FACITY
Asymmetry: Beauty, Identity and Memory Velislava Mincheva
Table of Contents: 3 5 7 8
Design Research Unit (DRU) Rome Beauty, Identity and Memory Beauty 9 Beauty is Symmetry 10 I am (im)Perfect 12 An Experimental Analysis. Facity
14 Identity 15 Identity of the Historic City 20 Memory 21 Why Break Symmetries 26 Abstract Object 35 Reference
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Design Research Unit The Design Research Unit (DRU) develops a thesis on inhabiting cities. We were assigned the Nolli plan of Rome produced by Giambattista Nolli in 1748. After short analysis and observation of the plan we were asked to cast our faces and reflect on our identity; where we stand and see ourselves in the city. The relationship face- city that we investigate we model as a Facity.
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Selected area for analysis
Giambattista Nolli plan, Rome, 1748
Selected cut/fold
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Rome Urban plans are not just a documentary exercise. They are a way to express the city’s character and identity. Giambattista Nolli draws Rome’s city plan in a creative and unique way that turns it into more than just a graphic image of the city. The way the map was created makes it a masterpiece that’s used even nowadays by architects and planners. Rome’s map is a figure- ground plan that offers a special representation of the city by highlighting the continuum of public space (Ceen, 2013). Giambattista hatches the buildings of Rome while illustrating as a void other series of spaces in the city. Those spaces are exterior, like streets and piazzas; and semi- public, like courtyards and gardens. What Nolli aims with his drawing is to show us how the buildings of the city are the ones designing the exterior spaces of it (Ceen, 2013). In most plans, planners are making a clear distinction between exterior and interior space, but in Rome’s plan there is an emphasis on the continuation of spaces. The network Giambattista creates is neither interior nor exterior and that is what makes the map unique. 5
The “cut/ fold” that was picked for the project starts from the center of Piazza del Popolo going straight down on Strada del Popolo. It is a line that cuts the nolli plan into two pieces. Each side has its own uniqueness and strength. It is noticeable how a larger part of the city is located left of Strada del Popolo together with most of the important piazzas and historic buildings. The Tiber River is on the west end of the nolli plan creating a clear edge between the city plan and the outside nature, while on the east side of the plan the city merges with nature and slowly disappears.
The chosen area of the plan was selected carefully to illustrate the difference in planning on the left and right hand side of Strada del Popolo. Even though not being used in future analysis it was a useful exercise that put the beginning of the topic: “Asymmetry: Beauty, Identity and Memory.” 6
Beauty, Identity and Memory The main discussion in this paper is asymmetry. We are searching for what asymmetry has to offer to Facity. The aspects we are looking at are beauty as an imperfection, identity as different scaling and memory in breaking symmetry.
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BEAUTY
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Beauty is Symmetry Humankind divides people into different categories, one of them being beautiful and less attractive. But what is considered a beautiful face? Is it the shape of the face, the eyes, the nose, the mouth that dominates this decision or is it a perfect symmetrical combination of all these factors? Researches about human’s face have proven that our faces are asymmetrical. However, manipulated images of the face, mirroring left and right side of the face, indicate increase in ratings of being attractive (Perrett et al., 1999). Beauty is scientifically proven to be a perfect symmetry, but what are the charms of being asymmetrical and can this be considered beautiful as well?
Original 9
Left- left
Righ- right
I am (im)Perfect I am asymmetrical. My eyes are different, my right eye is slightly more closed then the left one and is considered as a lazy eye. My nose does not have a perfect shape, it is a little bit tilted to the left. My mouth seems perfect, but when I smile, it spreads more to the left. When I am posing for a passport photo my face looks almost perfect, symmetrical, as I am standing with a frozen face expression that erases my character. You can not tell from this symmetry what I am. You can not judge from my eyes or mouth, the feelings I experience. I am just frozen almost looking like an object, not a person.
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The mouth, the nose, the eyes, the shape of the head are the four elements of the human face that gives us character and make us who we are outside in public. They are the main factors that distinguish us from one another. If we draw an imaginary axis splitting our faces in half and then mirroring left- left and right- right we are going to get two quite different results, both of them resulting in perfect symmetry and hence considered beautiful. However, none of them will be our true image. Does this mean we are not perfect and beautiful and beauty among us does not really exist because we are asymmetrical? (Zaidel and Cohen, 2005) Or maybe we should find beauty and perfection in asymmetry? We experience emotions which result in face expressions that give away our asymmetry, but also make us who we are. The one closest to me know that when I smile my right eye gets significantly smaller then the left one, or when I am really concentrated on my thoughts I bite my right cheek. It is just the way I am and they still consider me beautiful in one way or another. We all learned to find beauty in our imperfections, in our characters, because we are simply human.
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An Experimental Analysis. FACITY If we take Strada del Popolo as an axis splitting the city and start analyzing each side, the halves hold diverse characters, all of which contribute to what the city is. If on top of this street we place the human face with its main parts and use it as a cutting line as well, each half of us interacts and experiences different emotions that the city offers. If Rome and the face were symmetrical they would experience same things on both sides. However, the experiences are different, meaning they are asymmetrical and asymmetry has more to offer to the public then symmetry. To the left we see the boundary line of the city, while on the right we see the nature merging with the buildings and the continuation of the rest of the world. We can smell on the left the city with all of its inhabitants, and tourists, while on the right together with them we can also smell nature. The communication is enforced on the left, while on the right there is no need to speak.
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Left side of the face
Sight: Seeing the edge
Sense of smell: Social life; the city
Communication: People, society
Left side of the city Developed Public space Open Low land 13
Right side of the face
Sight: Seeing outside the city Sense of smell: Nature beyond the city
Communication: Silence
Right side of the city Less developed Private Enclosed High land
IDENTITY
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Identity of the Historic City. Philosophy behind asymmetric plans Our imperfections and characters contribute to our identity and all of us, asymmetric people add to asymmetrical cities and their character. We make cities what they are. There have been many attempts to create the perfect city with the perfect symmetrical plan and all of them failed to exist because imperfect people cannot survive in a perfect environment. We need diversity. We need the city to consists of the same imperfections we have and project all of our different characters. A plan is just a diagram until we give it a character and meaning to become a drawing, a piece of art with all of its small details and little imperfections. Imperfections we do not care about or see because as a whole the city is simply beautiful and it is ours. This is what Giambattista Nolli’s plan is all about. It is beautiful and it seems symmetrical at first sight with Strada del Popolo as an axis cutting it in two. However, it is not. As the human face Rome is imperfect and as the human body, each side is more developed in one aspect or another. Nolli gives a character to the city plan and clearly distinguish it from other cities around the world. He gives Rome an identity. 15
We need to understand the connections between urban morphogenesis and efficiency. We also need to have knowledge on the connection between self- organization and urban planning. Historical cities are a multi- fractal phenomenon, meaning the city has a great number of agents that also vary in type. However, the planning of the city could also be seen as an external intervention that is universal for each city (Serge, 2014). One of the papers, “Breaking symmetries and emerging scaling urban structures”, talks about modernist’s translation symmetry and historical scaling asymmetry. Translation symmetry was created to help design the future city. It was guided by four major goals. First, to remove the city centre. Second, buildings need to accommodate as many people as possible and increase cities’ population. Third, the newly designed street patterns will help increase motorized vehicles and at last is freeing lots of space for green parks in order to create green cities (Corbusier, 1971).
The Future City, Le Corbusier 16
In “Breaking symmetries and emerging scaling urban structures,” the author makes a comparison between Le Corbusier’s Radiant City and Rome’s Nolli from 1748. The plan Le Corbusier creates can be applied in any city (Corbusier and Urbanisme, 1971). He is using translation symmetry, meaning removing different scales and using only one universal one, together with the same shaped building and multiplying it (translating it) on a piece of land. This is our external universal intervention (Serge, 2014). Rome, however, as a historical city is said to have a scaling asymmetry, meaning we have a few places of large scale, a medium amount of medium sized places and a large amount of small places. I am using the word “ places” as I am referring to not only buildings, but also streets on the plan. We have a few huge piazzas, medium amount of outside squares and great amount of small interior and exterior courtyards. Now having that in mind lets apply the same principles on to the human face and body. If we follow Le Corbusier’s strategy, we are going to end up with doppelgangers all over the world. Same size of face, with the same eyes, nose and month, same wrinkles on the skin. Let us place these people in the Radiant City. Sameness, repetition, 17
Radiant City Plans, Le Corbusier
Giambattista Nolli, Plan of Rome 18
lack of identity everywhere. We will not be any different from our neighbor or lets say someone from another country. We will not know in what city are we, whose the person next to us ( is it us or someone else) and where exactly on the world map are we (Serge, 2014)? Now let us look at Rome’s plan and imagine us in the city, observing Italians with their dark hair and eyes, women usually shorter than the normal, sitting on Piazza del Popolo, looking down at the three streets that cut through the city. We are looking and seeing the different characters each one of those streets hold. Strada del Popolo being a main street is full of life, full of tourists. At Strada di Ripetta (on the left) we see a couple of fishermen coming back from the river carrying what they caught in the morning. And finally we look over at Strada del Babuino (on the right) and we can barely see any people as its a quiet street. Imagine. Imagination is something we can have with scaling asymmetry. Asymmetry gives character and identity to cities and faces. It allows us to remember them and their characters in an unique way and thus it is something that leaves a mark on our memories and experience.
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MEMORY
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Why Break Symmetries? The Creation of Memories The second article that made me an impression was by Michael Leyton. In several of his books he talks about nested symmetries. Lets take a colonnade as an example. We start with a point that we project into a circle, the circle then gets translated upwards to form a column, column is translated to get a row of columns and then finally by reflecting all of them we get a colonnade. This is our nested symmetry (Leyton, 2001). In a similar way we can form a square and from the square form a rotated parallelogram. Square accepted to be perfectly symmetrical and the parallelogram- asymmetric. Then the author starts setting rules and explaining the reason behind them (Leyton, 2001). Symmetries are always used to erase memories from an organization and asymmetry is always used to introduce memory into an organization. How? If we look back at the square, we accept it as it is, a perfect shape, that leaves no memory on us. If we look at the rotated parallelogram though, we start to think of the process it undertook in 21
Process of producing a column
Nested symmetry colonnade 22
order to reach to this shape, thus making it leave a mark on us. Same principle is applied to buildings and cities. If all cities are symmetrical and perfect we will not have any memory of them, but breaking the symmetry makes us remember the identity of the urban environment. Same once again can be applied to people. A scar for example, makes us think the person went through something in order to get it, leaving us with the memory of that person with the scar. However, if all of us had perfect skin, symmetrical face, etc. no one will remember and no one will care. We will lack character.
Process of creating memories. From square to rotated parallelogram 23
The Three Rules of Memories Memory is always in the form of asymmetry. Symmetry is always the absence of memory. (Leyton, 1992) Asymmetry principle: An asymmetry in the present is assumed to have been a symmetry in the past. (Leyton, 1992) Symmetry principle: A symmetry in the present is assumed to have always existed. (Leyton, 1992)
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Having those rules set up we can go back to Giambattista’s Nolli plan of Rome. Strada del Popolo cuts the city in half and thus visually implies the possibility of symmetry in the city. However, the void exterior spaces in the plan are the ones breaking it into an asymmetric city. The continuation of exterior and interior spaces turns the plan into an asymmetric piece of art that interacts with the public, gives identity to the city and carves its memory into the viewers mind. The fact that the plan holds the quality of making us remember the city, turns it beautiful. Following the three rules history is memory. Memory is having an identity. Memory is also asymmetry. Applying this to Facity, asymmetry is the characteristic that gives cities and people an dentity, making them unique and beautiful.
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Beauty, Identity and Memory. Abstract Object
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Object Symmetry is lack of identity and lack of memory. With symmetry people cannot exist in cities. By nature we are created asymmetric and by our image we plan cities asymmetrical. What makes a city beautiful and unique and what makes a human face beautiful and unique is asymmetry. The flow of imperfections makes us remember and distinguish places and people. Beauty, identity and memory are created by asymmetry. The abstract object that will represent this paper is a combination of Giambatistta’s Nolli plan of Rome and my casted face. The plan of the city is cut through Strada del Popolo and the face is cut in the middle, starting from the forehead down to the neck. The plan of the city is drawn on a peace of wood and the halves of the face are carefully placed on top of it. The object aims at the public interacting with it. It aims at people grabbing each peace of the wood and trying to put together the face and imagine the city as a whole. With this object I am aiming at illustrating beauty, identity and memory discussed in this booklet. The beauty of the object is represented by breaking what looks like symmetry in the plan and face. The identity is shown by putting the face 27
onto the city plan, because faces bring more to the identity of the city and cities bring more to our identities. The memory is represented by allowing the public to imagine what my face could be if it was not cut and moved and what the city looks like if it was a whole plan.
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Reference: Avnir, D. and Huylebrouck, D. (2013) ‘On left and right: Chirality in architecture’, Nexus Network Journal, 15(1), pp. 171–182. Ceen, Ian Verstegen Allan. Giambattista Nolli and Rome. N.p.: Lulu.com, 2013. Web. 10 Oct. 2016. Corbusier, L. and Urbanisme, F.E. (1971) The city of to-morrow and its planning. 3rd edn. London: Architectural Press. Leyton, M. (1992) Symmetry, causality, mind. Cambridge, MA, United States: MIT Press. Leyton, M. (2001) ‘Group theory and architecture’, Nexus Network Journal, 3(2), pp. 39–58. Perrett, D.I., Burt, D.M., Penton-Voak, I.S., Lee, K.J., Rowland, D.A. and Edwards, R. (1999) ‘Symmetry and human facial attractiveness’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(5), pp. 295–307.
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Salat, Serge, Loeiz Bourdic, & Françoise Labbe. “Breaking Symmetries and Emerging Scaling Urban Structures: A Morphological Tale of 3 Cities: Paris, New York and Barcelona.” International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR [Online], 8.2 (2014): 77-93. Web. 5 Dec. 2016 Zaidel, D.W. and Cohen, J.A. (2005) ‘The Face, Beauty, and Symmetry: Perceiving Asymmetry in Beautiful Faces’, International Journal of Neuroscience, 115(8), pp. 1165–1173.
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