The Last Stop City: City of Death and Decadence

The Last Stop City: City of Death and Decadence DESIGN JOURNAL

by Sarah Haque

Table of Content

Prologue 1. THE CHOSEN SITE 2. SITE PROJECT

City (The Project) 1. REFLECTION 2. DRAWINGS

Epilogue 1. APPENDIX 1: CAPRICCIO AND FOLLY 2. APPENDIX 2: DIARY

Bibliography

Prologue

01 THE CHOSEN SITE

The chosen site is the prescribed site for the second capriccio where Aldo Rossi’s design for Locomotiva 2 is originally proposed. On further investigation of the site in the current context of Turin, it was found that the site is a crucial commercial zone. The site comprises of various commercial entities ranging from offices housed in a skyscraper, to administrative buildings as well as the Technical University of Turin.

The skyscraper being the tallest building in Turin was an attractive motivator to hone in to this structure. It is a contemporary monument where finance is worshiped by the labour entity. Alongside the skyscraper, another attractive artifact that exists in the site is the Court of Turin building. This is representative of the power of law and what it entails for the actions of the citizens in the city.

These two crucial buildings were an incentive to intervene into the site to understand the existing lack of ‘spirit’ in the site.

02 SITE PROJECT Gallery of Intesa Sanpaolo Office Building

by Renzo Piano Workshop.

City (the project)

01 REFLECTION

The new city considers what entails in containing those who have died. However, the proposed new city not only caters for those who have died, but also for those want to die. With the rise of ageing population, physical and mental disease, and declining standard of life due to vast difference between wealth among the poor and the rich, many often opt out of living by committing suicide.

As few cities in the world are now legalizing assisted suicide, it is incumbent upon architects and future designers to consider what the city will look like when euthanasia is legalised for everyone and proliferates in the daily lives of humans.

The new city is an experimental and experiential city which caters to those individuals who have decided to end their life and want to go out of this world with dignity as well as memories to die by. Hence a preferential for alluding the luxurious materials, like gold and marble against deadly black.

Aldo Rossi suggests that a city is a collection of the memories, of the past and the present that enable to envision what the future will hold.

Similarly, the new city considers the individual memories of those who perish and the collective memories of those who live in the city along with the dead as well as those considering death.

Moreover, on investigating and researching the site, it was found that the current site is invested in commercial and labour production in the

city. Numerous office spaces, production buildings, sports centres and some industrial buildings exists in the site. On the periphery of the site are apartment style residential buildings. The citizens work and live in the city and with a high focus on work, work and more work, the city site requires more secular reflective spaces that allow the citizens to wind down.

An existing skyscraper resides in the site currently designed by Renzo Piano – Gallery of Intesa Sanpaolo. The skyscraper is thirty-eight stories high and is currently the tallest in the city of Turin. This skyscraper has been turned in to a hotel. The hotel caters to all the citizens, but what differentiates it from other hotels is that it allows a performer of euthanasia to travel to the hotel and perform euthanasia on those who chose to die in a peaceful manner in a comfortable space (not a hospital).

The city allows for a citizen to interact in the space at different points allowing them to ponder over their moments before death. A long skinny track of bridge is proposed to carry the coffin from the hotel to the temple to remember the dead. After their death, the city houses a crematorium and an ossuary to hold them. Most importantly, the train terminal is located just metres away from the skyscraper. Being essentially the last stop for a train this analogy was used to also create a city that is the last stop for a person choosing to end their life. Hence The Last Stop City.

02 DRAWINGS

SITE PLAN

ISOMETRIC

ARCHITECTURAL FIGURE 1

ARCHITECTURAL FIGURE 2

X

0

5m

SECTION X-X

0

5m

10 m

10 m

ARCHITECTURAL FIGURE 3

THE ARTIFACTS

FRAGMENTS

City Perspective

View of the coffin track bridge

View of the psychedelic piazza

View of the Old Turin Court entry - now a rumination space

Main entry arch into old Turin court

Rumination cube inside old Turin court

View of second rumination cube from first cube

View of main entry of old Turin court from rumination cube 2

View of circle of columns from last rumination cube

View of circle of columns from psychedelic piazza

View of crematorium from ossuary

Rossi’s ossuary in new ossuary

Rossi’s ossuary in new ossuary

Inside the temple

The other side of the city - temple and arched gateway

Temple view from stairway at end

Epilogue

01 APPENDIX 1: CAPRICCIO & FOLLY

The ideal city caters to the betterment of both individual and collective bodies. The ideal city respects the past but does not try to recreate the past. Rather, it looks towards innovative yet practical solutions that enable for the betterment of human livelihood through economic growth, as well as human connections by establishing a cohesive society. Most importantly, the ideal city is diverse and serves a diverse population.

The site for this project is the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, New York with Times Square just looking on to the proposals. It is sometimes referred to as “the centre of the universe” or the “heart of the world.” And it is also one the world’s most visited tourist attraction, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually.

Three unbuilt proposals by OMA were purposefully selected for their symbolic gestures and what they may contribute to an ideal city. The first key proposal is the Hotel Sphinx, proposed in 1978 on the very junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. The hotel was conceived to be a luxury hotel as a model for mass housing. The hotel features both the basics and luxurious forms of living, including spas, restaurants as well as playgrounds on the roof- thus catering for the most ideal city living.

The second proposal is the Tres Grande Bibliotheque or the Grand Library from 1989 – which OMA received an honourable mention for a competition to build a new national library in France.

The library was proposed to be a library of mini libraries or rather a building enveloping various library. The building taking the form of a block is also representational of a block of information.

A mega library connects human minds and creates an ideal city plaza where people discuss, debate, and create.

The third proposal is the study of a possible renovation of Koepel Panopticon Prison from 1980 in Arnhem, Netherlands. Panopticon is a form of prison constituting a circle of cells with the all-seeing eye of the observatory as its centre. An ideal city is a steppingstone for climbing social ladders. The incarcerated populations often coming from the most disadvantaged backgrounds would hopefully find solace in being at the centre of a hub and possibly finding means to reintegrate back into society. In an ideal city, everyone co-exists.

These three proposals are not only socially contrasting but also architecturally contrasting. Hotel Sphinx is a skinny rectangular outline with opposing mirrored triangular forms –with the largest height being approximately about 230 metres. The Grand Library is a square block of high-rise library approximately 125 metres with convoluted roofing jutting out covering numerous columns to create a city square. The panopticon is a double circular fortified walls juxtaposed against a rectangular underground fortification, with a height of approximately 25 metres. The sphinx is a private sphere, the library is a public sphere, and the panopticon is a severely restricted private sphere. The capriccio intends to capture these triad of contrasts by placing the viewer between the library and panopticon while looking on to the sphinx. It also intends to emphasize the bigness of Manhattan’s architecture as the Sphinx was originally proposed for Manhattan skyline whereas the panopticon and grand library belong to other cities.

The typical city often consists of orthogonal extrusions for prime real estate value. By placing these triad of forms between W 49 to 47 street, slight volumes of empty spaces are leftover which serve as vistas.

Finally, In S M L XL Koolhas states the final (of 5) property of bigness which is “Bigness is no longer part of any urban tissue.

It exists; at most, it coexists.”

Therefore, the ideal city is a city that consists of diverse assemblies that coexist. And hopefully these triads even if they don’t exist, hopefully at most they co-exist in this capriccio.

The city is a construct of fragments, and the fragments represent the whole. The life of the city is not very dissimilar from that of an organic life comprising of elements, fragments, and wholes, each of the parts and the whole relying on a cyclical process birth – regeneration and degeneration and eventually death.

Moreover, the growth of city depends on the increasing demands of migration. Migration enables for the growth of urbanisation and where there is presence of increasing human lives there is also an increase of their deaths. The ideal city not onlu provides its inhabitants with opportunities and success but also displays a final show of respect to their death.

The site for this capriccio is - Turin a crucial business and cultural centre of Italy which is also the first capital city from 1861 to 1865. While it is an industrial city, Turin equally boasts of rich culture and architecture ranging from Baroque to Italian rationalism of the fascist era. Being a crucial business district, and tourist site – the city boasts a population of 2.2 million – eventually most would require a resting ground.

The three Rossi projects chosen to construct the capriccio are: Locomotiva 2 in Turin Italy, for the design of a new central business district. San Cataldo cemetery in Modena Italy and Centro Torri Shopping Centre in Parma Italy.

Locomotiva 2 is a design proposal put forward by Aldo Rossi for an open competition for the design of Turin’s new centro derezionale (or central business district) operating both at an architectural as well as urban scale. The overall form consists of square slabs placed on top of each other with 4 mega columns on each square sides spanning 100 metres between them. The slabs are elevated high from the ground, and mega punctures are created on symmetrical sides to allow for the passage of transportation. In this capriccio however, the slabs are mere shells as provisional spaces for the dead. The mega punctures are transitionary passageways from the world of the living to the world of dead.

San Cataldo cemetery, perhaps Rossi’s best work albeit being incomplete is a result of his own dealings with a near death experience. After recovering from a car accident, Rossi focussed his attention on a competition for the expansion of the Neoclassic San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena. While Rossi denied being a postmodernist himself, San Cataldo cemetery is considered one of the most essential post-modern architecture. Following the applications of classicism, Rossi creates a symmetrical layout, with pure geometric surrounding forms of cuboids and cones and cubes aligned at the central axis. The terracotta cube with punctures houses the ossuary and cone houses the communal grave.

In this capriccio San Cataldo cemetery is placed centrally inside the locomitva 2 to create a city of the dead from the underground to the skies. Underground burials take place in the middle in San Cataldo and overground burials take place in Locomotiva 2. The whole has been placed axially from the midpoint of the large roundabout to create a landmark in the city – so city dwellers can be reminded of their own mortality. Also, as urban landscapes become congested and burial grounds contaminate soil, contemporary burial must start taking place above ground hence the locomitva as a shell seems fitting for overground burial.

Notions of the triangular roof structure with skinny columns from Centro Torri in Parma have been adopted here to create a colonnade where Rossis original drawings represented large cuboid masses.

The view of this capriccio is taken as if one were to stand at the very far midpoint of san cataldo cemetery and look on directly up to the heavens at the mega puncture of the Locomotiva 2 – which brings into perspective the parts (being the pure geometries) and the whole (being the cemetery) composing a city of the dead.

The quote I chose for my Folly 1 is from the movie La Grande Belezza (The Great Beauty) an Italian art drama co-written and directed by Paolo Sorentino. The quote is: Stefania, mother and woman. You’re 53, with a life in tatters, like the rest of us. Instead of acting superior and treating us with contempt, you should look at us with affection. We are all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little.

Don’t you agree?”

The notions of this quote – all we can do is look each other in the face and joke a little - is something that I personally tend to believe and live by every day. However, in the realm of architecture, death and cemeteries, what is an appropriate final joke? This folly seeks to investigate how our final moment does not have to be despair, loom, and gloom but light-hearted and cheerful.

The folly is a banal representation of the archetypal mausoleum found in cemeteries influenced by western classical architecture. Only that the folly seeks to be a hidden, secret reverse phallus.

The key intention for this folly was to work within Aldo Rossi’s sense of architecture. Rossi’s ossuary is a post-modern style cube where the language of classicism is implemented by symmetrically placing and repeating units of punctured openings on all four sides. Rossi believed in representation of typologies and translations of the past which he argues for in the seminal book “The architecture of the City.”

Similarly, the banal folly is also created using basic cylindrical and dome shapes with an axis aligning with the axis of Rossi’s cubed ossuary. The central dome is a lightweight glass structure and is enclosed by thick masonry walls, which are further enclosed by smooth circular masonry columns. The thick masonry cylindrical wall is punctured with pointed arched openings like gothic revivalism to enforce the viewer look up as they enter inside the dome. The central dome holds a cylindrical curtain wall that penetrates the earth, but that is all the viewers can see inside the dome at ground plane.

Two pendentives are placed on either side of the main body which house spiral staircases to enter into the excavated portion of the folly. As one enters these pendentives, only then can the viewer learn that it is in fact possible to go underground. The intention is for the viewer to experience a sense of the end stage of life as one descends into the earth. No functions have been proposed specifically to intensify the unknown process of death.

Moreover, pendentives are also a banal architectural feature used though out classical architectural language but, in many ways, there overall forms are very phallic in nature. Hence fitting for the folly.

The phallic shape of the primary folly is not obvious until a section is cut through the folly.

Cylindrical curtain walls have been inserted in to reverse phallus from the top of the above ground dome to the underground tip of the phallus to collect rainwater.

The reverse phallus is divided in to two primary levels. Both levels are surrounded by decorative arches. The decorations lead nowhere. The intention is to remind us of the banality of life itself.

We are born from the earth, we live, and we decay and become a part of the earth.

Finally, Obelisks, towers and skyscrapers, are landmarks of an ideal city and represent power. The bigger the tower and the skyscraper, the more powerful the city is. But what goes up must come down. Tony Servilos character Jep Gambardella, pleads with Stefania to not act superior with her mates but rather keep them as companies and joke a little. This phallic folly seeks to create a city for the dead that simply keep each other company and joke with each other even in their final moment.

The Last Joke

“ We are all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little…”

ISOMETRIC

PERSPECTIVE

x

x

x

x

DN

PLAN A-A

0 1 2 3 4 5

10 M

1 : 300

10 M

0 1 2 3 4 5

10 M

x

0 1 2 3 4 5

PLAN C-C

10 M

PLAN D-D

1 : 300

1 : 300

0 1 2 3 4 5

1 : 300

x

SECTION X-X

PLAN B-B

1 : 300

A

A

B

B

C

C

D

D

1

2

7

3 9 4

6

5 11

9

10

8 9

9

12

ISOMETRIC SECTIONAL 13

1. Glazed dome 2. Glazed shaft from tip of dome to base of folly 3. Decorative arched surround entry 4. Marble flooring 5. Stone stepped entry into folly 6. Skinny column surround 7. Side pendentive folly feature with domed glazing at head - entry to folly through pendentives 8. Spiral stairs from pendentive to enter inside folly 9. Purely decorative arches and round windows punctured in wall 10. Only one arched opening leading to tunnel 11. Tunnel connecting to ossuary 12. Spiral stair to enter into base 13. Base to hold rainwater

Hotel Suicide “ A more miserable life is better, believe me… than an existence protected by an organized society… where everything is calculated, everything is perfect.”

ISOMETRIC

PERSPECTIVE

1

x

x

PLAN A-A

0

1

2

3

4

5

x

PLAN B-B

10 M

1 : 200

x

0

1

2

3

4

1 : 200

SECTION X-X 1 : 300

0

1

2

3

4

5

10 M

1 : 200

x

PLAN C-C

x

5

10 M

x

x

PLAN D-D

0

1

2

3

4

5

10 M

1 : 200

A

A

B

B

C

C

D

D

0 1 2 3 4 5

10 M

14

1

2

3 11

10 4

5

13

12

6

9

ISOMETRIC SECTIONAL

8

7

1. Jumping chamber 2. Sleeping chamber 3. Bar - last drink chamber 4. Reading/writing room - last letter writing chamber 5. Broom finished concrete facing precast panels fixed on to steel formwork (hidden for clarity) 6. Cast in situ concrete slab 7. Passage to ossuary to allow for carrying deceased body 8. Arched opening to ossuary 9. Concrete pit 10. Layered ceilings 11. Stair support column 12. Marble flooring 13. Sloped entry glazing with doors 14. Glazed roofing

ISOMETRIC

PERSPECTIVE

Y

x

x

PLAN A-A 1 : 2000

0

10 20 30 40 50 M

Y

x

x

PLAN B-B

0

10 20 30 40 50 M

1 : 2000

B

B

A

A

0

SECTION X-X 1 : 1000

10

20

30

40

50 M

1

3 4

7

7

2 2

6

6 5

ISOMETRIC SECTIONAL

5 1. Original Locomtiva 2 proposal by Aldo Rossi -10m Ø columns 2. Cast-in-situ concrete slab 3. Arched opening in concrete panels 4. Precast concrete panels with formed arched 'holes' 5. Glass fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) or concrete skin panels fixed on to slabs with C channel supports and bracket fixtures 6. Concrete skin panels facing with spacings in between 7. Precast concrete panels facing

CAPRICCIO 1 Three unbuilt proposals by OMA were selected for their symbolic gestures for envisioning an ideal city. These are Hotel Sphinx, proposed in 1978 on the very junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue (which is also the site) conceived to be a luxury hotel as a model for mass housing, Tres Grande Bibliotheque a mega library consisting of mini libraries and Koepel Panopticon Prison. The typologies of these architectures are architecturally as well as socially contrasting, and thus situated together to create a mini city to promote coexistence regardless of its context. Hotel Sphinx originally meant for the Manhattan skyline towers over In S M L XL Koolhas states the final (of 5) property of bigness which is “Bigness is no longer part of any urban tissue.

It exists; at most, it coexists, it’s subtext is f context.”

Therefore, the ideal city is a city that consists of diverse assemblies that coexist and the capriccio intends to capture this notion.

CAPRICCIO 2 Aldo Rossi states in “The architecture of the city” Cities even if they last for centuries are great encampments of the living and the dead where few elements remain like signals, symbols, and warnings. When the holiday is over, the elements of architecture are in tatters and the sound again devours the streets. There is nothing left but to resume with persistence the reconstruction of elements and instruments and the expectation of another holiday.

The three Rossi projects chosen to construct the capriccio are: Locomotiva 2 in Turin Italy, for the design of a new central business district. San Cataldo cemetery in Modena Italy and Centro Torri Shopping Centre in Parma Italy.

In this capriccio San Cataldo cemetery is placed centrally inside the locomitva 2 to create a city of the dead from the underground to the skies. Underground burials take place in the middle in San Cataldo and overground burials take place in Locomotiva 2. The whole has been placed axially from the midpoint of the large roundabout to create a landmark in the city – so city dwellers can be reminded of their own mortality. Also, as urban landscapes become congested and burial grounds contaminate soil, contemporary burial must start taking place above ground hence the locomitva as a shell seems fitting for overground burial.

FOLLY 1 The quote I chose for my Folly 1 is from the movie The Great Beauty. The quote is: “We are all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little. Don’t you agree?”

The notions of this quote – all we can do is look each other in the face and joke a little - is something that I personally tend to believe and live by every day. However, in the realm of architecture, death and cemeteries, what is an appropriate final joke? This folly seeks to investigate how our final moment does not have to be despair but can be light-hearted.

Rossi believes it is form and fragments that make a city. So, what is a basic form that can

also be a joke? A very common form that can make anyone chuckle is that of the human male phallus. Rossi also believed in representation of typologies and translations of the past.

Hence, the folly situated originally where Rossi’s coned volume should be, is created by borrowing classical architectural language such as domes on a cylindrical masonry structure at the centre accompanied by two pendentives on the side. The surfaces are punctured with repeating arches. The reverse phallic shape of the primary folly is essentially underground and not obvious until a section is cut through the folly. Cylindrical curtain walls have been inserted in to reverse phallus from the top of the above ground dome to the underground tip of the phallus to collect rainwater making the phallus a living system, not unlike a real phallus.

Obelisks, towers and skyscrapers, are landmarks of an ideal city and represent power. The bigger the tower and the skyscraper, the more powerful the city is. But what goes up must come down. Tony Servilos character Jep Gambardella, pleads with Stefania to not act superior with her mates but rather keep them as companies and joke a little. This phallic folly goes beneath the ground surface and seeks to create a city for the dead that simply keep each other company and joke with each other even in their final moment.

FOLLY 2 Folly 2 titled Hotel Suicide, the quote I chose is from the Italian movie La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) directed by Fedrico Fellini. The quote is: A more miserable life is better, believe me… than an existence protected by an organized society… where everything is calculated, everything is perfect.”

My interpretation of this quote is that, when the burdens of life become unbearable, many chose to opt out of life itself testifying to the quote that indeed a ‘Miserable life is better ‘in this case death is better than living in this calculated world.

A 2008 article by the American broadcasting news, Inside the mind of a suicide jumper, states “Jumping from tall buildings or high bridges seems to be reserved for those who are determined to die due to the methods fatality.”

Using this information, this folly seeks to find within architecture, a platform that aids in a collective experience, an experience of ending one’s life by jumping from a height, in a collective space with the already dead in a cemetery.

Cataldo cemetery is still incomplete due to Rossi’s own premature death, and the coned volume was never built. The coned volume was meant to be an ossuary for the civil deaths, i.e. deaths of the poor and unknow. Traditionally also, death by suicide meant their graves would also be unmarked.

Rossi’s cone becomes a primary driver here to suggest in reimagining the coned volume that becomes a container for a jumping platform. However, the cone container is turned in to a mini hotel with 4 key chambers – a writing chamber at ground to write your last letter, followed up by a drinks chamber where you can get your last glass of whisky, a sleeping chamber and then finally a jumping chamber. Once the guests fall to their death into the deep pit, the custodians of cemetery can then transport the deceased bodies in an underground tunnel connecting to the peripheral ossuary.

The folly only seeks to provide a place for a day or a night in a cemetery, where the suicide jumper can have a final day of retrospection in the place they intend to die and possibly live forever.

FOLLY 3 For my final folly I chose a scene and line from the movie The Great Beauty. This scene depicts a plastic surgeon injecting his patient with botox and while injecting he asks her “Want go back to 30 years when it rained at the end of August.” I was tempted by this scene to approach the capriccio in a superficial way by give it a facelift.

In the capriccio San Cataldo cemetery has been placed inside Locomotiva 2 which comprises of mega structural columns holding repeating sets of slabs. It is merely a shell, and the folly seeks to find an appropriate face as well as monumentality that is fit for a contemporary cemetery or city of the dead.

Rossi’s 1970’s cubed ossuary in San Cataldo cemetery, is strictly controlled with symmetrical orthogonal punctures on the facades. Approximately 30 years back in late 1930’s, Palazzo Della Civilta Itlaina was designed by Guerrini, Padula, and Romano which is an example of Italian Rationalism with neoclassical design, representing romanità, a philosophy which encompasses the past, present, and future all in one.

Both the neo-rationalist pieces of architecture 30 years apart from each other in 20th century, still feel contemporary in the twenty first century. These were drivers for creating a superficial façade on the external and internal perimeters of the lomotiva 2. The arch becomes a motif at ground plane and between the slab unit intervals and the slab units are wrapped with slender vertical concrete skin.

The primary mid focal points on each façade face contain a monolithic monumental form comprising of a triad of arches to create a landmark in the city. The large monoliths are reminders of our own mortality and humble presence in the city.

02 APPENDIX 2: DIARY

Site Finding - Intial Research

City Readings:

City Readings:

Trummer, Peter. "The City as an Object: Thoughts on The Form of the City."

Aureli, Pier Vittorio. "More and More About Less and Less: Notes Toward a History of Nonfigurative Architecture."

• • • • • •

City as an object City as a circle City as a grid City as an archipelago City as a solid City as an aggregated object

• • • • • •

Grid Orders Composition Plan Surface Limit

influences directing towards a city

TURIN

ALDO ROSSI

Historical+Social+Political+Geographica l

key themes in Rossi's idea of the city

•

• • • •

•

• •

• • •

located on the Po River near its junction with the Sangone, Dora Riparia, and Stura di Lanzo rivers. occupied by the French from 1536 to 1562, Turin became the capital of the duchy of Savoy in 1563 occupied again by the French during the Napoleonic Wars ity became the capital of the kingdom of Sardinia in 1720 and in the 19th century became the political and intellectual centre of the Risorgimento It served as the first capital of a united Italy from 1861 to 1865.

Turin 1911: The World's Fair in Italy sustained heavy air-raid damage during World War II.

DEATH/BODY/INTIMACY •

typology monumentality collective memory locus

Rossi: The Concept of the Locus as a Political Caregory of the City From The Project of Autonomy Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism by Aureli

•

Rossi's own experience of facing death enabling him to create a city for the dead - 'to the other realm' PHANTASMAGO RIA Erotism: Death and Sensuality by Georges Bataille

•

EXPOSITION CITY? CONTAINER OF THE DEAD CITY?

“Prologues to World’s Fairs: National Expositions and Nation Building in Turin.” World's Fairs Italian-Style: The Great Expositions in Turin and Their Narratives, 1860-1915, by CRISTINA DELLA COLETTA

Site Finding - Intial Research VALENTINO CASTLE • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Emanuele Filiberto bought a riverside residence in the «Vallantinum» region from Renato Birago 1564 1575-1578 Embellishment works in the residence 1620-1621 Conversion of the riverside residence into maison de plaisance promoted by Christine of France.

1645-1646 Building of two pavilions towards Turin connected by exedra semicircular terraced porticoes, which defined the formal area of the Grand Cortile d’Onore, described as en forme de théâtre.

Project by Amedeo di Castellamonte 1659-1660 Works on the façade towards Turin and creation of false windows to reduce the effect of the roof’s slope, which was thought to be excessive French period -It was used as main seat of the Scuola di Veterinaria (Veterinary Medicine School) and declared “National House” Restaurazione - Main Seat of the Corpo Reale di Artiglieria (Royal Artillery Army) 1850 Transfer of acreage allotments and cession of the Castle building by the Crown to the State ownership 1857-1858 Restoration and extension works on the occasion of the Sixth National Exposition of Industrial Products. Replacement of terraced porticoes linking the two pavilion roofs with two wings.

Projects by Luigi Tonta and Domenico Ferri 1859 The Italian Law Casati was issued and symbolysed the creation of Regia Scuola di Applicazione per gli Ingegneri (Royal School of Application for Engineers) 1862-1866 Demolition of the semicycle; building of two new terraces towards the City and building of the railing 1864-1880 Building of the south wing, called ”Building of the hydraulic experiments” 1897-1899 Other buildings for the Regia Scuola di Applicazione per gli Ingegneri (Royal School of Application for Engineers) in Turin to south 1906 Establishment of the Politecnico di Torino by the union of Regia Scuola di Applicazione per gli Ingegneri (Royal School of Application for Engineers) and the Regio Museo Industriale (Royal Industrial Museum)

theatrical? ironic? intimate?

AFTERTHOUGHT: Was an intersring site to research as I got very excited about this site - but on investigating further with my interest in a program for city of the dead+ spirituality+ decadence" - this castle near the river was unsuitable and hence this site has been dropped for the project.

ORIGINAL SITE LOCOMOTIVA 2

INTERESTED SITE FOR EXPOSITION CITY ?

PREVIOUSLY FIAT FACTORY LINGOTTO CURRENTLY CULTURAL

Site Finding - Intial Research

KEY QUESTIONS • •

WHAT MAKES A CITY? WHAT MAKES A SOCIETY

SPIRITUAL + POLITICAL + JUDICIAL + ECONOMIC RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY GARDEN

PRODUCTION/RESEARCH AREA

CHURCH

MIXED - COMMERCIAL + RESIDENTIAL

RESIDENTIAL

UNIVERSITY AREA

COMMERCIAL AREA -

CULTURAL CENTRE SPORTS AREA

JUDICIAL AREA - COURT OF TURIN COMMERCIAL SKYSCRAPER -

MUESEUM AREA - Museo del Carcere Le Nuove

RE-INVESTIGATING THE PRESCRIBED ORIGINAL SITE FOR ALDO ROSSI'S LOCOMOTIVA 2 CENTRO DI REGIONALE: On reinvestigating the original site for all the three follies, the prescribed border for Locomitva 2, currently consists of numerous 'types' of architecture/artifacts. This region is heavily invested in commercial and economic aspect for the city. The existing skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano (on the next block of Locomotiva II site) called Intesa Sanpaolo Office Building or Renzo Piano Building Workshop is currently the tallest skyscraper in the city of Turin. This indicates the site is primarily a comercial melting pot for the city.

Moreover, it also consits of the Court of Turin and Polytechnic University fo Turin which is the oldest technical university in Turin. This reinforces the site is essentially a breeding ground for labour forces so as to better the economic/commercial production of city. On the fringes of the prescribed site are some small churches and mostly residential blocks. These are apartment style housing that are approximately 7 to 12 storeys high (more or less). A production city requires it's labour forces to reside on the fringe so as to maximise their potential use for the city.

While there are pockets of spaces where it is possible to have a quiet space for reflection. this particular protion of the city seems to be devoid of any notion of a space that would allow for it's citizens to quietly reflect within the city frame. Hence, the next few steps to be undertaken would be to locate within the site what elements can contribute to this 'spirtiual' concept of a city.

Site Finding - Intial Research

1

2

3

4

5

1. Existing court of Turin building - the sharp angled protrusions, the overall height of the building and monolithic structure of this building has an quality of monumentality -there is a very rational approach to the facade of this building - almost a fascist quality to it 2. Existing museum - Museo del Carcere Le Nuove - their museum description as found on their website - "Nazi torture cells, an air-raid shelter & a chapel in a former 19th-century prison open for tours" - this is a sacred building and would be best to not affect it in any way. Moreover it is a representation of Aldo Rossi's idea of the city where the city is an amalgamation and collection of memories and artifacts over time.

3. At the very end of the prescribed site for Lomotiva II consits of the Polytechnic univerity of Turin including a research laboratory as well a production factory. This further reinforces the fact that the city is primarily focused on a cycle of production.

4. A large roundabout as a node for the city - this space is particularly captivating as it is a large central point - it almost has a spiritual quality due to the basic circular shape being as it has centre point and radial arrangement of the residences around it's peripherary.

5. A view of the Polytechnic Univer

Site Finding - Intial Research

POSSIBLY CLEAR THIS AREA OUT? TO EXPAND THE NEW CITY'S ENTRY VIEW FOR THE LOCALS? ENTRY CORRIDOR IN TO POSSIBLE NEW CITY? NODE + MAIN MEETING POINT OF NEW CITY? POSSIBLY A GATHERING SPACE FOR THE DEAD?

PRIMARY CORRIDOR/SPINE

EXISTING 2 LARGE FOOTBALL FIELDS - POSSIBLY BEST TO USE THIS EMPTY SPACE FOR NEW CITY?

EXISTIN MUSEUM - HISTORICAL BUILDING POSSIBLY BEST TO NOT TOUCH THIS BUILDING DUE TO HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF DISPLAYING TURIN'S WAR ARTEFACTS EXISTING SKYSCRAPER OFFICES WITH RESTAURANT BY RENZO PIANO

Site Finding - Intial Research Analogous City - The City of the Dead (San Cataldo Cemetry) On investigating the interested site, and trying to find the 'boundary' to define the site outline for my new city, it was interesting to note that the outline reminded me of a human body lying on the site. Being inspired by Aldo Rossi's San Cataldo cemetery, the new city will certainly be a city that caters to the notions of the death of a human body and the body's individual as well as collective memory in the new city. head of the city - possibly the spiritual centre for the city? the spine of the new city that 'holds' or frames the new city? existing 'horizontal monumental' building Court of Turin - left body portion

large open sports fields an opportunity to use this space for a new program for the new city - next step - investigate the new programs

existing 'vertical monumental' building Renzo Piano Workshop skyscraper - left body portion open green space - the openness of this space re inforces the monumental sizes of the court and the skyscraper it would possibly be best to keep this as a large open vista to reinforce the new monumental treatments?

DO NOT TOUCH THIS HISTORICAL ARTIFACT THAT CONTAINS HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS - AN INCEPTION! A stock image of a chalk outline of a dead human body (from overdose) - analogous to the site outline investigation for the new city of the dead...

Existing Architectural Figures How to address the site?

COURT OF TURIN DELETE this portion?

OPEN COURTYARD SPACES - a great opportunity to utilise these courtyard spaces as spaces for reflection and introspection for the 'dead, dying and even the living'

This portion of the building (while grand and monumental itself becomes slightly irrational with it's asymmetry. For a reflective and introspective space - a perfect symmetry enables harmony and calm. Possibly removing this portion to add in a symmetrical feature would help to create order and harmony.

Clear out these internal spaces and form a an external shell by keeping the existing facade FORM ONLY ?

The architectural form is monumental and rational in this portion of the building artifact - this will become the key form for the overall contemplative space.

Existing Architectural Figures How to address the site?

COURT OF TURIN

East elevation of the existing skyscraper

West side view of the existing skyscraper

The exciting feature about the chosen site is that it consists of Turin's tallest skyscraper - Gallery of Intesa Sanpaolo. It's type is an office building as evident in the uasge of double skin glazing.

However, it is a typical office building with a modest skin. It's only monumental feature is that it is tall, but it lacks drama, lacks character as it's purpose is to 'provide jobs' for th citizens.

The new city for death, requires something slightly superficial that suggests that it is

Site plan of the existing skyscraperas prepared

by Renzo Piano Workshop

Initial sketches for folly 2 - suicide hotel within Aldo Rossi's cone in San Cataldo cemetery. The idea of suicide, body, death, jumping the action of killing oneself) - have directed me to think of a city which does not contain the dead but rather a city where one may go to die... hence for the next few stages of experiemntation and resarch would potentially revolve around exploring about euthanasia and assisted suicide - possibly a new kind of city which enables for it's citizens to be able to chose to die while also celebrate at the same time?

FACELIFT 2 ???

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

rROSSIS CLOCK AS A FEATURE FOR NEW FIGURES??? - CLOCKS as a representation of time ticking away until death - for the city of death?

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

Charles Jencks treatment of the surface. As my knowledge in landscape architecture is limited, I am taking a superficial approach in dressing the empty space between the court building and the skyscraper.

Forming the pattern for piazza surface tiling between the Court of Turin and Renzo Piano's skyscraper something that distorts our sense of perception about time and reality an attempt at exploring what death may feel like.

Aldo Rossis monumet features a cube shape with slits.

Possibly have a cubed volume as a monument for those who come to the city to die by euthanasia?

A cube that enables them to reflect and meditate before the big event - death?

COLUMNS AS SPIRITUAL CONSTRUCT - repeated usage of coluns as a sense of monemental stregth - as a way for looking up to the heavens.

Why do columns provoke a sense of strength and dignity?

Rossi exposes the column on the face repeatedly to reinforce the monument.

Initial ExplorationsComing up with the 'figures'

SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE • • •

gigantic central location a big form or shape

San Cataldo cemetery and Makkah in Saudia Arabia are similar in nature due to the cube being a central point for circumnavigating the space.

The vast space emptiness surrounding the cubes further reinforce the power of the central form.

Rossi was also influenced by Boulee's simple but megaform. Boulee creates a sense of awe through using large voulums and excavating out of the volumes.

The figures and possible artifcats to develop in the site would essentially depend on the program of the city.... what is the program???

black and gold as an indulging/ luxurious/decadent theme for facelift of the skyscraper... Top - holy place in Saudi Arabia, Mecca using a black fabric with intricate gold threading for calligraphy on the fabric which then wraps the monolithic cube.

NEW CITY PROGRAM

•

container for the dead - an ossuary

•

crematorium to disntegrate body

•

where can they safely die? take their own life?? - a safe space?

•

reflective space to contemplate and or mourn their own death

•

should it be theatrical or subtle - either way it has to have a sense of dignity

•

Rossi and Boullee's building forms have strength, power and dignity

•

should the one who chocses to die - make it explicit or an implicit death?

•

a space to remember them by? would the families visit - maybe the families join them to celebrate their life and mourn their death on the same day

•

a program such as this no longer beceoms about site - but can possibly be placed anywhere in the world? so what?

possible artifacts + spaces in the site • • • •

a large temple for everyone to gather a self self reflective space with dignified form that can manioulate emotion - awe/ overpower/ distort the senses? a palce for them to safely die? what connects these spaces? a bridge?

does access matter? the is a train stop near by and large roundabout? possibly urban design rather than archtiecture??

WHAT DO I ESSENTIALLY WANT THIS NEW CITY TO BE? celebrate death and how can the space inform this celebration? it doesnt have to be about celebration - it can be melancholic.. or sensual?

how can you capture the surreal moments in your city liek de chirico...

Bibliography

“Aldo Rossi Biography, Architecture & Drawings | Casati Gallery”. 2021. Casati Gallery. https://www.casatigallery.com/designers/aldo-rossi/.

Aureli, Pier Vittorio. 2008. The project of autonomy: politics and architecture within and against capitalism. New York: Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture.

Aureli, Pier Vittorio. 2011. Possibility Of An Absolute Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusets: MIT. Aureli, Pier Vittorio. “More and More About Less and Less: Notes Toward a History of Nonfigurative Architecture.” Log, no. 16 (2009): 7–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41765273.

CANNIFFE, EAMONN, EAMONN CANNIFFE, and View profile. 2021. “Aldo Rossi: The Architecture Of The City (1966)”. Architectureandurbanism.Blogspot.Com. http://architectureandurbanism.blogspot.com/2012/06/aldo-rossi-architecture-of-city-1966.html.

Gandelsonas, Mario. “The City as the Object of Architecture.” Assemblage, no. 37 (1998): 129–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171359.

Hollier, Denis. 1989. Against Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Paulsson, Gregor. 1948. In search of a new monumentality, a symposium.

last stop