HTS1_Mahshad Damari

The Border as Threshold

Redefinition of the border as a threshold by tracing its significance within the spatial concepts of Paradise and the Persian carpet

Mahshad Damari

Architectural Association School of Architecture Tutor: Dorette Panagiotopoulou HTS Term 2, 2022

This essay attempts to examine the notion of the border as a threshold employing an analysis that departs from the examination of Athanasius Kircher’s Topographia Paradisi Terrestris and moves to the investigation of the Persian carpet. Woven into the textile of the Persian carpet the representation of paradise as a delimited space of the garden seen from a bird’s - eye viewpoint, manifests the relationship between place, space, body, and border.

It could be argued that the use of the word paradise as a “walled space” frames the origins of the border in both the field of language, and in the space of the mind as imagination. Kircher’s Topographia Paradisi Terrestris acts as a guide for the spatial examination of the border as a physical space. However, like most representations or mappings of paradise, Kircher’s illustration, also reveals its unmappable and thus ungraspable location; a non-place that finds its purpose in a realm that transcends physical space and existence, opening up the possibility of entering into the garden of the mind. It is within this space that the boundary is removed by memory, which without defying it, builds bridges between past and future. After two millennia the memory of imagined paradise shares some sort of nostalgia for an innocence experienced at the beginning of history. Thus, redefining the boundaries of paradise as an in-between space.

The examination of the border not as that which separates but rather like a threshold - an intermediary space - is further supported by looking at the different notions of the border represented in the Persian carpet; an artifact first created in 550 B.C.E as an attempt to reproduce the spatial conditions of paradise physically, within daily life. An artifact that is neither an object nor a space but exists somewhere in-between. Found in all Persian houses, the carpet, both physically and semantically, delineates space. This demarcation on the ground, comparable to the temenos, ties back to the origins and practice of rituals in which the boundary of the carpet delimits sacred space. However, the boundary retains a certain fluidity as it is the movement of the bodies that prescribe it, constantly shifting its outlines.

It is both a delimitation of sacred ground and a secular plane on which human life can play out. To an extent, the visual representations woven into the fabric of the carpet, are spatialized by extending or circumscribing an interiority. This inner space of the carpet marked by its borders transforms its physicality into the reimagined memory of paradise and acts as a threshold to enter the garden of the mind.

It’s inherent to this examination to establish the common definition of the border as division or as traced in its Greek etymology περι-γράφω [α^] as a boundary or to be delineated1. On the other hand, a threshold is where one is neither inside nor outside but in between. A threshold is simultaneously a passage between two conditions. By overcoming barriers, the person becomes aware of crossing a border 2. How can the definition of the various notions of the border in specific spatial conditions, be redefined as a threshold?

1 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon. “Περιγράφω”, Accessed March 20, 2022. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=peri-gra%2Ffw&la=greek&can=peri-gra%2Ffw0.

2

Florian Tigges, Alban Janson, Fundamental Concepts of Architecture: The vocabulary of spatial situations, 2nd ed. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2014), 330331.

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Border of paradise It could be argued that the etymological root of the word paradise frames the origins of the border in the scope of language as a spatial and sacred concept.

In 550 BCE, during The Achaemenid Empire, the word Paradise was first used in the Old Persian term pairidaêzã. ‘pairi’ (cf. Sanskrit pįri, Greek πέρι), means ‘around’, and ‘daêzã’ implies ‘pile or heap’. ‘diza’ originates from the word [dezh] meaning ‘enclosure’ in Modern Persian. Its verb means "to construct from the earth, clay".3 In a way, a heap made of clay around an enclosure, points to a delineation of space and the role of the border. Thus, it defines the notion of the border, much like a boundary that divides to create space 4. So, the spatial understanding of paradise as a “walled space” defines a border as both a divider and producer of sacred space through marking edges.

However, Plato interprets the border not only as a boundary but also through its physicality and the space it occupies, and argues, ‘the space of in-between is strange because it does not have its boundaries and position, yet, its boundaries and position are determined from outside. Hence, it has the potential to allow all things to exist, like a void space. More precisely, the space of in-between can be a place for mediation of identity since it is unknown’5.

To examine this definition of the border as an in-between space that can become a break from one spatial condition to another, therefore a threshold, the employment of an analysis of a physical representation of paradise is required.

One of the strongest physical representations of paradise, Topographia Paradisi Terrestris (image 1), was done by Athanasius Kircher in 1675. In which, a wall circumscribes a squared area of the ground, on earth; located between the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates and Gihon and Pishon6. Outside the walls, is the earth and the rivers are passing the boundaries and continue to exist within the enclosure. Its geographical conditions determine its ecosystems. It’s an excluded part of paradise filled with discomfort, sins and betrayal. Inside the walls is paradise. A sacred place where all plants and ecosystems coexist. An enclosure in which human innocence is captured by Eve and Eden under the tree of knowledge, next to the source or destination of all rivers 7. As it is seen, the wall allows two conditions to coexist, offering exclusive access to the sacred space and transition to the beyond, earth.

3

Aureli, Pier Vittorio, The City as a Project: Camp of Faith, The Political Theology of Islamic City, PDF E-book, (Berlin: Ruby Press,2013), pages 7375.

4

Architectural Association London, Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Giudici, Maria S. Rituals and walls. The Architecture of sacred space: research by AA Diploma Unit 14, PDF E-book, (London: Architectural Associatio,2016), page 40.

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Yi-Chen, Shih. Threshold as a Thickness of borders Revealing a vision of threshold through the conversation of theories, projects, and people's movement, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, January 11, 2021, page 3, URL=Research_Plan_Yi_Chen_Shih.pdf 6 7

Hamed Khosravi. The City as a Project: Paradise, July 4, 2011, Page 1, URL= http://thecityasaproject.org/2011/07/paradise/ Kircher, A., Arca Noë, (Amsterdam: J. Janssonium a Waesberge, 1675). http://bit.ly/jGT0H7

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Image 1: Athanasius Kircher, Topographia paradisi terrestris juxta mentem et conjecturas authoris (1602-1680)8

Thus, the example supports Plato’s idea of the border as a threshold. The walls are neither inside nor outside, instead they mark a transition, an in-between space, that allows rivers to pass from earth to eternal existence.

The offered definition seems to imply the physical representation of paradise while in most representations, its location is captured as ungraspable and a non-place. As a further attempt, the border will be examined also within its abstract representation.

Alessandro Scafi states in his book, Maps of Paradise, that this delineated space is ‘elsewhere, inaccessible and outside of time. Either it existed yesterday or it will return tomorrow.’ This non-place can be located in the far past or an aspiring future, but most importantly within each mind as an imagined memory of paradise. 9 Thus, the motive of the boundaries of this non-place goes beyond physical space and allows for the entry in the garden of the mind [a place within the mind]; in which the boundaries of paradise are removed by memory, which without becoming a barrier becomes a threshold between past and future. 10

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Athanasius,Kircher, 1602-1680. Topographia paradisi terrestris juxta mentem et conjecturas authoris. BRBL_00321. 1675?]. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15512920.

9 Rosen, Mark, and Alessandnro Scafi, Review on Maps of Paradise, no. 2 (2007): 634–36. Page 13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2007.0199.

10 “Memory does not reconstruct time, nor does it abolish it. By removing the barrier that separates the present from the past it creates a bridge from the world of living to the beyond.” J. P. Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks, 1965

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Furthermore, by tracing the roles of borders in the delineation of the imaginary space of paradise, within the Achaemenid Empire, the event of the Persian carpet as a physical representation of paradise is found 11. The Persian Carpet as an object associated with original and modern rituals through its physical and semantical demarcation, allows for the spatial examination of the role of border in physical interactions.

On The Persian Carpet One way in which carpet becomes spatial and resembles the concept of paradise is its spatial allocation on the floor inside the house. This rectangular demarcation on the ground ties back to the origins and practice of rituals in a delimited sacred space. However, the boundary has a certain fluidity as the gesture of bodies and physical interactions, prescribing it as constantly transforming its visual boundaries.

To support this, Heidegger argues, ‘A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, a boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.’ 12 (Heidegger 1953/2008, 152) For instance, one of the rituals of ancient beliefs which began in Khorasan, was the spread of a carpet on a grave, occurring at the same time as people gather around it, as a symbol of entering the eternal human home and a house from the earth13. Or in nowadays’ interactions, wearing shoes only outside the area of the carpet is a change of behaviour based on the symbol of the holiness of a delimited space but also where the body is comfortable, and there is a ‘sense of permanency’14 to stay in contrast to the outside.

All the above examples primarily imply physical interaction with the carpet, which makes the object a space that demarcates a sacred area. Secondly, in favour of Heidegger's argument, the image of borders woven into the boundaries of the carpet as a rectangular delineation, shows that the boundary is not that at which it stops but, both physically and symbolically, becomes a space from which a new behavioural condition - feeling or act of comfort or discomfort, permanency and domesticity - is constantly exchanged through the boundaries. This constant shift in the outline of the carpet, examines the border as a threshold between a sacred ground as well as a secular plane, on which rituals accrue.

Moreover, it was pointed out in previous analysis, that the Persian carpet is not just an object, it's also a space, hence something in-between. To an extent that the image within its visual borders is spatialized by expanding or delimiting an area inside. This interiority of its image alternates with reinterpreting the memory of paradise and acts as a space in between, a threshold to once again, enter the garden of the mind.

To support this, Boudon argues, the object of architecture is a ‘mental space’ whose transfer into built space is regulated by scale.15 (Philippe Boudon, 1991) So, the image of the Persian carpet resembles a space that is a place 11

Jalali, Golnoush. 2020. The Magic Carpet. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

12

Martin Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking: from Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1971.

13

Noori Akram, Kateb Fateme. The Role Of Carpet In The Mourning Rituals Of Khorasan, Sociological Journal of Art and Literature, Fall 2018- Winter 2019, Volume 10 , Number 2 ; Page(s) 173 To 194, abstract.

14

Jalali, Golnoush. 2020. The Magic Carpet. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design, page 10.

15

Florian Tigges, Alban Janson, Fundamental Concepts of Architecture: The vocabulary of spatial situations, 2nd ed. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2014), page 293.

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much like paradise’s architectural interpretation as a Persian garden16. Hence, it is an object with an architectural plan of paradise interpreted within it that connects to mental space.

In fact, in Achaemenid Persia, the term paradise was not only applied to landscape gardens but also the first form of wildlife reserve destined as a royal hunting ground based on their grasp of paradise as an eternal hunting ground17.

Image 2: Pazyryk Boundary, the Valley of the River Bolshoy Ulagan18

Consequently, the image of the world's most ancient pile carpet found in Pazyryk burial (image 2), dating back to the same empire, consists of multiple boundaries filled with figures of lotus buds at the central field, framed by a border of griffins, delineated with figures of fallow deer and surrounded by the widest border of figures of men

16 Jalali, Golnoush. 2020. The Magic Carpet. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

17 Wei, Lien-yueh, Simon. “The Development of The Notion of Paradise:” Christian Faith and Life. accessd March 1, 2022. https://christ.org.tw/bible_and_theology/Theology/Development_of_the_Notion_of_Paradise.htm 18

excavations by S.I., Altai Territory, Pazyryk Boundary: the Valley of the River Bolshoy Ulagan. Pazyryk Barrow No. 5 (Rudenko, 1949).

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on horseback. Based on the application of the term paradise, this carpet captures the movements of hunters passing through multiple borders to reach the in-between to arrive where there are both plants and animals19.

In another example, the "Wagner'' Garden Carpet (17th century), (Image 3), like the original representation of paradise by Kircher, captures four streams of water enclosed by borders20. Unlike Kircher's illustration, the carpet only captures the inner space of paradise from a bird’s eye viewpoint. However, considering the carpet as an object, allocated on the ground, its borders are placed between the interior space of the image versus the floor.

Image 3: The "Wagner" Garden Carpet, 17th century. Iran, Kirman. Cotton warp; wool, cotton, and silk weft; wool pile

The above examples further demonstrate that the Persian Carpet is neither an object nor a space but exists in an intermediary condition, and its delineation around an interpreted walled space allows for a moment of remembering

19

“Antique Persian or Oriental Rugs and Carpets,” Oriental & Persian Rugs, accessed April 3, 2022, https://www.little-persia.com/rug-guides/antiquerugs, replica of the Pazyryk Carpet.

20

Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch, Eternal Springtime: A Persian Garden Carpet from the Burrell Collection, Department of Islamic Art, July 10, 2018, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/listing?&facetname=Sheila+Canby&facettype=author

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paradise through reimagining its enclosure. Hence, the carpet itself becomes a threshold between existence and a reinterpretation of a distant memory as an instance to remove the enclosures and enter the garden of the mind.

Overall, the essay examined the notion of border as a threshold; first, through its etymology and the visual representation of paradise by Kircher, establishing the notion of paradise as a sacred enclosed space. Consequently, through the interpretation of paradise as an ungraspable non-place that only exists as an imagined memory of itself.

The abstract representation of the border was redefined through imagining the memory of paradise in an in-between space between past and future. Further, the delineation of this paradisiacal imaginary space was traced in Persian Carpets as a way of representing its etymology as an “enclosed space”, and analyzing borders physically and semantically through origins and modern rituals. This resulted in the conception of the boundary being defined as an in-between space, from which something begins presencing and marks a moment of exchange between two spatial conditions. Finally, the physicality of the carpet as an object and its spatial delineation led to arguing that the carpet is neither an object nor a space; it’s intermediatory essence led to redefining the roles of visual borders woven around the carpet as a threshold to alternate the interpretation of its inner space into reimagining a memory and pass the visual borders or physicality, to enter into the garden of the mind.

Therefore, the threshold can be defined through a constant exchange of boundaries, a space surrounded by heterogeneities that agree to coexist at the edges of their difference, hence redefining the role of the border within physical and mental space.

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Bibliography Architectural Association London, Aureli, Pier Vittorio, Giudici, Maria S. Rituals and walls. The Architecture of sacred space: research by AA Diploma Unit 14, PDF E-book, (London: Architectural Association,2016).

Noori Akram, Kateb Fateme. The Role Of Carpet In The Mourning Rituals Of Khorasan, Sociological Journal of Art and Literature. Fall 2018- Winter 2019, Volume 10 , Number 2 ; Page(s) 173 To 194.

S.I., Altai, excavation Territory of Pazyryk, Boundary of the Valley of the River Bolshoy Ulagan.

Pazyryk Barrow No.5 (Rudenko, 1949).

Antique Persian or Oriental Rugs and Carpets, Oriental & Persian Rugs, accessed April 3, 2022, https://www.little-persia.com/rug-guides/antique-rugs, replica of the Pazyryk Carpet.

Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch, Eternal Springtime: A Persian Garden Carpet from the Burrell Collection, Department of Islamic Art, July 10, 2018, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/listing?&facetname=Sheila+Canby&facettype=author

Florian Tigges, Alban Janson, Fundamental Concepts of Architecture: The vocabulary of spatial situations; Threshold, 2nd ed. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2014), 330-334.

Martin Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking: from Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1971.

Golnoush, Jalali. 2020. The Magic Carpet. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Kircher, A., Arca Noë, (Amsterdam: J. Janssonium a Waesberge, 1675). http://bit.ly/jGT0H7

Athanasius, Kircher, 1602-1680. Topographia paradisi terrestris juxta mentem et conjecturas authoris. BRBL_00321. 1675?]. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15512920.

Hamed Khosravi. The City as a Project: Paradise, July 4, 2011, Page 1, URL= http://thecityasaproject.org/2011/07/paradise/

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon. “Περιγράφω”, Accessed March 20, 2022. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=peri-gra%2Ffw&la=greek&can=peri-gra%2Ffw0.

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Rosen, Mark, and Alessandnro Scafi, Review on Maps of Paradise no. 2 (2007): 634–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2007.0199.

Yi-Chen, Shih. Threshold as a Thickness of borders: Revealing a vision of threshold through the conversation of theories, projects, and people's movement, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, January 11, 2021, page 3, URL=Research_Plan_Yi_Chen_Shih.pdf

Aureli, Pier Vittorio, The City as a Project: Camp of Faith, The Political Theology of Islamic City, PDF E-book, (Berlin: Ruby Press,2013), pages 73-75.

Simon Wei Lien-Yueh. The Development of The Notion of Paradise. Christian Faith and Life. accessed March 1, 2022. https://christ.org.tw/bible_and_theology/Theology/Development_of_the_Notion_of_Paradise.htm

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400mm