Natalie Imran Architectural Thesis_Illusions of the Eternal

ILLUSIONS OF THE ETERNAL NATALIE IMRAN MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS SCAD 2016

Illusions of the Eternal: The Palimpsest of Boundary A Thesis Submitted to Faculty of the Architecture Department in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Architecture at Savannah College of Art and Design

Natalie Imran Savannah, Georgia Š August 2016

Scott Singeisen, Committee Chair Huy Ngo, Committee Member Geoffrey S. Taylor, D.Des., Committee Member

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Scott Singeisen Thank you for such an incredible and serendipitous

journey. You have taught

me to test new methods of acquiring knowledge, and think differently about what architecture is and can be. I cannot thank you enough for your meaningful contribution to this thesis, and for our inspirational conversations about anything from Jill Stoner’s work to Dr. Seuss. Thank you for being such a wonderful professor, supporter, and friend during every step of this ongoing investigation.

Geoffrey Taylor Thank you for your endless support, expertise, and wisdom. Your meticulous and thoughtful critique not only helped shape the direction of this investigation, but also encouraged me to challenge my own ideas. Your continual motivation and guidance is what pushed me to discover a new way of looking at the city, and I am truly thankful that I had the honor of having you on my thesis committee.

Huy Ngo Thank you for your wonderful support and advice. You encouraged me to visit Rome without any preconceived notions of the city, and I believe that this is what led me to such an unexpected and unforgettable experience. Thank you for always having high expectations of me, and for believing in me every step of the way.

Hsu-Jen Huang Thank you for advising me on creative and graphic processes, inspiring me to explore new methods of architectural representation. You have been a wonderful professor, advisor, and friend, Julie Varland Thank you for your sincerity, patience, and wisdom. Your guidance during the research stage of this thesis provided me with the foundation to begin this exploration.

Susan Falls Your class had such an incredible impact me, and significantly influenced this investigation. Thank you for teaching me to think differently about the way our world works.

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ABSTRACT

1 5

01 WRITING PALIMPSEST 1.1 ARCHITECTURE AND PALIMPSEST

12

An Introduction to Architectural Palimpsest

13

Architectural Narrative

17

Case Study | Archaeological Museum

19

Case Study | Kolumba Museum

22

Case Study | Holocaust Museum

24

1.2 THE POLITICS OF THE PALIMPSEST

28

An Introduction to Narrative Politics

31

The Unreliability of Memory

33

Architecture and Collective Memory

35

Collective Memory and Reality

38

An Obsession with the Past

45

The Permanence of the Past

Case Study | Rome’s Palimpsest under Fascism

51 53

02 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST | ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES OF ROME

A Poem for the City 2.1 INTRODUCTION: CONSIDERING A TALE OF TWO CITIES

59

63

Rome and Palimpsest

62

2.2 THE ILLUSION: THE GRAND NARRATIVE OF THE HISTORIC CENTER

72

Setting the Stage: The Historic Center

75

The Grand Narrative

77

Tourism and Receptions of the City

83

The Amnesia of the ‘Eternal’ Monument

97

2.3 THE REALITY: THE ‘UNSUNG’ NARRATIVE OF THE MODERN PERIPHERY

100

The Absence of the Periphery

101

A Fractural Archipelago

103

The Capital of Evictions

107

Occupied Space: A New Urban Geography

111

Case Study | Teatro Valle

113

2.4 THE MASQUE: THE PALIMPSEST OF BOUNDARY

120

The City in Disguise

121

Fragments of Truth

129

Boundary and Masque

131

Case Study | The Berlin Wall

135

Case Study | The Aurelian Wall

141

03 REWRITING PALIMPSEST 3.1 NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

A Note on Disegno A Note on Ephermerality

150 151 153

3.3 A VISUAL MANIFESTO

156

Site and Context

158

The City as Theater

165

The Masque

167

House of Oppression

175

House of Eviction

181

House of Estrangement

187

House of the Commons

193

04 CONCLUSION

A Kaleidescope of Realites

203

BIBLIOGRAPHY

209

202

LIST OF FIGURES 01

FIGURE 1.0 FIGURE 1.1 FIGURE 1.2 FIGURE 1.3 FIGURE 1.4 FIGURE 1.5 FIGURE 1.6 FIGURE 1.7 FIGURE 1.8 FIGURE 1.9 FIGURE 1.10 FIGURE 1.11 FIGURE 1.12 FIGURE 1.13 FIGURE 1.14 FIGURE 1.15 FIGURE 1.16 FIGURE 1.17

An Overlap of History and Memory (Author) Photo and edits by Author, Palimpsest of a Roman Wall Overlap Rome: Past & Present (2013) (Kowalski, 2015) Manuscript as Palimpsest (The Archimedes Palimpsest Project, 1998) The Analogue City (1976) (Rossi, 1984) Archaeological Museum (2007), Sergio Sebastian, (Wong, 2013) Kolumba Museum. Peter Zumthor (Hélène Binet, 2007) Kolumba Museum. Peter Zumthor (Hélène Binet, 2007) Holocaust Museum (1988-1998), Daniel Libeskind (Hill, 2013) A Map of Narrative (Author) Palimpsest and Erasure (Author) The Observer and the Observed (Author) The Faded Memory (Author) The Constructed Memory (Author) Architecture and Memory (Lebbeus Woods, 1996) Flooded Florence, Superstudio (1972) (Ramo and Upmeyer, 2011) A Disappearing Monument, Jochen Gerz (Stubblefield, 2011) Mussolini Rebuilding the ‘Eternal City’ (Painter, 2005)

7 9 11 14 15 19 21 22 23 25 27 29 34 36 39 47 51 55

02

FIGURE 2.0 FIGURE 2.1 FIGURE 2.2 FIGURE 2.3 FIGURE 2.4 FIGURE 2.5

A Tourist’s Walk (Author) A Juxtaposition of Reality and Illusion (Lucarelli, 2011) A Tension Between Center, Wall, Periphery (Author) The Center and the Periphery (Author) P arallel Realities: Historic and Contemporary Space (Author) A Grand Rome Indeed (Author)

60 61 66 67 69 71

2

FIGURE 2.6 FIGURE 2.7 FIGURE 2.8 FIGURE 2.9 FIGURE 2.10 FIGURE 2.11 FIGURE 2.12 FIGURE 2.13 FIGURE 2.14 FIGURE 2.15 FIGURE 2.16 FIGURE 2.17 FIGURE 2.18 FIGURE 2.19 FIGURE 2.20 FIGURE 2.21 FIGURE 2.22 FIGURE 2.23 FIGURE 2.24 FIGURE 2.25 FIGURE 2.26 FIGURE 2.27 FIGURE 2.28 FIGURE 2.29

Diary of a Tourist (Author) Many Faces of the City (Author) The Panorama (Author) Vestigi dell’Arco di Settimio Severo (1607–20), Étienne Dupérac (Russel, 2014) A Monumental Zoo (Author) An Archipelago of Monuments (Author) Faded Eternity (Author) The Monument Suspended in Time (Author) The Illusion (Author) Evicted from Eternity (Author) From Stratified Palimpsest to Projecting Surface (Author) Eternal Evictions (Author) The Borgate Archipelago (Author) Illegal Dwelling (Author) Roma Evicted (2009)(Amnesty International, 2013) The Global Village, Occupied Social Center in Testaccio (Author) Occupied Rome, (Sharon M., 2014) The Reality (Author) A Grand Wall (Author) Duplicity (Author) A Layering of Connections, Divides, and Fragments (Author) “Running Fences”, Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1972-76) (Russel, 2014) Liminal Moments (Author) Deconstructing Boundary (Roger, 1996)

73 81 83 88 90 92 93 96 97 99 102 104 105 108 109 112 114 117 119 122 130 132 1 33 135

3 FIGURE 2.30 On top of the Berlin Wall (1989) (University of Minnesota, 2014) FIGURE 2.31 The Curtain (Author) FIGURE 2.32 Expansion of Rome’s Walls (Author) FIGURE 2.33 The Masque (Author)

03

FIGURE 3.0 FIGURE 3.1 FIGURE 3.2 FIGURE 3.3 FIGURE 3.4 FIGURE 3.5 FIGURE 3.6 FIGURE 3.7 FIGURE 3.8 FIGURE 3.9 FIGURE 3.10 FIGURE 3.11 FIGURE 3.12 FIGURE 3.13 FIGURE 3.14 FIGURE 3.15 FIGURE 3.16 FIGURE 3.17 FIGURE 3.18 FIGURE 3.19 FIGURE 3.20 FIGURE 3.21

Transitions (Author) Disegno Folio Series 2 (Author) An Armature of Moments (Author) A Wall, A Curtain, A Masque (Author) Fragment of the Abandoned Slaughterhouse (Author) A Dynamic Site (Author) A Fragment of the Aurelian Wall (Author) A Fragment of the Global Village (Author) The Theater of the City (Author) Scrim and Spectator (Author) Scrim and Wall(Author) A View from the Historic Center (Author) An Ephemeral Site Plan | The Spectacle (Author) House of Oppression (Author) House of Oppression (Author) A Temporary Location Plan | House of Oppression (Author) House of Eviction (Author) Movement and Instability (Author) A Temporary Location Plan | The House of Eviction (Author) House of Estrangement (Author) Occypying the Poche A Temporary Location Plan | House of Estrangement (Author)

138 1 41 143 145 149 152 154 155 157 160 1 61 163 166 167 169 171 173 175 179 180 181 185 186 187 189 190

4 FIGURE 3.22 Operating within the Masque (Author) FIGURE 3.23 House of the Commons (Author) FIGURE 3.24 A World without Boundary (Author) FIGURE 3.25 A Temporary Location Plan | The House of The Commons (Author) FIGURE 3.26 Observation Pods for Evicted Squatters (Author) FIGURE 3.27 A Kaleidoscope (Author) FIGURE 3.28 Final Exhibition Boards (Author) FIGURE 3.29 Final Exhibition Boards (Author)

191 193 197 198 199 201 205 206

5

ABSTRACT Illusions of the Eternal: The Palimpsest of Boundary Natalie Imran August 2016

At any given moment, the city is a palimpsest – a topos of layered memories continuously written and rewritten to tell the narratives of human life. As the built environment is continually redefined, a city’s palimpsest is subject to a series of forces and boundaries that alter the image and our perceptions of the city. Recognizing that the world is infused with both fact and fiction, it is therefore impossible to discern reality from illusion.

Applying the study of architectural palimpsest to Rome, this thesis challenges us to search for reality behind the layers of conventional perception and thought. Representations of Rome frame the metropolis as the ‘Eternal City’, an urban archetype and palimpsestouous landscape, however, this image of the city is an illusion. This grand narrative and falsified version of the city is bound to its past, represented through the city’s historic center and monuments that impose their history. In this elision of reality and illusion, the Aurelian wall—the monument which divides the grandeur of Rome’s center from the corruption of its modern periphery—has taken the role as the ‘masque’ of the city. Placing a veil over reality, the wall conceals stories of the city’s present, which lay dormant and waiting to be excavated behind the confines of its boundary. The lived reality of the modern periphery is not found on the Roman post-card, but rather, is one rife with contradiction, paradox, and uncertainty.

In an investigation of architectural palimpsest, this thesis becomes a visual manifesto for understanding the city. It urges us to rethink representations of the city, proposing an ephemeral reading which unearths the unsung stories of the moment, fragments of greater realities that lie behind the masque.

keywords: Rome, Aurelian Wall, architectural representation, boundary, collective memory, ephemeral, illusion, monument, narrative, palimpsest, reality, stage-set

6

FIGURE 1.0 An Overlap of History and Memory (Author)

CHAPTER 1

WRITING

PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 1.1 Palimpsest of a Roman Wall (Author)

11

FIGURE 1.2 Overlap Rome: Past & Present (2013) (Kowalski, 2015)

12 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST

1.1 ARCHITECTURE AND PALIMPSEST

“

FOR, INDEED, THE GREATEST GLORY OF A BUILDING IS NOT IN ITS STONES, NOT IN ITS GOLD. ITS

GLORY IS ITS AGE, AND IN THAT DEEP

SENSE OF VOICEFULNESS, OF MYSTERIOUS SYMPATHY WHICH WE FEEL IN WALLS THAT HAVE LONG

BEEN WASHED BY THE PASSING WAVES OF HUMANITY.” 1

—John Ruskin

1.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (New York: Dover, 1989), 186.

13

2.

The word palimpsest is derived from the Greek palímpsestos, meaning “scaped again.”

Traditionally, a palimpsest is known as “a parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another; a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing.” “palimpsest, n. and adj.”.

OED Online. June 2016.

Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view (Accessed July 1, 2016).

While the surface is altered and reused, it still bears visible imprints of its earlier form.

An Introduction to Architectural Palimpsest Our built world is a materialization of

The rich and complex layering present

both memory and time. It is continually

in the palimpsest can be read as both

coded and recoded with narrative,

the easily legible and the trace of the

and imbued with the evidence and

absent (Figure 1.3).3 This process of

value of human life. At any given

layering also necessitates a degree

moment, the city is a palimpsest.2

of partial erasure, however, implies

As palimpsests, buildings and sites

that complete erasure is impossible.

become the biography of society, one

After a new layer is woven into the

that undergoes an ongoing process

fabric of the city, visible traces of

of transformation that allows the past

previous layers remain, even if only as

and present to coexist. Architecture,

fragments of a larger chapter. As past

therefore, becomes an embodiment of

and present overlap synchronically,

history, as our awareness of the past

palimpsest requires us to think in

is founded in the memories which

terms of multiplicity, recognizing that

are continually inscribed onto the

there are a plethora of meanings that

landscape of the city.

are generated within a single image.

The concept of palimpsest relies on the notion of superimposition, in which narratives are continually overlaid over one another, written and rewritten with the passage of time.

14 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST

3.

The Archimedes Palimpsest is a medieval work containing seven works by the Greek mathematician. It was copied onto parchment in the 10th century and overwritten in the 13th century as a Byzantine prayerbook. Beginning in 1998, “The Archimedes Palimpsest Project” began as an effort to reveal the hidden manuscript, uncovering the secrets of the ancient texts.

For more information, see “The Archimedes Palimpsest.” Accessed August 7, 2016. http://www. archimedespalimpsest. org. Photo Source: Reviel Netz et al., eds., The Archimedes Palimpsest Volume II: Images and Transcriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

FIGURE 1.3 Manuscript as Palimpsest (The Archimedes Palimpsest Project, 1998)

15 4.

In The Architecture of the City, Aldo Rossi describes the city as a “locus” collective memory, in which the citizens play a role in designing the city and crafting its predominant image. In his 1976 collage, “The Analogue City”, Rossi constructs a new reality for the city based upon subjectivity. Building upon fragments of the existing urban reality, Rossi creates a world where one reality cannot exist objectively, as its acquired meanings are bound to concept, rather than fact. This imaginative reading of the city, relies upon the notion of collective memory, as the value of the city becomes comprehensible only within a group who shares the same collective memory. For more information see: Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of The City (Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 1984).

FIGURE 1.4 The Analogue City (1976) (Rossi, 1984)

16 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST Applying this metaphor of palimpsest

that we are able to reconcile our past,

to architecture, we may understand our

understand the evolution of a place,

built environment as a topography of

give meaning to the present, and

stories and fragments—a constructed

envision possibilities for the future.

composition where history, memory, and time intersect (Figure 1.4).4 It is through this series of overlapping layers that architecture

houses

memory,

contributing to the morphological and cultural evolution of the city. As built space is encoded with memory, it may provide us with windows into the past, while simultaneously, be redefined to manifest meaning and functions reflective of the present.

The ephemeral condition of palimpsest —one that maintains evidence of the past, yet provides pages for new histories to be written—is ultimately what allows us to

understand the

world. It is through this knowledge

17

Architectural Narrative Life is a volatile and curious thing.

of communication and understanding.

While it is human nature to seek

Rem

all-encompassing

commonalities

exceptionally 5.

Tom Porter, Archispeak (London: Spon Press, 2004), 101.

6.

Ibid., 101.

7.

Largely developed by German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, Phenomenology is a broad study in philosophy on structures of consciousness as experienced from a subjective, or first-person point of view. The study places emphasis on the meanings of experience through sensory perception—as a way of being which involves imagination, thought, emotion, events, action, the self, and other factors.

answers, life is

multifaceted,

full

of

Koolhaas

storytelling

draws

upon

between and

the

narrative

architecture,

ambiguity, complexity, paradox, and

comparing the unfolding of spatial

contradiction. In an effort to better

sequence to elements used in film-

comprehend life and our place in the

making, such as montage and plot.6

world, the use of narrative allows us

Both the practice of space making

to understand our past and anchor

and the practice of writing possess

ourselves in the present. Narrative

formal

can be defined as “a spoken or

which ultimately,

visual commentary, account or story

level of understanding. Architectural

of unfolding, connected events or

narrative, however, is eminently unique

experiences.”5 This telling of story,

in this duty as buildings and sites are

both

relies

able to narrate through both bodily

upon the notion of transformation, in

movement and sensory experience

which a series of events allows one

that

to unearth a greater understanding, or

space. Unlike other forms of narrative,

perhaps, ‘revelation’. As embodiments

spatial narratives encompass non-

of

linear

factual

human

forms

of

and

memory

fictional,

and

time,

narrative—written,

all

patterns

unfolds

in

and

structures,

contributes to our

three-dimensional

arrangements

that

allow

oral,

the user to experience storytelling

theatrical, cinematic etc.—are modes

actively through phenomenology and

18 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST its relationship between time and space.7 This analogy between architecture and narrative contributes to a broader understanding

of

how

a

society

acquires meaning and how cultural meaning

is

spatially

constructed.

Integrated space with storytelling, establishes our level of understanding and allows for a relationship between

“

WHAT SURPRISES ME MOST IN ARCHITECTURE, AS IN OTHER TECHNIQUES, IS

A PROJECT HAS ONE LIFE IN ITS BUILT STATE,

THAT

BUT ANOTHER IN ITS WRITTEN OR DRAWN STATE.” 8

the designer and the user. After a work is designed, the reception of its

—Aldo Rossi

space is out of the architects control, and

it

is

ultimately

through

the

unfolding architecture narrative that the design intent is communicated.

As the narrative evolves in space, the user may be provoked and engaged, allowing

one

to

both

judge

discover the richness of the story.

and

8.

Aldo Rossi, A Scientific Autobiography (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1981), 55.

Case Study | Archaeological Museum The Archaeological Museum in Daroca, Spain is an example of how sites can become manifestations of palimpsest, merging

past

memory

with

new

use (Figure 1.5).9 In this instance, incomplete fragments were excavated, integrated, and reinterpreted in an architectural narrative that preserved the character of the place, while accommodating a changing society.

Designed by Spanish architect Sergio Sebastian in 2007, this project explores the notion of palimpsest in order to redefine the past of the Spanish town of Daroca, and incorporate discovered ruins into the present urban fabric.

In 2006, the history of Daroca was questioned FIGURE 1.5 Archaeological Museum (2007), Sergio Sebastian, (Wong, 2013)

when

archaeological

remains, dating back to when the city was founded nine centuries before, were unearthed in the construction

20 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST of a parking lot. During excavation,

much more than a form or building—

they unearthed the walls of medieval

It can foster a dialogue between old

Islamic buildings, a Roman causeway

and new, understands the city as an

from

some

overlapping of layers, and create a

2nd

distinct sense of place with windows

the

Celtiberian

1st

century,

ruins

from

and the

century.10 These historic findings gave

into both the past and present.

birth to an opportunity for Sebastian to reprogram the space and redefine the city’s new architecture in relation to its archaeological past. The proposal became a palimpsest of narrative that exposes the layers within the city, with each layer representative of a different time period in history. In this way, layered sites can reveal and celebrate a city’s rich history. Architecture has the ability to protect the history of a city, while at the same time, revealing the spirit and character of its present conditions. As such, architecture can be imbued with narrative and evidence of the past, and by doing so, becomes

9.

Liliane Wong, “Rememberance of Times Past,” ed. Markus Berger and Liliane Wong, IntAR Interventions and Adaptive Reuse, no. 4 “Difficult Memories: Reconciling Meaning”, (2013), 77.

10.

Ibid.

FIGURE 1.6 Kolumba Museum. Peter Zumthor Hélène Binet (2007)

22 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST

Case Study | Kolumba Museum Designed by architect Peter Zumthor,

Romanesque Church of St. Columba

the Kolumba Museum presents a

are incorporated into the new facade,

contemplative

space

while scale, materiality, pattern and

archaeological

site

multiple

pasts

and

living

which

layers

with

the

light

become

sculptural

materials

present

that imbue the museum with an ever-

(Figure 1.6 and 1.7).11 The museum

changing environment that speaks to

merges diverse fragments of history

values of the historic site.

into a rich architectural narrative that respects the site’s history and preserves its essence. Located in Cologne,

Germany,

a

city

nearly

11.

with the introduction of a building

Hélène Binet, “Peter Zumthor’s Architecture Through the Eyes of Hélène Binet,” Phaidon, 2007, accessed August 20, 2016 http://www.phaidon. com/agenda/architecture/ picture-galleries/2011/ june/21/peter-zumthorsarchitecture-through-theeyes-of-helene-binet.

skin that dialogs harmoniously with

12.

completely destroyed by World War II, the museum is situated on the ruins of a late-Gothic church, along with destroyed fragments of the chapel for the ‘Madonna of the Ruins’.12 Zumthor’s design celebrates its historical context,

the archaeological remains, and with elevated galleries that rise above the existing ruins. Remnants of the

FIGURE 1.7 Kolumba Museum. Peter Zumthor Hélène Binet (2007)

David Dernie and Jacopo Gaspari, Material Imagination in Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2016), Part V.

23

FIGURE 1.8 Holocaust Museum (1988-1998), Daniel Libeskind (Hill, 2013)

24 | 1.1 WRITING PALIMPSEST

Case Study | Holocaust Museum Daniel

Libeskind’s

Jewish

is one of countless instances where

13.

exemplifies this use of architectural

carefully

narrative as a way to understand

elements

tragedy,

remembrance,

capable of emboding memory of a

and restore a lost identity (Figure

people, time, and place. It is through

1.8).13 As one wanders through the

this use of architectural narrative and

fractured and uncanny spaces, the

spatial design that the memory of

John Hill, “Deconstructivist Architecture, 25 Years Later,” World-Architects, January 28, 2013, Accessed August 26, 2016. http://www.worldarchitects.com/de/pages/ insight/deconstructivistarchitecture-25.

architecture itself, rather than the

people and place can be reconstructed

artifacts, narrates the story of Jewish

and represented authentically, not

history and culture before, during, and

through

after the Holocaust.14 The museum

through poetic readings and free-

becomes a house of memory meant to

flowing interactions with space. As the

embody the sense of ‘unhomeliness’

‘storyteller’ of architectural narrative,

experienced by those driven from a

the architect has the ability to curate

Berlin and estranged from its past.11

and structure these lived experiences

Through

defamilarization,

that connect with our memories and

instability of orientation and boundary,

perceptions, allowing us to imagine.

stimulate

spatial

and an oppostion conventions,

of

Museum

architectural

Libeskind’s

museum

excavates the supressed history of the Jewish past, uncovering the memories buried beneath the surface.15 This

designed perform

linear

architectural narrative

arrangement,

duty,

but

14.

For more on Libeskind’s Jewish Museum see: James E. Young, “Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin: The Uncanny Arts of Memorial Architecture,” Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 2 (2000): 1-23.

15.

For more on the notion of the ‘uncanny’ and the ‘unhomely’ see: Sigmund Freud and Hugh Haughton, The Uncanny, trans. David McLintock (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003).

See also: Anthony Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomel y (London: The MIT Press, 1992).

FIGURE 1.9 A Map of Narrative (Author)

27

FIGURE 1.10 Palimpsest and Erasure (Author)

28 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

1.2 THE POLITICS OF PALIMPSEST

“

HUMAN MEMORY IS A MARVELOUS BUT FALLACIOUS INSTRUMENT...

THE MEMORIES WHICH LIE WITHIN US ARE NOT CARVED IN STONE; NOT ONLY DO THEY TEND TO BECOME ERASED AS THE YEARS GO BY, BUT OFTEN THEY CHANGE, OR EVEN GROW, BUT

EXTRANEOUS FEATURES.” —Primo Levi

1

INCORPORATING

1.

Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans.

Raymond Rosenthal, reprint (New York: Vintage International, 1988), 23.

“MYTH FIGURE 1.11 The Observer and the Observed (Author)

IS THE INFANCY

30 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

OF

NARRATIVE” —Tom Porter

2

31

An Introduction to Narrative Politics Narrative manifests comprehensive

city’s visible palimpsest, as our world

knowledge. However, we must also

is rife with contradiction, control, and

acknowledge that there are both

fallacy which may easily go masqued

intrinsic and extrinsic concerns within

amongst the presence of a grand

narrative that significantly affect our

narrative.

understanding of the world. Inherently,

2.

Porter, Archispeak, 101.

3.

In Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, Arjun Appadurai considers isomorphic flows and the “landscapes” of globalization which have a huge impact on the way we operate and the way we imagine ourselves and those around us.

For more information, see Appadurai Arjun, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Public Culture 2, no. 2 (1990): 1–24.

our perceptions are subjective and

Recognizing these concerns within

highly perspectival, contingent on both

narrative, this thesis acknowledges

lived experience and one’s position

that

within the landscape of society.3 As a

inconsistencies loom in all facets of

human construct, narrative may also

life. However, it also recognizes that it

be produced and reproduced through

is the very presence of these fictional

a

characteristics

that

ultimately

ideological lens. It is most often the

drive

and

imagination.

dominant world view and hegemonic

Architecture represents a weaving of

discourse that affect the way narrative

both reality and fiction, which not only

is constructed and presented to us,

evokes creative response, but is what

and as such, both collective memory

allows each of us to build our own

and history itself are subject to a

unique perception of the world. These

multitude of bias and distortion. It

overlays of fact and fiction are crucial

is therefore wise to acknowledge

in the organization of a city, along with

questions of

the construction of collective memory

particular,

and

often

myopic,

authenticity within a

a

plethora

creativity

of

fictions

and

32 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST and public consciousness.

working together, communicate what is valued by a culture. Therefore,

Understanding between

the

relationship

history,

we must embrace the ephemeral

memory,

and

and the subjective and design for a

fundamental

to

multiplicity of interpretation. To do so,

Architecture

architectural practice must renounce

has the ability to meld reality and

any meta or grand understanding of

illusion—both inherent elements of a

history, memory, and time, and rather,

city’s palimpsest—with one another in

become a dynamic elision between

an evolving narrative that reflects the

reality and fiction, narrating these

transformations of society. However, in

stories that wear an ever-changing

order to keep the architectural practice

masque.

narrative architectural

is

practice.

of making from entering a

state of

disillusionment, we must acknowledge the forces that influence

narrative,

and more importantly, we must accept that society can never be defined through a singular perspective. Rather, architecture

should

be

employed

as an instrument through which we may see the world as a scaffolding of fragments and moments, which

33

The Unreliability of Memory All

is

are only reductions of the original

established through memory, however,

perception: the wax may adopt the

human memory is both subjective

imprint of the stamp, however one

and fleeting. The malleability and

cannot see if the image was made

unreliability of memory often produce

with gold or bronze.5 Therefore our

intentional and unintentional modes

memories, working like wax, can form

of forgetting—a process of ‘editing’

the resemblance of an object, but only

which

the

as a recreated and fractured image—

stories we are told. As each individual

never the object itself. These mental

internalizes his or her own unique lived

images are absorbed in the brain as

experience, individual memories are

forms “without matter”, as imprints

constantly being reconstructed and

that are both transient and malleable.

rearranged in the memory archive.

The remembered image arises piece

In Aristotle’s theory of memory, he

by piece, never as a perfect clone

described the brain and memory as

of the original, but as a collage of

5.

a soft wax tablet, or writing surface

fragments that poses as a complete

Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle’s De Anima in the Version of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Kenelm Foster and Silvester Humphries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 340.

that could be erased and reused.

and unscathed recollection.

4.

Douwe Draaisma, Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 25.

knowledge

of

undoubtedly

the

past

affects

He writes that experience, engaged through the senses, leaves an image

It is within this re-constructive process

in our memory, just as a stamp leaves

that the potential for misconceptions

an impression on wax.4 As Aristotle

and false authenticity within narrative

suggests,

lies. As suggested in Museum Making:

these

memory

images

34 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions,

of

images—an

evasive

instrument

narrative is based upon retrospective

that cannot be fixed in human life, nor

and subjective memory, and therefore

secured by its monuments.

necessitates “a process of exclusion and editing with all the accompanying risks of bias and distortion.”6 It is this fleeting quality of memory that produces intentional and unintentional modes of forgetting, distancing it from the confines of fact. Socrates further suggests this uncertainty of memory by describing thoughts as birds flying in and out of an aviary, where some remain housed for a time, and others pass through consciousness in flocks

6.

or in solitude.7 The human mind is an

Suzanne Macleod, Laura Hourston Hanks, and Jonathan Hale, Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions, Museum Meanings (New York: Routledge, 2012), xxii.

unbound aviary or a wax tablet that is imprinted, effaced, and written over

again

(Figure

1.12).

Memory,

therefore, can be understood as a reconstructive process that involves a constant sculpting and re-assemblage

FIGURE 1.12 The Faded Memory (Author)

7.

Douwe, 27.

35

Architecture and Collective Memory While the subject of individual memory

expands

plays a role in understanding the

collective memory as “what remains

elusiveness of the mental apparatus,

of the past in the lived reality of

this

concerns

groups, or what these groups make of

of collective memory, and how it

the past.”9 It is, therefore, ultimately a

intersects with the production and

thread of socially constructed memory

reproduction of dominant narratives of

that defines a groups ‘reality’.

thesis

focuses

on

on

this

notion

defining

society, culture, and history. Memories, individuals

The built world is what allows us

separately, are a part of a social

to construct collective, or cultural,

framework that is linked with collective

memory.

experience and thought—a framework

constituted by architecture, as the

Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser, First Edition, Heritage of Sociology Series (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

in which societies construct memories

places

that are shared among groups of

ideology and cultural

people. Maurice Halbwachs contends

allow us to form identity in relation to

that this scaffold of shared memories

place. Nora studied how the meanings

is what binds people together in the

we invest in places constitute our

9.

form of cultural identity.8 The process

understanding of history, identifying

of defining and establishing collective

the appearance of lieux de memoire—

memory and identity often entails a

or, “sites of memory”—where memory

reinterpretation

is reincarnated in places where shared

although

8.

Quoted in Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (1977), trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 95.

carried

and

by

reconstruction

of the past (Figure 1.13). Pierre Nora,

Collective we

create

representations

of

memory both

the

is

embody

value, and

past

once

36 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 1.13 The Constructed Memory (Author)

37 existed. The memories fastened onto

this

these sites can forge both nostalgia

and collective identities are molded

and national identity. However, while

by the city. With this understanding,

construction creates sites of memory,

it is also important to question the

it may also be argued that artificial

process by which the built world is

reconstructions of memory—any form,

altered or preserved and if these

place, or event in which memory is

alterations

crystallized—supplant

the past and present reality. Perhaps

real

‘living’

understanding.

Our

authentically

individual

represent

de

collective memory becomes a social

mémoire exist because there are no

construction shaped by the needs,

longer milieux de mémoire, settings

understandings, and ideologies of the

in which memory is a real part of

present—an object to be designed.

memory.

Nora

states:

”Lieux

everyday experience.”10 The city is a field of memory—a topography continual

which

process

undergoes of

a

preservation

and demolition, remembering and 10.

forgetting. It is our understanding of

Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations, no. 26 (1989): 1.

the past which informs our existence in the present, and it is that which persists around us in which we form

38 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

Collective Memory and Reality Collective

memory,

history,

and

politics have a direct effect on our

fact limited to the memories of those who write it.

collective consciousness, and it is ultimately through this understanding

The

of ourselves which we perceive and

past may allow for adaptation and

conceive

This

progression, however, this process of

thesis recognizes that while collective

editing and exclusion may also become

memory may be an opportunity for

an instrument for ‘collective amnesia.’11

defining and redefining a city, it may

In his book War and Architecture,

also be instrumentalized in order to

Lebbeus Woods develops guidelines

reproduce

worldview.

for rebuilding post war cities by

Crafting collective memory through

envisioning the future.12 Discussing

a simplistic lens may in fact lead

the restoration and reconstruction of

us

authentic

post war cities, Woods contends that

remembrance, and more towards a

restoring a city to its original state

state of illusion. As representations

denies the conditions and needs of

of

seldom

the present. However, the remnants of

determined and created collectively,

violence must not be washed away,

In Pierra Nora’s book Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, he argues that memory may be displaced in order to encourage collective amnesia. See: Pierre Nora, Symbols. vol 2. of Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

but

through

replacing memories of tragedy with

12.

the eyes of those in power, this

untainted narratives and a false sense

thesis questions the

authenticity of

of solidarity. Rather, by redefining a

collective memory, arguing that it is in

city’s collective memory with respect

Lebbeus Woods, War and Architecture, Fifth Edition, Pamphlet Architecture 15 (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996).

notions

a

further

cultural rather,

of

‘reality’.

dominant

away

from

memory

are

constructed

notion

of

reconstructing

the

11.

39 to its historical past and present alike,

the

stimulate

built

environment

remembrance,

may

restore

a

lost identity, and understand tragedy.

In this instance, Woods presents a way of looking at the city that builds upon collective memory without a detachment from history or a rejection of reality— a city that wears the visible scars of its past may transform, not erase, heal, not forget (Figure 1.14).13 However, as Nora contends, collective memory may also be used as a tool to detach from the past, as it may become a direct reflection of the needs of the present and the will of 13.

Lebbeus Woods, War and Architecture, Fifth Edition, Pamphlet Architecture 15 (New York:Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 15.

those in power. For example, many traditions are established in order to

remember

and

commemorate

certain events in history, yet, others are deliberately disregarded in their

CHAPTER 01 WRITINGPALIMPSEST PALIMPSEST 04 |REWRITING 40 | CHAPTER 40

FIGURE 1.14 Architecture and Memory (Woods, 1996)

41 entirety. Monuments and memorials

reminder of his victory, Cicero saw it as

are erected as reminders of collective

a monument to a patriot, while many

memory and experience, however,

other Romans saw it as a reminder of

the memories they reinforce may not

the cruelty and violence of those who

authentically represent the past, or the

had defeated the Gracchi family.14 In

greater society, but in fact, may serve

this way, monuments and other sites of

the purpose of establishing authority,

memory are in a volatile state, able to

reproducing

and

be debated and reinterpreted through

conventions, and even maintaining

memory politics in order to craft

social control. For example, Roman’s

the culture of a city. While collective

have used sites to constitute memory

memory

since it’s very founding, however these

those in power are the conductors of

sites are not bound to the memories

collective memory and are able to

of the past, but rather to the needs

reconstruct the past in order to fit a

of the present. For instance, the Hut

grand social narrative. The memories

of Romulus on the Palatine served

of those people and events which do

as a reminder of the city’s earliest

not conform are disregarded, only to

beginnings. According to Plutarch,

be forgotten over time in the form of

14.

Opimius built the Temple of Concordia

collective amnesia.

Amy Russell, The Politics of Public Space in Republican Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 20.

to memorialize his success and victory

dominant

norms

creates

social

that

identity,

over Gaius Gracchus in 121 BCE.

Understanding

collective

However, while Opimius built it as a

memory is a fluid and ever-changing

42 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST phenomenon,

made

ideology or dominant set of ideas in

aware of the revisionary processes

society—we may better understand

within cultural memory and how these

the intersections between collective

processes entail a degree of bias,

memory, architecture, and politics,

distortion, or delusion. As the past is

and how collective memory acts as

subject to revisionist storytelling, our

an object and apparatus of power.

understanding of it may often be a

Therefore, this thesis argues that it

collection of misunderstood truths,

is unwise to cling to memory, with all

selected fragments, and, reconfigured

its mystery and fallacy, to explain and

events re-told through a singular

determine humanity. B.S Johnson, an

perspective. Recalling the instance

English experimental novelist, once

of rebuilding cities devastated by

wrote: “Life does not tell stories. Life

war, what elements of the physical

is chaotic, fluid, random; it leaves

and immaterial landscape are worthy

myriads of ends untidied, untidily.

of preservation? Which should be

Writers can extract a story from life

forgotten? May collective memory,

only be strict, close selection, and this

through

selective

must mean falsification. Telling stories

reconstruction,

is really telling lies.”15 As we create,

become an instrument of governance

rewrite, and rearrange narrative, are

15.

and control? By looking to concepts of

we distancing ourselves further and

ideology and hegemonic discourse—

further from the truth?

Bryan Stanley Johnson, Aren’t You Rather Young to Be Writing Your Memoirs?

(London: Hutchinson & Co., 1973), 14.

a

construction

we

must

process and

of

be

the latter defined as the prevailing

43

“

HAS IT NOT BEEN ACCEPTED – EVER SINCE KANT – THAT THERE IS AN

UNBRIDGEABLE GULF BETWEEN

REALITY IN ITSELF AND REALITY AS IT APPEARS TO US?

44 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

...THAT OUR POSSIBILITIES OF KNOWING HAVE

MORE TO DO WITH

OUR OWN APPARATUS THAN WITH THE

NATURE OF REALITY?”

16

—Elia Zenghelis 16.

Elia Zenghelis, “Text and Architecture: Architecture as Text,” in Exit Utopia: Architectural Provacations, 1956-76, ed. Martin van Schaik and Otakar Macel (Munich: Prestel Publishing, 2006), 55.

45

An Obsession with the Past While

destruction

memory

as the question of what to abandon

from the city, we must also be made

and what to erase. Which past should

aware of extremism in preservation,

we keep? When is the ideal moment

which too may dilute the authentic

that a past is worthy of preservation?

remembrance of the past. Unlike acts

Which elements of a city’s past are

of demolition—as portrayed by the

‘worthy’

disembowelment of Rome during the

which are able to undergo change?

Fascist regime—, preservation does

In architectural palimpsest, it is an

not constitute an irrevocable erasure

accumulation of heterogeneous times

within a city’s palimpsest. However,

within a landscape which constitutes

extreme preservation may be just

meaning and value. Therefore, traces

as detrimental to the coexistence

of the past should remain present;

between past and present and our

however, it is crucial that we do not

understanding

While

fall into an obsession of the past,

architectural preservation benefits the

which may only lead to a stagnation

enrichment of a city, it also paints a

of time and void in a city’s palimpsest.

picture of unattainable permanence—

In understanding this balance between

an illusion of eternity that idealizes

past and present, old and new, it

selected

past.

is wise to question means of both

Within the layering of a city’s strata

preservation and destruction, and that

over time, the question of what to

which is sacrificed with extremisms in

preserve becomes just as important

both processes (Figure 1.15).17

of

erases

reality.

fragments

of

the

of

being

preserved,

and

46 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

“

WE SAID THAT, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO RESTORE THE SITUATION,

WHY JUST RESTORE TO THE 19TH CENTURY? WHY NOT RESTORE THE RENAISSANCE SITUATION? IF YOU DO THAT, WHY NOT THE MEDIEVAL SITUATION? IN FACT, WHY DON’T YOU GO BACK TO THE ROMAN SITUATION?

AND IF YOU GO BACK THAT FAR, WHY DON’T YOU GO BACK TO THE PLEISTOCENE SITUATION? IN THE PLEISTOCENE SITUATION, 18

FLORENCE WAS A LAKE!” —Adolfo Natalini, Superstudio.

17.

Beatriz Ramo and Bernd Upmeyer, “Deadly Serious –Interview with Adolfo Natalini (Founder of Superstudio and Natalini Architetti),” MONU, no. 14 “Editing Urbanism” (2011).

18.

Ibid.

FIGURE 1.15 Flooded Florence, Superstudio (1972) Ramo and Upmeyer, 2011)

48 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST In

contemporary

Western

society,

globalization and cultural acceleration have led to a memory boom, in which a surplus of narratives about the past have arisen out of a fear of forgetting and desire for temporal stability.

As

temporal

boundaries

have become less evident with the speed of society, we have developed a fear of forgetting in which we “turn to memory for comfort.”

19

Strategies

of preservation and memorialiation within architecture—most notably seen in the recent boom of World Heritage Sites —have come out of this fear of forgetting and a desire to “anchor ourselves in a world characterized by an increasing instability of time.”

20

Hermann Lubbe, a German philosopher of the early 1980’s, uses the term “musealization” to explain this shifting sense of temporality and our way of

19.

Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, First Edition, Cultural Memory in the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 25.

20.

Ibid., 8.

49 compensating for acceleration and

monumentalizing the past was a way

the loss of lived tradition. According

to “give meaning to the present and to

to Lubbe, we cope with the speed of

envision the future.”22 On the contrary,

postmodern innovation, objects and

today the idea of memory has become

practices of everyday life by turning

a form of re-representation that is

to hyper-preservation. The illusion of

separating us from the experiential

permanence provides us with cultural

dimension of space and “belonging

stability, and places us in a world where

ever more to the present.”23 As a

the past is not fleeting, but finds a

fear of forgetting leads to hyper

home within the ‘eternal’ monument.21

preservation, along with a process of over-archiving, we are experiencing

Preservation is not a new phenomenon,

the past in the present unlike ever

21.

but

our

before, and it is this phenomenon that

Peter McIsaac and Gabriele Mueller, eds., Exhibiting the German Past: Museums, Film, and Musealization. (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2015).

environment is preserved in relation

blurs the lines between teller and told,

to memory has seen a recent shift,

fact and fiction.

22.

believed that memory was directly

Huyssen, Present Pasts, 2.

associated with experience and bound

23.

Ibid., 3.

the

degree

to

which

as a dedication to remembrance has turned into an obsession. the

Romantic

period,

During

Romantics

us to our past. It was the assumption that one learned from history, and

50 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

The Permanence of the Past Architecture,

as

a

vehicle

of

Yet, an illusion of eternality is

often

remembrance, has the unique ability

placed upon sites that are meant to

to institute public remembering and

house the past ‘forever’. There is a

build a foundation of collective identity.

prevailing issue with this presumed

However, the notion that culturally

permanence: society preserves what

constructed and shared memories

it values; yet, cultural values are

must live permanently within the

neither permanent nor static. In The

built environment is an assumption

Architecture of the City, Aldo Rossi

which

discusses this relationship between

immobilizes

time—

an

act

which subtracts from the ephemeral

historical

conditions

relevance. He states: “A monuments

of

a

city’s

palimpsest.

importance

cultural

Hyper-preservation denies the passing

persistence

of time to bear visible traces on the

result of its capacity to constitute

landscape,

the

and

furthermore,

may

city,

or

and

its

permanence

history

and

is

art,

a its

25

allow for a manipulated and altered

being and memory.” Therefore, as

exhibition of the past.

society’s

values

transform

with

time, continually reflective of past Sites

of

cultural

rituals,

such

as

and present, architecture too must

monuments and memorials, contribute

have

the

opportunity

to society’s sense of collective memory,

synchronously. As such, we must be

no matter the degree of attachment to

made aware of extremism in the realms

the object’s preservation(Figure 1.16)24

of

destruction

and

to

evolve

preservation,

24.

Thomas Stubblefield. “Do Disappearing Monuments Simply Disappear? The Counter-Monument in Revision.” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism 8, no.

2 (2011): 1-11.

25.

Rossi, The Architecture of The City, 60.

51 forgetting 26.

During the era of modernism, the notion of the tabula rasa—or, blank slate—wipes history clean, erasing all that came before in a form of cultural amnesia, The modern city, free of history, sought out one universal truth and a radical forgetting—a desire to annihilate the multiplicities of life and start new. In his plan for Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City), Le Corbusier encouraged progress through the obliteration of tradition.

In his city of the future, vernacular European cities would be demolished, and replaced by a new city that would break its bond with the past,and erase memory from the city. See: Le Corbusier, The Radiant City: Elements of a Doctrine of Urbanism to Be Used as the Basis of Our Machine-Age Civilization, trans. Pamela Wright, Eleanor Levieux, and Derek Coltman (New York: Orion Press, 1967).

and

remembrance.

Preservation may prevent a loss of historical

consciousness,

however,

and obsession with the eternal proves to be just as detrimental to a city’s palimpsest as an act of erasure, or tabula rasa.26 As Huyssen warns, “this strongly remembered past may turn into mythic memory...and may become a stumbling block to the needs of the present rather than an opening in the continuum of history.”27 By redefining preservation, this thesis is in an attempt to reassess the idea of eternality, in order to stimulate and support the contemporary city.

A

city’s collective memory must not be crystallized nor bound to form, but rather, the functions of all architecture must in

be

order

continually to

reinterpreted

participate

in

the

FIGURE 1.16 A Disappearing Monument, Jochen Gerz (Stubblefield, 2011)

“

WE INVITE THE CITIZENS OF HAMBURG AND VISITORS TO THE TOWN, TO ADD THEIR NAMES HERE TO OURS...AS MORE AND MORE NAMES COVER THIS 12 METER TALL LEAD COLUMN,

IT WILL GRADUALLY BE LOWERED INTO THE GROUND. ONE DAY IT WILL HAVE

DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY, AND THE SITE OF THE HAMBURG MONUMENT AGAINST FASCISM WILL BE

EMPTY. IN THE END, IT IS ONLY WE OURSELVES 28 WHO CAN RISE UP AGAINST INJUSTICE.” —Jochen Gerz

52 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST 27.

Andreas Huyssen, “Monument and Memory in a Postmodern Age,” in The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History, by James Young (Munich and New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1994), 250.

28.

An inscription found in Hamburg, Germany, on the site where the “Monument Against Fascism, War, and Violence-and for Peace and Human Rights”once stood. Designed in 1986 and fully ‘sunken’ by 1993, this disappearing monument speaks out against Fascism in a way that is both ephemeral and reflective of its use and the level of engagement by its visitors. Its lack of attachment to place alludes to the absence fascist history in German post-war public discourse.

Today, all that remains is this inscription, along with the top of the monument now level with the ground.

53

Case Study | Rome’s Palimpsest & Fascism Rome’s

transformations

the

which a series of carefully selected

Fascist regime help us comprehend

restorations, excavations, demolitions,

the extent of which a city’s palimpsest

and erasures rearranged layers of time,

can be selectively reordered and

founding a new past that conformed

reconfigured in order to legitimize a

to the regimes mental image and

new empire, conform to a new reading

visual culture.30 Mussolini’s alterations

of the city, and construct cultural

to Rome’s palimpsest were an effort

memory. During the Fascist era, the

to express the Fascist world-view, and

‘third Rome’ underwent significant

it was he who determined what was

transformations

worth remembering, and what should

that

under

drastically

altered the city’s urban palimpsest, in order to create a different dialogue with the city’s idealized past and 29.

For a comprehensive study on the Fascist layer within Rome’s palimpsest, see: Aristotle Kallis, The Third Rome, 1922-43: The Making of the Fascist Capital (Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).

30.

Ibid., 15.

support a new ideology and hegemonic discourse.29 Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, saw his regime as a way of reforming Rome, modeling the city’s present after its ancient past, and constructing a culture that embodied values of Italian Fascism. Rome saw a new “engineered” layer of the visible palimpsest, in

be forgotten.

The

Fascist

reading

of

Rome’s

palimpsest visually altered the city in several ways. For instance, Benito Mussolini’s

obsession

with

ancient

history,

most

by

Roman

Forum

the

Rome’s

exemplified and

ruins

around the Capitoline Hill, led him to conduct a process of sventramento (disemboweling) in the 1920s, in an attempt to “free” the ancient ruins

“

54 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST

IT IS NECESSARY TO

FREE

OURSELVES FROM THE

MEDIOCRE DISFIGUREMENTS OF THE OLD ROME, AND AT THE SAME TIME ALONGSIDE THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL

WE MUST CREATE THE MONUMENTAL ROME OF THE 20TH CENTURY.”

31

—Benito Mussolini at his citizenship ceremony, April 21, 1924 on the Capitoline in Rome

31.

Borden Painter, Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City (Macmillan, 2005), 4.

55

FIGURE 1.17 Mussolini Rebuilding the ‘Eternal City’ (Painter, 2005)

56 | 1.2 WRITING PALIMPSEST that had lain beneath urban growth.

street as a visual connection between

Among

the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia,

buildings

the

churches

that

were

and

public

destroyed

actually

paved

over

eighty

five

during the ruins ‘exhumation’, 5,500

percent of the ancient fora that had

dwellings were demolished, forcing

been excavated after the housing

tens of thousands of people from their

demolitions.

homes and into rapidly built borgate

attempt to exhume Rome’s ancient

in Rome’s periphery.32 In addition to

past also became a form of cultural

instrumentalizing the ruins, Mussolini

forgetting. While this appropriation of

created a new avenue—what was then

monumentality led to a devastating

known as Via dell’Impero but is now

reworking of the city fabric, it can be

known as Via dei Fori Imperiali—as

argued that Mussolini’s alterations

a straight line and visual connection

nonetheless added a new layer to the

from the Coliseum to Piazza Venezia

city, and thus, still contributed to the

32.

The creation of the

notion of palimpsest. However, layers

street, which required the demolition

of Rome’s palimpsest were erased,

of the entire Pantano neighborhood,

while much of the city’s

first appeared to be a celebration

collective memory was replaced by

John David Rhodes, Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini’s Rome (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 4–5.

of Rome’s ancient past. However, as

a new field of memories bound to the

33.

Rhodes points out, the creation of the

Fascist vision. This form of demolition

Painter, Mussolini’s Rome, cover page.

new avenue actually “suppresses as

does not leave traces of the past, but

much as it valorizes.”34 Quiet ironically,

rather, assaults the past, producing a

Mussolini’s decision to create the

form of irrevocable cultural amnesia.

(Figure 1.17).

33

As

such,

Mussolini’s

existing

34 Ibid., 27.

CHAPTER 2

CONTEXTUALIZING

PALIMPSEST

59

A Poem for the City For a moment, I have escaped time.

Like the ruin, unchanged and forever running from senescence, I am exempt from the hour, Denied of reality.

Doubt dissipates.

A freshly bought gelato vanishes from my hand.

I am transported, a visitor of ancient Rome.

Unreality is welcome.

The escape is short lived.

The tourists swarm in a ritual dance, a gladiator waves his sign.

Forgotten iced cream drips down my blouse, My fantasy, now dismissed.

The neighboring ruin receives its annual face-lift, The couple takes turns with the Kodak.

I have come back into reality, Tethered to the familiarity of 2016.

The ruin and I assume our masks, Taking our place in the spectacle of the city.

FIGURE 2.0 A Tourist’s Walk (Author)

61

FIGURE 2.1 A Juxtaposition of Reality and Illusion (Lucarelli, 2011)

62 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

2.1 INTRODUCTION:

“

CONSIDERING A TALE OF TWO CITIES

ROME IS TODAY THE NARRATIVE OF TWO CITIES.

THE CITY OF THE HISTORIC SPACE, KEPT IN A CRYSTALLIZED IMAGE, OBJECT OF A KITCH RESIGNIFICATION BY THE TOURISM INDUSTRY, THE MONUMENTAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREAS CONVERTED INTO A FERTILE GROUND FOR EXPLOITATION BY VIRTUE OF THEIR OWN SPECIFIC SUSPENSION, THEIR ABSENCE FROM TIME.

AND THE ‘LIVING CITY’, ON THE RUN FROM THE CONDITION OF PERIPHERAL CAPITAL, LOOKING FOR THE MODERNIZATION OF THE COMMUNICATION FLOWS, SUBJECT TO RAPID DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE. THE ROME OF THE FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS FROM THE CENTER, OF THE JOBS IN THE SUBURBS, OF THE VEHICULAR TRAFFIC.

THE CITY THAT SEEMS TO FORGET HIS PAST, BUT THAT HARDLY REACHES MODERNITY.” 1

—Fosco Lucareli

1.

Fosco Lucarelli/ MICROCITIES, “Rome: A Tale of Two Cities,” in Building the Common Space, edited by Luca Galofaro with Fosco Lucarelli and Fabrizi Mariabruna (Paris: ESA Atelier D6, 2011), [14], Accessed February, 2016 http://www.microcities. net/files/COMMON-SPACELO.pdf

63

2.

The history of identifying the city as eternal dates to the poets of Ancient Rome. Ovid proclaims the apotheosis of Julius Caesar as placing his name amongst the stars for “as long as Rome is the Eternal City”, see Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV, translated by Horace Gregory (New York: Viking Press, 1959), 452.

The theme was certainly popularized by Hall Caine’s early twentieth century novel which in the title page’s epigram associated the city’s origins not with a she-wolf and abandoned brothers, but with the eternal: “He looked for a city which hath foundations who builder and maker is God”, see The Eternal City (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1901).

Rome and Palimpsest Applied to the city of Rome, the

dependent on the city’s eternality

metaphor of palimpsest is used to

and its classical past, and it is Rome’s

explain the layers of the city’s built

historic center that maintains the

environment and urban morphologies

memory and global presence of the

that have developed through the

city. This image of the past is one

course

so,

that has always labeled Rome, and

Rome is perhaps one of the world’s

its valorization is protected through

most quintessential palimpsestuous

the monuments and ruins frozen at

landscapes, with each of its eras visibly

the time of their story—a still frame

stacked on top of the last and with a

waiting to be captured by the camera

history that has never languished.

lens.

of

time.

Undoubtedly

It is a place where the past exists in the present and where all eras seem

While there is no doubt that the

to exist synchronously. Over time, this

richness of Rome’s palimpsestuous

ideal vision of Rome has been molded

space has made the city a meaningful

through representations of the city,

entity to be incessantly studied, this

which dominantly consist of images

thesis argues that the city can no

of the ‘Eternal City’— Rome’s vertical

longer be characterized solely by its

palimpsest that is both crystallized

history, as a valorisation of the past

within its historic center and protected

is often accompanied by illusion, and

by its ancient walls. 2 Today, hegemonic

subsequent neglect for the present.

cultural representations of Rome are

It argues that the grand narrative

64 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST of Rome is a myopic and limited

diverse, and politically conflicted than

approach to the city, one that does

Rome’s

not understand the city as palimpsest,

depict. As these two ‘realities’ run

but rather reads it solely through its

parallel to each other, very real and

façade—as a flattened image or ‘post-

present conditions of the periphery

card’ to consume.

orbit surreptitiously around the city’s

traditional

representations

historic walls, unseen by the awed and Bound to its pre-WWII topography and

fleeting tourist.

preserved within the city center, Rome’s vertical palimpsest is not true of Rome

Arguing the presence of a “void” at the

everywhere. What Rome’s classical

end of Rome’s classical palimpsest, this

image does not take into account is

thesis renounces the notion of a meta-

the city’s vast expansion during the

narrative that defines the city, and

20th century, in which another ‘Rome’

acknowledges that reading the city

developed, and continues to sprawl

palimpsestuously must also involve

well beyond its historic Aurelian Wall.

studying its construction, boundaries,

The creation of the periphery altered

limitations, and illusions. It questions

the city’s physical and idealogical

the extent to which it is possible to

strata, and today, the ‘Eternal City’ is

represent ‘reality’ in a world where

sharply juxtaposed against the ‘lived’

history itself is overlaid with perpetual

city— a reality in constant flux, that is

fictions. 3 As such, this thesis identifies

far more ambiguous, volatile, culturally

the city as an infinite spectacle: with

3.

For information on the distinction between memory and history, and history as an assembly of fiction see: Christine Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Enterainments (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996).

65 the historic center as the stage and

meaning both a physical attribute, as in

the “Illusion”, the Aurealian wall as the

location, and as a psychological sense

“Masque”, and the periphery as the

of ‘othering’ which is often associated

backstage and the “Reality”

with being evicted beyond physical and idealogical boundaries. To conclude

In order to break the illusion of Rome’s

this chapter, section 2.4, investigates

ancient palimpsest and un-masque the

the physical and psychological effects

realities of its contemporary present,

of

Chapter 2 investigates the spatial and

identifiying the Aurelian Wall the

mental layering Rome’s illusionary

masque—a conjunctive and disjunctive

historic center, the modern reality of

line between reality and illusion, By

the periphery, and the masque that is

discussing these elements of center,

the dividing wall—each having their

periphery, and wall which are relevant

own

distinctive

to this thesis,

find

themselves

palimpsest

within

palimpsest,

this investigation

and

seeks to decrypt and deconstruct

overlapping at moments throughout

the traditional archive. It proposes a

the city. Section 2.2 will first discuss

woven narrative of inner and outter

the historic center and the constitution

city, and an unearthing of the living

of Rome’s grand image. Shifting focus

realties

to the outskirts of Rome, Section

narratives of the periphery that often

2.3 begins to unveil the realities

go masqued behind the grand illusion

of

of Rome.

peripheral

intersecting

which

boundary

Rome—”peripheral”

of

the

cityscape—micro-

66 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.2 A Tension Between Center, Wall, Periphery (Author)

67

FIGURE 2.3 The Center and the Periphery (Author)

68 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

69

FIGURE 2.4 Parallel Realities: Historic and Contemporary Space (Author)

70 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.5 A Grand Rome Indeed (Author)

72 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

2.2

THE ILLUSION:

THE GRAND NARRATIVE OF THE HISTORIC CENTER

“

ROME IS THE CITY OF ILLUSIONS, IT IS NOT A CHANCE THAT THE CHURCH, GOVERNMENT, AND CINEMA, ALL THINGS THAT

PRODUCE ILLUSION,

AS YOU DO AND AS WE DO, ARE HERE. WHICH PLACE BETTER THAN THIS CITY, WHO DIED MANY TIMES AND

MANY TIMES WAS REBORN...

THE IDEAL PLACE TO SEE IF THE WORLD WILL END OR NOT.”

1

— “Roma” by Federico Fellini, 1972

1.

Federico Fellini, Roma, 1972.

“A CITYSCAPE

THE CITY BECAME A FIXED POINT IN THE COSMOS,

LAYERED AND RE-LAYERED

FIGURE 2.6 Diary of a Tourist (Author)

WITH MYTH AND HISTORY,

A THEATRE OF MEMORY AND AT THE SAME TIME

A STAGE ON WHICH ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS OF 2 ROMANS WERE DESTINED TO PLAY A PART.”

2.

Edwards and G. Woolf, “Cosmopolis: Rome as World City,” in Rome the Cosmopolis, edited

by C. Edwards and G. Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 8.

75

Setting the Stage: The Historic Center For 2000 years, Rome has occupied

“Now let us by a flight of imagination,

a primacy in the heart of Western

supposed that Rome is not a human

imagination,

urban

habitation but a psychical entity with

cultural,

a similarly long and copious past – an

historical, and political core of the

entity, that is to say, is which nothing

Italian

history,

that has once come into existence will

cultural representations of Rome—

have passed away and all the earlier

“from ‘Caput Mundi’ or the ‘Eternal

phases of development continue to

City’, to the ‘Divine City’ of Christendom

exist alongside the latest ones.”4

archetype

as and

nation.

both as

an

the

Throughout

or the ‘City of Ruins’ of the Grand Tour”—have become an integral part of Roman political culture, signifying 3.

Dom Holdaway and Trentin, Filippo, eds., Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 16.

4.

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, ed. James Strachey (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005),44.

the city’s physical and symbolic value, embodiment of time, and ubiquitous historical

presence.3

In

his

1930

book, Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud famously likened the topography of modern Rome to the human mind, where many levels of memory and multiple pasts can be experienced simultaneously in the same physical space:

For

Freud,

this

palimpsestuous

city,

synchronous symbolized

Western culture, and this concept is one that has prevailed throughout Rome’s history.

From the city’s role

as head-of-empire and “cosmopolis” (world

city),

to

the

monumental

qualities of the classical city, to its position as an ‘outdoor museum’ at the forefront of the tourist industry museum’, Rome has maintained a

76 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST global cultural primacy in relationship to time and memory. However, in order to maintain the meta-narrative of the city, Rome’s grand vision has excluded many of the realities of the lived city— realities referred to by Holdaway as “disturbances that go against the

‘eternal’

archiving

principle”.5

Rome’s historic center is a stage “playing on all its pasts”, as Michel de Certeau contends, whose cultural representations have been used to guide the city’s archive, altering its image, its reception, and its acquired meanings.6

5.

Dom Holdaway, “Roman Fever: Anarchiving Eternal Rome, from Roman Holiday to Petrolio,” Journal of Romance Studies 14, no. 3 (December 1, 2014): 1.

6.

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. by Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 90.

77

7.

The recent collected essays by scholars of the ancient city treat Rome not merely as a singular artifact, but as an encompassing world view structurally extending from the center across the nostro mare, see C. Edwards and G. Woolf, editors, Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

8.

Ibid., 3.

The Grand Narrative How has the city of Rome endured as

The vision of ancient Rome represents

an unparalleled archetypal imaginary?

both a city and an empire. Edwards

How has its image as the ‘Eternal City’

and Woolf

maintained an ongoing presence and

of Rome as a ‘cosmopolis’, or world

unwavering role in the construction

city, is one in which Rome absorbed

of modern identity? Does the city’s

the world and the world itself was

devotion for nostalgia erase the layer of

concentrated in Rome. Likening the

present life from its palimpsest? In order

status of the city to the world itself,

to understand how Rome’s dominant

ancient Romans founded a sense

narrative came to be produced and

of

reproduced—an

has

operated at a global scale. Ovid, a

arguably been consumed—this thesis

Roman poet who lived during the reign

investigates how meanings of the city

of Augustus, comments:

image

that

describe this metropolis

7

unprecedented

centrality

that

have been constructed by discourse and valorization of the city’s ancient and classical past.

Romanea spatium est urbis et orbis idem

While today, Rome’s image and cultural

“The world and the city of

identity continue to give meaning to the

Rome occupy the same space”

Western urban imaginary, receptions of

(Fasti 2.684)

8

the city’s eternality and cultural primacy can be traced back to ancient Rome.

Within the confines of the ancient city,

78 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST were representations and displays

the physical fabric of the city should

of the entire world, and ubiquitous

reflect and affirm Rome’s authority

physical reminders throughout the

and its relationship with the world. In

city reasserted ancient Rome’s role as

his Ten Books on Architecture he states:

world-conqueror. An inscription on an obelisk—taken from Heliopolis and then

“ut

re-erected by Augustus in the Campus

aedificiorum

Maritus—helps us to understand the

auctoritates”

maiestas

imperii egregias

publicorum haberet

its relationship with the world. The

“that the splendor of public buildings

inscription obelisk reads: “Aegvpto in

should bear witness to the ma jesty of

Potestatem Popvli Romani Redacta”,

the empire.” 10 (De arch. I. Pr. 2)

translated as “Egypt having been Roman

people.”9 Along

with

the

Ibid., 2.

10.

Vitruvius, Vitruvius: ’Ten Books on Architecture’, ed. Ingrid D. Rowland and Thomas Noble Howe, trans. Ingrid D. Rowland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 21.

11.

power of the city’s ancient image and

brought under the dominion of the

9.

Rome’s ancient buildings, referred to

by Elder Pliny as miracula, or ‘marvels’,

fragments of Rome’s empire inscribed

characterized

this

greatness

and

in the city, the ancient city’s buildings

architectural grandeur of the city.11

and monuments are some of the

It’s architectural splendor was not

strongest testament to Rome’s status

merely a site to be seen, but rather

as a city whose marvel, splendour, and

a spectacle to be apart of. Rome’s

power was incomparable. During the

Colosseum, along with the gladiator

1st century BC Vitruvius expresses that

fights and events that would take

In 75 A.D, Roman historian Pliny the Elder commented on the remarkable buildings of Rome. He wrote: “[In great buildings] as well as in other things the rest of the world has been outdone by us Romans. If, indeed, all the buildings in our City are...thrown together in one vast mass, the united grandeur of them would lead one to imagine that we were describing another world, accumulated in a single spot.”

William Stearns Davis, Readings in Ancient History: Rome and the West (Boston, New York, Chicago: Allyn and Bacon, 1913), 232.

79 12.

In 80 AD, the poet Martial describes the vast variety of foreign spectators gathered in the arena. As thousands from culturally diverse backgrounds were attracted to the spectacles, the diversity of Rome’s population itself became one of the city’s greatest marvels.

Martial’s poems broaden the concept of ancient Rome as a cosmopolis, a city representing both itself and the world.

Martial’s poems also suggest a unity between all of Rome’s spectators, eroding the distinction between foreign and Roman. He writes: “The varied voice of the peoples sounds, which then is one, when you are hailed true father of the fatherland.”

For a comprehensive study the poet and his works, see: William Fitzgerald, Martial: The World of the Epigram (London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).

place within the spectacular structure, demonstrated Rome’s power as a

While continuously reinterpreted the

world-city, as thousands from across

topos of Rome as the ‘Eternal City’

the world would flock to the metropolis

and center of universal value lies in

to take part in the ancient spectacles.12

the city’s relationship with its past.

While ancient Rome can be identified as the locus of its master narrative, this reading of Rome as the central and universal foundation of the world, has been ingrained in receptions of the city from its ancient past, to its contemporary present. From a broader temporal perspective, Rome’s layered histories have undergone countless transformations, re-constructing the city’s collective memory, and altering receptions of the city in relation to history and time. As such, the grounding of the city’s hegemony and status as the ‘Eternal Rome’ is itself a palimpsest.

During the Renaissance, a zealous interest and investigation into Rome’s past—fueled

by

the

monumental

nature of the classical city—gave rise to the image of Rome as the grand city. This notion was furthered during the Age of Romanticism, which saw a monumentalizing of the past in order to learn from history and give meaning to the present. This valorization of Rome’s past was quickly adopted by European travelers who flocked from all over the world to see the city’s picturesque ruins during the Grand Tour of the eighteenth century. The Fascist era, with its revival of Romanita, or

“Romanness,”

saw

a

careful

80 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST orchestration

of

the

past—which

eternal. This paradigmatic legacy of

through the process of

sventramenti

the past is a reading of the city which,

(“disemboweling”), drastically altered

arguably,

Rome’s palimpsest in an effort to

from its palimpsest, and allows it to be

revive its ancient culture and history.

dislodged from both time and reality.

negates

Rome’s

present

In reaction to the Fascist destructions of the twentieth century, the decision

On

to preserve the city’s historic center

relationship

has

allowed the vision of Rome as the

between

city,

‘Eternal City’ to maintain its ubiquitous

imagination of its monuments, and

omnipresence. While the preservation

hegemonic readings and ideologies.

of Rome’s historical center ensured its

Whether considering Rome’s Ancient,

perceived permanence, layers of the

Classical,

Roman countryside were erased to

contemporary palimpsest, the vision

make way for the new housing blocks

that has always labeled Rome is one

and rapidly built borgata —elements

of its grand eternality and its glorious

of the Roman periphery which will

past— a vision that dismisses reality

be discussed in the following section.

and allows those who visit the city to

Today, Rome’s palimpsest continues

feel as if they possess its glory. As Spiro

to be fashioned by the grand narrative

Kostof typifies it: “Rome is“everybody’s

of its past, as the fetishization of the

city. Its monuments and its great

city’s monuments renders the city

public spaces have been a staple of

a

grand the

temporal

Baroque,

scale,

always the

a

existed

collective

Fascist,

or

81 the Western experience, like the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare,”13 This view of the city certainly validates the perceived grandeur of Rome, typified across history from the Colosseum’s ancient spectators, to the tourists of the twenty-first century.

13.

Spiro Kostof, The Third Rome, 1870-1950: Traffic and Glory (Berkeley: University Art Museum, 1973), 8.

14.

In the 1953 film, Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn is given a tour around Rome’s famous monuments. The imagery of the film portrays the archetypal Western view of Rome, a grand urban palimpsest with opulent monuments.

The discussion of the cinematic experience of the city is extensive, for a recent review see Holdaway, Roman Fever (2014), 5–22.

82 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

“

WHICH OF THE CITIES DID YOUR HIGHNESS ENJOY THE MOST?

EACH, IN ITS OWN WAY, WAS UNFORGETTABLE. IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO ...

ROME!

BY ALL MEANS, ROME. I WILL CHERISH MY VISIT HERE IN MEMORY AS LONG AS I LIVE.” 14

—(Audrey Hepburn [as Princess Ann]

FIGURE 2.7 Many Faces of the City (Author)

83

Tourism and Receptions of the City In a short story by Luigi Malerba titled “Consuming the View,” tourists sitting atop the Gianicolo Hill complain as the Roman panorama appears blurry through the lenses of their telescopes.

The agitated tourists try repeatedly to wipe their lenses clean, only to find that the haze is not from debris on their glasses, but that this muddled view of Rome appears this way through their naked eye. The narrator soon reveals the cause of the obscured image: “The Roman panorama was being slowly worn away by the continuous gaze of tourists, and if no action were taken, it would soon be entirely used up.”15 As the tourists trickled out of the

15.

Luigi Malerba, “Consuming the View,” in Italian Tales: An Anthology of Contemporary Italian Fiction, ed. Massimo Riva (New York, London: Yale University Press, 2008), 6.

city during the less desirable winter weather, the view slowly retuned and the air began to clear as the crowd dwindled (Figure 2.8).

84 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.8 The Panorama (Author)

85 Practices throughout

at

work

tourism,

to objectification—a process which

framework

frames the city as both permanent

palimpsest and

and authentic –the tourist experiences

image are constructed. Tourism in

a world that is part reality and part

Rome also helps us understand how

fantasy.

to

understand

in which a city’s

history,

image. As the city becomes subject

help

us

Rome’s

in

the

representations of the city may be 16.

The idea of walking the city recalls the medieval visits to Rome, in which pilgrims and tourists would use the Mirabilia Urbis Romae to guide themselves through the city. The document, written in the mid 12th century, listed Rome’s main features and ancient monuments, including the Aurelian Wall which was used as a place of orientation and guiding line through the city. For an extended study on the document, see: Eileen Gardiner, Master Benedict, and Francis Morgan Nichols, The Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia Urbis Romae, 2nd ed. (New York,: Italica Press, 2008).

framed through carefully selected

Tourism

imagery — for instance, the notion of

representations of the city throughout

Rome’s eternality has been produced

its history. During their pilgrimages

and reproduced throughout its history

to Rome, generations of medieval

of tourism, from the Grand Tour to

tourists

practices of contemporary tourism.

Urbis Romae (The Marvels of the

Today, Rome’s monumental quality and

City of Rome), a historical guide to

enduring legacy have made it a place

the city which listed and described

where one can visit multiple pasts—

monuments and relics of the past, so

Classical,

Renaissance,

that the pilgrim could orient herself in

Baroque, Fascist—yet, as Malerba’s

the cityscape.16 Unlike contemporary

story

commodification

tourist guidebooks and maps, these

and visual representations of the

medieval representations of the city

city reduce the complexity of Rome’s

were

palimpsest to a single layer and static

interpretations that relied on myth

Christian,

suggests,

not

in

Rome

employed

concrete,

has

the

but

shaped

Mirabilia

cognitive

86 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST and imagination. The descriptions of

monuments

in

the

guidebook,

referred to by Fabio Benincasa

as

“skeletal”,

of

absence

maintained and

were

a not

sense

restricted

by accurate historical knowledge.17 Rather,

these

representations

of the city dealt with a level of imagination and fantasy assembled from fragments that did not rely on context. In this way, understanding the ancient city involved ephemeral patterns of movement which relied on discovery and experience, rather than a consumption of imagery and visual culture.

17.

Fabio Benincasa, “The Explosion of Rome in the Fragments of a Postmodern Iconography: Federico Fellini and the Forma Urbis.” In Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape, edited

by Dom Holdaway, and Filippo Trentin (New York: Routledge, 2016), 39–57.

18.

A vedute, meaning “view” in Italian, is an iconographic and pictorial representation of the city, often depicting monumental spaces.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, prints set the scene for the memory of the city and the academic literature is extensive. Contemporary websites continue to utilize these prints as the imagined and remembered spaces of the city. As a singular, but representative example, the University of Chicago’s on-line digital archive of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae marries the prints to academic essays, or itineraries, see http:// speculum.lib.uchicago.edu/ index.html.

Considering the role of vedute as momenti, Russel looks to Duperac’s engraved representation of the Roman Forum and the monuments of the Arch of Septimus Severus and S. Adriano, both staging the scenic city in contemporary Rome.

Amy Russell, “Memory and Movement in the Roman Fora from Antiquity to Metro C,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73, no. 4 (2014): 481.

19.

Russell (2014): 481.

During the 17th and 18th century Grand

the vedute preserved only a static

Tour of Europe, representations of

and visual mode of experience—a

Rome shifted from this elusive quality

medium which Amy Russel contends

towards the romantic idea of Rome

“privileges the experience of standing

as “Eternal”. This image was meant to

still at a scenic point to take in the

attract an elite group of royalty and

view.”19 According to Russel, those

aristocrats who travelled to Rome

places that were visually reproduced

in order to expose themselves to its

were given prominence in the city’s

classical past and the cultural legacy of

cultural

the Renaissance. The visual experience

tradition and the static depictions of

of

realistic city views supplanted the

ancient

architecture

began

to

memory.

The

vedutismo

flourish during the Grand Tour, and the

medieval representations, as

cultural pilgrimage quickly became a

in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which

way of visually assessing the city. Upon

symbolically

leaving Rome, tourists who wished to

and allowed for an ephemeral and

preserve their memories of the city

experiential discovery

would often take a vedute with them as a memento to recall the splendors visited during the tour (Figure 2.9).18 While these engravings and paintings of the city were an attempt to capture experience in a ‘permanent’ form,

represented

the

seen city

88 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.9 Vestigi dell’Arco di Settimio Severo (1607–20), Étienne Dupérac (Russel, 2014)

89

20.

On tourism and authenticity see: Dean MacCannell, “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings,” American Journal of Sociology 79, no. 3 (1973): 589–603.

21.

Joshua Hagen, Preservation, Tourism and Nationalism: The Jewel of the German Past (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006), 78.

Today, the consumption of visual

seek escape through the search for

culture has an unprecedented and

‘real’ experiences that are outside

adverse effect on the quality of

of themselves.20

experience within a city. Tourists check

escapist flight from modern society,

the destination ‘hot spots’ off of their

Joshua Hagen contends that tourists

lists, and line up to capture a still frame

are willing to ‘negotiate’ authenticity.

of the monument in the distance. As

He argues that tourists are often

‘post card’ representations of the city

conscious of “packaged experiences”,

take primacy in our collective memory,

or fake elements of the city, but it is

a city’s palimpsest is stripped of its

this component of make believe that

layers, understood primarily through

tourists seek within their experience.21

its surface.

The desire for new and authentic

However, in this

experience results in the institution of Paradoxically, contemporary tourism,

habitual and inauthentic elements to

as a practice of cultural production, relies

the city, along with stage-set qualities

on the construction of ‘authenticity’

which

within a

palimpsest. Among

of the meta-narrative (Figure 2.10).

the theories surrounding escapism

Accepting the inauthentic as authentic,

and

tourism,

the tourist becomes both a consumer

Dean MacCannell argues the tourists

and actor within the city. Tourist maps

suffer from anxiety and pressures

and

within one’s society, and therefore,

histories should be consumed, while

city’s

authenticity

within

maintain

guidebooks

the

reproduction

determine

which

FIGURE 2.10 A Monumental Zoo (Author)

91 those who find themselves allured

authentic, yet conceals the passing

by their depictions participate in a

of time. While the reoccurring image

routine of predictable and pre-planned

of scaffolds and barricades floods

experience—as if the tourist book is

Rome’s

the script to be rehearsed.

Russell

monuments stand as backdrops to be

touches on the habitual movements

understood from a distance, rather

of the tourist, contending that we

than experienced as through a process

“follow tour guides in a ritual dance

of active wandering and discovery.

from monument to monument.”22 This

The obsession with sites of memory

commodification

monument

and nostalgia objectifies the history of

reduces the ‘carrier of memory’ into

Rome, binding the city to the Eternal,

a truely un-monumental object. An

while ruthlessly forgetting the present.

of the

ungrounded image dislocated from the palimpsest (Figure 2.11).

In an effort to preserve the histories of those ‘worthy’, many of Rome’s monuments are now gated off and inaccessible, while an endless cycle of 22.

Russell, “Memory and Movement in the Roman Fora from Antiquity to Metro C,” 502.

restorations provides the monument with a fresh facade of eternality—a layer of the palimpsest that poses as

historic

center,

the

city’s

92 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.11 An Archipelago of Monuments (Author)

93

“

THESE ARE THE MONUMENT’S

SUSTAINING ILLUSIONS, THE PRINCIPLES OF ITS SEEMING

LONGEVITY AND POWER...

FIGURE 2.12 Faded Eternity (Author)

94 | 2.1 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

BUT IN FACT...NEITHER THE MONUMENT NOR ITS MEANING IS REALLY

EVERLASTING. BOTH A MONUMENT AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE ARE CONSTRUCTED

IN PARTICULAR TIMES AND PLACES, CONTINGENT ON THE POLITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND AESTHETIC

REALITIES OF THE MOMENT.”

23

—James E. Young 23.

James E. Young, “Memory and Counter-Memory,” Harvard Design Magazine 9 (1999): 6.

95

The Amnesia of the Eternal Monument The monument, perhaps the most

static form, this translation becomes

apparent marker of memory in a city,

more closely tied with forgetting than

is taken as a collective cultural artifact,

remembrance. Rather than extending

whose meaning is fixed in the time

the life of the memory, the monument

and in the landscape. This presumed

in fact relinquishes our obligation to

permanence of the monument does

remember.

not ensure the survival of its meaning, but rather, expedites its inevitable

James E. Young remarks that once a

amnesia. According to Pierre Nora,

memory is transferred to monumental

once memory begins to fade or stops

form, we have a tendency to assume

being experienced from within, we

that its meaning is now fixed in the

‘design’ memory in our physical world,

landscape for eternity. The monument

allowing them to exist through “exterior

therefore becomes “oblivious to the

signs.”24

essential mutability in all cultural

museums,

artifacts, the ways the significance in

and buildings of historic relevance are

all art evolves over time.”25 The status

often understood as manifestations

of the monument which does not evolve

of memory, thought of as narrators

with

of historical meaning and images of

from time, forever a snapshot of one

cultural tradition and value. However,

historical moment. With this absence

once we attempt to assign a memory

of time, static ‘carriers’ of memory will

—inherently volatile and fleeting—to

eventually fall out of the living cycle

scaffolding Monuments, 24.

Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,” 13.

25.

Young, James E. 1999.

“Memory and CounterMemory.” Harvard Design Magazine, 6–13.

and

outward

memorials,

society,

remains

quarantined

of memory, which can by no means be tethered form (Figure 2.13). The monument whose narrative does not evolve with change, becomes truly oblivious to everyday life—a backdrop to the spectacle.

FIGURE 2.13 The Monument Suspended in Time (Author)

97

98 | 2.2 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST FIGURE 2.14 The Illusion (Author)

FIGURE 2.15 Evicted from Eternity (Author)

100 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

2.3

THE REALITY:

THE UNSUNG NARRATIVE OF THE MODERN PERIPHERY

“

... ENCLOSED BY A RING OF TRAFFIC, BY MOUNTAINS OF HOUSES THAT DON’T FOLLOW THE COURSE OF THE RIVER ANYMORE; HOUSES THAT ALL LOOK THE SAME, WITH DOORS AND WINDOWS, PILED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.

ROME ISN’T ROME EVERYWHERE. THE CIRCLE OF STREETS AND BUILDINGS OF ITS OUTSKIRTS

SURROUND THE CITY OF SOUVENIRS AND MEMORIES: WITHOUT ANY EXCHANGE, WITHOUT ANY WORDS.

LIKE AN OLD MAN AND A BOY, SITTING ON A BENCH WITH NOTHING TO SAY.” 1

—Jordana Sebastian

1.

Sebastian Jordana, “Rome City Vision Architecture Competition Winner / Weekend in a Morning Architects,” ArchDail y, October 17, 2010, Accessed January 2, 2016. http://www. archdaily.com/82148/ rome-city-visionarchitecture-competitionwinner-weekend-in-amorning-architects/.

101

The Absence of the Periphery Despite the seemingly eternal qualities

Understanding that our concept of

of the city, the Roman condition is rife

reality is itself construed through a

with

exclusion, impermanence and

string of fragments, this section will

instability. From the Fascist regime

begin to unveil real conditions of the

to present day, realities of forced

Roman periphery—both historic and

nomadism

the

contemporary— through a series of

historic center have transformed the

micro-narratives and snap shots of

city’s palimpsest from a vertically

a larger narrative.

oriented layering to one of horizontal

illusions

outward

ripple

realities of absence and estrangement

projecting outwards on the surface

understood by those ‘evicted from

(Figure 2.16). Rome’s stratified historic

Eternity’. Liberating receptions of the

center

collective

city from false distinctions of the past,

memory of the city, yet, the absence

we may discover the contradictory,

2.

of the periphery in representations

ambivalent, and fragmented city—the

As defined by Goodman, a city’s periphery can be understood as “any occupation on the fringes of a city which is neither fully urban nor fully rural in character.” See Penelope Goodman, The Roman City and Its Periphery: From Rome to Gaul (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 1.

of the city goes unnoticed.2 The

city behind the masque.

and

eviction

sprawl—as

maintains

if

the

from

a

Roman coin displays a recognizable monument housed within a walled circuit—a symbol of local identity— and Yet, only 100,000 of Rome’s 2.6 million inhabitants currently reside in the city center.

of

the

The maintained

city

trump

these

102 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.16 From Stratified Palimpsest to Projecting Surface (Author)

3.

Borgate, derived from the word borgo (meaning ‘district’), is a term denoting the mass housing projects built outside Rome’s center during the fascist era.

Italo Insolera writes that “Borgata is a subspecies of borgo: a piece of the city in the middle of the country, that is no really one or the other.”

For more on the establishment of the Roman periphery see: John David Rhodes, Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini’s Rome (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007) and Insolera, Roma Moderna: Un secolo di storia urbanistca 1870-1970 (Turin: Einaudi, 2001).

4.

Rhodes, Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini’s Rome, 5.

5.

Borden Painter, Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City, 1st ed.

(New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 94.

A Fractural Archipelago In the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of

Mussolini declared his ‘success’ in a

Romans were evicted from homes

New York Times report, “in directing

in the city center during Mussolini’s

the population toward the hills and

sventramento,

which

the sea we are clearing away all the

entailed the obliteration of entire

unwholesome hovels, purging Rome,

neighborhoods in order to isolate

letting in air, light and sun.” 5

Rome’s ancient monuments in pursuit

to perfect the fascist visual culture

of Romanita, or “Romanness”. In an

and alter Rome’s historic center to be

attempt to rid the historic center of its

predominantly bourgeoisie, Mussolini’s

“squalor”, as Rhodes characterizes it,

establishment

those displaced by the fascist regime

‘official’

were evicted beyond the confines

physical line of separation between

of the Aurelian Wall to rapidly built

center and periphery, inside and out,

borgate in Rome’s periphery.3 While

within and beyond. Ruthless acts of

‘unofficial’

present

expropriation and eviction not only

in Rome’s periphery prior to the

altered Rome’s physical urban fabric,

fascist era, Mussolini’s ‘revival’ of the

but

ancient past saw an unparalleled

effects on the ideological landscape

level

of

of

a

borgate

process

were

displacements,

with

over

had the

of

borgata

the

periphery’s

sharpened

significant city,

In order

and

undoubtedly

the

adverse altering

5,500 dwellings demolished and the

the identity and memory of those

forced evictions of tens of thousands

displaced beyond the wall (Figure

of people into the Roman periphery.4

2.17). With the eviction of the city

CONTEXTUALIZINGPALIMPSEST PALIMPSEST CONTEXTUALIZING 104 | CHAPTER 10402 | 2.3

FIGURE 2.17 Eternal Evictions (Author)

FIGURE 2.18 The Borgate Archipelago (Author)

1. Primavalle 2. Trullo 3. Tor Marancio 4. Gordiani 5. Quarticciolo 6. Prenestina 7. S. Maria del Soccorso 8. Pietralata 9. S. Basilio 10. Tufello 11. Val Melaina 12. Acilia

106 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST center inhabitants and the borgate

the city center independently.7 While

strategically located in the Roman

Rome’s

periphery, the city center could now

otherwise, this new configuration of the

be imagined as a single entity and a

city could no longer be characterized

“spatially and socially sealed whole.”6

by a finite cosmological model, but

Yet in reality, the unity that once

rather, as a polycentric landscape of

characterized Rome—the ‘cosmopolis’

scattered fragments (Figure 2.18).

capable of blending all of the world’s diverse cultures into one voice— was expunged by a new polycentric system and subsequent sense of ‘otherness’ felt by those ousted to the periphery.

As the boundary separated the center from the periphery, the preserved center of Rome no longer functioned as a connective node to the rest of the city. Contrary to the unified model that had formulated receptions of the city, Rome had now become a polycentric system, in which “isolated nuclei”—as characterized by Leslie Caldwell— assumed the traditional functions of

grand

narratives

suggest

6.

Pierluigi Cervelli, “Rome as a Global City: Mapping New Cultural and Political Boundaries,” in Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City, ed.

Isabella Clough Marinaro and Bjørn Thomassen (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014),49.

7.

In Walkscapes, Francesco Careri also compares this type of discontinuous urban spaces to that of a “fractural archipelago.”

These fragments within the city periphery are interconnected by open space, which according to Careri are often misrecognized as “urban voids.” See: Francesco Careri, Walkscapes, vol. 1, Land&Scape (Naucalpan, Mexico: Editorial Gustavo Gili, S.L., 2002).See also: Lesley Caldwell, “Centre, Hinterland and the Articulation of ‘Romanness’ in Recent Italian Film,” in Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 78.

107 9.

The Capital of Evictions The era of Fascism saw the deliberate

occupy shanty towns without public

exclusion of the “others” that went

services,

against

model,

through illegal squatting.8 With the

establishing a cartography reflective

excuse of efficiency, the Roman public

of these power relations—a divided

administration currently allows private

palimpsest. Almost a century later,

interests to flood the city, yet is unable

8.

spatial

to provide an adequate solution to

In 2011 alone, 6700 evictions were ordered, with an average of 2850 evictions per year since 1983. In 2011, Italian politician, Gianni Alemanno, oversaw evictions from 4 unauthorized encampments, in Tiburtina and Vicolo Savini, most of whose residents were Roma—one of the largest miniorites in the city today. For more on the severity of evictions in the contemporary city, see: Pierpaolo Mudu, “Housing and Homelessness in Contemporary Rome,” in Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City, ed. Isabella Clough Marinaro and Bjørn Thomassen (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014), 69.

‘othering’ remain present as active

the

layers within the city’s palimpsest,

crisis. In response, Rome’s residents

both buried and exposed. If the Fascist

have developed an illegal process

vision required the spatial segregation

of building (abusivismo), a practice

and building of the borgate, the vision

of ‘self-making’ of the city (Figure

of the contemporary landscape is a

2.19). Today, more than one third of

continuation of selectively framed

Rome’s population lives in areas which

views, reflective of social hierarchies

violate public land use regulations—

and meta-narratives.

dwellings of “illegal origin.”9 The city’s

Alessandro Coppola, “Evolutions and Permanences in the Politics (and Policy) of Informality: Notes on the Roman Case.,” ed. Carlo Cellamare, Urbanistica Tre, Rome, “SelfMade Urbanism,” no. 2 (May 2013): 35–43.

the

fascist

models

of

visual

exclusion

and

or

city’s

current

find

accommodation

contemporary

urban

development—with

“Rome is Italy’s capital of evictions”,

an

as typified by Pierpaolo Mudu—a

private and public— has not only

landscape

prevailing

weakened the public sector, but has

boundary continues to oust thousands

been constructed in way which truly

from their homes, leaving them to

facilitates control and surveillance.10

where

the

intensified

housing

boundary

between

108

FIGURE 2.19 Illegal Dwelling (Author)

10.

Michel Foucault refers to this spatial system as “disciplinary”, in which techniques of hierarchical observation and ideological use of space are used as methods of control. In his essay “What is an Apparatus”, Agamben investigates Foucault’s notion of the “apparatus”, a powerful instrument of governance and subjectification.

As a ubiquitous set of mechanisms which power over us, the apparatus plays a significant part in how different societies get oppressed. See Giorgio Agamben, “What Is an Apparatus” and Other Essays, trans. David Kishik (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). and Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Random House Inc., 1977).

“

MY LITTLE ONE KEEPS ASKING: ‘WHEN DO WE LEAVE HERE? WHY DO WE NOT HAVE A HOUSE?’ I AM AN ITALIAN CITIZEN... WE CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS. WHAT SHOULD I TELL MY SON?

THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN US?” 11

- Miriana Halilovic, a resident of Salone authorized camp, Rome, June 2013

FIGURE 2.20 Roma Evicted (2009) (Amnesty International, 2013)

110 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

11.

Amnesty International, Ital y Double Standards: Ital y’s Housings Policies Discriminate against Roma (London: Amnesty International ltd, 2013),5.

111 12.

With theoretical origins in the Marxist workerism (operaismo) movement, the Social Center Movement (Centri Sociali) developed as an anti-fascist reaction to deprivation and unemployment.

With the aim of addressing social malaise, and challenging the political corruption of a hierarchical society, Roman activists today are redefining pubic space and the ‘right to the city’. Creating a new layer on the city’s contemporary palimpsest, Rome’s marginalized communities have expressed dissent through established political squats, or ‘Social Centers’, These counter-hegemonic acts of resistance and cultural occupation balance on the lines between legality and illegality, while creating a truly common space. See: Hans Pruijt, “Squatting in Europe,” in Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles, ed. by The Squatting Europe Kollective (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2013).

Occupied Space: A New Urban Geography Rome’s contemporary reality is an

‘Centri Sociali’— communally claimed

era

speculation,

dis-used buildings, transformed into

and massive budget cuts for public

cultural hubs (Figure 2.21).12 Through

spending

the development of a new collective

of

privatization, in

the

cultural

sector.

However, these controls on the physical

consciousness,

and cultural layering of the city, have

has

resulted in self-made practices which

contemporary city, establishing a new

have become an integral layer within

urban geography based on common

the city’s contemporary palimpsest. At

social activity. For many of Rome’s

the intersection between politics and

marginalized citizens, this form of

cultural development, occupied space

occupied space becomes a place

has become a new form of collective

for democracy, along with cultural

ownership and reaction to the prevailing

and social exploration—a space that

dichotomies in the city. Through urban

is neither public, nor private, but

squatting and the self-management

common.

of

space, participants confront the

dominant discourse, working toward dissipating and

marginalization.

creativity, and

boundaries, and

activists

exclusion,

Propelled

inclusion, have

by

artists

transformed

abandoned buildings into occupied

become

urban a

layer

squatting within

the

112 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.21 The Global Village, Occupied Social Center in Testaccio (Author)

113

Case Study | Teatro Valle

13.

The Teatro Valle, one of Rome’s current

abandoned theater was conceived

Sharon M, “Occupied Rome: Social Centres in Rome,” Romeing | Rome’s English Magazine, Events and Exhibitions in Rome, January 25, 2014, Accessed February, 4, 2016, http://www.romeing. it/occupied-rome-whereparty-revellers-are-worldchangers/.

squats in the historic center, is an

as a contemporary agora, and the

example of ‘occupying the commons’

occupiers soon began a process of

as

institutionalization,

a

layer

of

the

contemporary

in

which

they

palimpsest(Figure 2.22).13 Once an

transformed the historic venue into

18th century theatre and opera house,

a space for social, political, and

the Teatro Valle was closed in 2011 due

cultural

to the Italian government’s massive

the collective memory of the space,

14.

budget cuts for public spending in the

the occupiers dedicated the disused

Chiara Belingardi et al., “Spatial Struggles: Teatro Valle Occupato and the Right to The) City.” Accessed February, 4, 2016, https://www. opendemocracy.net/ can-europe-make-it/ chiara-belingardi-ileniacaleo-federica-giardiniisabella-pinto/spatialstruggles.

cultural sector. After rumors that the

theater to the idea of direct democracy.

theatre was to become privatized and

This once historic space of the past

converted into a restaurant, a group of

now houses bottom-up productions

protesters occupied the building and

reflective of the present, such as art

revolted against lack of government

events,

funding for artistic endeavors. The

and festivals. This institution of the

occupiers, primarily musicians, actors,

commons has transformed the theater

and the theatre staff, began the revolt

into a platform for the free movement

as a symbolic protest, with slogans

of ideas and opinions —a new layer in

such as “like air and water, culture

the palimpsest of the contemporary

is a commons” and “Teatro Valle is a

city.

15.

An agora is, a political space in which the commons takes place— an open and communal space for civic and commercial activity relationships, social interactions, and sharing and conflicts.

commons” characterizing the space.14 In a form of collective action, the

practices.15

workshops,

Transforming

performances,

FIGURE 2.22 Occupied Rome, (Sharon M., 2014)

115

“

THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY IS ALWAYS ONE THAT LOOKS ON THE WORLD

AS FIT FOR CHANGE AND ON HIMSELF AS

AN INSTRUMENT

FOR CHANGE.” —Jacob Bronowski

16

116 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

16.

Jacob Bronowski, The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (London: Yale University Press, 2008), 122.

117 FIGURE 2.23 The Reality (Author)

118 | 2.3 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.24 A Grand Wall (Author)

120 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

2.4

THE MASQUE:

THE PALIMPSEST OF BOUNDARY

“

I THINK THE DRESSING AND THE MASK ARE AS OLD AS HUMAN CIVILIZATION...

THE DENIAL OF REALITY, OF THE MATERIAL, IS NECESSARY IF FORM IS TO EMERGE AS A MEANINGFUL SYMBOL, AS AN AUTONOMOUS CREATION OF MAN.” 1

—Gottfried Semper

1.

Harry Francis Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century (New Haven and London: New Haven University Press, 1996), 300.

121

2.

The use of the word “masque” alludes to the notion of “mask”—a cover used to disguise and/or conceal the face.

Acknowledging that the city is a spectacle in which we all play a part, this thesis employs a variant of ‘mask’ as masque, as a greater form of concealment in performance and creative processes. The form of courtly entertainment popular in the 16th- and 17th-century, “Masques” often involved acting spoken in verse by disguised players representing mythological or allegorical figures. The mask—worn by the actor— therefore, is a component of the masque—both the spatial constructs of the spectacle, and the spectacle as a whole.

The City in Disguise In the inevitable game between reality

which allows the designer to conceal

and illusion, the masque becomes an

aspects of the design and facilitate the

perceptible layer within palimpsest.2

reception of the intended narrative.

Effacing the distinction between that

Applying this metaphor of the masque

which is real and that which is forgery,

to palimpsest, methods of ‘cloaking’

the masque is an apparatus of true

or ‘veiling’ act as layers which eclipse

deception—a seductive disguise and

the truth, rewriting one reality with

veil over reality.

another ‘reality’.

As an architectural, political, or social

While the masque is a construct of

construct, the masque is a fictive

deception and duplicity, it may also

element

of

manifest qualities of translucency and

separation, acting as a layer between

transparency, particularly in moments

fallacy and truth, inside and out, face

of confession. When the porosity of

and participant. Within architecture,

the masque reveals itself, one may

the masque frequently takes the form

create and gather

of a façade, scrim, screen, or other

which facilitate the construction of

filtering device with the ability to

new meaning and understanding—

frame a certain view or disguise that

paradoxically, a ‘deconstruction’ of the

which should not be seen (Figure 2.25).

illusion which is only made possible by

It may also function as a boundary,

the presence of a masque itself.

most notably in the form of wall,

With the ability to both conceal and

which

performs

acts

connections

122 reveal, the masque becomes an active contributor to both the production and reception of palimpsest, allowing for experiences of prevarication, yet also of mystery and discovery. It is when the masque confronts its own falsehood

that

it

becomes

much

more than an artificial surface or fallacious veneer. Rather, the masque becomes a composite—a participant in the palimpsest of a city, yet also a palimpsest in itself. Behind one disguise boundless

lies

another

disguise—a

layering of cloaks, each

passing through a series of phases until unearthed as a new face. As an actor within the spectacle of the city, the masque overlays one reality with another reality, in a incessant process of layering where the only Eternality of the city, is the presence of the masque itself.

FIGURE 2.25 Duplicity (Author)

123

124 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

125

126 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

127

128 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

129

Fragments of Truth As demonstrated by the investigation

experimented,

of the Rome’s palimpsest, it is inherent

separately. The resulting product is

in human nature to divide the universe

never a complete image, but rather,

into entities—inside/outside, public/

simply a “gigantic metaphor for that

private,

transparent/

part of the universe which we are

visible/disguised—separate

decoding.”3 Furthermore, this process

dark/light,

opaque, layers

which

distinguishable

wear

seemingly

masques.

Jacob

of decoding allows us to conveniently select what elements of the world are relevant to us and should be studied,

nature and process of division by

and disregard those which are not.

which we gain knowledge. According

Our

to Bronowski, the universe is “totally

is composed of nothing more than

connected”.

a

described

this

However,

law

because

concept

series

of

reality,

therefore,

fragments,

world in its entirety, one universal truth

deceptive substitute for a complete

or explanation of this connected world

universe—the masque.

the universe, we undergo a process of ‘decoding’, in which

we

divide

the world into relevant segments, each of which may be examined,

rearranged

selected,

distorted,

an attempt to study and comprehend

and

of

mankind is incapable of seeing the

may never be reached. Therefore, in

Bronowski, The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, 70.

understood

of

Bronowski,

3.

and

into

a

130 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.26 A Layering of Connections, Divides, and Fragments (Author)

131

Boundary and Masque Analogous to the masque, which forms

not allow those on the ‘wrong’ side to

a layer between reality and participant,

uncover the face behind the masque.

boundaries

delineate

Within these moments of spatial

palimpsest.

interruption, an undeniable friction

entities

isolate within

Boundaries,

4.

as

and the

physical

or

visual

to live in the interface

between

elements which both confine and define

two worlds denoted as “different”.

space, meet the fundamental function

On the contrary, Pierre von Meiss

of

argues that boundaries do not create

delineating

space—distinctions

Christo and JeanneClaude’s “Running Fence”: an ephemeral boundary, followed the California hills for two weeks. The fabric of the fence alludes to the underlying issue of division and boundary, and for the artists, the ribbon embodied larger issues of human freedom and constraint. See: Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond (New York, NY: Flashpoint, Roaring Brook Press, 2008).

which may be accepted or contested,

interdependence

However, the meaning of boundary

but rather, provide a relationship

has proven to transcend the realm

between two places that is one of

of spatiality, allowing the memory of

both “separation and

a city to be defined

“interruption and continuity.”5 This

5.

Pierre von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013, 148.

and redefined

connection”,

form

exemplified by some of the world’s

boundary, not as a divide, but as a

most studied

boundaries— such as

liminal space that belongs to two

the Berlin Wall—spatial division often

spaces simultaneously. Within this

creates idealogical interruption and

co-dependence between division and

psychological tension. The adverse

unity, boundary becomes threshold;

effects of boundary become most

housing moments that are

evident

polarity and conflict, but of union and

its

permeability

is

controlled—a condition which does

transition.

thinking

dichotomy,

through its presence (Figure 2.27). As

when

of

and

contextualizes

not of

132 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.27 “Running Fences”, Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1972-76) (Russel, 2014)

133

134 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.28 Liminal Moments (Author)

135

FIGURE 2.29 Deconstructing Boundary (Roger, 1996)

136 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

Case Study | The Berlin Wall A wall is perhaps the most archetypical

form of mask, the wall itself became

element used to denote a boundary.

the confirmation of the differences

Walls construct limits that define

between East and West Germans. In

space. They divide, create edges,

his book The German Comedy: Scenes

isolate, and defend. Walls, and those

of Life After the Wall, Peter Schneider

thresholds between them, create the

states, “For it was the Wall alone that

demarcations that drive and define

preserved the illusion that the Wall

our world.

was the only thing separating the Germans.”7 The Wall, both a national

The

Berlin Wall,

exemplifies the

symbol and object of Germany identity

boundary

construction, acted as a veil which

and physiological consequences of

displaced any anxieties about the

symbolic

importance

of

a divided society (Figure

2.29).6 A

differences between East and West.

boundary which divided East and West Germany both physically and

In psychological sciences, the Berlin

politically, the Berlin Wall isolated

Wall was used as a resource to

families

6.

other

and

interpret, classify, and reflect on the

people

from

social and psychological conditions of

Viollet, Roger The Wall Under Dismantling. April 1990. Getty Images. Getty Images, Inc., July, 10 2016.

freedom. However, for many Germans,

the German people. Even after its fall

7.

the separation enforced by the Wall

in 1989, the shadow of the Berlin Wall

became

remained in the form of a new masque

Peter Schneider, The German Comedy: Scenes of Life After the Wall (London: I.B.Tauris & Co, 1992), 13.

separated

from the

an

each city’s

integral

resource

for

understanding Germany identity. As a

and

“mental

wall”—a

figurative

137 8.

For more information on the Berlin Wall as both a metaphor for social distress and as a construct used in psychological sciences see Christine Leuenberger.

“Constructions of the Berlin Wall: How Material Culture Is Used in Psychological Theory.”

Social Problems 53, (2006): 18–37. Photo Credit: University of Minnesota, “Cracks in the Walls: 25 Years After Berlin, Organized by Sonja Kuftinec, Nov. 6, 2014,” Institute for Advanced Study, November 6, 2014. Accessed August 5, 2016, http://ias.umn.edu/2014/11/06/ kuftinec.

9.

For more on “Ostalgie” see Elisabeth Mermann and Joseph F. Jozwiak, “The Wall in Our Minds?,” The Journal of Popular Culture 39 (2006): 780–95.

10.

Joachim Trenkner cited in Aline Sierp, “Nostalgia for Times Past: On the Uses and Abuses of the Ostalgia Phenomenon in Eastern Germany,” Contemporary European Studies 2 (2009), 50.

concept

and

metaphor

malaise (Figure 2.30).8

for

social

Today, many

still suffer from the mental barriers and psychological effects brought on by the presence of the ‘invisible’ wall, while the present integration of East and West Germany has also brought about a rising prominence of “Ostalgie”, or, nostalgia for the old East Germany.9 Joachim

Trenker

German journalist, found

that

one

of three Germans often wished to reinstate the Wall due to feelings of estrangement—a

condition

felt

by

those who have always known the mask to be familiar, and the uncovered face unrecognizable.10

138 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 2.30 On top of the Berlin Wall (1989) (University of Minnesota, 2014)

“

(ARCHITECTURE) CONSTANTLY PLAYS THE SEDUCER.

ITS DISGUISES ARE NUMEROUS ...LIKE MASKS, THEY PLACE

A VEIL BETWEEN WHAT IS ASSUMED TO BE REALITY AND ITS PARTICIPANTS.

SOON, HOWEVER, YOU REALIZE THAT

NO SINGLE UNDERSTANDING IS POSSIBLE.

140 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

ONCE YOU UNCOVER THAT WHICH LIES BEHIND THE MASK,

IT IS ONLY TO DISCOVER ANOTHER MASK.” 11

11.

—Bernard Tschumi

Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction (London: The MIT Press, 1996),90.

FIGURE 2.31 The Curtain (Author)

Case Study | The Aurelian Wall Walls

materialize

continuity

both

and

ideological

discontinuity.

Manifested through the city’s walls, the

notion

of

masque

maintains

both presence and absence in the development of the Rome’s urban morphology and strata. The historic Aurelian Wall, a circuit which currently encircles Rome’s historic center, The wall itself has endured as a monument, one that has not only reshaped the physical contours of the city, but has itself worn many masques that have defined and redefined the city’s image and its many realities.12 The multilayered meaning of wall is

exemplified

interventions

through and

the

many

transformations

of the Aurelian Wall through time. In history, Rome’s walls grew with the city, expanding to surround

new

142 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST quarters and house new memories

While

within them. Today, however, the wall

of the history of Rome, this thesis

which was built to confine space, no

identifies the boundary as a masque

longer functions as a demarcartin

that conceals the city’s present. As a

of the city limits. As the city grows

dividing circuit between the grandeur

outwards in concentric rings, the wall

of Rome’s historic center and the

no longer functions as boundary, but

corruption of the modern periphery,

has taken on a new role as an urban

the Aurelian wall has become much

element —one which confines the past,

more than a monument, or physical

while expunges the present. With the

boundary. It manifests symbolic and

presence of this boundary, Rome has

cultural geographies and has taken on

taken on a duplicitous nature: the city

its own life within the spectacle of the

center remaining bound to eternity

city. As the masque of the city, the wall

within the walls, while the space of

may separate as boundary, conceal as

the

masque, or reveal as backdrop to the

periphery

unconfined,

appears

open

and

expanding further and

further into the depths of the present.

As these two dichotomous lives run parallel aside the wall, the monument, whether

valorized

or

forgotten,

becomes a a lonely snapshot of one historical moment.

the

Aurelian

theatre of the city.

Wall

speaks

12.

A 12 kilometre long circuit constructed between 270273 AD, Rome’s Aurelian Wall has worn many masques throughout its history, itself a form palimpsest. Traditionally built as a protective circuit against barbarian attacks, the wall became a point of orientation, guiding visitors coming from the North during Medieval pilgrimages.

The walls of Rome were later used as symbols of power to legitimize the papacy. As the Aurelian Wall protected the capital, it stands today as a model of Rome’s western identity—a symbol of power, authority, and permanence. For a cohesive study on the Aurelian Wall, see Hendrik W. Dey, The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome, AD 271–855 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

FIGURE 2.32 Expansion of Rome’s Walls (Author)

144 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

145 FIGURE 2.23 The Masque (Author)

146 | 2.4 CONTEXTUALIZING PALIMPSEST

CHAPTER 3

REWRITING

PALIMPSEST

149

FIGURE 3.0 Transitions (Author)

150 | 3.1 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

3.1

NOTES

“

FROM THE AUTHOR

A DRAWING FOR ME IS A MODEL

THAT OSCILLATES BETWEEN

THE IDEA AND THE PHYSICAL, OR BUILT, REALITY OF ARCHITECTURE.” —Raimund Abraham

1

1.

Raimund Abraham, “In Anticipation of Architecture.

Fragmentary Notes”, in: Brigitte Groihofer (ed.), Raimund Abraham.

(Un)Built (Vienna; New York: Springer, 1996), 102.

151

From the Author: A Note on Disegno It is necessary to draw a distinction

These explorations have challenged

between a drawing as an object, and

my

the process of drawing itself. With the

representation, pushing me towards

process of disegno, meaning “drawing”

a dynamic mode of thinking in which

or “design” in Italian, drawing is not

layered drawings become palimpsests

simply about using line to define form,

of

but rather becomes just as much of a

written over, and obscured. These

psychological act as it is a material

drawings become a form of language

practice. It is a drawing’s conception,

that is reflective of metaphor, rational

as the hand moves across the page in

thought and subjective expression —

symbiosis with creative thought, which

a true negotiation between subjective

becomes

and objective thought.

fundamental

to

creation

itself. Drawing, erasing, obscuring, replicating, de-familiarizing, are all dialogs between the hand and mind – a conversation that is never static nor one dimensional.

Throughout this investigation I have explored and

techniques

collage,

as

of

disegno

extensions

of

architectural ideas freed from form.

preconceived

notions

thought—continually

of

reworked,

152 | 3.1 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.1 Disegno Folio Series 2 (Author)

153

A Note on Ephemerality In order to break the eternality of

monument, ruin, or modern borgate—

the city’s image, one that has been

should be bound to an illusion of

preserved by the masque worn by

eternity.

the past, this thesis proposes a shift towards the ephemeral aspects of the city, proposing an osmotic notion of history were society may continually evolve with respect to both past and present. The beauty and value of architectural palimpsest lies within its incessant course of layering–a cycle in which the built environment is written and re-written over again, in an evolving narrative that bridges together

multiple

pasts

with

the

present. This ephemerality does not propose erasure, as traces of the past are fundamental to our understanding of the world, however, it is through this dynamic reading of the city, that the past no longer governs the present.

No

element

of

the

city—whether

154 | 3.1 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.2 Armature of Moments (Author)

155

FIGURE 3.3 A Wall, A Curtain, A Masque (Author)

156 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

3.2

A VISUAL

“

MANIFESTO

WE LIVE IN A PLACE WHERE LIFE PRESENTS ITSELF AS AN IMMENSE ACCUMULATION

OF SPECTACLES.” —Guy Debord

1

1.

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle.

Translated by Donald Nicholson­Smith. New York, NY: Zone Books, 1994, 5.

Originally La Societe du Spectacle (Paris: Editions Buchet-Chastel, 1976).

FIGURE 3.4 Fragment of the Abandoned Slaughterhouse (Author)

THE ABANDONED

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

158 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

Site and Context The project is located in Testaccio, Rome, a semi-peripheral neighborhood that was built as a working class urban district in 1870.

While located inside the historic center, Testaccio has “never felt apart of it”, and is often described as being in the “outskirts of the centre.”

Destined to become

Rome’s largest industrial neighborhood when it was first built, Testaccio was given a “pre-built and planned identity.”2 After the slaughterhouse—the neighbourhood’s main production center—was closed, much of the area was abandoned. However, in the mid nineties, the area saw a ‘slow renaissance’ becoming a place for the arts, restaurants, and bars. According to Irene Ranaldi, today Testaccio has “a duplicitous nature: it wants to still be perceived as it was in the past as a working class area, marginalised and without the attractions of the historic center, in which is actually resides.”3

2.

Taken from a book traveling presentation in Testaccio (February 2016).

Irene Ranaldi, Testaccio: From District Worker to Village of the Capital (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2012).

3.

Ibid.

159

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE The final project develops around an isolated fragment of the historic Aurelian Tiber

Wall,

River

found in

next

Testaccio

to

the

(Figure

3.5). Directly across from the wall fragment, Roman artists and activists have taken occupancy in one of the areas

abandoned

slaughterhouses,

now an informal social center called “The Global Village”. An example of reclaimed historical space, the Global Village now houses an artist’s collective and social center, yet today, it is threatened with eviction.

Abandoned Slaughterhouse and one of Rome’s occupied Social Centers

THE GASOMETER Industry’s ‘Colosseum’

THE AURELIAN WALL FRAGMENT

160 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.5 A Dynamic Site (Author)

161

THE AURELIAN

WALL FRAGMENT

162 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.6 A Fragment of the Aurelian Wall (Author)

163

THE OCCUPIED

GLOBAL VILLAGE

164 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.7 A Fragment of the Global Village (Author)

165

The City as Theater In the investigation of architectural

Wall as masque, or ‘curtain’, of the

palimpsest in the context of Rome,

spectacle. In order to give form to the

the final project becomes a visual

irreducible dichotomies of human life,

manifesto for understanding the city.

the project aims to capture moments

Using the medium of narrative and

of tension and discontinuity within a

architecture of poetic intervention,

city divided by both reality and illusion.

this thesis juxtaposes the complexity

Allowing the visitor to experience both

of reality with historical fragments.

deception and a suspended state of

It

of

consciousness, this thesis encourages

architectural palimpsest, and a new

one see beyond the boundary and

point of view from which to observe

search for reality behind the layers of

and explore the city. Challenging the

conventional perception and thought.

proposes

a

new

reading

totalizing and eternal view of the city, this thesis unearths these stories of the ‘unsung protagonist’ through an ephemeral and dynamic form of narrative.

Within the theater of the city, this project

identifies Rome’s historic

center as ‘stage’, its modern periphery as

‘back-stage’,

and

its

Aurelian

166 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.8 The Theater of the City (Author)

167

The Masque The project engages the idea of ‘wall’,

may act as a delicate transitional

not only as an architectural element,

layer – a veil between two worlds—or,

but as a physical and ideological divide

it may create an ambiguous moment,

with the ability to create discontinuity,

where one is deceived by its facade.

dichotomy, and multiple realities. On

Re-establishing the wall as a new

both ends of the isolated wall fragment,

point of view from which to observe

a ‘masque’ is introduced as a scrim or

and explore the city, the experience

stage curtain concealing the workings

balances the mythical image of Rome

of the backstage reality.

against the fragmentary, messy, and lived experiences of being in the city.

Depending

on

your

angle

of

The new wall acts not as a boundary,

perception, or which side of the wall

but as a liminal territory between

one is situated, the masque takes on

fiction and reality.

different qualities. From the historic center, or the ‘audience’ perspective, the

masque

poses

as

a

stable

extension of the monument. However, from the peripheral perspective, one may see what the masque truly is: a stage-set that is held up by the realties within the backstage moments. As one moves through space, the masque

168 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.9 Scrim and Spectator (Author)

169

170 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

The Aurelian Wall

Existing fragment of the Aurelian Wall

Introduce new wall as scrim and extension of ‘masque’ FIGURE 3.10 Scrim and Wall (Author)

171

172 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.11 A View from the Historic Center (Author)

THE MASQUE introduction of a new scrim as the ‘curtain’

HOUSE OF OPPRESSION

HOUSE OF EVICTION

EXISTING HISTORIC WALL FRAGMENT the center of the stage-set

HOUSE OF ESTRANGEMENT

3 ‘REAL’ BACK-STAGE MOMENTS prisoners of the wall, producers of the spectacle

FIGURE 3.12 An Ephemeral Site Plan | The Spectacle (Author)

HOUSE OF THE COMMONS

AN IMAGINED UTOPIA a heightened state of illusion—an awakening only to be reached after uncovering the reality behind the masque

HOUSE OF

OPPRESSION

176 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.13 House of Oppression (Author)

177

178 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

179

The House of Oppression The House of Oppression narrates a sense of being imprisoned by the wall.

At moments, one descends down into an underground space, experiencing the feelings of being watched by those above.

FIGURE 3.14 House of Oppression (Author)

180 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.15 A Temporary Location Plan | House of Oppression (Author)

HOUSE OF

EVICTION

3.0 REWRITING PALIMPSEST 182 | 3.2

FIGURE 3.16 House of the Eviction (Author)

183

184 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

185

The House of Eviction The House of Eviction speaks to those evicted

from

Eternity.

It

narrates

geometries of collapse, demolition, and forced nomadism—all conditions of Rome’s contemporary periphery.

Those operating within this backstage moment never reach a sense of stability, as forms are in motion and materials begin to disintegrate.

FIGURE 3.17 Movement and Instability (Author)

3.0 REWRITING PALIMPSEST 186 | 3.2

FIGURE 3.18 A Temporary Location Plan | The House of Eviction (Author)

HOUSE OF

ESTRANGEMENT

188 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.19 House of Estrangement (Author)

189

The House of Estrangement The House of Estrangement operates within the poche of the masque, neither inside nor out. Those that operate within this space are alienated and estranged by the performance. The producers that reside within the House of Estrangement are able to view visitors crossing through the masque, however remain unrecognized and unseen throughout the spectacle.

FIGURE 3.20 Occupying the Poche (Author)

190 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

FIGURE 3.21 A Temporary Location Plan | The House of Estrangement (Author)

191

FIGURE 3.22 Operating within the Masque (Author)

192 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

HOUSE OF

THE COMMONS

FIGURE 3.23 House of the Commons (Author)

194 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

195

196 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

197

FIGURE 3.24 A World without Boundary (Author)

198 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

The House of the Commons The House of the Commons is a utopia and an imagined state of heightened illusion. Inspired by the Roman artists and social activists based in the vicinity of the historic wall fragment, The Commons is a self-managed collective

space

free

from

social

boundaries, barriers, and constraints.

One may only reach this utopian state of awakening after experiencing the three backstage moments, pulling back the masque, and uncovering reality—a discovery of a new credible fiction.

FIGURE 3.25 A Temporary Location Plan | The House of The Commons (Author)

199

FIGURE 3.26 Observation Pods for Evicted Squatters (Author)

200 | 3.2 REWRITING PALIMPSEST

“

TO A GREAT EXTENT, CONTROL OVER PEOPLE (POWER) CAN BE ACHIEVED MERELY

BY OBSERVING THEM.”

9

-

— Michel Foucault

9.

Gutting, Gary, “Michel Foucault”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), ed. byEdward N. Zalta.

Accessed August 20, 2016. http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/sum2012/entries/ foucault.

FIGURE 3.27 A Kaleidescope (Author)

202 | 4.0 CONCLUSION

4.0

“

CONCLUSION

THE VISION OF CULTURE

BECOMES EVEN MORE ENLIGHTENING IF WE IMAGINE

ONE OF THE FOUR WALLS TORN DOWN AND THUS TRANSFORMED INTO A GLASSLESS WINDOW.

THE THREE REMAINING WALLS THEN BECOME A STAGE ON WHICH THE TRAGICOMEDY OF CULTURE, WITH MAN ON STAGE AS AN ACTOR. WHAT IS TRULY HISTORIC ABOUT THIS VISION IS THE REPRESENTATIONAL (SYMBOLIC) CHARACTER, AND THE FACT THAT THIS IS TEMPORARILY LIMITED PROCESS.

CULTURE THUS APPEARS

AS A ‘FICTION’... ”

1

1.

Raimund Abraham, “Projects 1961-2009”, in: Brigitte Groihofer (ed.), Raimund Abraham.

(Un)Built (Vienna; New York: Springer, 1996), 146.

203

A Kaleidescope of Realites The vision of our world is an elision of

which is often seductive, yet ultimately,

fact and fiction — a narrative obscured

married to the masque.

through the prevailing illusion laden in the topos of the city. Our notion

Both seductive and compelling, the

of the past, and subsequently, of the

masque of the city imposes a layer

present, is a narrative infused with

onto the city’s palimpsest that is often

myth, illusions which often reduce

understood as a facade—one mistaken

the topographical complexities of the

as the face, yet with an empty void

palimpsest to a predetermined and

behind. In this state of illusion, our

unstratified memory. An instrument

understanding

of the illusion, the ubiquitous and

through the surface—a straightforward

prevailing boundary separates truth

reading that is not woven into the

from fallacy, and rewards those who

complexities of the palimpsest. As we

yield to its conventional thought.

indulge in commodities of our past,

Those that find themselves subject

seduced by monuments that impose

to the boundary come face to face

their eternal history, the search for

with its many realities—the ‘otherly’

truth is easily trumped by a familiarity

conditions of the palimpsest. As the

with the masque. As an actor of the city,

world is divided in such a way, both

architecture is expected to represent.

spatially and ideologically, it is easy

Yet, we become too easily infatuated

to construe narrative and perception

with its surface, imprinting the grand

through a single reading of the city,

narrative forever into our memories.

of

meaning

occurs

204 | CHAPTER 04 REWRITING PALIMPSEST This form of consciousness denies the

the palimpsestuous city, becomes a

multiple realities of life, leaving behind

painting in motion, a kaleidoscope of

a terrain of unearthed strata waiting

realities that is forever changing, and

to be excavated.

freed from the imposition of a single masque.

Yet, reality reveals itself, if even in an

ephemeral

spectators

moment,

who

to

those

confront

the

illusion—those who peel back the layers of the palimpsestuous city, in search for fragments of unimposing memories and truths. With a shift towards

speculative

question¬ing,

this thesis urges us to challenge the boundaries of space and time, and dig beyond the surface of preconceived perception and thought. Never truly bound to the illusion, the city is a composite: a landscape of layers, each continually redefining its actuality— place where no single reality exists.

It is through these complexities that

205

FIGURE 3.28 Final Exhibition Boards (Author)

FIGURE 3.29 Final Exhibition Boards (Author)

208 | 4.0 CONCLUSION

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