“Piranesi’s Displeasure of Ruins,” Apollo, September, 2007, 47-53 (original) (raw)
Aspects of Piranesi, 2018
A Visual History of Architecture One of the major developments in recent Piranesi studies is to consider his work as an integral part of the aesthetic and historical debates sparked off after the 1750 rediscovery of Pompei, Herculaneum and Paestum, and the resulting publications by Winckelmann and Julien-David Le Roy. Rudolf Wittkower was one of the first to break both with the tradition that considered Piranesi mainly as a vedutisto, a brilliant and highly original producer of evocative views of Rome, and with the Romantic tradition that saw him as the inventor of irrational space and of prophetic visions of the modern predicament. Instead, in one of the first articles he wrote after his arrival at the Warburg Institute in London, he drew attention to Piranesi's importance as an architectural theorist and historian. In his wake John Wilton-Ely and Manfredo Tafuri have developed a reading of his work as a precursor of modernism, favoring, like his fellow Venetian Lodoli, the simple expression of a building's function, and rejecting the traditional Vitruvian view of Greece as the cradle of classical architecture. In the past decade Lola Kantor, Fabio Barry, Mario Bevilacqua and Francesco Nevola have situated his writings in the context of Venetian debate on the relationship between architectural forms and function, exchanges between representatives of the new disciplines of art history and archaeology and the humanist antiquarian study of Roman ruins. The Graeco-Roman debate on the origins of classical architecture between, on one hand, Julien-David Le Roy and, on the other, Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Piranesi, has thus become the point of departure for recent studies of Piranesi's activities as an architectural historian. Yet common to all these new approaches, however valuable and innovative, is that they favor the content, the arguments, of Piranesi to the neglect of the actual visual form of his historical work. They concentrate on his position in the Graeco-Roman debate and in the controversies of the 1750s and 1760s between archaeologists, art historians and antiquarians on the origins of architecture, the nature and the legitimization of ornament. They barely address the actual form of his publications on ancient Rome, in that his representations of Rome's past are not in the form of a continous narrative discourse, chronologically ordered, or even of a chronicle of facts, dates and material remains (of which Le Roy's chronological diagram of church ground plans is a rudimentary example), but a visual history. In this essay I want to consider more closely the nature of this visual history and its implications. If one leaves aside Piranesi's writings, often polemical, on the correct use of ornament or the origins of classical architecture, which form a minor part of his oeuvre, and whose authorship is still sometimes contested, the large majority of his output consists of a series of etchings showing the ruins of Rome and its environs, with some reconstructions, as, for instance, that of the Campus Martius. In his early works, the Prima Parte di Architettura e Prospettive (1743), or the Antichità Romane de'tempi della Repubblica e de'primi Imperatori (1748), he presents a combination of etchings showing the ruins at the moment he saw them, subject to the ravages of time, together with hybrid images that assemble an abrupt montage of their present state with elements that had disappeared by the eighteenth century, and additions imagined by the artist, as in the scenes from the Via Appia. The Magnificenze (1762) and Le Antichità Romane (1762) offer the most complete vision of the Roman and Etruscan origins of classical architecture. In such later monographic publications as the Rovine del Castello dell'Acqua Giulia (1761) and the Campo Marzio dell'antica Roma (1762), culminating in the studies of the Villa Hadriana and Paestum, unfinished at the time of his death and published by his son Francesco, the form and content is always visual. A simple comparison between the way in which, for instance, Piranesi visually stages the Pantheon and the manner preserved by more traditional vedutisti or architectural historians shows how much the importance of suggesting that the building is actually present for the beholder, with the spectator actually inside it, replaced the documentary tradition that started with the Speculum Magnificentiae Romae at the end of the sixteenth century. Whereas there, or in the collections of Roman antiquities by Palladio and Serlio, the Pantheon is shown frontally, in orthogonal projection, and with an absolute adherence to its exact state at the time, Piranesi's version as presented in the Magnificenze uses a complex perspectival system with two vanishing points located so as not to imply a conventional or self-evident view, and removes several columns from the
The Archaeological Sublime: History and Architecture in Piranesi’s Drawings, 2006
In the architectural, historical, and archaeological context of the eighteenth century, Italian architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) played an important role. He posited crucial theses in the debates on the ‘origins of architecture’ and ‘aesthetics’. He is numbered foremost among the founders of modern archaeology. But Piranesi was misinterpreted both in his day and posthumously. The vectors of approach yielding misinterpretation of Piranesi derived from two phenomena: one is the early nineteenth-century Romanticist reception of Piranesi’s character and work. The second is the mode of codification of architectural history. The former interpretation derived from Piranesi’s position on aesthetics, the latter from his argument concerning origins. Both of these served the identification of Piranesi as ‘unclassifiable’. He has thus been excluded from the ‘story’ of the progress of western architectural history. Piranesi, however, conceived of these two debates as one interrelated topic. Concerning origins, he developed a history of architecture not based on the East/West division, and supported this by the argument that Roman architecture depended on Etruscans which was rooted in Egypt. Secondly, he distinguished Roman from Grecian architecture identified with ‘ingenious beauty’. Thus Piranesi placed Romans in another aesthetical category which the eighteenth century called ‘the sublime’. Piranesi’s perception caused him to be described as madman or idiosyncratic. However, most of these evaluations lack a stable historical base. Therefore, restoring Piranesi, his arguments, executed works and drawings to architectural history appear as a necessity.
The Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2013
is a distinguished architectural historian who has worked extensively on the dialogue between Roman architecture and the arts in Western Europe from the Renaissance onwards.1 It is therefore with high expectations that the reader interested in this matter opens the newest monograph on one of the most fascinating artists moving between the realms of antiquity and modernity, Giambattista Piranesi (Venice 1720-Rome 1778). Although rather poorly known as a person, this is a figure whose masterly art of engraving rapidly gained success in Rome. His artistic basis was rococo Venice, and his appreciation for its love for ornament and façade architecture never left him. Pinto's book does not analyze Piranesi's progress from an architecte manqué toward becoming a free artist of drawing and etching and a pioneer in documenting and reconstructing antiquity. For Pinto, all Piranesi's activities start in Rome through his contact with Filippo Juvarra and other local architects and draughtsmen.2
Save the Heritage Benefit Corporation (ed.). Life within ruins Essays on architecture restoration theory, 2022
George Simmel, in his famous essay Ruins written in 1911, observes that a ruin is an artifact that, on the one side, evokes the memory of how it had been used by men and that, on the other side, collapses under the force of Nature. The sprout of Nature inside a building - that was originally excluded from its original functional program - is a manifestation of new aesthetic concepts. In 2005, Giorgio Agamben claims that today what was once sacred cannot be profaned anymore because it allows only uses that are coherent with its actual state. For example, the ruins of an ancient building allow only its consumption for touristic uses. The Italian philosopher then advances the hypothesis that such a mechanism can be profaned only with an act of nonchalance typical of art. This paper aims to investigate practices of profanation of the monument apparatus. The profanation of ruins is thus understood as a process of invading the perimeter that separates the inside from the outside. This investigation will be conducted presenting some collage works that challenge the meaning of preservation and envision some radical ways to re-use and re-signify a ruin.
Architectural Ruins: A Geoheritage Essay on the Anatomy of Buildings
Ruins are a statement on the building materials used and the construction method employed. Malta is the smallest European Union Member State with a significantly high density of cultural heritage. Casa Ippolito, which is now in ruins, is a typical representative of seventeenth-century aristocratic country residences on this Central Mediterranean island. This paper scrutinises these ruins as a primary source in the reconstruction of the architecture of the building. It considers the building elements and materials as the essential tissue of architecture. Such ruins are not just geocultural remains of historical built fabric. They are open wounds in the built structure; they underpin the anatomy of the building and support insights into its dynamics when it was in operation. Ruins are an essay in the geoheritage of material culture and building physics. By reconstructing the mechanics of the building one can strive to comprehend how it functioned in terms of serviceability and well-be...
A Recurring Image in Francesco Patrizi of Cherso: the Ruins
Esercizi Filosofici, 17, 1, 2022
In this article, I start by examining the myth of the «great ruin» contained in Francesco Patrizi's Dialoghi della retorica (Venice, 1562), highlighting one particular aspect of this story: the theme of «vestiges», that is, of what remains after the destructive occurrence of a catastrophe. I then explore the different meanings of that story by using Patrizi's previously published Dialoghi della historia (Venice, 1560) and I point out how the theme of the erosion, recovery and restoration of cultural traditions constitutes a leitmotif that runs through Patrizi's whole oeuvre. In the last part of the article, finally, I focus on the specific interplay of nature and history, as this clarifies the equivalence between history and memory advocated by Patrizi as well as his conception of the relationship between the past and the future.
Architectural ruins: geoculture of the anatomy of buildings as illustrated by Casa Ippolito, Malta
Heritage Science, 2021
Ruins are a statement on the building materials used and the construction method employed. Casa Ippolito, now in ruins, is typical of 17th-century Maltese aristocratic country residences. It represents an illustration of secondary or anthropogenic geodiversity. This paper scrutinises these ruins as a primary source in reconstructing the building's architecture. The methodology involved on-site geographical surveying, including visual inspection and non-invasive tests, a geological survey of the local lithostratigraphy, and examination of notarial deeds and secondary sources to support findings about the building's history as read from its ruins. An unmanned aerial vehicle was used to digitally record the parlous state of the architectural structure and karsten tubes were used to quantify the surface porosity of the limestone. The results are expressed from four perspectives. The anatomy of Casa Ippolito, as revealed in its ruins, provides a cross-section of its building history and shows two distinct phases in its construction. The tissue of Casa Ippolito-the building elements and materials-speaks of the knowledge of raw materials and their properties among the builders who worked on both phases. The architectural history of Casa Ippolito reveals how it supported its inhabitants' wellbeing in terms of shelter, water and food. Finally, the ruins in their present state bring to the fore the site's potential for cultural tourism. This case study aims to show that such ruins are not just geocultural remains of historical built fabric. They are open wounds in the built structure; they underpin the anatomy of the building and support insights into its former dynamics. Ruins offer an essay in material culture and building physics. Architectural ruins of masonry structures are anthropogenic discourse rendered in stone which facilitate not only the reconstruction of spaces but also places for human users; they are a statement on the wellbeing of humanity throughout history.
Architectural Experimentations: New Meanings for Ancient Ruins
Architecture, 2024
Starting from the critical premises that underpin the debate between archeology and architecture, some evidence emerges: sometimes, the musealization of buildings, "urban carcasses" and historical ruins – which are our legacy from the past – is even more harmful than that of any other artefact, for the purposes of their real understanding. In a country like Italy, which has archeological presences more than any other, architecture must contribute to overcoming the consolidated aporia that the Contemporary, conceived not only as a period but also and above all as its "forms and functions", is structurally in opposition to the conservation of archeological heritage. "Spatium ad Omnes", the project presented in this article, is an attempted exercise at "inhabiting archaeology", that is, trying to re-grant inclusive usability to a historical fragment, which has lost the elements necessary for its liveability, paying attention to the reversibility of the project itself. The set of questions, doubts and steps preliminary for the design have been highlighted more than the final "figure" of the project: an essential form directly connected with the primordial principles of its constitution. "Spatium ad Omnes" protects and encourages visiting the complex, trying to offer new perspectives, new narratives and new connections that translate into the possibility of being – for those who visit this place – the protagonists of a unique experience made of history, memory and continuous discoveries.
2016. Beyond the aestheticization of modern ruins: The case of Incompiuto Siciliano
The modern Italian landscape includes a large number of public construction projects begun over the past 50 years but abandoned before completion—a testament to the misuse of public funds through political corruption and the influence of the Mafia. Since 2007, a group of artists named Alterazioni Video has been developing the project Incompiuto Siciliano, through which they have sought to counter the negative perception of these ruins by considering them as an aestheticized architectural style. The group's approach is significant because visual arts, and especially photography, have in recent years been accused of pursuing a merely romanticizing objective that ignores the political, economic and social contexts in which modern ruins arise. Embedding the current paper within this discussion makes it possible to align Incompiuto Siciliano with literatures on contemporary archaeology that regard the aestheticization of ruins as a first step to a critical comprehension of the reasons behind their origination—which ultimately leads to their re-valorization and eventual re-activation.
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand), Canberra, Australia: SAHANZ, 2017
This paper analyses the concept of the ruin, which has been transformed over time from the image of an ancient, former beauty, characterized by the romantic aesthetic of decadence and consumption, into a “bachelor machine”. The timeframe within which this transformation can be examined is the stage of architectural Postmodernism, which began before the 1980 Biennale, with the exhibition “Roma Interrotta” (Interrupted Rome). This event introduced new ways of understanding Rome’s ruins and the image of the city itself.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199673933.do This chapter focuses on the small-scale models of classical ruins sold by vendors in the historic centre of Naples. These models, which normally represent columns, arches and aqueducts, are destined for display in the Neapolitan presepi – the elaborate and complex nativity scenes constructed by local families as part of their Christmas celebrations. The chapter locates these Neapolitan models within the longer artistic tradition of representing Christ’s birth at the site of ancient ruins. However, it also emphasises the unique meanings behind the use of classical ruins in the context of the presepe Napoletano. It explores, but moves beyond, the traditional interpretation of these scenes, which read the classical ruins in (all) nativities as a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over paganism. While this interpretation certainly has currency today, here it will be shown that the meanings of the Neapolitan miniature ruins are much richer and more varied than such a universalising reading would suggest. The discussion will draw attention to the overall aesthetic of temporal and spatial collapse in the presepe, and to the other, more esoteric classical references that can be detected in its figures and landscapes. It will also look at examples of individual presepe which appropriate classical ruins for very specific purposes. Particular attention will be paid to the 2009 ‘Presepe for L’Aquila’, which was made in S. Gregorio Armeno by Marco Ferrigno. This impressive creation substituted the usual ancient columns and aqueducts with the shattered buildings of the post-earthquake town, which were at the same time given a new, redemptive meaning (Nec Recisa Recedit - ‘No retreat, even when broken’). The Presepe for Aquila serves to exemplify the symbolic richness of ruins in the presepe Napoletano, and the continued relevance and dynamism of classical receptions in the modern city.
Studies in History and Theory of Architecture, 2023
In the present paper I collect some material for a cultural history of the inhabited ruin, still missing in the otherwise vast scienti(c literature on ruins. I argue that inhabitability needs to be acknowledged as a key characteristic of ruins, and that art historical and archaeological evidence substantiates the claim that there is no actual hiatus between the non-ruined and the ruined. Whether the rationale for dwelling in the ruins is pragmatical, symbolic, aesthetic, moral, sociopolitical or philosophical, the phenomenon needs to be mapped in detail. I take my cue from Georg Simmel’s bewohnte Ruine, and complement it with Heidegger’s insights. I then discuss speci(c instances of inhabitable ruins from the Casa dei Crescenzi to Piranesi and Hubert Robert. Among the case studies are Giulio Romano’s Palazzo del Te, Clérisseau’s Stanza delle Rovine, and particularly François de Monville’s residential Broken column in the Désert de Retz. Ultimately, in this brief investigation I will address why and how ruins have been, since the Trecento, construed as inhabitable by trees, by people, and by other buildings.
The Ruination of Ruins "Anastylosis involves the re-assembly of existing, but dispersed, members of a monument and is implemented within a framework for the preservation and presentation of ancient monuments," but what happens to the state of the ruin after it is rebuilt? 1 The rebuilding and nostalgia of the ruin changes the memory of the site, mass tourism damages the ruins due to saturation and anastylosis calls into question the accuracy of the reconstruction. Altogether these things change the perception of the ruin from its original state of ruination. The ruined site of Ephesos is a prime example of how anastylosis takes shape and can change the aspect of a ruin. Found scattered into millions of pieces, Ephesos presented conservators with exceptional difficulties. Martha Demas, a senior project specialist with the Getty Conservation Institute admits, "a major impetus for much of the 'restoration' activity derives from the need to impose some degree of order on the chaos that is revealed upon the excavation of a collapsed city of stone." 2 To understand the true gravity of what an excavation project has found, it is not enough to just connect the pieces to the jigsaw puzzle, but archaeologists, conservationists, and art historians among others feel the need to put the puzzle back together; To truly see what has been discovered. Putting a city like Ephesos back together has taken more than 50 years and what must be millions of dollars in research grants and donations. But to what end? Tourism has skyrocketed in the region and, while excavations continue, an added onus has emerged: keeping
Piranesi, Movement, Fantasmal Invention [CARTHA 1: The Limits of Fiction in Architecture, 2017]
CARTHA 1: The Limits of Fiction, 2017
Movement, in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s drawings, appears as a well-constructed dramaturgy of the hidden, the obscured, the unknown, or the back and forth of a before and after, of a moment retained in pen and ink. The construction and deconstruction of architectural structures and lucid fantasies simultaneously emanate from the etched lines, striations, and vibrations, that – frozen in time – exist as potentialities of forces unraveling and expanding from the two-dimensionality of the papyraceous surface in undulating pressure. An assemblage of directionality combines with layers of movement – time and space – synthesizing as a static image, which defies its very definition as such.