Schinkel / Campo Marzio connection
1997.08.06
Yesterday, noticed a similarity between the plans of the monuments to Julius Caesar and Augustus in the Area Martis and one of the monuments to Friedrich the Great by Schinkel. Moreover, there is also a similarity between the round rooms within the Xystus Agrippinae and the lower level of the rotunda of the Altes Museum. These similarities raise a curious as to whether Schinkel was inspired or influenced by the Piranesi plan diagrams. (Schinkel did spend time in Rome, and there is also the link to Piranesi via Durand.)
In any case, it is an interesting coincidence, and whether or not Schinkel actually noticed the plans in the Ichnographia of the Campo Marzio may not be all that important because, regardless of the actual historical truth, the connection is seen now and perhaps even a comment on the fluidity of architectural history.
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Hadrian, Plotina, and Paulina Domitia, etc.
1998.06.02
According to the biography of Hadrian, he was a favorite of Plotina. In fact, there is some cause to believe that it was Plotina that got Hadrian named as sucessor at Trajan's deathbed. ...more symbolism along the axis of life.
Hadrian's birth mother's name was Paulina Domitia, and this fact lead to further speculation as to the meaning of the Sepulchra Familiae Domitorum at the end of the axis of death--the counter point of Hadrian's tomb. There is reference to both Hadrian's real mother and to his adoptive mother within the axes of life and death.
...sheds light on Piranesi's overall intention in (re-)designing (not reconstructing) the Campo Marzio. Piranesi was redrawing/redesigning the Campo Marzio, a redesign not at all capricious, but one based wholeheartedly on a vast amouint of historical facts. That is to say, Piranesi set out to improve the ancient Campo Marzio's "urban plan" without changing the region's existing program.
...reminded of Stirling's notion of evolutionary designing, and his statements about what could or should be considered when designing a house for K.F. Schinkel 200 years after Schinkel's birth. I am also reminded of Tafuri's wrongness in calling the Ichnographia of the Campo Marzio an "experimental design and therefore an unknown."
Piranesi operated on a few planes when generating his plan of the Campo Marzio--there is the redesigned plane, the Pagan-Christian narrative plane, and the plane of (composite?) temporal palimpsest. To make matters difficult, however, none of these planes complies completely with the other two, nor can any of the planes be viewed completely independent of the other two. In essence, Piranesi's (design) methodology emulates the very nature of Rome itself. The Ichnographia is a plan of many layers of meanings and messages which ultimately aptly represents Rome the city of many physical and historical layers.
As an archeologist, Piranesi "redraws" all the layers of Rome's ancient past. As a well educated 18th century Roman Catholic, he "drafts" the narrative of Rome's Pagan to Christian inversion (conversion), and as a highly evolved architect-designer he displays the "Eternal City" with infinite virtuality.
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