legendary forms of artifice and include timely disappearances.

The ideas and content operating in the students' final designs for the Commedia problem should be self-evident, realized ultimately by the formal means employed. Instead of a guided tour through the examples illustrated, we offer a compendium of verbal statements giving some clues for self-guided investigation.

â&#x20AC;˘ Bridges. streets. and campos compressed and extruded into an exaggerated and theatrical pilgrimage route are marked by characteristic Venetian icons and other sensory stimuli.

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The single line statements that follow suggest a partial set of intentions and ideas that may be found operating (or latent) in the designs. They are separate, incomplete and in random order, and do not reiterate the problem statement and goals discussed in the preceding text. Each might function as a partial plot outline like those posted backstage on the Commedia story board five minutes before curtain time.

â&#x20AC;˘ Overlapping groups ofstationary and moving figures (some human) are to be seen inj1uctuating figure- ground relationships and spatial juxtapositions that foster voyeurism and eavesdropping.

-I Theater for the Commedia dell'Ant. Thomas 1. Wong

â&#x20AC;˘ Elements of the building like loggias, skylights, and stairways seem to be assembled into familiar painting poses such as an Annunciation, Flagellation, or Madonna and Child.

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• Proscenium-like openings reveal behind-thescenes workshops and preparations at the point of formal entry. making ambiguous the delineation between house and back stage.

Theater for the Commedia deJl'Arte. Douglas C. Gensler

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• The piano nobile offers an outwardly sweeping reconnaissance ofthe surroundings and. at night. reverses into a luminous deep space full of animation and intrigue .

• The base of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum is part of a delaminating structure . . . or maybe the intact section of a palazzo which transforms into a modern day theater. machine. film strip. etc.

• Particular events and situations in the Commedia complex refer to and recall particular places and vantage points outside. as well as famous Venetian landmarks.

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Thealer for the Commedia dell'Artc. Michael Posner

• Venice's maritime connection is brought close to our consciousness by allusions to ships, like large Commedia vessels travelling behind the facade.

• An active, elevated ground-plane is perceived above, through and outside the building enclosure where theater events occur and a new landscape takes over, alluding to and observing the Venetian skyline.

• The Peggy Guggenheim Museum base is a screen which doesn't quite conceal the disrobing figures or other exhibitionist antics behind and above it.

Theater for the Commedia del1' Anc, Sarah L. H. Chick

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Commedia theater has over stepped its bounds as a subject of inquiry. It has assumed the role of critic complete with ready commentary on architectural issues as well as on the creative process in the studio. As an ardent sponsor it supported the exploration of ideas on numerous tracks, and emerged as a vehicle with the convenient tendency to become emblematic of attitudes underlying the problem.

We need a referee to keep Commedia, and us, in bounds.

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• A parody is registered externally of a normative Venetian building subjected to the impromptu buffoonery of a Commedia dell' Arte troupe passing through its spaces.

Theater for the Commedia dell ' Arte. Augustine Ma

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Theater Stage, Carnival Square Val K. Warke

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stage set will begin to function only after the house lights A traditional have gone down; after the erasure of various levels of the audience' s disbelief is enacted by the darkness. More than any performer on the stage. the set will establish an empathy with the audience: it will tell them how much of what they know will serve them during the next several hours; it will suggest to the audience how much of their world they might shed. Generally. when the play begins. it is the removal of the audience's disbelief of event which is most complete; of the realm of ideas (and. therefore. of forms) it is always incomplete there is at least a hypnotic or trance-like remembrance. When the light returns, now to the stage rather than the hall, the forms of the

stage set establish a system of alliances and misalliances with those similar forms which have been retained in the memories of an audience.

The set wi II always occur at some level of abstraction - of removal - from the real. As Brecht has pointed out, even for the realistic theater, "just to copy reality isn't enough; reality needs not only to be recognized but also to be understood."1 The set proposes a verisimilitude instead of a verity. Occasionally, a set will aspire to an almost emblematic identity, particularly when the audience is asked to formulate a rapid identification or facile interpretation, thereby minimizing the role of the set as a contributive element (for instance, four vertical white cylinders surmounted by a triangular block become

Pieter Bruegellhe Elder: The Fight Between Carniml and Lent. 1559

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a temple; if one cylinder is prone, one has a ruined temple; but the moment one of the 'columns' becomes red, the set will challenge the normative and, therefore, also challenge the audience). In the case of more minimally-detailed sets, particularly in much of modern theater, it is the actors who, during the performance, assign values to the sets, unfolding or redefining the sets' referents as the plays progress.

In order to sustain the suspension of disbelief, a set will typically insist upon its own unreality, constantly assuring the audience that they are in a theater. In a theatrical production, the members of the audience are simultaneously engaged and distanced. Their engagement is of intellectual and conceptual orders; their distancing is of

physical and perceptual ones. While the actors will insinuate their false lives upon those ofthe audience, the set will lay bare the theatricality of the theater. By protecting the audience from the fear of reprisal for their voyeuristic acts, the set as distancing device facilitates involvements which may initially be considered to be unsavory. embarrassing, or threatening.

The set's affiliations to both actor and audience are similar to those of the chorus in classical theater: both set and chorus possess an omniscience beyond character and audience; both share their familiarities between character and audience; both elaborate on action and word. In classical Greek tragedy, the parodos is the space from

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which the audience and, later, the chorus make their entries. It is located between the edges of the seating and the skene. It is also the term for the initial lyric chanted by the chorus as they enter. This lyric condenses the salient themes of the play. The stage set functions similarly: the moment it is revealed, it proposes a place in anticipation of a very specific event or sequence of events. It foreshadows not only all subsequent actions, but comments on the nature of those actions. A stage set documents a level of functional determinism which exceeds that of any normative architectural work. It is more singular in its use than a factory or storage facility, for example, since even those buildings must recognize an adaptability to their 6 7 9 10

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futures. The stage set is always of a moment. This specificity of design is especially the case with opera sets, which must additionally be spatially and temporally determined by the rhythms and tempos of both libretto and score. The map of the occupation of an opera set is therefore a complex geometric figure dimensioned by the characters and cadences of singers and orchestra.

In its necessity to reflect the genre of a work - tragic, comic, satirical, or any of various composite and sub-genres - while referring to the audience's repertoire of known places, a stage set will always exist in a state of parody. The palace of the comic king will be saturated with silly extravagances, while that of the tragic king will

Rigo/etto stage set. Patrick R. Daly: Relief Model Rigo/etto stage set: Rendering Rigo/etto stage set: Plan Stage set for a Dialog. Hans N. Berglund: Computer renderings Rigo/etto stage set, Jason Ramos. Maria T. Rossi. Marili SantosMunne & Alexander J. Ware: Plan Rigo/ello stage set: Cross section Rigo/etto stage set: Model photo Rigo/etto stage set: Model photo Rigo/etto stage sct: Relief model Rigo/etto stage set: Model photo

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make difficult any attempt to lighten its fabricated gloom. (Perhaps 'parody' has an etymological kinship to pOI·odos, that reiterative speech chanted by the chorus following the exposition of the story by an actor or actors during the prologue and preceding the principal episode of the play.)

Since the time of the Greek theatrical experiences founded by the cult of Dionysus, when the audience would witness the ritual transformations of men into personae, the involvement of the audience has been essential to the operation of theater. The vicarious presence on the stage of the member of the audience - the projection over a distance of the self into a relationship with the other, unencumbered

by the risks of intimacy: the delirium of the voyeur - is the fundamental object of theater.

A vicarious physical presence for the audience became possible with the development of linear perspective. It is not surprising that architects such as Scamozzi, Pozzo, the Bibieni, Alessi, and many others, engaged in the design of elaborate, perspectivally-derived theatrical sets as a practice paralleling that of the production of building designs: theoretical experimentation could be mathematically described and visualized prior to the making of a building. Nor is it surprising that the advent of such realism in stage design would accompany a realism in writing for the stage and the desuetude of the Commedia

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dell' Arte (except, of course, for the fantastic innovations of Carlo Gozzi). The components of linear perspective - horizon line, picture plane, station point - could be used to pull the audience onto the stage or to make the stage appear a part of the audience' s space.

Linear perspective was also helpful in manipulating the actual and apparent sizes of a space. Stage sets inevitably transcend normal scales: a cramped boudoir appears to fill the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, while a palatial ballroom can appear on the bandstand of an Elks' Lodge. The ambiguous dimensionality of a stage set allows it to exist as an intermediary object between painting and architecture. The designer of the late Renaissance stage set needed 16

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to know both Alberti's de Re IEdificatoria and his della Pittura. It is a very short conceptual hop between the production of a deep, cavernous space on a shallow stage and the production of a relatively thin facade on the edge of an urban space.

With the arrival of controlled lighting came the realization that, for a stage set, light is as malleable an entity as mass. Just as a set is born in the darkness, it is reared in its own unique lighting. However, while this light may be unique in its selective use of the spectrum, it will probably subscribe to carefully codified cultural implications regarding the characteristics of light. The light in the Louisiana bedroom is not the light in the French cathedral, which will again

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Mourning Becomes Eldtra stage set: Sitting Room. lighting study Mourning Bec路ornes Elektra stage set: Sitting Room. lighting study

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differ from the light on the lonely figure in the senate square (if they were the same, a serious disturbance of signification would be signaled).

Furthermore, because the separation of audience from actors eliminates direct tactility as an issue, light and surface combine to represent a vicarious tactility.

A set will use mass and light (Le Corbusier's primal elements of Architecture) to create an effect (to touch our Corbusian hearts?). In other words, when seen in relation to an architecture, a stage set appears to reduce architecture to those precepts which figured so prominently in Vers Une Architecture. Interestingly, the ineffability in the architecture of Michelangelo is, for Le Corbusier, the manifestation

of a Drama emanating from inert stone.

In its constituent properties, set design exhibits a compelling affinity with the doctrines of modern architecture - hyper-functionalism, the abstraction of forms, the dependence on available technologies, the desire to cooperate in issues of social programming - as well as providing a controllable test-case for the examination of Corbusian esthetics.

Conceptually, a stage set is an extreme modernism. The Constructivists in Russia and the Expressionists in Germany understood this.

The association between stage set and mainstream modern architecture is considered derogatory because of the problematic issue of truth. The texts of modern architecture deny falsehood and resist 24

Project for a Double House for a Pseudonymous Authoron the Site of the Maisons La Rochc-Jeannerel. Patrick R. Daly: Perspective and axonomelric

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Stage set for a Presidential Debate. Thomas L. Chow: Computer renderings

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Project for a Double House for a Film Producer and His ex.-Wife on the Site of the Maisons La Roche-leanneret. John P. Coyne:

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verisimilitude as plausible formative elements of a modern - true architecture: at the core of canonical modernism is genuineness and a heroic promise of authenticity, the realignment of truth and beauty.

However, one can no longer pretend that a work of architecture may be free from artifice, that it is an exclusive response to a set of empirical needs and nothing more. The last three decades have belied modernism's upright posture of staunch functionalism, and critics have ranged from condemning a falsely monolithic modern architecture for being an intricately mythologized stylistic system inadequately contradictory for post-1960s tastes, to embracing some of its exponents for their capacity to generate myths and because of modernity's

capacity to assemble antinomies. In a sense, it is a tribute to modern architecture that, for much of this century, almost everyone had accepted its various polemics, orbiting around the causes of industry, technology, and function; for, certainly, it is only because its audience was so completely credulous of modernism's deus ex machina that they became so flustered when the device was later revealed to be a ramshackle contrivance. It is not surprising that the neo-structuralist critics of the 1960s and -70s rebuked modernism as sharply as they had: as architectural theory was passing through its most recent adolescence, such a critical stance would predictably follow the traumatizing recognition that one's parents actually engaged in that.

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simultaneously and with uniform focus of attention. In architecture, the audience is neither passive nor immobile. There is no linear unfolding of a building's attributes.

These same properties are shared by the antithesis of theater: carnival. As amply demonstrated in Mikhail Bakhtin's works, particularly in his Problems of Dostoevsky路 s Poetics and Rabelais and His World, carnival eradicates the boundaries between performer and spectator. A carnival is not simply observed, it is lived. During the week or more of a carnival, the entirety of a specific society is appropriated and turned upside-down. Bakhtin uses the crowning of the town fool as king, an event typical of medieval and later

The rebuke reveals an underlying critical acceptance of the roles modern architecture cast for itself, and a belief that the portrayals were real: that modern architecture was, finally, different from all preceding architectures; that it could not be a disingenuous and masterful artificer.

One must nevertheless recognize that the differences between architecture and theatrical constructions are as important as the similarities. Specifically, there are no footlights between a viewer and a work of architecture. There are no house lights to be dimmed.

There is no singular, controlled viewing of a building that can be conjured forth for an entire day's assemblage of users to watch

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religious carnivals throughout Europe, as an example of the potentially duplicitous transformative powers of carnival: such a crowning produces the concomitant, implied interpretation that the king is a fool. Additional aIterities accumulate: the abusive 'homages' paid to this king question those paid to the true king; the accouterments of prestige (the crown, the scepter) are displaced by the implements of labor (a beehive, a bread paddle); and the town square replaces the palace court. In order to operate within this duplicity, a carnivalesque action must operate within two times,a past that is known and shared, and a present that unfolds as a challenge to that past.

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What is particularly attractive, especially to someone of Bakhtin 's Marxist disposition, is the capacity for carnival to use an official ideology to generate an opposing, quotidian ideology. During carnival, the popular masses develop satiric outlooks on their royalty, and parodic outlooks on their church (the sacred parody is a typical elemeQt of carnival festivities).

What is particularly problematic, however, to the liberating operation of carnival is the fact, pointed out by critics such as Terry Eagleton,2 that the carnivalesque moment occurs only with the approval of the same authorities that are targeted by the activities. Rather than being a liberating force, carnival may operate more consistently as

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one of containment, with the return to power being as inevitable as the moment of travesty that ends the carnival, when everything returns to 'normal', and the full consciousness of the carnival activities collapses the duplicitous actions into the acceptance of the status quo.

However, while a society may require the license of an authority to be permitted a carnival observance, the reader of a carnivalized text does not require such consent. Bakhtin finds a permanent, alwaysaccessible carnival in the pages of Dostoevsky and Rabelais. Architecture similarly finds itself beyond the grasp of a transient authority.

The town square may reverberate with its carnivalized attributes for as long as memory will allow.

Once a building or a city is built, the architect and the client relinquish control. In most architecture, the absence of a specific voice (reverence, sarcasm, etc.) further removes the work from fixedness. The person wandering the corridors or streets is allowed to develop a direct engagement with the work. Should that work have been invested with a utopian or polemical sensibility, an individual's intentional or unintentional subversive engagement can permit such misuse to become a mockery. Current usage of Mussolini's EUR occurs simultaneously as an emphatic denial of the rituals which shaped it, and as a transcendent ennobling of an absent political system. Similarly, the current inhabitation of Beijing's Forbidden JM

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City, intended to communize a country's primary symbolic seat of autocracy, serves to collaterally emphasize the gulf between the individual's social station and one of privilege. 3 The public spaces that are best adapted for carnivalesque inhabitation are those which pose a dialogical iconography of authority alongside one of commonality: the square at the side of the church, bounded by shops and houses; the court formed between the palace stables and the laborers' shacks; or the area between the side of the state museum and the highway, for example. In the absence of an actual authority, one might produce a proxy for authority as one might in the design of a stage set. Again, however, while a stage set is singular in its meaning, the duplicitous nature of carnival - the potential involvement one has with an architectural work - will free such forms from their singularity.

If architecture is capable of connoting ideological intentions beyond simply denoting its own internal and autonomous formal systems, it does so with the complex engagement of the individual as it occurs in the carnivalesque. Such engagement is powerful but turbulent. Use of the scenographic qualities prevalent in theatrical sets allows the designer a modicum of control in establishing the point of departure for the inevitable discursive encounter, although it does not guarantee a singularity of interpretation once the 'footlights' have been eliminated.

For this reason, the investment of an architectural work with religious, political, or other ideological significations will tend to invite duplicitous readings. This is especially the case in times such as ours, when the recognition of an underlying disengenuity in prior architectural polemics, interpreted as doctrine. has been followed by numerous theoretical positions permeated by cynicism .

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design problems accompanying this essay. The design of sets for Ioperas and plays not only provides the architect with the opportunity

to develop innumerable relevant technical skills - perspective as a design tool. the importance of implicit and explicit materiality, the effects of light, and so on - but it also poses various problems in dealing with the representation of known forms. A special issue faced by the contemporary architect doing a stage set is that he or she is forced to confront the ethical along with the formal precepts of modernism.

The contextualization of the stage set into a larger problem, the theater into the town, cal\s upon the use of similar means, but with opposite ends. For example, a Eugene O'Neill Theater for Provincetown, Massachusetts, based on an actual program, imposes a nostalgic view of a town onto its current reality, forces a destruction of disbelief as part of the sequential involvement of the theater-goer as he or she moves from square to street to lobby to audience hall, and implants an institutionalized theatrical presence - removed yet connected on a pier on a peninsula - in a vil\age already prone to the â&#x20AC;˘ carnivalesque.

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

155

Drawing on Rome A Fourth Year Architectural Design Studio in the Eternal City

Fall 1988

John Miller and Edmond Bakos Neither painters and sculptors nor architects can produce works of significance unless they make the journey to Rome.

Francesco de Hollanda Tractato de Pintura Antigua, 1548

The lesson ofRome isforwise men ,for those who can resist and verify. Rome is the damnation of the half-educated.

To send architecture students to Rome is to cripple themfor life.

Le Corbusier Towards a New Architecture, 1927

In an age when architects are so preoccupied with problems of style - when anything appears to be valid in the absence of ready-answers - it is crucial that architects possess a capacity for critical assessment. The architect must be prepared to step back, look carefully, evaluate, and respond in kind - to continually formulate and revise convictions upon which to base a meaningful approach to architecture. But where to begin?

It has been said that one can not write (at least, not well) if one can not read. In assessing the crucial role of reading in good writing, literary critic Sven Birkets notes that writing that is "clever and varied, capable of sustained exposition as well as of detail and discrimination, can not happen where there is no sensibility equipped to generate it." Clearly

156

the same is true for design. A comparable architectural sensibility can not exist unless one is trained to 'see' - to 'read' underlying ideas in architectural form - and to develop an appreciation for the growth and movement of these ideas in the works of others.

LEARNING TO READ

Aware of the different possible approaches in structuring a foreign study program, we opted for a studio which would combine firsthand observation with critical evaluation. Our goal was to heighten the students' powers of analytical observation, interpretation and representation, activities which we believe to be beneficial to the synthetic design process.

The city, both the spectacular and the mundane, was to be our urban laboratory; a vast text of inexhaustible inspiration. Although Rome is a city that offers a distinct type of urbanism (lots of fabric) and a particular type of architecture (lots of Baroque) we sought to imply neither a stylistic preference nor issue any guarantees; that is to say that the lessons learned would not automatically translate into 'correct' design solutions. We did offer an introduction to 'critical reading' encouraging the use of a discerning eye and a critical mind. In short, we hoped to train students to 'see', to probe the underlying ideas and pursue the intricacies of masterworks.

Individual student sketchbooks played a major part in meaningfully recording this reading process. They were a major tool in the creation of the works included here, representing only a

small part of the work produced within the curriculum of a design studio and a related history course.

THE PROBLEM OF THE BLANK PAGE

The assignments during the course of the semester juxtaposed analysis and synthesis projects. The studio began with an analysis project of limited scope, structured with constraints determined in part by the nature of the subject being analyzed. This was followed by the first cycle ofthe semester design project that focused on a small, irregular site in the center of Rome. Students then undertook a more extensive second analysis project which was coordinated with a project for a related architectural history course. They were then asked to revise their first analysis project, condensing their re-presentation to one well-considered informative drawing, while continuing to rework and develop the earlier design project.

All of the drawings were produced in pencil on 50 x 70 cm sheets of opaque paper, a field of important limitations intended to emphasize the act of drawing while confronting the student with the problem of the blank page and its composition. The choice of opaque paper as the medium (thereby discouraging tracing, a byproduct of transparent paper) emphasized the act of selecting what was to be 'drawn out' of each work and how that, in tum, was to be drawn. Each exercise therefore demanded more than just graphic proficiency. It encouraged students to struggle with the rhetoric of architectural composition, provoking them to inter-

pret and re-present the structure of ideas and form within each work.

As is often the case, one of the morevaluable objectives of the semester in Rome involved the development of skills that cannot be demonstrated on paper. By emphasizing the abstraction of ideas and concepts in conjunction with a study of the formal structure of the architectural devices used to articulate them, we sought to spur the development of a critical capacity, ultimately as valuable in evaluating one's own work as that of others. In this way we sought to provide the means of resistance and verification that might preclude Le Corbusier's gallery of Roman horrors. â&#x20AC;˘

The Rome of Horrors. Le Corbusier, Towards a Ntw Architecture, 1927 Castel Sant'Angelo. Palazzo di Giustizia. Galleria Colonma. PaJlazzo Barberini

Giovanni Battista Nolli. Plan of Rome. 1748

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

157

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Riistern Pasa Kiilliyesi \ .

Istanbul A kiilliye is a Moslem socio-religious complex associated with a mosque, typically comprised of imaret (public kitchen for feeding the needy), tabhane (hostel), dar-us-sifa (hospital), and a madrasah (theological college). The complex is supported by a welfare system called vakif. This project is about the creation of such a complex; the thesis investigates the relationship of interstitial spaces to existing urban fabric through a re-interpretation of the historical context.

The site is located between the Riistem Pasa and the old Yeni Valide mosques, east of Eminonii Square.

Changes in the urban fabric have disrupted this ageold corridor that linked the Sirkeci Train Station to the square. The project reintroduces the corridor as a curved-spine urban block, with internal courtyards and paths. The courtyards provide areas for shopping, markets, gardens and places of rest. On the exterior, the curved-facade is an unwrapping edge which eventually reveals the Yeni Valide mosque. At the other end of the sequence is a gate marking entry to the Riistem Pasa mosque.

The second segment of the program is the creation of a complex - containing a library, museum, coffee-house, shops, and an underground path to the existing Tahtakale (bath house). The Riistem Pasa mosque is an important social center, the diverse public functions in the complex emphasizes this role.

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Undergraduate Thesis Ca' Guggenheim Museum and Gardens, Venice This project verticalJy extends the existing Peggy Guggenheim Collection galleries and garden located on the Grand Canal in Venice . In an exploration of the reciprocity between the new construction and the surrounding city, the imaginary entirety of the palazzo implicit in its unfinished base initiates a literal and phenomenal framework against which counter-interventions are set. Taking cues from the given collection. themes of subversion, dislocated contexts and alternate meanings of displaced objects and images are presented via framed views of building/city relationships. Attitudes of the original owner and collector, Peggy Guggenheim, are evident in the re-presentation of the museum and gardens to the Grand Canal and Venice.

John P. Coyne

F'87

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

167

Crystal Pier: A Hotel/Market Pier Pacific Beach, California This thesis investigation includes: the development of a facade-type based upon commercial "strip" architecture, a type which inherently manifests itself on the oblique; the use of architecture to resolve the distinct cultural aspects of a particular community; and consequently the development of a hybrid building-type that incorporates the public realm and addresses the pedestrian living-experience. This suggests an alternative to current spatial perceptions in such a community.

The distressing lack of urban "spatiality" in Californian communities led to a formal approach in the analysis of the commercial strip for this thesis.

The primary spatial definition of strip architecture is dependent upon its signs. Thus, these signs convey information to passersby (many are often vehicular) through a concept of space based upon the glance instead of the gaze. The space of the strip can at first seem very solid but is essentially transparent. Furthermore, the architecture of the strip is read as a whole only through the disparity of its parts.

The commercial strip lacks a definite beginning or end; it exists as a captured dynamic, a short film conveying new information each time it is viewed. The pier, due to its insistence on beginning and ending, becomes this film clip - an out-take spliced in at the end of the reel.

Patrick R. Daly F'87

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Cimetero Del Via Appia Rome The Via Appia . which stretches from the center of Rome. has throughout centuries been a place of burial. Over the years this road has become a collector of various tomb types; from ancient burial mounds. to catacombs, to the more recent Fosse Ardentina War Memorial.

At the entrance to Via Appia sits a quiet stretch of an elevated plane that looks back to the city of Rome.

The intention of this thesis was to study the interaction between form and landscape using the program of a cemetery. The spatial understanding of this landscape provided clues for the evolution of the architecture.

At the ground level sits the chapel gateway and the water wall. These objects on the plane recall the collonades of trees and tombs further down the road that engage the land. The placement of these objects in the landscape shakes the surrounding earth. resulting in cuts and in a deep gorge. These incisions through layers of earth provide access into the burial sites . The burial sites are composed of different ordering systems and can, like the catacombs, grow independently through time.

This cemetery is not as much about death as it is about life. By removing oneselffrom the ground plane or "world above," one can then enter into a new world filled with water, light, and solitude.

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Travis Haisten sp'ss

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

169

The Center, Highway 86 Papago Indian Reservation, Arizona At the I'Cry center is the projector.

The progenerator o/thc images, the legends: a Zeiss.

From here the project expands in scale to encompass the mountains, the horizon and the stars.

The site for this project is the windsheild of your '76 Duster with the motionless moving image of the Southwest desert it frames. Coming up fast on your right, at the intersection of two lines (one straight and flat, the other undulating and steep), sits a dug-out/pile up 250 feet in diameter. Your frame is dominated by the intersection of sphere and plane of the horizon, and the ever-rotating distant silhouette of the Center.

It is a new sacred mound. In 1958, the Papagos gave their spirit-filled mountain to astronomers who built on its summit an acropolis of now-obsolete observatories.

The Center lies eroding at the bottom of a winding road below Kitt Peak Observatory.

This temporary earthwork serves two functions.

First, as the new Visitors' Center for the Observatory (including a reception/souvenir desk, exhibition, and a small planetarium for orientation shows), the center simply provides a place for tourists to park and then continue up the road in specially designed buses.

Second, it is the site of a sacred Papago festival which marks the Equinoxes. The Papago have a name for themselves, Tohono O'odham, meaning "desert people who have emerged from the earth." This event recreates their Emergence from the world below and anticipates their Ascension into the one above. The festival draws an enormous crowd to the sloped surface of the Center as the "stars" appear one by one on the darkened silhouette ofthe mountain. It's a cosmic pat on the back: affirmation of our ability to create and mark our own convergences, to reach out and hold for that split-second the intractable and unreachable.

The festival is a fraud and the Papago are only playing to the circus-loving crowd.

Humberto Cordero

170

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On the windshield of your Duster it is the silhouette of the Center which speaks to you absolutely in the end; in the silence of the night dessert; it is the earth against the sky which breaks the spell of profanity and projects us out into the landscape and up into the stars. And the projector is simply a storyteller, an old man seated on a blanket, mumbling, looking cockeyed at the sky, trying to remember where he's been and what he said the last time he told this story.

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Independent Film Center Boston This investigation focuses on the relationship between visual perception and physical reality - and consequently its influence on built form. Film was chosen as the informant to this exploration in that it exists precisely in a realm which is simultaneously two-dimensional and three-dimensional.

Although film presents space with the flat surface of the photograph, it is the motion of consecutive images which provides the illusion of three-dimensional space and time. Film (and subsequently architecture) exists not only as the sum of its images but also as a temporal form. It is this notion of perception and movement, both physical and phenomenal, upon which the ordering system and architectural vocabulary of this thesis is derived.

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

171

Lehrter M-Bahnhof Berlin The project consists of the connection of the experimental above-ground magnetic rail system, south of the Tiergarten, with the existing S-Bahn system at the Humboldt Hafen. An amusement park, "Marinepanorama" tower, children's theater, model brewery and biergarten, as well as new housing is proposed. The station itself houses shops, a small film theater, and a disco.

One of the major issues motivating the project is the potential for the rail system to establish a way of perceiving the city that is specific to elevated motion, but is also transferrable to the newly developed site at the pedestrian scale. To the passenger, foreground, middleground, and background become distinct planes of apparent movement onto which the fabric and objects of the city fall.

Foreground objects become rythmic and textural indicators of movement and change. Middleground objects become perceivable events. Background objects become iconic reference points that remain visible during trips between stations .

The station building is at once a connector of systems (a nodal point) and a transformer of scale and motion. It is also a gateway (from East to West) and a switching mechanism. As one of many nodal points oftransport systems in Berlin, it attempts to become a prototype. The prototype explores the potenti al positive urban impact of the rail system and the connections to other modes of transport (rail, road, water) as well as the specific implications of the station and its impact on its site.

Olaf E. Quoohs SP'89

172

Convento Assisi Assisi In the early fourteenth century someone, widely believed to be Giotto, painted a series of frescoes along the walls of the Basilica of S. Francis depicting the life of S. Francis. These frescoes were painted before the invention of perspective and depict scenes from the legend of S. Francis. The system for representing space, and the places painted in these frescoes, provided the inspiration for this thesis.

The monastery for the pilgrims of S. Francis is located at the end of the pilgrims journey, along the polar axis. The monastery functions along a cloister; a circuit extending from the level plane of the upper piazza, through the wall of the town out over the slope.

The main chapel inside the town wall links the monastery with the town and the upper piazza. The monks' cells face east. The small chapels and meeting rooms face west and frame views of II Sacro Convento from the cloister. The library sits at the north end of the cloister, rais~ off the ground, allowing space to pass under it down the slope.

Merritt W. Bucholz

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

173

Las Vegas Maglev Terminal Las Vegas The Magnetic Levitation Train is a recent technological development in rapid transit systems.

This proposal for a Maglev Terminal in Las Vegas includes a hotel with entertainment and athletic facilities, a casino, a tourist center, and shops, in addition to the train station and associated public amenities for travellers to and from Los Angeles, now a city only two hours away.

The route between these two cities generates a conceptual line, one analogous to the strip architecture that is so prevalent in and around Las Vegas. The thesis, then, attempts to resolve this line and addresses the relationship between city and building. The train station creates phenomena unique to the city - its relationship to the landscape - and comments on the scale change of Las Vegas.

One wanders through the terminal overlooking the city-like character of the casino below, while feeling the grand scale of the "mountainous" control tower above.

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The Rumble A struggle for musical expression, Boston The placement of an elevated highway in the Back Bay Fens park setting has many strong implications beyond the notion of "playing in traffic." Due to its undulating and winding form. the roadway has. through the reduction of speed coupled with the continually changing view orientation. actually become a redefined urban parkway possessing the only trace of the pre-existing promenade. But today the site exists as a fight for identity and function between park and speed: the highway has transformed the park from what once stood as a tie between the Back Bay and Kenmore Square districts into a barrier between them.

This study is based on the potential for this interstitial condition and the confused spaces within to be developed and transformed into a celebrated event. The project is composed of the Rumble Hall- a center for musical experimentation and confrontation, housing an extensive music library, recording studios and practice rooms and the Urban Instruments machines situated in and around the web of highway which takes in the sounds and sights of the city, transforming them into stage, screen, signage and melody. Together these built parts form the Urban Ensemble through which the pedestrian, the cyclist, and the driver can a::company each another, and eventually confront one another in the instruments. The Rumble Site is an active quad for three adjacent art schools: the Berklee College of Music, Emerson College, and the BAC.

William G. Katz

SP'90

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

175

Hopi Highway Hopi Reservation, Arizona This thesis is comprised of three buildings - a gas station, trading post. and restaurant. The site is located along Route 264, the only paved road on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The buildings are Hopi-owned, built. and conceived. and serve as outposts for the villages and as a source of income for the increasingly dollar-dependent Hopi communities. The forms and characters of the buildings result from a Hopi-sensitive, non-Hopi perspective. Clues were taken from collected images, historical accounts. myths, and my personal experience in Hopiland.

The project attempts to represent a unique situation in a culture in which a delicate balance between ancient and modem must be maintained. Like the current state of the Hopi culture, anything built by the Hopi defies Hopi traditions; yet, at the same time, it embodies only the most Hopi notions. To romanticize the Hopi lifestyle and thus prevent selective modernization is to be naive about the realities of a culture in change. Western things have been incorporated in every aspect of Hopi life; even the most sacred and seemingly steadfast traditions have been influenced.

Sacred kivas. the site of ancient rituals, may well be excavated and reused for other purposes. A gas station built on ancient farmland sustains the Hopi as much as their corn. Stone, a material by which the Hopi identify themselves as historically rich and permanent dwellers, has been virtually abandoned; but traditional methods of stone construction have been re-applied to modern materials.

This project is part fantasy - a myth, the result of my own imagination - and part reality, a response to an existing and very real situation: a specific people. the place they live in, the materials they use and the way they use them. Conceived with as much Hopi spirit as possible, it would not seem unlikely to find any of these three buildings along the highway on the Hopi reservation.

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The "real" Alcatraz was already relegated to the realm of being a simulacrum for the historicalmythical Alcatraz. The object of study then was not to merely distort the forms of Alcatraz but to explore how these forms, as signs, continued to signify in a horizontal manner. With the current ruined Alcatraz being one anamorphosis of this history which I did not have ready-access to, I had to approach this past, absent Alcatraz through other mediations. In particular, a specific film which gives a historical account of the place and in doing so distorts one's perception of the absent function.

That is, in film, time and space specificity is relinquished. How film is able to achieve this position is through its collage ability to lift exact copies of si(gh)tes and sounds from their contexts and re-motivate them as signifiers in a new system.

The question, then, was can I, operating on the forms of this place, and specifically, the empty cellblock, perform a similar re-motivation of the forms which I have discovered?

This CAD material (distortions of a cellblock modelling) then became an accounting of a fictive history (in the form of 6 videos + 13 plates) by embracing fragments of the film Escape from A/carraz, and specifically its representation of six different spaces: [the site of the bay and] the space of the dock, the mess hall, the library, the shower room, the carpentry shop, and the recreation yard. (a)version of reality .

Kenneth J. Ong

SP'90

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

177

URBANISM,

LANDSCAPE

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Introduction by Matthew J. Bell nly within the last fifteen or so years has the overall impact. Obviously, such a fragmentary and discipl ine of urbanism re-emerged as an integral atomized separation of disciplines could hardly serve and essential part of architecture and the process of to provide a unified conception of the city, appromaking architecture. However, because of its priately scaled to the city, and yet so necessary for uncertain definition, urbanism is often perceived of its reconstruction.

The following projects from the Graduate as separate from the disciplines of architecture, planning, and landscape design. Any approach to Urban Design Studio, though varied in scale and the city or the landscape articulating these as location, suggest a definition of the role of the unrelated disciplines is contrary to a traditional def- architect beyond the limitations of current practices. inition of the architect as designer of the entire land- Taking cues from the traditional definition of the scape. This inclusive approach to architecture and architect up through the first half of the twentieth related disciplines is evident in the work of many century, these projects resist the tendency toward architects from the Renaissance well into the twen- specialization, and instead propose the reintegration tieth century. Such a list might include Vignola, Le of architecture, city planning and landscape archiNotre, Vanbrugh, Wright, and Le Corbusier, par- tecture under the guise of urban design. Many of the projects become speculations about the landticularly in the early years of his career.

As a field of endeavor which would seem scape, both urban and pastoral, and as such, suggest inseparable from architecture, urbanism's post that there are no clearly identifiable boundaries World War II incarnation seems to have suffered between these disciplines. I This breakdown of boundaries is evident in the considerably in the area of representation. The impoverished ability of architects and others to depict type of drawing used to describe the city. In many the city is, of course, traceable to the migration and of these projects, the drawing becomes more than fragmentation, over the last twenty-five years, ofthe just the critical by-product of the design process. The various disciplines comprising city design. The . decision about what to draw and how to draw it responsibility for the design shifted from the archi- reveals assumptions, both explicit and implicit, about tect to the "specialist," less concerned with the city's the role of the architect in determining the form of physical reality but more with its social, economic, the landscape or city. Included within these conand political problems. This shift in emphasis has siderations are unstated but important assumptions had a devastating effect upon the kinds of drawings regarding program, typology, and even an architecused to convey information about the city and the ture indigenous to the place.

In the early years of the urban design studio. the landscape. All too frequently, each domain of the city, whether parks, public gardens, housing or traffic figure-ground drawing was the most prominent movement, has been handed over to the specialist technique used for investigation of the formal prodeemed knowledgeable in that particular concern. perties of the city. Convenient as a distillation of the This individualization of disciplines is also formal and conceptual order of the city, as an abreflected in the types of drawings used to represent straction the natural limitation of the figure-ground the city. Related disciplines such as landscape is its ability to provide only the most generalized architecture and city planning have succeeded in information about building type and landscape developing drawing types that describe conditions (fig. 1). It assumes a continuous horizontal ground in their own field, but somehow exclude ideas per- plane, ignores topographical considerations and ceived to be outside their area of expertise. Consider remains an abstract plan diagram of solid-void the typical zoning/Iand-use diagram employed by relationships offering only a suggestion of threeplanners, or the traffic engineer drawing showing dimensional interpretations. almost no buildings but every inch of curbs, concrete With recent interest in the traditional city as a and guardrails: concerns are maximized in one model for both formal and programmatic concems, particular area of study without much regard for the the black and white of the figure-ground has been

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supplemented by types of drawing capable of describing the complex relationship between space and object (fig. 2). Less abstract than the figureground, these drawings propose a more representative approach to the elements comprising the public realm. Sidewalks, trees, property lines, and other elements appear in the drawings and provide for a further definition of public space and of the distinction between public and private. The inclusion of these elements in the drawing reveals a strong belief in the capacity of the public realm to give order to and provide an image for the city.

Some of these projects show a concern with the smaller block and generally with a much smaller scale of urban intervention. In the last fifteen years government money for large scale urban renewal projects has all but dried up. Consequently much of the actual urban development has been taken over by private interests.

Projects are therefore reduced to the scale of the block recognizing that the traditional block is often developed by several interests, each acting independently.

This approach departs from the large scale superblock characteristic of government sponsored projects of the 1960s. The smaller scale of some of these projects perhaps reflects these changes.

Recent projects from the Urban Design Studio include more speculation on the relationship between landscape and city. For the site of the Prince Albrecht Palais in Berlin (fig. 2) the solution tends to regard elements of landscape poche with the same specificity as the primary solids and voids of individual buildings. 2 The landscape is seen as an extension of the exterior and interior of the building. Many of the solutions developed a system of entourage or sequence in the adjacent garden, specific to and dependent upon the important interior spaces of existing and proposed buildings.

Thesis projects for the New Orleans Waterfront (1985) and the Plan for The Central Area of Chicago (1988), and studio projects for the Lingotto Area in Torino, Italy (figs. 3 & 4) consider the landscape and urban fabric as part of a unified conception. In the Torino project, the vast size of the area left by the removal of the train yards encouraged a strategy of partially "ideal" fragments of gardens, each exerting at local scale, influence over a specific domain, yet connecting the area to the banks of the Po River. In all of these larger scale projects, the need for an overall organizing geometry is avoided. Instead, the garden acts as a network or tissue to infilliarge areas

1 2

Turin, Italy: Figure/ground of 1840. drawing by Wayne W. Copper Project for the Prince Albrecht Palais. Berlin. Brian P. Kelly: Proposed plan

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Graduate Urban Design Studio and make connections to parts of the existing fabric.

This particular group of projects clearly places the architect in the role of landscape designer as well as urban designer. 3 Some recent projects reflect investigations into traditional and indigenous urban building types .

Solutions for the Clerkenwell District of London (fig. 5) propose block development based upon the English terrace-house. This investigation of type in relation to form is not limited to considerations of plan, but is also addressed in the facade and scale of the block, taking inspiration for its imagery from the large terraces in nearby Regents Park.

The area left vacant by the proposed submergence of the Fitzgerald Freeway in Boston provides another opportunity to investigate the relationship between urban form and program (fig. 6). Adjacent to the project area, neighborhoods of quite different scale and texture (the Fanieul Hall area and the Old North End), exert different programmatic and formal pressures on the site. Drawings developed for the project suggest building types by delineating property lines and assigning specific function to various blocks in the project area.

The thesis project for the archealogical area of Largo Argentina (1987) in Rome resolves the confusion that has existed in that area since the excavations there between wars. A strategy of urban blocks, of varying size and function create a series of appropriately scaled spaces and incorporating indigenious building and block types, such as the Roman palace. The small scale of the project also allowed an investigation into sectional studies, facade, and building massing. An interesting type of drawing created in the process of the investigation was the plan of the ground level of the city. At that scale, the project must resolve primary and secondary building poche as well as relate to the existing scale of surrounding fabric.

The two projects for Boston and Rome suggest that form continues to play the primary generative role in developing urban strategies. Beyond that, both projects attempt to provide a proper fit between formal aspirations and the realities of function and program. The city is "read" less as an abstract series of figure-ground relationships appearing instead in a more representational style of drawing; one showing primary building interiors appropriately scaled to various programs, and divisions of property lines according to typology of building or block.

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

Several recurring conditions in the American city distinguish it from its European counterpart.

First, the grid, originally an agent ofland speCUlation, is the predominant plan form ofthe American city or small town, and tends to ignore topographic incident. 4 Second, principle public space is the space of the street, the public square typically an un-built block in the grid pattern. Also, the definition of the public realm is as dependent upon the natural landscape of the street or square (trees, sidewalks, front yards, etc.) as it is upon the facade of the building.

The Thesis project for the Charles River basin in Boston (1986) views the natural landscape as an integral part of the American city, recalling the tradition of landscape design embodied in the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. The design, derived from Olmsted's " Emerald Necklace" park system for Boston attempts to link potential development along the Charles to Olmsted' s park design of a century earlier. In Boston, as in many American cities the river is typically an area of industrial development and often excluded from conceptions about the landscape. This project re-integrates the landscape of the river with the city and addresses the possibility of its role as a principle organizing element.

This conceptual difference between American and European urbanism can also be seen in several projects for different areas of New York City. The project for the Houston Street area in Lower Manhattan (fig. 10) introduces traditional ideas of urban sequence and " formed" figural space (the deformation of the block to create public space) to strengthen the role of Houston Street in the area south of Washington Square. This project also develops a sequence of public spaces on the inside of the blocks adjacent to the square. Inserted into a repetitive system, the strategy creates a pattern of public space by introducing paradigms not typically found in American cities.

Similar to the Houston Street proposal are projects for Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan, which also critique the relentless Manhattan grid.

The first project introduces figural public space formed by blocks of varying shape and dimension (fig. 7). Differences between adjacent neighborhoods are suppressed in favor of a dominant public space of the new area. Public space is then developed sequentially with the fabric of the streets and squares adjusted accordingly. The second project introduces a series of fragmentary plan responses (each

with its own internal organization) which addresses the adjacent TriBeCa grid and the idiosyncratic character around Wall Street (fig. 8). Spaces between the new neighborhoods become public parks.

A quite different and perhaps more "American" conception of urban form is found in a project forth is same site (fig. 9). It attempts the extension of the Manhattan grid and the extraction of patterned public space from within the grid's overall structure.

Emphasis is less upon a beginning-middle-end sequential organization and more upon the introduction of a generalized and repetitive infrastructure capable of infinite extension and adaptation, not unlike the existing plan of Manhattan.5 The Thesis project for the Upper West Side Development west of Lincoln Center, New York (1987), also attempts to extend the grid of the city to the edge of the site, establishing a scale of block consistent with the Manhattan texture at street level.

Additionally, it uses building massing, particularly towers, to order the three-dimensional configuration of the site. The project thus creates a condition which occurs often in Manhattan (Rockefeller Center, of course, being the best example): a tension between the normative repetitive fabric of the city experienced at street level, and the three-dimensional expression at the skyline where the building engages the city at a larger scale.

In contrast to these relatively large scale studies, some projects have investigated smaller sites, bringing the relationship between the building and the urban (or in this case, garden) entourage to a higher resolution. The Thesis project for the Borgo Poussino (1985) creates a mythical setting for the summer home of the Warburg Institute. Buildings are of an identifiable iconographic "type," the Rotunda, for instance, becoming a library. The individual buildings are held together by landscape elements and gardens loosely assembled around the town.

The project for the Mausoleum of Augustus site in Rome (fig. II), executed for the 1987 Triennale of Milano, uses a Nolli-type technique to render the principle semi-public spaces inside the buildings encircling the ancient ruin . The plan strategy introduces a series of ideal fragments surrounding the mausoleum allowing for the inter-pretation of the entire complex as either an ideal temple in a courtyard, or as a sequence of gardens and terraces composed of several incidents. Appropriate images are developed for the surrounding fabric, and sec-

tional studies resolve changes in level from the ancient city to the modem city, rendering primary building poche in section .

In a project for the town of Mississagua, Canada, a new city was proposed in an area with few existing buildings and a newly constructed City Hall.

In this scheme, blocks of housing in a traditional configuration are integrated into the general organizational scheme of the town along with suburban types such as an existing shopping mall (fig. 12). Neighborhoods with identifiable centers and boundaries are linked together by a street infrastructure dependent upon the initial arrangement of the existing civic building and a public park. One might compare this approach to the new city with the project by Thomas Schumacher for the new town of South Amboy, New Jersey of 1966 (fig. 13) .

Schumacher's project, dependent upon the maison redents of Le Corbusier as a paradigm for housing, departs from the Corbusian model by introducing a series of defined public spaces in the housing quarters, and irregularly shaped public spaces at the intersections of the various fields. The scale of the individual block is remarkably different from the traditional city block, taking the form of the superblock, implicitly suggesting that development would necessarily be sponsored by one agency or group. In the project for Mississagua, public space assumes a more formed, less fragmentary configuration in the design of the town. The project develops the area in terms of neighborhoods, allowing the town to be built by several interests, with the government's role in development limited to the public park and civic center.

The variety of projects and scales addressed here reflects the increasing number of concerns under the guise of urbanism today. Some investigations seem to align more closely with landscape issues, but never seek complete withdrawal from the realm of architecture. It is significant that the study of urbanism at Cornell proceeds within the confmes of architecture and architectural education, for if one of the most important concerns of this last half of the twentieth century is the reconstruction of the landscape and the city, and if the city must be designed, then the architect must become, above all others, responsible for its design. Perhaps with these projects as models for future speculation, one can begin to propose a definition of urbanism that places the architect back in his or her role as the designer of the land. â&#x20AC;˘

179

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

185

New Orleans: The Lower Garden District "The Promenade Ridge" 1 2 3 4 5

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187

Charles River North Station, Boston

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The Cornell Journal of Architecture

189

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191

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The building top, the sphere, is the ecclesiastical space. Framed in steel and covered with sailcloth, the sphere supports a group of elements: chapels, choir, sacristy, and a cylindrical stair which leads to the apex of the building, the confessional.

The building and its program were continually evolving until the end. What was more or less certain throughout the design process was the preoccupation with "dwelling" in its spiritual aspect. The building ultimately became a pilgrimage church, the thesis of which challenges the basic and divergent means of making a building and its environment, the historical and the evolutionary.

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193

DISCONNECT LACKAWANNA and NOWHERE A place beside a lak e. People living here through thei own parr'l ular circumstance. There is destill,lliol 1There ar people living well. There are peo c i,ho rk and people working people and there are good times, but times so Ihere is struggle.

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195

Constructs in the Icelandic Landscape The aim of this investigation was to seek a deeper understanding or sensitivity of the relationship between architecture and landscape, culminating in a series of works that would express a belonging to specific places, constructs or artifacts anchored in a setting that sustains a discourse between the natural and man made, the past and its presence.

The three sites were seen as parallel disparate entities where each could be developed singularly, yet be influenced by the preceding or succeeding ones, thus creating a plenum which could function horizontally and laterally, enabling secondary thoughts in one to become primary in another, thereby sustaining a continuum and multiplicity animating their architectural reading.

In the quest for alternatives of form-giving, various methods or processes were applied: transformation, reinterpretation, reaffirmation. collage, relief, sculpture, poetry, intuition, metaphor, program, obscure analogies, history, tradition, mythology, primal existential relationships, resulting in a complete whole. trilogy. of singular acts, each containing a memory or premonition of its siblings.

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Giulio Romano â&#x20AC;˘ Andrea Palladio: A Sixteenth Century Diversion

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The Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture Series â&#x20AC;˘ Fall 1986 COLIN ROWE

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Giulio Romano 's Palazzo Maccarani and the Sixteenth Century GIULIO ROMANO AND ANDREA PALLADIO ON COMMON GROUND :

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Urban Architecture and the Continuity of Change COMMENT, CRITICISM, CH ALLENGE

Two great Italian architects, Giulio Romano (late fifteenth century-1546) and Andrea Palladio ( 1508-1580), whose careers overlapped toward the middle of the sixteenth century, are the framework for the intellectual discourse chosen for the lecture series. This framework is based on two individuals vastly different in their creativity. They differed in education and background, in the myriad types of commissions received and fulfilled, and in the individual and specific rapport that each calibrated to fit complex and varying needs and the personalities of the clients. Thus Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladiocreated a particularized architecture with a role in the society of those who called it into being, which although linked in time and place, diverged in resolution and impact.

And yet the fascination of the topic goes well beyond issues of simple divergence. The contrast in their work and attitudes is not denied by the existence of historically documentable links. They met, with consequences too often ignored, in scholarship beyond naive factual consideration. This historiographic situation can only lead to primitive deductions. for example, that the established architect influenced the younger stonemason. Consequently answers that merely deal with formal aspects emerge out of a situation that in reality is loaded with contextual implications. They worked on the same projects, never at the same time, never collaborating, yet mutually involved. A retrospecti ve discourse, which does not see these two as individual monolithic figures, but considers their overlapping creative and historic situation, which transcends the myopic vision of ego-centered scholarship as expressed in the "theory of genius," will stimulate innovative reflection on their architecture, and in broader terms offer new insights into architecture as a driving force behind contextual thinking in historical disciplines.

How does one achieve this goal in a didactically productive way, allowing the audience and in particular the students, not only to learn, but to actively participate in the process of methodological advancement of the discipline: Set lectures with ensuing discussions, limited by time and tolerance, will never allow an intellectual discourse of requisite breadth to develop. A cohesive format must be constructed. The College of Architecture. Art and Planning at Cornell University, has in the Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture Series, the potential to do just thi s. Lectures yes, but with an additional forum ; Speakers yes, but with a shadow cabinet; and the lecture topics, schedule and speakers selected in order to produce a coherent overall structure that would itself make a statement open to replies. The intention behind this scheme was to provide the

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

A COLLOQUIUM

audience with a cumulative understanding of some of the central concerns that inform the scholarship on Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio, provocatively presented from expert. and often contrasting, points of view. Thus an interlocking pattern of themes took shape, whose form encouraged a moment of reflection and assessment in which the accumulated information could be sorted and debated. A carefully graduated change in focus expanded and contracted with each presentation , setting methodological scenes, divergent in thematic, emotional and scholarly approaches, which were then analyzed, combined, synthesized and expanded by a free-wheeling, unprogrammed but premeditated colloquium. This animated and involved the students, encouraged them to move the discussion away from the lectern, and permitted further ideas to be interwoven. Beyond the gleaning of some new factual information, the resultant consolidation pushed the participants into an intellectual discourse that allowed an interdisciplinary and intermethodological newland to be broached.

The cohesiveness of the topics had to be guaranteed in order to optimize combustion. And that is where the intersection of Giulio's and Palladio 's architectural and intellectual legacies becomes so important. The threads had to be woven by the individual topics and their sequence: from formal consideration of the facade to typological and documentary exploration of palazzi, and further to a historical analysis of an entire urban setting; from Giulio alone to Giulio's and Palladio's interaction, then to Palladio on his own; from the whole of sixteenth-century Europe on to the northern Italian architectural metropolis.

The Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture Series at Cornell University would not exist without the support and generosity of Mrs . Ruth B . Thomas . The Department of Architecture's encouragement through Professor Jerry A. Wells and Professor John Miller was unending. Professor Christian F. Otto's role as moderator of the colloquium . and his professional advice and presence in all aspects of the planning and realization of the series was crucial to its success. Much work went into the organization of the Series and the subsequent editing of manuscripts for publication. Professor Bette Talvacchia spent numerous hours transcribing the colloquium; Denise Bratton , Amy Opermann, and Jan Rutledge helped in various and indispensable ways.

â&#x20AC;˘ 199

Moderator Christian F. Otto Cornell Uni versity. hhaca. New York

Panelists Margherita Azzi- Visentini Uni versity of Padua , Padua. Italy

Kurt W. Forster The Ge ll y Center for the Hi story of An and the Humanities Santa Monica. Califo rn ia

Martin Kubelfk Cornell University. Ithaca. New York

Colin Rowe Cornell Uni ve rsity. hhaca. New York

Bette Talvacchia Unive rsity of Connectic ut . Storrs. Connec ti cut

Clemente di Thiene Instituto Uni versitario di Archilcllura, Venice. hal y

Christian F. Otto: Although never intended as an ' agenda ' , four major topics linking the lectures in this series also provide us with a means for structuring the discussion that follows. These issues have to do with the role of the client, with architectural rules, with painting and architecture, and with context.

They are interrelated, one with the other, and reverberate back and forth upon one another. The issue of client is an especially important one, not only in the hard-core historical sense of 'who commissioned what', and precisely 'what role did that person play ', but also in terms of the relation between client and architect. The issue of architectural rules raised questions about the establishment of a set of architectural procedures, attitudes, and principles with which one could interact, from which one could take license, or which could serve as immediate points of reference for both client and architect, and perhaps also for the public domain.

Consideration of painting and architecture provided the basis for discussions of the ' painted architecture' of the Sistine ceiling and also the work of the architect-painter Giulio Romano, who developed a whole palette of responses on the surfaces of buildings at Landshut and Mantua. The question of context arose in a variety of ways. There is, of course, the issue of physical context, for example, in the terms of Palladio's adjustment of buildings to the existing context at Vicenza. But one must also consider the context of historical ideology or of historical setting, and this introduces a whole range of responses, questions, and concerns. Thus, with client. rules, painting and architecture, and context as initial points of departure, I would like to open the session .

200

Belle Talvacchia: The matter that I will treat is the client-employee relationship, concerning the requests for specific types of buildings. and how the architects had to comply with restrictive circumstances in order to produce what was asked of them. Several times during the past few days the speakers alluded to the impact of patronage on the production of Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio. I would like to add a few further remarks on this subject. starting with some background. Giulio Romano worked for Federico Gonzaga. the first Duke of Mantua. During the 1520s, Federico was bringing his family up to quite a high level of political prominence, so Giulio was invited into a court that was up and coming. Giulio and the duke had a very similar cultural foundation in the Rome of Julius II, and this I think is an important fact to keep in mind . Federico Gonzaga was a hostage in the court of Julius II at the time that Giulio was one of the apprentices in the workshop of Raphael.

They were not very far apart in age, depending on which date you accept for the birth of Giulio. They could have been very close indeed, no more than between one and seven years apart. As adolescents, they moved in the heady atmosphere of Julius's Rome, Giulio painting and Federico leading a cultivated life among the court's elite. As Raphael's assistant, Giulio had an aristocratic heritage of his own in the realm of art. With this patrimony, he eventually inherited the shop of Raphael, where he gained the impressive managerial skills he would later implement when he formed his own shop. This .background fit in well with the functions and tasks of a court artist. At Federico Gonzaga ' s coun, Giulio was responsible for a vast range of works , and for entire monuments, inside and out, for decorative programs as well as the construction of buildings themselves. In this situation. when Giulio repeated forms or symbols they would then become the personalized statements of the patron due to the close identification of the artist with his prince . This progressed to such a point that drawings made by Giulio were seen to be the personal property of the duke. At one point. when someone had run off with certain drawings, the duke went to great pains to have that person caught and the drawings returned, because as images representing Federico himself. they were tantamount to an extension of his presence. Giulio was in the situation of being bound to his lord. but he was also sent out 'on loan' on certain occasions. You can imagine how this would both aggrandize the duke-the patron who could lend out this special resource at his disposal-and add to Giulio's own prestige. This was a point that Kurt Forster brought out forcefully in his discussion of the development of the project at Landshut. where it was by special arrangement that Giulio's design , itself intimately

linked to the Duke of Mantua, could then be used in another place. This certainly forged a kind of alliance between the two rulers that was very tangible in addition to being political and ideological. The Este Court at Ferrara borrowed the artist. and there are letters in the Mantuan archives that tell us about the arrangements made. Giulio was a very valuable commodity. and could only move away with the duke's consent. This worked to everyone's advantage.

Andrea Palladio, of course, was in a different situation . He did not have an illustrious artistic lineage; rather he started out as a craftsman and came up through the ranks at the instigation of his patron.

Palladio was thus indebted to his patron, and, by extension, to his patron's social class, for what he became. He was therefore very responsive to values of this group; his livelihood depended upon it. If you think about the elaborate rules of courtly decorum. which were so thoroughly understood by Giulio Romano, these conventions of court gave him freer rein than the good taste and good sense that were demanded by the wealthy class that commissioned Palladio for works. Successful businessmen and leading families would have different desires. Many things that you could get away with in a courtly environment, you probably could not under such circumstances. For example, the extravagances of the Palazzo del Te were absolutely within the bounds of decorum. because that was a pleasure villa; you would not find such license in the Ducal Palace. There were occasions when Giulio could give free rein to fantasia , and to subjects that at times might have even been in questionable taste. because they suited the private nature of a prince's leisure. his otillm.

Palladio, I think, was much more restricted as far as this sort of freedom goes. An interesting fact about the self-images of these two architects is that both changed their names at significant moments in their careers. However. this shared point also reveals some telling differences. The name Palladio. as everyone knows, was chosen by Trissino and bequeathed to the artist being formed under his guidance, to his ' creatllra'. On the other hand, Giul io Pippi dropped his patronymic to proclaim himself Romano when he went up to Mantua. This in many ways is an announcement of his artistic heritage. that he came from Rome, from the big city. directly from Raphael's shop. bringing all of his status to a provincial setting.

In terms of the working conditions, then. they are ostensibly quite different. But even here are some interesting shared circumstances that we might look at. To start with the differences , Giulio's tasks were multifarious . He had numerous and various duties that he was required to perform . He was often very rushed because the duke wanted specific things done at a particular moment. There was competition over

funds from the court bursar. This can be read about at length in the documents. Giulio had to stand in line with many other members of court to obtain the financial wherewithal for his projects. At times, if the duke had several projects going at once, there was even competition over the materials that would be needed . Whereas Palladio, on the other hand , was employed to do a specific job by a family or by an individual , and presumably there was an allotment set aside for this . even if at times the funds were a bit more restricted than Palladio may have wished. There would have been an agreed upon business arrangement. Such was not a lways the case for Giulio. Certainly there was economic concern on the part of both sets of clients, but perhaps even more so in the case of Duke Federico because he was the single generating source for all of the projects Giulio undertook.

Something the two architects shared relates to the reuse of older structures. Despite the very different circumstances of their working conditions, this was a significant factor that both had to contend with. The continuity of the urban fabric was certainly important to the citizens of Vicenza, who as a group built up a shared societal structure within that urban setting. It was important to them to have some say in what their urban environment was going to be like.

And, with regard to the use of extant structures, perhaps the problem was more compelling for them than for an autocratic ruler who isolated himself in the trappings of power, who could change a facade for symbolic reasons. or wrap his building in architectural forms that spoke of imperial favor and elevated status . The duke at times would want changes that were very idiosyncratic, without regard for the larger setting, almost making statements of policy in this way. This would affect the kinds of demands placed on the thinking of the architect in each case. It would have affected the desire of Palladio's clients for the latest style as a mark of status, something very different from the duke wanting a facade to represent a particular symbol of imperial favor or political status. There are a few further aspects of the reuse of existing structures that bear some consideration. These have to do with the site-specific requirements placed on Giulio and Palladio. It is a contemporary term. but is nevertheless expressive of the challenges that the architects were given . The site-specific requirements encouraged Palladio to very skillfully integrate changes and compromises that he found necessary .

In the case of Giulio Romano, very often a great inventiveness emerged as a consequence of constraints. rather than simply a compromise.

To my way of thinking, it is similar to what we know of the way Giulio conjured up inventions in

Comment, Criticism, Challenge: A Colloquium his drawing style. He was known as a virtuoso in his drawing. In Vasari's assessment, Giulio's superlative talent was his creation of variations on the antique.

If you think of that kind of training, it fosters a technique where you so understand something that you can stay within prescribed conventions, and strict stylistic limits. and still produce a great number of variations that tum out to be something quite new.

This kind of thinking would have been a training for working within the constraints of the site. This became thoroughly integrated into the work that Giulio Romano carried out. I am not so sure that the same thing happened in the work of Palladio, where the compromises and limitations were dealt with very deftly, but perhaps at times without great satisfaction to the one who was making up the plans, that is, to Palladio himself. The final product remained separate from the most compelling ideation that Palladio could have come up with.

We can speculate that in order to deal with this, the Quallro Libri were necessary as Palladio's final statement, with the plans that deliver the most perfect portrayal of the structures. Or, to consider the question in a different way, were the ideal plans of the Quattro Libri that with which Palladio proposed to educate the client at the time of negotiations for the projects? Response and deference to the pressures of clients was very necessary on Palladio ' s part.

Perhaps not so much, nor in the same way, on the part of Giulio Romano. Because Federico Gonzaga took every active interest in the projects he commanded into existence, he applied plenty of pressure, but mostly in terms of deadlines. He retained Giulio in his court precisely because he expected him to come up with brilliant ideas; he was the expert in residence when it came to art. And, in fact , in other things as well. We know that when people complained to Federico because Giulio had demolished a number of structures in the process of urban renewal, the duke declared that obstructing Giulio ' s plans amounted to the same as transgressing the duke ' s own desires in these matters. The final point, then, is that Giulio could have talked out some of his ideas and plans with Federico, and could have been given scope that would not have been a possible for Palladio with his clients.

One more point that I would like to bring out about the exigencies of working arrangements has to do with decisions made about the structures as the works were in progress. Kurt Forster's research has allowed us to recapture the sense of the Palazzo del Te by explaining the organic aspect of its growth from villa to palazzo in turn, from its unexalted and unlikely origin as stables. The other evening he gave us an intriguing formulation of this practice: "At the initiation of the work, the end was not known." This

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particular working process was, I think, widespread in the renaissance, more than scholarship in the past has admitted. Its principle helps us to understand how lengthy and complex projects came to realization. We can perhaps link this practice to aspects of Colin Rowe ' s discussion of the buildings ' skeletal structure, characterized as a grid, which hides behind complex facades . This is the conceptual structure that takes form in the architect's mind, and will ensure cohesiveness in the event of added bays or modification or elaboration of component parts and decoration. Certainly what Martin Kubelfk persuasively characterized as Palladio ' s " urban sensitivity" would include responding to demands of site and needs of client in ways that allowed for the modification of plans. Such modifications would then necessitate further changes that would alter the original project as work progressed. This, by the way, was true of the fresco campaigns carried out by Giulio, and so may have been a working procedure for the gamut of creative productions. There is evidence, both structural and documentary, that the Sala di Troia was part of a second phase of bui lding in the Ducal Palace. When it was added, along with a loggia, to the newly formed apartment, existing doorways were realigned to fall on axis with its entrance and exit. The Sala dei Cavalli was superseded in this complex of rooms, and the more grandiose reception hall, with accompanying loggia of honor, became the focus of the apartment. Further, within the decoration of the Sala di Troia itself. the same incremental approach prevailed. A letter that Giulio wrote allows us to look over his shoulder as the project was underway. He was doing some fast talking to his patron to explain delays, and notes that he has to wait for the literary advisor to decide which stories will be used in the frescoes . He goes on to stress that he has some new, better ideas about the decoration, which he wants very much to discuss with the deviser of the program. By way of concluding these remarks on the rapport between architect and client , I would like to refer to a statement made by Giulio Romano urging respect in the treatment of structures that already exist. He made this plea in connection with the project to redesign the Basilica in Vicenza. Knowing the scene intimately, Palladio eventually responded with an eye to more political concerns that superseded respect for the past. To my way of thinking, Giulio's attitude went beyond mere economics to place value on the preservation of history. One preserves an old structure not simply to embalm it, but to revivify it by keeping it functioning .

An architect's ingenuity can be put to the test by this, at times with superior results . The outcome is superior when the forms have a structural purpose as well as a symbolic significance. Quotation can be a

problem when it is mindless. You can, for example, cite a work or a phrase that in itself has meaning and beauty; but its arbitrary placement into another sentence causes chaos, or reduces the whole to babble.

In this sense there is a vast difference between a purposeful incorporation of the past, and what has come to be known as the appropriation of historical forms. To my mind , Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio have a lot to teach us about smart approaches to architectural problems.

Audience: How did the different positions of Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio affect the kind of work that they could do, and was it to their benefit or detriment that they had these sorts of constraints?

Clemente di Thiene: Constraints are part of the context.

I think one of the big problems we have to face today is that we have to deal with a context that is somehow depreciated. We do not generally analyze the context as something that will bring us food for thought. We consider it as some sort of constraint. I'm talking as an architect at this moment not as theoretician or historian . But we always consider the constraints of the context as something that is compelling and reduces our capacity for imagination, our capacity for dealing with what exists . And in fact, I would thank Colin Rowe, Martin Kubelfk, and Kurt Forster for having given us food for thought on the question of constraints, not only for discussion here today, but also for further development of ideas about the quality of design. What amazed me, as I listened to these lectures, was that one understands at once the confidence of these architects in dealing with the material substance of the architecture, the quality of the composition of elements they had in mind and in their hands, and the capacity of inventing things very quickly through a language that they knew very well. It appears to me that probably because of the schools, and perhaps the teachers, of architecture, that confidence of architecture is something we have totally lost.

Christian F. 0110: Did it exist then, or is it a figment of our historial imagination?

Clemente di Thiene: Well, it did exist then. There was more confidence because there was a code of architecture that you could apply very frankly . The idea of Giulio Romano ' s changing the significance of the elements that he applied to a previously existing wall is something that we could do any day, in any of our projects; but we are not confident enough to do it, because we do not really know the grammar of architecture. We don't know how these elements combine. We are probably trained too much in talkinR about architecture.

Audience: An inescapable conclusion from what Colin Rowe showed us is that perhaps their teaching was a little bit better.

Kurt W. Forster: I think we can move more broadly into the question of how one inserts something into a context, and how one at the same time maintains a certain integrity, even autonomy, in the design of those things. This has to do with what Clemente di Thiene suggested: you can move with a certain assurance and confidence only if you understand the rules that in many ways are at least as restraining in nature as the actual circumstances of any site. That you can see those rules not as hamstringing you in your ability to act in a specific location with regard to various other external factors, but that you see, in fact, the value of the rules precisely in allowing you to act. Therefore, the constraints of the site enter an equation in which there are far heavier restraints already willingly assumed as real factors by the artist himself. Not that this was an easy thing: when Bette Talvacchia spoke about the spec ific circumstances and problems that the architects experienced, I think she brought this difficulty into focus.

What the differences may have been, what the distinctions and their possibilities may have been, reminded me of a sentence from the Second Book of the Quallro Libri, where Palladio says that often it is necessary for the architect to adjust himself more to the desires of those who are spending their money than to that which one should observe. Both things together constitute the problem the architect must solve. He obviously cannot consider only one or the other factor. And I think we are terribly tempted to do just this: either to write off a place mortgaged with all sorts of constraints as hopeless for architecture, or to figure out something so absolutely unique in itself that it gives one license to forget that there may have to be toilets in the place.

Belle Talvacchia: Do the less glamorous details of the circumstances of architectural patronage in the past suggest parallels to contemporary architectural practice? Or would, for example, students of architecture resent such a discussion?

Audience: We have so few Gonzagas these days.

Martin Kubelfk: The attitude that I'm reading into the statement about the lack of Gonzagas is, in fact, an enormous problem in the wayan architect today approaches his practice. I don't want to open this up into what I think architectural history is. But I do think it is exactly one of the lessons which is so important for architects to learn from history; namely, that although we have so few Gonzagas we have

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ABC, as Colin Rowe reminded us, and a number of other enormous clients. If we stop looking at the nice Palladian images in the Quattro Libri, and we see what Palladio was really fighting in site constraints, potential economic constraints, in rules and in legal constraints-he had to petition for the arcade of Palazzo Chiericati. Kurt Forster spoke about an analog case in Mantua the other night. So why is it that these architects managed to achieve something which we are still talking about 400 years later? You know, I wonder how many buildings of today people are going to talk about in 400 years. The attitude that they, 400 years ago, had all the clients, they had all the money they wanted, they had no problems, is wrong.

Kurt W. Forster: I think that we have romanticized the Renaissance beyond all recognition. Incidentally, Giulio Romano was also capable of developing a coherent architectural discourse from building to building, even across the Alps, and it wasn't because everyone said 'I'm so happy to have one of yours, go ahead', surely not. Palladio, work ing with so many different clients, and in each case, totally different circumstances, had to readjust gears every time; yet he was able to do it. Obviously something which for both architects was absolutely crucial to the understanding of their profession was that they conduct their own discourse, too.

One must also keep in mind that we are too readily prepared to think that all external constraints are a bother, and that all input from the client is wrongheaded. something that one ought to dispatch, instead of thinking that there are now-as there were then-some extremely intelligent clients, even clients who were interested in making sure that they got real architecture rather than just a building. I'm quite convinced, for instance, in the case of Bramante and Julius II, that Julius may very likely have been the one to push harder for great architecture than Bramante might himself have been spontaneously inclined to demand.

Bette Talvacchia: I think these things were shared quite often by architect and patron, in that the roles could reverse. When Giulio was asked for advice about the Basilica in Vicenza, he could have said anything at all, for example, he could have said 'start from scratch '. Yet he said, 'start with what is there', 'change as little as possible' .

Colin Rowe : It seems to me that the style of this discussion is peculiarly present today . There is an astonishing preoccupation with empirical detail.

What is being contrasted is an idealistic situation with an empirical one, and I think the comparison is, well,

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facetious . The business of architectural historians castigating you with empirical detail is partly inherited from modem architecture, which I thought we are all trying to get away from.

Kurt W. Forster: I think it is interesting, however, to understand the historic situation through reflection on one's own condition as well as the conditions of design. In some ways they are not that categorically different. There is obviously not an antinomy, not a flat contradiction between the two. The question is more one of 'how can I make architecture in these circumstances?' .

That is a question which was as real for Giulio and Palladio as it may be for anybody right here. So you have to know something about what your architectural discourse consists of, about what it is predicated on. I can on ly repeat what I said before: I think the rules-not as a rigid system which simply confines imagination, but as a way of 'thinking architecture'-are surely the heaviest restraints that anybody can put on a building.

Audience: Which means we have to go back to the rules of modem architecture?

Kurt W. Forster: No, but we can understand how some of these ideas were worked out, just as we have come to a different understanding than that which prevailed thirty, forty, fifty years ago about Giulio Romano, for instance. Previously, we thought Giulio Romano played havoc with high renaissance architectural discourse, kicking things around and twisting them, and letting them drop and so forth, instead of seeing his work as the continuation of a discourse that never lost its anchor in preceding practice but simply acquired certain additional possibilities. To make a simple comparison, it brings into play vibrato, it knows the massing of instruments. You are beginning to orchestrate things, which means you take them apart in order to make their coherence more apparent. You develop these motifs, you playa gamut from the coarsest rustication to the smoothest fresco on the outside . You're playing shadows against flat surfaces. You recess members, or you bring them into high relief, and so forth. You can throw in the brass instead of sticking only with the violins . There is an extraordinary amplification of possibilities. To look at this as a distortion, a decline, a manneristic overelaboration is simply inadequate to the task of explaining what is going on .

Audience: At the Porta Maggiore in Rome, you can see rustication and a capital in rustication without the column shaft. So the rules are there.

Kurt W. Forster: Rules? It's like the Bible, you know.

Obviously ancient architecture had a word for everything that you could want to do. You could always invoke something. But the curious thing is that with Giulio Romano-not only with him, but also with Alberti, Bramante, and so forth-it ' s not a retake. It's not simply that you are now licensed to use this and that and the other thing, but that the work enters into a cohesive system of rules, a system of rules that for all we know was never really explicitly part of ancient architecture.

Colin Rowe : My original format is provided by people like Rudolph Wittkower. I therefore would incline always, although I know it is wrong, to prefer to think of Palladio as a Platonic philosopher rather than an Aristotelian stonemason. In fact he's neither of those things ; of course, he's like any sensible person: a bit idealist and a bit empiricist.

Audience: In Wittkower's article on the Laurentian Library, he specifically emphasizes the empirical restraints that Michelangelo faced when he planned that particular building and it was these restraints themselves that were responsible for the solution that then came along. I would like to suggest another thing that may connect with what we are saying here, and that is to bring Michelangelo in.

Colin Rowe: It's a long time since I read the Wittkower article on the Laurenziana; more recently, I have read the Ackerman analysis. Ackerman will go through Michelangelo, building after building, and although comparable characteristics will crop up again and again, he will always try to insist that those characteristics were derived from the empirical conditions of the particular site and job. There's a stylistic prevalence that one arrives at. My simple argument wi th Ackerman is that to pretend that the Sistine ceiling is not a work of architecture seems to me to be grotesque. Of course, it is a work of architecture; it happens to be painted, but it's a work of architecture. Simply the way Ackerman will begin Michelangelo, more or less, with the facade of San Lorenzo when the Sistine ceiling is just behind, is a state of mind I cannot understand. I would think the strategies present in the Sistine ceiling persist all the way through Michelangelo's oeuvre in one form or another.

Kurt W. Forster: I feel that there is a very profitable comparison to be made here, one that recognizes some actual fundamental differences that are not dependent strictly on the context of the work or the restraints of the sites: Michelangelo arrives at unique, formal results by a process which one could probably

compare to the continuous review of many alternate solutions to the same issue at the same time. That is, if you look at the sheets of drawings, you can see to what extent all of these solutions are put together on the same surface. You get a depressed arch, you get a square opening, you get an opening with angles, or beveled, etc. Each of them tries to make the frame in a different form, and in the end, what results are forms that are unique because they combine elements of various solution~ without allowing any single one to prevail. That's why it has something almost tortuous about it.

For example, take the simplest of all elements, the aediculas in the Medici chapel. No niche in the world I have ever heard of has a cross opening on top, inside the pediment, as if its shoulders were anchored there. This is a paradoxical form with regard to the true significance and function of all of these elements as they exist in a traditional aedicula.

Just as with Giulio Romano, the drum interrupted by the cube is a paradoxical form, but this paradox is totally different. Giulio' s is arrived at as if by Fiat, Michelangelo's is arrived at through agony. In both instances, a unique form is created, a form that takes all the rapports of meaning within a given system into account. Otherwise, you could never call it paradoxical if there were not a frame of reference that all of these elements still possessed.

Margherita A::i-Visentini: I want to go back to the discussion of context, and of the limits the context can establish for the realization of a work of architecture. Ideology and politics were certainly pushing for the introduction of Palladio in Venice, but Palladio did not succeed there until after the death of Sansovino in 1570. Actually, he could only really act in Venice in church building, and only in the periphery rather than the real center, pushed by patrons among the Venetian patricians, such as the Barbaro, and the Cornaro. Palladio , however, participated as early as 1554, unsuccessfully, in the competition for the building of the Ponte di Rialto, a site in the center of Venice.

I think the proposal of 1542-43 by Giulio Romano for the rebuilding of all the squares surrounding the Basilica in Vicenza is very, very important and has not received the attention deserved.

He certainly considered the old building as something to preserve, as it was the symbol of the city . But this is not all that he suggested to do in this place: He proposed to level the two squares and to build all around this monument-because the Basilica in that case remained a monument-a classical forum .

We don't know exactly why, but this proposal by Giulio Romano for the piaz:a in Vicenza was not accepted.

Later, in 1554, Palladio in a certain sense returned to the same idea for the Ponte di Rialto, encouraged by the same Venetian patricians who were the patrons of his villas. The project ofPalladio for the Rialto Bridge is a classical project: a bridge with five arches that ends in two arcaded squares on either side of the Grand Canal. This project had obvious problems. Its presence in the context of the old Marciano market was too revolutionary and was not accepted. But later Palladio came back with quite a revolutionary proposal for another very important center for political and economic life in Venice, that is to say, for the Pia::za . In 1577, the Ducal Palace burned and Palladio was consulted for a new project, and he actually made a very long and quite interesting report on the irregularity of these old buildings. We don't know if a drawing that Howard Bums has proposed as the project for the new Ducal Palace is really the proposal Palladio advanced, that is to say, if Palladio proposed a classical building for a monument that was linked to a traditional Venetian government. But this possibility gives us a lot to think about.

Kurt W. Forster: These are interesting points that show us how you don't only think of a building as subordinate to a context, but how you can also think of the possibility of changing the context in its relation to the building. Giulio, again, was extraordinarily inventive, very resourceful in trying to modify the context so as to bring out something in the building which would otherwise be impossible. To raise the building, the existing Basilica, on three tall steps by lowering one half of the square and using the dirt on the other side is an enormously economical, clever, and effective solution . Merely by shifting earth around, you make a monument out of a building.

Bette Talvacchia: Giulio also had excellent practice with the streets of Mantua, where he had to change the levels to deal with the flooding conditions. So this approach also comes out of practical thinking in terms of engineering techniques.

Margherita A::zi-Visentini: One can compare the proposal of Giulio Romano for the Basilica to the formation of the Piazza dell' Arena in Verona, where the Arena became the central monument of the square.

Audience: On the other hand, with the Basilica of St. Peter, its great Constantinian predecessor was tom down. We don't have any memoranda from anybody about the need to preserve it. Perhaps this presents us with another tendency that we should keep in mind.

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Kurt W. Forster: There is, of course, more than one approach. There is not just protective regard for things: the 'protective' attitude is something that can be calibrated. One extreme is 'for God's sake, leave it as it is, don't do anything, don't hope to improve it'; the other is 'knock it away and do something else' . If nothing ever got knocked away, environments would become claustrophobic. There must also be departures. With regard to St. Peter's since it is the most important church in Christendom, the inhibitions are the highest; but, then, the significance of overcoming them is also the greatest. It is in keeping with the program that Julius II had that he would be the one to attend to something like that. But it is clearly so rare as to serve an almost contrary purpose: to show how different everything else is.

Bette Talvacchia: I think in many ways the example was negative, in that Julius II, then, never had his great monument. He never even got the tomb that he was after, and that could have been just as much a warning to others. Rulers wanted these structures as tangible signs of their right to power at that moment.

If you knock everything down and then start from scratch and wait for this great thing to go up, you might find that you are going to have a hole in the ground for the time that you're in charge. That sort of caution might also have entered into lots of things that were done and been an effective rule to follow in the other direction.

Kurt W. Forster: There is another dimension, and that is, you can start something that will mortgage the future of your successor. Instead of trying to see it done while you and there, you just start the soup that will be eaten by your successor.

Christian F . Otto: At this point I'd like to bring up one of the issues that I mentioned at the outset, and that is the theme of painting and architecture. We talked about it in relation to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but the question exists not only in terms of painted architecture, or painting as architecture, but also in the ability to explore certain issues by means of paint, which then mayor may not go into architecture . We see Giulio as a painter and as an architect, but we see Palladio as only an architect; we see Le Corbusier as painter and architect, but we don't know perhaps what the relation is between those two worlds.

Bette Talvacchia: Something that hit me in Kurt Forster's discussion of the niches in the Laurenziana was that they embody a very sculptural approach to the making of an architectural form . If you are a

scu lptor, as well as a painter, as well as an architect, this will have an impact on the forms that you design, and on the way you build things. On the other hand, with Giulio ' s frescoes you can see architectural thinking going into the way he divided up the wall when a program had to be fitted into it; painted architecture became an important part of the decorative system. This is, perhaps, the common ground for practitioners such as Giulio Romano and Michelangelo, artists who were also architects and who were also sculptors. They could not squeeze themselves into restrictive categories in response to specific projects. In the case of the qualities of facades, the multidisciplinary background would also have an impact. If a designer was skilled in the manipulation of pictorial space, this would have an effect, for good or ill , on his massing of three dimensional forms . Of course with Palladio, that changes because he didn't have that sort of multifaceted training.

Margherita Azzi-Visentini: I think Palladio had a very close relationship with the people who decorated his buildings, and his work was harmonious with the kind of painted architectonic frame that you have in many of his interiors.

Bette Talvacchia: There is a difference between the compatibility of frescoes that fit nicely with an existing architecture, and the consequences of a thought process that moves back and forth from architecture to painting to sculpture at one and the same time.

Audience: Could you address the issue of copies? If one building is a copy of another, does it lose its force and authority? Or, can it take over some elements but not be imitative? In Calderari's case, his contemporaries specifically addressed this issue of his copying, but there was no agreement on the matter.

Martin Kubelfk : Obviously, something like the quality of the copy of the Palazzo Franco by Piovene demonstrates a different attitude toward imitation than the Palazzo Cordellina by Calderari. There is a distinction here. One is more or less a pure copy, the other-in Calderari ' s case-has more the spirit of an elaboration.

With further extensive discussion one could argue that every element in the Palazzo Cordell ina is a copy of not just an element, but of a certain way of thinking. There are the two obvious borrowings: on the one hand the overall disposition, which for the Palazzo Cordell ina comes from the Palazzo Barbaran, and the narrowing of the end bay that comes from the Palazzo Valmarana. From here you

could then argue that there is a dogmatizing of Palladio in the Palazzo Cordellina. So there is a distinct difference. But this sort of a distinction between the direct copy of a Barrera or a Piovene, as opposed to the dogmatism of a Calderari is a far finer point than the global point, which is much more important : namely, the attitude towards the copy, whic h obviously has degenerated between Calderari and Piovene. However, it is still there. It is the attitude towards the justification of copying something older. In other words, that "copyism" is equated with creativity, and that in fact you are a more creative person the better you can copy . And you are justified in destroying, you are justified in a total annihilation of what was there before, for the sake of this form of ' creativity'.

Audience: It's significant that his contemporaries were aware of that very issue. One of them compares Calderari to Palladio as Virgil is to Homer, saying that it's not a matter of copying.

Marlin Kubelfk: That is exactly the attitude that copying equals creativity. I don't have problems with the way Calderari docs certain things, I have a problem with that whole attitude of "creative" architectural thinking.

Kurt W. Forster: It is not really a copy from a number of points of view. But most significantly, and most immediately, it completely alters the proportions of the first to the second story in a way that brings it back to the conventional, far more familiar Roman high renaissance palace. In contrast, we have seen in both the Landshut and Thiene projects an extremely unusual rapport of proportions between these two elements, which are now re-c1assicized, harking back to previous models.

Martin Kuhelfk: I think, in fact, when you go outside Vicenza and you start to analyze the influence of the Quattro Libri and "fa sua eredita nef mondo," then, of course you come into a totally different situation.

Once you start examining the different sources for Chiswick House (the Rocca Pisani and the Rotonda), once you get into that form of influencing, you are in a different situation than within the hometown of Vicenza itself, and there is again a certain difference in the way you should look at a chauvinistically oriented pattern book of your city as opposed to the way it is seen from the outside. Calderari had totally different possibilities for assimilating Palladio than did Jefferson, for example, who never visited Vicenza and only knew Palladio through Leoni's reelaboration of the Quattro Libri. And in age they are only a few years apart-Jefferson and Calderari.

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Audience: There is also the question of the need of the Vicentine to react against the 'baroque' . Calderari and others were seen as 'liberators' of Vicenza.

Martin Kubelfk: But Vicenza never really had a ' baroque'.

Audience: There may have been a nationalistic feeling in the air at the time that would have pointed back to the Vicentine masters.

Marrin Kubelfk: 'Nationalistic' is far too generous: it wasn ' t 'nationalistic', but rather 'Iocalistic ' campanilismo to be exact.

Margherita A::i-Visentini: I think one of the great merits of Martin Kubelik's talk the other day was to show Palladio knocked off the pedestal, and actually to say that 'palladianism' is a word that doesn't mean anything, if one looks at how much weight the critics have given to the 'fortuna' of Palladio. This culminated in the 1980 exhibition where Palladio's . aftermath' was considered in the Veneto, in Verona, in Venice, in France, in England, in Switzerland, in Austria , in America, and finally, his heritage throughout the world. Now the only remaining step-in the era of the conquest of space-is to study Palladio in the universe. But short of that, looking at the historical fortune of Palladio, you cannot assert that Palladio had a 路school '.

Actually, Palladio's successor in Venice, Vincenzo Scamozzi, who worked for more or less the same families, reacted against him. It is enough to mention the Teatro Olympico and the Rocca Pisani . The presence of a few columns with pediments above them is not enough to label a building 'palladian' . But what is really without doubt is the fortune that Palladio has had in England, and the impact that the English interpretation of Palladio has had all over the western world . Obviously, eighteenth-century England was completely different from sixteenth-century Venice or Vicenza, so the two things are completely separate. At that moment in England, however, there was really the conscious desire to go back to Palladio. But Palladio was also the means to go back to Vitruvius, and in the middle there was Inigo Jones. So it's still a different thing.

It's quite an irony that the illustration in the Quattro Libri , where the ideal plan for the Rialto Bridge is published, is literally copied in many gardens in England on a very small scale as mere decoration, with a completely different intention. And actually, the case of Thomas 1efferson is also different. He is completely against colonial architecture along the lines of " English palladianism," yet he actually said "Palladio is my bible." And at the University of

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Virginia, he used this ' bible', but as an interpretation of antique architecture. So the Quallro Libri can be read in many, many ways. There is not only the Secondo Libro with the plans, but there is also Palladio 's interpretation of antiquity.

Audience: Finally in the end, how do you assess the effect of the Quatlro Libri? Was it a remarkable, spectacular disservice to the world of architecture?

If Palladio hadn't published this book, would we be much better off in the end?

Colin Rowe: You have to regard the Quallro Libri as a work of art that is as interesting to leaf through as it is, say, to listen to Beethoven's Diabelli variations, or something of that kind. It is a fugal sort of thing. I don't know what people mean when they say 'bible'. I would regard the Bible, too, as several works of art in the same binding. The English state did always identify itself with Venice, and particularly after the revolution of 1689. I think George II , on one occasion, complained that the aristocracy treated him as if he were a mere doge of Venice, and I think that is rather important. It seems to me that Palladio struck certain chords in the Protestant imagination that made him so universal.

And, then, there is also the story that when Lord Arundel was dying in Padua he was visited by John Evelyn, and Arundel advised Evelyn to read only three books really seriously: one would be Paolo Sarpi's history of the Council of Trent, which was dedicated, of course, to James I of England; the second was Galileo; the third book was Palladio, of course, and this almost made Palladio an honorary Protestant.

Audience: What are the implications of the didactic success of Palladio's Quallro Libri? Was the treatise successful in getting across a certain thought process about architecture?

Martin Kubelfk: I do not think that in the words "didactic success" there is an implication of quality.

I am extremely critical of exactly that "didactic success" because of the questionable quality that it very often produces. We could now enter into a lengthy discussion, which I suppose I provoked in a way, about exactly what it is that makes this "didactic success." And let me repeat something I said in the lecture, and there I was referring exclusively to the Second Book: what counts is the skill with which you can creatively digest the things you learn directly from the didactic abstractions.

One should not forget-which I think all of us tend to forget-that the original audience for Palladio's book was his clientele. In other words, he

is primarily interested , despite the fact that he is already sixty-two, in educating potential clients, be it for himself-I don't know how generous a man he was--or for his successors as architects. He thus addresses Venetians, Vicentines and so on. It is very clear from his dedication to Angaran that it is his primary clientele that he is thinking of; he is not thinking of the Thomas 1effersons and the Inigo 10neses. So he is addressing a clientele with a given knowledge about architectural practice , about architectural values in the Vicentino, in the Veneto.

These values which were everyday knowledge to the clients are lost to us today.

In the Quallro Libri, Palladio is on the one hand not including what was general knowledge, and on the other hand trying to propagate a certain way of thinking. So we really have these two unknowns within the one known-what we read in the book.

The complexity of the issue is increased when you add to it the consideration about rhetoric; reading Palladio you have to understand what every word means, what every phraseology meant in sixteenthcentury literary conventions.

Audience: I understand that you ' re talking about limiting the scope and purpose of the Quallro Libri.

Is it possible that Palladio, as publisher and theorist, did not understand or fully appreciate the implications of the fact that once a book was published it could be republished, and that it was not written once , for a certain generation, but rather for succeeding generations?

Marrin Kubelfk: I don't think it' s a question of Palladio's understanding. The issues you raise could not have been on his mind.

Kurt W. Forster: Actually, what are the Quallro Libri being compared to? That's my question. There is no book like Palladio's published before Palladio published his that could be fairly compared with it.

So what are we comparing it to? It is certainly not a Serlio, certainly not a 1521 edition of Vitruvius, it's not a Scammozzi either. It's a most extraordinary production which relates very much, I believe, to contemporary scientific practices. The comparison to books of medicine and physics is not merely a generalized comparison made loosely within the history of printing.

I think it is absolutely extraordinary in its dual ambition, not so much to preserve forever-as though capped in a bottle for all future times-what Palladio may have wanted to do, but to sell ancient architecture as an authority totally reinterpreted in its significance.

It sells, in a sense, ancient architecture as modem architecture. That's a very interesting operation that

goes far beyond any kind of sampling of ancient buildings, the question of the orders, or methods for constructing the parts of a building. This is actually a fabulously inventive idea, which turns itself into a work of art, one that makes you see how the book was laid out, how the plates were built. In other words, the plates themselves-in the way things are proportioned relative to one another, the kind of underlying grids used to organize the impagination of sections and elevations, etc. , the order in which they were produced-manifest the very same matrix of thinking that also produced the architecture. There is, in tum, an extremely significant recognition of the difference between the printed page with a representation of architecture and real architecture itself. But this difference can probably be handled very effectively by creating the representation of architecture out of the same matrix of thinking as the buildings themselves.

Audience: Are you saying that there was no kind of consciousness of entrepreneurship or quest for immortality?

Kurt W. Forster: Of course there was in putting out a book with this enormous investment of labor, of money, of effort, of thought, of planning. Compared to Palladio's four books, Serlio is a rip-off.

Margherita Azzi-Visentini: So much also is due, in my opinion, to chance. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, Inigo Jones, Harry Walton, and many others came to the Veneto and actually looked at Venetian instead of Roman architecture; and there are political and religious reasons. Yet it is only starting in 1715, with the publication of the two important books, the Vitruvius Britanicus of Colin Campbell and the Quatlro Libri of Giacomo Leoni, the monumental editions, that this new view gets its start. I think it's very interesting to read what Giacomo Leoni says to justify his improvements and additions to Palladio's plates. He said we made the proper adjustments to make the buildings suitable to the English people at the start of the eighteenth century. If you compare the illustrations in the Quallro Libri and Giacomo Leoni's plates, you realize that in a certain sense he added a 'baroque' touch to these plates. So it started like that, and then it is a matter of context.

Martin Kubelfk: At the same time, there is something that I would like you to think about: Why is it that Leoni ' s translation had so much more success than the first translation of Palladio, the French translation published a century earlier? It was the first, and it had the original plates reproduced from the original

wood blocks. Why was that so much less influential, so much less successful?

Margherita Azzi-Visentini: In that moment, really, Palladio became a symbol-Palladio already being English by way of Inigo Jones-for radical change in architecture expressing opposition to France at the start of the Georgian era.

Colin Rowe: In England, I think it was very largely a fiction of Lord Burlington, the idea that Inigo Jones was so dependent upon Palladio, because his work is rather remote from Palladio. Inigo Jones is dependent upon Serlio and Scamozzi.

Christian F. Otto: I would think the question of publication, and of the relationship of buildings to one another, would strike a resonant note here since Cornell is always considered a school that teaches design on the basis of historic precedent. I'm not sure what that means, but a lot of words have been thrown out that somehow relate to that : the word 'copy', the word ' imitate', on the one hand, and on the other hand discussion about transforming the specific historic precedent. Clearly the historic precedent relates to certain kinds of site conditions.

Also one hears about strategies of appropriation. In other areas one hears about representation in terms of architectural response to other architecture.

If in a history class you practice a strategy of appropriation and you don ' t make the proper acknowledgement, you are going to run into a lot of trouble with your research paper. Somebody is going to 'red mark' it and bring you in front of the committee on academic integrity for plagiarism . In studio, you are encouraged to proceed in this fashion.

I would have thought that this whole issue of such interactions would have generated a lot of soul searching about what it is to have a relationship with the past.

Audience: When you criticize architects for taking elements from history, is it because they take these bits and pieces literally, without 'processing' history?

Where is the place for knowledge of the past?

Martin Kube/{k: You are implying the question ' why learn history in a school of architecture?'. I don', think it's a question of the literal copy; a literal copy may be justified. The question is the basic attitude.

A literal copy that is the product of soul searching may well be the right solution. What I am really looking for is a certain honest attitude. A literal copy can also express an honest attitude. My criticism is not directed at what is copied, but to the attitude with which it is done, the creative integrity with which it

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

is done. And that is something that none of us can teach you, be it in the studio, be it in history. We can give you the historical way of dealing with things, which shows you that Palladio faced the same problems-and even found great solutions-that you will face once you are out in the field. We can only show you what we think is an honest creative attitude.

We cannot teach that.

Kurt W. Forster: I believe that your question more explicitly addressed what makes the difference in the use of historical forms, whatever they may be, between their arbitrary application and a reflectedwhat you called processed-application. It would be, I think , unfair to say that Palladio does not transform the use and meaning in his employment of particular motifs as well as larger conceptual entities. He certainly does. It's not the least part of his creative imagination. So does, of course, Giulio Romano. But I think it would be at your own peril. or that of Mr. Graves and company, to take liberties with it; to put a health club in a reconstruction of the mausoleum of Augustus, to put three- or four-story high obelisks, with big dishes on top that emit flames and water, in front of the ziggurat of the hotel in Miami . What does that do?

That makes a funereal monument to all hotel dreams ever conceived. Anybody with any memory of those forms would immediately realize that this is the most lugubriously designed hotel that anyone could come across in the world. Right? And this is where the quarrel lies. For one passing moment you were trying to latch onto the residual power, the meaning, and the significance still supposedly vested in a form like the obelisk, only to use it in such a way that in the next moment the obelisk can become a sphere, the sphere can also be a hotel, a portal, or whatever, until finally it becomes meaningless. That's why it's so highly fashionable to do. I can tell you without being the least bit the prophet that this approach will disappear because it destroys its own foundations at the very moment when it uses them. That's what's happening. So you've got to realize that the transformation of historically determined material has to be supported by more than a personal predilection or a momentary usefulness. It really has got to have some thinking in it , and if you have thinking in it, then you can do absolutely extraordinary things.

Bette Talvacchia: I want to say one more thing about a reason for studying these historical forms and buildings, and then what you do with the knowledge.

There is another way of processing this information, and I can think of a completely different kind of solution. To recall what Carlo Scarpa did at the Castel Vecchio in Verona is to see him entering into a

dialogue with the past because he understands it thoroughly. He's not imitating forms, he's not mimicking things, but he uses shapes and materials that are absolutely modem, yet collaborate with the building as it stands. I think that comes from a complete understanding of history.

Kurt W. Forster: Scarpa did not have freshman year int roductory courses where these things are rammed into your head, but he enjoyed a continuous communion with the things themselves.

In fact, I would dare say architecture is far less explicitly articulated in its theoretical framework and in its descriptive detail in Italy than you would find in most places in the United States. Here, architecture is a construct in the first place, and you very often have to disregard so much of the real experiential context that Palladio-or whoever it may be-is sitting on a precarious ledge. This is fundamentally different from living in a culture in which Scarpa's achievement is possible, where it's even possible for craftsmen to have a fine sense for such things.

Audience: It's incomprehensible to me how some schools of architecture pretend to teach the design of building without having an in house program in the history of architecture at a high level. I don't see how it can be done, because you are talking about the bricks of the mind. It's also rather funny to hear people talking about literal as opposed to phenomenal uses of ideas. I don't think that what we are about is literally using those ideas that were on the screen.

Audience: I'd like to return to the idea of painting and architecture, just using the Sistine ceiling as somewhere to start from . I was wondering when you would consider that a work like that stops being architecture. Is it architecture because it's a representation of architectural elements, or is it a matter of who produces it, for example, if it 's designed by an architect or designed by a craftsman? Is there a line that can be drawn?

Bette Talvacchia: Maybe we could start with thinking about the Sistine ceiling . There has been a very good idea that the whole ceiling came into being in its elaborate form after having started as a simpler idea. Then it became more elaborate because of Michelangelo's wanting to have done something else; the painting of the ceiling became a way of making the tomb for Julius II that never got made .

There were these structural ideas that were in Michelangelo's mind, and yet the materials that he had at the moment were paint and plaster. So he was thinking about form, and how he was going to

change the space of that structure, but he did it through the medium of paint. You get architectural thinking in this case because you're thinking about dividing up space, yet with architectural elements that are painted. And it again comes from this training that has disegno as the basis. You work out the concept in the available materials, but you start with this basic design.

Colin Rowe: I often have thought it would be entertaining and useful if one took the diagram of the Sistine ceiling and took the De Slijl palette of primary colors-plus white and black-and rendered an abstraction of the cei Iing. I suspect it might come up looking very much like late Mondrian.

Audience: In looking at two architects who come from very different backgrounds--one a stonemason, the other a painter-how do you see that reflected in their attitudes toward form and also in the question of context?

Martin KubeUk: I would like to try to answer the question in a harder way: namely, let's leave Giulio and Palladio out of it, and Michelangelo-let's leave him out of it too. I would like to first give you the very pragmatic answer (which I don ' t like) that obviously an architect trained as a stonemason or craftsman will probably not design a skylight that leaks. But on the more serious note I would argue that it is the individual-the capabilities, the talent, call it what you will-of the individual, which ultimately makes a good architect.

I do not deny for one moment that a good school of architecture has a lot to do with it. But talking about the difference between craftsman and painter, I think that if someone knows how to feel and to see space, he will be ab le to generate that in architecture whether he has been trained to paint, or whether he has been trained to chip away. Something slightly different would come out, and he would approach problems in a different way, but that creative genius within that person will push itself out whether he learns to see space on the canvas or knocks away at some stones in a building. I'm convinced of this. I would say even Cornell can't send someone out if that person has no creativity, no talent, no capabilities of three dimensional thinking and so on. Yes, a good school will help foster that talent, in fact, encourage and support the individual, pick up where he is good, and gently guide him in that direction . But I am equally convinced that this individual creativity, this individual's geni us can be squashed; it can be destroyed by a bad school.

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Notes GridlFrame/LatlicelWeb: Giulio Romano's Palazzo Maccarani and the Sixteenth Century

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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Frederick Hartt, Giulio Romano (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958),45.

Such as Corrado Ricci, L' Archiltetura del Cinquecento in Italia (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1923) and Julius Baum, Baukunst lind dekorative Plastik der Hoch-und Spatrenaissance in Italien (Stungart: Julius Hoffmann, 1920).

See Nikolaus Pevsner. Outline oj European Architecture (London: John Murray, 1948).

See Pietro Ferrio and Giovan Battista Falda, Palazzi di Roma (Famborough: Gregg Press. 1967).

C. L. Frommel. "Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia," Raffaello Architello (Milano: Electa, 1984), 162.

Hant. Giulio Romano, 65.

Paolo Portoghesi, Rome oJthe Renaissance (London: Phaidon Press, 1972), 358.

Hartt, Giulio Romano, 62.

Hant, Giulio Romano, 65.

A very obvious case in point would be Piero della Francesca's Flagellation .

Sydney Joseph Freedberg. Painting oJthe High Renaissance in Rome and Florence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 554.

However, scarcely a sufficient coincidence to encourage the postu lation of some all-devouring and convulsive Hegelian Zeitgeist.

Hant, Giulio Romano, 90.

Attributed to Vignola; the reconstruction afterthe bombardment ofVelletri in World War II has radically altered these readings.

Portoghesi, Rome oJ the Renaissance, 225.

Gustavo Giovannoni. Antonio da Sangallo (Rome: Tipographica Regionale, 1959),49.

H. Millon and C. H. Smith, Michelangelo Architelto (Mi lan: Olivetti, 1988),6.

Charles De Tolnay , Michelangelo ' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975),3 I. De Tolnay, Michelangelo, 24.

Hartt. Giulio Romano, 47.

De Tolnay, Michelan~elo, 31.

Hartt dates the completion of the Sala di Constantino to no later than October 1524 as Giulio was to be in Mantova later that same month (Hant, Giulio Romano, 45). De Tolnay cites the beginning of the construction of the Medici Tombs as the spring of 1524 (De Tolnay, Michelangelo, 38).

Palazzo dei lucidi inganni: Palaooo Te a Mantova. Quaderni di Psiconll (Mantua: Museo Civico, 1976), and Bette L. Talvacchia's doctoral dissertation,"Giu lio Romano 's Sala di Troia: A Synthesis of Epic Narrative and Emblematic Imagery" (Stanford: Stanford University, 1981). Most recently, Amedeo Belluzzi edited the exhibit ion catalogue Giulio Romano (Mantua: Electa, 1989).

Professor Tal vacchia also contri buted to the Giu Iio Romanoexhibition catalogue under Belluzzi 's editorship. For convenience's sake. frequent reference is made to this catalogue and its bibliographic sources rather than to earlier works.

I am very grateful to the Getty Cemer staff in Santa Monica, especially to photographer Don Williamson and the bibliographers working underthe direction of J. M. Ede lstein and Urs ula W. Martin. for their invaluable and generous assistance. My greatest debt is to Denise Bratton for her criticism and editorial care. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Cornell University Department of Architecture. its chair, faculty , students. and staff, and to Professor Christian F. Ono. who chaired the Preston Thomas Lecturecomminee.

The lectures of 1986 also paid tribute to Professor Martin Kubelfk 's tenure at the school, and I join his colleagues in extending warm wishes forthe Viennese future of an old friend. Our common interest in the revision of Palladio scholarship prompted us to organize a conference in Rome in 1977 and to publish its proceedings in Palladia : Ein Symposium, eds. Kurt W. Forster and Martin Kubelfk, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana XVIII (Rome: Swiss Institute in Rome, 1980).

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8 9 Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio on Comm"n Ground: The Palazzo Thiene and the Basilica at Vicenza The Preston Thomas Lectures offered a rare and enjoyable opportunity for a stimulating discussion of the architecture ofGiu lio Romano and Andrea Palladio, a subject which continues to exercise its fascination on students today. Long-standing interest in the historic mediation of architectural ideas gave rise to lively exchanges among speakers and discussants, prompting me to revise the text of my lecture in response to queries and comments posed during the proceedings. It is now twenty years since I began my research on Giulio's arch itecture in collaboration with Richard J. Tuttle (see our initial article, "The Palazzo del Te," in Journal oj the Society oj Architectural Historians 30 (1971): 275-279). What appeared then to be a break with the tradition of Giulio scholarship has come to inform much recent work on the subject, like Amedeo Belluzzi 's II

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Nikolaus Pevsner. "The Architecture of Mannerism," in The Mint I ( 1946): 135. 141.

Rudolf Witlkower, Architectural Principles in the Age oj Humanism , Sludies oj the Warburg In slitute (London: Warburg Institute, 1949),75.

See Amedeo Belluzzi and Kurt W. Forster, "Giulio Romano archi teno alia corte dei Gonzaga," in Giulio Romano, exhibition catalogue (Milan : Electa, 1989), 177-225.

Andrea Palladio, I Quallro Libri delf'Architellura (Venice, 1570), II: 3.

See the highly synthetic account by Howard Bums in Andrea Palladio. /508-1580. Tire Portico and the Farmyard, exhibition catalogue (London: Arts Counci l of Great Britain.

1975),69ff.

Palladio. QuallroLibri I: 5; this and all othertranslations are by the author.

See Donata Battilotti, Vicenza al tempo di Andrea Palladio allraverso i libri dell'estimo del 1563, 1564 (Vicenza: Accademia Olimpica, 1980).

Baniloti, Vicenza altempo di Andrea Palladio , 49f.

See Stanislaus von Moos, Turm und Bollwerk. Beitrage Oil einer politisclren Ikonographie der italienischen RenaissancearchiteklUr (ZUrich: Atlantis Verlag, 1974), esp. 83-98.

IIIigoJones on Palladio , beillg the IIotes by Inigo Jones in the copyoJI Quallro Libri del architettura di Andrea Palladio , 160 I, in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford, ed. by B. Allsopp (Newcastle-upon-Tyne : Oriel Press, 1970). I: 2 1; II: 14; see also Kurt W. Forster and Richard J. Tuttle, "Giulio Romano e Ie prime opere vicentine del Palladio," in Bollellino del Celltro Internazionale di Studi di Arehitellura. Andrea Palladio 15 (1973),107-1 19.

Lionello Puppi , Andrea Palladio(Milan: Electa, 1973). II: 251.

On these issues cf. Kurt W. Forster and Richard J. Tuttie, "The Casa Pippi : Giulio Romano's House in Mantua," in Archilectura 3 (1973), esp. 112f.

See especially Christoph L. Frommel in Giulio Romano, exhibition catalogue, 296.

Sebastiano Serlio on Domestic Architecture, ed. by Myra N.

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Rosenfeld (Cambridge, MA and London: Architectural History Foundation, 1978), L1Vf. For other examples. see e.g. Bums, Andrea Palladio, 230f.

See Giangiorgio Zorzi, Le opere pubbliche e i palazzi privali di Andrea Palladio (Venice: N. Pozza, 1965),204-212; Lionello Puppi , Andrea Palladio, 25 1-254; family tree by Giovanni da Schio in the private archives of Count Clemente di Thiene, Thiene; Giovanni Mantese. "La famiglia Thiene e la riforma protestame a Vicenza nella seconda meta del secolo XVI." in Odeo Olimpico VIII. 81-86.

Private Archives of Count Clememe di Thiene. Thiene, mazzo LXXVI. 2109; see especially document dated 18 November 1542.

See Zorzi, Andrea Palladio, 2 12f.

The same is likely to hold for other Thiene projects of the early I 540s. I fully agree with Howard Bums' recent attribution of the initial concept of the Villa Thiene in Quinto. and of the tomb monument for Lavinia Thiene (died 1542) in the Cathedral of Vicenza to Giulio Romano (see Giulio Romano. exhibition catalogue, 506-509).

See Kurt W. Forster, " ll palazzodi Landshut," inGiulio Romano, ex.hibition catalogue, 512-515, with bibliography. I am preparing a comprehensive study of the summer palace at Landshut.

Count Ludwig 's letter to his brother Wilhelm IV is preserved in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Munich (K.schw. 8/1a) and was first published by Ono Hartig, "Ludwig X. der Erbauer der Landshuter Residenz. in Mantua." Beitrage zur Ge-schichte der Deutschen Kunst I ( 1924): 266.

Mamua. Archivio di Stato, A.G. busta 514.

Felix Mader. Die Kunsldenkmaler von Niederbayern , Stadt Landshut. Die Kunstdenkmiiler von Bayem. XVI (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1927).424.

See Alois Mitterwieser, " Die Baurechnungen der Renaissance Stadt-Residenz in Landshut (1536- 1543)," in MonatsheJte Jur KunsIWissenschaJt XV. I ( 1922): 122- 136.

See Giulio Romano, exhibition catalogue. 502-509.

Cf. Giulio' s autograph memoriale on the project in the minute book of the Vicentine city council (A.T., Liber Partium, l, 144146). The entry was first published by Antonio Magrini , Memorie intorno alia vita e Ie opere di Andrea Palladio (Padua: Tipogafia del Seminario. 1845), appendix. xxxi-xxxii.

Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de'piu eccellellli pillori scultori ed archilellori , ed. Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: G. C. Sanson i.

1906). V: 524.

For details of the decision making process and Vicenza ' s attitude towards holding the council , see Mantese, Memorie storiehe della chiesa vicelllina ( 1964), 3: 89-96.

4 Emilio Franzina. Vicenoa. Storia di una citta. 140 / - 1866 (Vicenza: N. Pozza. 1980).

5 " " processo di formazione dell ' organismo urbano--processo di cui non e sempre facile raccogliere e coordinare Ie spesso contradditorie teslimonianze - dove va aver comunque seguito

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Andrea Palladio's Vicenza: Urban Architecture and the Continuity of Change Venice ' s shift in interest toward the lerraJerma provinces was directly linked to the decline in economic potential in the Levant. SeeStuartJ. Woolf, " VeniceandTerraferma, Problems of the Change from Commercial to Landed Activities." in Bollelino delf'lslituto di slOria della societa e della SlOto Veneziano ( 1962), 415-441.

2 The generally accepted dates of a university in Vicenza are 1205- 1209, with an international faculty . For further details and a list of the original faculty members see. Giovanni Mantese, Memorie storiche della chiesa vicentina (Vicenza: Scuola tip. lnstituto S. Gaetano, 1954),2: 460-463 . The official foundation date of the university in Padua is 1222. For the relationship between the Vicentine and Paduan universities see Attilio Simioni, Storia di Pad01'(l (Padua: G. e P. Randi, 1968), 421-422.

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a Vicenza Ie grandi linee di sviluppo solite ad una gran parte delle citta ' medievali ' dell 'occidente." Franco Barbieri.

Vicenoa gotica: Ie mura (Vicenza. 1984).7.

SeeGiam Paolo Marchini. Vicenoa romana. slOria , topografia, monumellli (Verona. 1979).

See also for extensive measured drawings Giuseppe Cerelia.

Renzo Arcaro and Antonio Sandri. /I Berga. Teatro romano: storia e rilievi: I (Vicenza: Camera di Commercio, industria. cotigiarto e agricoltura, 1980).

RIBA X/lr and X/2v. London.

Vitruvius.ldieci libri dell' archilellura di M. Vitruvio. tradulli e t commentari do monsignor Barbaro elello patriarca d'aquileggia (Venice, 1556), 154.

See Barbieri. Vicenza gotica: Ie mura. 27.

See Barbieri. ~ 'icenza gotica: Ie mura, 67.

See Franco Barbieri . Renato Cevese and Licisco Maganato, Guida di Vicenza (Vicenza: Eretenia, 1956), 160.

See Barbieri , Vicenza gotica: Ie mura. 67.

For the so-called Castello Scaligero see Barbie ri . Vicenza gotica: Ie mura, 54-66.

See Marisa Fantin, Marina Marzono and Irene Pangrazi, Tesi di Laurea (Venice: Istituto Universitariodi Architettura. 198283).

RIBA XV I l3r. London.

See Barbieri, Vicenza gotica: Ie mura, 79-96.

For more detailed summaries of the urban development of Vicenza up to the sixteenth century see, apan from the literature cited in notes 4 and 5, Franco Barbieri , Vicen za. storia di un'avventura urbana (Milano: Silvana. 1982); Vicenoa Cilia bellissima. icollografia vicelllilla a stampa dal XV al XIX secolo, ed. Attilio Carta et al. (Vicenza: Biblioteca civica bertoliana. 1983); Mario Coppa, Vicenza lIella storia della strullura urbana: Piano del celllro storieD (Venice: Cluva.

1969).

Literature on Palladio has been growing at an immense rate ever since the sixteenth century. It is impossible to even attempt to give the essemial titles here. For such a survey see Deborah Howard, "Four Centuries of Literature on Palladio," in Joumal oJthe Society ojArchitectural Historians 39 ( 1980), 3: 224-241. For general survey works in the English Language see James S. Ackerman, Palladio (Harmondsworth: Penguin.

1966); Lionello Puppi, Andrea Palladio, The Complele Works (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1975); Walter M. Whitehill and Frederick D. Nichols,PalladioinAmerica(Milan: Electa, 1976).

For a survey of his public buildings see Giangiorgio Zorzi. Le opere pubbliche e i palazzi privati di Andrea Palladio (Venice: N. Pozza, 1965).

For literature on Palladio's palaces see notes 19 and 20 and also Herbert Pee,Die Palaslbouten des Andrea Palladio (WUrzburgAumlihle: K. TrillSch, 1941).

See James S. Ackerman, "Palladio 's Vicenza: A Bird's-Eye Plan of c. 157I ," in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque , presented to Anthony Blunt (London , 1967), 56-{)1 ; Franco Barbieri , La pianta prospellica di Vieenza del 1580 (Vicenza: N. Pozza, 1973).

Foracritical re-edition seeGiovanbattista Dragon zino.Nobiito di Vicellza , ed. Franco Barbieri and F1avio Fiorese (Vicenza: N.

Notes Pozza, 1981).

24 For a further summary, with small reproductions of iconographic sources ofVicenza from the sixteenth througheighteenth centuries, see Ugo Soragni, "Fonti e documenti per la storia de Vicenza nei secoli XVI-XVIII." in Storia della cilia 4 (1970): 67-87.

25 For further literature on this palace see Barbieri, Cevese and Magagnato. Guida di Vicenza. 117; Franco Barbieri, Vicenza gotica: iI privato (Vicenza. 1981).56-61; Antonietta Calvi.

"Innussi dell 'architettura gotico-veneziano a Vicenza." Tesi di Laurea (Padua: Universita degli Studi di Padova, 1970-71): 77-83.

26 According to the classification by Barbieri, Vicenza gotica: iI privato, 102- 108, based on the fundamental works of John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (London, 1853), and Edoardo Arslan. Vene:ia gatica. I'architettura ci\'ile gOliea vene:iana (Mi lano: Electa, 1970).

27 For this palace see Barbieri, Cevese and Magagnato. Guida di Vicen za, 120-121.

28 For Palladio's relationship to classical antiquity see Heinz Spielmann, Andrea Palladio und die Antike (MUnchen and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1966); Giangiorgio Zorzi. I disegni delle antichita di Andrea Palladio (Venice: N. Pozza.

1959).

29 Renato Cevese. I modelli della mostra del Palladio (M ilan: Electa. 1976), 92- 95.

30 Andrea Palladia. I Quallro Libri dell' Architellura (Venice, 1570), reprinted Milan 1945. and following editions.

31 Martin Kubelik. "Per una nuova lettura del secondo libro di Andrea Pal1adio." in Bollellino del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architellura, Andrea Palladio 21 (1979): 177- 197; and " Palladios Werk im Spannungsfeld zwischen BauRealisation und Bau-Publikation," in Bauforum 86 (1981/9): 13-22.

32 There is sti ll no monograph on the Palazzo Valmarana- Braga.

For readings see q.v. in the bibliography in notes 19 and 21.

33 Palladia. Quallro Libri, II: 16.

34 Ackerman. Palladio's Vicenza, 109, Fig. 59.

35 The given net room dimensions at this point add up to 68', to which two narrow rooms ÂŤ10' each. approximately 7') and 6 wal1 thicknesses have to be added. The wall thicknesses of the executed part of the palace. which, within the accuracy of the woodcuts in. Palladio. Quallro Libri, 11 : 16, could be compared to the ones perpendicular to the garden, vary from 62.25 cm to 62.65 cm, i.e. approx. 1.8 venetian feet. Adding these estimated dimensions to the ones given by Palladio, the side of the garden next to the palace would be approximately 93'; so close to the mean between Palladio's figures of 60' and 120'. that it is impossible to know which of the two dimensions Palladio intended for the palace side of the garden. The author would like to thank Elwin Robison, Kent State University, for his kind permission to use his, as yet unpUblished, accurate measurements of the existing wall thicknesses in the Palazzo ValmaranaBraga.

36 The date given for the Palazzo Vahnarana-Braga is 1565, for the Palazzo Barabaran-<la Porto 1569- 1570; for both dates see Puppi, Andrea Palladio, 369 and 393 respectively.

37 No monograph exists for the Palazzo Barbaran-<la Porto, for readings see q.v. in the bibliography cited in notes 19 and 21.

38 "Hora questa Gentil'huomo ha comprato il sito uicino; onde si serua I'istessoordine in tutte due Ie parti; e si come da una parte ui sono Ie stalle, e luoghi per seruitori, (come si uede nel disegno) cosi dall'altra ui uanno stanze che seruiranno per cucina, e luoghi da donne, & per altre commoditil. Si ha giil cominciato afabricare, & e si fa la facciata secondo il disegno

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

39

40

41 42

43

44

45

che segue in forma grande. Non ho posta ancho il di segnodella pianta. secondo che e stato ultimamente concluso, e secondo che sono hormai state gettate Ie fondamenta. per no hauere potuto farlo intagliare a tempo, che si potesse stampare."

Palladio. Quallro Libri. II : 22.

The fact that Palladia was designing with the real istic urban situation in mind, can be seen in a series of drawings (RIBA XVVl4r, London), where the angle between the Contra Porti and the Contra Riale is respected. However, all three of these plans also presume the building to cover the area of the still extant earlier part of the family palace.

Forthe Palazzo Thiene see Renato Cevese, I palazzi dei Thiene. sede della Banca Popolare di Vicenza (Vicenza: Banca Popolare. 1952); Licisco Magagnato.Palazzo Thiene,sededella Banca Popolare di Vicenza (Vicenza: Banca Popolare, 1966).

For a ful1 understanding of this palace a new question has entered the picture. Doubts as to the authorship of Palladio as the "architect" of the commissions used as departure points in his theoretical work have been shown to be justified for this building through documentation. It was designed by another architect. Giulio Romano, and only executed by Palladia (Kurt W. Forster. "Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladia on Common Ground: The Palazzo Thiene and the Basilica in Vicenza." in The Cornell l ournal of Architecture 4 (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1990): 22-39). This means, that the distance between the 'executed' reality of a building presented in its ' theoretical' reality in the Quallro Libri is larger than hitherto presumed. and that the freedom in the didactic adaptation is not necessarily always encumbered by a personal involvement in the existing building. As regards problems of attribution. this opens a new dimension in the son of questions that have to be answered, and it also eliminates once and for all the Quallro Libri as undeniable evidence that a building as standing is in fact by Palladia. Some of the buildings where doubts have been expressed in the past. and which will now have to be reanalyzed in al1 these respects, are the Villa Barbaro at Maser (see Norbert Huse, " Palladio und die Villa Barbaro in Maser: Bemerkungen zum Problem der Autorenchaft," inArte Veneta 28( 1974): 106-122; Martin Kubelik. "Gliedifici palladiani nei disegni del magistrato veneto dei beni inculti ," in Bollellino del Centro Internazionaledi Stadi di Architellura,Andrea Palladio 16 (1974): 445-465), and the Villa Sarego at Santa Sofia di Pedemonte (here the doubls have centered around the stylistic relationship of this villa to Palladia's Oeuvre, and ils closer connection to the language of Sanmicheli, without expressing direct doubts as to Palladia as the designer); for a summary of the extensive literature and these problems see Renato Cevese, "Andrea Palladia in Valpolicella: La villa Serego di S. Sofia." in Annuario Storico della Valpolicella (1984-85), 67-100.

Palladia, Quallro Libri, II : 13.

Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, 6.3.II.quoted in the translation by Morris Hicky Morgan (New York: Dover Publications, 1960). 180. (Original edition, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1914.)

Bat if due to tightness . .. , quoted according to the Barbaroedition (Venice, 1574),294.

See Donata Battilotti, Vicell:a al tempo di Andrea Palladio, attraverso i libri dell' estimo del 1563 e 1564 (Vicenza: Academia Olympica. 1980).

See here p. 44. point 2. There is a 1637 plan of the Palazzo Valmarana-Braga (Vicenza. Villa Almerico-Capra-Val marana.

"La Rotonda." West room) showing a close to rectangular garden, which reaches as far as the Contra Riale in the north.

The whole palace plan is, however, regularized with right angles not existing in reality. The speculati ve solution shown

46

47 48

49 50

51

52

53

54 55

56 57

58

59

here, therefore takes the general location of the garden on this plan into account, without adhering to its regularity.

For the Palazzo da Porto-Festa see Erik Forssman, II palazzo da Porto Festa di Vicenza . trans. Catherine Enggass (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973).

For a graphic comparison see Cevese, I modelli della mostra del Palladia. 21 - 31.

For a discussion on the possibilities ofthe original commission in relationship to the functions ofthe palace see the bibliography in note 31.

Barbieri , Cevese and Magagnato. Guida di Vicenza, 114.

"Questo palazzo non doveva figurare come una quinta (cfr. palazzo Valmarana) (. .. ) e percio fu situato prescindendo dall'andamento della strada rispetto agli edifici vicini; sporge a sinistra e rientra a destra, dando netta la sensazione di essere la fronte di un profondo blocco architettonico." Barbieri, Cevese, and Magagnato, Guida di Vicen:a. 113.

However, Palladio takes a similar attitude towardsonhogonality in two drawings (RIBA XV!lr and XVI/8r, London), considered projects for the Palazzo Thiene- Bonin- Longare, to be built, after Palladia 's death, by Vincenzo Scamozzi. For this attribution and the palace see Paolo Carpeggiani. Silvia Grandi Varsori, and Piero Morselotto, II palazzo Thiene Bonin Logare, sede dell' assoeia:ione industriale della provincia di Vicenza (Vicenza: N. Pozza, 1982). However, Douglas Lewis, The Drawing s of Andrea Palladio (Washington DC : The Foundation, 1981), I II , considers these drawings as projects for the Palazzo da Pono.

For a summary of Palladia ' s attitude to the casa privata degli antichi, his interpretation ofVitruvius and subsequent literature on these, see Licisco Magagnato and Paola Marini, Andrea Palladia, I Quattro Libri dell' Architettura (Mi lan: 11 Polifilo, 1980). 465-466, nOle 2.

For a brief discussion of the historiography of this distinctive element of the Palazzo Chiericati see Puppi, Andrea Palladia.

283-284.

For this palace see note 51 .

The urban situation is not totally comparable: the current side facade of the Palazzo Thiene- Bonin- Longare faces onto an area of the Piazza Castello which does not have the identical historical urban definition as the Piazza detta I'lsola. Ascan be clearly seen from the Pianta Angelica (see note 22). pans of the defensive system at the Pona Castello filled the area of the current north end of the square; and a plan from 1781 (Vicenza, Biblioteca Benoliana, Mappe # 600) defines that area as a street rather than a square. But the basic choice of the orientation of the palace and the development of a parti, which then had to go through communal permission (see literature in note 56) to achieve an urban statement was there in both cases, and Palladia did choose the other option at the Palazzo Chiericati.

Zorzi. Le opere pubbliche e i palazzi privati di Andrea Palladio, 196.

For a reconstructive summary, using historic iconographic sources see Paolo Balbi et aI., "Schiera di edifici che separa Piazza Matteotti dal fiume," in Ordine degli architetti della prol'incia di Vicenza, Concorso di studi salfarea di Piazza Matteotti (Vicenza, 1985), 161 - 175.

For the chronology of the completion of the palace and the avai lable documentation see Zorzi , Le opere pabbliche e i pala::i privati di Andrea Palladia , 200.

RIBA Vlll/llr, XVIV5rand XVII/8r. London; Oxford, Worcester College Library. H.T. 93. The position of these drawings in the design process is discussed in Lewis, The Drawings of Andrea Palladia, 158- 162; Puppi. Andrea Palladia , 281-286; Zorzi, Le opere pubbliche e i palazzi primti di Andrea Palladia, 197-

198, 60 Palladia. Quattro Libri, 1I: 6-7.

61 Stuttgart, WUntembergische Landesbibl iothek. Cod.hist.Q.148.

Various aspects of the relevance of this drawing are discussed in Erich Hubala, "Palladia und die Baukunst in Deutschland im 17. Jahrhundert," in Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura, Andrea Palladia 3 (1964): 38-44; Martin Kubel(\(, " Per una nuova lettura del secondo libro di Andrea Palladia," in Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura, Alldrea Palladia 21 (1979): 188; GUnter Schweikhart, "Zur Wirkung Palladios in Mitteleuropa." in Actes du XXlle Congres International d 'Histoire de fArt I (Budapest, 1972): 677-684.

62 Paolo Balbi et. aI., "Genesi forma le & Considerazioni sulla forma di Palazzo Chiercati in rapporto all'intomo urbano." in Ordinedegli architetti della prOl'illcia di Vicell:a, COllcorsodi studi sull'area di Piazza Matteotti, 86-94; 95-117.

63 Venice, State archive, MagistratodelleRason Vecchie, Disegni, Mazzo 2, Disegno 22; see Martin Kubelik, "Gli edifici palladiani," in Bollettino del Centro Internaziollale di Studi di Architettara. Andrl'U Palladia 3 (1964): 458-459.

64 Giacomo Monticolo. Vrbis Vicentiaelcum vell'slale ac nobilitate florentis/tam prae caeteris privilegiariae typvs ad amvssim, engraving 1611. The generally cited copy is in Vicenza, Biblioteca Bertoliana, R.I . V. Cart. C.18; see Cartaet aI. , Vicell za Citta Bel/isima, 62.

65 See Franco Barbieri , lIIuministi e neoclassici a Vicenza (Vicenza: Academia Olimpica, 1972), 184. and further bibliography cited there.

66 For this palace see Tadeus Jaroszewski, "n palazzo da PonoBreganze e gli influssi serliani," in Bollettino del Celltro fnternazionale di Studi di Architetturo, Andrea Palladio 17 (1975): 397-400.

67 Forssman, II palazzo da Porta Festa, quoted here in the English edition. 36.

68 Martin Kubelik. "The Basilica Palladiana and the Loggia del Capitaniato: An Architectural and Socia- historical Confrontation," in Palladia: Ein Symposium, eds. Kun W. Forster and Manin Kubelfk, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana XVlII (Rome: Swiss Institut.e in Rome, 1980).47-56.

69 See note 12.

70 For an Engl ish summary of the role of the theater in the cultural life see, Remo Schiavo, A Guide to the Olympic Theatre (Vicenza: Accademia Olimpica, 1981), 142. A summary of all plays performed at the Teatro Olimpico can be found on pp. 5863. Forextended Italiansourcessee Mantese,Memorie storiche della chiesa vicentina 4-5, s.v. vita culturale.

71 This is meant in the more local commercial use of the term Palladia, especially in Vicenza itself: Agenzia di Viaggio Palladio, Scuderia Palladia, Polio Palladia , Cinema Palladia and so on.

72 Manin Kube lik. " II palladianesimo: appunti critici," in Lionello Puppi, Antonio Foscari and Martin Kubelfk, Contributi Sa Andrea Palladia, nel quarto centenario della morte (/5801980) (Venice, 1982), 91 - 106.

73 Renata Cevese, ed .. Palladio: la suaeredita nel mondo( Milano: Electa, 1980).

74 See Barbieri, Cevese and Magagnato. Guida di Vicenza, 326.

75 For this palace see Cevese, I pala::i dei Thiene. sede della Banca Popolaredi Vicellza, 11 - 36; Magagnato.Pala::aThiene, sede della Banea Papolare di Vicellza, 11-15.

76 Barbieri, Cevese and Magagnato, Guida di Vicen:lI. 19 1.

77 Forthis palace see Barbieri, lIIumillisti e neoclassici a Vicellza, 145- 146.

78 See Barbieri , lIIuministi e neoclassici a Vicen za, 154-57.

207

Notes 79

80 81 82 83 84 85

86

87

88 89

90

See Barbieri . /lluminisli e neociassici a Vicenza. I )3.-116. The pl a ns were originally publi shed in. Antonio Diedo .

Giovambatista Marangoni , Andrea Ri gato, and Agostino Vivaro, Ollane Calderari. Disegni e scrilli di archilelll/ra (Viccn za, 1808), I: 15- 18, Figs. 5-9.

For a summary of Calderari's vita see Barbieri , /IIuminisli e neociassici a Vicenza, 93- 144.

See note 79. It was none other than Arnaldi who delivered Calderari's eulogy in the Teatro Olimpico on 29 June 1804.

Forthis palace see Barbieri, /IIuminisli e neoclassici a Vicen:a.

118- 135.

Barbieri . /11l/minisli e neoclassici a Vicenza, as published, Fig. 85.

Diedo et al.. Ollone Calderari, I: Fig. 20.

Sometimes attributed to Antonio Rossi; see Barbieri,/lluminisli e neociassici a Vicenza, Fig. I. Castelgombeno, Vi lIa da Schio, Staircase, See Barbieri . Cevese and Magagnato, Guida di Vicenza, 330.

For a color illustration see Guy Roop, Villas and Palaces oj Andrea Palladio (Milan: Arte grafiche F. Ghezzi, 1968),369.

Lionello Puppi , " 11 doppio enigma de ll a mone e della resuITezione di Palladio," in AA.VV. Unila e diffusione della cullura venela (Gorizia, 1974), 147- 148 (quoted accordi ng to Lionello Puppi, " La mone e i funerali di Palladio," in Lione llo Puppi. ed., Palladio e Venezia (Firence: Sansoni . 1982), 163.

For this monument see, Barbieri , Cevese and Magag nato.

Guida di Vicenza. 106.

Fo rster, "Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio on Common Ground: The Palazzo Thiene and the Bas ilica in Vicenza," in The Cornell Journal oj Archileclure 4.

This attitude was already presented, in the polemic cover illustration of Forster and Kubelilc:, Palladio: Ein Symposium.

10 P.1. Prentice. Letter from the Editor. House & Home. vol. I . no.

5 ( 1952): 101.

II William A Dando. Letter from the Editor, House & Home. vol.

2, no. 6 ( 1952): 138.

12 Samue l Paul and Roben Stone. The Complele Book oj Home Modernizing (New York: H.S. Stuttman Co., 1952),43.

13 William B. O 'Neal and Christopher Weeks. The Work oj William Lawrence BOllomley in Richmond (Charlottesville: University Press of Virg inia, 1984), xvii i. The author wou ld li ke to thank Timothy D. Galvin for ide ntifying this quotation.

14 Louis Kahn. Complete Works 1934-1974,ed. andcomp. He inz Ronner (Base l: BirkhaLlscr Verl ag, 1977),53,83.

A-LocationslPre·Occupations I 2

4 5 6 7

8 9 10

Rhetorical Uses of the Object The Author wou ld like to thank Professor Vincent Mulcahy for his assistance and most importantly, his ' voice' in the formation of the views presented.

"Good-Life Modernism" and Beyond: The American HOllse in the 19505 and 19605 Joseph B. Mason, ed ., 82 DislinCli ve Houses Jrom Ih e Archileclural Record (New York: F .W . Dodge, 1952), introduction .

2 A TreasuryoJContemporary Houses, selected by the Edi tors of Arc hitectural Record (New York: F.W. Dodge, 1954).

3 Mason. 82 Dislinclive Houses from Ihe Archileclural Record, 104-109.

4 Mason, 82 Distinclive Housesfrom Ihe Archilec fliral Record, 104-109.

5 Ric hard Bennett, Edward Evans, and Walter Teague, Good Design is Your Business (Buffalo: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 1947).29.

6 "Who's Who in Distinguished Design," Industrial Design. vol.

I. no. I (1954) : 7 1.

7 Bennett, Evans, and Teag ue, Good Design is Your Business, 3435.

8 Sigfried Giedion, A Decade oj New Archileclure (Wi nterthur: Geschister Ziegler, 1951 ), 3.

9 Illustrati on. House & Home. vol. 4, no. 3 (1954): 130-131.

208

II

12 13 14

Bruce Chatwin, The Sonl:lines (New York : Penguin. 1989).2.

Marg uerite Duras, The Lover. trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Pantheon, 1985),39.

See Roland Banhes, Mylhologies (New York : Noonday Press.

1989), 109- 159.

Barthes. Mylhologies, 155.

Interview with J. G. Ballard in RefSearch 8/9 (1984), 43.

Mircea Eliade, Mylh and Realiry, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row. 1986).6.

Raymond Roussel, Lacu.• Solus, trans. Rupen C. Cummingham (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970),34.

Roben D. Ball ard , "Epil og ue for Tilanic ," in Nalional Geographic, vol. 172. no. 4 ( 1987),454.

Maurice Blanchot , The Wriling oJlhe Disaster, trans. Ann Smock (Linco ln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1988).41.

Roben Smithson, The Wrilings oJRoberl Smilhwn, ed. Nancy Holt (New York: New York University Press. 1979).

Miche l Foucau lt, Dealh and Ihe Labrynilh, trans. Charles Ruas (Berkley and Los Angeles: Universi ty of California Press, 1987),84.

Foucault. Dealh and Ihe Labrynilh, 65.

Foucault, Dealh and Ihe Labrynilh, 8.

Foucault, Dealh and Ihe Labrynilh, 80.

States of Emergence: Studio Work in a Pos t-Guru Context Projects A, B, C, D. & E: The First Year Drawing Course A I: Ernesto A. Jarvis. Jr. B I : Michelle M. Fom abai B2: Nelson A. Benavides B3 : Judy Wenfe i Lee B4: Jun-Ya Nakatsugawa CI: Jun·Ya Nakatsugawa D I: Christina S. Contis EI: Jun-Ya Nakatsugawa E2: Michelle M. Fornabai Project F & G : Urban DeSign Projecls . Berlin Fla, Fib, Fl c, Fld, Fi e: Maria L. Santos-Munne 1'2: Jeffrey E. Botwin Gla, Glb, Gl c: Dukho Yeon Projects H & I: Housing Projecls H I a, HI b. HI c: Russell L. Kriegel H2a, H2b: Gordon O. W allace II a. II b: Socratis K. Stratis

12: Shih-Fu Peng l3a. 13b: Ri chard M. Carr Projec t J : Adellauerplalz 11 : Regina M. Rawdin g J2: Jeffrey D. Young 13: Ling C. Li J4 : Joseph A. Billig J5a. J5b, J5c, J5d, J5e: Olaf Quoohs Projects K, L, & M: Hannover Herrenhausen: The Spectacle Ki a, K I b: Craig M. Mcllhenn y K2a, K2b, K2c : Timothy W. Ventimiglia LI a, Lib. L I c: Ne lson K. Liu M I: Herrcnhausen site model Project N: The Nalion oj A N I a, N ib: James E. Jorgensen N2: Nelson A. Benevides N3a, N3b, N3c, N3d, N3e: Nelson K. Liu Proj ects 0 & P: Washington DC: Capita l Ciry Ola, Olb, Ol c, Old. Ole: Li-Jer Ko ng Pi a, Plb. Pic. Pld. Pi e: Mary Wang

Theater for the Commedia dell ' Arte Bruce Chatwin, U,: (New York: Viking Penguin Inc .. 1988).

52.

2 Chatwin.UI:. 11 3- 11 4.

Theater Stage, Carni val Square Bertolt Brecht. "The Set." undated and unpubli shed note (B rec ht-Archi ve 33 1/ 173), as included in Brechl on Theatre. ed. and trans. Jo hn Willett (New Yo rk: Hill and Wang. 1964).

233.

2 See. fo r instance, Eagleton' s essay on " W ittgenstein' s Friends" in New LeJI Review 135 ( 1982), 64-90.

3 One observes simi lar potential for camivalization in Michael Graves' projects for Disney World and Daniel Li beskind 's Jewish Museum project for Berlin.

The autho r would like to th ank Elisa Evett and Andrea Simitch for their editoria l comments.

Exploring the Periphery: Parallel Perceptions in the Design Studio 3 Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form [and] The Film Sense. ed. and trans. Jay Leyda (New York: Meridi an Books. 1957).284.

Graduate Urban Design Studio: Urbanism. Landscape and the City

All photographs by Andrea Simitch unl ess otherwise noted.

Project A: A Marionelle A I a. A I b: Teresa Min -Jun g 0: 20 I, F 88 A2a . A2b, A2c, A2d : Timothy W. Ventimig lia: 20 1. F 88 A3a. A3b, A3c: Lily A. Abdul Wahab: 20 1. F 88 A4: Joshua V. Davi s: 20 I, F 88 Photographs by Joshua V. Davis A5 : Tracy A. Spau lding: 201, F 88 A6a. A6b, A6d: Abram C. Goodrich: 201 . F 88 A7a, A7b. A7c: Christine K. Nagamine: 20 I . F 88 Project B: A Marionelle Theater B I: Christine K. Nagamine: 201 , F 88 Projec t C: The Marion Shaddo Inslilute Cia. Clb: Christine K. Nagamine: 20 1, F 88 Project D: Painling Interpretalion Dl a, Dlb. Dlc. Did : Gabrielle A. Bl ac km an: 401, Sp 87 D2a, D2b, D2c: Douglas M. Kurth : 302. Sp 86 D3a. D3b, D3c: David T. Kim : 302. Sp 86 O4a. D4b. D4c, O4d, O4e. O4f, O4g. O4h. O4i. D4j . D4k. 041.

O4m, O4n : Daniel S. Shapiro: 401, F 87 Model Photographs by Jon Reiss, Ithaca, NY Drive in Movie Theater D5a, D5b. D5c. D5d. D5e. D5f. D5g, D5h : Jeffre y D. Holmes: 401. F 87 Project E: Curio Boxes (wilh 16 elements) E I: Dawn E. Burcaw: 502. Su 89 E2a, E2b, E2c: Jorge Fe rnande z-San tos Oniz: 302. Su 89 E3a. E3b: Marc ia Lee: 401, Su 89 E4: He len E. Kim : 502, Su 89 E5: Sven R. Dahlquist: 302, Su 89 E6: Joseph A. Billig: 502. Su 89 E7 : Jo hn Craig Ho ldre n: 40 I. Su 89 Project F: A"i"i Shoe Company F l a. Fib. F lc: Craig H. Greenberg: 202, Sp 89 F2a, F2b: Christina S. Contis: 202. Sp 89

2

3

4

6

Perhaps at Corn ell and other schools the distinction between the disciplines related to architecture has never been recognized as a va lid . Theory cou rses within the Departm ent of Architecture, often taught by Lee Hodgden, have consistent ly focused upon gardens and urban to pics and seek always to place these disciplines as an integral part of an architec!ural ed ucati on.

Often. the drawing techniques used to show the relationship of solid to void as in a NOlli-typedrawing, is modified to show the profi le and conto ur of the landscape as a grey or middle tone .

This allows the landscape to be "read" as solid o r void in much the same way the one might read buildings in a figure-ground or a No lli -type plan.

Several tex ts have been infiuential in the study of garde ns related to urban des ign and architecture. A brief listing of such tex ts would include J. C. Shepard and G. A. Jellicoe. Ilalian Gardens oj Ihe Renaissance ( Prin ceto n : Princeto n Arc hitectural Press. 1986); Nathaniel C. Curtis. Architeclural Compositions (Cleveland : J. H. Jansen, 1935); Paul Turner, Campus (Cambridge: MIT Press. I lJX4): John Harbeson, The Sludy oj Architectural Design (New York: The Pencil Points Press, 1926); G. A. Je llicoe. The Landscape oJ Man: Shaping Ihe environmenlJrom prehistory 10 Ihe present day (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987); G. Gromon, CArt des Jardins; Arthur Drexler. The Architeclllre oj Ihe Ecole des Beaux Arts (New York : Museum of Moden An. 1977); and various anicles

by Leon Kri er.

Steven Hunt , " Form and Meaning in the American Con tinental Grid." in Threshold 3 ( 1985).

Steven Hunt, " Fo rm and Meaning in the American Continenta l Grid." in Threshold 3 (1985).

One also is aware of the confi g uration of smaller American towns (the most superb example being Savannah) embodying

the same characteristics.

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Sources and Credits Illustrations courtesy of the following, reprinted by permission: Grid/Frame / l ~atticelWeb:

2. 8 Gregg International. Surrey 3. 9 Colin Rowe 5. 1-'. 16. 18-20.2-' .27.28. 30. 33, 35. 53 Librairie Hachette. Pari s 6.45 Julius Hoffmann Verlag, Stuttgart 7. 22 Elemond. Milan 10. 56. 58 Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie. Vatican City II Soprintendenza Aile Gallerie. Florence 12 Arnaud Editore. Florence 13. 15. 25. 47 Ulrico Hoepli. Milan 17. 21 Dover Publications Inc. New York 23 Architectural Book Publishing Co. Inc .• Connecticut 26. 32 Giulio Einaudi Editore. Torino 29 Courtesy of Academy Editions. London © The Academy Group Ltd. , London 31. 36. 40. 42. -'.I. 54. 55 Alinari/An Resource. New York 34. 37 Tipografia Regionale. Rome 38 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 39 Avery Memorial Library. Columbia University. New York 41 Kunsthistoriches Institut Florenz. Florence 44 Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe. Florence 46 lng. C. Olivetti & C. S.p.A .• Milan 48 W. W. Norton & Company Inc .• New York 49 Rizzoli Editore. Rome 50 Photo Anderson 5 I Sciamanna. Rome 52 Princeton University Press. Princeton 57 Foundation Le Corbusier

Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio on Common Ground: 3.4 Biblioteca Angelica. Rome 6 Worcester College Library. Oxford 7. 8. 13. 18. 19. 25. 55 Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura. Andrea Palladio. Vicenza II Ufizzi Gallery. Florence. nr. U2691A 12 Albertina. Vienna. nr. 14204 14 Giovetti. Mantua 15, 16. 17.22.23, 27, 31. 32. 34.35. 37-39, 43-45. 49. 52.54 Kurt W. Forster 20.28 Alinari/Art Resource, New York 21 Grazia Sgrilli. Mantua 24 Avery Memorial Library, Columbia University, New York 26 RlBA XVlU17, London 29.33. -'0 B. Verwahung der staatliche Schlosser. Ganen u. Seen Museumsabteilung. Munich 30 Dr. Klaus Endemann, Munich 36 Giovetti. Mantua 45 P. Dugoni and S. Galassi 48 Martin Kubelik. Vienna 51 RlBA XVII/22. London 53 RlBA XII1!9. London

The Cornell Journal of Architecture

Andrea Palladio's Vicenza: 1.2.5. 7, 17, 18, 21 . 23. 30.33-41 , 43-45 Centro lnternazionale di Studi di Architettura. Andrea Palladio. Vicenza 3 From Vitruvius. I dieci libri dell' architellura di M. Vitruvio. tradutti et commentati da monsignor Barbaro eiello patriarca d'aquileggia (Venice, 1556) 4 From Giovanbattista Dragonzino,Nobilitadi Vicen za(Venice.

1525) 6 Adapted from Franco Barbieri. Vicenza gotica: Ie mura (Vicenza, (984) 8 RIBA VX!J3r. London 9 Biblioteca Angelica. Rome 10. 11 . 22 Martin Kubelik, Vienna; drawing by Dukho Yeon & Erich Lehner 12 Martin Kubelik. Vienna 13 From Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi. II forestiere istruito delle cose pill rare di architellura (Vicenza. 1761) 15 From James Ackerman. Palladio (Harmondswonh, 1966) 19 From Licisco Magagnato. I palazzo dei Thiene. sede della Banca Popolare di Vicen za (Vicenza. 1966); drawing by Erich Lehner 25 From Paolo Balbi et aI.. "Considerazioni sulla forma di Palazzo Chiericati in rapporto all ' intorno urbano." in Ordione degli architelli della provincia di Vicenza . Vicenza. Concorso di studi sull' area di Piazza Matleotti (Vicenza, 1985) 27 WUntembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. His!. Q. 148, Stuttgart 28. 29 From Paolo Balbi et aI., "Genesi formale." in Ordione degli architelli della provincia di Vicenza. Vin'nza, Concorso di studi sull' area di Piazza Mattentti (Vicenza, 1985) 31 Archivio di Stato. Magistrato delle Rason Vecchie, Disegni.

Mazzo 2, Disegno 22 32 From Giacomo Monticolo, Vrbis Vicentiae cum vetvsrate ac nobilitate florentis tum prae caeteris privilegiariae typvs ad amvssim 42 Watercolor by L Toniato 46 Villa da Schio. Castelgomberto 47 From Antonio Diedo. Giovambatista Maragoni. Andrea Rigato and Agostino Vivaro. Ollone Calderari. Disegni e scritti di architellura (Vicenza. 1808) 48 Museo Civico, Vicenza 49 Kurt W. Forster and Martin Kubelik.Palladio: Ein Symposium (Rome, 1980), cover

"Good-Life Modernism" a nd Beyond: 1, 30, 31. 33 Adapted from Romaldo Giurgola and Jaimini Mehta, eds .. Louis I. Kalrn (Zurich. 1975) 2.3, 13 From Joseph B. Mason. ed., 82 Distinctive Housesfrom Architectural Record (New York. 1952) 4.23.24 From A Treasury of Contemporary Houses, selected by . the Editors of Architectural Record (New York, 1954) 5 From House & Home. vol. 6. no. I (1954) 6. 27-29 Courtesy of Eames Office. Venice. California © The Eames Office. Venice. California 7 The Museum of Modem Art. New York 8. 9 Adapted from Phillip C Johnson. ed .• Mies Van del' Rohe (New York, 1953) 10 Adapted from Peter Blake.ed .• Marcel Breuer(New York, 1949) 11 . 12 Werk. Bauen + Wohnen, Zurich I -' Foundation Le Corbusier 15. 34 From House & Home. vol. 6. no. 3 (1954) 16 Owens-Coming Fiberglass. Toledo. Ohio 17.19 From House & Home. vol. I, no. 5 (1952) I!I Kentile Floors Inc .. New York 20 From Samuel Paul and Robert B. Stone, Tire Complete Book of Home Modernizinll (New York, 1952), title page 21 . 22 From Jeffrey Cook, ed .• The Architecture of Bruce Goff (New York, 1978) 25. 26 From PlrilipJohnson Architecture 1949-1965 (New York.

1965) 32 George Brazillier Inc .• New York 3S Abbeville Press, New York 36.37 From Giurgola and Mehta, eds .. Louis I. Kahil 38 Charles W. Moore, Austin 39 From Peter De Francia. ed .• Fernand Leger (New Haven, CT. 1983) 40. 43 John Hejduk, New York 44. 45 Peter D. Eisenman, New York 46, -'7 . 50. 51 Courtesy of VRSB Office. Philadelphia ~ VenlUri, Rauch & Scott Brown Office, Philadelphia

A-LocationslPre-Occupations Courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Woods Hole, Massachussetts and Madison Press, Toronto © Ballard & Family, 1987 2 Hag Ahmed Yousef Moustafa, Cairo, Egypt

Exploring the Periphery: From Jarka Burian, The Scenography of Joseph Svoboda (Middletown, CT, 1971) 2 From Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form [and] The Film Sense (New York, 1957) 4,7 Foundation Le Corbusier 5.6 Yale University An Gallery. New Haven, Connecticut 8 From Les souliersde Roger Vivier, exhibition catalogue. Musee des Ans de la Mode (Paris. 1987)

Theater for the Com media dell' Arte: I , 23 From David Madden, Harlequin 's Stick. Charlie's Cane (Bowling Green , OB, 1975) 2 The Museum of Modem Art, New York 3a-d, 26, 31-33, 36 From Thomas Schroder. ed .• Jaques Callot (Munich. 1971) 5 Times Edition Pte. Ltd .• Singapore 29a. 29c-e, 29g-j Dover Publications Inc, New York 6 From Georges Boudaille. Pablo Picasso (Paris, 1985) 7, II From Juan A. Gaya-Nuno. Juan Gris (Barcelona. 1975) 8, 34 From William Rubin . Pablo Picasso. exhibition catalogue.

The Museum of Modem Art (New York, 1980) 10 From George and Rosamond Bernier. The Selective Eye (New York. 1955) 12 From Robert Rauschenberg. exhibition catalogue Walker Art Cellter (Minneapolis. MN. 1965) 14-22 From John E. Bowh, Russian Stage Design , exhibition catalogue, Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson, MS . 1982) 27 From Allardyce Nicoll. The World of Harlequin (Cambridge.

1963) 28 From F. Moreau and Margaret M. Grasselli . Antoine Watteau (Paris. 1987) 30 From Giacomo Oreglia, The Commedia dell' Arte (Stockholm, 1961)

Theater Stage, Carnival Square 1.36 Kunsthistoriches Museum. Vienna

Rhetorical Uses of the Object: States of Emergence: All photographs from Gustave Eiffel , Lo Tour de trois cent metre (Paris. 1900). Courtesy of the History of Science Collections, Cornell University Library

Sigurd's Resistance: All photographs from Martin Blindheim and Per Jonas Nordhagen, Graffiti in Norwegian Stave Churches c1150-c1350 (Oslo, 1985)

From P. B. Medawar. The Art of the Soluble (London. 1967) 2 Foundation Le Corbusier 3 From Chauncy D. Harris and G. B McDowell , "Distorted Maps, A Teaching Device." in The Journal of Geography 54 (1955) 4-6.9 From David Greenhood, Mapping (Chicago, 1964) 7 From A. F. Spilhaus. " Maps of the Whole World Ocean," in Geographical Review, vol. 32, no. 3 (1942) 8 From Rainer Jagals, exhibition catalogue. Gallerie Strecker (Berlin, 1967) 10 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

Every effort has been made to eliminate all errors and omissions in this Journal and to give credit where credit is due. We apologize to any persons or organizations who has or that has not been properly represented in this Journal.

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