1. INTRODUCTION 1

With the introduction of the ‘New Caledonian Forest’ in the second semester, the city needed to be investigated further back to its origins where there was nothing but the forest in order to trace its memory in the city and vice versa. With the primary objective of establishing the new vegetal world in the city of Edinburgh, the study of Campo Marzio by Giovanni Piranesi offered a simple question for the thesis, that is, what if this great forest was retraced as it used to exist during its peak glory while searching the ground for artifacts in the modern-day city of Edinburgh?6 And how can this excavation embrace a new ideology in the relationship between architecture and the forest as it embraces the connection between the architecture and the city? The following question enabled me to reinterpret the ‘House of Leaves’7 model of South Bridge shown in Fig. 7 through a new vegetal turn. The model was built using leaves from Edinburgh’s ground to understand the concept of the leaf as an architectural device. But the reading of the model through a new understanding in Design Project-2 saw the bridge become a memory of the past buried underneath the current soil which is visualised to be invaded by the plant life. Similarly, it is apparent that the ruins that will be discovered in the thesis will also be covered by plant life and other organic materials which are buried underneath the soil.

While the key research for the thesis revolves around Peter Eisenman and his concept of ‘Artificial Excavation’, further study was conducted in regard to the new vegetal world through the philosophical perspectives of the Luce Irigaray and Michael Mader’s ‘Through Vegetal Being’8. The correspondence between the two authors influenced the design project in constructing a new urban design paradigm which recognises the need to abandon the artificial boundaries which separates the human and the vegetal world. The similarities between Michael Marder’s theory of a vegetal being and Patrick Geddes’s gardens in the city is studied further to incorporate the vegetal world through a new perspective.

6 Stanley Allen and G. B. Piranesi, in ‘Piranesi’s “Campo Marzio”: An Experimental Design’., in Assemblage, no. (10). p. 71-80. Accessed on March 18, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171144

7 The initial title for the thesis at the start of the programme was ‘House of Leaves’ which was inspired by the works of the contemporary novelist Mark Z. Danielewski with the same title. However, on further research and investigation of Peter Eisenman and his concept of ‘Artificial Excavation’, the title for the thesis was eventually changed to ‘Artificial Excavation of Edinburgh: A New Vegetal Being’.

8 For further details, refer Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder, in Through Vegetal Being: Two Philosophical Perspectives. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).

7 |Zaid Prasla, ‘A House of Leaves’: Study of South Bridge Ruins visualised to be invaded by the ‘New Caledonian Forest’.

2. THE CITY OF EDINBURGH AND SIMILAR ANALOGIES

A STUDY OF PIRANESI’S CAMPO MARZIO AND PATRICK GEDDES’S EDINBURGH

The city of Rome which was once considered as a pinnacle of urban civilisations around the world during the reign of the Roman Empire is still considered to be a paradigm for the new modern civilisations. If we look at Rome today, we can see the city’s past still thriving on the modern streets of Rome as a juxtaposition of different timelines (see Fig.8). As we look back in time, it can be observed that the city endured phases of continuous construction and destruction through different ages with its past getting buried underneath the ground making way for the new Rome to grow. Thus, as the city grew, it became a labyrinth of many cities accumulating layers of history on the very same ground as a memory of its rich past.9 Sigmund Freud therefore considers the city of Rome not only as a city of human inhabitation but rather a physical entity stimulating the history of its past endeavours where the present city stands tall among the ruins of its memories. The ground which today acts as the foundation for the modern-day church of Christianity is also realised as the ground for the ancient temples of the past Roman Empire over which the church was constructed and its memories buried underneath it.10

Piranesi’s experimental study at Campo Marzio therefore utilises the concept of Rome by Freud in his work. By focusing his visualisation for the city of Rome to a mere district of Campo Marzio, he generates a fictional reality where the ground exists suspended in time on a shifting indeterminant plane which oscillates between the classicism of the past Rome and the modernism of the today’s city as they both temporarily coincide through time. Piranesi achieves this feat by halting the search for origins of the city and rather proposing to enter time at strategic intervals reconstructing ancient Rome in traces and fragmented ruins in its earliest forms through an excavation of drawings and textual analysis11 (see Fig. 9 and 10).

9 Jean-Francois Bedard and Alan Balfour et. al., in ‘Eisenman/ Roberston’s City of Artificial Excavation’ in Cities of Artificial Excavation. p. 19

10 Ibid. p. 23.

11 Stanley Allen and G.B. Piranesi, in ‘Piranesi’s “Campo Marzio”: An Experimental Design’, in Assemblage, no. (10). p. 71-72. Accessed on March 18, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171144

8 |Zac Thompson, The Site of Julius Caesar Assassination in Rome: A juxtaposition of ancient Rome with the modern one.

In following diagram of Piranesi’s study of Campo Marzio, a glimpse of the fragmented traces of the Ancient Classical Rome in a chronological manner from its earliest form as a hill town to the periods of 400 B.C. and 275 A.D. which saw the construction of the frames and borders of the city in the form of the Servian Wall and Aurelian Wall respectively can be seen.

9 |G.B. Piranesi and Stanley Allen, Diagrams showing the chronology and framing of the Campo Marzio in Rome 10 |G.B. Piranesi and Stanley Allen, A collage of fragmented borders and frames on the city of Rome