Isaac leung dissertation final ix

THE

UTOPIAN VISION OF

FRAGMENTS AND

RUINS

:

In the Parallel Universe of

G.B. Piranesi and

L e b b e u s Wo o d s

ISAAC LEUNG MMXIV

PUBLISHED

ISAAC

BY

LEUNG P

RELUDE 6-9

TUTORS

C ATA L I N A M E J I A BEN SWEETING

I

ORIGIN [AD673]

of 10-17

ARCHITECTURAL HUMANITIES III

D I S S E RTAT I O N PUBLISHED

RUINS

of

II

REASONS

18-35

D AT E

I.XXVII.MMXIV

IDEALS

FRAGMENTS

III

of

IDEOLOGY

36-51 WORDCOUNTS

5499

UTOPIA of

IV

OBSCURITY

52-57

Special thanks to Catalina Mejia and Ben Sweeting for thier scholarly assistance.

A d d i t i o n a l t h a n k s t o To n y R o b e r t s a n d S t e f a n L e n g e n f o r t h e i r s c h o l a r l y a s s i s t a n c e a n d g e n e r o s i t y f o r lending books to me.

Many thanks to my family and friends for their love, patients and support.

ECLIPSE 58-59

isaac.zachary.leung@gmail.com

List of Illustrations R I B A PA RT I

THIRD YEAR

60-61

BA(hons) ARCHITECTURE FA C U LT Y O F A RT S MITHRAS HOUSE UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON UNITED KINGDOM B N 2 4 AT

I hereby declare that, I h a v e c o n s u l t e d , a n d u n d e r s t a n d , t h e i n f o r m a t i o n p r o v i d e d i n t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f B r i g h t o n ’ s P l a g i a r i s m Aw a r e n e s s P a c k a n d t h e i n f o r m a t i o n on academic standards and conventions for referencing given in the module directive.

I k n o w t h a t p l a g i a r i s m m e a n s p a s s i n g o f f s o m e o n e e l s e ’ s w r i t i n g s o r i d e a s a s i f t h e y w e r e m y o w n , w h e t h e r d e l i b e r a t e l y o r i n a d v e r t e n t l y.

I u n d e r s t a n d t h a t d o i n g s o c o n s t i t u t e s a c a d e m i c m i s c o n d u c t a n d m a y l e a d t o e x c l u s i o n f r o m t h e U n i v e r s i t y.

I have therefore taken every care in the work submitted here to accurately reference all writings and ideas that are not my own, whether from printed, online, or other sources.

Selected Bibliograhpy 62-68

6

7

P

RELUDE

T

“ h e To w e r [ o f B i b l e ] r i s e s o p t i m i s t i c a l l y s k y w a r d , s t i l l u n d e r c o n s t r u c t i o n a t the top. In the later version, it rises no more, but has already begun to fall into ruin, not because of Divine wrath, but, it seems, because of human neglect or e r r o r. ” 0 L e b b e u s Wo o d s

The End of…?

The shift in architectural representation and the architecture profession was vividly dramatic over the past two decades with the technological advancement in computer-aided design, we are constantly repositioning ourselves in this ever-changing digital age, whether comfortably or not. However, there seems to be a phenomenon of the revival of traditional drawing as the most eminent representational tool in architecture. “ Drawing architecture is about being true to yourself as an architectural designer.” 1 Indeed, the act of drawing often communicates the rawest form of ideas from its inception. By investigating the reason that evokes this modern renaissance could lead us back to connecting recent world crises- those awaken the consumers from their world of passivity 2 and dependency on the capitalist machine: Energy crisis, climate change, terrorism, warfares, economic depression and military competition.

These consumers finally start to question their own existence and fear for the world’s destruction. They are desperate to find the solutions to solve these crises in order to save themselves or, as they claim, the future generations. Contemporary architects, generally regarded by mass culture as merely the designers for buildings, could seek the arising opportunity to draw up visionary schema and radical proposals that would suggest another way of living while to world is reaching the epoch of gradual destruction? Could architects return to their significant role in social transformation?

Drawing is the motive force of architecture. Peter Cook states: “[a]ll drawn imagery, even the most visionary, was expected to refer to built or craft er form, the statement would gain power through the likelihood of the drawn image [...] Could it be that this state of affairs has generated a subconscious will, on the part of the drawing makers, to run to more and more exotic forms, more and more provocative juxtapositions, in order to draw our attention?” 3 One wonders where have all these visions gone, have they been diluted by the demanding needs of the society, just like the avant-garde incarnations in the 70s to 90s had compromised with the capitalist ideologies and consumed by the desire to build .

[Fig. 0] Pieter Bruegel the Elder: T h e To w e r o f B i b l e c. 1563 Oil on Panel

Footnotes: 0: Lebbeus Woods, ‘Bruegel’s Presence’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 28, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/ bruegels-presence/] (accessed August 8, 2013).

1: Neil Spiller, ‘Architectural Drawing: Grasping for the Fifth Dimension’, Architectural Design , Vol. 225, September/ October 2013.

2: Note: I use this term with reference to Lebbeus Woods’s essay ‘Radical Reconstruction’ about modern consumerism. He stated consumers of the modern world, as foreseen my Aldous Huxley in Brave New World (1932), are control by pleasure instead of pain (the modus operandi of the police state). He defined passivity as “the consumers waits to be pleased and in this way is continuously pacified”. I employ the term as a critique to people who relied on the form and order provided by capitalists’ ideologies. See Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) p.13.

3: Peter Cook, Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2008) p.12.

PRELUDE

0

8

9

Francis Fukuyama convicts: “[ we] may be witnessing [...] the end of history -the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. ” 4 Lebbeus Woods expresses: “ Have we reached the end of utopia as well as the end of history? ” 5

The failure of the materialisation of utopian ideals and the promise of social aims from modernism in the early twentieth century was evident; the unaviodable paradox of utopian dreams and social reality in contemporary development imprisoned by the global triumph of capitalism and ‘liberal democracy’ is undeniable. 6 Crucial question- will utopian visions still be able to provoke allusion for a ‘better ’ world today- after the end of history...?

Based on this critical background and the support of relevant scholars, I will endeavour to search for the answer in this paper through exploring the ‘ alternative utopia ’ 7 of Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Lebbeus Woods, two most celebrated visionaries in architectural history. By analysing the ruinous and fragmentary nature of their drawings, which reveal an intense criticism to the status quos of their contemporary society and polemic agenda towards contemporary architects and the field of architecture itself. However, their drawings should not be regarded as mere works of art that evoke flights of imagination and seduce the viewer into their mysterious worlds of capriccio - architectural fantasy, but a deeper philosophical and emotion response to the radical changes to the modernisation of men. The paper will further analyse the ambiguity and duality entrenched within their drawings, provided by the instrumental use of fragments and ruins depicted by extra-ordinary techniques of visual representation. And how they manifest a architectural device to stimulate new ways of humans co-existing with the world, both metaphorically and symbolically. Which simultaneously reflects their unorthodox utopian visions, although seemingly ambivalent whilst it’s conveyed by craggy landscapes, ruined cities and architectural fragments, should be perceived as provocative thoughts that offers new architectural possibilities and understood as a catalyst for speculating the future, arguably a better one.

4: Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”, The National Interest (Summer 1989). Also see Lebbeus Woods, ‘Taking a Position’, Lebbeus Woods Blog, October 20, 2007 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/taking-a-position/] (accessed September 12, 2013).

5: Lebbeus Woods, ‘Utopia?’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , October 11, 2009 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/utopia/] (accessed September 20, 2013).

6: Bernard Tschumi, ‘The Architecture Paradox’, (1975). Studio International (September-October, 1975); revised in Bernard Tschumi , Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1995) and in Architecture Theory Since 1968 , K. M. Hays, ed., (Cambridge Mass., The MIT Press, 1998) p.218 7: My principle and development of the term ‘alternative utopia’ will be mainly based on the theories of Manfredo Tafuri’s ‘negative utopia’, Louis Marin’s ‘degenerate utopia’ and David Harvey’s ‘Dialectical utopianism’, which will be further elaborated in the paper.

PRELUDE

10

11

I O “

RIGIN

of

I

DEALS

A n o v e r d o s e o f u t o p i a i s d a n g e r o u s , b u t t o d a y ’s a r c h i t e c t u r e i s c h a r a c t e r i s e d b y an underdose of utopia, which could be just as dangerous.”8 -Reinier de Graaf

U.to.pia

noun

An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.9

[Fig. 1] T h e M y s t i c Ta b l e t Reproduction of the Lo Shu Square by unknown Tibetan Artist c.1895

1.Ideal Grids Architecture plays, or once played an important role as an instrument for socio-cultural transformations and urban ideological catalyst. It is classically speaking, a socially significant synthesis of the old antitheses: public/ private, art/ science, capital/ labor. 10 Some of the greatest ambitions in architecture often speculate the future, they imagine ideal cities and dream of a ‘better ’ world.

1

The ideas of the ideal city had been deeply seeded in the nature of human beings anteriorly to its textual inception, some of these ideas can be traced back to some great cultures in early human civilisation. The Chinese adopted a utopian approach towards city planning in the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), as they divided the public and private space in the city according to the sacred geometrical principle of the Magic Square 11 . They believed the vision of this particular organisation implies a distinct social order, hence an ideal society. Later in Greece, Plato described the city of Kallipolis (‘Beautiful city’) in his Socratic dialogue The Republic (c.360 BC) as a utopian city with ideals concerning the definition of justice, theory of forms, immortality of soul and the role of philosophy in the society. 12

8: Reinier de Graaf, ‘An underdose of Utopia can be just as dangerous as an overdoes’, Dezeen , 12 September, 2012 [http://www. dezeen.com/2012/09/12/an-underdose-of-utopia-can-be-just-as-dangerous-as-an-overdose-says-reinier-de-graaf/] (accessed Ausgust 7, 2013).

9: Citation, ‘Utopia’, Oxford English Dictionary (2012). Note: To clarify, in this paper, ‘Utopia’ with a captial ‘U’ refers to Thomas More’s imaginary island. Whilst ‘utopia’ with a lower case generally means an idealistic, idealogical place where architects take upon the task to develope.

10: Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction , op. cit. , p.14.

11: Ljubo Georgiev and Anita Stamatoiu, ‘What are Utopias For?’, Endo , Autumn, 2011, [http://utopicus2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ what-are-utopias-for.html] (accessed October 8, 2013) Note: Magic Square is a arragement of number in a square grid. Known to the Chinese as Lo Shu Square , it part of the legacy of the most ancient Chinese mathematical and divinatory (Yi Jing).traditions, and is an important emblem in Feng Shui, the art of geomancy concerned with the placement of objects in relation to the flow of qi, ‘natural energy’. See Lo Shu Square, Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo_Shu_Square] (accessed October 8, 2013).

[Fig. 2] Cardo and Decumanus N o r t h - S o u t h a n d E a s t - We s t a x e s r e s p e c t i v e l y .

Spatial Orientation of the Universal Grid System i n a A n c i e n t R o m a n C i t y, Ti m g a d c. 110 AD

12: Republic. n.d. Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_(Plato)] (accessed September 11, 2013).

ORIGIN

of

IDEALS

12

2

13

Certainly, these precedents from the Chinese and the Greek can only employed as a theoretical reference as a philosophical model of the ideal city. However, their visions had undoubtedly propelled the development of the utopian thoughts in later civilisations. Evidently, the Romans had adopted and developed on the Plato’s model: the idea of harmonious coexistence between human and the environment, perfect social form and order and the universal plan of spatial arrangement by establishing the grid system over the city. This connection would support my discussion later on of Piranesi’s imaginary plan for the reconstruction of ancient Rome and his passion for the Empire’s ruins and relics.

2.Imaginary Island

3

Sir Thomas More was responsible for the literal conception of the word ‘Utopia’ in his political philosophical fiction Utopia in 1516, where Utopia is an imaginary island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Based on many reference from Plato’s Republic 13 , More’s Utopia is a politically and socially ideal, harmonious society.

The word Utopia has a double meaning as More hinted: oú-topos , no-place, but it is also eú-topos , place of happiness. 14 It is worthwhile to consider the parallelism of the word’s literal play in order for us to examine Piranesi’s and Wood’s graphical interpretation of utopian ideas in the later discussions. The relationship of the literal and graphical transformation can be established by acknowledging the duality and ambiguity embedded in the literal play. Where the double meaning, thus double reading, should be understood simultaneously and successively as signification of the negative of the positive and the positive of the negative. Has this exatct fundamental paradox embeded in the word echo through the unsucessful utopianism in modernist architecture?

3. Magnificent College Louis Marin describes the relationship between education and utopia in his Utopics : “[U]topic spaces in the very place that the event had left some trace: the University.” 15 The University was intended to be an device of the ideological level before the industrialised society, Martin states: “Despite the fact that the University was an instrument and product of modern industrial society, its “cultural” function had seemed to predominate until this point. For a long time it had appeared to be relatively independent from the economic and social base of society, even as an institution of the superstructure.” 16 [Fig. 3] 13: See Thomas More, trans. Paul Turner, Utopia (London: Penguin Books, 1965) Note: More depicts Utopia as a perfect society with no private ownership i.e. absence of any form of money, which practices tolerance, equality and reasons in all political, religious and socio-cultural aspects. The hummanism implied is highly contradicting with its contemporary values in 16 th Century Europe. Thus, Utopia is often regarded as a critique to the society and an early influence to the development of Communism in later centuries. Plato’s Republic references, for instant: “the King will not accept advise of philosophers to put the welfare of their state ahead of capital gain which may be attained by war.” Also see Bo Carver, ‘Utopia: Essay on Thomas More’s Ideal Society’, Yahoo Voices , July 25, 2006 [http://voices.yahoo.com/utopia-essay-thomas-mores-ideal-society-447513.html?cat=9] (accessed September 1, 2013).

Ambrosius Holbein The Utopia Island 1518 X y l o g r a p h y , Wo o d c u t

14: Louis Marin, trans. Robert A. Vollrath, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces (New York: Humanity Books, 1990) p.91.

15: Ibid, p.4.

ORIGIN

of

IDEALS

14

15

Martin’s view of the University’s initial intention to be an academic utopia 17 as it is relatively independent and neutral instrument in modern society somehow echoes my personal experience and observation as an architectural student. Idealism still remains in the University nowadays to a certain extend in spite of the disintegration from its original form. My generation, the younger one, has developed the agenda to produce idealistic or utopian projects that proposed some highly sustainable-minded ideas. Idealism and utopianism has therefore become the ‘guarantee’ of a good project and proof them as a ‘environmental-conscious’ designer. However, only with the envisioning of an idea that considers all the differences uncompromised by coexistence between human and nature and extends far beyond property lines and the enclosure walls of buildings, will be almost utopian . 18

4

5

6

Presumably, utopian thoughts can be conveyed in the University as it is primarily a academic utopia, it is not difficult to relate Piranesi and Wood’s utopic practices with their devotion in architectural education. 19 Piranesi also engraved his visionary design of an Utopian Academy on the Magnifico Collegio ( Plan for a magnificent college) appeared in the Opere Varie . The collegio was effusively detailed with keys in the margin and elaborated descriptions of its spatial modulation, with the “swarm of theoretically equivalent forms- theorems constructed around a single thesis” 20 , not only did they show Piranesi’s persistence to think and work like an architect but also his affirmation of the correlation between education and utopia, as we learnt from Marin’s texts.

The collegio and the Magnificent Port have expressed Piranesi’s idealism through sheer brilliance and extravagance with his sophisticated technique as a draughtsman and etcher. Vast curve arches and monumental structures heavily ornamented with the Baroque Mannerist inspired motifs virtually imply the spatial and textual ambiguity implied by More’s Utopia. Opere Varie had upheld a significant influence towards the stimulation of utopian thoughts in architectural endeavours like the Académie de France and pensionnaires , notably Marie-Joseph Peyre, Charles de Wailly and subsequently Boullée and Ledoux’s idealistic urban planning. 21

16: Ibid p.5.

17: Ibid p.6. Note that the term ‘academic utopia’ as the university is an ideological separation from the society, like ‘another world’.

In Marin’s texts: “[n]eutrality in higher education, stemmed from ideological factors because it considered the possibility of the University’s independence in space and time from the rest of the society. But it was exactly here that educational ideology became academic utopia? Education and utopia seemed to strike the same pose: to exist in a state of independence with respect to the culture surrounding it, to live in a position free from institutions and existing laws, and to circumscribe a spate space that benefits from its external, independent position. Each wants to be determined only by its own definitions and radically autonomous demands; each wants to reproduce in a complete independence. The term neutrality applies to both.”

18: Woods expressed optimism towards a younger generation of architects (and architecture students) that ‘at least’ they show the awareness of current issues despite thier still maturing mind set. Woods stated: “[Photomontage techniques and drawings] enables us to see new potential in the existing and obviates the need to begin—in the usual utopian sense—from scratch. See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Utopia Redux’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 9 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/utopia-redux/] (accessed September, 21 2013).

19: I feel obliged to clarify my intention of the ‘comparison’ between Piranesi and Woods at this point. Although many could find similarities between them as academics/ theoretical architect with only one realised project (Piranesi’s Church of Santa Maria del Priorato in Rome and Wood’s Light Pavilion Zheng Dou), their appetite for a polemic, critical debate and certainly the immense oeuvre of visionary drawings which sometimes overshadowed their equally eloquent writings. While agreeing with all of these ‘parallels’, I believe their true utopian parallelism lies in the role of Piranesi and Woods as architectural educators: Piranesi’s prominent influence in the 18th Century French Academy in Rome and Wood’s enthusiastic association with the Cooper Union in New York, European Graduate School in Switzerland and many other academic contributions. Their determination to conveyed their knowledge and philosophy to their students, reflecting both on their frustration by the rejection from social and traditional values at their times, but yet having high hopes for the next generation to fulfil their dreams.

[Fig. 4] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Plan for a magnificent college f r o m O p e r e Va r i e d i A r c h i t e t t u r a 1750 Etching

20: Manfredo Tafuri, trans. Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (London: MIT Press, 1987) p.41.

ORIGIN

of

IDEALS

16

17

4.Utopics Theatre The ambiguous plurality of utopia can be overwhelming and nebulous. Utopia could almost be seen as an imaginary theatre where it can adapt different fictional plays 22 or asserted narratives. Marin states: “Utopia performs this masking diversely; it works at multiple levels. As the wandering centre of utopia, the imaginary, the sensorium commune , is broken apart and decomposed…utopic fiction’s discursive procedures need to be exposed.” 23 In order to provide a coherent discussion of the parallelism of the Piranesian and Woodsian Utopia, it is crucial to recognise these discursive spatial figures by glimpsing into the implicit and fragmentary codes implanted in their drawings. These codes can be visual, metaphorical or philosophical. In this context, I have identified two parallel plays in their work. First is their appreciation of the ruins: vistas of ruinscape, decay structures, relics and vestiges can often be found in their drawings. These ruins would derive to the second play: fragments. The architectural fragmentation represents social critiques and experimental spaces. Piranesi and Woods’ radical thinking often brought them into a polemic position since rejections from a conservative society are inevitable, which couldn’t stop them from their constant outspoken critiques towards socio-political and economical ideologies i.e. bourgeois ideologies, capitalism, consumerism, and the diminished role of architects and architecture as a “mere link in the production chain”. 24

[Fig. 5] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Part of the Magnificent Port f r o m O p e r e Va r i e d i A r c h i t e t t u r a 1750 Etching

21: See John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1978) p.23. Also see John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi as Architect and Designer (New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993) p. 19: “As with the college plan, this powerful eclecticism was to have a highly stimulating effect on the ideas of many contemporary designers, as recognized even twenty years later by Horace-Walpole when decrying the sterile elegance of contemporary design.”

22: Adopting Marin’s terminology ‘play’. He describes the development of multiple-play as space, “[a] priori from of external sense.

Utopia develops its utopics as spatial figures, but within discourse, its sole means of bringing them about. Utopics are discursive spatial figures: discursive places or topics.” See Louis Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces , op. cit. , p.9.

23. Ibid, p.9.

24: Manfredo Tafuri, trans. Guis Laterza and Figli, Bari, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development (London: MIT Press, 1976) p.42.

[Fig. 6] Claude-Nicolas Ledoux P e r s p e c t i v e Vi e w o f C h a u x c. 1804 Engraving

ORIGIN

of

IDEALS

18

19

II R “

UINS

of

R

EASONS

S peaking ruins have filled my spirits with images that accurate drawings, even t h o s e o f t h e i m m o r t a l P a l l a d i o , c o u l d n e v e r s u c c e e d e d i n c o n v e y i n g . ” 25 -Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Rea.son

noun

The capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and b e l i e f s b a s e d o n n e w o r e x i s t i n g i n f o r m a t i o n . 26

[Fig. 7] Unknow artist The Great Fire of London c. 1666 Oil on Panel

“Ruins signified the end of the old, or the beginning of something new.” 27 Historically speaking, ruins have always offer fantastic opportunities for architects to unleash 7 their ambitions and imagination. From the Great Fire of London to two World Wars to 8 the fall of the World Trade Centre, apocalyptic mayhems have never failed to provide the perfect canvas for architectural reconstructions. Piranesi and Woods certainly have the same perspective towards ruins. For Piranesi, it was the majestic, glorious past of the fallen Roman Empire that triggered his imagination of “ What it could have been looked like? ” Evidently expressed by Piranesi in archaeological perspec9 tives of the haunting ruins of Rome in Antichità Romane and later Campo Marzio , a 10 master plan of imaginary reconstruction for ancient Rome. While it was the destruction of urban fabrics and lost of human lives resulted from military violence, natural disasters or political revolution that caused epiphany in Woods. 28 Which inspired the 11,12 “ What if...? ” projects like Sarajevo and Seismicity . In this chapter, the discussion will be based on the concept of ‘ utopia as the project’ , while ruins become the ‘ site ’ or the ‘stage’ 29 . This ‘site analysis’ will frame relevant historical, socio-political, economical and ideological context of their time and argue their obsession of the ruins is much more than the a nostalgic resurrection of the glorious history or a hypocritical celebration of death . 30

13

25: Richard Wendorf, ‘Piranesi’s Double Ruin’, Eighteenth-Century Studies , vol.34, no.2, 2001, p.162-163. Note: Piranesi wrote this as a dedication to Nicola Giobbe in the front plate of the 1743 edition of Prima parte de architecture e prospettive . (see figure 13).

26: Nikolas Kompridis, ‘So We Need Something Else for Reason to Mean’, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol.8, Issue 3, December 8, 2010, p.271 27: Julia Hell, Andreas Schönle, Ruins and Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), Acknowledgement. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a8gOCMu30_kC&pg=PA23&dq=piranesi+ruins+utopia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gn3JUouJJap7AbYgIGQDw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=piranesi%20ruins%20utopia&f=false] (accessed on December 28, 2013) 28: Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination (London/New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006) p.173 29: Adopting Tafuri’s terminology ‘utopia as a project’ . See Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development , op. cit. , p.50. Note: My hypothesis of ruins as a ‘site’ because Piranesi and Woods often manifest their project in a ruinscape context, it can either be real or imaginary; historical or ahistorical. Also a ‘stage’ in the utopics theatre for their architectural narrative implication and ‘fictional plays’. See ‘ Utopics Theatre’ in Chapter I of this paper and note 19.

[Fig. 8] Unknow pohotgrapher T h e F a l l o f t h e Tw i n To w e r s 2001 Photography

30: I employed the term celebration of death from Woods. See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Celebrating Death’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , Marth 18, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/celebrating-death/] (accessed 11 September, 2013) Note: Woods’ criticism on the hypocritical and inhuman nature of some architects towards ruins: “When the World Trade Center towers fell, the only question obsessing architects was who would be commissioned to rebuild them.” Which will offer us different perspective of how Woods and Piranesi treat ruins with appreciation, but not as an opportunistic approach too gain fame or commission or to fulfil their own ambition. See Lebbeus Woods, The Storm and The fall (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004) p.19.

RUINS

of

REASONS

20

21

[Fig. 9] Giovanni Battista Piranesi P l a t e X X X V I I . Vi e w o f F l a v i a n A m p h i theatre and the Colosseum. from Le antichità Romane 1756 Etching

[Fig. 11] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Mediation from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

[Fig. 12] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Quake City from San Franciso 1995 Colour Pencil, Photo Collage

[Fig. 10] Giovanni Battista Piranesi P e r s p e c t i v e o f H a d r i a n ’ s To m b a n d the Bustum Hadriani from Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma 1762 Etching

RUINS

of

REASONS

22

23

1.Enlightenment Dialect Early eighteenth century Europe was at the dawning of the Enlightenment. Venice and Rome both retained their leading role as the artistic and intellectual exchange hub through the Grand Tour, which fueled the demand of the vedute despite the Republic’s disintegrating rigid social structure and oppressive censorship. 31 Enlightenment was fundamentally an epoch of civilisation advancement driven by scientific, academic and philosophical understanding, where people began to question the state of the world, the monarchy authorities and the churches. They imagined better ways of living established upon reasoning, democracy, pragmatism, humanism and idealism as opposed to exploitation, oppression, religious fanaticism, absolutism. 32 Manfredo Tafuri states: “The formation of the architect as an ideologist of society; the individualisation of the areas of intervention proper to city planning; the persuasive role of form in regard to the public and the self-critical role of form in regard to its own problems and development” 33 were the periodic ideas of the Enlightenment Dialect on architecture.

2.Root of the Evil The Age of Reason , despite all its good intention, ideals and contributions, paradoxically, was also the beginning of man’s fall prey to power, wealth and gain for trickery as they rise in the society. The origin of capitalism and modernity was conceived by what would be later called as rationalisation by Max Weber. 34 The rationalising society leads to a need for a totalising vision, the redistribution of the economy, from the Monarchist-favour Mercantilism to general-public-favour capitalism, was inevitably ensured by the new Enlightenment ideals. Enlightenment was ultimately the “absolute presence of reason by itself [which] leads to silence, to a semantic void, to geometric nothingness.” 35 Could this be the silence that provoked Piranesi’s ruinous fragmentation?

31: See John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi , op. cit. , p.9.

32: See ‘Further Understanding of Enlightenment’ n.d. [http://www.worldology.com/Europe/Europe_Articles/enlightenment.htm] (accessed on December 17, 2013).

33: Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, op. cit. , p.3. Note: I owe my whole development of the relationship between the “Enlightenment Dialect”, the Piranesian Utopia and the interpretation of Piranesi’s etching to Tafuri based on his work The Sphere and Labyrinth and Architecture and Utopia.

34: See Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (London: Verso, 2002).

35: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit. , p.44.

[Fig. 13] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Frontpiece from Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospecttive 1743 Etching RUINS

of

REASONS

24

25

3.Speaking Ruins Piranesi memorably remarked the beauty of the ruins after his first visit to Rome. 36 His appreciation towards the ruins of the Classical Rome was exhaustively manifested throughout his career. Often considered as one of the most important figures and precursors in pre-modern architectural history, his visionary work has immensely influenced the modern avant-garde dialects and architecture. 37 Born 1720 in Venice, Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s artisan background and multi-disciplinary training in Venice had contributed to his unconventional yet extraordinary career as an architect.

His father was a stonemason and his uncle was an architect of the hydraulic system of the Venetian coastal defences, where Piranesi worked as an apprentice and his uncle’s colleague, Giovanni Scalfarotto, who was famously known for his restoration engineering works for historic buildings. The polymathic attributes and personality Piranesi processes were further compelled by his formative training as an architectural illustrator and stage designer for Baroque opera, which proved essential to his competence to manipulate the art of perspectives, dramatic lightings and instrumentalise the ruins as the stage to perform his ideas. 38

14 15

Piranesi’s uncanny articulation of the ruins can perhaps be categorised into two approaches: the antiquarian (the historical) and the prophetic (the imaginary). For instance, the views capturing monumental temples, tombs, arches ruins in Rome in Prima Parte and the delirium nightmarish over-scaled dark prisons and torturing chambers from the Carceri d’Invenzione . His imagination had transcended the spacetime continuum, creating ahistorical reconstruction, timeless fantasy at the moment of decay. Precisely, it was the discursiveness of his approaches towards ruination “the very contrast between the analytical experiences of accurate archaeological surveying; the direct emotional experience; and the inventive flights of fantasy as typical characteristic of Enlightenment attitudes towards architecture.” 39

36: See Note 25. Also see Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.28. In Piranesi words: “ I will not tire you by telling you once again of the wonder I felt in observing the Roman buildings up close, of the absolute perfection of their architectonic parts, the rarity and the immeasurable quantity of the marble to be found on all sides, or that vast space, once occupied by the Circuses, the Forums and the Imperial Palaces: I will tell you only that those living speaking ruins filled my spirit with images such as even the masterfully wrought drawings of the immortal Palladio, which I kept before me at all times, could not arouse in me. It is thus that the idea has come to me to tell the world of some of these buildings.”

37: Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination, op. cit. , p.10-11. Further see Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit. p.55

15,16

38: See John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi , op. cit. , p.9-10. Note: Piranesi’s training as a stage design has a fundamental influence on his dramatic architectural fantasies. Notably the imaginary views of the dark prison in Carceri . See comparison between the Dark prison from Prima Parte 1743 (figure 15) and Plat VI from Carceri in 1750 (figure 16). Also see Ibid p.81. “ 39: John Pinto’s lecture ‘Piranesi’s Speaking Ruins: Fragments and Fantasy’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design , at the San Diego Museum of Art, March 30, 2013. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxaOZLq92dA] (accessed on October 10, 2013).

Note: It is important for my argument to consider both of the antiquarian and imaginary ruins of Piranesi in order to adequately understand his ‘negative utopia’ and architecture of incarceration. Also see Julia Hell, Andreas Schönle, Ruins and Modernity, op. cit. , p.23.

[Fig. 14] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Ruins of ancient buildings from Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospecttive 1743 Etching RUINS

of

REASONS

26

27

[Fig. 15]

[Fig. 16]

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Dark prison from Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospecttive 1743 Etching

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Plate VI, ‘The Smoking Fire’, 2nd State from Carceri d’Invenzione 1761 Etching

RUINS

of

REASONS

28

29

4 . Te r r i b l e B e a u t y 40 Isaac Newton states in his Principia : “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.” 41 Ironically, this resisting force also pertains to Enlightenment itself, as the great scientific discoveries propelled by reasons also simultaneously denied by its artistic responses. However, the emergence of the Counter-Enlightenment was not solely the rejection of the totalising rationalisation, but also the criticism of criticism 42 , or in other word, the debate of the desirability of reasons with reasoning. The paradox of reasons will subsequently lead to Piranesi’s fragmentation, where I will discuss in Chapter III . The theme on the Counter-Enlightenment was illustrated by Edmund Burke in his Enquiry into...the Sublime and Beautiful in 1756: “[A]ll that which draws the soul into itself, tends to concentrate its strength and render it capable of greater and more vigorous flights of science.” 43 Burke’s dialogues of obscurity, privation, vastness, infinity and magnitude in building relate to the emotions of fear induced by infinity and ‘greatness of dimension’ was masterfully portrayed in Pirna17 esi’s Carceri . 44 The terrifying beauty of ruins and the pervertion of reasaons can also 18-20 be luridly found in the work of Piranesi’s comtemporary artists such as Henry Fuseli, Joseph Wright, Francisco Goya and later John Martin. Tafuri further affirms the “rhetoric of the infinite and the linguistic disorder” had offered architecture a degree of utopianism with its new role of “formulating hypotheses, rather than to offer solutions.” 45

[Fig. 17] [Fig. 18]

J o s e p h Wr i g h t Ve s u v i u s f r o m P o r t i c i c.1775 Oil on Canvas

Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781 Oil on Canvas

40: Adopting Woods’ expression ‘Terrible Beauty’, See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Terrible Beauty’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , April 13 2010 [http:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/terrible-beauty/] (accessed June 9 2013).

41: Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729) English translation based on 3rd Latin edition (1726), Volume 1, p.20.

42: I have developed on Tafuri’s terminology ‘criticism of criticism’ for my interpretation of the counter-enlightenment. “For polemical reasons architecture exalted every thing that could assume an anti-European significance. Piranesi’s fragmentation is the consequence of the discovery of that new bourgeois science, historical criticism, but it is also, paradoxically, criticism of criticism.” See Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development , op. cit. , p.10.

43: Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756; reprint, London: Universit of Notre Dame Press, 1968).

44: John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi , op. cit. , p.90.

44: “The rhetoric of the infinite and the linguistic disorder- the language of the imaginary- thus constitute invitations to new techniques of domination. The utopianism of Enlightenment architecture is made clear by a lucid acceptance of this new role: architecture now tends to formulate hypotheses, rather than to offer solutions. And no one will ever claim that a hypotheses must be completely realised.” See Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s , op. cit ., p.30.

RUINS

of

REASONS

30

31

[Fig. 19] John Martin The Fall of Babylon 1831 Mezzotint with etching RUINS

of

REASONS

32

33

5. Ineffable Sublime Contemplating on Goya’s El sueño de la razón produce monstrous , meaning both the dream and the sleep of reason will derive my discussion back to the duality of the Enlightenment dialect and the ambiguity of the utopia. Hell and Schönle’s argument of modernity as ruins as a “significant conceptual and architectural constellation that points to moment of decay and falling apart, or ruination as early as the beginning of modernity in the eighteenth century.” will support a coherent interpretation of the ambiguity embedded in Goya and Piranesi’s work. 46 Piranesi’s dark visions ultimately lead to a “critical and alternative understanding of modernity that stand against the naive belief in progress and the moral improvement of mankind”. 47

Should mankind still trust the notion of reasons…?

21

“The burning towers of Sarajevo are markers at the end of an age of reasons, if not reason itself, beyond which lies a domain of almost incomprehensible darkness.” 48 , Woods expresses. Born 1940 in Lansing in the United States, Lebbeus Woods’ child hood was filled with wandering shifts. 49 His speaking ruins are primarily induced by changes . His radical response and urgency for reconstructing the urban fabrics of war-torn cities or post-seismic devastations were provoked by the very same human cataclysm of that presented in Goya another series The Disasters of War . Woods declares: “Architecture and war are not incompatible. I am at war with my time, with history with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms.” 50 Woods’ articulation of the ruins is an existential one. Through the damaged cities, he suggests “new forms of thought and comprehension…new conceptions of space that confirm the potential of the human to integrate itself , to be whole and free outside of any predetermined, totalising system…they do not celebrate the destruction of an established order, nor symbolize or commemorate it.” 51 Ruins and destructions, generally viewed as dystopian , however to Woods is the ineffable beauty beyond expressionthe “essence of existence” hidden from us in normalcy. 52 Paradoxically, Woods heroic visions reveals completely with the commitment of the ‘dystopian’. He fearlessly confronts the disturbing nature of ruins, unlike many other ‘optimistic’ architects, who consciously avoid the ugly and dark side of human nature. With inventive experiments, existential angst 53 and the creative process of fragmentation and reunification that transcend human lives and architecture into the ineffable sublime . He took the task to “ build the affirmative structure of our lives over an abyss of nothingness.” 54 [Fig. 20] Francisco Goya The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from Los Caprichos c.1799 Etching, Aquatint, Drypoint and Burin

46: See Julia Hell, Andreas Schönle, Ruins and Modernity , op. cit. , p.18.

47: Ibid, p.22.

48: Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction , op. cit. , p.17.

50: Lebbeus Woods, Pamphlet Architecture 15: War and Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993) p.1 49: Woods is a ‘military brat’ as father is an Air Force Officer and later an engineer. He too, studied engineering before taking masters in architecture at the University of Illinois. See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Origins’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 2, 2012 [http:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/origins/] (accessed June 9, 2013). Woods notes about his career: “ The nature of my work as tempered by the first ten years of my professional life, a decade spent in the technical and engineering aspects of architecture, absorbed in the detailing, co-ordination and construction of major projects in the United States. This immersion in the material aspects of building impelled me to go beyond technical considerations and the superficial expedients of style to an investigation of the meaning of buildings as they arise both from human necessity and the workings of the world itself as an integrated entity in nature.”

See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Architecture, Consciousness and the Mythos of Time’, AA Files , No.7, September, 1984, p.4 [Retrieved from the Royal Institute of British Architects Library] (accessed September 6, 2013).

51: Ibid, p.14 52: Lebbeus Woods, ‘Terrible Beauty 2: the ineffable’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , July 24, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress. com/2010/07/24/terrible-beauty-2-the-ineffable-2/] (accessed October 28, 2013) 53: Note: Woods defines ‘existential’ as a principle in thought affirming itself in action; existence confirming itself. See Lebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22) (London: Academy Edition, 1992), p.142.

54: See note 52, op. cit., Quote by Nikos Kazantzakis.

RUINS

of

REASONS

34

35

[Fig. 21]

[Fig. 22]

Francisco Goya P l a t e I I , Wi t h o r Wi t h o u t R e a s o n from Los Desatres de la Guerra c.1810 Aquatint Prints

L e b b e u s Wo o d s Wa r a n d A r c h i t e c t u r e 2 from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

RUINS

of

REASONS

36

37

III F

RAGMENTS

of

I

DEOLOGY

F

“ ragmentation can be philosophical, too. It can be systematic and not merely c h a o t i c o r a c c e n t u a l … o r, e v e n i f i t ’s c h a o t i c , i t c a n r e f l e c t a n e x i s t e n t i a l i s t e d g e .

A risky form of play with disintegration as a prelude or even impetus to a higher r e - f o r m a t i o n . ” 55 - L e b b e u s Wo o d s

I.de.o.lo.gy

noun

A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. 56

Marxism Definite forms of social consciousness i.e. political, religious, ethical, aesthetic… etc. emerged from the superstructure . 57 Following up with the exploration of ruins as a stage , which also acts as a transitional medium that holds the cluster of architectural fragments. Fragments, thus consequently become the performers and choreographers in the utopian theatre as this Chapter will demonstrate: [1] Piranesi and Woods’ architectural agenda and their unique perception of architecture which performs as the instigator to provoke the fragmentation.

[2] The fragmentation progression in Piranesi and Woods’ work in the radically changing society and the conflicting space.

[Fig. 23]

[3] The process of re-formation from fragments that manifests experimental spaces and radical architectural possibilities.

L e b b e u s Wo o d s Conflict Space 4 from Conflict Space 2006 Crayon and acrylic on linen

55: Quoate continues: “ A s l o n g a s f o r m s r e m a i n w h o l e u n i f i e d , c o h e r e n t , t h e y c a n n o t b e t r a n s f o r m e d . O n l y w h e n e s t a b l i s h e d forms are broken up are they susceptible to change. This formal variety is a virtual metaphor of modern society: the break-up caused by political revolutions and new technological capabilities has created a human world not only susceptible to new forms, b u t d e m a n d i n g o f t h e m . ” Lebbeus Woods,‘Drawn into Space: Zaha Hadid’, Architectural Design , Vol. 78, no. 4, July/ August 2008. p.28.

56: Citation, ‘Ideology’, Oxford English Dictionary (2012).

57: Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: Methuen & Co., 1976) p.4-5. Further see Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Charles H. Kerr, 1904).

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

38

39

1 . Te r r a N o v a : T h e I n s t i g a t o r Piranesi and Woods are regarded by the world as radicals not merely for their polemic, contentious proposal for reconstruction of the ruins nor their imaginative power and masterful draughtsmanship, but their audacity to challenge the concept of space and question the conventional practices of architecture conceived by the world as a “stable structure, which gives form to values and consolidates urban morphology” 58 and “the solid state of thoughts” 59 . Woods interrogates if architecture actually lies in the realm of stability as whether it is at rest or in tension - the architectonics are held in equilibrium by a restrained and controlled force inserted by human. 60 By re-examining the ineffable I discussed in the Chapter II, human existence is expressed in the epic-cycle of birth, growth, decay and death. For Piranesi and Woods, the only choice of the ineffable is, instead of concealing the inevitable truth, to confront the cognitive dissonance and unbearable tension and embrace it with creative acknowledge and an inexorable flux of existence.

Tafuri reprises: “Utopia is seen as the only possible value, as a positive anticipation… the imagination is not a lull or refusal of the society, but a facilitator for this anticipation.” Fragmentation , thus, become an imperative progression within the invention to present an alternative that depart present contradictions from the historical conditions. 61 Through the fragmentation-reformation process, the instable and crumble landscape will transform into a new territory, a terra nova . 62 In where the role of architecture is “[i]nstrumental, not expressive: a tool extending individual capacities to do, to think, to know, to become, but also to pass away, to become an echo, a vestige, a soil for other acts, movements, individual” .63

[Fig. 24] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Te r r a N o v a from D.M.Z. 1988 Colour Pencil

58: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.42.

59: Note: Woods discuss in an interview with Corrado Curti about the relationship and limitation between architecture and science, how architecture is a solid state of thought shaped by our scientific knowledge, speculative experimentation and the unique experience of our existence. “Architecture is existential. Its hypotheses and theories, the problems that it confronts are of the constantly shifting conditions of being human. While they may hold some basic human traits – physical and mental – the goal for architects should not be to enshrine these in eternal laws and forms, but to enable people to live to their full potential, whatever that is or may be. Scientific thinking can only be of limited help in this task.” Further see Lebbeus Woods, ‘Architecture: the solid state of thought [complete]’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 10, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/architecture-the-solid-stateof-thought-complete/] (accessed on January 9, 2013).

60: See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Storm Watch’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 19, 2009 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/ storm-watch/] (accessed on January 9, 2013).

61: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.29.

62: Note: The term ‘Terra Nova’, as Woods explains: “...[It’s] the idea of the artificial landscape. Reforming the landscape. Architecture being a method of reforming the earth’s surface. We reshape the earth’s surface, from architecture to paving streets, to parking lots and buildings that are really reforming the surface of the earth. Reforming nature, taking over what we find. And we’re mushing it around and remaking a new earth.” See Lebbeus Woods, ‘Subtopia Meets Lebbeus Woods’, Subtopia , June 8, 2007 [http://subtopia. blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/subtopia-meets-lebbeus-woods.html] (accessed June 9, 2013).

63: Lebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.142.

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

24

40

41

2. Abusrd Machine: The Fragmentation Ideologies of any sorts, for Woods, are non-choice as they insist on an enforced belief. The advancement of technologies and communications of the twenty-first Century obtained from existential knowledge has made it possible to comprehend a new form of order in chaos, one appropriate to present human conditions. 64 The sequence of ‘chaos’ was a product from the fragmentation of existing systems under the immense pressure of radical changes. 65 From Woods’ War and Architecture series in the sieged city of Sarajevo, fragmentation plays an important instrumental device in the reconstruction of the space voided by military violence. “Fragments came to be valued not so much for a vanishing totality, but their imcompleteness and associations with decay, which inspired the creative process.” 66 He proposed transient structures over the damaged and destroyed urban fabric include “injection,” “scab,” “scar,” and “new tissue” have conveyed a highly existentialist mentality. Within these structures, the non-predetermined, non-predesign and non-predictive freespace emerges where the citizens of Sarajevo are encouraged to face their traumatic experience, constantly reinventing a self-organised inhabitant and formulating new space in order to live experimentally. 67 A similitude of vicious response of Woods to the order of chaos in Sarajevo can perhaps be comprehended in the Piranesian fragmentation, as palpably conveyed in the Carceri and subsequently Campo Marzio . My argument here will once again be sustained by Tafuri’s interpretation on Piranesi’s imaginary Prisons and Reconstructions . 68 The radical changes induced by the new bourgeois city and economic liberalism had consequently evoked Piranesi’s prophecy of the “absurd machine”, a negative anticipation of the exploitation, oppression and ultimately alienation of modern man under capitalism. 69 Indeed, these changes were just as violent and occasionally destructive to the society as the explosion of bombs and artillery shells in Sarajevo or any other warzones. In the end, didn’t warzone signify a conflict space between two (or more) opposing groups of ideologue?

64: Lebbeus Woods, Pamphlet Architecture 15: War and Architecture, op. cit. , p.8.

65: Ibid, p.8 66: Dr. John Pinto’s lecture ‘Piranesi’s Speaking Ruins: Fragments and Fantasy’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design . op. cit.

67: “Living experimentally means living continously at the limit of received knowledge.” See Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction, op. cit. p.18

[Fig. 25] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Injection Parasite from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

68: ‘Prisons’ and ‘Reconstructions’ respectively refer to Piranesi’s etching series Carceri d’Invenzione in 1760 (rework of Invenzioni capric di Carceri in 1745) and Della Magnificenza ed Architecttura de’ Romani (proposals for reconstruction of the imperial city of Rome) in 1761.

69: “Those wishing to give up this traditional conception and blind architecture instead to the destiny of the city...as a technological product..reduced to a mere link in the production chain. Piranesi’s prophecy of the bourgeois city as an absurd machine was...realized in the nineteenth cenutry as primary structures of the capitalist economy.”, Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development , op. cit. , p.42.

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

25-27, 30

42

43

[Fig. 26] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Scab from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

[Fig. 27] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Scar from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

44

45

In the idiosyncratic exposition of the prisons in Carceri , parallel to Woods brilliantly haunting drawings in War and Architecture should not be consumed as the representation of architecture, but the existential experience of it- the spectator is “obliged to participate in the process of mental reconstruction.” 70

The mega-structure enclosing an ostensibly infinite space was perhaps echoed by Marx’s superstructure 71 , framing the unpredictable social connotations with its dark and ambiguous atmosphere; The unaligned vanishing point creates spatial distortion and a constant metamorphosis of spaces, signifying the irrationality produced by the ‘hyper-productive’ liberal economy; The discontinuity and unresolved flights of staircases, bridges and towers caused by optical illusion were perhaps alluding the raise of men up the social and economical ‘ladder ’ as mere delusion and the gain of power and wealth will lead them to an empty void; The disarticulation and nebulousness of light and shadows, pulleys, ropes and torturing devices elicited social injustice, perverted morality, enforced ideologies and the oppressions of the weak and poor. The dark and vague human figures almost assumed a totalising world of alienation and inhumanity. 72 The Carceri depicted a metaphorical criticism of the concept of place and prison of ideologies .

70: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.28.

[Fig. 28] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Plate II, ‘The Man on the Rack’, 2nd State from Carceri d’Invenzione 1761 Etching

71: Karl Marx’s superstructure explained as: “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely [the] relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.” See Marx, Karl (1977). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy . Moscow: Progress Publishers: Notes by R. Rojas. [http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure#cite_note-3] (accessed January 21, 2014).

72: The italics are my personal interpretation of Piranesi’s Carceri with the support of Tafuri. See Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.25-41. Also see M. Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development , op. cit. , p.16-19.

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

28,29

46

47

[Fig. 29] Giovanni Battista Piranesi Plate II, ‘The Gothic Arch’, 2nd State from Carceri d’Invenzione 1761 Etching

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

48

49

3. Heterarchy Cities: The Reformation When structures have become shackles; ideologies become moral chains; economic productions become an absurd machine; reasons become a mental prison. Fragmentation is an inevitable choice. Through the process of fragmentation, forces of sheer unpredictability and uncertainty form unique and complex forms and figurationsthey are the beginnings of new ways of thinking, living, and shaping space, arising from individuality and invention. In the an anarchic state of the destructed and shattered city, a new kind of unity, a heterarchical community can be formed, one that precludes the hierarchical basis for organised violence and war. 73 “ Heterarchy is a spontaneous lateral network of autonomous individual; a system of authority based on the evolving performance of individuals. ” 74 Now I will come to a presumption of the fundamental agenda of Piranesi and Woods’ work is a persisting celebration and emphasis of the autonomous individual . Piranesi’s work is essentially a “ systematic criticism of the concept of centre ” 75 , as it is lucidly depicted in the immense diversity of vestiges of Roman ruins in Vedute di Roma , the negative-centrality 76 of the Collegio , the nebulous dark spatial network of the Carceri , the vast catalogue of antiquarian fragments in Antichita Romane and the multi-vitas, multi-centres imaginary reconstruction city in Campo Marzio 77 all suggest a heterarchic architectural world. The passion to establish a heterarchical city echoes thoroughly in the Woodsian realm of architecture: from Aerial Paris to the Free-zone series; from Four Cities to Centricity ; from the War and Architecture series to Seismicity ; All projects proposed a reformed architecture of indeterminacy “form the matrix of unpredictable possibilities for cultural, social, political transformation latent in human knowledge and invention.” 78

[Fig. 30] L e b b e u s Wo o d s New Tissues from Sarajevo 1993 Colour Pencil

74: Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction, op. cit., pp.16, 29.

74 : Lebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.142.

Note: ‘Hierarchy’ is a predetermined vertical chain of authority that works from top down. Ibid.

75: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.27.

76: See Ibid, pp.30-31. Note: Tafuri’s analysis of the Collegio : “The centrality of the composition, with its successive and independent rings, projects outward from the circular space of the grand staircase s…among the organisms that are in search of their own role within the concentric structures, is , significantly, one of the minor spaces…[Collegio] is a structure theoretically endlessly expandable . The independence of the parts and their montage boey no other law than the of pure contiguity .”.

77: See Ibid, pp.33-34. “Compared to the Caceri , the Campo Marzio actually appears polemical and self-critical....[the] re-elaboration marks the advent of an intense crisis of the objec t in the Piranesian poetics. In the Campo Marzio what is contested is the limitedness, the abstractness, the randomness of the hermetic objects that throng that plates of the Carceri in 170.”.

78: L. Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.10.

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

4 31 32 33,34

50

51

[Fig. 31]

[Fig. 32]

Giovanni Battista Piranesi S e c o n d F r o n t p i e c e o f Vo l u m e I I from Le antichitĂ Romane 1756 Etching

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Ichnograhpia from Il Campo Marzio 1762 Etching

FRAGMENTS

of

IDEOLOGY

52

53

IV U

TOPIA of

O

BSCURITY

I

“ f I could believe in utopia, it would be a utopia of free movement, a perpetual a s s e r t i o n o f s e l f - d e t e r m i n e d e x i s t e n c e i n s p a c e a n d t i m e . ” 79 - L e b b e u s Wo o d s

utopia An ideological place where ideology is put into play; a stage for ideological representation. 80

dystopia Opposite of utopia. A place that is in some important way undesirable or frightening; characterized by dehumanisation, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster and cataclysmic decline. 81

Degenerate utopia A place where ideology changed into the form of a myth. 82

Negative utopia An anti-ideological, anti-hierarchical, anti-consensus place where people have the freedom of choice. 83

Heterotopia Other place : A physical representation or approximation of a utopia, or a parallel space that contains undesirable bodies to make a real utopian space possible ( like a prison ). 84 79: Lebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.64.

80: Louis Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces , op. cit. , p.239.

81: See ‘Dystopia’. n.d. Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia] (accessed December 11, 2013).

82: L. Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces , op. cit. , p.239.

[Fig. 33] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Zone 24 from Berlin-Free-Zone 1990 Colour Pencil

83: Freedom : “A state emptied of preconceived value, use, and meaning, an extreme state of loss, within which choice is unavoidable, a condition of maximum potential, realised fully in the present moment.” Choice : “The act made necessary by acute awareness of the present moment; involved risk.” L. Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.142.

84: See ‘Heterotopia’. n.d. Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia_(space ] (accessed December 12, 2013).

UTOPIA of

OBSCURITY

54

55

After the investigation of the historical frame of utopia, ruins and fragments, I must now confess to the ambiguous and paradoxical title of the paper, fully intentional. 85 With the support Marin and Tafuri’s interpretation from utopia and dystopia to de generate utopia and negative utopia and ultimately heterotopia as shown in the (re) definitions above, I will now discuss Piranesi and Woods’ alternative utopia .

Parallel Universe Cook described Woods as a “ craggy optimist ” 86 while Woods confesses: “I am basically a pessimist […] but in order to affect any sorts of optimistic view, [one must] start with the darkness, and see what kind of light we can create.” 87 Indeed, Woods’ pessimism towards the ‘triumphing violence’ of materialistic, consumerist society today was parallel with Piranesi’s rejction of the rationalisation of the Enlightenment ideologies with the emergence of capitalism. Ernst Bloch expresses: “Architecture [as a social creation], cannot be flourished in the late capitalist hollow space […] only the beginnings of a new society will make true architect possible again.” 88 I shall now point out the work of Piranesi and Woods was never meant to be mere flights of fantasy or inspiration, but were fully intended as architectural proposals or at least, guidelines . 89 Their visions are only interrupted by their distrust over the short-sighted society and the possibilities of ‘true architecture’ in capitalists’ dominance.

Negative utopia , is therefore the negation of utopia itself, or technically its ideological implications. Continuing with Woods’ opening quote in this chapter: “…I cannot believe in utopia, because utopia insists on a absolute consensus among people, and such consensus cancels the individual’s power to assert his or her presence in the world.” 90 The same negation, expounded by Tafuri, Piranesi’s denial of the totalisation of reasons, was elicited intensely in the order of chaos and decay in his imaginary prisons. Fredric Jameson observes: “[Tafuri’s] paradox [of the negative utopia] can be turn inside out […] The new forms we have imagined might have secretly new modes of life emerging even partially. [At] an existential level…we can think of space that demand new kinds of type of living that demand new kind of space.” 91 Dystopia of the ruins and fragments, thus, is only an instrumental disguise of a more generative alternative utopia that opens up the opportunities for radical socio-political transformations and human transfiguration.

[Fig. 34] L e b b e u s Wo o d s Photon Kite Aerial Paris Colour Pencil

85: The paradox of the title lies in the question of “are Piranesi and Woods are utopians or not?” Despite their negation of the traditional utopia, as ideological (of any sorts) place, and the constant fragmentation and ruination dystopian graphical context. Ultimately, their architectural visions are still very much in the realm generating optimistism. Thus the title: ‘The Utopian Vision of G.B Piransi and Lebbeus Woods’ should not be view as a technical or literal meaning of the conventional perception of the world ‘utopian’.

The heterotopia of Piranesi, hence, “lies precisely in giving voice, in an absolute and evident manner, to this contradiction: the principle of Reason is shown to be an instrument capable of anticipating- outside of any sueño- the monsters of the irrational.” 92 Echoing the utopia of alterity of Woods, one of which is a deep political act, yet anti-ideological, anti-hierarchical world 92 - a world liberated from enforced believes, shackled structures, despoiled systems; freed from the glass prison of distorted values, the chains of ideological gravity and to constantly reinvent radical ideas for new conditions of living.

89: 90: Lebbeus Woods, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22), op. cit., p.64.

91: Fredric Jameson, ‘Is Space Political?’, in, C. C. Davidson, ed., Anyplace (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1995) pp.192-205.

Also see Nathaniel Coleman, “‘Building in Empty Space’: is Architecture a ‘Degenerate Utopia’?”, The Journal of Architecture , Vol.18, no.2, April, 2013, p.155.

92: Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, op. cit., p.46.

86: Peter Cook, ‘The Craggy Optimist’, introduction in Lebbeus Woods, Origins (Mega II) (London: AA Publication, 1985).

87: Lebbeus Woods, ‘Lebbeus Woods Vico Morcote Interview 1998’, Sci-Arc Media Arcive , October 11, 2013. [http://sma.sciarc.edu/ video/lebbeus-woods-vico-morcote-interview-1998/] (accessed on November 11, 2013).

88: Ernst Bloch, trans. J. Zipes, F. Mecklenburg, ‘Building in Empty Space’, in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1988) p.187.

UTOPIA of

OBSCURITY

56

57

[Fig. 36] L e b b e u s Wo o d s n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h C h r i s t o p h K u m p u s c h I n t e r i o r Vi e w o f t h e L i g h t P a v i l l i o n Chengdu China 2012

[Fig. 35] L e b b e u s Wo o d s n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h C h r i s t o p h K u m p u s c h F r o n t Vi e w o f t h e L i g h t P a v i l l i o n Chengdu China 2012

UTOPIA of

OBSCURITY

58

59

E

CLIPSE

Piranesi and Woods are undoubtedly the outliers of their time while they are often portrayed as monk-like paper architects for their ‘unproductiveness’ in the building industry. Unlike most of their contemporary architects, they do not compromise with the absurd machines violently enforced by the hierarchical system for lucrative commissions. They acknowledged the actual task of an architect is to catalyse the process socio-political transformation. As Karl Marx once said: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Indeed, Piranesi and Woods were both very much an architect with the mind of a philosopher. They intelligently interpret the world with an existential knowledge; fiercely question the conventional thoughts and perception; constantly challenge the ideas of shaping space and living; obsequiously criticise the exploitation and oppression from capitalist ideologues; fearlessly engage in the instigation of the social, political and architectural change; Their radical visions are manifested through the process of fragmentation and reformation in the undesirable dystopian ruinscapes while an optimistic beam of light penetrate in a heterotopian form. The world is at its critical stage where changes and turbulence are only going to get more and more vigorous.

Utopian ideas will always be an essential instrument to inject an optimistic attitude in humanity. But architects should refrain the temptation to manifest utopia as a project of the reality, nor the blueprints for a city, such attempts will result in failure as the old wheel turns. Utopia , after all, is a non-place.

However, changes are needed as the world is facing the inevitable future with an existential angst.

Heterotopia could be a model to start with, as already depicted by our two great processors.

A world liberated from enforced believes, shackled structures, despoiled systems; freed from the glass prison of distorted values and the chains of ideological gravity.

If anyone would be brave enough to start this revolution, together, we begin the construction of a city.

[Fig. 37] Giovanni Battista Piranesi F r o n t Vi e w o f T h e C h u r c h o f S t . M a r y o f t h e P r i o r y Santa Maria del Priorato, Rome Italy 1764-67

ECLIPSE

60

L ist 0.

1.

of

I llustrations

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Bruegel’s Presence’, Lebbeus Woods Blog, January 28, 2010.

[Retreived from: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/bruegels-presence/] Lebbeus Woods, ‘Bruegel’s Presence’, Lebbeus Woods Blog, January 28, 2010.

[Retreived from: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/bruegels-presence/]

2 . A Tibetan work, reproduced first in Waddell, “The Buddhism of Tibet...”, p. 453, and then in Carus, “ Chinese thought”, p 48.

[Retreived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carus-p48-Mystic-table.jpg]

3 . Thomas More, trans. Paul Turner, Utopia . Originally published in 1516.

[Retreived from: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/thematic-maps/ theme-maps/utopia.html]

61

1 8 . Wikipedia, n.d. [Retreived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The Nightmare.JPG]

1 9 . [Retreivedhttps://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image .aspx?image=ps276341.jpg&retpage=21590]

2 0 . Wikipedia, n.d. [Retreived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_del_Prado_-_Goya_-_ Caprichos_-_No._43_-_El_sue%C3%B1o_de_la_razon_produce_monstruos.jpg]

2 1 . Wikipedia, n.d. [h t t p : / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / F i l e : P r a d o _ - _ L o s _ D e s a s t r e s _ d e _ l a _ G u e r r a _ - _ N o . _ 0 4 _ - _ L a s _ m u g e r e s _ d a n _ v a l o r. j p g ]

2 2 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

4 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 22.

23.

5 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 24.

2 4 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (London, 1992) 78.

6 . Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination, (London/New York,

2 5 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

7 . Wikipedia, n.d. [Retreived from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Great_Fire_

2 6 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

8 . Lebbeus

2 7 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

9 . John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi as Architect and Designer (London, 1993) 65.

2 8 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978).

1 0 . John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi as Architect and Designer (London, 1993) 43.

2 9 John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 86.

1 1 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

3 0 . Lebbeus

1 2 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

3 1 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 54.

2006) 15.

London.jpg]

W o o d s , ‘Terrible Beauty2: the ineffable’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , July 24, 2010 [Retreived from: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/terrible-beauty-2-the-ineffable-2/]

1 3 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 12.

1 4 . -, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 13.

Lebbeus Woods, ‘The Dreams that stuff is made of.’, Lebbeus Woods Blog, January 4, 2011.

[Retreived from: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-dreams-that-stuff-is-made-of/]

W o o d s , Radical Reconstruction (New York, 1997).

3 2 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 66.

3 3 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (London, 1992) 96.

3 4 . Lebbeus

W o o d s , Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (London, 1992) 66.

1 5 . -, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 82.

3 5 . [Retrieved

1 6 . -, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 83.

3 6 . [Retrieved

1 7 . Wikipedia, n.d. [Retreived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Wright_of_Derby_-_Ve

3 7 . John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, 1978) 95.

suvius_from_Portici.jpg]

from: http://archrecord.construction.com/features/sna shot/2013/01/1301-Light-Pavilion.jpg ] f r o m : h t t p : / / w w w. e - a r c h i t e c t . c o . u k / i m a g e s / j p g s / c h i n a / s l i c e d - p o r o s i ty-block-light-pavilion-s200213-s1.jpg]

62

63

Lola Kantor-Kazovsky, Piranesi: As Interpreter of Roman Architecture and The Origins of His Intellectual World (Michigan: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2006).

Luigi Ficacci, Piranesi: The Etchings (Koln: Taschen GmbH, 2006).

S elected B ibliography

[

L ebbeus

Wo o d s ’ o w n p u b l i c a t i o n ]

Lebbeus Woods, Pamphlet Architecture 6: Einstein Tomb (New York: William Stout Publishers, 1980).

Selected Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s own publication 1743

Prima Parte di Architectture e Prospettive

c. 1745

Invenzioni capric di Carceri

c. 1748

Antichita Romane de’ Tempi della Repubblica e de’ Primi Imperatori

c. 1750

Opere Varie di Architecttura, Prospettiva, Groteschi, Antichita

c. 1760

Carceri d’Invenzione (rework of Invenzioni capric di Carceri with two extra plates)

1761

Della Magnificenza ed Architecttura de’ Romani

-, Lebbeus Woods: Terra Nova (Tokyo: Gingko Press, 1990).

-, Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act (Architectural Monograph No 22) (London: Academy Edition, 1992).

-, One Five Four (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992).

-, Pamphlet Architecture 15: War and Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993).

-, Radical Reconstruction (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997).

-, Earthquake!: APost-bilical View (Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 2002).

-, The Storm and The Fall (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004).

-, Lebbeus Woods: System Wien (Berlin: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006).

Books [ [

P iranesi

scholars’ publications]

U topics,

visionary architecture and drawing references]

Louis Marin, trans. Robert A. Vollrath, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces (New York: Humanity Books, 1990).

John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1978).

Ernst Bloch, trans. N. Plaice, S. Plaice, P. Knight, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1986)

John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi as Architect and Designer (New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993).

Iain Fraser and Rod Henmi, Envisioning Architecture: An Analysis of Drawing (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 1993).

Manfredo Tafuri, trans. Guis Laterza and Figli, Bari, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development (London: MIT Press, 1976).

Christian W. Thomsen, Visionary Architecture: From Babylon to Virtual Reality (New York: Prestel, 1994).

Manfredo Tafuri, trans. Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (London: MIT Press, 1987).

Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination (London,New York, Thames and Hudson, 2006).

Marguerite Yourcenar, trans. Richard Howard, The Dark Brain of Piranesi and Other Essays (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux).

Andrew Robison, Piranesi: Early Architectural Fantasies, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Etchings (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986).

Peter Cook, Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2008).

Yael Reisner and Fleur Watson, Architecture and Beauty (Chichester: Wiley, 2010).

64

[

H istorical,

ideological and other theorectical references]

65

Articles [The Journal of Architecture]

Thomas More, trans. Paul Turner, Utopia (London: Penguin Books, 1965) Originally published in 1516.

Isaac Newton, trans. Andrew Motte, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Volume 1) (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010) Originally published in 1687.

Edmund Burke, ed. David Womersley, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of the Sublime and Beautiful: And Other Pre-Revolutionary Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1999) Originally published in 1757.

Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: Methuen & Co., 1976) .

Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Charles H. Kerr, 1904).

Manfredo Tafuri, trans. G. Verrechia, Theories and History of Architecture (London: Granada, 1980) Fredric Jameson, ‘Is Space Political?’, in, C. C. Davidson, ed., Anyplace (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1995).

Bernard Tschumi , Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1995).

Bernard Tschumi , Architecture Theory Since 1968 , K. M. Hays, ed., (Cambridge Mass., The MIT Press, 1998).

Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (London: Verso, 2002).

Paul Hirst, Space and Power: Politics, War and Architecture (Cambridge: Polity, 2005).

Architecture for Huamnity, ed., Design Like you Give a Damn: Architectural Response to Huamnitarian Crises (London: Thames & Hudson, 2006).

Julia Hell, Andreas Schönle, Ruins and Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

Joanna Barbara Rapp, “A Geometrical Analysis of Multiple Viewpoint Perspective in the Work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi: An Application of Geometric restitution of Perspective” The Journal of Architecture, Volume 13, Number 6, 2008, p.701-736, [British Architectural Library] (accessed September 10, 2013).

Aarati Kanekar, “Between Drawing and Building”, The Journal of Architecture , Vol.15, no.6, December, 2010, p.771-794 [British Architectural Library] (accessed September 10, 2013).

Nathaniel Coleman, “‘Building in Empty Space’: is Architecture a ‘Degenerate Utopia’?”, The Journal of Architecture , Vol.18, no.2, April, 2013, p.135-166 [British Architectural Library] (accessed January3, 2014).

[Architectural Design] Lebbeus Woods,‘Drawn into Space: Zaha Hadid’, Architectural Design , Vol. 78, no.

4, July/ August 2008. p.26.

Neil Spiller, ‘Architectural Drawing: Grasping for the Fifth Dimension’, Architectural Design , Vol. 225, September/ October 2013, p.14-19.

Mas Yendo, ‘From Philosophical Bankruptcy?’, Architectural Design , Vol. 225, September/ October 2013, p.124-127.

[Other Journals] Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”, The National Interest , Summer, 1989 [British Architectural Library] (accessed August 12, 2013).

Bernard Tschumi, ‘The Architecture Paradox’, Studio International , September-October, 1975 [British Architectural Library] (accessed August 12, 2013).

Nikolas Kompridis, ‘So We Need Something Else for Reason to Mean’, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol.8, Issue 3, December 8, 2010, p.271.

Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher, “Documents…”, ICON , no.53, November, 2007, p.89-100 [British Architectural Library] (accessed September 10, 2013) Ellis Woodman, “Piranesi’s Rebuilt Reality”, Building Design , no.2048, February 15, 2013, p.20.

Richard Wendorf, ‘Piranesi’s Double Ruin’, Eighteenth-Century Studies , vol.34, no.2, 2001, p.162-163.

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Architecture, Consciousness and the Mythos of Time’, AA Files , No.7, September, 1984, p.4 [Retrieved from the Royal Institute of British Architects Library] (accessed September 6, 2013).

66

Online Articles [

L ebbeus W oods

67

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Zaha’s Way’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , March 27, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/zahas-way/] (accessed December 19, 2013).

Blog]

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Taking a Position’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , October 20, 2007 [http:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/taking-a-position/] (accessed September 9, 2013).

-, ‘Starchitects Defended’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 19, 2007 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/starchitects-defended/] (accessed July 17, 2013).

-, ‘Lebbeus Woods: Interview by Leo Gullbring’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 29, 2007 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/lebbeus-woods-interview-byleo-gullbring/] (accessed June 1, 2013).

-, ‘Architecture of Energy’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , June 5, 2009 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2009/06/05/architecture-of-energy/] (accessed July 17, 2013).

-, ‘Utopia?’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , October 11, 2009 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress. com/2009/10/11/utopia/] (accessed September 20, 2013).

-, ‘Utopia Redux’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 9 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/utopia-redux/] (accessed September, 21 2013) .

-, ‘Bruegel’s Presence’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 28, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2010/01/28/bruegels-presence/] (accessed August 8, 2013).

-, ‘Terrible Beauty’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , April 13 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/terrible-beauty/] (accessed June 9 2013).

-, ‘Terrible Beauty2: the ineffable’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , July 24, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/terrible-beauty-2-the-ineffable-2/] (accessed June 9, 2013).

-, ‘Architecture: the solid state of thought [complete]’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 10, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/architecture-the-solidstate-of-thought-complete/] (accessed on January 9, 2013).

-, ‘Building Landscapes’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , September 13, 2010 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/building-landscapes/] (accessed August 11, 2013).

-, ‘Century of the Shelf(updated)’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 18, 2010 [http:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/century-of-the-self-updated/] (accessed July 17, 2013).

-, ‘The Dreams that Stuffs Madeof?’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 4, 2011 [http:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-dreams-that-stuff-is-made-of/] (accessed May 8, 2013).

-, ‘Unreal Ruins’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , April 5, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/unreal-ruins/] (accessed July 17, 2013).3 -, ‘Origins’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 2, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress. com/2012/01/02/origins/] (accessed June 9, 2013).

-, “Zaha’s Aquatic Centre”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , February 17, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/zahas-aquatic-center/] (accessed December 19, 2013).

-, ‘Celebrating Death’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , March 18, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2007/12/19/starchitects-defended/] (accessed 11 September, 2013).

-, ‘Inevitable Architecture’, Lebbeus Woods Blog , July 9, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2012/07/09/inevitable-architecture/] (accessed October 11, 2013).

-, “Drawing, Stories”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , November 2, 2010 [2013, http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/drawings-stories/] (accessed July 7).

-, “Drawing, Stories 2”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , May 8, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2011/05/08/drawings-stories-2/] (accessed July 7, 2013) -, “Drawing, Stories 3”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , May 10, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2011/05/08/drawings-stories-3/] (accessed July 9, 2013).

-, “Drawing, Stories 4”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , June 24, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2011/05/08/drawings-stories-4/] (accessed July 9, 2013).

-, “City of Earth”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 20, 2008 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2008/12/20/city-of-earth/] (accessed 1 September, 2013).

-, “City of Fire”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 24, 2008 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2008/12/24/city-of-fire/] (accessed 1 September, 2013).

-, “City of Water”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 31, 2008 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2008/12/31/city-of-water/] (accessed 1 September, 2013).

-, “City of Air”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 3, 2008 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/city-of-air/] (accessed 1 September, 2013).

-, “Michelangelo’s War”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , May 22, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2012/05/22/michelangelos-war/ (accessed 5 September, 2013).

-, “Beyond Memory”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , March 22, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2012/03/22/beyond-memory/] (accessed 23 August, 2013).

-, “Yendo’s Exprosthesis”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , January 20, 2012 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/yendos-ex-prosthesis/] (accessed February 14, 2013).

-, “War and Architecture: Three Principles”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 15, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/war-and-architecture-three-principles/] (accessed October 15, 2013).

-, “War and Architecture: The Sarajevo Window”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , December 2, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/war-and-architecture-the-sarajevo-window/] (accessed October 16, 2013).

-, “A Space of Light”, Lebbeus Woods Blog , February 15, 2011 [http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2011/12/02/war-and-architecture-the-sarajevo-window/] (accessed December 21, 2012).

68

[

O ther

69

Blogs]

Reinier de Graaf, ‘An underdose of Utopia can be just as dangerous as an overdoes’, Dezeen , 12 September, 2012 [http://www.dezeen.com/2012/09/12/an-underdose-ofutopia-can-be-just-as-dangerous-as-an-overdose-says-reinier-de-graaf/] (accessed Ausgust 7, 2013).

Ljubo Georgiev and Anita Stamatoiu, ‘What are Utopias For?’, Endo , Autumn, 2011, [http://utopicus2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/what-are-utopias-for.html] (accessed October 8, 2013) Bo Carver, ‘Utopia: Essay on Thomas More’s Ideal Society’, Yahoo Voices , July 25, 2006 [http://voices.yahoo.com/utopia-essay-thomas-mores-ideal-society-447513.html?cat=9] (accessed September 1, 2013).

‘Further Understanding of Enlightenment’ n.d. [http://www.worldology.com/Europe/ Europe_Articles/enlightenment.htm] (accessed on December 17, 2013).

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Subtopia Meets Lebbeus Woods’, Subtopia , June 8, 2007 [http://subtopia.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/subtopia-meets-lebbeus-woods.html] (accessed June 9, 2013).

James Bartolacci, “Utopian Architecture Part 2: Beyond Modernism” Architizer , September 4, 2013 [http://architizer.com/blog/utopian-architecture-part-2/] (accessed September 4, 2013).

Lectures John Pinto, ‘Piranesi’s Speaking Ruins: Fragments and Fantasy’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design , at the San Diego Museum of Art, March 30, 2013. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxaOZLq92dA] (accessed on October 10, 2013).

Jeffrey L. Collins, ‘More is More: Piranesi and Design’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design , at the San Diego Museum of Art, March 30, 2013. [http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZBtzLleWfQ] (accessed on October 12, 2013).

Christopher M.S. Johns, ‘Piranesi and the Fabrication of Rome in the European Imagination: Le Vedute di Roma and Antichità Romane’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design , at the San Diego Museum of Art, March 30, 2013. [http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=gDB6Tugl1Ng] (accessed on October 14, 2013).

John Marciari, ‘The Imaginary and Eternal Prisons of Piranesi’, Symposium: Piranesi, Rome and the Arts of Design , at the San Diego Museum of Art, March 30, 2013. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNMavWXj1Y] (accessed on October 16, 2013).

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Lebbeus Woods Vico Morcote Interview 1998’, Sci-Arc Media Arcive , October 11, 2013. [http://sma.sciarc.edu/video/lebbeus-woods-vico-morcote-interview-1998/] (accessed on November 11, 2013).

[Fig.-] L e b b e u s Wo o d s E i n s t e i n To m b 1980 Ink on Paper

Lebbeus Woods, ‘Experimental Space and Architecture.’, Lecture in European Graduate School, c.2006. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA1QJGkNz4E] (accessed on June 11, 2013).

I n m e m o r y o f M r . L e b b e u s Wo o d s a n d t h a n k s f o r h i s s h e e r b r i l l i a n c e o f i n s p i r a t i o n .

May he stay with the beam of light traveling in eternal space.