Marco De Donno - Calenisia, the forgotten muse

C AL E N I S I A the forgotten muse

an architecture fairy tale by

Marco De Donno

There is a tale that we no longer remember: it is the story of Calenisia, the muse of Architecture and Beauty, daughter born from the adulterous relationship between Zeus, king of all the gods, and Leto, patroness of motherhood and holder of the technological progress’ power. While pregnant, Leto owed run away and hide from the wrath of Hera, the jealous wife of Zeus, as she wanted to kill the children Leto carried in her womb. In that time there was a great volcanic eruption in the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, between the coasts of modern Greece and Turkey. The eruption was so devastating that big part of the magma chamber was emptied in an only big explosion during which the overheated and highly pressurized lava was expelled violently from the submarine volcano. The rapid cooling and the sudden depressurization created bubbles inside the viscous magma which turned into a pyroclastic rock with a high volume and a very low specific weight. This internal structure allowed it to float in the water. Thus a large floating island was formed with an area of several square kilometres, composed mainly by this stone that today we call pumice stone. Transported

by sea currents, this island was chosen by Leto as a safe haven to give birth to its three twins: Apollo, god of the Arts and of all Sciences, Artemis, protectress of Hunting and Agriculture, and the forgotten Calenisia, muse of Architecture and Beauty. The cult of the first two brothers spread widely among communities of mainland, and they became two of the greatest deities of the mythology of ancient times. Instead the destiny of the third sister was more miserable: her name soon became that of inauspicious memory and this is why perhaps humanity has preferred to forget her story.

There are no written testimonies in the world, but the story of the young Calenisia was irremediably linked to the story of the island where she was born along with her brothers. After many centuries, the inhabitants of the island began to call the island itself with her name and built a city that could be the depiction of their muse. The city rose for several tens of meters from the sea level on which it faced a precipice. The island continued to be transported by sea currents and

wandering the oceans, and with it its inhabitants. Trees with flowers and fruits and many plant species grew in abundance. The island produced all the necessary sustenance for the small population that had settled there. There were no animal species but the only inhabitants belonged to the most voracious species among all the animals. In the beatitude with which the island produced fruits in abundance and exquisiteness, its inhabitants dedicated themselves to the construction of the great city. Design was the rite with which they adored their muse, building was their sacred liturgy, Architecture was their prayer. The city was one large temple dedicated to Calenisia. The stones used for this work were taken from the subsoil of the innermost areas of the island, always trying to maintain balance with nature. The city shone in its empty streets, in its whitish walls, in the bare majesty of the buildings. There was no ornament but the architecture was only the use and original arrangement of the raw and bare material. They were felt free from the illness of the ornament.

They pursued the purity of the material, the cleanness of the forms, the rationality of the lines, the balance of the parts, to construct buildings that pleased the senses and were a source of delight for the soul. Functionality was a slave to beauty. Every building was the effort to harmonize the environment with man. Architecture was the most complete synthesis, the most beautiful expression of the spirit, the direct projection of their cult. They built a city that made news for its grandeur and beauty. Calenisia was pure Architecture. Calenisia was Beauty.

This is why its inhabitants, who lived in perfect harmony with the city they had built, possessed sincere and satisfied souls. They were kind and wise to the others and to the environment they lived in. They sought harmony in space and time. They almost felt like gods, because able to build the most beautiful city, incomparable to any other known city. But their haughtiness brought them to the end: as they continued to build, throughout generations, only in the name of a faith, when they were unable to handle such beauty, when they made Hubris their new muse.

Harmony gave way to arrogance. They began building on the island by removing any space to nature and then over the architecture of previous generations, with the denial of historical layers.

The propensity to gigantism slowly corroded their ideal of harmony. There was no more spa-

ce for nature but only for a sterile and arrogant Architecture. A new technological order, often characterless, was abrading the existing texture.

Fruit trees that were once a common good began to be a privilege for a few and this broke out infighting and fratricidal wars. But rather than looking for a new harmony, they continued to build. Building in whose name? Of which god?

Blind in front of the imminent catastrophe, deaf to the warnings of the few who really understood how things were going, they continued to build.

They kept digging to get more and more mate-

rial and to struggle to survive. Calenisia was no longer a temple of Beauty, but a claustrophobic prison for souls. The city seemed to have been overwhelmed by the lava of the progress and eroded by it. The excavations inside the island became unsustainable and many understood too late that it had reached a point of no return: the island would not hold the arrogance of its inhabitants any longer. The wound was now too deep to remedy. And so it was: Calenisia collapsed on itself. The island was born from a cataclysm and with a cataclysm it disappeared. It crumbled on itself and the city that had risen above was completely destroyed. The sea swallowed everything. It was the end of the inhabitants and of the glorious city they had built. Their insatiable greed brought them to the seabed and their voracity killed Calenisia.

There was room for everyone and the good island was enough rich to provide for everybody: the life was beautiful but they lost the way.

Life became violence, progress became cynicism, greatness became misery. They had the

power to make life glorious but they were able to destroy it. Science and progress can guide men towards happiness. Science and progress must guide men towards happiness, but men must want it, too. The indifference and the contempt for values made them reluctance and lazy. Crises make men stronger, difficulties make them smarter. We don’t need more excess but equilibrium, no longer hate but kindness, no arrogance but humanity, even if it were just a crazy dream. Calenisia, in an ancient language of the Mediterranean Sea, means “island of Beauty�, and hers was a mournful story. A tale that we no longer remember, or perhaps an uncomfortable myth that we do not want to remember anymore. But who is our new muse?