1757-62 The Long Axis
1919-28 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
1992 Parkway Interpolation
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1997.11.20
me and the Ichnographia
I thought of the phrase from, I think, one of my square poems, "back to daddy's balls, architecture halls." I never imagined that I would today see a connection between this line and the Ichnographia. I already know that I am going to make a point about Mars being the father of Romulus--the founder of Rome, and the connection of sex and conception of the plans is already an idea well established in my head, and now I see the "testicles" of the Templum Martis as the generators of Piranesi's entire design of the Campo Marzio.
The specific design intention that Piranesi put directly into the plan with regard to the prominence of Mars, I believe, proves definitively that Piranesi was actively redesigning Imperial Rome as he came to understand it would best be. Piranesi assimilated all the knowledge about this part of the city that he could, and through that assimilation he ultimately arrived at a whole new synthesis. Piranesi's plan of the Campo Marzio is not an architectural reconstruction, but an archeological redesign. Piranesi's plan is not a rendition of what was, but rather a rendition of what could have been. Piranesi's plan is not a reconstruction, but a historical reenactment, and the difference between the two is as distance as the difference between life and death, between something finished and something ongoing.
The Ichnographia is a powerful reenactment of the architectural history of the Campo Marzio. The history, moreover, is not limited to Imperial Rome. Although the buildings are named for those primarily of the late Empire, Piranesi also very cleverly and extremely subtlely reenacts the architectural history of the Campo Marzio beyond the Imperial Age, specifically the inversion/conversion of Rome from pagan to Christian--and also some of Baroque Rome.
With the notion of reenactment I can introduce that notion of ritual--this may get too complex, however. Yet the notion of ritual more or less has to come into play once I begin to consider the nature of Piranesi's role in the reenactment: is he high-priest of the producer-director-playwright?
The opening stage for the reenactment is the Scenographia (whose very title has obvious theatrical connotations), and on the stage are the primal players, the only vestiges of Imperial Rome. The remains are like great aged actors whose talents have reached the stage of being something unsurpassable--they are also like the Titans--the primordial gods who quickly give way to an ever expanding drama with a vast multitude of characters.
I also have some thoughts regarding the Ichnographia as a stone fragment: this presentation on Piranesi's part could also be considered a reenactment of the Forma Urbis--a virtual reenactment of discovering the great missing piece of the "puzzle" that will bring all the other piece to a grand cohesion. (I am here reminded of Tafuri's opening comments to The Sphere and the Labyrinth, and I'm sure I can now make a good valid connection and elaborate on how the fragment stone map of the Ichnographia represents a kind of "missing link," a piece that will explain all there is to explain about the "real" nature of Imperial Rome.
1998.01.12
life, death, and the triumphal way
From here I take up the story of the Triumphal Way. The outline of my writing from this point will simply follow the triumphal path on the plan. I will explain the entire route strictly in Roman-pagan-triumphal ritual terms, however. In the course of this I will bring up the essential concept of "reenactment". My story will be about the "reenactment" that Piranesi here designed, especially the well planned sequence of stadia and theaters along the way. Piranesi made best use of what was actually there.
I will conclude the inversion from pagan to Christian storyline by returning to the axis of death and the Arch of Theodosius et al at its tip, and thus when compared with the intercourse building we have depicted the beginning and the end of pagan Rome. To this I will add the Jewish Victory monument and end with the notion that Piranesi has here used architectural plans and urban design to tell the "history" of ancient Rome, however, one has in a sense read both the "positive" and the "negative" image-plan--a story where the first half is the reciprocal of the second half (and vice versa). I am oddly reminded here of the double theaters story from Circle and Oval in St. Peter's Square.
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2003.07.24 22:35
Re: news from [Old] York
...in Philadelphia, where, by the way, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway matches exactly the long axis of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art at one end matching the Nymphaeum Neronis, Logan Circle at the middle of the Parkway matches Hadrian's Tomb, and the tiny intercourse building at the other end matches the location of the Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture at the entrance to JFK Plaza.
Since it's inception in the early 1920s, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was seriously considered a reenactment of the Champ Elysees from the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe. The Free Library and the Court House on Logan Circle even reenact the Palaces at the Place de la Concorde. I have never come across any reference comparing the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Piranesi's Campo Marzio, but, who knows, maybe the Champs Elysees was somehow inspired by Piranesi's plan.
ps
Even a "law of silence" was reenacted today: architecthetics post.
Day eleven of the EPICENTRAL BIENNIAL and counting.
2003.08.14 19:47
Campo Marzio and Philadelphia
Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway matches exactly the long axis of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art at one end matching the Nymphaeum Neronis, Logan Circle at the middle of the Parkway matches Hadrian's Tomb, and the tiny intercourse building at the other end matches the location of the Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture at the entrance to JFK Plaza.
Since it's inception in the early 1920s, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was seriously considered a reenactment of the Champ Elysees from the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe. The Free Library and the Court House on Logan Circle even reenact the Palaces at the Place de la Concorde. I have never come across any reference comparing the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Piranesi's Campo Marzio, but, who knows, maybe the Champs Elysees was somehow inspired by Piranesi's plan.
2003.09.01 14:09
Re: Evolutionary theory and architecture
Regarding paradigm, the dictionary definition is that of being a model, which is not exactly the same as a "meme". For example, the shift in antique Roman culture from Paganism to Christianity is a paradigm shift that occurred largely because of the legalizing of Christianity and the outlawing of Paganism. One could say that Christianity spread within the antique world via "meme", which in modern terms would be called evangelism, but the cultural shift from Paganism to Christian is very much based on legal paradigms.
I forgot mention in my last post the close relation between "meme" and reenactment (and what I have occasionally referred to as reenactionary architecturism). Reenactment as a pure function precedes "meme" in that the function of (human/individual) memory itself is a mental reenactment, thus "memes", more than anything are the spreading of mental reenactments, just like viruses replicate/reenact themselves.
When it come to "style", one could ask "What (if anything) is the style reenacting?" In Meaning In Western Architecture, without specifying reenactment, Norberg-Schulz nonetheless explains how the axiality of Egyptian temples as analogous to the axiality of the Nile, etc. Likewise, the cardo and decumanus of Roman town plans represent (reenact) the axis of the Earth and the motion of the sun respectively. One could even ask what (if anything) does symmetry in design reenact? Does symmetry in design stem largely from the overwhelming symmetrical design of the human body?
If one takes the design of the human body as a paradigm, can one then say that corporAl symmetry was then reenacted corporEAlly, and thereafter symmetry in design was spread as paradigm via meme?
Is it fair to say that A. is (or appears to be) taking the theory of evolution as a paradigm and via meme applying it to the history of architecture? Or is a theory of evolution already manifest as a paradigm within the history of architecture, and A. is (the first?) detecting it? Oddly, if A. is successful in his pursuits, the answer to both questions will be yes.
All of the above regarding reenactment stem from the logical hypothesis that a reenactment can never be as original as that which it reenacts, and that reenactment come with degrees of separation between the reenactment and that which is being reenacted. Thus (I see) paradigm as closer in degrees to something original and meme as closer in degrees to reenactment.
Here's one of my favorite examples of reenactionary architecturism: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constituted originated, but the design of the city itself is very much a reenactment--there are other historical cities named Philadelphia (today's Amman, Jordan, for example), and Holme's survey/plan reenacts a Roman camp town precisely, even to the point where the cardo here today, Broad Street, is the longest straight urban street in the world. After the American Revolution, Philadelphia became the first, albeit interim, capital of the USA, and it's architecture then began to reenact the architecture of ancient Greece, which was used a paradigm of "democratic" design.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the design of Philadelphia's new Benjamin Franklin Parkway set out to reenact the Champs Elysees of Paris, and there indeed are replicas of the palaces of the Place de la Concorde at Logan Circle, the centerpiece of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The design of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as reenactment becomes even more compounding when it is recognized that its design, as unwittingly manifest today, matches exactly Piranesi's design of an axis of life within the Ichnographia Campus Martius
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2003.09.04 18:08
in the thick of reenactment season
Today: I purposefully walked from the front door of the Philadelphia Museum of Art down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the far side of Logan Circle and then back to the Art Museum. I did this to get a real sense of the scale of the virtual axis of life within Piranesi's Ichnographia Campus Martius
In reality I was walking across the forecourt of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, then down the steps that Rocky made famous running up, then across Eakins Oval, where the largest painting in the world once was, then down a tree covered allee along the south side of the Parkway stretching for three long blocks, then around Logan Circle, and then back in the direction I came although this time along the north side of the Parkway.
In virtuality I was walking through the Nympheum Neronis high on the Vatican Hill, through the Porticus Neronis, through the Templum Martis (Temple of Mars), through the Area Martis where the Triumphal Way begins its "march" (this is around where the Rodin Museum is on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and, as luck would have it, where the route of many of today's Philadelphia parades begin), then I walked around Hadrian's tomb, and then I walked back.
The whole walk took about 40 minutes, and if I had gone all the way to the LOVE sculpture at JFK Plaza across from City Hall, the walk back and forth would have taken just about an hour.
Today, I made mental note of most of the memorials on and along this stretch of the Parkway--Washington Memorial, Civil War Memorial, WWI Memorial, a plaque in the cement on axis at Logan Circle states that the trees along the Parkway were planted on honor of the soldiers of WWI, and a Shakespeare Memorial in front of the Free Library.
When I got back to the top of the famous Art Museum steps, a young Japanese(?) tourist (or new student in town?) asked me (without much English) to take his picture with the Art Museum in the background, and then I told him I'll take another picture of him looking the other way with the Philadelphia skyline in the background.
Last night I remembered that Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass 3 October 1979 right in the center of Logan Circle (on a large platform built over the Swan Fountain especially for the occasion). I was there that day too, and later on I'll tell about how I got in fairly close without a ticket.
2003.09.04
the Parkway -- real and virtual
2004.04.25
papers of the HTAFCC
1. Catherine de Ricci and Louis I. Kahn--this paper is about the Motherhouse design (a la "seeking precedents...") and somehow shifts into "finding the New Testament buried in snow" which introduces 'chronosomatic man'. Catherine's contribution centers on reenactment. I have to start compiling all the data involved so far.
4. Piranesi on the correlation between the axis of life within the Ichnographia and the Benj. Franklin Parkway. This paper can thus call out the PMA and the reenactment of the Place de la Concorde via the Free Library and the Family Courts. This paper can foster many by-products, and may indeed portend a whole new "archaeological" work by (John the Baptist) Piranesi.
5. Le Corbusier presents "The Promenade Architecturale". Although this paper does not relate to Trumbauer in any way directly, it does carry the overriding theme of enacting reenactment. This too may/will engender a whole new Corbusian publication (done in the Corbusian publication style).
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2004.12.16 13:56
Re: Ichnographia Romaphilia
While working with Piranesi the discussion is often enlightening.
"So why exactly did you produce two versions of the Ichnographia Campi Martii and keep everyone none the wiser?"
"Overall, I just wanted to see who would find the two versions first. They were found, eventually (after more than two hundred years, but it's embarrassing for all the Piranesi "scholars" because it wasn't one of them."
"Why do you think the so-called scholars failed? Why did they not see what was always right in front of them?
"Simply put, they never reenacted the source."
"Kahn reenacted the source, and he didn't see the two versions."
"Well, I'd say Kahn was busy manifesting new versions of his own."
"Perhaps it's just plain destiny that Philadelphia itself reenacts the source."
"You know, I love you guys like brothers."
"That's fine as long as you realize that we're all independent as well."
"Ha, tell that to Romulus and Remus."
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