Digital Draw Connections: Representing Complexity and Contradiction in Landscape (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, 107) 3030597423, 9783030597429

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Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering

Fabio Bianconi Marco Filippucci   Editors

Digital Draw Connections Representing Complexity and Contradiction in Landscape

Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering Volume 107

Series Editors Marco di Prisco, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Sheng-Hong Chen, School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China Ioannis Vayas, Institute of Steel Structures, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece Sanjay Kumar Shukla, School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia Anuj Sharma, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Nagesh Kumar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Chien Ming Wang, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

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Fabio Bianconi Marco Filippucci •

Editors

Digital Draw Connections Representing Complexity and Contradiction in Landscape

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Editors Fabio Bianconi Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Perugia Perugia, Italy

Marco Filippucci Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Perugia Perugia, Italy

ISSN 2366-2557 ISSN 2366-2565 (electronic) Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ISBN 978-3-030-59742-9 ISBN 978-3-030-59743-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The Aim of the Volume The volume stems from the importance of the brilliant work of Robert Venturi with the aim of re-projecting it in the current cultural debate, extending it to the scale of landscape and placing it in connection with representative issues. Landscape, meant as a cultural process and a mirror of the social identity of a place, always unveils its connatural relational structure with a greater clarity. The link between signs and meanings, the dialectic between nature and artifice, and the relation between narration and ideation are only sections of a totality of links that make up the relation that landscape has with the environment and the territory. These three areas can be associated with the Vitruvian triad bringing “inevitably to complexity and contradiction.” In this context, representation is an interpretative tool and a place for models. In the definition, selection, abstraction and innate evocation of design, landscape finds examples that highlight a picturesque narration implicitly a harbinger of reductivism, misunderstandings and trivializations. But the same representation sometimes hides, in its different levels of reading, a much richer interpretation only veiled to those who do not enter its path, new dimension that relates to the real juxtaposing further levels of complexity and contradiction, still reinforcing the logic of the “super-adjacency” for which “the most is not worthless” (more is not less). In this dynamism, the representative processes are nevertheless seen as central cultural tools and processes to understand our places and therefore to redesign their sustainability. Noted the implications between medium and message, the volume sets itself the ambition to re-read the contemporary challenges already opened by the great theoretician in relation to the research experiences and the connected paths of innovation inherent in the wide scope of the design. From Italy, a place that gives rise to the great American master intuitions and suggestions, we want to revive those anticipated themes, to the “dimension and scale” that since then grew “adding difficulties” to the wealth already present in the architectural scale and much wider (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 New connections between Porta Pia, immortalized on the cover of Robert Venturi’s volume, and the complexity and contradiction of the current landscape with its new meanings of the protected good

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The aim of the publication is to bring out the transdisciplinary synthesis of a necessarily interdisciplinary approach to the theme, aimed to create new models capable to represent the complexity of a contradictory reality and to redefine the centrality of human dimension. With these openings and coordinates, the volume wants to collect the multiple experiences, developed in different geographical areas, which, in their specific disciplinary, come into connection with the role of representation. Studies can report on the places as well as on the interpretation defined by the drawing. Landscape research, which includes the local and the international scale, can concern the great paradigmatic themes in their complexity and contradictions but also minor themes aimed to narrate the inclusive character of landscape, vital also as “hybrid, compromised, distorted, ambiguous, boring, conventional, accommodating, redundant, rudimentary, inconsistent, misunderstanding.” Without ever forgetting “the Commitment to strive towards difficult unity”, the complexity and contradiction on landscape wants to open up to very topical socio-cultural wide-ranging issues, which concerns, among other things, the issues inherent the identity expressed in landscape, the role of images and the value of perception in the world transformed by digital, the identification of identity elements, almost “transitional”, of the landscape as cultural goods or, antithetically, the food. More in general it concerns the balancing of relations between territory and environment and the landscape inherent in strategies, in the role of representation for the “super-adjacency” and the narration of our places as an essential strategy for the operational definition of common goods. The authors, in presenting their research, have to find their contextualization according to the ten points identified by Robert Venturi in the structure of his research, and 10 areas of representation identified (Fig. 2). In relation to the proposed call, the set of texts shows not only the structural and critical value that Robert Venturi has had in history, but also the profound relevance of his research. This volume then presents itself as a strong cultural proposal of the international debate, and as a clear recognition and thanksgiving for the work done in its continuous research, implicitly profuse by the whole international scientific community.

Fig. 2 Research connections between the Venturian themes and the representative issues proposed in the volume

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The Cultural Coordinate Complexity and contradiction of Robert Venturi’s architecture is one of the pivotal books that indelibly marked contemporary architectural criticism, published by Philip Johnson’s MoMA and presented by Vincent Scully as “the most important writing on making architecture after Le Corbusier’s ‘Vers une Architecture’.” However, cultural interpretation was born paradigmatically from his trip to Italy, from the charm, attraction and influence that this landscape had on him, who was born of an Italian father and mother [1]: “As an architect, I must love Italy. Few will argue that Italy has not been the fountainhead for architecture in most of Western history. […] Even as a child, I was interested in architecture, and Italian architecture always attracted me. As an architect, I have been consistently connected with, and very much inspired by, Italian architecture and its urban qualities. How much it is a background and of feeling at home in Italy, I don’t know. I have a more general interest in Italy, too. I think I have made over thirty trips there [...]. Italian art has greatly influenced me” [2, p. 55]. Robert Venturi went to Perugia [3, p. 100] on a first trip in 1948 (Figs. 3 and 4), and on this experience he describes this city as “a beautiful old city in an amazing location on its hill from which you see fantastic views: the Umbrian landscape is just that weird and very beautiful. It is like that background you glimpse in some

Fig. 3 Cultural connections in the flowering of masterpieces of Italian architectural criticism in 1966

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Fig. 4 Disconnections between the picturesque image of Umbria of the nineteenth-century engravings and the construction of the landscape of the early twentieth century created through the work of man

fifteenth and sixteenth century paintings—Perugino especially […]. The combination of little towns […] and trees […] and orchards […] and blurred hills in the background looks like what a child’s concept of a landscape can be—or a painter’s. […]” [2, p. 131]. This first visit will be followed by the longest stay from 1954 to 1956 [4] at the American Academy, a prestigious institute that will influence American architectural culture [5]. During this period, he will visit Umbria again, still underlining its landscape: “The Umbrian landscape, fantastic—somewhat the result of the entire landscape’s being used for functional, agricultural purposes—its uses being adopted with grace. This area and its hill towns, like Assisi and Perugia, called to mind Frank Lloyd Wright’s comment: “Of joy in living, there is a greater proof in Italy. Buildings … seem to be born like flowers by the roadside. […] They inspire us with the very music of life. No really Italian building seems ill at ease in Italy. All are happily content with what ornament and color they carry as naturally as the rocks and trees […]. Wherever the Cyprus rises like the touch of a magician’s wand, it resolves all in it in a composition harmonious and complete” [2, p. 142]. With biases, it can be said that Robert Venturi finds in this region a special place that leads to profound reflections on landscape. Umbria has enriched the eyes of the

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American master with images that have contributed to writing the history of architectural criticism, and which today claim their seductive genesis. We too, as we are immersed in our deeply transformed landscapes after over sixty years, are aware of the value of the theme, as well as the importance of the warning by Robert Venturi who since then had sensed the risks of simplification inherent in the search for the picturesque, to despite the complexity and contradiction of the landscape. Perhaps then, he could not see and predict how he was structuring interpretative categories that could extend the reading of the architectural phenomenon to a wider scale. Today instead, it is possible to gather his ideas to propose operational reflections capable of responding to the still current content depletion inherent in a critical and, above all, in a policy that is incapable of going deeper into existing issues. The relations are triggered in the landscape complex architectural issues, structuring a contemplative relation and an interdisciplinary reflection so necessary to avoid trivializing rhetoric, such as the search for beauty or the invention of new identities connected to marketing strategies. In the stratification of signs and meanings, these places certainly were Robert Venturi’s “masters,” and he implicitly imposed a comparison with the images of the memory of the places he saw or imagined [4, p. 5]. Paradoxically, the landscapes of those years were deeply “picturesque,” characterized by great contradictions, rich in historical preexistences that today would have been considered with a greater respect. Then, those existences were dealt with great irony by the spontaneous popular dynamism, so well narrated by the images of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and today testified by Matera, the European capital of culture 2019 because it was saved from the “aesthetic of poverty” in the adaptive reuse of its landscapes [6]. Similarly, however, in the stratification of signs and meanings, these places were certainly “masters” of Robert Venturi, who implicitly imposed a comparison with the images of the memory of the places he saw or imagined [4, p. 5], with the different dimensions of an American landscape lived “on the road.” Free from that emotional relation that conditions those who live their native landscape, certainly influenced by Jean Labatut’s phenomenological interpretation [7, pp. 69–81] with his predominantly visual approach [8, p. 28], the themes opened by Robert Venturi are now extremely contemporary. These themes are, among others, the complexity of perception, the contradiction inherent in the images that replicate and exalt themselves in the media and in their languages, the underlying immaterial relations and the multiplicity of meanings that contest the dogmatic vision preconceived. The relations between signs and meanings, between history and memory, and between language and narration deeply characterize the Italian landscape, and it is certainly no coincidence that Robert Venturi’s first publication was a contribution to the Architectural Review’s in 1953, about the case study of the Campiglio at Rome [9, pp. 333–334]. To understand the cultural debate of those years and its influence on Robert Venturi [10], it is not secondary to highlight that the same magazine where he writes saw a structured collaboration with Gordon Cullen, and published his famous Townscape in 1961 [11]. In contrast to the

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modernist vision, attention to the landscape materialized in the centrality of the relation, in the holistic complexity of the signs and in the multiplicity of meanings. It is important to highlight that the first edition of “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” was written in the period 1962–1964 and it appeared in a new series called Papers on Modern Architecture published under the imprimatur of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1966 [8]. The world is in great transformation: The Vietnam War is on fire, Walt Disney dies, the first series of Star Trek begins, and Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and The Doors are pitting the Beatles phenomenon from overseas, calling themselves “more popular than Jesus.” In the architecture field, the AIA Gold Medal is awarded to Kenzo Tange, father of Japanese architecture [12], and the Royal Gold Medal to Ove Arup, today one of the largest design companies in the world. It is very interesting to point out how in Italy this year was very important for architectural criticism, with different cultural poles of the universities that contributed organically but not programmatically to deeply innovate the way of thinking, with contributions that are still fundamental today. It is no coincidence that there are impressive cultural connections with what happens in that exact same year in Italian universities: In Venice, Aldo Rossi published “The Architecture of the City” [13], a real best seller “translated into almost all European languages, basis of study and discussions in all the schools of Europe and America” [14, p. 5]. In Zevian Rome, Ludovico Quaroni published “Five chapters of notes on the drawing for the city” [15] followed by the famous volume “The Babel Tower” [16], Pasquale Carbonara republished his “Practical Architecture” [17], the young Paolo Portoghesi founded the magazine Controspazio [18]. During that same year, Leonardo Benevolo republished his “Introduction to Architecture” [19, 20] and the famous “History of Architecture” [21, 22]. At the same time, Manfredo Tafuri, perhaps the first to enter in the value of the contradiction for architecture implicitly evoked in the complexity of the urban scale through utopia [23], wrote “The architecture of Mannerism in the European sixteenth century” [24]. This text anticipated by two years the famous “Theories and history of architecture” [25], for which it was used as the cover a 1966 design by Franco Purini, which had just opened his studio in that same year. At the same time in Milan, Vittorio Gregotti published the famous “The territory of architecture” [26], Gino Pollini published his notes on the “Elements of architecture” [27], while in Florence, immediately after the great flood, in that year it was founded Superstudio and it was inaugurated, on December 4, the Superarchitecture Exhibition in Pistoia (Fig. 5). The next year, on the eve of the ’68 revolutions, Robert Venturi will marry Denise Scott Brown. The rest is history.

The Volume Structure The volume is composed by 43 essays, from 81 authors by all the continents, from 30 universities, of which 17 are Italian. The volume is then divided into two parts, a first more theoretical and the other more applicative, although there is never a total split

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Fig. 5 Cultural connections in the flowering of masterpieces of Italian architectural criticism in 1966

between criticism and operational experimentation of research. Selected by a double peer review process, the papers are divided into four parts: a first part that analyzes the theme of landscape in contemporary society in relation to the interpretative categories proposed by Robert Venturi; a second part that marks its methodological and instrumental issues in relation also to the value of representation and digital; a third part that reinterprets the different landscapes of the world and the aesthetics design according to complexity and contradiction; and finally, the last part wants to return to Italy to rediscover, guided by the words of Robert Venturi, the qualities and meanings of the landscapes so rich in the value of the stratification of time. The first part opens with the two writings of the editors of the volume, which focus on the operational value of researching the complexity and contradiction

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of the landscape. The first essay by Fabio Bianconi compares the plurality of meanings inherent in Robert Venturi’s readings with the issues inherent in the culture of post-truth, where what is considered true rather than reality itself matters most. This contest shows the multiple experiences of the research group that analyze the Umbrian landscape beyond the picturesque preconceptions of “Green Umbria,” where representation is called to be the place of existence of the models. The second essay by Marco Filippucci deals with a critical reinterpretation of the path of Robert Venturi’s volume in relation to contemporary themes, emphasizing the profound relation between landscape and perception and the multiple connections with the field of representation. Petrifying the landscape is read in correspondence with its technical non-reproducibility, as Medusa who is however defeated by the images themselves and from which the winged horse of Pegasus is born, the drawing, which never ceases to fly in search of complexity and contradiction. The third article of the volume bears the signature of Franco Purini, to whom the editors are indebted for the many reflections and comparisons on the theme. From the height of his experience and his architectural and representative explorations, his writing relates landscape and landscape concepts with the value of representation, then moving on to the substantive issues of the project, implicitly signaling the reference to a new humanism as an epistemological foundation of architecture. The great landscape architect Franco Zagari focuses on the importance of Robert Venturi in what is his field of study, and accompanying the words from a rich apparatus of images of his projects, he proposes the thesis that Robert Venturi can be recognized as a true landscape painter even before than an architect, by marking the plurality of sense of everyday spaces, to be understood as an antidote against a rhetoric empty of content. The next essay is by Denise Rea Costanzo, a great scholar of American architecture history: Her essay warns about the centrality of the architectural question inherent in the volume of Robert Venturi, but also reports the “crypto-urban” themes connect it to ideas about how to see and experience the broader built environment. Her essay marks the relation between postmodernity and Rome, highlighting what studying the city in the context of postwar in the Italian capital may have been, to underline finally the relation with the readings of the Townscape, the first anticipation of the theme of the landscape, thus going behind the Formalist Façade. The following essay is by Carolina Vaccaro, a friend of Robert Venturi, but also the greatest Italian scholar (and beyond) of his architectural thought: In her refined essay, the relation between “Inflection and Scale Juxtaposition as Strategies of Interrelationships” emerges, a text that signals her interpretation of the architecture as a participatory element of a vast relational structure, with implicit reference to the current conceptualization of the landscape. Highlighting the value of relationships, Carolina Vaccaro highlights how Venturi’s Learning From (Everything) is linked to The Obligation Towards the Difficult Whole, re-reading within his volume the path traced in the chapters of “Complexities and Contradiction,” which reaches to Carry Urbanism inside the Building. Rosa Sessa, from the University of Naples Federico II, whom we thank for her support in finding the original sources placed at the beginning of the volume, in her essay deepens the research already masterfully conducted in her

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doctoral thesis and analyzes the affinities of the design concepts of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown “from Piazza to Strip,” deepening with great philological attention the reflections on landscape in the projects and writings of the great American couple. Rosalea Monacella, landscape teacher at the prestigious Harvard University, the first school that introduced the teaching of this discipline, concludes this part together with Bridget Keane, a scholar of the same discipline at the Australian University of Melbourne, perhaps subversively compared to the statuary canons associated with the landscape, therefore akin to Venturian teachings and irony. Their essay takes into account the vast, invisible underground sewer network extends beneath the ground surface of most cities and towns, connecting home, work and everyday infrastructures. These are the Fatbergers, paradigm of the relation between material ecologies, its matter and the complexities of waste, a theme that explicitly expresses a purely landscape operational strategy based on the act of looking, the frame of drawing and the resultant multiplication of modes of understanding. All in the value of the connections is proposed by digital, but which concretely shows how our landscapes are increasingly characterized by complexity and contradiction. The second part of the volume focuses on the relation between representation and tools, highlighting the value of digital and contemporary storytelling strategies. The introductory text by Rossella Salerno brings out the representative centrality in the discovery of the identity of the contemporary landscape within its contradictions. Her essay marks the value of digital and, in particular, the relation between augmented reality and virtual reality to enter into that Difficult Whole for the inclusion of a growing number of people in knowledge journey and decision-making processes. The second essay on the relation between expression, meaning and representation in the landscape was born from the Valencia research group of Francisco Juan-Vidal and Ignacio Diez-Torrijos. Their study offers a rich reflection on the landscape, putting it in relation with the semiotic questions so dear also to Robert Venturi, to emphasize the value of representation in the interpretation of signs, with great attention on the value of new media. Starting instead from a sociological point of view, the next essay by Raffaele Federici deals with the landscape in relation to the hashtag, in the ambivalent dialogue with genius loci through the media. His reflections show the ambivalence of digital language and the sense of sight, and, more profoundly, how the landscape could be lived, embodied and practiced. Maryam Fazel and Sukaina Adnan Almousa analyze the use of chance (uncertainty and ambiguity) as generative factors participating in the design process (observation, investigation, idea generation and production) and compare the use and the presence of chance in conventional design and representational mediums (sketching) and digital design. They pay a particular attention to parametric design and to the relation between medium and message, in a path enriched by exceptional drawings of new landscapes focused on the value and the representation of connections. Fabio Colonnese and Paolo Rosa then propose fascinating and ingenious considerations on the landscape seen and represented through the windshield, re-reading the relation of American culture “on the road” with the centrality of the visual and mediums, alongside the profound theoretical digression with a representative path on the

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history of the landscape seen from the car. Marco De Simone proposes a reading of the codes and structures in landscape, analyzing the superstructure regulations and the difficult whole of signs and significances in relation to the complexities detectable in what can be called architecture or minor landscape, as in the case of the areas of the Italian Apennines devastated by the earthquake. Cristina Càndito and Alessandro Meloni instead propose a reflection on the relation between ambiguity and complexity between drawing and space, highlighting these issues in Venturi’s projects placed in parallel with the works of Athanasius Kircher. Emidio De Albentiis presents the reading of the Forma Urbis Romae, a cartographic representation of Rome at the time of Empire, emphasizing its contemporary implications in the artistic field, in relation to the value of postmodern interpretation in the relation between fragment and totality. Stefano Chiarenza analyzes the landscape and its representation, marking the role of the new visualization and fruition systems. Lorena Greco enters more into technical aspects, dealing epistemologically with the representative question of the complexity of 3D visualization of light in the naturality, with particular attention to the representation of trees, iconic and paradigmatic elements of the landscape. Andrea Donelli’s text on the Drawings of Contemporary Architectural Treatises concludes this part: The author focuses on the concept of “Thought,” analyzing the relationships between architecture, theoretical reflections and graphic representations. The third part of the volume describes the many connections that are inherent in contemporary landscapes around the world, and read for the value and for the centrality of complexity and contradiction. Pilar Chias and Tomás Abad of the University of Alcalá introduce this part, highlighting the landscapes of the Spanish Royal Sites in their complex contradictory historic development. The authors propose a parallel between Venturi’s complexity and contradiction with the Vitruvian triad, however understood as a system of relationships. In the central value of the representation, the text investigates the meanings of the places in relation to the functional, cultural, aesthetic and symbolic transformations, underlining the dangers of the reductionism of the picturesque in relation to the processes of protection and enhancement. The second essay by Victor Hugo Velásquez puts into parallel the open questions in the volume Complexity and Contradiction with the Las Vegas studies developed by Venturi with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, analyzing the representative apparatus of this second volume as testimony to a reflection structured on the landscape. Massimo Leserri, Sonia Gomez Bustamante and Merwan Chaverra Suárez propose instead a reading of the spontaneous landscapes related to self-construction in the Colombian territory of Còrdoba, proposing such case studies as contemporary paradigms of a popular culture where the contradiction adapted is clear. Staying in Colombia, Massimo Leserri with Merwan Chaverra Suárez then analyzes the relation between representation and description that emerges from the studies for documenting the Chima Territory, a Colombian pilgrimage landscape that is placed as a paradigm of the Venturian vision of the juxtaposed contradiction. The following essay, by Anisha Meggi and Yuri Hadi of De Montfort University, moves to the other side of the world in the analysis of the landscape and the structures of Diu Town, marking the

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complexity and contradiction of this Indian landscape, an emblematic land for the contradictions and the complexities, in its relationship with history and multiple cultures. Still remaining in the Far East, Cristiana Bartolomei, Anastasia Fotopoulou, Caterina Morganti and Giorgia Predari instead highlight the “Japanese landscape inside” and the transition of architectural spaces: The group belonging to the University of Bologna rediscovers the complexity and contradiction of traditional Japanese architecture, analyzing the dynamic relation between inside and outside, with an interpretative reading supported by the drawing which highlights its unity with the landscape. In neighboring Korea, Gökhan Balık and Deniz Balık Lökçe analyze the contemporary case study of Seoullo 7017 Skygarden and Superkilen Urban Park, proposing a critical reading of the relation between representation, narrativity and banality, always according to the critical categories proposed by Robert Venturi. Domenico D’Uva and Paolo Tomelleri are interested in the contemporary forms of the Möebius Strip in Building, analyzing in detail the Eisenman’s Max Reinhardt House case study in Berlin, as a paradigm of the complexity of architecture evoked by Venturi but characterized by new forms. Fabio Colonnese investigates a contemporary theme of architecture with more marked references to the aesthetic conception inherent in the conceptualization of the landscape for Rem Koolhaas, analyzing the Dutch master’s subversive research in his cultural debt with the studies of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Jaime J. Ferrer Forés from the Polytechnic University of Catalunya proposes instead the reading of the same Venturian categories of complexity and contradiction for the Utzon’s work, marking its influence in what can be called an architectural mood. This part concludes with the essay by Angélica Fernández-Morales, from the University of Zaragoza, focused on the heuristic value of the image for the landscape: The contradiction juxtaposed is clearly found in the artistic production of Dionisio González and his digital experiments of complex and contradictory landscapes that arise from the juxtaposition of similar but divergent images, a representative stratagem to narrate their underlying qualities. The last part of the book collects the landscape research carried out in Italy. The idea is to imagine a virtual return of Robert Venturi and of those who entered with him in the complexity and contradiction of the places he analyzed, to see how his studies are today valid interpretative tools for understanding landscapes. Mario Torelli1 introduces the journey along the different Italian landscapes, an exceptional professor and true master of archeology, awarded with the Balzac prize and academician of the Lincei. His masterful text is proposed as a hermeneutic key to the relation between complexity and contradiction in the landscape and “The Obligation Towards the Difficult Whole,” underlining the landscape as an itinerary in the story of Trajan’s Dacian Wars placed on the well-known Roman column. The interpretative reading of the well-known archaeological testimony relates the value After the finalization of the text and in the stages of editorial completion of the volume, Mario Torelli passed away on 15th September 2020. The editors, in underlining their closeness to the family and the great loss also for the Academy, want to underline the profound gratitude and esteem for a professor who with this text has left a further fundamental contribution to society.

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of representation and landscape to the foundations of our culture. The subsequent text by the young architects Diego Repetto and Fabrizio Aimar presents “The Fifth Landscape,” showing the proposals and installations with their juxtaposition of signs that lead to re-read the possible plurality of meanings of the places transcribed and transfigured by art and science. They also reported case studies and design proposals scattered in multiple Italian contexts but still starting from their Piedmont. Starting from this northern region of the itinerary, the first proposed essay analyzes the Turin case study, proposing the use of digital for the integration of data as an essential element for understanding the complexity of the urban space. The following essay, by Emanuela Chiavoni and Ivana Passamani, focuses instead on that unique place which is Val Camonica, analyzing its prehistoric cave drawings in relation to their landscape through the categories of “Both-And” and “Inside-Outside” proposed by Robert Venturi. Moving to the Lombard capital, Andrea Tartaglia, Benedetta Terenzi and Giovanni Castaldo show us the value of the environmental design strategies for urban regeneration by revealing the implicit relations between perception, nature and urban quality. In the same settlement situation, Matteo Giuseppe Romanato instead shows the value of the signs of that removed landscape which is the Milan Expressways, intended as the last threshold of a metropolis. Graziella Guaragno, Elettra Malossi and Gianluca Paggi, starting from the particular point of view of civil protection, show their experiences carried out in the Emilia-Romagna Region Administration in projecting the landscape, marking the complexities and contradictions of the government of the territory and the understanding, however, of that obligation toward a difficult unit. Still in the same region, but with a completely different theme, Stefano Giannetti takes us to Ferrara, home of his university, and shows us the orderly growth process of the Erculean Addition, showing the contribution of the Renaissance architect Biagio Rossetti in the design of the urban landscape. Silvia La Placa and Marco Ricciarini guide us in Tuscany, by reading the case studies relating to the sport locations, in a journey on the relation between the social identity of a place and their representation, showing the analysis of the environment and its quality for a cultural regeneration in relation to the complexity and contradiction of the contemporary landscape. Michela Meschini and Giulia Pelliccia, from our University of Perugia group, enter the landscape qualities of the picturesque case study of Lizori, a historic village abandoned for years, and then rebuilt by its community, which today is linked to the Antonio Meneghetti Foundation for Scientific and Humanistic Research. This unique landscape, a medieval settlement halfway up the coast with a triangular form, is analyzed with a technical approach related to the hypothesis of building a Zero-Emission Burg Standard, an overlapping of signs inherent in the new needs of energy redevelopment strategies, which reveals the concreteness of the complexity and contradiction of contemporary landscape regeneration. Under the international spotlight is the theme addressed by Diego Zurli, top manager of the Umbria Region, who reports his experience in the ideas and suggestions for the reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia. Devastated by the recent earthquake of 2016, the Basilica is purely a symbolic space of this terrible event that necessarily leads to transformations. In fact, as a subject of multiple

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comparisons, even harsh ones, but also the occasion leads to going beyond the last known visual state. Thus, it faces issues implicitly extendable to the landscape related to dogmatic approaches inherent to picturesque canons and dynamic relations between image and memory, between tradition and innovation, and between conservation and enhancement. Moving to the neighboring Marche Region, Maddalena Ferretti and Ramona Quattrini present the fruitful relations between digitization and design of archaeological heritage, taking as a case study the Flaminia Cultural District, an area of historical matrix for which researches with a purely interdisciplinary character have been developed in order to promote real landscape enhancement. Going further south, in the neighboring Abruzzo, Pasquale Tunzi presents his studies on the transformations of the landscape of the city of Pescara, documented by a rich apparatus of archival documents that narrate, in their unity, the history of these landscapes. Inland, but from the same region, Simona Angelone, Tania Valentina Ferro, Pamela Maiezza, Mario Centofanti and Stefano Brusaporci take as a case study the Restoration of Teramo Cathedral of the early twentieth century, which is proposed as a paradigm of the relation between complexity and contradiction and of the plurality of meanings which then extends to the logic of landscape protection. We have come from here further and further south to Puglia region, where Antonia Valeria Dilauro and Remo Pavone bring us into the hypogeum architectures, analyzing the case studies of the territory of Fasano, by re-reading through the categories proposed by Robert Venturi the apparent simplicity and effective complexity of those paradigmatic places. Still further south of the same region, in Salento, Valentina Castagnolo, Francesca Sisci and Gabriele Rossi instead enter the cultural landscapes of the popular devotion, showing the double code for the enhancement of the calvaries’ minor architectures, underlining their relation with the landscape and the role of representation for their knowledge and enhancement. Still in the south, but on the other side of Italy, in Calabria, Claudio Patanè presents his stratigraphy of the gaze, optical dissections that reveal the landscape through drawing, and narrated in graphic form. Taking the “ruins of invention” as case studies in the Calabrian fortified landscape, through his words but in particular through splendid watercolors, he proposes a fascinating narrative strategy, able to generate “new interpretative codes” for a landscape design project that puts in a single dimension: past, present and future. Passing the strait, we reach Messina, where Daniele Colistra shows us the repositioning of monumental fountains in Messina after the 1908 earthquake as paradigm of urban landscape and multi-functioning elements, re-reading these transformations in relation to the critical contribution of Robert Venturi. In the hinterland of this territory, Marinella Arena declines the critical and operational reflections of the representation for the study of “irrelevant cities,” proposing immaterial survey strategies for three historical and picturesque settlements, places that perhaps are not in the spotlight, but which reveal in an emblematic way the qualities, and the complexity and the contradictions of the landscape. On the other side of Sicily, in two case studies related to project proposals, Serena Del Puglia enters the question of rebuilding the landscape, through the design for the reuse of abandoned quarries, with the representative performances that overlap the landscape qualities to re-read the multiple

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meanings of these places. From here reaching even further south to the last Sicilian landscape that relates to the relation with history and time that opened this part, analyzing the exceptional archaeological landscape of Selinunte, an ancient city of Greek origin is located on the southwest coast of Sicily. Here, Concetta Masseria and Andrea Fancelli, through a careful philological path, come to describe the qualities and values of human spaces, going to reinterpret the complexities and contradictions of what are only fragments of preexisting landscapes, to be able to trace the original functions and the story of the values of these places. This part and the volume conclude with the text by Marco Seccaroni, Costanza Maria Aquinardi, Elisa Bettollini, with whom we want to return first to Umbria Region, and from here make a return to the places from where these reflections arise. The group belonging to our University of Perugia studies the perception and landscape of urban environments by taking Umbria case studies as a reference and using innovative digital techniques and instruments, opening up an approach to visual issues. The study of what is called the “atmosphere” of a place is analyzed through digital generative representation, which manages to bring out the intangible relations and interconnections that characterize the landscape as a virtual representative act. In this way, it is possible to explore the landscapes of the world through virtual interconnections, a path that leads us to re-read the signs of Las Vegas today, an emblematic place for Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the last tribute of this volume to the masters who guided architectural, urban and landscape research of contemporary culture. The path thus developed clearly shows the current value of the approach proposed in this book by Robert Venturi who made history and which continues to be a necessary reference for those who deal with the relation between the project and its context. Robert Venturi left us on September 18, 2018, but his words still resonate vibrantly and support us in reading the infinity of connections of our complex and contradictory landscapes. Perugia, Italy

Fabio Bianconi Marco Filippucci

References 1. Brownlee DB, Venturi R, Scott Brown, D (eds) (2001) Out of the ordinary. In: Venturi R, Scott Brown D and Associates (eds) Architecture, urbanism, design. Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, Philadelphia 2. Sessa R (2017) By means of Rome. Robert Venturi: prima del Post-Modern. PhD Thesis. Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II 3. Weller A (1985) Travel notes. Robert Venturi—The Golden Air of Rome, Architectural Digest, 5:90–100 4. Milovanovic-Bertram S (2007) Lessons from Rome: the works of Robert Venturi, Tod Williams, Thomas Phifer, and Paul Lewis. American Academy in Rome, Rome 5. Costanzo DR (2009) The lessons of Rome: architects at the American academy, 1947–1966. The Pennsylvania State University

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6. Arminio F (2013) Geografia commossa dell’italia interna. Bruno Mondadori, Milano 7. Scott Brown D (1984) A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history. Architectural Rec 172(2):69–70 8. Ockman J (2016) Review: complexity and contradiction in architecture by Robert Venturi. J Society Architectural Historians 75(4):490–492. https://doi.org/10.1525/Jsah.2016.75.4.490 9. Venturi R (1953) The Campidoglio: a case study. The Architectural Rev 113(677):333–334 10. Costanzo DR (2016) “I Will Try My Best to Make It Worth It”: Robert Venturi’s Road to Rome. J Architectural Educ 70(2):269–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2016.1197661 11. Cullen G (1961) Townscape. The Architectural Press, London 12. Bianconi F, Filippucci M, Verducci P (2006) Architetture dal Giappone: disegno, progetto e tecnica. Gangemi, Roma 13. Rossi A (1966). L’architettura della citta. Marsilio, Padova 14. Rossi A (1995) L’architettura della città. Cittàstudi, Novara 15. Quaroni L (1966) Cinque capitoli di note sul disegno per la città. Istituto Di Architettura. Facoltà Di Architettura, Roma 16. Quaroni L (1967) La torre di babele. Marsilio, Venezia. ISBN [Bni] 682875 17. Carbonara P (1966) Architettura pratica. Utet, Milano 18. Controspazio (1966) Mensile di architettura e urbanistica. Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 19. Benevolo L (1960a) Introduzione all’architettura. Laterza, Milano 20. Benevolo L (1966a) Introduzione all’architettura. Laterza, Bari 21. Benevolo L (1966b) Storia dell’architettura moderna. Roma—Bari 22. Benevolo L (1960b) Storia dell’architettura moderna. Laterza, Roma—Bari 23. Tafuri M (1966a) La nuova dimensione urbana e la funzione dell’utopia. L’architettura 124:680–683 24. Tafuri M (1966b) L’architettura del manierismo nel cinquecento Europeo.Officina Edizioni, Roma 25. Tafuri M (1968) Teorie e storia dell’architettura. Laterza, Milano 26. Gregotti V (1966) Il territorio dell’architettura. Feltrinelli, Milano 27. Pollini, G (1966) Elementi di architettura. Tamburini, Milano 28. Otero-Pailos J (2010) Architecture’s historical turn: phenomenology and the rise of the postmodern. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

Acknowledgements

The idea of the international call “Complexity and contradiction in the landscape” was born in 2019 from the studies, project proposals and continuous exchanges of ideas between the two editors of the book, Fabio Bianconi and Marco Filippucci, professors of the University of Perugia and managers of LabLandscape, International Landscape Research Laboratory. This center, through research in the field of representation and landscape, the intense scientific production and the involvement of a large interdisciplinary group of international experts, aims to activate studies, reflections and projects on the value of the landscape for the contemporary world, having as coordinates the transversality of knowledge and the transdisciplinary synthesis of representation. The project of this call was also supported by the “Antonio Meneghetti Scientific and Humanistic Research Foundation”, a Swiss non-profit Foundation in Special Consultative Status with Economic and Social Council of United Nations, for which we especially thank Dr. Pamela Bernabei. The curators then thank Dr. Miriam Macina for the support in the translation of the texts.

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Why I Love the Gentle Manifesto I love the gentle manifesto. I love “hybridity” over “purity,” “both-and” over “either-or,” “the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion.” To me, it is a philosophical treatise on not only how to be a better architect, but demonstrating a means of achieving enlightenment—spiritually, philosophically, artistically, intellectually and politically. But my father’s objective was not to create a universalist philosophy, and he had not studied Buddhist or Hindu texts, but a great number of those who inspired him did. Some examples include: T. S. Eliot, Henry David Thoreau, William James and William Empson. Gestalt Psychology, which is where my father learned the theory that “meaning derives from context,” itself was deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophy and practice. I bring up these influences not with an academic goal in mind—although I think scholarly study would be worthwhile—but rather to understand complexity into this broader universal context as a means of which to better harness its power and apply its thinking beyond architecture. For example, in a world of resurgent ethno-nationalism, “the difficult unity of inclusion instead of the easy unity of exclusion” is an eloquent plea toward pluralism. Design thinking is now quite popular, but the ability to see the whole, rather than a reductive, siloed approach is applicable in many professions. For example, in medicine, the number of specialties seems ever increasing and the understanding of the body as a system is lost. This applies in urban planning as well, where political necessity facilitates a narrow, siloed thinking that often leads to false separations, seeing land use, transportation and economic development separately, rather than synergistically. In this way, the more the experts focus on one aspect, the less they understand of the whole. But this manifesto, gently but forcefully, rejects reductive, out-of-date thinking, by framing it as unaffordable. “Afford” is perhaps the most important word in the

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text as it is the central call to arms. The choice is between good architecture and adherence to dogma. Too much had changed, and the precepts of early modernism needed a rethink for a new context and a new time. This process of rethink—of constantly questioning assumptions and looking at the greater whole—is central to my parents’ approach to architecture. It is a process that I grew familiar not just growing up with them, but also from my professional experience in the world of information technology, where cycles of innovation are constantly requiring rethinking as the alternative is to be supplanted by a faster moving start-up. The synthesis of thinking inherent in complexity, and my life’s experience in the integrative understanding of emerging technology, and the holistic principles of eastern philosophy have found fruitful purpose at ReThink Studio, a strategic design outfit that I founded seven years ago to question underlying assumptions that go unquestioned because of political structures that hamper innovative “joined-up thinking.” Despite having initially strained from my parents’ vocations in the built environment, ReThink Studio has taken me back into questions about our physical landscape, and how we can conceive of innovative change for the future.

Complexities and Contradictions in Landscape, Politics and Action Jim and I have been working for five years on urban, regional, territorial and political scales, where one would encounter many conceptions of “landscape.” Fortunately for us, Complexity and Contradiction’s lessons already have a history with the built and natural environment beyond architecture. This starts with the foundations of complexity’s ideas; with direct influences from Gestalt psychology’s principles of totality, pattern recognition, importance of context; and with indirect influences stemming from eastern religious interpretations of wholeness, unity and interconnectedness, and being filtered and expanded by many of Venturi’s literary and theoretical influences. Critical is also the academic milieu that surrounded Complexity and Contradiction in regard to planning and geography. Disciplines such as regional science, location theory and spatial economics were taught and practiced. Cross-pollination between social sciences and geographic studies were integral to the planning conversation. As Complexity and Contradiction was being gestated, Venturi was already in collaboration with Denise Scott Brown, who both studied and taught these pedagogical interplays at the University of Pennsylvania. Writers and educators such as Walter Isard taught economics on a physical territorial canvas. Herbert Gans applied the understandings of intertangled fields, such as sociology, economics and planning, and synthesized them in the 1962 book The Urban Villagers, describing the intricate workings of the soon-to-be-demolished

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West End neighborhood of Boston, and finding a human usefulness in the complexities of older dense urban fabric. David Crane described cities in terms of their communication and symbolism, paving the way for Venturi and Scott Brown’s later Learning from Las Vegas. Many of these disciplines have their empirical sources in the landscapes of Europe. The Isolated State is Johann Heinrich von Thünen’s 1826 treatise from his economic and territorial observations as a landowner in Mecklenburg. For Robert Venturi, it was important that the experience of the Italian landscapes, intact in their accumulative palimpsest, unified aesthetics, economy, history and an understanding of society’s relation to the terrain. In 1978, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour were assigned (or rather chose in a trade) a plate of the Nolli Map of Rome to be modified as part of the exhibition Roma Interrotta. The contents of the original depict the landscape sensibilities described above: The zone depicted is a jagged transition between city and country, with many ambiguities between. The engravings outside the map space depict the ruined capitals of Roman architecture, which in the modified plate become consumed by the analogous symbology of mid-century imperial America from Las Vegas. All of these influences and outcomes regarding Complexity and Contradiction are not merely external to the work. Rather, they are explicitly validated in the text: The Gentle Manifesto expands its own scope of interest from architecture to a broader geographic and philosophical arena, and addresses the need to act in the face of rigid dogmatic thinking: And today the wants of program, structure, mechanical equipment, and expression, even in single buildings in simple contexts, are diverse and conflicting in ways previously unimaginable. The increasing dimension and scale of architecture in urban and regional planning add to the difficulties. I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties, I aim for vitality as well as validity. Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture.

The idea of being forced to “no longer afford” relates to planning as an operation necessitated by crisis or a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Resulting innovation occurs when the status quo can no longer be afforded. As such, there is no choice for practitioners but to welcome problems in all their multitudes; this initiates the process of designing solutions that are necessarily interconnected. It would not be controversial to propose that the landscapes of the world are in relative crisis. Faustian progress has devastated natural ecologies, agrarian lands, cultural sites and cities in all corners of the world. But equally critical are the intertwined fates between landscape and political agency around the world. Landscape informs governance, and governance changes landscape: Half-abandoned villages in Europe’s rural regions align with a populism of anti-modernity. Brexit, at its geographic heart, was a protest against the forsaking of the countryside outside of global cities. Many of Italy’s political idiosyncrasies stem from conflicting identities of territory. In the USA, social divisions prey on the dichotomies of the cosmopolitan–rural divide and unsubtle allotments of geographic wealth over race and class. Political structures, from state-level lawmaking

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to the bureaucracy of planning and zoning, need to be challenged in regard to their scope, flexibility and unquestioned ideologies. Fortunately, Venturi assembled an armature for architectural thought that also is political: surmounting mental barriers of absolutes and “either-or,” and accommodating for ambiguity and “both-and.” Embracing “messy vitality over obvious unity” can be the political anti-platform that the world needs to reconcile its existing landscapes with the challenging present and future. The transposition of complexity and contradiction to political geography is key to our collaborative work (at ReThink Studio), in which issues of geography, transportation, land use and the connective political complexities are all analyzed and processed holistically. Our first and ongoing project, rethinking New York City’s territory and advocating for reform on a regional scale, is a reaction to the fragmented decision-making progress, as well as collective geographic self-awareness (or a lack thereof), and seemingly insurmountable correlations between physical barriers and territorial psychology (as expressed in the distinct identities on different sides of rivers). Complexity and contradiction, while drawing its core theoretical canon from outside of architecture, is still a document heavily invested in the personal experience of the built environment, and this cannot be understated in the approach we are required to take in regional planning. The vestigial and palimpsest complexities of older cities provide the functional spaces and the theatrical scenography that create identity for residents, and “brand” for newcomers. Understanding these values in legacy cities, from Rome to New York, is both the means to continued social and economic success, but more importantly also an end to itself: richness of life in an iconic metropolis. Validating environs from Venice’s Piazza San Marco to New York’s Times Square and the Las Vegas Strip, as well as Levittown, Baroque urban assemblages and medieval villages, complexity and contradiction provides with a lens sympathetic to existing conditions’ hidden values and potentials. “Main Street is almost alright.” The interdisciplinary perspectives collated in this volume on complexity and contradiction give us a needed critical direction in understanding the world, and how, as practitioners and theorists of the built and natural environment, we can approach solution finding from a holistic and human perspective that accounts for the “difficult unity of inclusion” of our experienced world. Jim Venturi Cezar Nicolescu

A Not Simple Landscape: A Gentle Manifesto

I like complexity and contradiction in landscape. I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent landscape nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or expressionism. Instead, I speak of a complex and contradictory landscape based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art. Everywhere, except in landscape, complexity and contradiction is acknowledged, from Godel’s proof of ultimate inconsistency in mathematics to T. S. Eliot’s analysis of “difficult” poetry and Joseph Albers’ definition of the paradoxical quality of painting. However, landscape is necessarily complex and contradictory in its very inclusion of the traditional Vitruvian elements of commodity, firmness and delight. Moreover, today the needs of program, structure, mechanical equipment and expression, even in a single opera in simple contexts, are different and conflicting in ways that were unimaginable before. The increasing dimension and scale of architecture in urban and regional planning add to the difficulties. I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties. By embracing contradiction as well as complexity, I aim for vitality as well as validity. Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox modern architecture landscape. I like elements which are hybrid rather than “pure,” compromising rather than “clean,” distorted rather than “straightforward,” ambiguous rather than “articulated,” perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as “interesting,” conventional rather than “designed,” accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non-sequitur and proclaim the duality. I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning, for the implicit function as well as the explicit function. I prefer “both-and” to “either-or,” black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white. A valid landscape evokes many levels of meaning and combinations of focus: Its space and its elements become readable and workable in several ways at once.

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A Not Simple Landscape: A Gentle Manifesto

Nevertheless, a landscape of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation toward the whole: Its truth must be in its totality or its implications of totality. It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion. «More is no less». Reinterpretation of Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Landscape.

Contents

Landscape and Representation between Complexity and Contradiction Connections: Digital Revolution in the Post-truth Landscape . . . . . . . . Fabio Bianconi Medusa and Pegasus: The Landscape in the Age of Its Technical Non-reprodution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marco Filippucci

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Landscapes and the Concepts of Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Franco Purini

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Robert Venturi: Plurality of Sense for Our Everyday Space . . . . . . . . Franco Zagari

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Beyond the Formalist Façade: Complexity and Contradiction’s Urban Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Denise Rae Costanzo

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Inflection and Scale Juxtaposition as Strategies of Interrelationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carolina Vaccaro

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From Piazza to Strip: Reflections on Landscape in the Writings and Projects of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown . . . . . . . . . . . Rosa Sessa

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Fatberg: Material Ecologies and the Complexities of Waste . . . . . . . . . Rosalea Monacella and Bridget Keane

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Representing Landscape in the Digital Era: The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole Representing Identity and Contradictions of Contemporary Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rossella Salerno Landscape: Expression, Meaning and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . Francisco Juan-Vidal and Ignacio Díez-Torrijos Landscape and Hashtag: The Ambivalent Dialogue with Genius Loci Through the Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Raffaele Federici Chance, Ambiguity, and Indeterminacy as Idea-Generating Mediums Applied in Creative Design: Encountering Uncertainty in Mediums of Drawing in the Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maryam Fazel and Sukaina Almousa

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“A Car with a View”: Considerations on the Landscape Seen and Represented through the Windshield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fabio Colonnese and Paolo Rosa

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Codes and Structures in Landscape: The Normative Superstructure and the Difficult Whole of Signs and Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marco De Simone

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Ambiguity and Complexity Between Drawing and Space . . . . . . . . . . . Cristina Càndito and Alessandro Meloni The Cartographic Representation of Rome at the Time of Imperial Rome and Its Contemporary Implications: The Forma Urbis Romae of the Emperor Septimius Severus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emidio De Albentiis The Landscape and Its Representation: New Visualization and Fruition Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefano Chiarenza The Complexity Around 3D Lighting of a Natural Landscape . . . . . . . Lorena Greco The Drawings of Contemporary Architectural Treatises Thought: Relationships and Graphic Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Donelli

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Connections: Complex and Contradict Contemporary Places Landscapes of the Spanish Royal Sites: A Complex Contradictory Historic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pilar Chías and Tomás Abad

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The Representation of Complexity and Contradiction in the Las Vegas Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victor Hugo Velásquez Hernández

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Architecture According to Nature: Studies on Survival of Self-construction in Córdoba, Colombia. Contradiction Adapted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Massimo Leserri, Sonia Gomez Bustamante, and Merwan Chaverra Suárez A Double Level Landscape, Studies for Documenting Chima Territory: The Opposing Juxtaposed Contradiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Massimo Leserri and Merwan Chaverra Suárez Understanding the Difficult Whole: The Structures of Diu Town . . . . . Anisha Meggi and Yuri Hadi

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The “Japanese Landscape Inside”: The Transition of Architectural Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristiana Bartolomei, Anastasia Fotopoulou, Caterina Morganti, and Giorgia Predari

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Representation, Narrativity, and Banality: Seoullo 7017 Skygarden and Superkilen Urban Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gökhan Balık and Deniz Balık Lökçe

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Cutting and Overlapping: Moebius Strip in Max Reinhart Haus . . . . . Domenico D’Uva and Paolo Tomelleri

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Rem Koolhaas and the Landscape as an Urban Medium . . . . . . . . . . . Fabio Colonnese

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Complexity and Contradiction in Utzon’s Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jaime J. Ferrer Forés

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Contradiction Juxtaposed and Digital Representation in Contemporary Art: The Work of Dionisio González . . . . . . . . . . . . Angélica Fernández-Morales

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Return to Italy: Reading and Representing Complexity and Contradiction in Signs Stratifications Landscape as Itinerary: The Story of Trajan’s Dacian Wars on Trajan’s Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mario Torelli The Fifth Landscape: Art in the Contemporary Landscape . . . . . . . . . Diego Repetto and Fabrizio Aimar

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The Maintenance Representation: Research and Applications, Mixing UAV and Digital Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matteo Del Giudice, Rachele Grosso, Umberto Mecca, Giuseppe Moglia, Francesco Prizzon, and Manuala Rebaudengo Drawing a Complex Landscape: “Both-And” and “Inside-Outside” in Val Camonica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emanuela Chiavoni and Ivana Passamani Landscape as Strategy for Environmental Multi-functionality . . . . . . . Andrea Tartaglia, Benedetta Terenzi, and Giovanni Castaldo

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A Removed Landscape—Milan Expressways as the Last Threshold of a Metropolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matteo Giuseppe Romanato

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Projecting the Landscape: “Towards a Difficult Unit” . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graziella Guaragno, Elettra Malossi, and Gianluca Paggi

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The Proportions of the Addizione Erculea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefano Giannetti

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The Social Identity of a Place: The Analysis of the Environment and Its Quality for a Cultural Regeneration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silvia La Placa and Marco Ricciarini

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Zero Emission Burg: Energy Requalification Strategies Within the Folds of the Picturesque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michela Meschini and Giulia Pelliccia

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Beyond the Last Known Visual State: Ideas and Suggestions for the Reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia . . . . . . Diego Zurli

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Digitization and Design of Archaeological Heritage: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach to Flaminia Cultural District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maddalena Ferretti and Ramona Quattrini

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From Nature to City: Complexity and Coexistence of Signs in Archival Drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pasquale Tunzi

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The Historical–Critical Reconstruction for Urban Landscape Understanding: The Restoration of Teramo Cathedral (1926–1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simona Angelone, Tania Valentina Ferro, Pamela Maiezza, Mario Centofanti, and Stefano Brusaporci

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Hypogean Architecture: Apparent Simplicity and Effective Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antonia Valeria Dilauro and Remo Pavone

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Architecture and Popular Devotion: The Double-Code for the Enhancement of the Salento Calvaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Valentina Castagnolo, Francesca Sisci, and Gabriele Rossi

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Stratigraphy of the Gaze: Ruins of Invention. The Dynamic Experience of the “Contemporary Picturesque” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009 Patanè Claudio Urban Landscape and Multi-functioning Elements: Repositioning of Monumental Fountains in Messina After the 1908 Earthquake . . . . 1021 Daniele Colistra Irrelevant Cities: Immaterial Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049 Marinella Arena Re-Build Landscape: Design for the Reuse of Abandoned Quarries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067 Serena Del Puglia Human Spaces: “The Dialogue Between Space, Time and Architecture” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095 Concetta Masseria and Andrea Fancelli Urban Atmospheres: Representation of Intangible Relations . . . . . . . . 1111 Marco Seccaroni, Costanza Maria Aquinardi, and Elisa Bettollini

Landscape and Representation between Complexity and Contradiction

Connections: Digital Revolution in the Post-truth Landscape Fabio Bianconi

Abstract The essay introduces some questions about landscape research and its relations with the actual and increasingly pressing dictatorship of images and the value of digital in contemporary culture. The research develops within the field of investigation of representation, with the aim of showing the centrality of these sciences in correlation with the virtuality of the landscape. The ante litteram intuitions of Robert Venturi are the foundation for tackling the theme without preconceptions, without seeking predefined models, without anticipating what you intend to find. Thus, we intend to read the landscape in relation to the questions of post-truth and the simplifications that are always related to picturesque heuristics. In fact, the contemporary landscape has dried out many of its meanings, becoming mere communication. A process in which every interpretative model of reality is created through cultural action and where culture is collective memory, but given that contemporaneity is canceling collective memory through the hammering of information and disinformation, news and denial, truth or lie, the interpretative modeling process can only transform facts and circumstances into simple sterile opinions. With these circumstances, the conditions for being able to face concrete problems have been lacking for some time, entrusting all hope to communication, the only remedy for the real solution of problems. It is a question of image. The culture of images has denied the existence and veracity of the image itself, which is revealed. An image could be untrue, it could be modified, biased, or corrupt, and it could be a digital simulation. The image creates too many doubts to be taken seriously. Therefore, in the era of the image, in order to describe the concrete problems faced at least for a period of one generation, the real icons are missing. Will our landscape be only an image? Is the image still collective memory? As the memory of experiences has disappeared, it is increasingly difficult to be able to build models to be experienced in reality. The complexity of reality will have no solution except through the rediscovery of our memory, which passes through the restructuring of society, of the common good and participation in the choices that mark entire generations. With these three assumptions, the topics covered are declined in the various research promoted by those who write in the territory of Umbria, all paths united by an irreverent desire to investigate F. Bianconi (B) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_1

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the complexity and contradictions and enter the network of the many connections inherent in the landscape.

1 The Landscape Between Complexity and Contradiction The complexity and contradiction in the landscape are themes inherent in the structural ambiguity of the relations triggered in the man who lives in its places and which are enhanced by the image, a denotative theme of our contemporary culture. The landscape is not only a mosaic or a palimpsest of signs and functions, but is born from the perception, from the holistic relations inherent in the various components and interpretative processes present in figuration and cultural reworking. Complexity does not consist in the interconnection of all the different levels and functions that are needed to be broken down, but as the etymology of the word suggests, the very nature of the landscape is the intertwined network of multiple relations (Fig. 1). The representative field, anchored to the data to study the phenomenon, as it needs to base the research on the definition of replicable methodologies, it reveals itself as the emblematic field of study to investigate the phenomenon by building models capable of integrating multiple information and connecting them. These are called digital draw connections. Representation is the main tool for understanding and knowing morphological aspects, for getting out of the risks of indefiniteness of words and images (Fig. 2). As a premise of the investigation, it is necessary to define the landscape, a basic condition for dealing with the topic with scientificity, to enter its congenital ambiguity and face the complexity and contradiction that characterize its relation with architecture. Giving a definition of landscape is quite complex for many reasons. Above all the very meaning of this action contrasts with the dynamism of the continuous transformation of the object: the Latin term “definitio” indicates limiting, seeking the border, but also it describes with precise and appropriate words the essential qualities and characteristics of an object or concept to distinguish it from another [47, p. 786]. This condition is the same as that required for representation, a technè structured in the selection of “primary information, taken in the form of an image and therefore perceptually, which undergo essential transformations that strip them of apparent forms, reassembling them according to more complex schemes” [100, p. 52]. As a foundation, it can be accepted the notion ratified in Europe by 32 Council member states through the European Landscape Convention, which states that the term “designates a certain part of territory, as it is perceived by populations, whose character derives from the action of natural and/or human factors and their interrelationships “. Thus, the landscape is distinct from the territory and the environment. If architecture extends over the territory, a word that derives from the Latin terrere and refers to the possession, dominion and exercise of power [51, p. 37], the landscape, on the other hand, is linked to perception, in the extemporaneousness of the act of seeing [58, p. 17], to the experience [87], to the projection processes of the subject. There are affinities between the two fields, but if the territory is an objective, measurable and

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Fig. 1 Triangle of measurement of sustainability. Construction of the vitruvius triangle (stability, utility, beauty) redesigned with the three main components that define sustainability (environment, territory, landscape) as its vertices. A simple equilateral triangle that gives the measure of sustainability. Within the equilateral triangle, the level of sustainability may vary according to the quality of the space analyzed, going from 0 (minimum) to 100% (maximum) for the three elements that define the vertices of the triangle

analyzable datum, the landscape remains in the sphere of the virtual, correlated to the subject. Affinity is then found in the pressing need to establish images in the territory, and also in the autonomous value of perception, which may become imagination, but still reveals a process of relation with the complexity of what surrounds us, linked to possession and to a domain, albeit in the virtual sphere. The landscape does not exceed the territory, while there are territories that contain numerous landscapes. The landscape therefore does not correspond even with a (beautiful) panorama, it does not necessarily refer to environmental qualities, it does not respond to territorial functional logics. Rather, the term landscape is a pure concept: all fond of images, we love it, and it is certain that nobody would want to live in a compromised landscape, just as any policy promises the protection and enhancement of beauty. Nobody would like to

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Fig. 2 Triangle of measurement of sustainability. Sustainability is the center of the equilateral triangle and man is placed in its center of gravity. A colored gradient from green to black defines the level of sustainability. The color will go from 0% black to 100% green: the green triangle represents the maximum level of sustainability and the perfect balance with the human being placed inside it; the inverted black triangle represents the absence of sustainability and the end of man

live in an ugly place, there is an interest in living in places capable of providing multiple “services” to man. Despite the loss of sense of community and the loss of value of the public space, beyond the individualism that is however pregnant, it remains the person. Its etymology derives from “mask”, therefore related to the social “function”, but perhaps also from prosopon, as what is before the eyes, something that correlates identity to the relationship. The person is made up of aspirations, desires, planning, not only of necessities. Moreover, in this is the other, even a place, which solicits, moves, questions, relates. The landscape is born with desire, even if not all that interests is objectified. As the current hyper-evaluation of sustainability shows, in the value of Nature with which man has always confronted himself from the beginning of history, one finds that sense of wonder that is opposed to pregnant nihilism. Places have their own ability to “capture” those who are interested in them, “fatal attraction” that triggers a thought connected to vision [7], which thus gives birth to the relation, and therefore the landscape (Fig. 3). However, there is a different interest in the landscape, which certainly derives from a cultural evolution of the sense of living places, we almost always see the reference to picturesque and romantic concepts predominated by rhetoric, but which are harbingers of conceptual dystopias. The rhythms of growth related to the speed of development have led to the creation of places that we regret bitterly today, which can be functional, just as many eco-monsters can be, but not for this reason they respond to man’s deeper needs, despite the lack of structural awareness of this need which is also emotional. The relation between landscape and community is linked to a profound relationship, to the care of the environment that conditions our life, to man’s interest in its places. As an alternative to creating attraction that is often inherent in tourism strategies, we want to promote development by addressing the local community in an introprespective way. The landscape, however, does not bring univocal relations, but multiple connections: “Against the dogmatic inhibition of detachment from the

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Fig. 3 With the triangle of measurement of sustainability, it is possible to analyze different urban and architectural contexts. The abandoned space (disused greenhouses in a green space), although it has a good environmental quality (100%), it has no territorial value (0%), nor landscape value (0%), therefore it is colored only a small light green triangle excluding man from this space, who is involved only marginally. The space of fiction (commercial outlet) has a good environmental quality (100%) and also a good territorial management system (100%), but it has a poor landscape quality, therefore the triangle is colored in green (unsaturated) for it marginally involves man (just his feet) and sustainability is in pain

forms of history that have precluded to modern architecture the main instrument of popular understanding, that is, the reference to collective memory, new trends support the need for contamination between historical memories and tradition of the new” [91]. Collective participation of the meanings to be attributed to a specific territory is central to the construction of the idea of landscape. An action that clearly shows

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the current relevance of what agricultural communities have been and are still in the mountain areas. Collective properties still survive in many Italian [66] and European [44] locations: communalities, or consortiums, or rules, or civic uses, or agricultural universities. It is an ancient model [85] that dates back to the Romans [41], handed down to us, that if studied, and brought into the contemporary [62] it may solve the problems [56] of the contemporary city. In fact, it represents the cause and effect in the construction of communities and places where they live, whose effectiveness is given by the simplicity of the process that has always implemented four fundamental principles: • the certainty of the territorial limit, through the precise identification of a welldefined space; • sharing of objectives by the whole community; • the common utility of the results, through the common exploitation of local resources; • the variability of the community society, and the acquisition of the right to use the resources. The complexity and contradiction in the landscape is then attributable to its dynamic relation with the territory, therefore the geometries, and the additional information that is selected in the perceptive process [61] and corresponds to the internal projections [12], categories of values that allow you to filter and extract images, therefore information, which can then be synthesized and recomposed with new meanings. In fact, the landscape must be understood as “the artificial, not natural result of a culture that perpetually redefines its relationship with nature” [67, p. 29], with information that is therefore manipulated in the project, where “quality is an expression of the consciousness nourished by memory” [93, p. 68]. Thus, the centrality of the representative act clearly emerges: “the action of drawing unites analysis and synthesis always bringing, in the end, to the patient composition of the fragments in a single framework” [78, p. 22]. From a different point of view, with the vision of those who focus on its narration that goes well beyond the description, Italo Calvino in his first novel [38, p. 3) clearly defines what the landscape is, a place with a limit, quality and unique characteristics, in which actions done by men develop: “I had a landscape. But to be able to represent it, it had to become secondary to something else: to people, to stories”. Therefore, in the construction of the idea of landscape it is necessary to investigate the relationship between territory and man, who actively transforms it and passively benefits from it (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4 The space of disaster to nature (a forest fire or natural calamity), analyzed with the triangle of measurement of sustainability, emerges as damage to the environment (0%), poor management of the territory and loss of landscape quality. The colored triangle becomes very small and man is driven out of this space, at least temporarily. The play area (golf course) shows an interesting landscape (100%), the territory has certain advantages (100%) and the environment suffers due to the abuse of water for the maintenance of the turf. Therefore, the large, superfluous and exclusive space intended for only a few people is now unsustainable on an environmental level. The colored triangle (green) still contains man, cuts off his legs and forces him into an overly expensive fiction

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2 The Vitruvian Triad as a Paradigm of Complexity and Contradiction An eye suspended on the whole world, with a double vision between future and past, represents a method of representing the landscape that can lead to the definition of new interpretative models that take into account what has been but also what will be, of complexity and contradictions of the landscape, of mutual connections. The enhancement of a place cannot be separated from its knowledge and our role will therefore be to investigate the territory, move in space, over time and know the material with which it is made. A task that must lead to the formulation of a clear and shared path: to know the past trying to read the future and prefigure possible sustainable development scenarios of the territory and the environment in order to reconstruct or invent still unexpressed or nonexistent landscapes. In this sense, a more careful interpretation of the signs, based on their analysis and the forecast, intended as a representation, of plausible scenarios that can enucleate the landscape value of the place, replaces the modern meaning of landscape construction. Representing the landscape, an action that is linked to the project, means first to base scientific research on relief, on the understanding of the material and immaterial relations underlying the form, to understand its logics and parameters and to simulate its models. Therefore, the action of building reality could express its potential in data analysis and interpretation phase, rather than concentrating all efforts on the synthesis of summary models, often tendentious and sometimes useless. This process requires the definition of new methodologies but also of an interdisciplinary vision, with the integration of data, points of view, skills, approaches. In parallel, it is necessary to consider and evaluate the centrality and value of the survey and project tools, the close correlation between medium and message. Probably, among all the meanings that revolve around this term, it is important to investigate at least three of the parameters that constantly intervene in the construction process: the space, which human work occupies and transforms into a place; time, which allows the work to mature, transforms it and adapts it to the needs of society; the material, with which the work itself is made. It is clear that sustainable development, in order to be such, must be “supported” by both the environment and the territory in the clear meaning of the two terms. In fact, if the environment involves the biological aspect of space, whose quality is related to the living beings that populate it, while the territory implies the space of production and transformation, where the human being exercises his social functions. The two aspects perhaps denote the same geographical area, but with two different and often contrasting views. What supports human artifice (architectural, infrastructural …) therefore is the context, the space where the sign takes shape and whose shape marks and structures the space itself, ensuring solutions that are congruent with both the ecological and social dimensions, up to reach the construction of “places” (Fig. 5). In the sedimentation of the territorial signs, the paradigm of sustainability is expressed, in that they represent the result of a selection process that time has inexorably carried out, safeguarding only the sustainable and destroying the rest. Only

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Fig. 5 The lifeless space (the desert) appears as a fascinating lunar place from a landscape point of view (100%), with an environment that is impossible to live in (0%) and a territory that is difficult to manage (0%). The green triangle that is formed contains only the eyes of man, as if to show him the uniqueness of an extreme landscape, but the rest of the human body is excluded since man could never survive in it. The unfinished space (the road infrastructure) shows itself as a place of connection that could be important for the development of the territory (100%), but also harmful to the environment (0%) and to the compromised natural landscape (0%). The green triangle will contain only a small part of man, so much to denounce the unsustainability of unfinished infrastructural works

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in the modern era, that is, since economic development has no longer allowed time to fulfill the important selective task of designing the territory, it has become essential to extract the concept of sustainability from the definition of architecture and give it its autonomy. In fact, from innate quality, naturally contained in the rules of construction, it has become an accessory quality, to the point of becoming an ideology today. If the last century was dictated by the needs of territorial sustainability, of ownership, of development, and if the same finds a balancing element in environmental sustainability, the landscape can be understood as a third element of a triad. For architecture, this figure was the founding ideogram, which Vitruvius summarized in his three terms of Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas. Even on a larger scale, the relation between man and nature must be marked by that usefulness of the territory, that stability deriving from an environmental balance, but also from a horizon that elevates the forms, placing them in correspondence with man, culture, beauty, so tied to perception, to what is seen. The Vitruvian triad, schematized as an equilateral triangle whose vertices represent the usefulness, solidity and beauty of a work, could be extended to the definitions of the environment, territory and landscape. The solidity of a healthy environment, the usefulness of a well-managed territory, the beauty of a landscape. The landscape opens up to a new dimension, denies the flatness of a balance between two points, of mediation, identifying a form that incorporates man. The idea of Vitruvian man reinterpreted by Leonardo is in fact linked to the triad by placing man at the center of the cosmos. In particular, for living, to live our places poetically, a productive territory, a wild environment, and even postcard views of territorial sections are not enough. The Vitruvian triad has always brought with it the idea of balance, sustainability, where the center of gravity of the triangle depicts its ideogram and corresponds with the navel of man, with his centrality. The complexity and contradiction in the landscape is then placed in its dynamic relation with the environment and the territory. Taking this triangle as an interpretative tool with the man placed inside it, the relation that focuses on sustainability, shows itself as an effective reading key against the trivialization processes evoked by Robert Venturi in his Gentle Manifesto [106]. In fact, we can enter the paradoxes of the projects of places that do not know how to grasp these dimensions, to validate the operation of the critical proposal. If you take shopping centers as an example, understood in the worst way as places of replication of picturesque stylistic features, these places can also be a suitable environment, if designed according to principles of sustainability; the territory is certainly productive, but if they lose the aesthetic dimension of the landscape by taking away the dimension of living, the triangle flattens out so that man cannot stay inside. The same condition occurs when the environmental dimension is lost, for example in an artificial golf course, a functional area because it is productive, a formal landscape that recalls quality images, but without a real relation with nature, which reveals it as lacking a real quality and sustainability. Finally, the third case is the loss of the territorial dimension, as expressed by the paradox of a desert, a functional environment, a fascinating landscape, but a place where man cannot live due to the absence of functions.

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The centrality of the landscape therefore represents that essential dimension with respect to which to rethink our places, the balance, denied by financial logics and by a dematerialization of relations, not founded on man, does not put itself at his service, like a machine that has independent rules from who animates it. In this context, the correspondence placed by the legislation between landscape and perception opens up to new horizons. By both imposing considerations on the value of the subject to whom the work is put to service and on the relation processes that must arise with the places, and by moving research on the interpretative relation of the vision and image underlying this definition. Entering the complexity and contradiction in the landscape means enhancing the plurality of meanings and the centrality of relations. On the other hand, following Robert Venturi, despite the intertwined network of relations that are created between the environment, the territory and the landscape, the project manages to find lifeblood in the confrontation with the complexity and contradictions inherent therein, by tackling the theme with ease, without going straight in a comparison uneven with the values of the time, rather advocating a continuous experimentation, supported by freedom but also by irony, “the tool with which to compare and combine divergent values … for a pluralist society” [107, p. 161]. Because otherwise the landscape can become almost a monster, unknown and unknowable. It is boring or useless, closed in itself and self-referenced. In dynamism, in a friendly relation enriched by curiosity, you discover the landscape, read its story and represent it. Only in this relation, the landscape can also be invented, giving rise to new relations and meanings, with what may seem secondary but can still impact and determine the quality of our spaces (Fig. 6).

3 The Contemporaneity of the Aversion to the Picturesque Robert Venturi can be seen as a profound subversive, irreverent to the dogmas of architecture, to the sinister application of canons and preconceptions by virtue of evoked styles and hypothetical coherences. Through “Complexity and contradictions in architecture” he managed to propose supplementary readings to foundational themes starting from the analysis of case studies, many of which come from the European context, an area characterized by structural issues with history and memory that contribute to defining a plurality of meanings. The theme of hermeneutics that opens from here can today be read as a substantial question for architecture but also, by extension, for the landscape. Robert Venturi wants to break with the idea of a deterministic system, where an action corresponds to a reaction. In the hypothesis of a sign system, architecture is confronted with place and society. Its complex and contradictory architecture feeds on the images and forms of the architecture of the past that become elements to be composed, according to the modalities intuited by Pop Art, but which is also based on the value of the landscape as intuited by Frank Lloyd Wright [105, p. 68]. Robert Venturi underlined how the architecture lives of its relation with the context and the landscape, a theme that is clearly revealed in a particular way in Italy, with

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Fig. 6 The space of decay (Le Vele di Scampia, Naples), holistically urban, economic, social, presents itself as a poorly managed territory (0%), with an unhealthy environment (0%), with a canceled landscape (0%). The resetting of all the elements leads to the death of man, covered by a black triangle that rests on him like a shroud. The space of reuse (High Line, New York), with the redevelopment of marginal places, defines a well-governed territory (100%), a redeveloped environment (100%) an attractive and engaging landscape (100%). The green triangle occupies all the space and its center of gravity is man, an emblematic example of sustainability

the stratification of the signs of history; it stands as an emblematic, almost hyperbolic paradigm, which it can help to develop substantial considerations useful for other territorial areas. In fact, in the Italian peninsula there are multiple forms and representations, related to a rich nature and biodiversity, marked in a widespread way by the presence of man in history, by the signs of different cultures, which overlap in an evolution of the place that retain its values.

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The implicit reference to the American landscape, however, is substantial, subsequently declined in its Las Vegas paradigm [107]: American cities, but also the streets, the different architectures, are juxtaposed by sign systems of images and words, by a search for mass media communication. It is an explanation of a dimension still present in the most historicized contexts, where architecture is still an expression of culture and projection of the individual or the community. The substantial question, however, is the predominance of attraction logics, which exalted and repeated in a din of signs they define a semantic labyrinth (Fig. 7). His attention to the centrality of perception, to the vision and vitality of communication and dialogue breaks with the still implicitly romantic stylistic features of a modernism that tends to abstract and separate. The need to recompose the totality that corresponds to the extension in the sphere of the landscape is a theme full of complexity and contradictions, certainly not at the center of the interest of the culture of the post-war decades. In this regard, it is possible to identify the reasons for this development partly for the escape from the overwhelming mechanisms of the city, partly for the awareness of an autonomous communication capacity of the space outside the city, partly for the desire for knowledge and possession. However, there is also a substantial fracture of society, which has lost the sense of community, and with it, it has segmented the processes of identity. Attention to the landscape then expresses a desire of contemporary culture to find relations, according to a relationship that is played almost exclusively on a cultural level, but which concretely declines in the field of the visual, so structural in our society of the image. Robert Venturi, as well as much of the contemporary American architecture, wants to take on the arduous task of building a language, he wants to include this dimension that appears to be necessary within architectural elements loaded with symbolism. His compositional researches have marked the history of architecture, even if today they show themselves as daughters of their time, perhaps also for the renunciation of architecture to enter this vision: Luis Kahn [76] fascinated the new generations by designing spaces, lights, silences, with his will to refer to a spiritual sphere, just as Gestalt, between Kepes [70] and Arnhem [6], had introduced the value of phenomenological research for architecture. These concepts are at the basis of contemporary architectural thought. Today perhaps it seems that the issues and challenges that enter the essential issues of architectural conceptualization have a secondary role, in the face of neo-functionalist logic and an implicit spectacularization of architectural forms that refers to what can be called a neo-picturesque. In architectural aesthetics, beyond the formal complexification guaranteed by digital, there is still the predominance of the image, which if on the one hand translates into forms of media exaltation, on the other hand, it can be read in the rhetoric of coherent architectural images, but still pompous, implicitly rhetorical. The concept of picturesque, to which reference is made, can literally be understood as a search for characteristic and particular elements to excite, to create sensations. As can be seen from the etymology, the concept of picturesque is linked to painting [37], and in particular (especially) to the representation of the landscape developed in the eighteenth century in Great Britain [3]. This theme is then revealed also in

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Fig. 7 The space of archeology (the Parthenon, Athens), a place that evokes history, determines a well-managed territory (100%), a healthy environment (100%), a unique landscape (100%). The green triangle completely involves man, happily immersed in a space that represents the archetype of sustainability. The space of rhetoric (the Parthenon in Nashville), where what the form emulates is not substance, determines a territory that works, a healthy environment, but also a landscape mortified by an architectural configuration that is completely out of context. Man cannot be contained in the light green triangle. The space of fiction (Teatre Nacional de Catalunya), where form is not substance and even structure is denied, it further denounces the denial of what one would like to emulate. The territory works, the environment is healthy, and the landscape is deeply mortified by the excess of eclecticism. Man is only partially contained in the gray triangle

the landscape architecture synthesized in the English gardens [64], which seek to overcome the previous logic of the Italian garden by breaking geometry through paths that create sensations and emotions. The relation of architecture with the landscape, with its different and heterogeneous forms, with the constant relationship between Nature and man, becomes the area in which it is easier to find that search for emotions inherent in the romantic spirit, implicitly aimed at the Sublime, structurally characterized in the exceptional. The landscape clearly shows how the substantial theme at stake is not the discovery of exceptional places or an education to emotions, which instead is a central and foundational theme, but it shows the desire to define canons that are so structured that they adapt reality to preconceived categories. The search for the picturesque, understood as an invention and not as a discovery, is then the precession of the simulacrum with the anticipation of the model to reality (Fig. 8). If for all Modernity, the concept of landscape was associated with the observation that the representation of the same coincided with reality [102, pp. 124–129], in the contemporary model the action of interpretation no longer relies on the idea of precession of the simulacrum. From the profound crisis of the contemporary landscape, it clearly emerges that the modern interpretative model is no longer able to analyze or synthesize solutions, given that the current reality is so complex and the action must pass from precession to forecasting the future. In fact, contemporaneity should not compare preconceived models with unstoppable realities, but interpret what exists and prefigure possible scenarios. This process can be seen in Goethe’s Journey to Italy, for example, on his arrival in Umbria, in October 1786. He was in search of the classicism anticipated by Palladio’s drawings of the Temple of Minerva in Assisi: at the sight of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, today’s landmark of the whole Umbrian territory, he was absolutely not involved, since it did not belong to his aesthetic vocabulary and the vision of the same seemed cumbersome. “The enormous constructions of the Babelic overlap of churches in which San Francesco rests, I left them on the left hand with dislike…” [59, p. 127]. Goethe continues on his journey in search of the Classic, and in Spoleto, “I went to the aqueduct which also acts as a bridge … For the third time I see a work of the ancients … the effect of grandeur is always the same. A second nature, intended for public utility” [59, p. 133]. Even Dickens, in Impressions of Italy in 1845, points out to the reader that in observing the tower of Pisa, it appears different to him from

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Fig. 8 The historic urban space (the historic center of Perugia) which maintains an acceptable level of government of the territory (75%), a healthy environment (90%) and an interesting landscape (100%). The green triangle contains man in a suitably sustainable space. The peri-urban space (San Sisto, Perugia) of the peripheral city with services and green areas, it offers a well-governed territory (100%), a fairly healthy environment and an acceptable landscape. The green triangle still contains the man, who feels compressed and who would like to have more spaces for relationships, more landscape and greater healthiness. The peripheral space (Ponte San Giovanni, Perugia) of the rarefied city shows a territory that is difficult to manage, a less healthy environment and a landscape that is losing quality. The green triangle no longer contains man. An action on the spaces of the relationship, on the reduction of urbanization and the enhancement of green areas, could restore sustainability to these spaces

the depictions, smaller, showing that for him too, the journey is a search to confirm that reality coincides with the image you have of a place. “The leaning tower, all tilted in that uncertain light: modest original of the old figures in the school books, which illustrate “The Wonders of the world”. As most things connected—when we first met them—with schoolbooks and study hours, it was too small. I felt it very distinctly. It did not appear at all as high above the walls as I had hoped: it was another of the many deceptions hatched by Mr. Harris, the bookseller on the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard in London” [48, p. 284]. However, the neo-picturesque empties itself of conceptual categories, but is clothed with the value of the image and images. It is the logic of appearing, the Hollywood culture of the star, certainly not the vision of the hero of Romanticism. Thus, architecture loses that mythological charge certainly reinforced by ideological thoughts, that desire to be an expression of man’s depth, a metaphor for his existence. If on the one hand there is then an overcoming of the moralism of rules and dogmas, on the other hand, in the enhancement of a horizontal connectivity, capable of integrating multiple information, it is lost a dimension of depth of an architecture corresponding to the liquid society who lives it [11]. By losing certainties and convictions, losing substantial relationships in the community, architecture loses its social and identity dimension, it loses its ability to be the expression of a community primarily due to the crisis of the community itself. Without reference points, the unbridled individualism inherent in the predominance of economic logics emerges, the fruit of which is the culture of appearing, whose “only certainty is uncertainty” [11] (Fig. 9).

4 From Liquid Society to the Post-truth Landscape Contemporary culture, therefore also architecture, enters through its “liquid” state on new dynamics, among which the theme of post-truth certainly has a central role. “On November 16, 2016 Oxford Dictionary announced that it had decreed “post-truth” as the word of the year and in the following days the media—old and new—relaunched the news with emphasis, as if it were a scientific discovery. A choice imposed by a

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Fig. 9 The space of the image (Il Bosco Verticale in Milan), certainly interesting, presents itself as an icon that everyone can look at, but few can afford. The quality of land management is excellent (100%), the landscape to look at is interesting (100%),and the environment (25%) is mortified by the extreme use of nature (trees forced to grow in flower boxes tens of meters height from the ground and unnecessary and constant consumption of water). An unsustainable space, a green triangle that excludes a large part of man (if not for an arm with a hand that pays) where man is excluded for environmental, social and economic reasons. The space of nature (Bercy park in Paris), a place also man-made, shows itself as a well-governed territory (100%), a healthy environment (100%), a unique landscape (100%). A place that, although exclusive, guarantees an exemplary vision of environmental sustainability. Man is completely involved and is the center of gravity of space

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significant novelty: In the formation of public opinion, objective facts are now less influential than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs and in this context, the truth becomes irrelevant” [80, p. 9]. It becomes emblematic to underline that for this context the conceptualization is implicitly correlated to an indistinctness between reality and representation, in the loss of depth and attention that leads to removing the differences between true and likely, in the loss of criticism, the real area to which it is attributable to the text by Robert Venturi. In the culture of images, the theme of post-truth then appears to be a purely representative question. These reflections are evident in contemporary architectural research and in the wider question inherent in the desire to enter into their complexity and contradiction, which is the dimension of the landscape, a wider scale where you can read architecture as a holistic phenomenon. For architecture and landscape, mechanisms and simplifications are triggered, and they deplete their contents. The first structural problem is certainly the absence of new data and the difficulty of transforming the data into information and this into knowledge, a path that is not trivial by itself. But, a second problem is the factiousness with which the data is interpreted, made true by alignments and desires that prevent the dialectic and constructive confrontation that is the basis of development. Translating the thought of Lee McIntyre, professor of ethics at the Harvard Extension School [81], the posttruth landscape arises when ideology gets the better of reality because what is truth, it is of little or no interest. No effort should be made to deceive anyone; no false evidence should be built: what matters is having the strength to impose one’s own version, likely, attractive, regardless of the facts. Just repeat simple and captivating concepts, even if unfounded, because nobody should check them. “Umbria is the green heart of Italy” and there is no need to know if we are in the sphere of opinions or information. The central theme is the communicative impact, which can manage to question the facts with unproven statements, to respond to the data with the dialectic, identifying with the public’s perceptions, exploiting the pervasive value of desire.

5 Research and Representation Representing a landscape means defining it, reconfiguring the image in a model “capable of making thought operational” [46, p. 11]. In this context, research today has the essential role of rigorously defining processes and strategies, taking strength from the hunger for data that can respond to paradoxes of a post-truth landscape, on stereotypes that can act as a parasol to cover interests or incompetence. Whoever finds himself representing the landscape “always finds himself operating in a sort of middle ground between the work of the geographer, intent on elevating his point of view in a zenithal position, and the landscape designer in the constant search for a shot from the ground” [15, p. 18]. Knowledge is guaranteed by the recomposition of successive shots that structure the figuration, an uninterrupted process of verifying the relation between singularity and totality that avoids the traps of prospective

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deceptions [53] and manifest their founding continuity [4]. Perception testifies to the transition from totality to detail and so the study of the image of the city can only follow this rule. Only once the context has been understood, it is possible to grasp the meaning of the architectural text, the narrated story and the meanings of the single words, increasingly rich in proportion to the temporal sedimentation. Only at this point, the analysis tries to understand the linguistic mechanisms, the rules and the value of the sign balances and it deals with the basic morphemes and their meanings, the peculiar and characteristic terms so evident in any scientific culture. It is therefore interesting to note, in this relation between definition and representation, how the idea of landscape follows the codification of perspective representation, which with Brunelleschi and the Renaissance acquires the scientific character of biuniqueness to become a method [83]. And if perspective allows us to represent the relation between what is close and what is infinitely distant, then this condition allows us to define objects that are lost within the limits of sight, which in any case represents the very limit of the definition of landscape, which becomes the object of drawing. The relation between reality and representation, at the basis of any design action [5], thus allows to think of the territory perceived as the object of possible prefiguration, a condition that leads to determining the landscape project, which cannot evade its representation. The fact that in order to define the landscape one cannot draw on a universal imagination also derives from the plurality of visions that each civilization has of its own landscapes and its different representations, which suggest all the innumerable ways that man has to see, imagine and represent the world itself. At least two phases (the first relation and the second synthesis) and two moods are needed to start seeing a landscape. The relation it triggers between man and the territory in which he is immersed, at this moment begins the communication by images, ideograms, research into morphemes, and recognition of ideogrammatical images belonging to the figures of the representation of the landscape itself. The second phase it triggers after recognition and it is the synthesis of thoughts, which leads to the prefiguration of possible scenarios. In fact, in the landscape, man aspires to see the best reflection of his action in the territory and in the environment [111, pp. 13–15], a process that therefore “organizes, completes and synthesizes the structure by detecting it in the particular optical images” [8, p. 128]. Digital transforms and enriches the model building processes inherent in the representation of the landscape. For Franco Farinelli the conquest of the moon in 1969 represented a real revolution not so much for those steps between the craters, but for having made two computers converse between them [52], in a hermeneutic between cause and effect that adds even richer meanings than the original [45]. Over the past few years, there has been an exponential growth in the use of “digital” not only in our daily lives, but also in the operational and evolutionary processes of urban environments. The architecture historian Antoine Picon, in his well-known book “Digital Culture in Architecture”, asserts that digital culture significantly influences the way places are designed and, at the same time, it is creating new forms of subjectivity in individuals. This is favored by the ever-present stronger of IT tools in

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any social sphere [89], creating what for Paul Virilio is a “meta-city” [108], defined by multimedia connections and interactivity in rethinking the very concept of city. The relation between architecture and landscape is affected by the digital multiuniverses [65]: as the industrial revolution changed the face of the inhabited centers [13, 72, 73, 92, 95], as well the current culture [103] and the connective society [39, 43, 74, 104] are an expression of the “fourth industrial revolution” [97]. This revolution leads to reflect in the logics of its spaces that same “intelligence” of the environment more and more permeated by digital. Unlike the dreamlike projections of engulfment of machines on man, technology represents an ever-increasing opportunity to focus on the person [42, 60, 71]. With digital connectivity, in fact, the relations between “people and things”, between “things and things”, and therefore also between “people and people” [99] are transformed, because technology allows to share information, which is the true heart of the revolution [55]. The impact of digital technology with its immaterial overlap of communication aspects transforms the relation between architecture and context, it redesigns the ways of “being in the world” in a new way, impacting substantially on design strategies. However, the relation is linked to knowledge, which, in the context of design, passes through representation, the only tool able to accurately describe reality to build a model (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10 The transformation of the Umbrian landscape (1950): redevelopment of the banks of the Chiascio River (Umbria)

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6 Landscape Laboratory These are the coordinates of the international landscape research laboratory coordinated by the writer. In the activity carried out, multiple and heterogeneous areas were analyzed, which incorporate the study of architecture [21, 20, 19], of urban space [54, 26, 29, 31, 22, 17, 16], of the territory [32, 27, 23, 2], and of the landscape [18, 50, 35, 30, 31, 25, 24, 28, 18]. The vastness of the field of application finds the same foundation in the theme of representative centrality, in the definition of new interpretative models for the simulation of the optimal possible scenarios. We therefore want to present here some paradigmatic research developed by entering the complexity and contradictions of the wider scale of the landscape in relation to the multiple functions of the architectural project. As in all projects, the goal is certainly to find solutions to live better. The search for data that has characterized all the paths, is based on a multidisciplinary reading, where at the center are the image and the attention to how those who live in those places will perceive them. The study of the signs, their interaction in the landscape, the analysis of possible conflicts, characterized an approach to the project based on the search for relations. The role of the University, in also representing the intangible relations inherent in the relationship between form and the environment, has always been supportive of the project, to connect analyzes and simulations. The searches for the landscapes perhaps partly depart from that image of the Green Heart of Italy, although without denying the landscape quality of the places, but they are the first steps of a path that wants to be shared and supported in its growth. The research attentions is based on the new media and their impact in the design [109] because our communication, amplified through the new virtual net, can guarantee new connections [98] reshaping social cohesion [75]. The Vitruvian triad, intended as an expression of complexity and contradiction in the landscape and the centrality of sustainability as an expression of a new humanism, acts as a guide and measure of the proposed regeneration. The design, however linked to the tendency of the project, becomes the place where to give birth to relations and to experience, in virtuality, the value and impact of transformations (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11 Green Community of Chiascio: integrated area project for the redevelopment of the Chiascio River

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7 Regenerating Chiascio: The First Green Community in Umbria The first example proposed is inherent in the landscape regeneration of an entire regional sector. The definition of a connective strategy of the basin of the Chiascio, one of the most important rivers of Umbria and tributary of Tiber, has the intention to draw in a holistic and homogeneous way the development of this fulcrum in the heart of Umbria, through the enhancement of the peculiarities of the territories, re-establishing the network of physical and intangible relationships. Our territories appear to be fragmented, unable to cooperate and create a system, thus hindering attempts at local development from which they could instead draw energy and give them added value. The objective is a territorial project, with the foundation of a Green Community: “green”, in a territory that has preserved an important natural heritage consisting mainly in water, biodiversity, ecosystems and landscape, necessarily refers to a very precise approach of a more intelligent use of the resources of the territory, while “community” represents the will to abandon the divisive idea of reasoning for portions of territory, but arrange a “communities of communes” recombining all to a valley, river delta or river. The intention is then to construct a concerted territorial development strategy, focused on an agreement in the exploitation of existing resources and in the co-design and co-production of the future of such places (Fig. 12).1

8 The Perception and Loss of Points of Reference in the Landscape of Campello sul Clitunno The aim of the study is to identify the landscape features of the Campello sul Clitunno area. In order to bring out the territorial issues that affect the interpretative process, some perceptive experiments have been put in place in order to collect analytical data deriving from multiple users. Thanks to the facilitation provided by the network and social channels, a preliminary online survey on the qualities of the Campello landscape was prepared as a first step. From the interpretation of the questionnaire it emerged that among the main features that characterize its value are the olive groves (elements of the rural landscape) and the villages above them (elements of the historical landscape), while among the detractors of the qualities of the landscape you can find orientation difficulties due to the absence of proximal reference points. It is clear that part of the problem lies in the physical conformation of the place, which with the approach 1 The

present work is part of the results of the wider research entitled “Integrated strategies for the Chiascio basin”, developed by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with the Municipality of Assisi, Bastia Umbra, Bettona, Gubbio, Perugia, Torgiano and Valfabbrica (2019–2020). Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Andrea Fancelli.

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Fig. 12 Green Community of Chiascio: study of the hydrographic basin of the Chiascio River

of the observer precludes the view of the characteristic olive-grove belt and of the villages that act as reference points, even if further elements contribute to the loss of orientation such as in particular the uneven and aggressive spaces of the widespread city. Various tools were used for the analysis of the phenomenon and in particular, the eye tracker was used experimentally. The recorded data were then reworked through open source software, Pupil Player, from which it was possible to export videos with identified the most observed areas of the territory or heat-map; or graphic representations that identify, in a time interval, where the gaze lingers longer. The data collection experiences involved a significant number of respondents, with 200 cards and the experimentation of the use of eye trackers for 50 subjects who, from the Castle of Pissignano, observed the Clitunno valley for about a minute. After the observation, they were asked to answer some questions about the experience. The collected data have been processed in order to identify the peculiar characteristics of the landscape with particular attention to the attractors and detractors [86, pp. 53– 55]. In fact, the eye tracker allows you to know the set of points on which the eye dwells independently of the observer’s will and, therefore, it collects information of the unaware perception.

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Considering short intervals of the videos (maximum 5 s), corresponding to observed objects (panoramic view towards Assisi), it is possible to superimpose the different results through digital processing (Offline Surface Tracker). The processing in fact allows recognizing the surfaces through markers and allows analyze the points fixed by the observer by generating a heat map that defines and classifies the most observed areas. From the first summaries, it emerged that most of the volunteers, when asked what they had observed, replied that they had looked at Assisi in the distance. In fact, the answers collected are coincident with the data extracted with the heat map (Pupil Angle Dispersion Fixation Detector3D). However most fixations, excluding those directly focused on the city of San Francesco, unknowingly insisted on a recent building complex, a real detractor placed halfway up and out of context both for the colors and for the building typology. In this sense, the usefulness of the analysis clearly emerges and how the perceptive study can prove to be a useful tool for the analysis as well as for implementing design strategies for the mitigation of landscape criticalities and for directing the protection and territorial development. With the same intentions, the search proceeded with the same number of volunteers who were asked to watch the video projection of the road route of the Via Flaminia that crosses the territory of Campello from South to North. The data emerged show that the main problem is represented by the signage, which, for the detected quantity, acts as a real disturbing element. Furthermore, from the north, a strong negative impact is the overhead power line that defiles the olive grove below the Castle of Pissignano, the concrete wall substructures and obsolescent road barriers attract attention at the expense of the Tempietto sul Clitunno, an important cultural heritage of Roman times, which remains completely unnoticed. The resulting design cue suggests interventions regarding the signage, thinking of a plan that limits its use and type. Furthermore, the study of an orientation plan that exploits similar technologies to identify new strategies that enhance the perceptibility of the punctual goods of the territory in an alternative or integrative way of signage becomes interesting and with high functional potential (Fig. 13).2

9 The Perception for the Enhancement of Historic Centers for the Landscape Contract of Lake Trasimeno As part of the proposals advanced for the definition of the Landscape Contract of Lake Trasimeno, projects were tested with the aim of identifying the main criteria

2 The

present work collects part of the results of the wider research entitled “Integrated strategies for the enhancement of the landscape of Campello sul Clitunno (PG)”, developed in the 2016– 2017 period by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with the Municipality of Campello sul Clitunno and the Antonio Meneghetti Foundation, working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Maria Pia Calabrò, Michela Meschini, Marco Seccaroni.

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Fig. 13 The perception and loss of points of reference in the landscape of Campello sul Clitunno

for the regeneration and enhancement of the landscape, historic centers and cultural heritage [28]. In particular, the study analyzed the relation between public space and its vision, through perceptual analysis and survey. The experimentation was conducted in the historic center of Castiglione Del Lago by comparing two important techniques (Action Cam and Eye Tracker) and the relative results. The goal is to provide designers with new data to intervene in the public space with greater awareness regarding, above all, the dynamics for the enhancement of the local image. The experimentation with the Action Cam software was conducted with a large sample of volunteers who were asked to make some videos with the GoPro digital camera. No volunteers were given particular indications on the purpose of the video. They were asked to “look around” by shooting and using the HiLight Tags option whenever they observed something of interest to them, both positive and negative.

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From the analysis of the results, some singularities emerged which were more attractive than others. On an operational level, about sixty tags were examined in the videos corresponding to the clearest connotations. The tags were divided into three macro-themes: ToLook (literally to look at, with reference to the tags that concerned panoramic views or architectures, 19 tags), ToUse (tags related to the functional sphere, such as street furniture elements, street lamps, waste bins, seats, 18 tags), ToDo (tags referring to the sphere of making, tasting, buying, trying, 23 tags). It therefore emerges that the elements of street furniture, such as street lamps and traffic bollards, have been reported more than others. The observation of the windows and exhibitors of the typical shops of the center has been preferred several times to the observation of architecture and spatial quality. An example is the fact that many volunteers who participated, only one reported the terracotta decorations of a historic building, the others paid attention to the typical products on display. Many have been attracted to people, because the prerogative of the attraction is to observe “someone who does something” which is much more interesting than to observe what is immobile. Subsequently, a significant number of volunteers (different from the previous ones) were asked to use the tool for analyzing eye perception, the eye tracker, and to follow the same itinerary, without giving any type of indication and leaving them free to observe. From the analysis of the data collected in the videos, through the Pupil Labs software, the eye traces corresponding to fixings of five seconds were displayed. Analyzing the obtained results, it was possible to highlight that also in this case the elements of the street furniture, shop windows, shop displays, advertising signs and writings have captured the attention of the volunteers, leaving the observation of the architectures and of urban spaces. By comparing the data extracted from GoPro digital photographic camera and from eye tracking, it was possible to notice that the results are quite similar, that the attention is mainly captured by moving objects and by small details of particular shape or color rather than static elements (Figs. 14 and 15).3

10 Digital Models and Algorithms for the Study of Visual Impact in the Perugia Case Study The current legislation on the study of visual impact reveals foundational scientific gaps, which compromise its reliability. For this purpose, it was considered of great interest to define an algorithm to estimate the relation between vision and space 3 The

present work is part of the results of the wider research entitled “Study of the anthropic transformations of the Umbrian landscape”, developed by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with the Umbria Region, working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Maria Pia Calabrò, Simona Ceccaroni, Michela Meschini, Marco Seccaroni, years 2015–2017.

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Fig. 14 The trasimeno landscape contract

through attributes of value in a digital transposition [101, p. 23]. The algorithm, as a system of relations and connections, guarantees coherence between the parties and compliance with an overall logic, so much so that the modification of the parameters propagates throughout the system taking into account the relations that exist within it. In the case in question, the input is a digital elevation model (DEM) created through the photo-modeling procedure of images from Google Earth, processed using the ReMake software. The generated 3D model is a portion of the city of Perugia, georeferenced and scaled. The algorithm was built starting from the study of several aspects that affect the visual perception, in particular of the ecological perspective, cognitive sciences and perimetry [57]. The application test was carried out on the Minimetrò track, which from Madonna Alta station arrives to Fontivegge station. This experimentation was carried out in dynamic conditions, taking into account the variation of the visual field as a function of speed. A mathematical function was then constructed to approximate the conditions and a value was assigned to each element. Once the 3D model was generated, it was inserted into the algorithm

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Fig. 15 The atlas of objectives of the river, lake and landscape contracts of Umbria

and the route and travel speed were set. A colored mesh surface was obtained as an explanatory output of the results. On the surface, the chromatic scale associates color with perception and in particular, yellow is associated with what is poorly perceived and grows linearly up to red, which identifies the most perceived elements. This summary allowed identifying the elements of the territory that are most perceived and, therefore, defined the same elements as the most significant in the construction of the landscape. Subsequently, in order to test the validity of the algorithm, a parallel experiment was carried out with the eye-tracker on the same journey. Through comparison software, the movement of the eye and the fixations to the elements of the surrounding areas were related and it was therefore possible to accurately identify what is perceived and for how long, thus creating a heat map. Each experimentation

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Fig. 16 Frame extracted from the recording with the eye-tracker carried out along the Perugia Minimetrò route

through eye-track was then compared, obtaining a summary value compared in turn with the output of the algorithm. The comparison between the two methods showed that the results are almost comparable by demonstrating the validity of the algorithm. This process also allows evaluating if and in what way a new element, inserted in the landscape, alters the perception of the same. The purpose of this applied research concerned the possibility of building an analysis tool but also of programming and design, so much so that the indicators on which the algorithm is based for the evaluation can also be used as design and optimization parameters (Fig. 16).4

11 The Perception in the Historic Center of Terni The analyzed area is a portion of the historic center of Terni, which from Piazza Tacito, across the Corso, reaches Palazzo Spada. The vocation is commercial and receptive, even if due to the economic crisis there has been a reduction in the number of activities. Despite this, it still represents one of the most important commercial areas in the territory. The area in question is a noteworthy stretch of interest because it has many peculiarities inside. In an extremely limited space, there are in fact a pedestrian area, intersections with driveways, a square with a recent urban furniture 4 The

present work collects part of the results of the broader research on the relation between perception and urban space that has been carried out in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2015 by a research team consisting of Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Maria Pia Calabrò, Michela Meschini, Marco Seccaroni.

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Fig. 17 Colored mesh using an algorithm and EEG helmet to represent the emotions one feels when moving in the center of Terni

arrangement and a square with an important Renaissance palace. Moreover, the object of the analysis in question is the emotional state that these elements generate in the user, and the way they influence the latter. The data acquisition took place using EEG Emotiv Epoc and, for geographic coordinates, a Samsung Gear S3. The experimentation was carried out in the summer period over six weeks. From observers between the ages of 22 and 55, including 14 women and 20 men, were acquired 34 recordings. The experimentation began on the east side of Piazza Tacito, after which the observer was invited to walk the main city street to Palazzo Spada, and then go back. The acquired EEG RAW data were processed by Emotiv PRO and exported in CSV format with valence and arousal. The results show that the area can be divided into four zones according to the emotions aroused by observers. At the starting point, on average, a feeling of strong stress emerges due to the area highly congested by car traffic; continuing, the pedestrian zone represents an area that oscillates between serenity and calm except near the intersections with the driveways. In the final part of Corso Tacito, a gradual transition from a state of calm to a high degree of stress near Palazzo Spada clearly emerges. From this analysis, it appears that the pedestrian area of the city street is perceived as a comfortable space for users, but the fact that it is located between two highly trafficked squares limits its potential (Fig. 17).5 5 This

work collects part of the results of the research project “New responsive templates. Skills, tools and actions for contemporary landscapes” developed by the University of Perugia, Department

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12 Color Planning for the Enhancement of Urban Space in Deruta Territory The perceptive study of the urban space and the research on the image of the city saw its realization with the Deruta Color Plan,6 for which a repeatable theoretical model was developed. Which assumes a general methodological character. Identified the areas corresponding to the territorial limits classified by the General Regulatory Plan as historical centers, the research led to the development of a perceptual analysis model through the aid of the parametric algorithms described above. The development of this digital procedure has become especially useful for obtaining immediate assessments of the existing building, through dynamic points of view, different paths and speeds. The first step for the experimentation was to generate a three-dimensional model of the territory, after which the algorithm developed with the Grasshopper software assigned to each surface a level of the perceived data by intersecting the model with a defined number of visual cones parameterized along the track and variables as a function of speed. According to the laws of optics, values are estimated by placing the scientific theory of standard perimetry as a basis [88]. The analysis was thus applied along the main streets of the inhabited centers, in both directions of travel, verifying in certain case studies the correctness of the data modeled with direct assessments. The application of this algorithm has thus allowed us to understand what are the most visible elements, giving them an attribute value with the aid of a chromatic scale, a parameter described in the research as a visual impact. In parallel, a survey and cataloging process was developed that involved all the facades of the historic centers, developed in more than 200 tables. The Plan has the task of identifying the new image of the city and it has set the goal of enhancing the identity elements that denote the urban form. The current interpretation of the city was derived from the analyticity deriving from digital experimentation, a model that allowed identifying the relation between color and vision. With this foundation, it was then possible to structure the design proposal, which seeks to identify typical colors that can be enhanced, to turn on certain places that can be perceived perhaps more from the street, as well as to mitigate the impact of more recent and less interesting architectural forms. The centrality of the perception inherent in the chromatic project

of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2019). Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Marco Seccaroni. 6 The present work collects part of the results of the project entitled “Color Plan of Historic Centers in the territory of the Municipality of Deruta”, carried out by the engineering company Esaprogetti srl of Perugia in the years 2009–2012. Scientific manager of the project prof. Fabio Bianconi, Coordinator of the activity Dr. Marco Filippucci. The plano-altimetric and architectural surveys were carried out by Studio A of Collepepe (PG), the study of color and the project was developed by the Esaprogetti srl company. Ing. Riccardo Pasquini, ing. Paolo Nicolini, ing. Francesco Trevisani, collaborated in the drafting of the project. https://www.comunederuta.gov.it/piano-del-colore/ [2018]. The perceptual analyzes were developed by a working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Maria Pia Calabrò, Michela Meschini, Marco Seccaroni.

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finds new potential in digital tools to identify and explain the reasons for the proposed solutions (Fig. 18).

13 The Redesign of the Territory According to the Flows in the Pian di Massiano Case Study in Perugia The public space of the parks, places lived by the city mainly for recreational purposes, represents the ideal case study where to hypothesize design strategies based on the enhancement of the vision. The human-city interaction takes place on different levels of reading, but the speed that always affects the visual perception that leads to reorganize the experience by translating the images of the experience into a pattern [36]. The more the place is similar to the synthetic (two-dimensional) form present in the unconscious of the individual, the more the reading of the place is substantiated by an implicit orientation, while the presence of unforeseen events or variations depletes the recognisability of the places [77, p. 26]. In this relation between space and physical and perceptual flows, the participatory planning undertaken at the basis of this work was supported by the collection of objective information consisting in the monitoring of the cycle-pedestrian and vehicular presence relating to the green area of Pian di Massiano in Perugia and by the involvement of the visitors through a survey. The SISAS Company from Perugia, who supplied the Compact 1000 JR monitoring devices for detecting the cycle-pedestrian flow, carried out the surveys. These devices were positioned at the three entrances of the area, respectively on the sides of the velodrome and adjacent to the cycle-pedestrian crossing in Strada Trasimeno Ovest. For the detection of vehicular flow, a single device has been placed under the railway overpass, also in Strada Trasimeno Ovest. The detection time was 20 consecutive days and the data collected concern the number of total passes, the number of daily passes, the number of weekly passes, the number of passes per direction of travel, the vehicle classes, the passes for vehicle classes, and the speed of the passes (Fig. 19). The flow detected, considered first as continuous and then as punctual, that is, concentrated in defined points of the area, leads to rethink the geometry of the soil by creating different configurations through a digital redesign. In this way, it is possible to simulate and identify optimal configurations for the construction of the overpass and the placement of new functional and identity spaces. To understand this parametric design dynamic, it is necessary to refer to two “states of equilibrium” towards which a dynamic physical system (in this case the design area) tends, connected to the points and the attractive curves. This experimentation was applied to the design concept, object of the research, in order to create new functional and identity spaces within the Percorso Verde of Perugia, based on functional spaces deemed characteristic by following the previous analyzes. In the design concept, the cycle-pedestrian flow detected by the previously analyzed digital monitoring is associated with the attracting curve. The objective

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Fig. 18 Colored mesh using an algorithm for easy identification of the visible elements in the main street of Casalina, a fraction of the municipality of Deruta

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Fig. 19 Concept for the reconnection of the Percorso Verde of Perugia using attraction points

pursued therefore started from a visual analysis based on parameters that were given as inputs, such as the geometry being analyzed (functional spaces) and the geometry representing the context (modeled terrain). The process has output a graduated mesh representing the degree of visibility of the functional spaces from each point of the park. Among the data obtained, those with better visual palatability, were considered optimal for the design of new cycle-pedestrian paths, replacing the existing ones, along which you have the best perception of the park (Fig. 20).7

7 The

present work collects part of the results of the broader research on the relation between perception and urban space that has been carried out in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2015 by a research team consisting of Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Maria Pia Calabrò, Michela Meschini, Marco Seccaroni.

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Fig. 20 Project proposal for the reconnection of the Percorso Verde of Perugia

14 The Regeneration of the Districts of Fontivegge and Bellocchio in Perugia The research project presented by the administration of the Municipality of Perugia for Renzo Piano’s Suburban Notice. The area under examination was born with the presence of the railway sign and the station [18] inaugurated in 1866 [82]. Later it was enriched by the great spaces of Perugina Factory, which placed here its great establishment since 1913 [96, p. 404] until 1959 [40, pp. 41–49), as an attractor of

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an urban fabric equipped with workers’ houses. This sign was practically erased by Aldo Rossi who in 1982 [94, p. 126] designed the headquarters of Umbrian Region Offices in the area, an element that led to a deep transformation of the urban space. The approach adopted starts by placing the perception and the relationship between man and the environment at the center of the analysis for the areas overlooking Perugia railway station. Research and, in particular, studies in the representative field, then became the fundamental tool for innovating urban development, focusing on the themes of perception, the strategy aimed at bringing back the lived, known, own space. An example of the carried out analyzes, is the study performed on Piazza del Bacio, which led to defining the new re-functionalization of the adjacent spaces. With the use of a survey and in parallel of the perceptual analyzes carried out with the tool of the eye tracker, the sensorial and perceptive characteristics of Piazza del Bacio were studied. From the results of the studies, it emerged that the large space together with the residual green that defines the lot are taken as quality elements. Nevertheless, the small extension of the green area, the general lack of street furniture, the insecurity and uselessness of staying in space due to the lack of attractive elements make the square an empty, isolated, closed in itself place. The design solutions developed have focused on parks, urban mobility and reconnection. The intervention in the parks involves the enhancement of the main ecological basins of the area with a process of improvement of user services, of the quality of the space and of the ecological and environmental value. The urban mending takes place with the reconnection of the area downstream of the station with the rest of the Fontivegge district through the conversion of the current pedestrian passage into an access square to the station. This acts as an attractive pole and convergence space of slow mobility, from the cycle path to the recolored “thirty areas” that from here wind through the neighborhood. The goal of the project is to recover space, redesigning the urban landscape for a new image of the city that develops a new relationship between man and the environment. The design hypothesis is that by strengthening the green infrastructure throughout the project area, it is possible to regain the human space to bring the citizen back to the center as the protagonist and custodian [14] of that common good that is the city and its environment.8 Paths are thus enriched by the colors of naturalness with “edible landscape” fundamental to strengthen the connective value of the ecological redesign. For these reasons, we also want to support spontaneous naturalization processes, where, perhaps through carelessness, vegetation has grown, redefining its relation with anthropic infrastructure and connoting cement and infrastructure. The cycle-pedestrian network thus becomes functional to the green infrastructure system and to the polarities of the parks, which in turn are organically functional to the system for the cycle and pedestrian paths that unfold within them. 8 This

work collects part of the results of the research project “Study and research for the development and urban redevelopment of the Fontivegge area in Perugia” developed by the University of Perugia, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2016), funded by the Municipality of Perugia. Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Benedetta Buzzi, Andrea Ciurnella, Michela Cristofani, Mattia Manni, Michela Meschini, Elena Tancetti, Maria Pia Calabrò, Jessica Castagna, Elisa Florindi, Marco Seccaroni.

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Research on perception and vision is linked to the goal of returning the lived, known, own space. The concept of place has a purely operational value, linked to quality, to the relation between the parties. The enhancement of shared values straddling environmental awareness [68] and the almost mythical value [69] of meaning [10], “exemplary model of all rites and all significant human actions” [49], stands as a strategy to tell the city through the lives of its inhabitants. The redesign of the man-made space is aimed at contributing to the conservation of biodiversity through the increase of the connectivity of the urban green and its reconnection with the ecological network. At the center is the dynamics of perception [1], that of giving value to the relationship between man and territory which is the enhancement of the landscape (Fig. 21).

Fig. 21 Project proposals for Perugia smart city and for the regeneration of urban space

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15 The Road Infrastructure of the Perugia Bus Rapid Transport Project The research stems from the proposal of the Municipality of Perugia to rethink its public transport service with a view to sustainable mobility. The TPS Company was commissioned for this project, which, in synergy with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has drawn up a proposal for Bus Rapid Transit, an efficient system that leads to the redesign of the districts that arrive from Castel Del Piano to the station of Fontivegge, a 12.5 km route that connects about 25,000 people. First, the BRT is a mass transportation system that uses the technology of busses that travel preferably on special preferential lanes. However, by means of transport by road, it is possible to achieve performances similar to those of a classic metro. The proposal is therefore aimed at creating a more performing and sustainable offer of transport solutions but which has the indirect, but not secondary, result of the regeneration of the city itself. The sustainability that we try to pursue does not only pass through the impact of the works and the means, but is also based on the ideal that sustainability is also architectural and landscape (Fig. 22).

Fig. 22 Masterplan of the urban plan for sustainable mobility (PUMS) for the city of Perugia. The plan provides for the connection between the Fontivegge station and Castel del Piano through a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line

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The BRT has as its strengths the possibility of not having necessarily dedicated infrastructures, to which the ease of insertion in the various urban contexts is correlated. The purpose of the BRT is to combine the advantages of a system with the right of way which guarantees punctuality and frequency, with those of a bus system characterized by lower investment and maintenance costs. The aim is to achieve a higher average traffic speed, a higher transport capacity in terms of passengers/hour for the same means and personnel employed and routes with less braking and acceleration. Among the aspects that characterize the new sustainable infrastructure, in addition to efficiency and performance, there is attention to the full accessibility of the stops, raised to reach the bus entrance level, as well as to visual communication aspects. In addition to the road sign, which still wants to be made recognizable, there is also the architectural theme inherent in the project of the shelters designed with seats, sunscreens and accessible ramps. Along the route there are technological elements, such as traffic control systems, installations to control and regulate the traffic light priority, and information for users. Each station designed with the aid of generative algorithms with the aim of being recognizable, marking the route, and positioned in such a way as to connect BRT with cycle and pedestrian paths thus creating an integrated and widespread network. The route mainly includes a lane reserved for the transit of the BRT, assuming the use of a green coating system of asphalt with high solar reflection, which reduces the amount of heat transmitted inside the treated surfaces, thanks to a high daytime solar reflectance and nighttime thermal emittance. Sustainability is also pursued through the connection between the new BRT infrastructure and the existing pedestrian and cycle paths, providing for its redevelopment, and new construction, preferring the tracks on its own site where possible, or by forecasting running in promiscuous areas with motorized calmed circulation (Fig. 23).9

16 Architecture and Ethics in the Master Plan of the Perugia Hospital Area This research is developed within the agreement stipulated between the “Daniele Chianelli” Life Committee, which is aimed at supporting the parents of children suffering from onco-haematological diseases and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Engineering Department of Perugia, aimed to “Architectural design studies for multifunctional urban spaces”. It is therefore an “ethical” collaboration, developed in support of the Foundation by virtue of its particular mission. 9 This

work collects part of the results of the research project “Architectural studies and researches of urban design connected to the rapid transport bus proposal for the Urban Mobility Plan Perugia” developed by the International Lab Landscape of the University of Perugia and the TPS Transport Planning Service company of Perugia (2018–2019). Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Marco Bifulco, Alessandro Buffi, Giulia Pelliccia, Marco Seccaroni.

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Fig. 23 Photorealistic simulations of the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) terminal at Fontivegge station in Perugia

The current Residence, inaugurated in 2006, develops according to a typological scheme with an open courtyard, and it was conceptually set according to the idea of a “Roman villa” closed to the outside and organized with internal courtyards. The building develops over five levels, one of which is underground, and it primarily intends to accommodate 27 housing units of approximately 35 m2 each. Other areas for recreational activities and small commercial spaces are part of the complex (Fig. 24). At present, the functional requirement is to expand the reception capacity of the Chianelli Residence and at the same time to increase the services offered in the hospital area: in fact, we want to increase the existing commercial spaces and we want to insert a nursery school with a green dedicated and protected area. The proposal envisages the construction of a new isolated building, with an L-shaped seating area, consisting of two buildings, one with four floors and one with two floors, one of which is a basement. On the ground floor, there is a connection, pedestrian and raised, to the existing residences. On the first and second floors, n. 10 special residences for patients in outpatient therapy, five residences of about 37.50 m2 on each floor, which overlook the “Smile Park”. Each residence has an entrance hall, utility room, bathroom, dining/living room with kitchenette, double bedroom with bathroom also accessible with wheelchair and a terrace, accessible both from the bedroom and from the dining/living room. Each residence will have an electromagnetic induction hob. On the ground floor, in correspondence with the floors of the residences, is made a connection with the current residences and other spaces were identified to be used as

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Fig. 24 Planimetry of the hospital of the city of Perugia

offices, closets and common aggregation spaces to be used to serve the residences. The service distribution corridor is flanked, to the south west, by a bioclimatic solar greenhouse. In the structure, there is also a nursery, located in the basement, with the main entrance located on the North West elevation, which opens onto a relationship space, intended for the reception of guests. On the opposite side, compared to the entrance, there are some classrooms for orderly activities, for free activities and for rest. Along the corridor connecting the entrance and the spaces for children, there are the meeting room for educators and toilets. Also along the corridor, on the South West side, there are large glass French windows overlooking a porch space and an internal courtyard, intended for private greenery. The proposal is defined as the natural continuation of the existing one, with an L-shaped building, in which the residences coexist, facing the “Parco del Sorriso” to give a greater sense of tranquility, but also services, such as the nursery, equipped with an internal courtyard with a large private garden. The existing commercial spaces are expanded: the activities included remain congruent to the needs of the person, who cannot always afford to move easily from the hospital. In the proposal, man is placed at the center, and in a context that is not just a single hospital room, but also a place to feel at home, to live and discover the value of the community (Fig. 25).10 10 This work collects part of the results of the research project “Architectural design studies for multifunctional urban spaces” developed by the Lab Landscape of the University of Perugia and Comitato per la vita “Daniele Chianelli” of Perugia (2017–2019). Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Elisa Bettollini, Michela Meschini.

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Fig. 25 3D simulations of the expansion intervention of the Chianelli Residence, a special residence for patients in outpatient therapy at the Hospital of the city of Perugia

17 The Participation Through the Digital The research is developed within an analysis and urban regeneration path that involves Perugia’s train station district. The selection of this study area corresponds to its identification ascribed by the municipal administration as the neuralgic center of the city to be redeveloped, finding the bank in the announcement promoted by the Government in 2016 addressed to all metropolitan cities and provincial capitals (DPCM n. 127/2016). The proposal led to public funding through the call for tenders of more than 16 million euros, an ongoing path to which a series of research projects aimed at enhancing the undertaken studies [32–34] of which several are still in existence. The present case study is inserted in this context, which sees a design declination within the redevelopment of the green area of the Foibe Park, object of interest of the financed project. The course therefore presents itself as an experimental path designed to promote participation in reality through virtual and communicative impact of an interactive simulation. In reality, the proposed path has its value in the proposed methodology, which in the case study finds its first declination to solve or answer specific questions to the single context. The focus of the proposal is to determine a process of codesign for a citizenship pavilion located within the park. The goal is to promote a participation on the sense and meanings, leaving the choices to

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the designer, while managing to find systems that can really be the expression of a democratic process, an instrumental way to activate the citizens’ interest on the identity value of the places. In order to guarantee a simple and accessible language for all, the communication of the architectural environment wants to find in the value of simulation, which is analogous to the communication logic of gaming, the meeting ground to promote a dialogue with the “digital natives” and with whom animates such virtual squares. The present proposal aims to address these major ethical issues of architecture, based on the notion of “ownership”, contextualizing them in the Italian context of the contemporary: if it is certainly complex for our regulations to allow the possibility for the inhabitants to make their spaces identity in the realization, clearly through the virtual simulation is much simpler (and economically sustainable). At the center is the choice, the role of protagonist given to the user, to the citizen, called to dispute around shared issues of concern and to determine the meaning of the places, with the need to lay the foundation of knowledge and awareness but also approaching these topics with a playful attitude. In fact, the risks of these paths are determined by the evaluations of the values of the signs that the designers are, and must remain, responsible for, as both the technical and aesthetic aspects of design choices are the result of a process of knowledge and experiences. For these reasons, the research is based on a first project of the pavilion that responds to the indications presented in the funded proposal of the announcement. This architectural space is designed in multiple configurations by varying its formal solutions. In particular, 28 architectural forms were designed, parametrically elaborated by varying 5 elements of the structure. For example, the user can choose the height of the glazing of the main body between two values, just as he can decide his preferences on the presence or absence of openings on the main elevation. These include sunshade screens to cover any windows, the type of cover with or without overhang, and the shape of the window frame, the only purely aesthetic parameter. The other variations, in fact, record different values in the energy and comfort analyzes, which were performed for each of the possible configurations. The data taken into consideration for the study are the energy required for cooling, annual heating and lighting, DayLight Autonomy (DLA) and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV). These last two values are data relating to comfort. The first indicates the percentage of hours of occupation in which the interior spaces reach a certain threshold of illuminance (300 lx for the present study). The second value is an indicator of thermal comfort which assigns a value of 0 if in the internal spaces the detected thermal conditions are optimal and differs both positively and negatively if the temperatures are too hot or cold, respectively, up to a value of +3 or −3. Through the interactive dynamic representation, the study wants to obtain navigable forms where the individual user can interact with the architectural forms by changing them and verifying multiple configurations. Kiviat diagrams show the main characteristics of energy consumption and comfort, as well as the related construction and maintenance costs, with the aim of providing the cyber users with tools to evaluate their choices. It is then a matter of defining a project integrated in a model,

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Fig. 26 The evolution of the pavilion for the Chico Mendez Park in Perugia. From generative algorithms to implementation

capable of collecting and describing the various factors that anticipate the future of living (Fig. 26). The wide involvement is guaranteed by the possibility of sharing in the network the simulation environment, which is digitally collected in an executable file. The architectonic shape is modeled through the parametric representation with an integrated approach and in the use of immersive reality, in an environment enriched by a process of identifying users and recording choices, which effectively allows cataloging and evaluating different experiences. The procedure begins with the modeling of the different configurations of the pavilion with Rhinoceros and Grasshopper, in order to render the parametric composition. The algorithm created allows changing the geometry of the structure by simply changing the parameters previously described. To perform energy and comfort analyzes, Ladybug and Honeybee were used within Grasshopper, all based on OpenStudio and Energy + systems in the parametric environment. The Colibri plugin is also important in this phase, for through it, it is possible to perform the analysis of all the configurations in a simplified model, in order to make the path less heavy, and save the images and the energy data in a text file in an interactive way. Subsequently from the simplified configurations, it was necessary to realize all the geometries to be displayed during the exploration. At first all the “fixed” parts, those that do not undergo any variation, were drawn, to then

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add those geometries, necessarily overlapping, which represent the elements to be displayed or hidden in relation to the different configurations. The geometries are then inserted into the Unreal Engine environment for the realization of the interactive virtual model. This graphic engine offers templates to simplify the initial settings assigned to the project and the decision was to start from the “First person” configuration, which automatically generates all the elements for an exploration of an immersive environment. In this phase, it is necessary to create the functions to allow users to register and log in, and those functions that hide and display the appropriate meshes based on the user’s selections. To do this it is possible to take advantage of the nodal programming offered by the software, called Blueprints. In addition to programming an initial login/registration screen, all the functions created are available to users through the launch of an executable file where the interaction screen is juxtaposed with a description of the impact of the proposed selection, schemes that the user can recall at any time of the experience by pressing the right button. This screen contains five buttons for selecting the configuration and the energy data, which update instantly while changing the settings and which are summarized in diagrams easily readable by the users. To memorize users’ choices, it was decided to use an online database managed through MySQL and populated with PHP language functions. To execute the necessary code from the graphic engine it is essential to install a free plugin called VaREST, which allows making REST requests during the immersive experience. These requests point to files uploaded to the server, which contain the functions needed for storing the data deriving from the user’s choices, thus adding a new line of information each time a user registers or changes the appropriate line, when a user had already completed the experience before. Up to today, as prototypic version, the path has seen a first experiment involving about 32 users, in a case study connected to a pavilion located in a park in requalification, a path that already shows the centrality of immaterial energy information in the choices of preferred configurations. The users have navigated using their computers through the installation of the executable file created, or in reality immersive using a virtual reality headset (HTC Vive) placed in the university for experimentation. The number of selectable configurations that differ in terms of energy and confort are twelve, and among the possible forms, there are four that have noticeably better characteristics than the rest and due to the pentagon area in Kiviat’s diagram are easier to identify. Gathered the data in the database, through the analysis it appears that the most selected configuration is not among the best from the point of view of energy and confort, but it is probably among the most interesting as regards aesthetics. It should be noted, however, that the four most efficient configurations collected only half of the users’ preferences, while the other half selected the eight configurations with the worst performance. It should also be noted, a homogeneous distribution in relation to the construction cost of the structure, which symbolizes the carelessness of the user in selecting

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Fig. 27 Virtual reality experience with configuration interface and data collection and rendering in real time

efficient solutions from the point of view of energy and comfort, or of compositionally more interesting solutions (Fig. 27).11

11 This work collects part of the results of the research project “Interactive dynamic representation for digital co-design” developed by the University of Perugia, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2019). Working group: Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci, Filippo Cornacchini.

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18 Conclusive Considerations Our era of images [63], their “invasion” comes to determine a “new regime of fiction” that comes to “afflict social life today, to contaminate it and penetrate it to the point of making us doubt it, its reality, its meaning and the categories (identity, otherness) that make it up and define it” [9, p. 9]. This proliferation imposes the need for tools to deal with the complexity of our habitats. In the visual culture [90] that pervades our society, if the value and cognitive power inherent in their vitality are lost [110], the study of images does not stop substantiating the founding issues of living. The images are clearly bound to ideas, tools of the figurative sphere to order and imperfectly represent the experience, correlating it to a topological simplification, because the intelligible seeing passes through the sensitive seeing. The theme of living can then be placed in relation to the modalities of how to orient oneself in images [84], in the space conquered with the interpretation inherent in seeing (thoreo) in its statutory link with theoria, information generating knowledge and creating a sensation, a pathos that binds to an aisthesis, for its iconic form, “which indicates and for which it is indicated by absence” [79, p. 37]. The study of perception, the representative researches, strengthened by the IoT, are the ideal place for the analysis and survey of urban habitats and in their connatural connection with the project, in the definition of models that serve to verify the multiple performances and functions of the redesign of these spaces. The integration of different tools to innovate in the project, also improving their performance, can lead to a comprehensible combined analysis only if the data are analyzed through an interdisciplinary reading. The proposal therefore has the objective of defining methodologies for data collection and interdisciplinary interpretative criteria to understand what is being analyzed: the aim is to test possible improvement solutions in the sectors concerned and to analyze in an empirical way their impact on citizens. With an interdisciplinary approach and through new devices, it is possible to analyze what man feels and understand how the environment implicitly affects his emotional state; moreover, what are the places and conditions that promote well-being. Studying public spaces means promoting a human-centered vision that involves the active involvement of users, taking into account the specificity of the contexts in which they act as “they really are” and not as “they should be”. Digital becomes a real “Computer Aids Design” tool, with digital data used not only to show the visible but also to make visible what is implicit in the relationship between man and the environment. We want to conform an innovative methodology that supports an operational verification of the meaning of places, which focuses analytically on emotions and meanings and which can be used as a strategy for the study not only of the territory and the environment, but also the landscape, intended as a result of the path of perception.

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Medusa and Pegasus: The Landscape in the Age of Its Technical Non-reprodution Marco Filippucci

Abstract The present study aims to demonstrate the contemporary value of architectural relations in the landscape and its representation as the foundational theme of the project, in correspondence with the cultural transformations that are currently taking place. The proposed reflections are to be considered as hypotheses for constructive criticism in favor of architectural issues, but also of the current instruments of government of the territory. The Robert Venturi masterpiece “Complexity and Contradiction on Architecture” defines the structure of this essay. Moreover, this reading is proposed by recomposing heterogeneous ideas and interpretations, placing in parallel to the text a path of images that concretely show the paradigmatic architecture of Michelangelo’s Porta Pia in its landscape, the particular case study selected by Robert Venturi as cover of his volume. Thus, by recomposing a path towards the graphic evidences of the last century, it is possible to find a very interesting storytelling of the values and meanings generated by landscape evolution.

1 Introduction The relations between project and landscape can be analysed starting from the hypothesis that the main problems of an aseptic development of our places are attributable to a devaluation of meanings. Taking up the implicitly subversive approach of Robert Venturi, trying to imitate as much as possible the wit he had in contesting architectural principles, which he read as impoverished in preconceptions, we want to propose a discussion on the complexity and contradiction in the landscape, as an epistemological foundation to address its transformations. The landscape intended as a set of signs and meanings, in this logic is read as a work of art, taking up the well-known essay of Walter Benjamin on its reproducibility (Fig. 1). Such path develops within the sphere of representation, in the hypothesis that in this field of investigation it is possible to find the tools and processes necessary for deep knowledge. The representation then becomes the place of existence of a M. Filippucci (B) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_2

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Fig. 1 The representation and the landscape, Perseus with the head of Medusa (Benvenuto Cellini, Piazza della Signoria, Firenze, 1545-1554)

transdisciplinary language that guarantees the construction of a model so necessary to face the question with a scientific approach. In architecture, drawings interpret and simplify the much wider complexity that is perceived in living spaces by reducing it to bi-dimensionality. The signs are syntheses charged with describing qualities and values, subtending allusions and evocations in the virtuality of figuration. Digital representation is deeply changing this approach, a means, harbinger of a message, which allows the management of the complexity of information and the simulation of impacts. Compared to the architectural scale, even if only for its dimensions, the environment where we live, the one that includes us, is a harbinger of a substantial complexity that can only be broken down into sections capable of describing peculiar aspects. It is not an object, and cannot be reduced to something external to man, due to the contradiction inherent in the very fact of being his container and not his content. Overcoming the limits of objectivism, correlating with the presence of man, the landscape becomes the place of relations between the subject and the community with the meanings of what is perceived. Representing the architecture and the landscape does not boil down to drawing what you see, rather it means entering into the complexity and contradiction that is inherent in the interpretation of the signs for the project. The present study aims to deal with complexity and contradiction in the landscape. It is important to underline that the theme is implicitly architectural, because if the theme includes the analysis of the complexity and contradictions “of the” landscape,

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entering “in the” landscape we intend to face the connections, in particular the relations with the drawing, which is intended as place of relations. However, representing the relations between architecture and landscape is a challenge that leaves you petrified for the complexities and contradictions that must be considered: well beyond the hic et nunc of photography, only intuited and evoked by painting, far from the planimetric representations rich in multiple information layers of urban planning, very different from the simulations of digital instruments. In the landscape, we feel more than ever the need and seduction of images, that attractiveness of the charm of what is “monstrous”, etymologically a prodigy, and the revelation of something greater. The landscape has its own vitality, its history it hides inside itself microcosms. The landscape affects the sensations arising from the images, on the emotions, which is why in the past people visiting a place will bring back postcards and similarly today people do take selfies, transactional representations that relieve the pain of detachment. This shows how in the landscape arises in us a need to represent, even if the design fixes, and, in a certain sense, kills the vitality, perhaps the very essence of the landscape, which can never be “dead”. The landscape then appears as the mythological figure of Medusa, whose name means “She who dominates”, an immortal gorgon who had the power to petrify anyone who had met her gaze. The landscape has the persuasive forms of a girl, and her hairs are snakes, complex, intertwined, contradictory forms, inconsistent with the goodness that should be associated with beauty (Fig. 2).

2 Complexity and Contradiction Versus Simplification or Picturesqueness on Landscape The landscape is perhaps the field of study par excellence where simplification prevails and the picturesque reigns, so much so that it is easier to associate the word with images of bucolic, almost mythological places, than the context that is in front of our eyes. “The growing complexities of our functional problems must be acknowledged” Robert Venturi, writes, aware of the role of design to respond to the multiple needs of man. “I refer, of course, to those programs, unique in our time, which are complex because of their scope, such … enormous projects at the scale of city and regional planning [1, p. 19]. Indeed, the processes of content depletion are concretely projected in all the political actions on the transformation of the territory, for the close correspondence between building and living, since the designed environment, for better or for worse, affects the life of man [2]. The first human action that can be associated with the landscape is observation, as the definition of the European Convention implicitly suggests correlating it to perception: the landscape “affects us”, this means that it expresses an affective tendency towards the ego [3]. It is not possible to observe without judging, certain of the passage from perceptive judgment to empirical judgment in every figurative process [4], which precludes an evaluation of the facts, therefore a representation.

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Fig. 2 Porta Pia in the cover of Robert Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction on architecture (1967)

The landscape is linked to observation, but it overcomes the sphere of the sensible, it is not just a simple recording of the sensations of the places, but it is a representative, cultural act, where the perceived images are recomposed and reinterpreted. The landscape does not suffer from the excess of the territory scale, but it always corresponds to the human scale, which is at the center and it gives order to experiences, it identifies and highlights the connections, it indicates the meanings and it rediscovers the reflected and witnessed identity in the places. Representing the landscape cannot therefore only mean drawing beautiful panoramas, although we are sure that every graphic act is always a fascinating interpretation of the implicit constitutive relations of a place. Analyzing and drawing the landscape, it means rather understanding its “functioning”, but in a broad sense, by considering its impact on man, seen in the full sense as a person. It means entering the value of places by virtue of the sequence of images [5], of reality understood not as “instantaneously created unity, but as processes in the making, tireless transformations of spatial configurations” [6].

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However, we have to extricate ourselves from the slippery terrains of reductivism, which are shown in the many acts of everyday life. An example of this is the “selfie culture” [7, pp. 155–164], which is increasingly leading to break with the search for values to relegate places to simple backgrounds. Otherwise, on the other extreme, the contemporary trend of ascribing and embalming the landscape within a large book of identified sites [8], with necessary protection processes that lead to losing the very sense of projection and discovery. The landscape, while remaining an aesthetic value, is not always characterized by aesthetic intentionality: only recently, in the logic of territorial marketing [9, pp. 9–10, 10] and the sale of places [8], an attempt is made to create attractiveness to obtain development (and not vice versa). The predominance of communication aspects is the proponent of processes of substantial transformation from public good to consumer good. If Venice is a hyperbolic paradigm of an unsustainable reality [11, 12, pp. 191–199], an area that in the last forty years has seen the halving of residents and the tenfold increase in tourists, the fact remains that these processes, with less impact, replicate in multiple territorial realities. The big topic that opens up is the imposing of market logic, which can be trivially translated in “if I like it or not”, a paradoxical logic that pushes towards fiction and therefore towards the loss of identity, originality, and, implicitly, of value. In fact, as Micheal Sandel explains, the market establishes neither justice nor equality nor democracy, and blind faith in the market has eliminated any public debate on ethics and social justice from the scene, generating growing inequalities [13]. In our Italian regulatory context, for art.9 of the Constitution, the landscape is protected as a cultural asset, as an essential resource for our country [14], which cannot be weighed with fairness in the mere estimate of direct returns [15]. In the aesthetic centrality, linked to vision and subjectivation, an ethical dimension emerges, which perhaps may be elected as the origin of the attribution of collective value: landscape is kalos kai agathos, a definition of classicism that leads to highlighting not so much what appears, as much as the dependence of the positive judgment created in front of an advantageous end for the community. The ethics of the landscape then binds to popular action [16, p. 14], to the awareness of its being a common good [17, 18]. The great challenge that opens up is the care of places [19], being able to find new relations of projection of one’s own identity [20–23] (Fig. 3). However, it is necessary to start from reality and data, in order not to be victims of projections: today in global connections [24] the link with locality and, even physically, with land has been lost, so much so that interest in the use of the soil is a responsibility which rests on the shoulders of a few, increasingly separated from the community [25]. Taking as reference the national data, an interesting paradigm is given by the recent transformations of the agronomic sector: the agricultural companies go from 4.2 million in 1961 to 1.6 million in 2010. In this period, however, the Territorial Agricultural Area (SAT) drops of just over 30% [26], while there is a decrease in the contribution of Italian agriculture to GDP from 7.6% in 1970 to 1.7% in 2009 and a corresponding decrease in employment which contracted from 18,4% to 3.8% over the same period [27], compared to the productivity of agricultural labor

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Fig. 3 The American myth of Porta Pia in the photographs produced by George R. Swain that anticipates the same point of view of Robert Venturi (University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, Lantern Slide Collection, LS004425)

which tripled [28]. There is a different supervision of the territory and a more individualistic use of resources: 85% of agricultural businesses are family-run, capable of managing almost the same SAT in the last half century, an area that therefore reduces mainly for those companies still linked to large property. The reduction of the supervision and the relation between society and territory transforms the relation with places [29]. It is not secondary in this logic to point out the great issue of land consumption [30, 31], which from 1956 to 2001 saw the urbanized surface of our country increased by 500%, with the transformation between 1990 and 2005 of over 3.5 million hectares in an anthropized space, that is an area almost as large as Lazio and Abruzzo combined. Worldwide, an estimated loss of land is projected between 1.6 and 3.3 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2030 [32]. But it is equally important to emphasize that the largest artificial surfaces are residential areas with discontinuous rates (65.33%), followed by industrial and commercial areas (15.21%) and, at a great distance, by residential areas with continuous urban fabric (10.25%) [33], with a widespread responsibility on the part of citizens who perhaps are less fond of the landscape of how much they think. From the data, it is then clear how the relation with the territory implicitly includes a social relationship: over time, the correlation between territorial resource and common good has been lost [34], in the sense of place of convergence of private

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interests with those of the community. The relation with land has always been central in the history of the West, as pragmatically shows the management of collective property [35–37], the natural material resources used by specific communities in their territory and other real rights of enjoyment variously configured according to locals changing needs [38, pp. 1–48]. It is a still open challenge [39, 40], which has its origin in the Roman law of the res publicae and res communes omnium [41–43], a theme that in 1917 the Italian jurist Giovanni Curis [44] compared with the “head of Medusa” [45], to make the enormous difficulties encountered by governments to resolve the issue of these ancient collective uses [46–50]. If the territory with its pragmatic reference to material resources (e.g. water) is easily ascribable to the logic of common goods according to its new conceptions [51], it is linear to assert that the landscape must also be included in this category, and that indeed, being a process linked to the community that lives it, it is a fundamental cultural asset in our heritage. Even if today the concrete data on the territory and the environment deny it, on the other hand a first cultural revolution is being activated in our society, which can be associated with the icon of the very young Greta Thunberg, according to TIME the ‘Person of the ‘Year’ (2019) [52, n.d.]. Starting from her “image”, always linked to a quality landscape placed in the background, it can be safely said that the current theme of all the processes of transformation of the territory, the environment and the landscape is sustainability. If, however, the environmental meaning referred to is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the enhancement of the landscape, what is interesting to dwell on is precisely the need to associate a girl, a symbol, in already autonomous themes by themselves, a requirement that reveals the link between the project action, always political, with representation. The landscape is all this, in the complex interconnections between the multiple functions and actions of the elements that characterize the mosaic and cannot be simplified to something more linear and perhaps less contradictory. It is in this context that the words of Robert Venturi can resonate with great interest, which have the same strength even on a larger scale than the architectural one: «the doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justifies exclusion for expressive purposes”…. In addition, the landscape can “become a diagram of an oversimplified program for living, an abstract theory of either-or. Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore» [1, p. 17]. The landscape is this richness of meanings to be explored and discovered, it is the connections and inter-connections of the multiple forms and functions that have stratified throughout history in the forms that also appear with all that apparent simplicity. What prevails is therefore the process, the story, the life, the theme of representation, a tool for storytelling, to tell, share and strengthen active relationships, to trigger identification processes in the relation between image, time and meaning (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4 Representative studies of the internal façade of Porta Pia today, abstracted by landscape and replaced in the dynamism of relations

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3 Ambiguity on Landscape For Venturi, the classification of complexity and contradiction “refers to a paradox inherent in perception and the very process of meaning in art: the complexity and contradiction that results from the juxtaposition of what an image is and what it seems. Joseph Albers calls “the discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect” a contradiction, which is “the origin of art” [1, p. 20]. Robert Venturi then marks a path of interconnections with artistic criticism, sensing the mechanisms and parallels that it is still extremely interesting to analyze today. In the centrality of the representation that is the basis of the research, it becomes extremely interesting to take the monumental work of Walter Benjamin [53] as a reference, contextualizing it in our culture of communication. The landscape is comparable to a work of art, due to its uniqueness, its complexity, its contradictions, and for this, the challenge of its representation remains valid. In the classicism the myth of Anassimandro represents a problem that here does not raise. In fact, Anassimandro “ventured to draw the outline of the ecumene, which is the first geographical image”, and for this he was accused of hybris. Perhaps the accusation was not because “he had allowed himself to represent the land and the sea from above, as only the gods are allowed”, but above all because “with his design he had paralyzed something (physis, nature) which instead is constantly growth and movement, ‘the genesis of things that grow’… a dynamic process and not its inert result” [54]. For Benjamin, the work of art is a product that must not be mystified, also because “in principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men” [53, p. 2]. In fact, it is possible to understand the landscape in an accumulation of signs. As Jane Jacobs explains, “seeing complex systems of functional order as order, not chaos, requires understanding … Once they are understood as order systems, they actually look different” [55]. Drawing, by its very nature, needs to be preceded by a selection, by an interaction of interpretation that binds to knowledge. Without this order, without the temporal interpretation of events, the infinite relations that arise between the myriads of experienced images, which also impoverish their content of truth [56], are lost in a meaningless labyrinth, from where it is impossible to get out. However, “the eye does not want to be satisfied too easily or too quickly in its search for unity as a whole”[1, p. 104]. The proposed strategy of tackling deep problems through “twists and turns” [57] to ensure that “we see the same things differently” [1, p. 44]. To understand the relations between architecture and landscape, the Gestalt interpretation of “perceptual forces” must be considered valid, therefore interpretable as real “vectors”, both psychological and real [58, p. 36]. Rudolf Arnheim demonstrates that “the visual experience is dynamic… tensions that are not an added contribution by the observer for his own reasons, but that are part of each percept as much as the size, shape, position, color of a body. And since this tension has a magnitude and a direction, we can define it a force” [58, p. 32]. It then makes sense to try to extend figurative analyzes on the landscape, linking the “visual foundations” [6] with

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Klee’s “Theory of form and figuration” [59], and Kandinsky’s studies on “Point Line Surface” [60], finding a parallelism with the study of works of art. This theme is central to Robert Venturi’s vision of complexity and contradiction, as testified by his studies, since “in 1950, Venturi defended an MFA thesis project at Princeton that used gestalt perception research to support the consideration of the contextual impact of design project on the surrounding built environment” [57]. He offered that “existing conditions around the site that should become a part of any design problem should be respected” [61]. With affinity with the thought of Gordon Cullen, the set of signs of architecture is never separated from its context. Visual strategies and the relations of a dialogue between architecture, place, history and the community are at the center of his formal research. It is not secondary to highlight how this translates into design strategies: an example is the use of the word and the concept of “tension”, which appears in the text more than thirty times. For Venturi there is always an interest in the dynamism [5] of the architectural work, transferable even in the widest scale of the landscape, that sense of discovery and the centrality of the vision that transform the cold modern research aimed at identifying “machines” for living [62]. All those studies that analyze the presence of man in his environment, which focus on perceptual and mainly visual aspects for the interpretation of space, are present and valid in the landscape, even more than in architecture as Robert Venturi analyzed. In this aspect, the figure of Kevin Lynch is central, as coeval of Robert Venturi, he is an expression of American architectural culture and a key figure who influences the architectural debate to the present day. In his reading, “the world can be organized around a series of focal points, be divided into regions or be reconnected by memorable itineraries” [63, p. 29]. If you take the description of any route as an example, you can synthesize the route through the basic algorithms of two-dimensional design, recomposed in an order that structures the sequence of the identity elements: points (static) and lines (dynamic) are the basis of the figuration that gives life to the landscape. In fact, the eye in the wider scale of the landscape proposes figurative logics to find a sense to complexity, to define an order so necessary to know. We are thus “witnesses of an organized sequence” [58, p. 305], the two-dimensionality of the projected planes [64], mostly vertical, which juxtapose in a serial manner in sequences that allow experiencing spatiality. The synthesis, however, is given by the schematic nature of the two-dimensional drawing of the plant [65], “austere abstraction … arid algebrization” [62], “first analytical approach to life” [66], capable of linking the vision to the scheme [67], the appearance to the structure [68] and the image to the form [4] (Fig. 5). Theories are made of the landscape, an etymological word linked to seeing (theoreo), in the investigative value of the eye, “the main instrument of knowledge” (S. Agostino, n.d.), which “measures and recognizes” [62]. If more and more all deal with landscape, it is mainly because the image allows itself to be grasped by everyone, in multiple points of view, with different and heterogeneous interpretative categories. His theory is therefore something extremely practical, linked to seeing, to the direct relation between eye and brain [69]. For this reason in history to understand and draw landscapes the subject is often placed in a raised position, as Petrarch

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Fig. 5 Representative studies of the external façade of Porta Pia today, abstracted by landscape and replaced in the dynamism of relations

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does in his ascent to Mount Ventoso [70]: by rising, physically as well as culturally, himself from his usual point of view, it is possible to see and read more clearly the signs of the territory, which from the natural altitude of the eye would be confused on the horizon. The landscape arises from this rise of man, from his need to understand, by his will to possess what attracts the eye. There is therefore an attraction that creates a desire, because its possession derives from a complex process of interpretation of the visual and, on a large scale, this cannot be fully satisfied. The eye observes, investigates, and searches, through a path certainly far from being static and defined, related to memory, driven by the tendency of its natural teleology. The relationship between man and his places is nourished and transformed into this same relation: man perceives places, reinterprets them according to his categories and in relation to experienced images, thus building new ideas that are the basis of the project, with which it intervenes in the territory, in a continuous and dynamic cycle where the boundaries of genesis and ends are lost. The relation that is triggered in the landscape is then structurally ambiguous, because it attracts and does not allow itself to be taken, due to the absence of linearity between essence, appearance and meaning, for the tension that different contexts create, on the confusion of experience, on the enhancement of the complexity of the order [1, p. 26] (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Representative studies of the abstraction of the architectonical quality in the Porta Pia four façades line drawings

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4 Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon of “Both-and” on Landscape In the landscape, the absence of a unique interpretation is clearly manifested, an area where Robert Venturi’s words are more than valid, for, in his aversion to the traditional “either-or”, he exalts that “simultaneous perceptions of a multiplicity of levels involve struggles and hesitations for the observer, and makes his perception more vivid” [1, p. 25]. In the first place, architecture in the landscape lives on the complexity and contradictions of being simultaneously and ambiguously, for “program and structure” [1, p. 23], virtual and physical, projection of a concrete reality. Although linked to the image, the landscape still has its own materiality, which incorporates and exceeds the most romantic meanings and projections that relate to fictitious or real projected identities. As the architecture, the landscape “is form and substance-abstract and concrete-and its meaning derives from its interior characteristics and its particular con-text”. As the architecture, the landscape “is perceived as form and structure, texture and material. These oscillating relation-ships, complex and contradictory, are the source of the ambiguity and tension characteristic to the medium of” landscape [1, p. 20]. By grafting onto a physical space, the image of places is based on the concreteness of the data, on the vitality and balance of nature, which produces “thorns and thistles” and that man, “with sweat”, dominates, obtaining “with pain … the bread” (Gen 3, 17–19). The landscape thus represents the product of a “physical” relationship, the result of man’s work on the territory [71, pp. 417–424], of his effort as well as of his passion, care, and his fulfillment in what he does. Landscape is then the result of two connected components such as love and work [72], which according to Freud represent the essential aspects of a mature action capable of directing its efforts in a creative and severe way. It is the effort of the work [73], which has concretely transformed our places and generated the construction of our landscapes [74], by virtue of the conflicting relationship with Nature: its beauty, its strength, its grandeur, it substantiates and denotes the work with which man struggles to not get overwhelmed and to seek a relationship. The history of our places tells of this conflictual relationship between man and nature, where architecture was born, in Laugier’s aesthetics [75], as an expression of the survival instinct. In this, there is a coincidence of the normative codification between the identity identified in the Italian Constitution of our Republic, “founded on work” (art. 1), and the European Landscape Convention, which defines it as “expression of the diversity of their common cultural and natural heritage and the foundation of their identity”. The theme of identity is certainly a crucial and delicate issue, a field of action as satisfying as it is slippery. The risk of building an identity, rather than discovering it, is certainly one of the great themes that relates to the relation between invention and narration inherent in the landscape project. Building identity means erecting artificial, implicitly false projections to ideal models, where the evoked image, even in its partiality, regardless of reality, becomes the cause and genesis of form.

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The landscape shares with the image the duality of a constitutive statute that identifies it ambiguously between process and product, a condition that must be recognized to guarantee the avoidance of the structural risk of stereotyping modernity, that “Columbus paradox” which sees the anticipation of the model and representation in the description of reality which is only subsequently verified. Identity, and therefore beauty, cannot be a purpose, as it happens with the anticipation of the model. It has to be a result, the consequence of other purposes, of a growth and maturity of the relation, of the doing as a social expression, of the work that ennobles man, a substantial question that brings out even more forcefully how the aesthetic theme derives from the ethical purposes that must be at the foundation. If this ethics, linked to history and memory, is lost, if the phenomenon is assessed only for its appearance, if a meaning trivialized by pseudo-values of the picturesque is superimposed on the real image, then ambiguity becomes the reason for the multiple misunderstandings of the contemporaneity. It is “the wit of the landscape … its allusion at the same time of a piece of the real country and of how it is represented, of the things and their image”. It is a double-edged sword because if on the one hand the “objectifying seductions of the sciences of the earth and a certain historicism, and also the regressions to pure aestheticizing visibility and unscientific impressionism” are rejected, on the other there is the risk of a “bisociation reminiscent of the irony of Don Quichotte, founded on the endemic double meaning of the continuous comparison between reality and fantasy” [76]. There is a courtly landscape, in which protection can also lead to immobility tending to a embalming, while the rest of the territory, far from the spotlight, does not fall within the sphere of “romantic” interest, and therefore may respond to different functional needs. There are not non-places, the spotlights do not create the quality of a landscape, which is, again for the European Convention, “an expression of the diversity of their common cultural and natural heritage and as the foundation of their identity”. The landscape must be protected for its identity and for its originality, which is why it is necessary to search for its origin, what is its foundation, the constitutive facts that stand in opposition to the transitory nature [77]. However, identity is not built, it is discovered, because it is given: it is in fact a social gift, it comes from the relationship with the other and it is not by nature. The relationship generates the identity: if a child is born, someone becomes “dad” and “mom”, a new name and a new identity are acquired. So, in work, in doing, where for example someone becomes a teacher only if he has students. Equally, the territory becomes landscape when man, the community, finds in it a relationship, from which derives the assignment of meanings and values, variable, according to the culture and awareness acquired. The identity of a place is then a cultural and social process: cultural in the etymological sense of what is cultivated, social because this attribution of value is not individual but of the community (Fig. 7). However, another substantial ambiguity emerges, another “both-and”: the relation, albeit affective, albeit linked to the wonder of the places, albeit beyond the rational sphere, is vitiated by the implicit link with the interest, which might even not be there. This does not mean that a place does not exert an influence, even profound on man, but only that an unconsciousness, a neutral judgment [78, p. 220], due to a

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Fig. 7 Representative studies of the simulation of the architectural impact in the Porta Pia renderings at man height

distracted perception, can prevail. Although they can do good or bad, architecture, the city, the territory, the landscape, are inherently [79] impartial, aseptic, the do not impact the eye, precisely because “the distracted mass makes the work of art sink into one’s womb” [53]. However, this is a distraction that does not only concern the external environment, what is other, but also, and perhaps above all, it concerns self-awareness, knowing who we are and where we are going. There is emotional illiteracy, the result of the loss of memory and the loss of social relationships, which can be identified as one of the main reasons why direction and

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meaning are lost; leading to a nihilism that is what seems to be today the structure of the absence of relationship and meaning of the community with its places. The Socratic “know yourself” is structured precisely in antithesis to the cultural technique impoverishment that tries to ascribe the landscape to an object, implicitly correlating it to a visual hedonism where what matters is “enjoying” a vision. There is a further ambiguity then, between objectivism and subjectivism, on the relation between presence and abstraction. The landscape derives from a profound reflection on the values of a place, which has no relevance to fast culture, the one that simply puts a “like”, rather it implies a serious, even cultural, as well as physical work. Fatigue, the confrontation with “thorns and thistles”, necessarily produced a political and content proposal. Rather, the relation remains central, understood as a cultural and social process, arising from the reactivation of the relationships between those who live in the places [21], which have always been the basis of the construction of the landscape [29]. This was born from the discovery of these ties, from the construction of strategies capable of animating and awaken the interconnections of the relationship that, willing or unwilling, accompany each one’s existence, requiring attention and care. In this sense, the centrality of the images is an essential element, in the active role everyone has in the act of reading and writing our places, in the duty to feel and be protagonists [80, pp. 207–223] (Fig. 8).

5 Contradictory Levels Continued: The Double-Functioning Element on Landscape If the landscape is structured through relationships, its function is “of use and structure” [1, p. 34], which could be read as a double ethical and aesthetic function: the beauty that requires preserving its places develops when the community discovers its value, when it attaches meanings. “Man lives when he can orient himself in an environment and identify himself with it, or more simply, when he expresses the meaning of an environment” [21]. Signs relate to meanings [81], but not “in terms of lexicon, as a set of lists of meanings and coincident signifiers” [82, p. 11]. “The meaning of a settlement sees the clarity with which it can be perceived and identified and the ease with which its elements can be connected to other events or places, in a coherent mental representation of time and space, in turn related to concepts and non-spatial values” [83]. In the landscape, intended as a place of relation between man and territory, there is a process of research and, in a certain sense, of invention of the meaning, as a path requiring a work of extraction and construction. Urban geography is therefore continuously built and re-founded by our perception which is always a conquest of new points and new observation dynamics, therefore of different meanings of which the figure is charged [84]. However, architecture in the landscape lives on continuous hermeneutics [85, pp. 179–226], transformations of meaning, in particular the inversion of roles between

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Fig. 8 Representative studies of the discovery of the volumetric architectural configuration in the Porta Pia renderings at bird’s eye views

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figure and background that often takes place in the evolution of the interpretation. The built events, within the dynamic balance inherent in the sign system that generates the landscape, are inserted in a stratification process that does not take away the meaning from the previous figurative gestures. Rather it adds successive elements or different interpretations, richer and more complex than the original ones: “the calculated ambiguity of expression is based on the confusion of experience as reflected in the landscape program. This promotes richness of meaning over clarity of meaning” [1, pp. 21–22]. In the relation between identifying and identifying oneself, the dynamic relationship that is created is however like the Argo Navis, which changes its pieces but remains itself, that is, “a set of very readable and identifiable senses” [1, p. 17]. In fact, landscape is not an utterance, it is not an axiom that needs justification, and rather it requires a path and a process of decoding and mutual recognition of the value of the signs. The acceptance of complexity and contradiction corresponds to the need to study and research in the relationships the true essence of landscape and architecture. It means not to stop to appearance, but to enter into the richness of the meanings, always plural and never unitary, inherent in the stratification of signs and contents: as in psychoanalysis, digging in images then allows us to understand better and in more lively forms the sense of identity of the place. As Roland Barthes writes, “meanings are like mythical beings, extremely labile, which always, at a certain moment, finally act as signifiers to something else: meanings cease, signifiers remain. The hunt for meaning can only be a temporary meaning” [82, p. 13]. Using Has Foster’s words, landscape is an artefact, which can “be treated less as a work in modernist termsunique, symbolic, visionary-than as a text in a postmodernist sense-“already written,” allegorical, contingent. With this textual model, one postmodernist strategy becomes clear: to deconstruct modernism not in order to seal it in its own image but in order to open it, to rewrite it” [86]. Placed in antithesis to the functional logic of the city, the landscape is something that reaches the personal sphere through the vision, because, as Ronald Barthes recalls, “in the amorous sphere the most painful wounds are caused more by what is seen than by what is known” [87]. The landscape is felt, lived, suffered and made his own, taking what is conveyed by the vision (-ceive) with a purpose (per-) to remain “kidnapped” [88, p. 5] by those who had to be the eye’s prey. Nevertheless, the purpose changes from time to time in turns, for our ability to adapt to different contexts, to discover them, to explore them. Because man, in the complexity of his person, is always different, and his perceptions change over time, in relation to experience, memory and feelings. It is the metamorphosis of places [1¸ p. 32], which reflects social transformations and a variation of needs, which manifests itself in a stratification of signs, as a use and reuse of forms, which, especially in the context of writing, represents one of the main denotative elements. Resuming Venturi’s reading again, “this is the result of a more or less ambiguous combination of the old meaning, called up by associations, with a new meaning created by the modified or new function, structural or programmatic, and the new context [1, p. 38]. The historicized contexts, both in the urban context and in the wider territory, are “multifunction” [1, p. 34], not for a complex pre-established program, but for the complexity of the

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projects that have overlapped by not denying and canceling the existing, but they descend according to logics that follow evolution criteria. As Mumford writes for the city, also in the landscape “its structures survive the functions and purposes that originally determined them, sometimes it preserves for the future ideas unreasonably discarded or rejected by a previous generation. At the same time, it transmits to successive generations wrong solutions that would perhaps have been eliminated more easily if they had not materialized leaving their mark on them, in the same way in which the body transmits the memory of some wound or some disorder of the past as scars or as a recurrent rash” [89]. The landscape goes beyond the territory by including figuration, reading and interpretation of the signs, thus entering a cultural sphere. Moreover, it goes beyond the hi et nunc of the phenomenon, of the objective data, precisely because through culture it is able to recognize also the value attributed by time. It is like “a time machine, which preserves the past and prepares the future … From the diachronic continuity of history it derives an immediately comprehensible synchronic image, which has a fundamental role in daily life and it acts as a stabilizing element of cultural balance, era by era” [90]. We must emphasize once again the complexity inherent in the ambiguous definition of landscape and in particular that relation between virtual and material. The sign must be read as the result of an elaboration of images, the means “capable of spreading knowledge more effectively than almost any other means of communication” [6]. And man is a “mimetic animal”, as Aristotle asserted, which will not reproduce in his environment a figure he does not know, but he will try to imitate only those signs he will consider the most suitable, the best suited, adapted and adaptable to the needs. The image represents the primitive algorithm in the imitation process, that supports learning, “a normally adaptive variation of behavior, the result of experience” [91]. The image has a profound impact on our way of experiencing landscapes [8, pp. 10 –11], creating new reference models. Imitation has a linguistic component that increases the hereditary dimension of man, a peculiarity that leads Ernst Cassirer to define the human being as a “symbolic animal” [92], a condition that reprojects in the landscape that dynamism between geometric order and freedom of the image. This, “at the moment when it shows itself to be present, it also reveals itself as not being of this world but rather as belonging to an inaccessible elsewhere” [93]. In the plurality of meanings, the dual function of images for the landscape emerges, capable of re-veiling its identity in the double sense of the word, of “veiling again”, of hiding its real identity, as well as of testifying under the appearance the true essence of that relation arising with the eyes (Fig. 9).

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Fig. 9 Porta Pia’s historical representation in the Porta Pia lithographies drawn by Bartolomeo Faleti (1568) and by Luigi Rossini (1829)

6 Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element on Landscape “In short, that contradiction must be accepted” [1, p. 40].

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The landscape is an expression of life, containing within itself the vitality of the natural world, an expression of man’s work, continuously transformed by the relations and their meanings. In this dynamism, as well as for its structural ambiguity, the relation between architecture and landscape is out of control, made of continuous exceptions, of worlds that meet as unique originals that create ever new relationships. In the tangle of this Medusa, it seems impossible to extricate oneself and that is why it is natural to look for a solution to simplifying it, which, however, as George Bernard Shaw asserts, can only be wrong. Burke writes, “The human spirit naturally feels greater commitment and satisfaction in observing the similarities rather than seeking differences; and this, because by establishing similarities, we produce new images” [94]. There is a “role of order as a way of seeing a whole relevant to its own characteristics and context” [1, p. 41]. The order is not necessarily simplification: “A valid order accommodates the circumstantial contradictions of a complex reality. It accommodates as well as imposes. It thereby admits “control and spontaneity”, “correctness and ease”improvisation within the whole. It tolerates qualifications and compromise… He does not ignore or exclude inconsistencies of program and structure within the order” [1, p. 41]. “But there is convention in architecture, and convention can be another manifestation of an exaggeratedly strong order more general in the scope”. In this category of order by Robert Venturi, it is possible to insert the typological knowledge that marked the architectural debate of the twentieth century. “The concept of type aims in any case at ordering the experience according to schemes, which allow its operability (cognitive and constructive) reducing to a finite number of cases (as more or less large schemes) the infinite number of possible phenomena” [84]. Etymologically the word type refers to the idea, the model, the matrix, the footprint. The typological notion is functional and essential for the generalization of the phenomenon, but without being a “universal” it becomes a way of identifying the genesis of the complexity of the rules, the projection of a logic, conceptual and non-object [95]. Certainly, “the use of classifying schemes, in this regard, only has an instrumental function capable of reducing the set of infinite possibilities of combining a theoretically infinite number of attributes to a finite set of types, in this reduction it is not possible to escape at a certain margin of arbitrariness” [96]. Although derived from the interpretation of experience, the concept of type is always addressed tendentiously by a design purpose, therefore linked not so much to classify, but to collect in order to address, to respond to aesthetic objectives. It is therefore used to configure, to put together complex elements, it is intended as a scheme or a project of form, which takes shape only later [97, pp. 75–81]. The theme that opens up is therefore generalization: the typology has a characteristic of “generality” which propose itself as an entity as extensive as to be configured as a system of notions that are difficult to translate into operational opportunities [98]. “Gestalt psychology maintains that context contributes meaning to a part and change in context causes change in meaning” [1, p. 43]. What matters is instead the peculiarity, what deviates from the generalization, what makes the place identity,

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Fig. 10 The original landscape of Porta Pia before the “via Pia” (1559–1565) with the Aurelian walls portrayed by Felice Cicconetti, Nineteenth-century architect, the back of the Michelangelo door in the view of Giuseppe Vasi (1747) who begins to reverse its reading, as then strengthened from 1870 in the military planimetric drawings of the entrance

original. The innate “typological instinct”, the need to find patterns and simplifications, to build syntheses, risks hiding reality itself and becoming essence, “simulacrum of the world in which the complexity, irregularity, disorder and error of this is artificially recomposed in an abstract balance” [99]. If the typological thinking in architecture is transmitted in particular through the logic of the manual, in parallel the risk that is run for example in the territorial government tools for the protection of the landscape, is to drop from above generalized and uncritical models, unable to grasp the essentiality inherent in the identity given by the relation (Fig. 10). Jane Jacobs in her famous “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” clearly criticizes this approach. She signals the inconsistency for the city, but even more for the landscape, “to imitate and apply these analyzes precisely as if cities were problems in disorganized complexity, understandable purely by statistical analysis, predictable by the application of probability mathematics, manageable by conversion into groups of averages” [55, pp. 435–436]. Christopher Alexander, in the “Notes on the synthesis of the urban form” [100], clarifies that “the city”, but even more the landscape “is not a tree” [100, pp. 194–230], but a “semilattice”, a set containing other sets, including some intersected between them. Alexander’s vision therefore includes both the analysis of the macrostructure, which hides a series of defined elements, and the denunciation of the failure of many urban conformations schematized through linear nodal structures. It emerges, then, that for the landscape typology and generalization are strategies aimed at making the picturesque become a rule. This logic is linked to the obsession

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with icons, which goes from the search for “brands” to the emoticon, an adaptive strategy necessary to be recognized and remembered, but which in fact remains a simplifying labeling that can easily lead you to not consider the richness and the uniqueness inherent in the complexity and contradiction in the places. The big question is that a stereotype descends too easily from the type, literally the composition of a type, a simplified model of reality with which to build the criteria. Stereotypes propose shortcuts to evaluate a landscape, in the idea that, falling into a certain mental category, the landscape must have certain characteristics. The sociological parallelism has led to disarming consequences in history, as hyperbolically manifested by the various racial laws. The stereotype is not based on empirical and scientific analysis, but categories are defined, neglecting consequences of possible differences that are equally fundamental as affinities. Labeling what a landscape should be like means placing pre-evaluations, imposing a model of what one expects it will become, seeking confirmation rather than taking on the value of complexity and contradiction. Furthermore, the step from stereotype to prejudice is minimal, a process that generates preconceptions related to common opinions. The prejudice on the landscape implies that any intervention that moves away from the current state, or even better from the ethereal idea of reference, must be seen with a substantial sense of mistrust. This idea derived in part from memory and from the past attributed with value, on the other hand from a cultural model that often turns out to be a legacy of a romantic culture of the picturesque. The construction of typological models on the landscape becomes a prejudice only when the same interpretation aims at seeking these certainties and it is proposed to counteract their transformations, in order to remain irreversible even in the light of new knowledge. The principles take precedence over the places, they are put first in order to proceed with rationality, deducing a thesis from these hypotheses. Nevertheless, the landscape, being a projection of identity, is a harbinger of the relation and of the complexity that characterize man, which is not entirely objectified. These complexities can be addressed in a stochastic way, projected towards a goal, towards a common good, not pigeonholed in deductive logics that devastate their vitality. The relationship between architecture and landscape cannot be ascribed to the rule, to the canon. “Pop Art has demonstrated that these commonplace elements are often the main source of the occasional variety and vitality of our cities, and that it is not their banality or vulgarity as elements which make for the banality or vulgarity of the whole scene, but rather their contextual relationships of space and scale. Another significant implication from Pop Art involves method in city planning. Architects and planners who peevishly denounce the conventional townscape for its vulgarity or banality promote elaborate methods for abolishing or disguising honkytonk elements in the existing landscape, or, for excluding them from the vocabulary of their new townscapes. But they largely fail either to enhance or to provide a substitute for the existing scene because they attempt the impossible. By attempting too much they flaunt their impotence and risk their continuing influence as supposed experts. Cannot the architect and planner, by slight adjustments to the conventional elements

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Fig. 11 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the story of the romantic paintings by Carlo Ademollo, The Breach of Porta Pia, circa 1880, oil on canvas (inv. Sn 00001). Copyright Comune di Milano—all rights reserved—Milano, Palazzo Moriggia | Museo del Risorgimento

of the townscape, existing or proposed, promote significant effects? By modifying or adding conventional elements to still other conventional elements they can, by a twist of context, gain a maximum of effect through a minimum of means. They can make us see the same things in a different way” [1, p. 44]. Entering the dynamism of the images that generates the landscape and architecture, in their vitality, in the serial multiplication of variations that transform the language is the great intuition of the American aesthetics of his time. As “Pop Art has demonstrated that these common place elements are often the main source of the occasional variety and vitality of our cities” [86, X–XI], as in the landscape, in his representation, what is secondary, perhaps even trivial, is fundamental for what must be considered a real mosaic, made of overlapping and holistic levels in all its parts. The complexity and contradiction that Robert Venturi identifies in architecture, and more broadly in the landscape, delegitimize the historical fracture made by the Modern, which, if on the one hand relativizes the whole urban epistemology, on the other it stands as a model of a new order and a new meaning which instead reveals itself to be empty and contradictory (Fig. 11).

7 Contradiction Adapted on Landscape The relations between architecture and landscape are rich and variable, profoundly influenced by contextual conditions that are however unique, even if within formal boundaries the formal variations marked by man present similar logics, linked to the history and culture of the places. It is in this context that we want to refer to

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Robert Venturi’s idea of “contradiction adapted” that “is tolerant and pliable. It admits improvisation. It involves the disintegration of a prototype and it ends in approximation and qualification” [1, p. 45]. The meanings arise from the relationship, not from the theories. Thinking through patterns, types, images, does not define what is understood, but how it is understood. Walter Benjamin clarifies “how the superficial inducement, the exotic, the picturesque has an effect only on the foreigner. To portray a city, a native must have other, deeper motives – motives of one who travels into the past instead of into the distance. A native’s book about his city will always be related to memories; the writer has not spent his childhood there in vain” [101]. Time, especially in the landscape, has a neuralgic value as the space has, it is what deeply marks relationships and identity. Moreover, the relation between architecture and landscape is not still, but it is an expression of the relationship between man and place, which takes place in space as in time. The story engages in the tension between the poles. It is the idea of the myth “which refers to an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabulous time of the «origins» … always the narration of a «creation»” [102, pp. 27–28]. Moving back in time allows in fact juxtaposing a value exponentially growing, such that, also by virtue of a memory of a past time where everything is better than the present, the more you step back in time the less a comparison is possible. In this relation with time, with life, with evolution, the landscape is so interpreted as a sort of living being, to be understood as a Popper’s World Three [103] in relation to the holistic systematic nature of its elements, as the organicist vision teaches [83]. It is possible to find this reading at the beginning of urban studies, in Marcel Poëte [104], with his Bergsonian creative evolution, as well as in Patrick Gaddes [105], city historian and biologist, inspired by a parallel evolutionism corroborated, however, by Lamarckian ideas of growth for accumulation, as well as in Lewis Mumford’s organic and evolutionary interpretation [89] (Fig. 12). The complexity and intrinsic contradiction in this reflection is still to be found in the ambiguity of the landscape, in its virtual and real nature, in its dependence on the other, on the identity given. The place evolves over time, on the one hand in parallel with technical and cultural evolution and, as it happens in the natural world, its growth is given through variation of the meaning given to the images rather than the forms. Ex post, also the landscape, as the natural world it includes, “seems to be the product of inorganic design actions oriented towards the same purpose, towards a balance, towards the search for beauty, pursued in its multiform paths and contexts. Mutations are random, but not everything is under the banner of the events” [106]. Even the signs of man in the area are the result of the balancing of a need, also aesthetic, which also become a projection of the humanism that generates them, of man’s own ability to “transcend” the environment, to adapt it to himself rather than vice versa, only passively subject its logics. The landscape then reflects the search for identity that goes beyond matter and utilitarianism, where the practical and aesthetic functions cannot be separated.

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Fig. 12 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the story of the illustrative drawings on “The Breach of Porta Pia 20 September 1870”, MCRR Cassette VIII, MCRR Cassetta VIII (34). Copyright Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano—all rights reserved—Roma, Complesso del Vittoriano | Museo Centrale del Risorgimento di Roma

The landscape, in its relationship with time and history, tells about this evolution, and about the dialogue that is created between the signs of man and the natural space. Nevertheless, it can happen that a particular “phenotype”, a particular place, a territory that has a greater impact on the society that lives in it, can be so successful as to influence the “genotype”, that is to redefine the project. This opens up a new channel for the transmission of information, which overlaps with the genetic one, different types of inheritance, synthetically ascribable to the epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic dimension [91]. It should be noted that the linear vision of DNA is now being questioned, replaced by the more complex interpretation of a network of interacting genes, which also interface with the surrounding environment, suggesting a “soft inheritance” [91], that is, with genomic changes also induced by environmental factors. In these processes, it is possible to find the principles of evolutionism, where the variation becomes the key element to transform the very aspect of natural individuality [107]. The landscape can then be read as the result of a “development with reproduction, of the inheritance inherent in reproduction, of the variability linked to the indirect and direct action of external conditions of life and use and non-use of a rhythm of a numerical increase so high as to lead to the struggle for life and consequently to natural selection, which in turn it involves the divergence of the characters and the extinction of the less perfected forms” [107]. Reproduction, variation,

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adaptation and selection are therefore the fundamental steps of the evolution of landscapes, fitness (of the image) the distinctive element according to the integrated vision proposed by Mendel. In its growth is inherent what for Charles Darwin, father of the theory of Evolution, is the “grandeur” of life, which “evolved and evolves, starting from such simple beginnings, to create infinite, extremely beautiful and wonderful shapes” [107]. This vision enters the operational sphere of the project in a predominant way, because the interpretation of the phenomenon affects the strategies to be developed: in an ex-post analysis logic, where the phenomena are analyzed analytically by going to find rules, the evolutionary issue represents a fact, an expression of a succession of events that retraced backwards lead to the original form. We thus return to the essential question of complexity and contradiction in the landscape, which contrasts with that simplification so evident in the typological vision: “the mistake is to consider typology as a means of providing some final formalization models, instead of placing it on its rightful place among the complex formal creation processes” [108]. As occurs in excellent case studies, the landscape, impoverished of its richness, as well as being analyzed only in a generalized way, is projected towards an ideality that can go as far as to deny the very essence of the place, which is the antithesis of the enhancement of the identity and originality. The image is what is transmitted from a place to a person; it is the reproductive essence of the landscape itself. The relation arises from perception, from the inception of the image in human mind, from the influence of the environment, in particular of the visual on the person. The “survival” of certain images of places triggers the attribution of value and the social conviction of the need to protect the landscape. The same prevalence of certain images can then be read as the cause of the transformations of other places, where “it happens” that certain images find favorable contexts to attest and proliferate. The landscape then becomes an expression of a “memetic” process [91, 109], where the images carry the evolutionary logic of replication in a symbolic dimension. DNA introduced the concept of genetic program into heredity, instructions that guide the development. In this sense, the relation between genotype and phenotype becomes a project and a product. The reproduction is then related in this sense to the relation between a cake recipe and its actual product, a condition that prompted some well-known scholars, in particular Richard Dawkins [110], to hypothesize a blind mechanism of genes as true and real protagonists, who in their “selfishness” direct the evolutionary development. In practice, according to this school, adaptations are always for the good of the gene, the result of their competition, thus distinguishing between the replicator, the gene, and the vehicle, the man (Fig. 13). The reality, which clearly contrasts with the perception of the ego and our conscience, reveals itself as a narrative trick useful to highlight certain logics of inheritance. However, the interpretation does not stop at the genetic aspect, but it is proposed in all areas where there is a reproduction, through the concept of “meme”, a cultural unit of minimal information transmittable from one subject to another. For Dawkins, a genotype determines the meme, expressed in the brain as neuronal circuits, with phenotypic effects “in the form of words, music, visual images,

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Fig. 13 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the nineteenth-century lithographs of the epic tale celebrating the entry of the Bersaglieri

styles…” [111]. Following the same interpretation, Susan Blackmore, psychologist, defines memes as the units of information, in practice the ideas, transmitted from one subject to another, and the man simply becomes their “machine” [109]. The thesis supported by memetics is that man differs in “his ability to imitate” [109], “he acts on memes both as a replicating mechanism and as a selective environment” [109], but they are the ones imposing themselves, in the thoughts that we cannot stop doing [109], like a musical motif that buzzes in the mind. “Memetic” is a word similar to “mimetic”, but the lack of representative intentionality distinguishes it. The landscape can be read as the result of certain memes transmitted from one subject to another. The variation of the thematic center allows in fact reading the architectural events in relation to their heuristics. There is a transposition of the interest passing from either the “species”, the “organisms” or the “group” to the hereditary unity, to the single abstract idea. In the relation between memes and genes there is a big difference because in the biological world the information is not influenced by content, by the type of information, but in the memes’ sphere the form and the interest of the unit affects the process of copy and its fidelity. It is much easier to reproduce a pure form, rather than a complex system, just as it is much easier to learn a nursery rhyme than the Divine Comedy. In the randomness of the memetic variation, much clearer in nature, we note the influence of the message and likewise of the environment, conditions that lead to hypothesize “guided mutations”

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[91], induced in part by external stress. There is certainly a relation between memes and education, a condition contrasting with the idea of tout court selection. The idea of meme as a simple copying following imitation contrasts with the essential reconstruction exercised by the recipient and with its dependence on the content, to which the process is still sensitive. This condition therefore leads it to engage with greater vigor in the process of symbolic inheritance. While comprehending “who benefits” and “what is selected”, it is central to study “how” and “why” certain variations are generated. Rather than focusing on the single unit, although interesting in some parts, the analysis of the conditions that generate the change is perhaps of greater interest, the study of active processes, linked to design capacity of man, capable of consciously generating variations that moreover, unlike genetics, modify the selective environment. The landscape, in its relation with the image, could be read as the history of the variation of projects and of its simplifications in certain contexts, with similar variations, made of “small jumps” [107], because “It is the role of design to adjust to the circumstantial” [1, p. 45]. The “genetic” growth of the landscape finds in its relationship with the environment and culture the explanation of the inability of the “project” to achieve teleologically a specific objective in a limited way. The interaction between intentions and adaptation, in fact, at least in the short duration, reaches out to stochastic results, term to be understood in its etymological sense of “aiming for a target” with the uncertainty of the success of the intent. In fact, there is a complex set of intersected relations, choices grafted into unexpected processes and inevitable boundary conditions. These do not detract anything from the value of the choice but they make understandable its more realistic effect produced by those who “pro-jecting”, moving the object forward, do not rely on an alchemical and unrealistic knowledge of the future. Each individual information is then inherent in a system of relations with the cultural environment; isolation is certainly an important abstraction. Even in genetics, the concept of network and environmental interaction shifts the attention to the characters, determining the centrality of structure and conformation of the network itself. The complexification of the factors put in place, by virtue of the many and possible solutions, certifies the illusion of a “genetic astrology” marked by the impossibility of predicting the appearance of a person by exclusively observing his DNA [91]. The configuration of the network itself influences the laws of evolutionary change and makes the difference between vehicle and replicator blur. Determinism starting from the minimum units is impossible, due to the influence on the phenotype of environment, history and place. This condition is proper also to architecture. As men are not “genetic robots”, so landscapes are not “memetic robots” (Fig. 14). The architectural idea then becomes a recomposition of exaptation “memes”, capable of surviving over time, hybridizations of images that recompose indifferently from “the present and the past, between the empirical and the ideal, between the contingent and the abstract” [112]. In this collage [113], the project is built through crossing dissolutions of mental images deriving from the archiving of previous retinal images on which the will to form operates new associations and radical transformations; these images are nothing but drawings [114, p. 341].

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Fig. 14 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the photograph by Gioacchino Altobelli artifacted the day after the capture (21 September 1870) with the laying of soldiers in the architectural pole and in the subsequent gross photomontage for the construction of a post-truth landscape

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Fig. 15 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the truthful restored photograph taken from the Casinò Patrizi (21 September 1870)

The sign issue is at the center of Robert Venturi’s interest, who clearly explains how this theme goes beyond the architectural scale, projecting itself on the city, but going even further than the text, also in the landscape. In fact, he writes, “these ideas are applicable to the design and perception of cities, which have more extensive and complex programs, of course, than individual buildings. The consistent spatial order of the Piazza S. Marco, for example is not without its violent contradictions in scale, rhythm, and textures, not to mention the varying heights and styles of the surrounding buildings. Is there not a similar validity to the vitality of Times Square in which the jarring inconsistencies of buildings and billboards are contained within the consistent order of the space itself? It is when honky-tonk spills out beyond spatial boundaries to the noman’s land of roadtown, that it becomes chaos and blight” [1, p. 54]. Fifty years later, the two urban landscapes mentioned by Venturi are still emblems of the different transformative dynamics, further proof of the proactive value of this analysis, aimed at capturing “all the elements that contribute to creating the environment” [115]. Landscape, the cities and “like architecture, is complex and contradictory” [1, p. 54] (Fig. 15).

8 Contradiction Juxtaposed on Landscape In the picturesque vision, the landscape, a pure, ethereal, mythical word, is a value to protect and promote in its qualities that refer to the natural world, always with the assumption that this is not hostile to man. Even the work, in this romantic sense,

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is the result of a sustainable balance. The reality is very different: referring to the Italian context as a case study, we realize that since the post-war period onwards, the development of the territory has undergone that what Robert Venturi calls “shock treatment” [1, p. 56]. These instruments are related to the pressing needs of the rapid transformation of Modernity [116], whose harmful effects on the lowering of the quality of the places are known to anyone who is dichotomously divided between spaces conserved and rarefied like diamonds [8], and a widespread and fragmented city [117], almost infinite [118]. For this city it seems hopeless for a real regeneration that transforms the ways of living [119]. The landscape has often been completely ignored, to give rise to atopic architectures and cities dramatically enhanced by their generality [120], the result of the “coexistence of experiences promoted by global communication [and the consequent] acceleration in the consumption of the image-experience [innate] in the constant search for new sources” [121]. The landscape still re-emerges as a set of signs and meanings that can be analyzed according to perceptive logics. The “shock treatment” [1, p. 56] is then a reading of the “sign tensions”, since “eye and mind must be nourished with changing visual relations. Only this iridescent variety can provide the stimulus necessary to retain attention on the pictorial surface” [6]. In the illustration, the order, which is consequential to equilibrium, is an intrinsic condition of man, his need that therefore becomes a requirement of the sign system to find new relations. “Every force acts in a medium, it exists in a field. Any process aroused by forces has a meaning only in reference to its surroundings, such as the interaction between the force and the medium in which it acts” [6]. Rudolf Arnheim writes, “Visual perception is about living visual forces” [58, p. 335]. “Tension is the force inherent in the element; as such it is only one component of active movement. To it, it must be added the guiding direction” [60], observes the great Kandinsky. The underlying conceptual model is the same expressed by Thompson D’Arcy, when he describes the shape of an object as the “force diagram”: the snail shell, human bones, are growing geometries that express the active tension intrinsically present in the figures [122]. Likewise in figures, as Gestalt’s experiments demonstrated a physiological counterpart to perceptual dynamics, for example in the well-known illusion of MullerLyner’s “arrows” [58, p. 341] or in the posthumous figural effect of Kohler and Wallach [58, p. 324]. There is a motionless movement that can be seen, for example, in the dynamism of obliquity, as in the representation of the blades of the mill, which are perceived to be stationary if placed perpendicular to the axis, moving if along the diagonals, but even more unstable and in movement when they are in an asymmetrical position [58, p. 345]. The deformation of stereotyped figures also induces tensions [58, pp. 347–348], which then occurs in any movement of form [5], as evidenced by the entasis of the Greek columns or the stroboscopic effects [58, pp. 352–355] and the physiological “gamma movement” [58, p. 356] that occurs when an object appears and suddenly disappears. The balance that is established not only affects the figures, but also affects the whole range of forces generated by them, because “each visual unit acquires its unique way of appearing through a dynamic interrelation with the optical surrounding environment” [58, p. 22]. In this logic, the centrality of the context is established, of

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the sign set that defines the type of balance between the elements. The contradictions inherent in the landscape can then be read as the balance between the different components. As regards the figures, to be understood as vectors, their balance will be called “stable” if the interaction will lead to changes in the form and in the direction according to a scaling tending to reduce internal tensions: it is a system of action and reaction where the addition or modification of one of the vectors determines a readjustment of the balance. There are also other conditions: actions so strong or contexts so weak that redefine the same relations in the contrast of prevailing tensions; these conditions are defined as “unstable” balances. Likewise, the “indifferent” equilibrium condition, where the context is homogenized with a low level of order, so much that following an action the transformed object does not change the relation logic with the contextual space, which is uninterested in what happens. Among the figures of the sign systems, the first case creates modulation, the second interference, the third indifference, while with the context respectively deformation, redefinitions and perturbations. Ways to relate to become design strategies. Between the action and interaction of the figures, between the composition and the hybridization, in the city, as happens in polyphony in music [58, pp. 271–292], the richness of “contemporary … multidimensional simultaneity” [58, pp. 271–292] is structured. Hence the dynamism that characterizes all the images [6]. The final jump is in fact determined by the transformation of diversity into a unity that perception collects. The path of figuration therefore interfaces in a continuous passage, tending to refinement, between synthesis and analysis, between units and structuring fragments. “Every organism developed in a superior way is a synthesis of diversity” [59]. Klee had well understood the dynamic relation between the figures: his analyzes have a clear theoretical intent to seek action and interaction between fundamental entities. In this sense, the same figures imagined are always broken down by fundamental entities. These are then read as real mathematical vectors, “motor forms” [59, pp. 325–342] in “organic progression” [59]. This explains the value of an equilibrium, which can be modified but it must find its stability. If the figurative element is a vector that carries out an action, the context close to it must be able to respond and counterbalance its presence. A good painter must know how to well relate the signs, a good designer must first learn to interpret them, then to respond to the needs revealed in the relation with the landscape, knowing that the tools with which he will intervene will determine new polarities. Therefore, there is no single way of planning: following the reading of the context, including the points where tensions occur, it is possible to think either to support the process already in progress by trying to fit into the evolutionary logic, or to decide to destabilize and upset the same noted development (Fig. 16). The symbolic elements become semantic inversions of elements that can also be insignificant and abstract, but they reverse their role in the cities, these use a language characterized by different scales of reading [123]: “Symbol dominates space, Architecture is not enough. Because the spatial relationships are made by symbols more than by forms, architecture in this landscape becomes symbols in space rather than form in space… The signs is more important of the architecture” [124, p. 12]. American culture has been able to understand the Dionysian charge

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Fig. 16 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the historical images between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the bombing holes, with the opening of the Aurelian walls, with the new means of transport

of what is popular, what is spontaneous and able to generate interesting reflections even in a more indefinite context linked to man’s relationship with naturalness. In fact, if in particular in the post-war American urban context it is crowded with media images, from cinema to advertising, the architectural culture does not stop at the quotation and the superficial aspects of communication, but it faces the great theme

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of communication and architectural language, in its relation between denoting and connoting elements. Robert Venturi’s architecture and his almost obsession with having to communicate through the invention of a language and the idea of architecture as a symbolic, abstract, conceptual element are clearly inserted into this context. He marks the “responsibility toward the landscape, which he can subtly enhance or impair, for we see in perceptual wholes and the introduction of any new building will change the character of all the other elements in a scene” [125, pp. 333–334]. Architecture is not limited to being, to creating spaces, but it wants to reinterpret the dynamism of that American context characterized by the overlapping of signs with the use of iconic forms. It is the attempt to condense the landscape into architecture, according to strategies still revealed today as valid not so much for the artifice of language, as for the search for relationship and dialogue. However, it is interesting to highlight the increasingly progressive autonomy of the landscape from architecture, by becoming free from the narrow and incongruous role of the background. If objectified, if it loses its evocative character that is inherent in its full representative value, the landscape ceases to be the highest product of man, because “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art” [53, p. 4]. However, the fact remains that the landscape, although linked to perception, is more important that it exists than to be seen: it is the very fate of the works of art, which could paradigmatically exist even to be dedicated to spirits [53, p. 14]. Today, in a more desacralized way, the concept can be translated into what elevates man, but with the advent of the masses we witness “intimate fusion of visual and emotional enjoyment with the orientation of the expert”. As architecture was always able to have a collective impact on citizenship, even the landscape can speak to the masses, even if these relations can be “consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction. The laws of its reception are most instructive… Architecture has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception—or rather, by touch and sight…” [53, p. 14] (Fig. 17).

9 The Inside and the Outside on Landscape “Contrast between the inside and the outside can be a major manifestation of contradiction in architecture” [1, p. 70]. Analyzing the issue from the inside of the building, it is clear that the relation is implicit in the openness of architecture in its context, but it is a statuary and now obvious relation, even if structured with intensity in the multiple experiences of history. In the landscape, it is possible to see that there is no external or internal view, because man is always inserted in his environment. Instead, there is more and more a new way of being inside and outside in the landscape in relation to the digital hyper visualization, the continuous replication

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Fig. 17 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the hermeneutic transformation derived from the overlap of the bersaglieri monument placed in 1932

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of images that anticipate the direct visual experience and transform its perception. The relation between landscape and architecture is transformed into the value of the image, in the so impressive presence of communication. Digital is not only a technique or a technology, it is mainly a culture, of the “mass”, not only because it speaks to the masses but also for the mass of data to which we are subject today. It is known how Walter Benjamin analyzes clearly that these techniques “do not speak to the eye … because an unconsciously elaborated space intervenes instead of a space elaborated by human consciousness” [53, p. 41], but they represent today’s culture. The effect of the proliferation of images is “the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage”. Photography, and even more digital, activate “a new kind of perception” [53, p. 5], and they are placed in correspondence with the relation with the masses, today even more current, to respond to their desire and need to “bring things ‘closer’ spatially and humanly … as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction”. The theme is very strong today also in the relation between architecture and landscape, so unconscious as to be seduced by “the ‘sense of the universal equality of things’, that has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction” [53, p. 5]. The democratization of knowledge, the logic of the mass media, that absence of attention to the individual and the community, the search for shared knowledge, seem to have to go through simplification, through processes that tend to cancel differences, along with history and the memory. This is a question implicitly found also by Robert Venturi in his criticism of purely functional architecture extended in the enhancement of complexity and contradiction. The changes and transformations that characterize our society [126], the new forms of relationships that the computer culture creates with its digital ubiquity and its multiuniverses [127], reflect on the landscape. As the industrial revolution changed the face of the inhabited centers [128], as well the current culture [129] and the connective society [130–132] are an expression of the “fourth industrial revolution” [133]. This revolution leads to reflect in the logics of its spaces that same “intelligence” of the environment more and more permeated by digital. Unlike the dreamlike projections of engulfment of machines on man, technology represents an ever-increasing opportunity to focus on the person [2, 134, 135]. With digital connectivity, in fact, the relations between “people and things”, between “things and things”, and therefore also between “people and people” [136] are transformed, because technology allows to share information, which is the true heart of the revolution [137] of which the contemporary man is increasingly “hungry”. Almost a century ago, Walter Benjamin had already analyzed a question about this speed of the construction of the image, ever more current due to the full and total diffusion of photography tools in smartphones: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” [53, p. 5]. The hic et nunc of the work of art, of the relation between architecture and landscape, is correlated to the presence [138], to its Heideggerian “Daisen”, “to be in the world” [139], to be inserted within an environment, a place, of a system of signs communicating with a language. In

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digital, on the other hand, the very sense of presence is lost, the influence of space is misplaced [140], for place and space can be present without the subject being physically present. In digital, space duplicates itself in the size of the image, quickly re-proposed to simulate temporality. Thus, an autonomy and distance from physical reality are achieved. The digital space stands as a “fake that advances” [141, pp. 46– 54] where to find refuge, an abuse that stands as a common use, “de-realization” [142] hidden in the multidimensionality aspect of the information. Digital has certainly changed the value of images, their overdose impoverishes their truth content [56]. The complexity of the images and of the image itself therefore leads to distrust and nourish a systematic suspicion of deception, perhaps “because it was thoughtlessly believed that a drawing was a tracing, a copy, a second thing” [143]. The risk and the related fear find the reasons for this prejudice in the substantial lability of the image, doubt that is projected accordingly also on the relation between architecture and landscape. The underlying question is on the originality of the relation, an essential step in the process of signification, even if this call implicitly involves a split and a selection of “true” images, a now unsustainable “frontier between noumenon and phenomenon, between entity and existing” [97] implicitly absurd for their own statute (Fig. 18). Also in the relation between architecture and landscape, thanks to the development of digital, unpublished representations restructure the complexity of the experience, anticipating, enriching and manipulating the direct relation, often called to research the styles already experienced. “Mental zapping” creates a series of startles that defragment the unity and linearity of the sequence, a randomness that is reflected in a casual and fluctuating style [144, pp. 65–66] and it is correlated to that fundamental characteristic of web 2.0, “the so-called serendipity, the possibility to make fortuitous discoveries while looking for something else” [145]. Among the internet and Hollywood movies, between smartphones and digital cameras, man is immersed but he does also produce billions of images and an even greater number of links. Sets that can go as far as to betray and falsify the relation between the project and the landscape in virtuality, confusing experience and affecting the construction of the model. The amplification of expert images reached such a high level that, in the disproportion of digital replication capacity, the faith in the possibility of intervening in the flows of perception is lost. Therefore, in the landscape. The consequent apathy that impotence substantially implies in the de-valorization of relationships legitimizes the de-responsibility of the care of one’s own places [146]. There is therefore the great theme of digital that is interposed today in our relations with space, replicated in virtuality. If already Walter Benjamin wrote that in the images, “evidently a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye—if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man” [53, p. 16], certainly this condition is emphasized in the proliferation of contemporary information. Places become closer, due to the sharing of information and images of everything, but even more distant because, in the end, there is no direct experience, living that area that is in a certain sense “spoiled”, in some aspects also vulgarized. Images have lost their “aura” they are

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Fig. 18 The urban landscape of Porta Pia in the hermeneutic transformation derived from the stratification of the underpass designed by Ignazio Guidi in the construction site images concerning the construction of the urban landscape (I. Guidi, V. Mascia, An Urban Revolution, in “Capitolium”, 9–10 (1966), pp. 13–16) and in urban regeneration design studies (Aka Project)

no longer trustable. The problem is that “the situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated” [53, p. 5]. The relation between exterior and interior, between presence and absence, enhances the theme of architecture as a purely contemporary issue linked to the culture of images, however, on another side, it depletes the profound values of the landscape in cultural flatness and content. Digital creates the culture of selfies, with its attention to the landscape, albeit intended as a simple background, albeit enhanced only as an image, as an appearance. The perception of the landscape between inside and outside generates a profound “distraction”, the same that Benjamin suffers for the works of art, for the cult value receding “into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one” [53, p. 19] (Fig. 19).

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Fig. 19 The evolution of the urban landscape of Porta Pia in the planimetric representations of the maps with the door in the rural landscape before the redesign of Paul IV of the immortalized way Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1561); the redesign of the layouts for the geometrization of the still predominantly rural territory in the new topography of Rome by Nolli (1748); the archaeological signs in Leonardo Bufalini’s “Icnography” (1755); the attractive value of the geometric layout in Colonel Blondel’s Plan de Rome (1856); the endogenous vision with the first presence of the Termini station in the Topographic Plan of the Pontifical Census (1866), the innovative drive in geometric saturation in the Master Plan of Alessandro Viviani (1883); the urban saturation related to the preexistences present in the “Archaeological Walk” (1888) and with the overcoming of the wall limit also present in the “Roma Presente e Avvenire” by Antonio Vallardi (1891); the first extension of a garden city in the Topographical Plan (1903); the increasingly extensive urban growth present in the Charter of Rome (1925) and the condensation of building signs in the Rome Map (1930); the predominance of the tracks that generate the current city in the “Town Plan Of Rome” drawn up by the American War Office during the Second World War (1943)

10 The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole “An architecture of complexity and accommodation does not forsake the whole. In fact, I have referred to a special obligation toward the whole because the whole is difficult to achieve. And I have emphasized the goal of unity rather than of simplification in an art ‘whose truth {is} in its totality’” [1, p. 88]. The proliferation of images, experienced or reproduced that they are, the multiple interpretation of signs, the different levels of contradiction, the

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different ambiguities, do not lead to fragmenting the relation between architecture and landscape, instead they highlight its “Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole”. A landscape “of complexity and accommodation does not forsake the whole” [1, p. 88].

The relation between architecture and landscape is then comparable to a speech, the foundation of which is its “global coherence”, intended as a structure of referential links between the statements, therefore linear relations of content between adjacent images [147], which refer to memory as perception. A perceptual whole is the result of, and yet more than, the sum of its parts. The whole is dependent on the position, number, and inherent characteristics of the parts” [1, p. 88]. In the vision that starts from the general to reach the particular [58, p. 32], the reconnection to a temporal factor wants to be sought to give order and structure to the causal links of the parts. The narrative of architecture in the landscape is attributed to this relation, understood as a series of sequences of actions that take place over time according to causal principles [148]. The experience transforms what is perceived in events [149], and the events then become the themes of the story. The attention to the links inherent in the narrative leads to questioning the centrality of asking and understanding how and why a space transforms into a place. The theme of the relation between image and imagination, “faculty of the possible” [150], opens up in the construction of the idea of landscape. Emphasizing the relation between the sequences of events that make up a story, is a way of affirming that the global meaning a narration starts from the identification of the causal connections that bind together the various parts of the story [151, pp. 83–111]. This does not mean that the coherence between the images is stringent in meaning: they connect to each other by analogies or points of contact that they escape from a generative logic of the relation with the percept, and find in the memory multiple connection points that reinterpret their meaning by juxtaposing different meanings from the original. “The difficult whole in” a landscape “of complexity and contradiction includes multiplicity and diversity of elements in relationships that are inconsistent or among the weaker kinds perceptually” [1, p. 88]. The relationship with the landscape substantiates the project of the contemporary value of narration and of the story so central to the culture of images. It is possible to compare the storytelling methods that unite eighteenth-century novel of Robinson Crusoe and the American television series, more contemporary, Lost, or the hagiographic forms of our Mediterranean culture, also evident in our local movies productions. The latter tries to communicate the values by assigning authoritativeness to the narrators, perhaps represented in deathbed with a moralistic flashback rereading the past. In fact, the Anglo-Saxon aesthetic is so linked to the sense of adventure, “to reflect on oneself, our society needs to invent an extreme place (shipwreck), an existential metaphor (the lost island) and an unusual condition (survival)” [152]. The attention of the project to relation with the landscape is a contemporary issue, which arises from the need of making its narrative ethereal and mythological. New communication tools enhance it, in contrast with the purely modern and rationalist strategies opposed by Venturi and aimed at rhetorically praising quantitative

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and metric qualities, by losing the existential metaphor value of life, they are no longer “architectures” thus just functional spaces (Fig. 20). The means is a message [153] and the narration redesigns the essential questions of the projects. As a consequence of writing and even more of the printing, and in parallel of the decoding of the drawing as a design tool, we assist to the drawing and narration of the territory with the loss of the linear trend of the narration, with its climax generically represented by the emblematic “Freytag pyramid” [154]. The plot no longer develops in a linear way, along a thread, even if braided, but through the writing it is possible to make conceptual jumps, summarize the events, anticipate or postpone them, stitch them up or index them.

Fig. 20 The role of the project design in the transformations of the urban landscape in the anticipatory signs of the Master Plan of Alessandro Viviani of 1883 with the redesign of the landscape inside the walls, its overcoming in the Regular Plan of Edmondo Sanjust of 1909, the further extension and homogenization of the 1931 Regulatory Plan drawn up among others by Giovannoni, Piacentini, Muñoz which strengthens the centrality of the area, the design of the city-territory by Petrucci, Furitano and Samperi for the 1965 Regular Plan

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For the representation and narration of the landscape in architecture, it is necessary to deal with an open form, linked to a path, which imposes identity and orientation. The connected and implicit theme of the image is never something univocal, much less closed. The landscape reveals itself, it imposes a path, which is not just physical, but it requires a final recomposition for the implicit relation of plurality of forms, for the dynamic possibilities of discovery, for the slow unveiling of the sense of place. Storytelling, invention, ideation, idealization, are intersected systems with random boundaries that must be balanced by a research based on the data and on the interpretation of its meaning. The relationship between landscape and design finds its communication in the images, which relate to memory [3] and to the experience that, although forming and transforming places or man, is not what transforms identity. The landscape can be read as a set of images and memory that interchange in roles. As Rafael Moneo notes, this logic is present in Robert Venturi’s aesthetic idea, even in his works, where “they do not impose on us as an objective reality with a proper sense, but are converted into a continuous operation of recognition and use of the own subjective memory. Freedom is in the assembling” [155]. The project can be ascribed to the relation underlying the relationship between images and landscape and leads to questioning whether this means building “images for the story” of the landscape or a “story in images” of the landscape. In the first case, at the center is placed the will to reveal a relationship, to engage an activation process; in the second case, the images are self-referenced, they support and justify themselves, even independently of the values of the place, even as autonomous elements of an invention. The architecture in the landscape, by virtue of the perceptual processes that substantiate its interpretation, reveals itself incapable of appearing as a sudden event. Rather, it discloses in the unfolding of the events, in the duration, in the story, which is in contrast with the new media “crossmediality” structure, in which the user imposes the time of the communicative contact. The architecture, in its relation with the landscape, reaffirms how the need to hear stories, typical of modernity, is deeply interpenetrated by the search for truth, traced mainly over time: any story refers to images, it describes, it evokes, but also in the invention, it takes form by the passage of time, as well as experiencing spatiality. A question therefore emerges: the independence of the image’s language implies that the narration of the landscape precedes it logically and temporally, becoming its constitutive foundation. The relationship that is created between the subject and the territory through the eye is however based on the search for a causal relationship aimed at the project. In a sense, history and memory are opposite [156], but still related, however fruits of a process. The narration refers to the concepts of Mental Time Travel (MTT) [157], understood as the relation between Episodic Memory (EM) and Episodic Future Thinking (EFT). Both are involved, respectively, in the re-enactment of past scenarios and in the anticipation of possible future events [158]. This temporality corresponds to spatial perception and dynamism, “the mobility of the landscape as a result of human mobility” [59]. Understanding the previous time means being able to project into the future, because a deficit of introspection of the past corresponds to a difficulty in verifying the interpretative model, which is limited in testing the possible limit conditions. The narration of architecture in the

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landscape, therefore its representation, becomes the key tool for correlating places with the project, moving over time between present, past and future, imagining and projecting space and relationships. Space and time condense in the place, where “quality is an expression of consciousness nourished by memory” [159, p. 68]. In this context, the value of representation enters with preponderance: “the action of drawing unites analysis and synthesis always bringing, in the end, to the patient composition of the fragments in a single framework” [160]. The landscape itself teaches us how to enter that totality that passes from the dialectical relation between unity and fragment, between tradition and innovation, between time and space. Representing is the first step to activate a social action of care and attention of what appears, of what is hidden in the origin, of what derives from the relationship with the other, from the care of meaning, from that dynamic relation between ethics and aesthetics. This dynamism of relations reveals that unity comes from connections, the true essence of the landscape. “Some of the vivid lessons of Pop Art, involving contradictions of scale and context, should have awakened architects from prim dreams of pure order, which, unfortunately, are imposed in the easy Gestalt unities of the urban renewal projects of establishment Modern architecture and yet, fortunately are really impossible to achieve at any great scope. And it is perhaps from the everyday landscape, vulgar and disdained, that we can draw the complex and contradictory order that is valid and vital for our architecture as an urbanistic whole” [1, p. 104]. Because, “drawing the complex and the contradictory” is the impossible path that is possible to face with “Pegasus wings”, which are the drawing (Fig. 21).

11 Conclusions The challenge inherent in the relations between architecture and landscape is certainly bold. The landscape is like the figure of Medusa, whose snake hair represents the complexity and contradiction, in the sinuous and intersected shapes and in their multiplicity. The intertwined snakes that surround her face are difficult to count: architecture finds itself related to the territorial morphology, climatic issues, the layouts, the panoramas, man’s and nature’s signs, the multiple functional requests, energy problems, environmental compatibility, accessibility, social projections, the value of images, narrative strategies, digital replication, cultural processes, the overlapping of signs, of time, the different teleology, the multiplicity of meanings. Furthermore, this relation is structurally contradictory, by virtue of its ambiguities. In fact, the architecture on landscape is suspended between the poles of the natural and artificial, the micro and the macrocosm, the virtual and the physical, the image and the body, the indefinite limit and the variation of the vision, the finite and the indefinite, the processes of decomposition and recomposition of the images, the absence of a deterministic purpose and the stochastic interpretation of its identity. The latter is what it is own but also what is given by the other, a social product but also a unique value of the context, the result of a cultural process as well as of the work activity. It

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Fig. 21 The contemporary urban landscape of Porta Pia in the growing value of the tracks that mark its complexity and contradictions

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is something that is expressed in form and structure, which is in time but also out of time, which is projected in the relation with history by overcoming it, almost ignoring it, to project itself into the future with the ability to find meanings, leaving this relation underlying and implicit. This relation conditions those who live the places, even when it goes unnoticed. It is based on what is seen but also on what is imagined, on the possibility of building a language and the impossibility of expressing the depth of being, on its being functional and a metaphor, on what it wants to express as well as on the multiplicity of meanings. The representation of the landscape can be defined as one of the great themes of contemporaneity, an expression of the aesthetic of complexity that describes our time. However, the projection of the landscape into architecture and vice versa of architecture into the landscape appears to be something irreproducible, which as Medusa petrifies, but it cannot be captured in objectifications. Still, it is a necessary challenge for the project, a desire linked to passion, which increasingly needs to investigate the theme of the image and its representation, even at the cost of losing its “aura”. Our culture based on the multiplicity of information offers us more and more quick reflections, unable to deepen the mutual correlations of the holistic aspect proper to our places. Taking as an example the image of Porta Pia placed on the cover of the original Venturi’s masterpiece, it is possible to read today a complex place, for the design intentionality, for the adopted morphological configuration, for its relation with the context that has changed over time, for the added meanings, for the perceptual contradictions of which it is the harbinger, for the overlapping signs, for the meanings that can be continuously stratified. Porta Pia shows us that an image does not communicates a landscape, in fact, due to the hermeneutics of its representation, to the complexity of the landscape, in the richness of its contents and of its aesthetic “function”, its relation with its context is makes fruitful this new field of investigation. Taking up the perceptual themes, the values of the signs, the role of the images, the narration, highlights how the immaterial connections and networks are today the great themes that must be incorporated into the project design. At the center of everything is the person in the logic of a new humanism, in the hypothesis that what our places need is to be regenerated. Then the overlapping of signs, symbols and shapes do not create the environments for man, but it is a different reflection of their reading and interpretation, of the underlying values, which create a lived, known, proper space. Here identification and orientation are consubstantial, with the signs that time leads to a balance by always transmitting their value. In the connections, it is understood that there is no need to invent new, mythological landscapes that do not stop at the banality of the spectacle, to construct further monologues, too laden with rhetoric, with a moralizing aesthetic, of the imposition of new spatial paradigms that distort the hypothetical nature of the landscape. The relations to be discovered, the richness of meanings, invite to investigate under the superficial blanket of the events of life that mark the place, leading in the maze of interiority looking for the truest meanings. So the representation of the landscape must be understood as that tool which induces us to grasp the space conceived in its

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totality, to represent it in all its facets, to seek the internal coherence of the plot of the discourse, to investigate the meaning of architecture understood in its totality. The landscape, in particular the Italian context, expresses in the stratification in particular its sense of place, which links time to signification, in a renewed social sense of Civitas. There is therefore an essential hypothesis, attention to vision, to interpret the expert, to know the becoming, enter the mechanisms and figurative balances starting from the analysis of the process and the signs in history. The resulting image, as a fruit of the recomposition of the different elements, even fragmented ones, will thus lose the radical value of not taking care of either the shape or the perception, giving back meaning to the necessary interrelation between the two poles that characterizes the typicality of the identity spaces. Indeed, for the project to enter into a relation with the landscape means to remain petrified, because it is attracted to issues that are at the base of sustainability and it seems impossible not to take into consideration today, but this gorgon cannot be tackled with an equal fight. Architecture is always a wound but at the same time, it is able to mend relationships, which are the structural essence of contemporary aesthetics, an expression of the depth that man projects with his work. However, what can allow this relation is the image itself, in its ambiguity, in its being produced and process, origin and purpose, means and message: the landscape is not reproducible in its complexity, but in the sense that it is necessary to face this totality in a tiring work of recomposition of the parts, research of the roots, in-depth study of the phenomena and their value. In this fragmentary nature revealed in multiple images and meanings, it is possible to see Medusa mirrored in her petrifying beauty. Representing the landscape will not lead to finding copies, it will not stop to the portraits that however deplete the aura, but it rather means never stopping to search and investigate the complexity, to draw and understand the multiple facets that reflect our own identity, which tell who we are, which help us to see where to go. From the blood of Medusa Pegasus is born, the winged horse, the imagination, the design, which leads us to fly and explore to discover the values of our landscape (Fig. 22). When I began my career, the categorical imperative of every young writer was to represent his own time. Full of good intentions, I tried to identify myself with the ruthless energies propelling the events of our century, both collective and individual. I tried to find some harmony between the adventurous, picaresque inner rhythm that prompted me to write and the frantic spectacle of the world, sometimes dramatic and sometimes grotesque. Soon I became aware that between the facts of life that should have been my raw materials and the quick light touch I wanted for my writing, there was a gulf that cost me increasing effort to cross. Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world–qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them. At certain moments I felt that the entire world was turning into stone: a slow petrification, more or less advanced depending on people and places but one that spared no aspect of life. It was as if no one could escape the inexorable stare of Medusa. The only hero able to cut off Medusa’s head is Perseus, who flies with winged sandals; Perseus, who does not turn his gaze upon the face of the Gorgon but only upon her image reflected in his bronze shield. Thus Perseus comes to my aid even at this moment, just as I too am about to be caught in a

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Fig. 22 Porta Pia’s actual views from the car by the road layouts

vise of stone–which happens every time I try to speak about my own past. Better to let my talk be composed of images from mythology. To cut off Medusa’s head without being turned to stone, Perseus supports himself on the very lightest of things, the winds and the clouds, and fixes his gaze upon what can be revealed only by indirect vision, an image caught in a mirror. I am immediately tempted to see this myth as an allegory on the poet’s relationship to the world, a lesson in the method to follow

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when writing. But I know that any interpretation impoverishes the myth and suffocates it. With myths, one should not be in a hurry. It is better to let them settle into the memory, to stop and dwell on every detail, to reflect on them without losing touch with their language of images. The lesson we can learn from a myth lies in the literal narrative, not in what we add to it from the outside. The relationship between Perseus and the Gorgon is a complex one and does not end with the beheading of the monster. Medusa’s blood gives birth to a winged horse, Pegasus—the heaviness of stone is transformed into its opposite. With one blow of his hoof on Mount Helicon, Pegasus makes a spring gush forth, where the Muses drink. Italo Calvino, American Lessons.

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157. Suddendorf T, Corballis MC (1997) Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind. Genet Soc Gen Psychol Monogr 123(2):133–167 158. Chiera A, Adornetti I, Nicchiarelli S, Ferretti F (2017) Linguaggio, tempo e narrazione. In: Soglie del linguaggio. Corpo, mondi, società. Roma Tre-Press, Roma, pp 31–45 159. Purini F (1992) Architettura cosa inessenziale? In Moschini F, Neri G (eds) Dal Progetto. Scritti teorici di Franco Purini. Kappa, Roma 160. Manganaro M (2006) Disegnare… semplicemente disegnare. Disegnare. Idee Immagini, 33:22–31 161. Agostino d’Ipponia (n.d.) Le Confessioni—LIBRO DECIMO

Landscapes and the Concepts of Landscape Franco Purini

Abstract The present essay deals with the theme of landscape and its conceptualization, analyzing the key role of Robert Venturi for inhabiting places, for understanding what the landscape suggests in its generative encounter between the natural scene and the settlement elements. We thus want to highlight how the landscape, in its aesthetic predominance, supports the birth and development of the project, dictated by utilitarian interests, according to a process of which three strongly interconnected contradictions can be indicated, which determine a simultaneity that increases its complexity. On these coordinates emerges the idea of landscape, or perhaps the many landscape ideas that arise in the face of the ambiguity between subjectivity and objectivity in the twentieth-century enlargement of its notion. These find in the “discovery” of complexity and contradiction of Robert Venturi what today in architecture also involves the future of everything that allows us to persist over time, a landscape of existential projects for each of us.

Before reaching the end of my brief itinerary, I linger on something that I believe to be of some importance. The first landscapes we saw act within us for life. From our earliest years, from seven onwards, which is the age of reason, what surrounds us is in fact organized in a mental map, a sort of complex interpretative code. This map will allow us, by comparison, to understand the other landscapes that we will encounter, always bearing in them the seal of our native impressions, which must be considered as the keys to read everything that we inhabit, virtually or physically. However, a significant mutation occurs within this relation. The landscapes that will come after the first will never be passive elements, but they will act on our mind map by modifying it. Our idea of landscape will then be the one that introduced us to the world, made ever more varied and viable by external inputs immediately globalized. For this I believe that landscape is for us a system inclusive of differences within a permanent initial unit (Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24). F. Purini (B) Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_3

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Fig. 1 1966–68. City under construction; 1970. Perspective of the Italian Pavilion in Osaka for Maurizio Sacripanti

Fig. 2 1967. The compact city: plan and elevations

In his famous, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1966, Robert Venturi revealed that the art of building, in its nature and in its individual results, is not only multiple in its contents but also crossed by internal contrasts that deny its logicalthematic unity. Next to the thesis that William Empson proposed in his Seven Types of Ambiguity, 1930, the architect of Philadelphia showed that every architectural writing always consists of an active stratification of different meanings, sometimes opposite ones. His vision is radically innovative with respect to the sense that modern architecture pervaded in the twentieth century, in his theorists and in his early historians, from Walter Gropius it was seen as the result of design processes inspired by a rational methodology that did not include diversions, hybridization of reasons, and changes in linguistic registers. To this simplifying conception, with his book and his works, especially the firsts, Robert Venturi rediscovered against all dogmatism, in the age of theoretical exploration of the mass media, of which Marshall Mc Luhan was

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Fig. 3 1967. The compact city: sketches and perspectives

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Fig. 4 1977. From the series of engravings “Walls”: After Modern Architecture; Dedicated to the historian; Miesiana; The trilithic system

Fig. 5 1986. “1976–1986”; From the series “Around the shadow line beyond architecture” Fragments of the ancient protruding on new remains; From the series “Modern repertoires” The Modern is heraldic

the most important figure, the methods and purpose of communication as a territory to be retraced and understood in all its aspects. Re-proposing the great argument of the relation between architecture and communication, which profoundly marked the Baroque season, and not only in Italy, involved a real revolution, still operating in the architecture of the second half of the twentieth century and in the first twenty years of new century. I do not know that Robert Venturi never coped directly with the landscape, if not the urban one, as in his best known book, after the 1966 book, Learning from Las Vegas, 1972, written with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, but there is no doubt that his conception of architecture opened up new avenues for a more adequate understanding, not only of the city and of the meaning and role that buildings take in it, but also of what the landscape suggests. In the first place the contradiction between the idea shared by many aesthetic scholars, for which the reading of a landscape is a subjective fact, while it is endowed with elementary evidence by a certain number of objective characters which are autonomous with respect to the interpretation that they can be given, it is fully inscribed in its open, dialectical, relative conception of

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Fig. 6 1997. The multiple city

architecture. Including, in it, those orientations which, according to William Morris, totalize every living from the point of view of the landscape scene. In short, believing that the landscape is the result of a personal experience appears to be insufficient to explain both its structural complexity and its authentic sense and, above all, the mystery that it brings with itself. A mystery that painting was able to highlight, without however revealing it, in the frescoes that come to us from Roman antiquity, in those of Giotto, in the evanescent backgrounds dense of idealized realities of some paintings by Leonardo, in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Kaspar Friedrich, Arnold Boeklin, Giorgio De Chirico, Edward Hopper, Alberto Burri, Gastone Novelli, Enzo Cucchi, just to limit myself to a few names. The landscape usually consists of two systems. The first is that of natural support, which in some cases, such as in the Arctic, in the Antarctic or in the middle of the Ocean does not present interventions of human beings. This absence means that what is seen and covered is not entirely a landscape, since, in my opinion, it is human action on the natural support that gives it birth. It should be noted, however, that in the English word landscape, in the German word landshaft, nature presents itself as the essence of the landscape scene unlike what happens with the French word paysage and its Italian analogue, terms in which the content is the country, the dialogue between nature and living, synthesized precisely in the human settlement. Probably the philological issue cannot be solved, for the Anglo-Saxon formulation remains ambiguous. Remembering, however, that in the Roman world the concept of landscape did not exist, although it was foreshadowed in the locus amoenus concept, that is to say an imaginative sublimation of a more or less wide garden. An environment where nature presented itself as a refuge that made people

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Fig. 7 1998. Cretto: cretto of the measure; Cretto of the city; Cretto of the voids; Cretto of the materials; Cretto of the vertical; Double cretto

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Fig. 8 2000. The Same City

happy with its orderly, luxuriant green, rich in flowers and berries, as a famous decoration of Villa of Livia, on the Flaminia street in Rome. The original landscape is a conviction that accompanies me for several years now, as what it results, after observing and experiencing a landscape, from deconstructing it by removing from it all that has been added to it over time. This exercise should allow us to return with the mind to the image that the landscape would have had when it was devoid of the interventions of human beings. This thought is unthinkable, however, because we are not able to completely eliminate the elements introduced into the natural scene from various periods of time from our memory. This difficulty is still a creative place, that is to say that it is precisely the impossibility of ideally contemplating a landscape in its primary condition that generates a considerable interpretative and inventive energy. A few lines back, I said that the landscape is given by the encounter between the natural scene and the settlement elements, such as paths, canals, enclosure walls of cultivated fields, city walls, cities and buildings. Even agriculture intervenes in shaping the landscape. The lands are plowed, woods are planted, in the farms different textures alternate, linear, point-like, with spots. However, these interventions, which I always like to call a terrestrial script, are made with a utilitarian purpose and not with an artistic one—a purpose reserved, when present, to urban layouts and

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Fig. 9 2006. VEMA. A new Italian city for the Venice Biennale

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Fig. 10 1999–2006. Parish complex of Saint John the Baptist in Lecce

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Fig. 11 2006–2012. Eurosky Tower: studies on Rome

Fig. 12 2006–2012. Eurosky Tower: first sketches and drawings

public buildings. It is in their representation, literary and pictorial, that the landscape becomes the object of contemplation. It should be added that the artistic aspect derives from the fact that we see hills and mountains as painted sculptures, as volumes whose plastic modeling reacts to light with its chiaroscuro, like the shapes of a statue. The plains are considered as authentic paintings, which introduce into the landscape a chromatic and material concert that sometimes is exciting in its simulation of having been thought of as a work of art, while it derives from choices of different types. From what we said, it can be deduced that the landscape is given by the presence of three texts. The first is what I called the natural scene; the second consists of the

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Fig. 13 2006–2012. Eurosky Tower: plans and elevations

system of settlement signs; the third arises from the existence of analogies, such as those between orographic reliefs and plastic values, and from the chromatic keyboard made up of colors of non-colonized forms and programmed chromatic drafts, even if not motivated by an artistic intentionality. This co-presence is clearly complex and contradictory, as is the relation between the ideas of landscape and territory, concerning a same analyzed reality, however, from two points of view very far from each other, the first aesthetic the second structural. From the considerations I set out so far, it follows that the landscape is not the result of an emotional personal reading but a more important interpretative project, for how it takes place in itself. A project, as I said, complex and contradictory that associates nature with transformations that in large part are not inspired by an artistic but utilitarian hue. A shade understood on the basis of literature—think of Giacomo Leopardi’s L’Infinito—as if it came from an expressive, narrative, formalizing and idealizing will. This process articulates in three contradictions strongly interconnected in a simultaneity that increases its complexity. The first of these thematic oppositions is the conflict in the landscape between finiteness and infinity. A landscape surrounding is identified by the presence of a certain number of characters such as the morphology of the soil, the atmosphere, the heat, the presence of water and vegetation, the diffusion of some settlement modalities. Such characters are usually included in a boundary that allows to identify as unique that part of the earth’s surface. To this circumscribed and measurable essence is associated, in an evident symbiosis, the opposite impression of an incommensurability that participates in a sense of infinity. A landscape, which is always part of the world, sometimes reduced, sometimes very extensive—think of the Tuscan landscape as a mythological place as a dimensionally contained space and the Sahara with its oases, considered as a boundless universe of moving dunes and oasis—which escapes precise physical connotations related to its real greatness and becomes ambiguously concentrated in its founding elements, but at the same time expanded beyond any real boundary.

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Fig. 14 2006–2012. Eurosky Tower: digital representations

The second contradiction that animates the notion of landscape concerns its being identifiable in a definitive and immutable character—the Arizona of John Ford’s movies punctuated by the red rock formations, or the Sicily of Giovanni Verga, burnt and severe—and its metamorphic reality. A landscape context is in fact always

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Fig. 15 2010. Master plan for VEMA: study sketches on the city of foundation

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Fig. 16 2010. Sketches for the engravings “Slot City”; Sequences; Lunar City

changing, like the Las Vegas’ Strip, returning to Robert Venturi, who saw the demolition and reconstruction of large hotels with an ideal reference to Villa Adriana which is translated into imitations of urban landscapes from New York, Paris and Venice. Reconstructed by Francis Ford Coppola in the film One from the Heart, 1982, the Strip configures as a place-not place, a parade of different temporal evocations and set of extraordinary celebrative machines of a contemporary that must be updated from time to time.

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Fig. 17 2010. Master plan for Ling Gang: schematic drawings of the urban composition

The third opposition concerns the absolute identity of a landscape and at the same time its analogy with other contexts. A landscape is an environmental individual loaded with values, many of which are not foreseen in its natural and human genesis, but such individuality is not absolute, for it finds echoes and references in other scenarios. In a certain sense the landscape is a place of cultural exchanges, it is the result of transfers of meaning from one region of the world to another, of alienated settlings of events and people.

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Fig. 18 2010. Master plan for Ling Gang: graphic studies of the urban composition

The considerations contained in this quick journey into the idea of landscape, or perhaps in the many ideas of landscape, must stop, in my opinion, before the ambiguity between subjectivity and objectivity and in the face of the enlargement that the notion of landscape experienced in the twentieth century, becoming in many ways as absolute as in the striking building-hills, examples of a poetic artificial geography by Peter Eisenman in Santiago de Compostela. The photos depicting the ruins of Ground Zero by Joel Meyerowitz and the previous ones from the ruins of Beirut by

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Fig. 19 2010. Master plan for Ling Gang: graphic synthesis of the urban composition

Gabriele Basilico, show the process by which what was artificial is turning into a new natural landscape, steeped in horror as an aspect of the sublime. The return of the landscape, from the natural to the urban, to a primary condition, different from the state that I have defined the original landscape, implies a complete rewriting of a world where human action was able, according to many, to upset the vital logics of the planet. While environmentalism would like to reconstruct, within an abandonment of humanism, a lost harmony between human beings, deprived of their privileges and nature, reality goes in a different direction. This is the hypothesis of a calculated destruction of the very idea of landscape in favor of a total and terminal informality of the world represented by a hybridization of elements, memories, intentions and visions. The complexity and contradiction that Robert Venturi discovered in architecture today also involves the future of everything that allows us to stay in time,

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Fig. 20 2010. Master plan for Ling Gang: final digital synthesis

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Fig. 21 2013. Interruptions and intermittences; Landscape of squares; Plain city; Metric sequences; Double landscape; The parts of the whole

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Fig. 22 2013. The city landscape; Roman city; The horizons of the house; The abacus of the houses; The second nature; Aqueduct for Nino

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Fig. 23 2013. Urban bas-relief; Urban code; The city of foundation; The city of geometry; The other city; The new city

starting from the same form of life, a landscape of existential projects of each of us that always appears to us more like the Heliotian expanse of a Waste land to be rebuilt entirely and as soon as possible.

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Fig. 24 2014. From the series “Seven Landscapes” Landscape 1; 2014. Sky and landscape; 1985. The primitive hut for the XVII Milan Triennale; 2014. Landscape 7

Robert Venturi: Plurality of Sense for Our Everyday Space Franco Zagari

Abstract The present essay aims to analyze the central value of Robert Venturi, admirably esteeming him as an unconscious landscaper, perhaps even before being an architect. The critical reading proposed more than fifty years ago by the American master wants to be understood as a real work of art open to the plurality of meaning, projected to identify those elements of crisis but also to find coordinates for the project. Never dogmatic, however ironic, Robert Venturi’s thought finds its dimension in the sphere of the landscape, in the dynamisms of the relation between material and immaterial, in the integration of knowledge, in the value of meanings, in a poetics that finds its own definition in oppositions, differences and ambiguities. This reading is placed in parallel to a path of images of the author’s works, related to the rich teaching of an ever more current thought.

On September 18th, 2018, Robert Venturi failed the affection of his students by passing away, a protagonist of a generation of masters who, in the second half of the twentieth century, traced a new path of research, active on many parallel intuitions, therefore suitable for a world that wanted to open up, less and less permeable to too schematic explanations (Fig. 1). With The Open Work, Umberto Eco starts with the idea that an integral part of the artistic project in avant-garde art, is to offer the work to the “users’” interpretation. It is symptomatic that this approach travels on a philosophical track that in parallel at the same time, in the mid-sixties, also proposes Robert Venturi, in an argument that moves from the center of the project. Both resort to the category of “plurality of sense” and, explicitly, of the “ambiguity” of the artistic work, both of them start from the “nascent state” of their own degree thesis, both have a deep poetic involvement. Perhaps Venturi also read, or met Roman Jakobson, according to whom the specificities of the artistic message are in his ambiguity and above all in its self-reflexivity, internal reflection on its own form. But certainly my juxtaposition is an open abuse of the F. Zagari (B) Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_4

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Fig. 1 Villa Leopardi, redevelopment of a rustic property (Rome—1992)

interpretative faculties granted to the new protagonist of the scene, the reader, who whether is a scholar or educated reader, he becomes, from that moment on, a mass reader. Many stories were then deepened, some rewritten, some of them revealed to the general public the existence of research fields, thinking for instance to Foucault’s History of Madness, as an example of how a picture becomes multiple and broad, so that it is no longer possible to circumscribe it in the interpretation of few enlightened masters. And so, also the architects’ world opened so many parallel visions, and among these it stands out that of the landscape, in the sense of creative design discipline: the destruction of the second world war and the feverish speed of reconstruction broke the balance to the point of having to look for principles of all new in organizing protection, management and innovation of the transformations of the territory, and it was not so much a matter of seeking a mitigation of disruptive phenomena, as of seeking new qualities, still largely unknown (Fig. 2). “Less is a bore!”, the famous aphorism by Venturi responds with the same style, the same composure as for the “Less is more” by Mies, but with a song of joy. Architect, theorist, non-conformist, ironic, provocative with respect to the dogmas of the modern movement, he was a true gentleman. Always a moderate and politically correct person, Venturi is undoubtedly one of the most authoritative exponents of contemporary architectural thought, but perhaps I would prefer to say of the landscape, of its crisis and its project. Two of his essays on architecture in his implications on the threshold of postmodernism, have become cult books, among the most read in the last fifty years: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972), the latter written with Denise Scott Brown, his pupil, then partner and life partner. The first is one of the texts that opens postmodern criticism in architecture, re-evaluating many repertoires of forms and ideas of the past as still susceptible to rewriting in the contemporary world, a recovery of the symbolic and an opposition to any simplification, supporting the right of very simple

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Fig. 2 Museum and reception center of Prehistoric Caves with graffiti (Niaux—1994)

architecture to have the status of monuments, in the name of their belonging to a community. His intuitions, with the lightness and safety of a sleight of hand, for many of us, revolutionized the way we see the architecture of our time. Of him we remember the style and the humor of a non-dogmatic scholar, born in the academy, and proud of belonging to it, but with powerful antidotes of originality and non-conformism, nourished by solid and democratic principles and, at the same time, refined author of projects, with a balance between theory and practice that confidently places him as one of the masters who freed architecture from its omnipotence complexes. At the beginning of the Sixties, Venturi, still very young, became a reference in the theoretical and applied debates of the architectural project by introducing the category of ambiguity as a central and positive value. He found a correspondence in the map of contemporary knowledge, in humanistic as well as in scientific studies, even in mathematics, with interesting discoveries, such as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, according to which every sufficiently complete axiomatic system is inconsistent internally, presenting undecidable propositions. It seems useful to underline how this spirit of incompleteness, and as a consequence of complementarity, opens new research avenues in the field of landscape, because it is exactly what we would like to ask to the project, a non-rigid mental and physical attitude to allow to analyze and interpret activities, flows and behaviors in complex contexts. If, as Manuel Orazi observes, “… Piazza San Marco in Venice is the expression of a single civilization for everyone, for Robert Venturi it is instead the result of the stratification of late Roman, Byzantine, Levantine, Venetian, Renaissance, Florentine, Mannerist, Neoclassical, French and Austrian contributions, in short, it is the Times Square of historicism” (in Studio, 21st September 2018) (Fig. 3). Studies on ambiguity as a category of architecture date back to 1966, the same year in which Aldo Rossi published The architecture of the city. A comparison between

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Fig. 3 Redevelopment of Piazza Montecitorio (Rome—1998)

two polar talents of the postmodern vision of architecture is interesting: both work on the new dimension and on the monumentalization of the city as a dominant theme, making it the cardan axis of their poetics and language. But if Venturi seems to anticipate the social media with a serene irony, Rossi prefers to fall within the canons of a metaphysical vision, which is very an Italian vision, a form that in many epigones will become a sort of radical aventinism, which will take the proud name of “Interrupted Architecture”. Today in every knowledge and discipline the certainty theories more and more leave space to hypotheses often dialectical, or even opposite, but not less effective. From both social and economic points of view, the assessments of opportunities to undertake certain ventures increasingly involve, in addition to the expected direct

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Fig. 4 Seat of the Presidency of the Republic of Georgia in the Avlabari district: Cupola, Square, Office complex, Gardens and two Labyrinths (Tbilisi—2005/2008)

effects, the management of side effects, on the margins of the great, mysterious world of what is induced. The cultural reasons of the evolution of these phenomena have been clear to some of us for a long time, and we would suggest giving up “complexity and contradiction of the landscape”, because the landscape project is already “complexity and contradiction of architecture”. It seems like a play on words but these thoughts can lead to interesting reflections (Fig. 4). The extraordinary parable of the “patient” work of Robert Venturi, as a creator of monuments, is to bring the practice of architecture back from “normality”, that is from the daily routine of our work and dream life, to represent and walk a map of passions that carries with it all its symbolic meaning. Projects and essays begin with a reality that was always seen as a dialectical field between antithetical terms. In particular, the contradictions are the ferments that feed the continuous evolution of the thought on the city, which is very alive and unpredictable, for example with his studies on Las Vegas. Is there a contemporary city more monumental than Las Vegas? Right there, in the capital of Sodom and Gomorrah, is where Venturi takes us to look for teachings before finding solutions, drawing from a real unexplored labyrinth of creative knowledge. And yet, by day time, the popular magic of so many luxurious night temples appears as naked, with immense deposits of fossil settlements, mostly immense small-town’s illuminations. Learning from Las Vegas

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will be the development of a theory that welcomes all the vulgarity of the gambling city and elevating it to a playful space, between Pop Art and Land Art. The step is decisive, it means rewriting stories that today no one would dream of reading and giving us back a less assertive, more secular, liberal world and, as far as today’s times permit, even more cheerful. What I have just said explains why I always considered Venturi a landscaper even before being an architect, apart from his insistence on the theme of nature and his imagination that always moves between material and immaterial elements searching for characters rather than structures, for his constant reference to the social interest of his profession, for the fertile frequentation of contemporary art and architectural history. For Venturi, complexity and contradiction are certainly not limits but powerful rules as antidotes against any demagogy, which have a very similar root as the concept of landscape design has. In fact, the interest in semiotics and anthropology is common, and for the humanities in general, and the garden is a recurring philosophical place in this research, for example when he visits friends like Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, William Turnbull Jr., authors of The Poetics of Gardens (The MIT Press Paperback—August 13th, 1993), another book that made the history (Fig. 5). Venturi translates the teachings of his two masters, Louis Kahn and Eero Saarinen, so different from each other and both protagonists of exceptional value, into a completely original syntheses and with fulminating intuitions. This are forms and ideas of an approach that new stories will lead to greater public knowledge. Kahn is academic, Socratic, he is the fifth sacred great master, who anticipates the postmodern by bringing back to current a neoclassical style from the repertoires of dead languages, like the natural continuity of a language, which is proper of the most representative institutions; Saarinen is an experimenter of futuristic structures, such as the parable of St. Louis and the TWA terminal of John Fitzgerald Kennedy airport in New York, but at the time of his disappearance, in his studio two works are being prepared whose characteristic is to transfer from the world of reflection of architecture on nature, forms and ideas directly borrowed from the art of gardens: hanging gardens and greenhouses become the conceptual forms that the building assumes to communicate its institutional task. Two young partners will complete them, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo together with Dan Kyley, one of the major landscape architects living at that time. This are the California Museum in Oakland and the Ford Foundation on Manhattan’s 42nd Street. Even if realized only ten years after the Unité de Marseille, it seems a distance of a century, for it is a true Copernican revolution in the culture of Landscape. Everything seemed to be happening in the States in those years, and Venturi was at the center of these events, but with great understatement, out of the way of great tasks, his commitment was to bring the practice of architecture back to everyday life with all its meaning. Venturi is one of the most refined critics, one could say an aristocratic, of the Modern Movement, the protagonist of an original reacquisition in the expressive heritage of architecture of a sophisticated lexicon that without hesitation is openly historicist, but not eclectic, and at the same time it opens to folk art with a poetic

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Fig. 5 Restoration and completion of Piazza Matteotti (Catanzaro—2007/2015)

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and innovative language. Monumentality in Venturi is, paradoxically, radically antiacademic, a great resource, always fresh, refined, light, measured, which covers the paths of an anti-dogmatic historicism and an introduction of the popular vernacular sap in the desolate international style of the urbanistic framework. His writing is mannerist, light and as calm as profound, where theory and application have a relation that has an absolute dialectic clarity: Venturi confers the dignity of a temple to the detail of a domestic architecture: monumentalizing the everyday, or vice versa to un-monumentalize the oppressive certainty of official distribution systems the space of important institutions, it means to reopen a friendly dialogue with the public. And this is a lot for anyone who wants to discover vocations, establish orientations and affirm new centrality qualities. The monuments for everyday life require a work that is “patient” again, as it was for Le Corbusier in Vers un’architecture, but here it is case by case, various repertoires present themselves with complexity and contradiction relations of their own. These are also the objets à reaction poetique, but they are wanted and not suffered (Fig. 6). All of Venturi and Scott Brown’s projects have the clarity of iconic theorems, involving visitors with their architecture in a stimulating game of emotional tension between symbolic, narrative, tactile and chromatic elements, which never has a single possible interpretation, rather it arises in continuity with all the mannerisms of history, and it proposes ambiguity as an absolute value: indefinable elements, whether single or binary, symmetries that are never specular but weighted, out of scale, tensions between a main body and its components. Vanna Venturi’s house, his mother, in Chestnut Hill (1962) has a main façade in the shape of a large stylized tympanum, with a soft pastel color, a score with few essential signs that give the small building in balloon frame the dignity of a temple and the eloquence of a manifesto. It is no coincidence that Vanna, and then Robert, became Quakers, choosing, as they said, “the least hierarchical religious confession”. The elements are arranged like notes on a musical score, with a balance of weight symmetry, so that the picture is in tension and movement, quiet yet tense, almost to break. The entrance is central, offset from the arrival path, it is unique and welcoming, but it is immediately divided between two different directions, towards the fires of the house. The thickness of the façade is contained in a few centimeters, as for the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore by Palladio, in Venice. Venturi particularly loved this masterpiece (Studio, cit.) “…because—he said—it is the first example of a decorated shed, a flat façade yet full of information and decorations just like a Nevada casino” (Fig. 7). So it happens in many other architectures more or less important for their function, all equally preferred: The Allen Art Museum in Oberlin, in the center of an Ohio village (1975), is presented as an agora of noble destiny, thanks to double walls with porticoes of different scales, with windows in the internal ones and porticos in the external ones. “Ghost structures” Franklin Court, in Philadelphia (1976) is an evocation of what it was like the house of Benjamin Franklin, simply by building all the edges of walls, roofs and chimneys with steel profiles, a phantom building that involves the visitor in making him not see, but imagine a dimension and an atmosphere.

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Fig. 6 Design of the central spaces of Ancien Hôtel-Dieu (Saint-Denis—2007)

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Fig. 7 Design of the central spaces of Place Victor Hugo (Saint-Denis—2007)

Also a Pavilion for Philadelphia Zoo (1972) addresses to the imagination of the most difficult and demanding visitor, a child, with the hyper-realistic and hyperfantastic settings of a dreamlike and tactile set dominated by a huge plastic Ficus magnoloides, to suggest some themes of the birth of life seen from childhood (a sort of pop opera but anti-Disneyland, for you will certainly not find a sign of sight point as “… make your picture here, it will come like this …”). In all these cases Venturi draws from the recovery of the ancient a creative poetic, and not nostalgic, lexicon, which runs like the narrative thread of the Arabian Nights, a celebratory moment that opens continually to multiple interpretations. The visitor is granted a wide creative space, subtle and sophisticated, not didactic but evocative, which makes these themes semiotic and poetic at the same time, in a very courageous way. With a vision of serene freedom, he gave a lot to the architecture of his time, taking the impervious path of ambiguity with great courage and with a lot of humor— an absolute novelty! And it is here, perhaps, the most engaging teaching of Venturi, in particular in Italy, a country he is linked to by a strong sense of identity, also for his origin. A masterpiece of unscrupulousness and intellectual honesty is his reevaluation of a character like Armando Brasini, a visionary architect, who until then was removed and dismissed as a residual ghost of the past fascist regime. Venturi is free from any prejudice, he is not so much interested in Brasini’s reactionary and esoteric world, knowing that it is from that imaginary, which was lost in occultism, that such a strong figurative world came from, and he celebrated without hesitation the rare instinct for monumentality and great narrative ability, because only a few are given the opportunity to express themselves with such confidence. Before anything

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Fig. 8 Design of the HORTUS, nine gardens for public rest (EXPO Milan—2015)

else it is precisely the monumentality that attracts him, he discovers four great works in Rome, visions of a solitary imaginary that “invents” a city for fantastic references; these are: the Duca d’Aosta Bridge, which Nanni Moretti says he must cross at least once a day, the Church of Piazza Euclide and two huge city buildings, the Buon Pastore in Corviale and the Castellaccio in Ponte Milvio. Venturi’s eye is already the same as in Fellini’s cinema, a difficult but not impossible path (Fig. 8). Despite appearances, the landscape issue in Venturi’s vision is essentially political, his desire to give to the center of a small town the dignity of an agora, by using typical signs of monumentality, anticipates the advent of culture of communication. Likewise, the issues of heritage and the environment are political too, but lived in a very different way. The most obvious difference regards the value attributed to the ambiguity established in the relation in a figurative party, an ambiguity that must be understood as a different way of wanting and knowing how to question cultural, social and economic resources, potentially of great importance.

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Fig. 9 Plettro Coffee Tables (2015)

The landscape stands out from the heritage and the environment because it is a representation of the world that, as Bernard Lassus says, is “démesurable”, as a lexicon that plays between everyday life, myth and artistic expression. This could be its extra gear, its provocative ability to motivate in the public an emotional adhesion and, at the same time, to constitute an antidote against the rhetoric of memory, when this turns out to be a practice now empty of contents. “Learning from” is in this sense a last hope. Precisely oppositions, differences, ambiguities are called to bring that light, that trust, that same innate sense of the harmony of being into a secular and relaxed vision, which is the key to its poetics (Fig. 9).

Beyond the Formalist Façade: Complexity and Contradiction’s Urban Roots Denise Rae Costanzo

Abstract Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture of 1966 is an architectural, not an urban book. Its compositional principles and analysis focus on individual buildings, with the city in only a minor role. Yet urbanism was a central theme in Venturi’s second book, Learning from Las Vegas, co-authored with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour in 1972. Moreover, Complexity and Contradiction originated as an urban study. Its genesis was Venturi’s proposal for an American Academy Rome Prize, refined in three applications from 1952–54, all on urbanism. Was Venturi’s first book merely a detour from his early urban interests, which reemerged later? Or does it sublimate ideas about the wider built environment? His well-known interest in Townscape during the 1950s shaped his early research into context and two early essays, one on the Campidoglio’s surroundings in Rome, and another on Frank Lloyd Wright’s integration of buildings and landscape. This research remained at the core of Complexity and Contradiction. Although the book pulls architectural issues into the foreground, “crypto-urban” themes connect it to ideas about how to see and experience the broader built environment. Keywords Robert Venturi · Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture · Urbanism · Townscape · Rome

1 Introduction: Postmodernity and Rome Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradictionin Architecture of 1966 is undoubtedly an architectural text, not an urban one. In his groundbreaking first book, the author places his emphasis on abstract compositional principles and individual buildings; although the city does make an occasional appearance, it plays a minor, supporting role compared to architecture. The book’s apparent detachment from the city as a topic led Mary McLeod to describe the “urban emphasis” of Vincent Scully’s introduction to the book as “curious given that Venturi’s discussion of urban issues” D. R. Costanzo (B) Department of Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_5

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therein is limited to “the surprising last two pages of his text,” and a few comments in the project portfolio, late additions to the final, much-revised manuscript [16, 54–55].1 Scully’s introduction and those last two pages may appear less surprising, however, if we consider how the book originated out of an urban study. As numerous scholars have demonstrated, Complexity and Contradiction is the product of Venturi’s extensive travels and wide-ranging intellectual and creative influences from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Its specific genesis, however, was the project he proposed for his Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy, refined in three applications in 1952, 1953 and 1954. Venturi’s winning third statement of 1954 and the book he published twelve years later share a number of themes; in particular, both invoke the baroque, Mannerism, and T. S. Eliot’s essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The focus of Venturi’s Rome proposal, however, was urbanism, while Complexity and Contradiction relegated this topic to its margins. Anthony Vidler noted Venturi’s shift away from the urban and towards discrete works of architecture in this book, which he presents as a pivot point in larger theoretical developments during the late twentieth century, developments “effected by [the] move, from urban context to the single building… When in 1966, Venturi published the work that he had begun in 1954 in Rome, the shift was complete” [30, 82]. His last sentence raises a logical question: how could Venturi’s first book have completed “the work that he had begun in 1954 in Rome” if that “work” was no longer focused on urban issues? Vidler explained the connection between Venturi’s urban proposal of 1954 and his 1966 non-urban book by way of a specific body of theory. Both he and another author, Peter Laurence, have linked Complexity and Contradiction to the same mid-century urban movement: Townscape. This ideology, which was advanced by editors of the London-based Architectural Review during the years following the Second World War, critiqued the sort of diagrammatic, functionally zoned modernist planning that had been codified by the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in the Athens Charter of 1943. Townscape instead promoted the virtues of irregularlystructured and pedestrian-centered urban environments, like those found in organic, pre-modern cities [11].2 The broader theoretical development Vidler described by way of Complexity and Contradiction is “the transition from the visual theory of Townscape to that of Postmodernism;” he argued that in that book, Townscape’s primarily visual theory becomes “postmodern” by way of a reduction in scale and narrowed focus on individual buildings, and through an application of methods established by the movement’s main protagonists [30, 82]. He described how Venturi “catalogued the ways the contemporary discipline might regain some of the richness lost 1 McLeod notes that Vincent Scully had “often pushed Venturi to extend his argument to urban issues”

in their extensive discussions about the book [16 54–55]. In her study of the book’s relationship with Venturi’s theory course, Lee Ann Custer attributes its sporadic mentions of the urban dimension to the influence of Denise Scott Brown [10]. 2 Significantly, the postwar period also saw the first English translation of a seminal source that argued for an alternative urbanism, Camillo Sitte’s Der Städte-Bau nach seinem künstlerischen Grundsätzen of 1889 [21], published in 1945 as The Art of Building Cities: City Building According to its Artistic Fundamentals.

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through modernist abstraction, and all the techniques employed by Hastings, Pevsner and Cullen to revive the visual complexity and contrasts of the urban scene were used to restore visual complexity to the single building” [30, 82]. Vidler’s discussion of this association extends a connection that had been established by Laurance a few years earlier. In his comparative analysis of Venturi and Jane Jacobs, Laurance identified both the Townscape movement and the Architectural Review as the source of yet another shared influence on these two authors’ theoretical writings in the 1960s, complexity theory [14]. Vidler and Laurance have thus demonstrated that Venturi’s Rome Prize project and the conceptual armature of Complexity and Contradiction both owe much to his interests in Townscape during the 1950s. While this provides a significant connection between Venturi’s manifesto and a specific school of urban thought, this movement’s theoretical imprint might be properly classified as a remnant of an abandoned area of inquiry, one among the book’s dozens of conceptual influences of varying degrees of importance. In her analysis of these influences, Joan Ockman has shown how Complexity and Contradiction maintains an ambivalent relationship with Townscape’s philosophical premises. She interprets this as an indication that he may have “become wary—perhaps under Scott Brown’s influence—of affiliating himself with the English movement, which had already revealed its regressive side” Ockman [18, 90–92]. In either case, such reverberating echoes of an early infatuation with Townscape hardly seem sufficient to sustain any claim that the book is “urban.” This question would seem less urgent if the city did not return with a vengeance in Venturi’s second book. In 1966, the same year that Complexity and Contradiction was published (appearing in print only in 1967), Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour inaugurated the joint project that became their co-authored volume Learning from Las Vegas in 1972. That later book’s debts to Townscape have been established by Martino Stierli, following John MacArthur’s discussion of a number of thematic linkages in his earlier study of the picturesque in twentieth-century architecture [23 115–121; 15, 202]. The chronology of Venturi’s earliest projects, in which he began his research career with urban interests, wrote a book that excludes them almost entirely, then returned to this theme almost immediately thereafter, raises several questions. Did Venturi simply lose interest in the city, a consistent interest in the 1950s, while he was writing Complexity and Contradiction during the 1960s, making this first book a temporary exception to a theme that persisted through the rest of his career? Given the centrality of urbanism to Scott Brown’s thinking, and her unquestioned impact on their joint work, is it correct to attribute Venturi’s later return to the urban as primarily the result of her influence? Or are his urban interests more present in this earlier, groundbreaking text than they seem, perhaps in ways we have yet to recognize?

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2 Studying the City in Postwar Rome In Venturi’s American Academy application, he places the city at front and center: “A city like Rome, in its individual buildings and especially in its planning, can have particular relevance to my own interests and, I believe, to the problems of our architecture.” He states that he planned to use a fellowship to study the “constant, dependable refinement of Rome’s outdoor spaces resulting from a recognition of both continuity and contrast in its development, its easy monumentality, its pedestrian scale, its planning which stimulates a sense of community”. His proposed project was “an analysis of those elements in the planning of certain Italian cities which accommodate or even stimulate the sense of community mentioned above” [25]. Fifteen years later, Venturi and Scott Brown recalled the historic European city’s impact on postwar architects from the U.S. in Learning from Las Vegas: For young Americans in the 1940s, familiar only with the auto-scaled, gridiron city and the antiurban theories of the previous architectural generation, the traditional urban spaces, the pedestrian scale, and the mixtures, yet continuities, of styles of the Italian piazzas were a significant revelation. They rediscovered the piazza [29, 18].3

This generalization is consistent with the interests evinced by many other architects at the post-Second World War American Academy, where urbanism was the single most popular topic of interest. Of thirty-three project proposals from 1947 to 1962, fifteen—nearly half—mention the city; for thirteen it is a central issue [2, 115–130]. According to Thomas Schumacher, Rome Prize architecture fellow from 1967–69, “After the fall of Classicism in the 1940s, architects who went to the American Academy in Rome…turned to more abstract pursuits like urban design, Townscape-influenced urban space studies” [20, 40, n. 2]. Nor was this an American anomaly: among their Rome Prize counterparts at the Académie de France à Rome and the British School at Rome, urbanism was even more dominant. Of seventeen French architectes-pensionnaires between 1946 and 1960, eleven, or roughly twothirds, produced envois about the city. Among the British School’s twelve Rome Scholars in architecture from 1947 to 1960, nine, or three-quarters, also worked on urban projects.4 Urbanism’s popularity among postwar Rome Prize architects was due to many factors. The rise of modernism, a movement in which architecture and city planning were conjoined, made the subject a key part of that era’s disciplinary Zeitgeist. This guaranteed professional currency for any project dealing with the city. Urbanism also solved a fundamental question for all architects at Rome’s postwar academies: how could an extended stay in the Eternal City advance an architect’s career in the 1950s? By mid-decade, the city could boast a number of acclaimed recent modernist projects, 3 This

observation likely reflects the experience of Venturi on his first European trip of 1948. For Scott Brown, a South African upbringing and years of study in London made North America and Italy equally “foreign” urban landscapes. 4 The nature of projects and policies at the French Academy and British School summarized here and below will be discussed at length in my forthcoming book on the Rome Prize in architecture after the Second World War.

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most famously the memorial to the martyrs at the Fosse Ardeatine of 1949 (by the team of Nello Aprile, Cino Calcaprina, Aldo Cardelli, Mario Fiorentino and Giuseppe Perugini), and Luigi Moretti’s Casa del Girasole of 1950 in the Parioli district. Even so, however significant the individual postwar structures scattered around the city were individually and collectively, this limited collection could hardly sustain lengthy creative residencies for dozens of architects. The city’s more pervasive Fascist-era modernist patrimony was politically anathema to American architects in particular [7]. For postwar Rome Prize fellows in architecture, urbanism offered a much “safer,” less ideologically contentious, way to connect Italy’s historic sites to contemporary priorities. While urban topics resolved a shared conundrum, architecture fellows’ specific approaches to studying them varied greatly. Projects at the French Academy often followed CIAM’s rational planning principles, despite the famously historicist heritage of that nation’s Prix de Rome. Britain’s Rome Scholars generally adhered to Townscape topics and methods, while urban projects at the American Academy drew from a combination of influences. These tendencies reflected each academy’s distinct institutional politics. Architects at both the French Academy and the British School answered to governing committees dominated by Beaux-Arts loyalists, who oversaw required projects. The French Academy’s architects, however, tolerated modernism and urban projects as a necessary concession to the realities of postwar building policy [8]. As a group, the British School’s Architecture Faculty were more staunchly anti-modernist. They deemed Townscape-inspired projects acceptable, but only grudgingly, in part because the movement opposed CIAM-style modernist planning and promoting “English” picturesque aesthetics in historic urban ensembles [9, 12, 13]. These included piazzas and hill-towns, both of which were especially popular topics for architects at the British School. In contrast, postwar architects at the American Academy had no fixed work requirements to fulfill during their fellowships, no architectural authorities supervising their activities, nor any obligation to accommodate a centrally-imposed design philosophy. In a drastic departure from earlier practice, they were no longer chosen by a design competition, as their British and French counterparts still were, but selected based on written statements that outlined their intentions for Rome, evaluated by a jury that included both modernist and conservative members. Applicants simply had to convince the jurors that they would make good use of their stay; upon arrival, could pursue any work they chose, in whatever way they wished [4]. This freedom is evident in the variety of the American fellows’ urban projects: some adhered closely to modernist orthodoxy, while others critiqued it. Venturi’s application statements did both: his interest in the Baroque echoed Giedion’s Space, Time and Architecture, which found confirmations of modernist aesthetics in Baroque spatial and planning principles [5]. Venturi also made several references to “community,” which echoed concerns voiced at the 1951 CIAM 8 conference in Hoddeston, England on “The Heart of the City” [17, 31]. But Venturi also declared that “separation between living and working accommodations, the dominance of the gridiron plan, and the subordination of the pedestrian to the automobile” results in anonymous urban life that “consists almost entirely of

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working, dwelling, and spectator entertainment” [25] This conviction that the Athens Charter’s four functions and planning principles do not promote a “rich experience of civic living” contradicted the widespread acceptance of modernist urban doctrine. It also reflects Venturi’s strong interest in Townscape.

3 Townscape, Venturi, and Rome As many authors have noted, Venturi’s first published article of 1953, entitled “The Campidoglio: A Case Study,” appeared in the “Townscape” section of the Architectural Review [24]. This is an index of what Stierli has called his “affinity” for this movement, a relationship that might be characterized in stronger terms as a direct engagement [15, 202; 23, 121; 18, 90]. The article re-presented one section of his Master of Fine Arts thesis of 1950 at Princeton University, entitled “Context in Architectural Composition.” Venturi’s analysis of the Campidoglio (one of his many examples from Rome) considered the elimination of the medieval urban fabric at the foot of the Cordonata stair, one of the Fascist regime’s sventramenti or “guttings” undertaken to “liberate” symbolically powerful sites. Specifically, he studied how this change in context had altered the piazza’s relationship with the city, a thoroughly Townscape theme.5 Venturi’s thesis was directly informed by ideas from this movement, proving that his exposure to Townscape began during his years as a student at Princeton. The Review’s critical and historically-informed stance on modernism had probably endeared it to one of Venturi’s most influential faculty mentors, the architectural historian Donald Drew Egbert [28]. Venturi continued to remain familiar with the Review after he graduated from Princeton, as he began to formulate ideas for his Rome Prize application during the early 1950s [6].6 Like his master’s thesis and his first published article, Venturi’s three American Academy proposals channel Townscape priorities by emphasizing European cites’ pedestrian and experiential qualities. He carried this interest to the Academy in the form of another ongoing writing project. During his first year in Rome, Venturi submitted a second, Townscape-themed article to the Review for publication. In this essay, entitled “Hillbrows and Hilltowns,” he argued that Frank Lloyd Wright had integrated architecture and site more thoroughly after his 1911 residency in Fiesole, a case study in how the experience of Italy’s medieval urbanism could

5 Stierli, who

notes the clear influence of Townscape and Gestalt psychology in Venturi’s Princeton thesis, also makes a larger claim that “it is likely that he transported terms such as context or perceptual whole, which are used repeatedly in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, into architectural discourse” [23, 119]. 6 An example of the journal’s influence is that familiarity with Colin Rowe’s “Mannerism and Modern Architecture” in the May 1950 [19] issue (Architectural Review 107) provides the only plausible explanation for Venturi’s mention of Mannerism in all three of his Rome Prize statements. When he wrote his first statement in 1952, Rowe’s article was the only published argument for this recently-minted, still obscure art historical category’s contemporary architectural relevance [3].

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enrich modern design [26].7 Although this article was ultimately rejected, first by the Review, then by Casabella, the manuscript demonstrates that Venturi pursued an overtly Townscape research agenda from Rome in 1955. The deep impact of his Academy stay on Complexity and Contradiction has been well-established [22]. But a question remains: are there any other direct connections, beyond the theoretical links traced by Vidler, Laurance, and Ockman, between Townscape, urbanism, and Complexity and Contradiction?

4 Townscape and Complexity Venturi started writing the manuscript for Complexity and Contradiction in 1962, six years after his return from Rome. The book that emerged four years later synthesized its forty-one-year old author’s many years of travel, reading, teaching, and conversations. Compared to other influences—Italy, literary theory and Mannerism—overt traces of Townscape are few. Although the term “townscape” appears five times, these mentions are confined to one compact section of the book, entitled “Accommodation and the Limits of Order: The Conventional Element” in chapter six [27, 51–52]. Importantly, as Ockman has noted, Venturi also directly repudiates the movement’s primary aesthetic principle in his text, by disavowing “the precious intricacies of picturesqueness” [27 22; 18 92]. Other typical Townscape tropes—medieval towns, city walls, organic form and street patterns—receive only one mention each. Perhaps most damningly, Venturi even exhorts the architect to relinquish urban ambitions and efforts “in shaping the whole environment,” and instead “concentrate on his own job,” namely that of designing buildings [27, 20]. Nor does the city register among Complexity and Contradiction’s visual priorities: its 253 expository illustrations include only two urban plans, one of which shows the Vatican, another a 1958 plan for Berlin (Figs. 114 and 144). The few images that do zoom out to consider city-scale places, which include views of the Piazza San Marco, Times Square, and American roadside architecture, are exceptions among arrays of individual buildings (Fig. 1). Visually, we see no trace of Venturi’s former preoccupation with the rich, civilizing experience of pedestrian urban environments in the book. Or do we? Townscape assessed the built environment as an experiential whole, and gestalt psychology, which Venturi mentions a few times, is another important shared influence [23, 119].8 Its proponents also studied urban spatial reality at a range of scales, from the details of street furniture and paving patterns to distant views of a city’s profile within the landscape. In addition, it used distinctive visual strategies, such as sequential images that were meant to capture the “serial vision” 7 Venturi’s

theme anticipates the more rigorous argument for a similar thesis published by Anthony Alofsin [1]. 8 Stierli notes the obvious influence of Townscape and Gestalt psychology in Venturi’s Princeton thesis, and makes the larger claim that “it is likely that he transported terms such as context or perceptual whole, which are used repeatedly in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, into architectural discourse” [23, 119].

152 whole building becomes a diagonal ramp. In the Guggenheim Museum, where the diagonal spiral is the dominant motival order in a more complex program, the rectangular perpendicular form does express exceptional circumstances. Inside, the vertical order of the structure, and particularly of the shaft containing toilets is expressed in order to provide stable measure for the converging spiral ramp. Aalto, then, adapts the order to the circumstantial exception symbolized by the diagonal. So does Kahn in the examples given, although in the early schemes for the capitol at Dacca an extreme rigidity predominates, despite the huge size and complexity of the project. Le Corbusier juxtaposes the exceptional diagonal. Mies excludes it. Wright hides it or surrenders his whole order to it: the exception becomes the rule. These ideas are applicable to the design and perception of cities, which have more extensive and complex programs, of course, than individual buildings. The consistent spatial order of the Piazza S. Marco, for example (86), is not without its violent contradictions in scale, rhythm, and textures, not to mention the varying heights and styles of the surrounding buildings. Is there not a similar validity to the vitality of Times Square (87) in which the jarring inconsistencies of buildings and billboards are contained within the consistent order of the space itself? It is when honky-tonk spills out beyond spatial boundaries to the noman’s land of roadtown, that it becomes chaos and blight. (If in God’s Own Junkyard Peter Blake had chosen examples of roadside landscape for his book which were less extremely “bad,” his point, at least involving the banality of roadside architecture, would ironically have been stronger.) It seems our fate now to be faced with either the endless inconsistencies of roadtown (88), which is chaos, or the infinite consistency of Levittown (or the ubiquitous Levittown-like scene illustrated in figure 89), which is boredom. In roadtown we have a false complexity; in Levittown a false simplicity. One thing is clear—from such false consistency real cities will never grow. Cities, like architecture, are complex and contradictory.

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Fig. 1 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, page 59 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966; © The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

experienced by viewers as they move through the city. While Venturi’s book eschews that particular technique, Complexity and Contradiction does deploy a number of Townscape’s other visual methods and conceptual priorities. The issue of context is one example. A consistent priority for Venturi from graduate school through his final built projects, it is equally central to Complexity and Contradiction. Although images that explicitly depict urban scale are few, several examples do relate building design to a more intimate, immediate context, such as viewing positions that are determined by street patterns or open spaces (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2 Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome. The building, designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, rests on the foundations of Domitian’s ancient Odeon. photo ca. 1890 by Anderson. Used as Fig. 66 in Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Alinari Archives-Anderson Archive, Florence. © ALINARI

Admittedly, the book’s aim is to elucidate compositional principles that define buildings worth contemplating—architecture as object. But this goal implicitly assumes a certain kind of context, one that permits and rewards an extended viewing experience of an absorbing façade. The ideas advanced in Complexity and Contradiction are most compatible with an urban environment, to be discerned and appreciated through leisurely study of a captivating building from across a piazza. Another central theme is subjectivity, which Venturi foregrounds with the book’s famous opening sentence: “I like complexity and contradiction in architecture.” He demonstrates what these qualities are by sharing his careful readings of dozens of buildings and objects, effectively deploying the same Romantic, empiricist aesthetics that Townscape applied to the city. While his message is subjective, it is not individual: Venturi leads readers on a meandering journey, directing eyes and minds through text and images and back again to discover the qualities he describes. Each page is a mosaic containing many brief descriptions of many different examples that, in suitably gestalt fashion, coalesce into a larger argument for a given principle (Fig. 3). The point of Townscape’s fluently coordinated words and images was to define a set of concepts that, once revealed, could be experienced from a pedestrian viewpoint (“outdoor rooms,” “the line of life”). In similar fashion, Venturi’s

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On Vanbrugh’s entrance façade to the kitchen court at Blenheim (59), disengaged columns, which frame the grand opening, are discordantly superimposed upon the windows that make up part of the regular rhythmic pattern behind. The same thing happens at Seaton Delaval (122), where the disengaged columns block some of the windows. The façade of St. Maclou, Rouen (123), is made up of layers of diagonal elements—traceried pediments, roofs, and buttresses—differing in function though analogous in form. These juxtapositions are relatively separated in comparison with the façade of Il Redentore (51), whose ambiguously superimposed diagonals are broken pediments and exposed buttresses at the same time. Other buildings contain similar degrees of spatial superadjacencies on the inside taking the form of extremely articulated or separated linings. In the choir of the Wieskirche (124) the colonnade, which runs closely parallel to the walls, makes changing rhythmic juxtapositions against the pilasters and window openings of the walls. Soane’s interior arch in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, London (125), makes a more contradictory superadjacency against the windows of the wall almost immediately beyond. In Modern architecture contradictory juxtapositions of scale involving immediately adjacent elements are even rarer than superadjacencies. Such a manipulation of scale is seen in the accidental collage of the colossal head of Constantine and the louvered shutters in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museum (126). Significantly, it is usually in non-architectural configurations (127) that such contrasts in scale occur today. In another context I have referred to the adjacencies of giant and minor orders in Mannerist and Baroque architecture. In the rear façade of St. Peter’s (128, 129) Michelangelo makes an even more contradictory contrast in scale: a blank window is juxtaposed with a capital bigger than the window itself. In the cathedral façade at Cremona (130) there is a violent adjacency of little arcades and an enormous rose window high up. This reflects within the building both the scale of the building itself and the scale of the town it dominates so that the building accommodates the close view and yet commands from a distance. In the cathedral at Cefalu (131) the symbolically im portant mosaic figure of Christ is correspondingly big in relation to the other ornament. The enormous central door, which is equal to the giant scale of the columns of the portico of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma (132), con-

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Fig. 3 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture , pages 68–69 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966; © The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

theoretical categories (“the double-functioning element,” “both-and”) turn his own observations into principles that can inform the reader’s visual experience thereafter. This strategy is effective because of how consciously the images are choreographed into a visual system that simultaneously parallels and interweaves itself with the text. One notable difference is that Townscape illustrations often reproduce eye-level views that capture the pedestrian experience of buildings and urban spaces, qualities that are evident in many of Venturi’s own photos of Italy (Fig. 4). In contrast, many of Venturi’s chosen images (often reproduced from other books) are designed to support “objective” visual analysis rather than the phenomenal experience of a building in space (Fig. 5). But for both, the printed page became an engaging landscape of juxtapositions, contrasts, and dramatic shifts in scale and typology. The eclecticism of Venturi’s exemplars adds further energy; his mix of works from distant places, time periods, and unrelated styles suggests randomness, but is in fact carefully and purposefully staged. Ultimately, visual experience defines the central concern of both Townscape and Complexity and Contradiction. What we see on the page is supposed to help us apprehend qualities in the built environment that, in the authors’ view, need to proliferate, as an antidote to the ascetic sterility of orthodox modernism.

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Fig. 4 Robert Venturi, photograph of Piazza San Marco through arch, Venice, 1956 (Venturi Scott Brown Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown)

5 Conclusion The city is present in Complexity and Contradiction through several “crypto-urban” themes which serve as reminders of its latent Townscape genealogy. Even Venturi’s call to architects to “concentrate on their own job” is presented as an ironically inverted attempt to reverse “the architect’s ever diminishing power and his growing ineffectualness in shaping the whole environment” [27 20]. It paradoxically suggests that by withdrawing from totalizing schemes, architects can ultimately have a wider, urban-scale impact by keeping the scope of their activity more contained. In addition, I wish to propose one further connection to the urban that should be acknowledged. Venturi’s book, understood as an amalgam of concepts, text, visual imagery, and graphic organization, itself constitutes a city. Complexity and Contradiction offers a virtual enactment of urban ideals translated onto each page—or, more precisely, two sister cities. The original, more compact 1966 edition, with its caption-free, minuscule illustrations, is a tight, disorienting, fine-grained settlement, one in which we as readers must strain to discern the features that their impassioned guide describes and wonder at how they all fit together. The second, landscape-format revised version of 1977 is a more open, expansive, leisurely town, one where larger and mercifully identified images help readers orient themselves a bit more easily, and invite them on a more contemplative, lingering tour. Both editions, in their distinct ways, stage the sort of urban experience celebrated by Townscape: a richly-textured, non-obvious structure that gradually becomes navigable through familiarity, with a frisson of confusion and surprise to thrill, and just enough coherence to hold together. I contend that, in the end, Complexity and Contradiction did fulfill the urban dimensions of the

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Fig. 5 Inside the dome of the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, known as San Carlino, Francesco Borromini (1599–1667), Rome; photo 1920–1930. Used as Fig. 27 in Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Alinari, Fratelli Alinari Archives-Alinari Archive, Florence © ALINARI

author’s Rome Prize project. It did so by offering the world a new city to visit by way of the page, one designed to reward contemplation and many happy returns. Over fifty years ago, Venturi completed one book and began another, which simultaneously incorporated important new influences and extended continuities in his own concerns. Both Complexity and Contradiction and Learning from Las Vegas were stages in a lifelong urban project that connected his ideas about meaningful design to a far more expansive landscape.

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References 1. Alofsin A (1993) Frank Lloyd Wright—the lost years, a study of influence: 1910–22. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2. Costanzo D (2009) The lessons of Rome: architects at the American Academy, 1947–1966. Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University 3. Costanzo D (2013) Text, lies and architecture: Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi, and mannerism. J Arch 18(4):455–473 4. Costanzo D (2015) ‘A truly liberal orientation’: Laurance Roberts, modern architecture, and the postwar American Academy in Rome. J Soc Arch Hist 74(2):223–247 5. Costanzo D (2015) Giedion as guide: Space, Time and Architecture and the modernist reception of baroque Rome. In: Leach A, MacArthur J, Delbeke M (eds) The baroque in architectural culture, 1880–1980. Ashgate, Aldershot, England 6. Costanzo D (2016) ‘I will try my best to make it worth it’: Robert Venturi’s road to Rome. J Arch Ed 70(2):269–283 7. Costanzo D (2020) The lessons of fascist Rome: Venturi, Lincoln Center, and 1960s formalism. In: Jones KB, Pilat S (eds) The Routledge handbook to Italian fascist architecture: reception and legacy. Routledge, London 8. Cupers K (2010) Designing social life: the urbanism of the grands ensembles. Positions 1:94– 121 9. Cullen G (1961) Townscape. Architectural Press, London 10. Custer LA (2019) Teaching complexity and contradiction at the University of Pennsylvania, 1961–65. In: Stierli M, Brownlee D (eds) Complexity and Contradiction at fifty: on Robert Venturi’s “gentle manifesto,” Museum of Modern Art, New York 11. De Wolfe I (de Cronin Hastings H) (1949) Townscape: a plea for an English visual philosophy founded on the true rock of Sir Uvedale Price. Arch Rev 106 (636):354–362 12. De Wolfe I (de Cronin Hastings H) (1963) The Italian townscape. The Architectural Press, London 13. Erten E (2004) Shaping ‘the second half-century’: Architectural Review, 1947–71. Dissertation, MIT 14. Laurence P (2006) Contradictions and complexities: Jane Jacobs’ and Robert Venturi’s complexity theories. J Arch Ed 59(3):49–60 15. MacArthur J (2007) The picturesque: architecture, disgust and other irregularities. Routledge, London 16. McLeod M (2019) Venturi’s acknowledgements: the complexities of influence. In: Stierli M, Brownlee D (eds) Complexity and Contradiction at fifty: on Robert Venturi’s “gentle manifesto,” Museum of Modern Art, New York 17. Mumford E (2000) The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928–1960. MIT Press, Cambridge 18. Ockman J (2019) On Robert Venturi and the idea of complexity in architecture circa 1966. In: Stierli M, Brownlee D (eds) Complexity and Contradiction at fifty: on Robert Venturi’s “gentle manifesto,” Museum of Modern Art, New York 19. Rowe C (1950) Mannerism and modern architecture. Arch Rev 107:289–299 20. Schumacher T (1991) Michael Graves: the algebra of metaphor. In: Brown TL, de Vita M (eds) Michael Graves: idee e progretti 1981–1991, Electa, Milan 21. Sitte C (1889) Der Städte-Bau nach seinem künstlerischen Grundsätzen, Graeser, Vienna. English edition: (1945) The art of building cities: city building according to its fundamentals (trans: Stewart CT). Reinhold, New York 22. Stierli M (2008) In the Academy’s garden: Robert Venturi, the grand tour, and the revision of modern architecture. AA Files 56:42–63 23. Stierli M (2013) Las Vegas in the rearview mirror: the city in theory, photography and film (trans: Tucker E). Getty, Los Angeles 24. Venturi R (1953) The Campidoglio: a case study. Arch Rev 113(32):333–334 25. Venturi R (1954) Fellowship proposal, Fellows Files. American Academy in Rome Archives, New York

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26. Venturi R (1955) Hillbrows and Hilltowns, unpublished manuscript 225.RV.115, Venturi Scott Brown Collection, by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Architectural Archives. University of Pennsylvania 27. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Museum of Modern Art, New York 28. Venturi R (1998) Donald Drew Egbert: a tribute. In: Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, MIT Press, Cambridge 29. Venturi R, Scott Brown D, Izenour S (1977, 1972) Learning from Las Vegas, Rev. edn. MIT Press, Cambridge 30. Vidler A (2012) Troubles in theory part II: picturesque to postmodernism. Arch Rev 231:78–83 31. Zuccaro Marchi L (ed) (2018) The heart of the city: legacy and complexity of a modern design idea. Routledge, London

Inflection and Scale Juxtaposition as Strategies of Interrelationships Carolina Vaccaro

Abstract In his book C + C and through his Learning From behaviour, Robert Venturi frequently calls into question the Inflection as a project strategy, explicitly or hidden, which connotes architecture as a participatory element of a vast relational structure. The structure holds together a single system where Architecture, Urban and Landscape dimensions coexist in relationships. A system whose identity lies mainly in the attitude towards comparison, towards being referential, towards evaluating super-adjacencies, according to a criterion of inclusiveness. Venturi likes to play with Scale. Inevitably the Scale Juxtaposition plays a fundamental role in the relational structure. The Juxtaposition is expressed in usual and/or unusual relationships which amplify the field of interrelational phenomena, never one-way, making them perceptually active. The Scale Juxtaposition, both in history and contemporary design, is materialized in a non-judgmental action to break aesthetic rules and meet functional and contemporary needs, to finally define the powerful and magnetic field of forces that releases complex potentialities of immediate and far links, never univocal. An open, extensible, inclusive and evolutionary system, an interdisciplinary reinvention and perpetual adjustment which unequivocally tends to carry urbanism inside buildings and to the tricky and paradigmatic terrain of The Difficult Whole. Keywords Inflection · Scale · Juxtaposition · Learning from · The difficult whole Topic Perception/The Inside and the Outside/The phenomenon of “both-and” in landscape History/The obligation towards the Difficult Whole

C. Vaccaro (B) Department of Architecture, Temple University Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_6

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Project/The Inside and the Outside/The obligation towards the Difficult Whole/The phenomenon of “both-and” in Landscape/Works Strategy/The obligation towards the Difficult Whole/The phenomenon of “bothand” in Landscape/Works.

1 Introduction 1.1 Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture My project would be several things at once. It would be a work of criticism in the form of a book; by intention a relevant contribution to architectural thinking. It would also be an anticipated apologia; an explanation, by implication, of some ideas of my current work as an architect. At the least general level it would become an exercise through analysis and comparison, to clarify my own directions as an artist: a sort of manifesto for myself.1

The paper submitted as an application for the Graham Foundation grant, which later developed into the book, was an analysis of composition principles. The very first title was Ideas of Reconciliation in Architectural Composition. Reconciliation refers to the difficult unity of inclusion, architecture topics in the state of continual adaptation, the idea of appropriate architecture. The concept of appropriate architecture, a Venturi’s mantra, expresses the multiplicity of forms through which architecture contrives to establish connections with the context, history, the tradition of the discipline and the specific circumstances. It is simply the principle of continual adjustment, the result of the understanding that space is formed by the inclusion of fragments, by contradiction, by improvisation, and by the tensions to which these give rise. A similar principle is inevitably extended onto the city and the land scale, which brings us to the substantial inspiration Venturi draws from the facades of the Italian cities, with their numerous adjustments to the competing and contradictory interior and exterior demands. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (C + C) was finally published in 1966. With an introduction by Vincent Scully, the book is structured with a preface, the Gentle Manifesto, and eleven chapters, the last one a selection of twelve projects. C + C deals with the ways in which the architecture of the past, understood through comparative critical analysis, may be read using a new key—the relation to the present. It is significant that in the preface to the second edition (1977), Venturi remarks that he would have preferred a rather different title: Complexity and Contradiction in Architectural Form.

1 Venturi

[1].

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Fig. 1 Robert Venturi, Sketch of the Campidoglio by Michelangelo, 1998

2 A View from the Campidoglio The architect has a responsibility toward the landscape which he can subtly enhance or impair, for we see in perceptual wholes, and the introduction of any new building, will change the character of all the other elements in a scene.2

Venturi argues on the mobile interrelationships between architecture and landscape through the masterly example of the Campidoglio by Michelangelo. The essay, published in A View from the Campidoglio, was part of his MFA thesis at Princeton University. The essay analyzes how Michelangelo modified almost negligibly the site through the application of the pilasters, entablature, and window architraves. These architectural elements, perceptively sized for the triple scale of ‘upclose’/architecture/landscape, modified and addressed the presence of the Senatorial Palace towards the city. “It was by means of the form and position of the flanking buildings that the Senatorial Palace acquired new value”.3 By scale, texture contrast and new rhythms Michelangelo gave emphasis to the palace (Fig. 1). Now, as Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown (RV&DSB) would ask: What do we learn from the Campidoglio? 2 Venturi 3 Ibid.,

[2]. p. 12.

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Fig. 2 Aldo van Eyck, Diagram of Tree is Leaf and Leaf is Tree, 1962

We Learn that there is not a great distance among architecture and landscape principles, among architecture and landscape. Architecture and Landscape belong to a unique system. The variable is given mainly by juxtaposition of the different scales and by means of the form. In short Aldo van Eyck, through a metaphor, poetically describes this circular correspondence. …Tree is Leaf and Leaf is Tree - House is City and City is House - a Tree is a Tree but it is also a huge Leaf - a Leaf is Leaf, but it is also a tiny Tree - a City is not a City unless it is also a huge House - a House is a House only if it is also a tiny City.,4 (Fig. 2).

Robert Venturi’s approach towards urbanity well represents the specific american aptitude: perceptive, non-judgmental, permissive, non-directive, the one which considers the use of controlled accident, the use of mistake, of pragmatism, as categories that can reanimate urban design supporting inclusiveness. Walt Whitman’s poetry allows us to guess more about this inclination: I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake5

American architects look at the landscape around them and Learn through pragmatism. They are eager for outside influence. They follow the aptitude to adaptation, invention and reinvention. Artistically they are both precursor and follower. The 4 Aldo

van Eyck, Identification of Leaf with Tree, original text of 1961, presented at the Team 10 meeting (Abbaye de Royaumont, September 1962). Van Eyck [3]. 5 Whitman [4].

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obligatory pluralism of contemporary culture implies an acceptance of heterogeneity and difference as mediators in resisting the imposition of simple and indisputable truths, so as to achieve architecture directed towards rediscovering its innumerable traditions, regional and historical, conceptual and local, in space and time. In this way the project is oriented towards the rediscovery of the existing, availing itself of material that is already to hand. The Learning From behaviour generates plural answers, as the Communication as Function or the Decoration as a promise for architecture civic dignity which makes visible the obligations of a building towards the city, the landscape and the society. The poetics of the ugly and the common/ordinary, as opposed to the heroic and the original, belong within this non-judgemental observation of the existing scene. As Rem Koolhaas would put it, The Generic and anonymous scene becomes significant. There is a pattern in the Sprawl, they claim, and order in the Chaos. This, Here, is what we have: The Is; And we Learn From it.

3 Learning from (Everything) Learning From has become a mantra, it implies an holistic view as a responsibility by architects towards the postmodern age. Via the Troika between lookinglearning/writing-theorising/designing-building, RV&DSB Learn From to formulate theoretical positions based on many sources. Venturi’s observations on historical buildings are focused on the linkage of architecture and context in terms of relation among things, space in-between and what keeps them together as a whole. An image of the Matera settlement describes visually very well the meaning of elements and spaces melted together, as a whole (Fig. 3). The examples Venturi selects from history are urban/land buildings. They are urban building by strategies as inflection and/or contradiction, and by different juxtaposed scales. The building itself explains the location, the urban one, the topographical and geographical one, both the far and the immediate, physically and conceptually. Published in C + C, Palazzo Tarugi (Fig. 4) by Sangallo supports Venturi arguments on contradiction and inflection. The exaggerated order and symmetrical composition is broken by the asymmetrical voids of the building corner towards the civic piazza. The Palazzo is inflected toward the piazza and generously offers as a gift some of its private space to the urban public requirements. Likewise the two ‘twin’ churches in the roman Piazza del Popolo open an out of scale dialogue with the Tridente infrastructural system through the apparently twin towers bells inflected toward the central axis of via del Corso. In the roman context, the beloved one by Venturi, no architecture was so immerged in the urban environment as the church of S. Maria della Pace, as brilliantly analysed by Paolo Portoghesi when he describes the relation with the environment (adjacent

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Fig. 3 Matera, Basilicata, Italy

Fig. 4 Antonio da Sangallo il Vecchio, Palazzo Tarugi, Montepulciano, Italy

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and distant) to determine a reciprocal necessity.6 Venturi selects the Cortona’s church in chap. 9, as a ‘specific reaction to a specific environment’ (Fig. 5). The list is long and well known so as the Learning From topics, a Mnemosyne-like system of places, architecture examples and elements—with multiple variables of links—to look at and pragmatically use to design. As a last example—comparable to the RV&DSB Sainsbury Wing Extension in London—San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini, a continuous and dynamic metamorphic building which becomes many buildings, a multiple reply to the infrastructural environment (Fig. 6).

4 The Inside and the Outside We are not only breathing in, nor we are exclusively breathing out. This is why it would be so beneficial if the relation of interior space and exterior space, between individual and common space inside and outside, between the open and the closed (directed towards the inside and outside) could be the built mirror of human nature, so that man can identify with it. These are formal realities because they are mental realities. Moreover they are not polar but ambivalent realities. The dwelling and its extension into the exterior, the city and its extension into the interior, that’s what we have to achieve.7

The contradiction and linkage between the interior and the exterior is evidence, more than any other aspects, of the most important idea of the projects by RV&DSB. Venturi holds that the contrast between interior and exterior can be regarded as one of the principal manifestations of contradiction in architecture. This assertion runs counter to the Modern Movement’s maxim that the interior should manifest itself on the exterior. According to Stanislaus von Moos, this position is particularly evident in the smaller buildings, where the monumental scale is established on the façade thanks to its independence from the interior, as we learn from Le Corbusier. This independence opens the dialogue at larger scales.

5 Context Venturi does care about the immediate and wider context, designing outside in as well as inside out. Also in the most vague context, he has an aspiration for hierarchy that implies urbanity. Kersten Geers, Jelena Panˇcevac and Andrea Zanderigo, in their innovative book The Difficult Whole, describe Venturi’s inclination towards the context as a middle tone between plain and fancy.8 Something Venturi itself describes as the most difficult one, having the aim of melting into the city fabric, as if it was always there, without renouncing the oversized ambitions of the architect, 6 Portoghesi

[5] pp. 393–417. Eyck [6] p. 92. 8 Geers et al. [7] pp. 201–208. 7 Van

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Fig. 5 Pietro da Cortona, Santa Maria della Pace, plan of the area with the new buildings

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Fig. 6 Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome

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and the desire to be rightly noticed. The Jasper Morrison Supernormal philosophy is comparable to a similar condition, in favour of the architecture of ordinariness. Inflection is the specific design strategy to achieve a direct connection with the physical context. Term originally proposed by Trystan Edwards in Architectural Style (1925). Inflection can occur at many scales, from the detail to the building scale, to the urban and finally the scale of the vast land. Inflection acts to support the linkage of diversities, different elements and in-between spaces at the different scale. Inflection indicates a direction and calls into being a relationship between an advanced and receded plane. “Inflection is a means of distinguishing diverse parts while implying continuity. It involves the art of fragments”.9 The inflected element is dependent on something that is outside of itself and in the direction of which it is inflected. Inflection, as urban and landscape scale strategy, can support and promote chaotic juxtapositions, it “…accommodates the difficult whole of a duality as well as the easier complex whole. It is a way of resolving a duality”.10 “Extreme inflection literally becomes continuity” writes Venturi in chap. 10. The Difficult Whole is thus a self-sustaining idea of context: an architectonic and urban composition where each element depends on the other through inflection. Thus The Difficult Whole widens the architectonic idea into an urban design tool.

6 Project. Scale Juxtaposition, Inflection, Ambiguity, Mannerism Today Venturi learns selectively from History. The contrast of scale determines tension in the project, tension in the relation between inside and outside and the engagement of architecture in the environment. Tension emerges in the building pretended size compared to the surroundings, in its appearance from afar within the context. In the same building cohabit different scales, some related to the vast context, some to the immediate one, finally the closer scale of the up-close perception of architecture. To approach the whole Venturi calls for an architecture that takes into account different and difficult types of perceptual relations, such as complex positions of the parts, diversity of directions, number of parts (duality and multiplicity), and finally considers the nature of the parts that implies the whole. The Beach House project (1959) informs us about Venturi’s relevant ideas of architecture. The house stands in the middle of the beach dunes, overlooking the ocean. The House finds its inspiration so to be suitably there and has only two elevations: the front oriented towards the ocean, and the rear, which contains the entrance. The plan and the front façade express the directional inflection towards the ocean. It’s an architecture that recalls the Shingle Style, but it is big in scale, with 9 Venturi 10 Ibid.,

[8] pp. 88–90. p. 94.

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Fig. 7 Robert Venturi, House on the beach, front elevation, 1959

peremptory elements (like the roof and the chimney), the elements that dialogue with the vastness of the ocean. The house is suspended from the ground, thus introducing abstraction inside ordinariness (Figs. 7 and 8). As von Moos argues, the small buildings are the ones that better embody the relation with the environment due to the introduction of the big scale in a small architecture. In the Frug Houses (1966), the result is a paradox of form, an explicit declaration of complexity and contradiction zipped in a small building. The Frug Houses (A + B) are masterpieces, lessons on how to combine domestic scale and vast scale, which means melt them together, sometime in a no-place context as frequently is in these projects (Figs. 9 and 10). The buildings ‘survive’ and accept the challenge, they explain their being there here and now, as for the Fire Station n. 4 (1968), with the un-proportioned bell tower and the truck scale spaces organized together with the admin spaces via a fake façade (Fig. 11). All contributes to define that necessary civic scale, frequently in a generic and vast context, appropriated enough to the specific function. Same tricky approach for the Lieb House (1969), an ordinary shed with conventional elements as described by Venturi. The presence of the few unconventional elements used in the building is extraordinarily explicit, as in the case with the stairs—gradually decreasing in width from exterior to interior—or the large round window that recalls some works by Gordon Matta Clark (Figs. 12 and 13). These elements, as DSB would put it, carry urbanism inside the building. Thus the exterior primary role is that of establishing a free dialogue with the context.

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Fig. 8 Robert Venturi, House on the beach, plan, 1959

The Guild House (1966) introduces the giant order through the central vertical addition of the loggias, but introduces also, learning here from Pop Art, an antiperspectival system of windows so to activate perception in the ordinary context (Fig. 14). Finally, at that time innovative, the National Football Hall of Fame (1967), is conceived as an architecture of communication that presents itself as a great BillDing-Board, big enough to be seen from a far distance, big enough for projected images to be seen from afar (Fig. 15). The interrelation with the vast land characterizes explicitly other projects as the Best and Basco Showrooms (Figs. 16 and 17). Some of the late generic projects, as for example the Clinical Research Building, are a sort of loft-like buildings that establish a landmark-like relationship with the environment. These are pure decorated sheds, big box-like architectures in context. Toward the outside, they are in many ways cheeky, imposing an artificial version of context through its own presence. In these late projects, where RV&DSB look for generic design for flexibility, the explicit use of decoration is a way to create urbanity where there is none. Decoration thus becomes a consistent tool to establish the role of a building in its context, to define its comparative position in the environment. As highlighted, decoration increases civic dignity and it makes visible the obligation of a building toward the city, the land and the society. As a major historical source Venturi, above all, learned from Mannerism. The statements For a Mannerist Time or For Mannerism Today! sound as a tribute to the

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Fig. 9 Robert Venturi, Frug House A, Princeton, New Jersey, model, 1966

irreverent spirit which undoubtedly provides the basis for a willingness to look with new eyes at what was considered ugly or out of place.

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Fig. 10 Robert Venturi, Frug House A, New Jersey, front elevation, 1966

Fig. 11 Robert Venturi, Fire station N. 4, Columbus, Ohio, 1965/1968

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Fig. 12 Robert Venturi, Lieb House, Loveladies, New Jersey, 1967/1969

Fig. 13 Robert Venturi, Lieb House, Loveladies, New Jersey, ground floor plan

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Fig. 14 Robert Venturi, Guild House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1960/1966

Fig. 15 Robert Venturi, National football hall of fame, Rutger University, New Brumswick, New Jersey, 1967

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Fig. 16 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Best Showroom, Oxford Valley, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1977

Fig. 17 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Showroom for Basco, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1978

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7 The Obligation Towards the Difficult Whole and the Open System The architecture of complexity and contradiction, if it is not a perversity, has a special obligation towards the whole (Gentle Manifesto).

In the last chapter of the book (n. 10) Venturi accepts that the Difficult Whole is never finished. The difficult whole can only be finished at the level of composition, its composition being a precarious balance of irresolutions. Here again the poetry of Walt Withman enlightens the usual-mistake nature of this condition. Venturi introduces the notion of content and acknowledges “the doubts, indecisions and dilemmas of experience”. Evolution over Revolution…..Program as a Process …Poise over Resolution… Under the perspective of the balance of irresolutions the essay by DSB The Redefinition of Functionalism plays an important role.11 DSB explores the question of the change of use and users, the fast evolution of the environment, and the research of the Generic Shapes. The mentioned Open System in the subtitle, by definition, includes unexpected use and evolution/variation of the urban/landscape context. The question is to achieve a broadened concept of function, to leave open choices/opportunities to people and physical environment changes. Herbert Gans criticised the ‘experts’ who set norms for others without sufficient awareness of their own biases.12 On the dichotomy between The Is and The Ought, DSB wrote relevant essays: how far should The Ought diverge from the The Is? We should learn to match The Ought of architectural ideals with The Is of reality. The Is of the city before propounding its Oughts. Action and Reaction is another subject. In the sixties social thinkers at UPenn set this kinetic notion of City building with sequence of roles of many players, against the traditional view of architect controlled master planning. Here is introduced the dynamic aspect, the Activity as Pattern.13 What emerges is that the definition of Functionalism must be adapted and readapted to suit changing times and environments. “Alison and Peter Smithson helped us”—writes DSB—“to a new sensibility, like the study of the everyday environment, they got us out of an aesthetic groove and into a new way of seeing”.14 In the book Architecture as Signs and Systems for a Mannerist Time, RV & DSB publish a series of their Lectures at Harvard as a recounting. Activity as Patterns investigates both the geometry of buildings and the nature of use and users. “While 11 Brown

[9] p. 142.

12 Herbert J. Gans, is a German-born American sociologist who taught at Columbia University from

1971 to 2007. One of the most prolific and influential sociologists of his generation, Gans came to America in 1940 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and has sometimes described his scholarly work as an immigrant’s attempt to understand America. He trained in sociology at the University of Chicago, where he studied with David Riesman and Everett Hughes, among others, and in social planning at the University of Pennsylvania. 13 Scott Brown D. [10] p. 120. 14 Scott Brown D. [11] pp. 22–27.

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designing, we map the patterns of relevant systems, then abstract key variables— individual activities, age, volume of use or movement are some—and overlay them to create further patterns. If the variables are well chosen their patterns, when juxtaposed, can lead the process logically from analysis to synthesis, and they become heuristic for design”.15 Mannerist Time. Mannerist breaking of rules seemed relevant for RV & DSB as a way of approaching the Complexity of life. Breaking aesthetic rules to meet functional exigencies could produce, they say, aesthetic excitement. If Mannerism was a way of breaking architecture’s rules, in urban design it was breaking the rules of the various urban systems. This was inevitable, explains DSB, because in the city there are so many systems, each with its own rules, and many in conflict with each other. But the juxtapositions between urban systems can be beautiful, the urban palimpsests and the wastelands they create are potentially places of freedom. Different urban systems meet and create Terrain Vagues, as Ignasi de Solà Morales describes beautifully in his essay Terrain Vague.16 Once more Aldo van Eyck, shaping the New Reality idea, writes: “All systems should be familiarized one with the other in such a way that their combined impact and interaction can be appreciated as a single complex system—polyphonal, multirhythmic, kaleidoscopic and yet perpetually and everywhere comprehensible”.17 A dynamic vision of the City and the Landscape emerges, and the decision on which time or periods to preserve should be a Situationist one, they assert. This will bring the need for further change. Massimo Cacciari writes about the condition of our cities, of our abitato. The answer to the question “What do we ask to the city?”, should be, according to Cacciari, the premise for any urban planning choice. We ask our cities to be a space in which every form of obstacle to movement, to universal mobilization, to exchange, is reduced to a minimum, or do we ask it to be a space in which there are places of communication, places full of symbolism, where there is attention to the otium?. We are actually asking for both. This “… is such a sharp contradiction that it could be the premise of some new creation”.18 Fatally, the coincidence of this deliberation/assumption with the Venturi’s approach to the city and the landscape is obvious. It is necessary to start from the contradictory nature. “The city is exposed to contradictory questions. Wanting to overcome this contradiction is a bad utopia. It must be shaped. The city is the perpetual experiment to give shape to the contradiction”.19 Cacciari refers not only to the city, but also to the post-metropolitan city, the city that coincides with the whole territory, giving rise to the phenomenon of de-territorialization. 15 Ibid.,

p. 120. Morales I. [12] pp. 36–39. 17 Van Eyck A. [13] pp. 81–94. 18 Cacciari M. [14] pp. 24–25. 19 Ibid., p. 26. 16 Solà

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Here is involved the Lesson of Rome, as a premise for Complexity and Contradiction. “It is a Rome acknowledging evolutions of many kinds and juxtaposing context of many kinds, a Rome that is never complete, a Rome that I love that is ultimately significant for our time”.20 Behind the urban tool-strategies we learn from Rome, lies the primitive nature of this city. Rome is a mobile city in its own essence, claims Cacciari. Roma mobilis: “(…) this extreme dynamism in the myth itself of the origins allows Rome to imagine herself and build her own myth through the synthesis of the most disparate elements”.21

8 Carry Urbanism Inside the Building/the Street Through the Building To Carry Urbanism inside the Building we need to think and remind architecture as a passage, we need to focus on dynamic indoor and outdoor spaces linked between them via circulation and scale tensions. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam by Koolhaas is a literal and dramatic interpretation of the phenomena, and the myth of the Tower of Babel acts as a symbol. Where can we find today this correspondence between closed and open spaces, between the different scales of the post-metropolitan territory and the buildings? If the metropolitan space was still a specific relativity space, that of the post-metropolitan territory must be a general relativity space, writes Cacciari.22 Here fits the overcoming of the monofunctionality and the idea of the polyvalent building as receptor of more than one activity. But, to confirm the circularity of the systems, was this not the model of the ancient building, where the residence was always combined with the shops, the warehouse or places of worship? From this multi-functionality the activity/reactivity of the building in its context is strengthened. This multi-functionality guarantees the necessary common ground, a common connective space for all, architecture and territory.

9 Conclusion In the Mother’s House Complexity and Contradiction are clearly recognizable. The building is at once simple and complex, open and closed, big and small. In 1992 Frederic Schwartz published a gorgeous book that testifies the Mother’s House design evolution from 1959 to 1963. The drawings are the complete record of the design

20 Venturi

R. [15]. M. [16] p. 13. 22 Ibid., p. 58. 21 Cacciari

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Fig. 18 Robert Venturi, Mother’s House, front facade

process, and the earlier ones “..exhibit Venturi’s dilemma of reconciling his encyclopedic knowledge of historical architecture—including all the attributes he held so dear—with the high modernism of the times”.23 Internally and externally, the house presents itself as a small dwelling, which employs the dimension and architectonic scale of a large construction. The primary reason for the use of the large scale is the concern to balance its complexity, the second is to achieve presence in the context. The Mother’s House contains in embryo everything they’ve done: mannerism (e.g. the pediment along the big façade), little building/big scale, distorted symmetry, original but not in the modern sense of expressing the new, classic and elemental, outdoor/indoor scale linked in continuity, and “(..) its order accommodates the generic elements of the house in general and the circumstantial elements of a house in particular”.24 The little/big House establish a strong relationship with the flat context (the gorgeous wild wood of Chestnut Hill) through the exterior pathway which, from the street, penetrates (with a slight diagonal out of axis from the central entrance of the house) through the building horizontally and vertically via the staircase. The ‘almost-symmetrical’ outdoor/indoor circulation shows one of Venturi’s favourite

23 Schwartz

F. [17] p. 11. Frederic Schwartz worked for/and RV&DSB for more than ten years. In 1981 he was director of the New York office. Later in New York he based his own practice. 24 Venturi R. [18] pp. 118–121.

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Fig. 19 Robert Venturi, Mother’s House, plan

modus operandi, good for the scale of a detail as for the outside scale (Figs. 18, 19, 20 and 21). Geers, Panˇcevac and Zanderigo describe the influence of the Mother’s House on Alvaro Siza after he visited it. The description enlightens the emblematic nature of the building: “It enabled Siza to relocate his architecture from the regional pastures of Portugal to the international scene of architecture per se, un-rooted and autonomous, as a Difficult Whole. It is the brilliant hand of the Portuguese master that turns manoeuvres of contextual disconnections into acts of engagement. Is the most contextual of all current architects at the same time the prime example of the inverse? The interior of Mother’s House shows the way. What remains is pure ambiguity”.25 As the Villa Savoye (Fig. 22) for Le Corbusier, the Mother’s House stages all Venturi’s fundamentals thoughts on architecture and its complex interrelation with the land. Here the Contradiction intervenes, as the positive condition of being many things at once so to answer at multiple levels. Contradiction supported by the acceptance of the varietas as a possible condition for beauty. In De re aedificatoria Leon Battista Alberti writes “..look that the classic is not what antique dealers think”, classic is also variety of forms, and it can be a concinnitas. “In short, that contradiction must be accepted”, quotes Robert Venturi in chap. 6.

25 Geers

K. [19] p. 203.

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Fig. 20 Robert Venturi, Mother’s House, masterplan

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Fig. 21 Robert Venturi, Mother’s House, internal staircase

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Fig. 22 Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, 1931

References 1. Venturi R Application letter to the graham foundation, dated 15.02.1962 2. Venturi R (1984) The campidoglio: a case study. In: A view from the campidoglio. selected essays 1953–1984. Ed. Harper & Row, New York 3. Van Eyck A (2008) Collected articles and other writings, 1947–1998. Ed. Vincent Ligtelijn and Francis Strauven, Amsterdam 4. Whitman W (1855) Song of myself. In: Leaves of Grass. Song of Myself is considered the core of Withman’s poetic vision 5. Portoghesi P (1973) Roma Barocca. Ed. Laterza 1973, pp 393–417 6. Van Eyck A (1962) Forum, vol 3, pp 92 7. Geers K, Panˇcevac J, Zanderigo A (2016) The difficult whole. A reference book on Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (eds) Architecture Without Content and Park Books AG, Zurich, pp, 201–208 8. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and contradiction in architecture, MoMA, New York, pp 88–90 9. Brown DS (2004) The redefinition of functionalism. Architecture as signs and systems. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p 142 10. Brown DS Activity as pattern. In: Architecture as signs and systems, cit., pp 120 11. Brown DS (2009) Towards an active socioplastics. In: Having words, AA Publications, London, pp 22–27 12. De Solà Morales I (1996) Terrain vague, essay wrote for present and futures, Architecture of the cities, XIX UIA Congress in Barcelona 1996, published in Quaderns, vol 212, pp 36–39 13. Van Eyck A (1962) Forum, vol 3, pp 81–94 14. Cacciari M (2004) La Città, ed. Pazzini, Rimini, pp 24–25 15. Venturi R (1999) There’s no place like Rome, Notes for a lecture for students of the University of Rome

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16. 17. 18. 19.

Cacciari M. La Città, cit., pp 13 Schwartz F (1992) Mother’s house. Rizzoli International Publications, New York, p 11 Venturi R., Complexity and contradiction in architecture, cit, pp 118–121 Geers K, Panˇcevac J, Zanderigo A, In: The difficult whole. A reference book on Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, cit, pp 203

From Piazza to Strip: Reflections on Landscape in the Writings and Projects of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Rosa Sessa

Abstract The concept of “landscape” in the works of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, far from being an ideological one, is strictly intertwined with its concrete use, physical perception and anthropological meaning. The two Philadelphian architects referred to that more often as “urban context”, implying not only its spatial qualities—such as scale and proportion—but also suggesting the spontaneous generation of relations—both material and immaterial—of the city. Through a selection of writings and buildings, my paper investigates the evolution of the reflections on urban landscape by Venturi and Scott Brown, from their earlier thoughts on the qualities of Italian cities, to the “survey” of the city of Las Vegas in the Sixties, and the resulting ways those ideas became interpreted and materialized in their architectural and urban projects. Keywords Piazza · Rome · Strip · Philadelphia · Urban landscape · Urban context · Robert Venturi · Denise Scott Brown · Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture · Learning from Las Vegas

1 Introduction In Robert Venturi’s Rome [1], Frederick Fisher and Stephen Harby—two Rome Prize Fellows at the American Academy in Rome—devotedly follow the many references to the Eternal City that are present in Robert Venturi’s first book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966). The two authors discuss the architect’s peculiar relationship with Rome, his way of looking at the Italian city, and his will to ‘absorb’ its genius loci in order to grasp from Roman buildings, piazzas and streets, the architecture lessons Venturi found still valid to overcome the “puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture” ([2], 16)1 produced by the International Style in the late Fifties and early Sixties. 1 For

this essay, page references will be to the second edition (1977).

R. Sessa (B) Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_7

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Robert Venturi (Philadelphia 1925–2018) deepened his research on Rome during his two-year stay between 1954 and 1956 at the American Academy on the Gianicolo Hill [3, 4]. In an interesting experiment of re-interpretation of a theory developed by a former Fellow at the same cultural institution, Fisher and Harby follow Venturi’s steps through the city and add personal watercolours and sketches to their reflections. In so doing, Rome reveals itself once again, still vibrant and alive, enriched by the experience and the itineraries of someone who crossed it a few decades before. Using Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture as a guidebook to the city offers the chance for a new knowledge, first, of Rome’s most famous monuments. In his book Venturi cites twenty Roman buildings spanning twenty centuries, from the Pantheon (I-II sec.) to Luigi Moretti’s Palazzina del Girasole (1950). Second, doing so also reveals the Città Eterna as a complex and fascinating whole, as a city of layered contrasts through time and space, a place of permanence and continuous change, of monumental ancient ruins fiercely standing next to contemporary apartments condos. It is probably for their accurate analysis of Venturi’s words and paths that Fisher and Harby are able to affirm: “Venturi looks at architecture, landscape and art as different manifestations of common themes” ([1], 9). While the relation between architecture and art in the work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown has always been widely explored by the critics—starting from the first historians who presented the Philadelphian architects to the public, namely Vincent Scully and Stanislaus von Moos—the way the two architects deal with the landscape can still fuel an interesting debate on this topic. What is “landscape” for Venturi and Scott Brown? How do they look at it? And, most importantly, what kind of landscape do they aim to build?

2 Writings Far from the typical nostalgia of the Italian immigrant communities in the United States, for the Venturi family Italy was not at all a paradise lost, or the distant land of the ancestors to recall with weeping melancholy. Robert Venturi Sr. and Vanna Luisi Venturi, both of Italian origin and coming from a poor immigrant background, rejected every feature too easily associated with their ethnicity in order to be fully integrated in the most affluent business-oriented society of Philadelphia: they turned from Roman Catholicism to the Quaker Society of Friends, they never spoke Italian at home, and apparently Vanna was vehemently reluctant to cook pasta for her family [5]. And yet, notwithstanding his parents refusal of the most recognizable Italian traits, for the young Robert Venturi Italy was an ever-present concept in his domestic environment: the Tuscan and Umbrian Masters of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance were the main topic of conversation with his parents when debating about art and architecture. And you can almost imagine the three of them discussing about their

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next trip to Italy while listening to the Italian opera, defining together an itinerary through the most famous wonders of the cities of Rome, Florence and Venice.2 In the meantime, thanks to his frequent tours through the Eastern areas of the United States with his father, Venturi became aware very soon of the many specificities of the American architecture and landscape: Venturi Sr., an entrepreneur and architecture passionate, guided him through the urban grid of the city of New York, pointing at Art Deco buildings and skyscrapers and stopping at the old Penn Station by McKim, Mead and White (1910) crossing the immense neoclassical interiors with his eight-year old son ([6], 97–103). Together they also experienced the many High Victorian projects of Frank Furness built in their hometown at the end of the Nineteenth century, or the vernacular architecture of the villages where they spent their summer holidays, while witnessing in the Center City of Philadelphia the construction of the first American modern skyscraper: the PSFS by George Howe and William Lescaze completed in 1932. Since a very young age, Venturi acquires from his parents a sensitivity towards architectural styles and art history. However, it is thanks to his education at the Princeton University in the years 1944–1950 that he learns how to look at architecture, how to experience a building in its surrounding, and how to use historic references in a very creative and contemporary way [7]. Together with the historian Donald Drew Egbert, Jean Labatut is the teacher who has the biggest impact on his university career. The classes delivered by the French professor educated at the École des Beaux-Arts consider the design of a new building from multiple ways, both intellectual and practical: from the aesthetic aspects—not imposing any predetermined style to his students—to the sociological, cultural, technological and economic impacts a building can have on its community and environment. Most importantly, Labatut introduces his students to the ability to look at architecture in relation to its surrounding. This contextual approach to architecture is palpable in Venturi’s university assignments. In them famous buildings are always considered from a spatial as well as a temporal viewpoint, with the observer moving around it in order to fully perceive through the movement of his body in space the meaning of a building and the different relationships—both material and immaterial—that it creates with its urban and natural context (Fig. 1). Egbert’s lessons on history of architecture—a rarity in the American academia of the time, where the Gropius’ Bauhaus system ruled a workshop-based architecture education [8]—together with Labatut’s phenomenology teachings [9], prepared Venturi to fully perceive the Italian city and landscape during his first trip to Europe. In nine weeks, between July and September 1948, the Princeton student visits England, France and Italy, and he deliberately dedicates half of that time to the discovery of Italy alone. Challenging academic as well as personal expectations, Rome in particular acts as a place for an epiphany of new reflections on topics considered as outmoded at that time, such as decoration in architecture, the dynamism of the 2 The

letters preserved at the Venturi Scott Brown Collection of the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania (from now on: VSB Collection, AAUP) provide invaluable insights in the lifestyle of the Venturi family.

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Fig. 1 Study of the Acropolis for Jean Labatut’s course, 1947 ca. Credits The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Baroque architecture and urban spaces, and the spatial character of the Italian piazza. From the Eternal City Venturi writes to his parents about his discovery of the value of the color of the buildings and of their significant relation with the urban context: I am continuously excited by the architecture; even the buildings which should be familiar to me through photographs appear different because, in some cases, their color is never indicated (I did not know that the Capitol was a deep orange) and also especially the exterior space around the buildings and their positions—aspects which we never realized in photographs.3

Guided by Frank Lloyd Wright’s pages dedicated to the landscape of Central Italy [10], Venturi describes the town hills he visits in Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany: The towns on the cliffs are very different from anything I have ever seen, to say the least. Towns like these, Frank Lloyd Wright must have been referring to when he said that the real greatness of Italian architecture lies in its beautiful relationship to the character of its site, its climate, its environment in general.4

Upon his return to Princeton, Venturi submits to his University a report that sounds like a manifesto of his new fields of inquiry inspired by his experience of the Italian cities. From this moment he would change his study plan in order to better investigate his Italian lessons, inaugurating a line of research he would never abandon for the rest of his career [11]. Reading his university report, it is clear that it is not really 3 Letter 4 Letter

to parents, August 9, 1948 (225.RV.20, VSB Collection, AAUP). to parents, August 15, 1948 (225.RV.22, VSB Collection, AAUP).

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the appearance of the buildings what interests him, but the experience of those architectures, the particular atmosphere of historic places, and the perception of context, color, scale and natural monumentality of the Italian cities, so different not only from the American examples, but also from the French and English cities he has visited during the same journey. In his report, Venturi clearly defines his interest in one theme in particular: the Italian piazza and its role in the life of the city. Quoting Sitte, Le Corbusier and Wright throughout his writing, Venturi states that: … much of the power found in Roman architecture medieval and Baroque is in planned huddling […] as I found in the Trevi fountains and its small piazza where the dynamic effect results from this tendency in the small place. Compare similar fountains […] in Paris, in unconfined space and weak results.5

It is already clear here, in a report written when he is only 23, that much of his curiosity for Italian architecture lays in its intrinsic relation to its urban landscape, or, as he prefers to say, to its context. This is a crucial theme that he would farther develop in his MFA thesis, defended in 1950 and titled “Context in Architectural Composition”. In this work, developed with Labatut as adviser and presented in front of Louis Kahn and George Howe as jury members, Venturi affirms: The intent of this thesis problem is to demonstrate the importance of and the effect of setting on a building. It considers the art of environment; the element of environment as perceived by the eye. Specifically it deals with relationships of the part and the whole and with what architects call site planning.[…] Its implication for the designer is that existing conditions around the site that should become a part of any design problem should be respected, and that through the designer’s control of the relation of the old and the new he can perpetually enhance the existing by means of the new.[…] Its setting gives a building expression; its context is what gives a building its meaning. And consequently change in context causes change in meaning.6

Significantly, the thesis project—a chapel for the Episcopal Academy in Merion, that is the high school he had attended—comes only after fifteen sheets dedicated to a theoretical perspective on the project (Sheets 1–5) and to “analyses of historical architectural examples in Rome and of contemporary domestic architecture” (Sheets 6–15). The Roman examples presented by Venturi are the piazza of the Trevi Fountain, Piazza S. Ignazio, Piazza del Campidoglio, and the context surrounding the Spanish Steps: all these urban settings are analyzed in their evolution through time through architectural representations (plans and sections) compared to historic maps and vistas (Fig. 2). Finally, convinced that “the architect accepts and creates context”, Venturi presents his architectural project: a new chapel, recalling the works of Frank Llloyd Wright and Albert Kahn in form, and precisely posited in its setting in order to enhance the relationship among the existing buildings of the campus of the Episcopal Academy. 5 Summer

Activities: Report and Some Impressions, September 30, 1948, p. 2 (225.RV.34, VSB Collection, AAUP). 6 The dissertation, preserved at the VSB Collection of the AAUP, is also published in Venturi [6] pp. 334–374.

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Fig. 2 Piazza S. Ignazio in Rome, a draft for Venturi’s MFA thesis, 1949–1950. Credits The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

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Venturi’s master’s thesis is only the beginning for a new, more mature research on the urban qualities of the city of Rome. His particular awareness of history and context is defined during his two-year stay at the American Academy in Rome between 1954 and 1956. That would have been an interesting moment to be in Italy: from the Gianicolo Hill, Venturi could not only carry on his research on the architectural principles of the Baroque and Mannerism, his official research topics at the American Academy, but he would have also had the chance to absorb the lively Italian cultural debate of the postwar period, animated by the ideas about historicism, neorealism and museography. Moreover, thanks to his friendship with Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Venturi is exposed to the passionate debate about the role of contemporary architecture in the preexistent contexts [12]. Again, it is thanks to the letters he sends to his attentive and genuinely curious parents that we can follow the gradual process of maturity of Venturi, now in his early thirties, from a general interest towards the architecture of the Baroque period, to a more acute observation of its relevance in the vibrant dialogue of the symphonic Italian urban setting (Fig. 3). As Venturi would say ([13], 92): We, in our rediscovery of space, were learning a lot from the Baroque, which emphasizes complex spaces inside and out. It’s a spatial architecture—it depends on space more than form, ornament, pattern or surface.

But his period in Rome displays also an interesting turn point in his reflections: it is thanks to his readings of books on American architecture—and in particular of Shingle Style by Vincent Scully published in 1955 while Venturi was living in

Fig. 3 Piazza Navona in a photograph by Robert Venturi, 1954–1956. Credits The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

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Rome [14, 15]—that his vision on the architectural culture of his own culture is sharpened and defined. As Venturi would later recall ([6], 42): As a temporary expatriate, […] I was at the same time peculiarly sensible to visions of my own land—visualizing old things in new ways and from different angles. The American in Europe, especially the young artist, finding an American identity through absorbing a European heritage can be a most pompous cliché, but here I think it fits.

After observing and absorbing Rome for two years, Venturi is finally ready to return to Philadelphia and start his career as an architect and an academic at the University of Pennsylvania, while trying to figure out how to translate his ideas into a convincing theory as well as in a valid design approach. Ten years after his return from the American Academy, in 1966 Venturi publishes Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, a small book that serves as a compendium of his early twenty years of reflections on the city of Rome and the other architectural and urban topics suggested by his European investigations [16]. And yet, in the very last sentence of the last chapter of the book (Chapter 10 “The Obligation Towards the Difficult Whole”, p. 104), Venturi dramatically reveals the start of a new, revolutionary research: And it is perhaps from the everyday landscape, vulgar and disdained, that we can draw the complex and contradictory order that is valid and vital for our architecture as an urbanistic whole.

His sight, trained by his Princetonian mentors and refined during his long journey through Italy, is now ready to be addressed to the American “everyday landscape”. In this drastic change of direction, it is clearly recognizable the influence of Venturi’s new, inspiring interlocutor: his academic colleague Denise Scott Brown, born in Nkana in 1931 and educated as an architect and urban planner at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the AA in London, and later at the CIAM Summer School in Venice and the University of Pennsylvania. Together with her and her curiosity for the different nuances of the variety of urban landscapes present in Philadelphia, Venturi can finally find the most suitable academic and professional partner—while also being the perfect travel companion—for his new interest in the ordinary architecture and planning of the American city (Fig. 4). However, in 1966 it is Scott Brown who would invite Venturi to visit a landscape with her that it is not ordinary at all, and yet that is able to represent the quintessence of the most typical American commercial strip: Las Vegas. One year later they would lead together an “investigative studio on Las Vegas” devoted to “the evolving of a new graphics for urbanism”7 with their Yale students, while publishing in 1972— together with Stephen Izenour—the groundbreaking book Learning from Las Vegas. In its pages, Venturi and Scott Brown recognize in the analyses of the Nevada city a new start for the discipline of architecture, a field urged to face an urban phenomenon never investigated before: the sprawl. They stress the necessity of this study by arguing (31, 18): Visiting Las Vegas in the mid-1960s was like visiting Rome in the late 1940s.[…] Las Vegas is to the Strip what Rome is to the Piazza. 7 Las

Vegas Studio (VSB Collection, AAUP, VI, 225, F. 6905).

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Fig. 4 Philadelphia in a photograph by Venturi and Scott Brown, early 1960s. Credits The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, by the gift of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

With this sentence they state the absolute need for an architect of their time to be able to see and interpret the ordinary forms of the American landscape, with its neon signs, commercial billboards and specific rules, dimensions and proportions ([17], 3): Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary for an architect. Not the obvious way […] but another, more tolerant way: that is, to question how we look at things. […] This is a way of learning from everything.

Thanks to the observation of the urban landscapes first in Rome and later in Las Vegas, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown define a modality of analyzing of the surrounding context for architects and planners [18]. But what kind of landscape do they aim to build?

3 Projects Given their association with the origin and spread of Post-Modern language in architecture, the buildings of Venturi and Scott Brown have always been analyzed from a ‘superficial’ point of view, with the single elements of the façade capturing most of the critics’ and designers’ attention: What is the form of the main elevation? What does it want to represent? What does it aim to communicate to the observer? Therefore, even the deep contextual approach of the projects of Venturi and Scott

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Brown has always been overlooked by both historians and architects. This is probably inevitable when you have authored Learning from Las Vegas—one of the most influential books of the second half of the twentieth century—a study explicitly dedicated to “the forgotten symbolism of architectural form”, as proudly stated in the subheading itself. Reading a book is arguably easier than looking at architecture and recognizing its more or less explicit connections to the context. However, it is time now for historians and critics to better investigate not only the architectural values inherent in Venturi and Scott Brown’s projects, but also the complex and sophisticated relationships they always create with the surrounding landscape. For this purpose, let’s explore here two works of the Philadelphian office—a building for a private institution (Guild House 1960–1963) and a university structure (Vagelos Laboratories 1990–1997)— and the particular way they relate to their settings. These works are chosen not only because they represent two different architectural typologies, but also because they are both built in Philadelphia, in urban conditions that Venturi and Scott Brown have personally experienced. Moreover, those buildings clearly show the sensibility of the two architects towards the city environment, both when it is scarce in civic and spatial qualities—as in the case of the Guild House on Spring Garden Street—and when, on the opposite, the surrounding context is filled with history, meaning and relevant preexistent buildings, as in the case of the Vagelos Laboratories in the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The Guild House—built on Spring Garden, an urban five-lane road on the northern edge of Philadelphia center city—is a hospice for the elderly for which Venturi was commissioned by a Quaker association in 1960 (Fig. 5). At that moment, Venturi was professionally associated with Rauch, Cope and Lippincott, and the building represents one of the first projects completed by the young architectural office. Therefore, the Guild House is already present in the eleventh chapter of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, where Robert Venturi publishes a collection of his first works. There, the building is described in a very practical way: the young architect explains the interior program required, and the way he has organized the plans. Speaking about the exterior, he spends a few words on the materials (the brown bricks and the glazed bricks) and on the ordinary shape of the double-hung windows, both chosen to “recall the traditional Philadelphia row houses or even the tenement-like backs of Edwardian apartment houses”. Only the infamous golden antenna is explicitly interpreted in a twofold way: as a sculpture and “as a symbol of the aged, who spend so much time looking at TV” (1966, 116). But it is the sophisticated and fascinating words of Stanislaus von Moos that would influence much of the reception of the Guild House in the following decades: the Swiss historian, referring to the later theory developed by Venturi and Scott Brown, analyzes the project from an iconographic and symbolic point of view, convincingly linking its façade to the cultural milieu and the artistic avant-garde developed in the United States at that time. While his parallels between the main façade of the building and the experiments of Pop Art—and in particular to the reverse perspective of “Three Flags” by Jasper Johns (1958)—have been widely accepted and cited, Von Moos’ insightful reading of the context of the Guild House has had a less impressive influence on the subsequent critics and designers. And yet

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Fig. 5 The Guild House on Spring Garden. Credits Rosa Sessa 2015

the scholar clearly defines the Guild House as a building aware of its surrounding, and shaped in order to make the best of it: a “palazzo-like” that “literally absorb[s] the city, soaking it up visually” ([19], 24). The Guild House is built around the needs of the people it houses, and it is shaped by the difficult connection to the fragmented urban landscape around it. From the interior, the building pursues a constant visual relation with the life of the city: the vast majority of the apartments face South, not only to enhance the thermohygrometric characteristics of the environment of the rooms, but also to entertain the elderly with a full vision on the activities on Spring Garden and with the perfect view on Philadelphia downtown, seen from a distance. Once he had solved the visual connection with the city, Venturi had to deal with a surrounding that lacked of unity and urban quality: a low industrial area, mostly covered with parking lots, lays in front of the main façade of the Guild House, while the back of the building faces a modest neighborhood of low houses covered with bricks. On the West of the building an elevated railway line cuts any possible meaningful link with the most urbanized area of the neighborhood of Spring Garden that is on the other side. Therefore, the question here is: What do you do when you lack for an eloquent surrounding? Venturi answered by designing a building that aims to become a context in itself. Through the articulated and diverse shapes of the main elevation, he creates a multiplicity of facades, giving the illusion of a built complex, or of a part of a more vital and vibrant urban scenario. The Guild House, therefore, does not look like an isolated building whose confines are defined on two sides by a highway and a railroad, but it is perceived by the observer like a small piece of urban tissue, a symphonic composition made

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Fig. 6 Detail of the volumetric articulation of the Guild House. Credits Rosa Sessa 2015

of different forms and volumes. In the absence of a meaningful urban landscape, the Guild House skillfully creates its own context (Fig. 6). Thirty years later the project of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories for the University of Pennsylvania needed to solve a completely different question. The building, housing laboratories and offices of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, is in the central part of the oldest university campus in the United States, dotted with monumental academic buildings (such as College Hall, designed in 1870– 1873 by Thomas Webb Richards) and surrounded by parks and squares supporting the lively student life. At that point in their career, the office of Venturi and Scott Brown had already collected a long experience in university projects all around the country, with many different commissions developed since the Seventies for academic as well as cultural institutions [19–22]: among them, the Oberlin College, the Princeton University and the University of California, all places where the preexistent buildings and landscape conditions played a big role in the definition of the new projects. In all of those cases, Venturi and Scott Brown seemed to interpret in a very personal, “American” way, the neo-historicist and contextual lessons they had both learned in Italy during the Fifites while having Ernesto Nathan Rogers (for Venturi) and Ignazio Gardella and Giuseppe Vaccaro (for Scott Brown) as mentors and guides [23]. The building is “an essay in the colors of the old campus” [24], 208): red bricks walls, terracotta ornaments and clear sandstone details. It explicitly refers to the architectural tradition of the University of Pennsylvania, recalling both the oldest structures—such as the Ware College House by Walter Cope and John Stewardson,

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1895–1900—but also the modern Chemistry Building by Paul Cret (1940) that stands along the same street, and the contemporary Richards Laboratories by Louis Kahn (1957), Venturi’s mentor at the beginning of his professional path. More than with any other building, the Vagelos Laboratories keep an intense dialogue—made of direct references as well as free interpretations of the model—with the Fisher Library, designed by Frank Furness in 1890. The eclectic High Victorian structure imposingly stands across the street, facing with its rear façade the long side of the new building. Venturi pays homage to Furness designing a compact volume that is at the same time repetitive and exceptional on that front, using prefabricated geometric terracotta details to enrich the façade, and leaving an elongated narrow garden along 34th Street. In this way, Venturi and Scott Brown add a natural element to the composition, while also realizing a long bench that allows a more comfortable observation of Furness’ architectural masterpiece (Fig. 7). The main façade of the Vagelos Laboratories on Smith Walk is an ode to the campus life: wide windows—way larger than the windows on the sides—illuminate the internal communal spaces and the conference rooms, while allowing a complete view on the garden and the other buildings of the area. On the level of the street, the entrance is articulated by a portico: in the most classic way, Venturi and Scott Brown protect the students from the rain and the snow, while dedicating a comfortable communal open space to them—a nostalgic reference to the porticoed courtyard of the American Academy in Rome, a place of contemplation and sharing for the academic community.

Fig. 7 View of the Vagelos Laboratories from the Fisher Library. Credits Rosa Sessa 2016

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4 Conclusion Already in 1969 on the pages of the New York Times, Ada Louise Huxtable praised the ability of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown to look at the surrounding conditions critically, and to “find some eye-opening observations in the urban scene”. Based on the observation of several early projects and on the reading of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and “Learning from Las Vegas”—at that time only an essay by Venturi and Scott Brown published the year before on the March issue of the Architectural Forum—Huxtable was already able to define the main revolutionary objectives of the two Philadelphian architects: an architectural and urban project able to adapt to the surrounding “pop landscape”, an inclusive design process aware of the chaotic present in direct contrast to the “lessons of sterility” and rejection of the American modernism [25], 240–241). Art historian Vincent Scully, another enthusiast of their work, affirmed that [26], 8): Venturi saved modern architecture from itself and has been hated for it by almost all modern architects.[…] He mitigated the abstraction of modern architecture and made it contextual once more.

Apart from Huxtable, Scully and other few critics, the contextual lessons of Venturi and Scott Brown have been widely overlooked by most of the historiography: scholars and designers have seemed too busy with the decryption of the signs present on their facades to pay attention to the serious and meaningful efforts of the two architects to connect their projects to the urban and natural conditions of the surrounding landscape. It is time to reverse this tendency.

References 1. Fisher F, Harby S (2017) Robert Venturi’s Rome. ORO Editions, San Francisco 2. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 3. Costanzo D (2009) The lessons of Rome: architects at the American academy, 1947–1966. PhD Thesis, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, USA 4. Sessa R (2017) By Means of Rome. Robert Venturi prima del Post-Modern (1944–1966). PhD Thesis, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy 5. Brandi Cateura L (1988) Robert Venturi. Upbringing among Quakers. In: Id., Growing up Italian: how being brought up as an Italian American helped shape the characters, lives, and fortunes of twentyfour celebrated Americans. William Morrow & Company, New York, pp 194–201 6. Venturi R (1996) Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture. A view from the drafting room. The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. 7. Van Zanten D (1989) The “princeton system” and the founding of the school of architecture, 1915–1920. In: Mead C (ed) The architecture of Robert Venturi. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp 34–44 8. Ockman J (2012) Architecture school. Three centuries of educating architects in North America. The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass

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9. Otero-Pailos J (2010) Architecture’s historical turn. Phenomenology and the rise of the postmodern. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 10. Wright FL (1932) Frank Lloyd Wright: an autobiography. Longmans Green and Company, New York 11. Venturi R, Scott Brown D (1984) A view from the Campidoglio: selected essays, 1953–1984. Harper & Row, New York 12. Stierli M (2007) In the academy’s garden: Robert Venturi, the grand tour and the revision of modern architecture. AA Files 56:42–63 13. Waller A (1985) The golden air of Rome. Travel notes: Robert Venturi. Architectural Digest 5:92–100 14. Scott Brown D (1984) A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history. Architectural Rec 172:69–81 15. Scully V (1955) The shingle style. Architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of wright. Yale University Press, New Haven 16. Stierli M, Brownlee DB (2019) Complexity and contradiction at fifty on Robert Venturi’s Gentle Manifesto. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 17. Venturi R, Scott Brown D, Izenour S (1972) Learning from Las Vegas. The forgotten symbolism of architectural form. The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass 18. Sessa R (2018b) L’immagine della città “altra”: learning from Las Vegas, o sulla necessità di un grand tour americano. In: Capano F, Pascariello I, Visone M (eds) La città altra. Cirice Federico II University Press, Napoli, pp 1067–1074 19. Von Moos S (1987) Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown: buildings and projects. Rizzoli, New York 20. Brownlee DB, De Long D (2001) Out of the ordinary. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Associates: architecture, urbanism, design. Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, Philadelphia 21. Vaccaro C, Schwartz F (1991) Venturi Scott Brown e Associati. Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 22. Von Moos S (1999) Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates: buildings and projects, 1986–1998. Monacelli Press, New York 23. Scott Brown D (2018) Soane medal lecture: from Soane to the strip. Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 24. Thomas GE, Brownlee DB (2000) Building America’s first university. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 25. Huxtable AL (2008) On architecture. Collected reflections on a century of change. Walker & Company, New York 26. Scully V (1987) Robert Venturi’s Gentle Manifesto. In: Mead C (ed) The architecture of Robert Venturi. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp 8–33

Fatberg: Material Ecologies and the Complexities of Waste Rosalea Monacella and Bridget Keane

Abstract A vast, invisible underground sewer network extends beneath the ground surface of most cities and towns, connecting home, work and everyday infrastructures. Within this network exist complex flows and ecologies. It is here that the fatberg has emerged, an indicator species bringing forth the environmental tendencies of the infrastructure system from within. The fatberg is incrementally grown to consume the excess of our everyday lives, transforming into a living entity. In this paper, we explore the phenomenon of the fatberg as simultaneously a residue, symptom, and material being that exposes the inextricable amalgamations of infrastructure, lifestyle products, human by-products, matter, movement and time. As a complex aggregation of the city, the fatberg defines a landscape that evades description and representation in simple picturesque terms as such, it’s story is told through multiple narratives from both a position ‘within’, and ‘outside’, the ecosystem. The phenomenon of the fatberg highlights a consideration of “these strange forms of nature as a material endemic to architecture and cities, as opposed to an aberration that must be consolidated, removed, or dismissed.” (Gissen in Subnature: Architecture’s other environments: Atmospheres, matter, life, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2009 [1]) Keywords Matter · Complex systems · Landscape · Territory · Representation Preface We are dominated by worlds of linear assembly in which homogenous materials are formed into specific shapes with predetermined singular functions produced in a ‘take-make-waste’ process generating an oversupply of goods feeding our consumptive needs which are subsequently encouraged to grow exponentially. New materials continue to be engineered, resulting in the emergence of new content and waste streams demanding new ways of tracking, handling, treatment and disposal.

R. Monacella (B) Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States e-mail: [email protected] B. Keane RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_8

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The fatberg has emerged as a new organism born from this furious cycle of production that is unable to deal with the by-products of its own making process but generates an alternative living existence. It breaks this paradigm of linearity into an indiscernible material ecology formed from a collection of our own heterogeneous byproducts forming an agglomeration of material, living microorganisms, and chemical compounds. The fatberg is a material ecology encapsulating complex and dynamic exchanges in which microbes digest and form new social behaviours and structures that represent biodegradable systems and objects at one scale, and at a larger scale, its broader network environment is intricately intertwined and continually being reformed. This collection of nine scenes catalogue views of the life of the fatberg to reveal its accumulative traces and networks of assembly embroiled in its form. The structure and form of description of each scene of the mapping and representing reveals the non-scalability of this ecological structure. Consequently, each dialogue requires a new set of devices and frameworks of examination for the different materials and scales of the fatberg. A journey of unlimited scenes is implied in this introductory description of Fatberg.

1 Introduction A vast, invisible underground sewer network extends beneath the ground surface of most cities and towns, connecting home, work and everyday infrastructures. Within this network exist complex flows and ecologies. It is here that the fatberg has emerged, an indicator species bringing forth the environmental tendencies of the infrastructure system from within. The fatberg is incrementally grown to consume the excess of our everyday lives, transforming into a living entity. In this paper, we explore the phenomenon of the fatberg as simultaneously a residue, symptom, and material being that exposes the inextricable amalgamations of infrastructure, lifestyle products, human by-products, matter, movement and time. As a complex aggregation of the city, the fatberg defines a landscape that evades description and representation in simple picturesque terms as such, its story is told through multiple narratives from both a position ‘within’, and ‘outside’, the ecosystem. Allowing for consideration of “these strange forms of nature as a material endemic to architecture and cities, as opposed to an aberration that must be consolidated, removed, or dismissed.” [1]. The fatberg, a living indicator of the urban condition from its deep interiority of the toxic, dangerous, dirty and yet sublime landscapes of the city. The emergent entity links multiple narratives and systems while forming and consequently representing its evolving form at any particular moment in time. When trying to capture the formless mass, its identification only occurring through a multiscalar series of perspectives that become redundant as soon as it is mapped and imaged. A survey of the territory reveals the connections of the fatberg by employing the drawn language reflective of each narrative thread. The fatberg is not an isolated event; it is an entity that is

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neither the environment nor an isolated object. It is the transformative, galvanising relationships between all. The dynamic ecosystem is the territory at large. From the outside, we follow the Residue Management Taskforce (RMT—a fictional construct of a dysfunctional organisational unit for the surveillance of decaying medieval infrastructures) as they survey the internal territory of the fatberg. The ecosystem will be pieced together via visual devices, such as the terrestrial scan, the x-ray, monitor, the map, the camera, the probe, the microscope and first-hand accounts at multiple scales to produce a range of representative states of the fatberg.

2 The Expedition Plan From above the plan attempts to see that which is obscured. Tracing the surface for what lurks beneath. Looking for apertures, the manhole, the air-vent, access paths into the known unknown. To focus our view, the RMT lock onto Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 37.8136° S, 144.9631° E. Coined ‘Smellbourne’ in the 1800s due to the volume of sewerage running along the streets, Melbourne began planning a sewerage system in the 1890s. Steadily increased in scope over the coming decades the sewerage network expanded along with the city. From above we view the sewerage system as a territory through the lens of the fatberg. The map registers vectors, flows and mechanisms of control. Drawing the fatberg and its relationship to the territory of the city to represent the messy complexity of the city is a challenge to idealised versions of landscape (Fig. 1). We float above the landscape, filtering information, flattening and warping to present an omniscient, objective view. The map illustrates a territory that branches and thickens—growing over time horizontally and vertically. Thickening in places and dissolving towards the outer suburbs where the pinprick dots representing septic tanks disconnected from the sewage system become visible. The fatberg from this view is a slow thickening, a narrowing of the arteries of the city that continues to reach every outwards with the sprawl of the city. In septic tanks, mini fatbergs form, disconnected from the larger processes of water movement that would allow agglomeration underneath the city. From this elevated view, “the circulation is what matters, not the particular forms that it causes to emerge.” [3]. The map traces the growth of the system and identifies the locations of intensity in which to begin to understand the complex amalgamation of matter and infrastructure that is the fatberg.

3 From the Control Room The view from the control room offers an insight into the fatberg as a disturbance that sets off the sensors. The fatberg has been transformed, dematerialised into packets of information—the sensitivity of the device alerting the RMT to hotspots of fatberg formation (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 1 The expedition plan

Fig. 2 The control room

The RMT identifies a blockage, an entity, an ecology, and consequently, immediate action is required to the medieval infrastructures of the city. As we move further out into the atmosphere to another view from above, the circulation changes form. Sensors from within the system update regularly on the phenomena inside the sewer, pinging to satellites that circle the earth, only

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to be reflected back via receivers to handheld computers and mobile phones. The environment is now understood as a continually evolving set of relations.

4 Down the Sewer Pipe RMT as a specialised unit is mandated to ensure the smooth running of the city through the unfettered circulation of material through infrastructure. We follow the RMT as they descend into the sewer through the ubiquitous manhole, a porthole between the visible and invisible infrastructures of the city. The team, in hazmat suits, traverse the sewer, looking for significant accumulations. Lit only by head torches, the century-old infrastructure is revealed to support fatberg growth. The team are cautious, slowly moving through the pipe, head-height gradually becomes lower until they are unable to pass through. The fatberg is a challenge to the efficiency of the system, rather than a distinct element of blockage, the mass of the fatberg is an extension of the sewer. Devices are deployed to disconnect the fatberg from its environment, in order to understand it, then control it. From this perspective, the fatberg is seen as something to be mitigated, removed, minimised (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Down the sewer pipe

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Fig. 4 Inside the wardian case: the fatcam, Museum of London. Image Credit https://www.mus eumoflondon.org.uk/discover/fatcam-watch-fatberg-live

5 From the Wardian Case RMT probe, test and dissect the fatberg. A small piece is carved out, separated and distanced -a familiar and comforting scientific process—it is a means to introduce distance, to make objective analysis of the huge mass. A sealed case carries part of the fatberg for analysis (and eventually display at the Museum). Once inside the case, the sample of the fatberg is made into an artefact. That brings to mind the use of the Wardian case; a device once used to transport live specimens, is now repurposed to extract and circulate the fatberg as an object of disgust. However, though disconnected, the fatberg continues to support a multitude of life. The forms of the museum are repurposed as quarantine devices to house an entity that is alive. The changes are monitored in real-time, and here we link back to the control room— continuously transmitting the status of the fragment (Fig. 4).

6 The Apartment The Residue Management Taskforce, stakeout the apartment. Instead of viewing through the lens of a camera, they are equipped with a terrestrial scanner and an x-ray machine. The occupants provide a range of input such as skin, hair, teeth, wet wipes, prophylactics, kitchen grease etc. into the environment that the fatberg thrives in. The scanner reveals the inner life of the building, occupants using the bathroom, drink protein shakes, clean with flushable wipes and dispose of excess

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food into the sink. The apartment is the epicentre of practices of consumption, the hidden space of transformation. The place where goods are transformed into waste. The feeder system for the fatberg. Constant feeding of material to the fatberg occurs, the commodified space of the home—the body and the building in an endless loop of production (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 The apartment

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Fig. 6 Through the probe

7 Through the Probe A probe sent down a sewer pipe bumps into what initially appears to be a small amorphous mass of waste, but as the probe continues along the linear path it becomes clear that this is a single mass equivalent to the size of a large school bus, ‘a 15 tonne lump of food and fat mixed with wet wipes’1 lodged into the sewer system. The probe is forensic in its analysis of the surface, finding points of weakness and discontinuity. The use of this device allows interaction with the fatberg from the (relative) comfort of the control room. At this remove, the surface of the fatberg is rendered almost topographical by the probe—the variation in the surface, a landscape in miniature. Processes of material formation sometimes seen at much larger scales are replicated within the sewer (Fig. 6).

8 Through the Microscope The fatberg slowly makes its entry into the space, first a film, a gel, a semi-solid, then undergoing saponification (Fig section of sewer), becoming a calcified, pumice like solid. This process of solidification indicates a way in which waste processes can also be viewed as a contributor to “human-made structures (mineralised cities

1 Vidal,

J, ‘Fatberg ahead! How London was saved from a 15-tonne ball of grease’, The Guardian (London) 6th August 2013.

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Fig. 7 Through the microscope

and institutions) are very much like mountains and rocks: accumulations of materials hardened and shaped by historical processes” (DeLanda). The sewerage system does not house the fatberg, rather the fatberg stratifies and merges with the conduits (Fig. 7). From this perspective, the fatberg is an epiphytic extension of the sewer, becoming home to all manner of life. The microscope reveals the complexity of life in/on the fatberg. Microbes abound, so densely integrated with the fatberg in a symbiotic exchange of nutrients.

9 As the Microbe As we peer from the side of the microscope into the circular dish housing the living organisms of the microbes, one can vaguely see the congealing nature of the fat and grease and other indiscernible objects floating in the glass container. An enclosed living ecology of multiple organisms and life matter, microbes abound, so densely integrated with the fatberg in a symbiotic exchange of nutrients (Fig. 8).

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Fig. 8 The petri dish and the microbe

10 The Sewer Network From this perspective, the fatberg is an epiphytic extension of the sewer, becoming home to all manner of life. The composition of the fatberg varies from city to city, neighbourhood to neighbourhood and street to street. The sewerage network does not house the fatberg, rather the fatberg stratifies and merges with the conduits. The material of the fatberg is both its origin, structure, process and product. This sticky mass lodges itself into the concrete network of pipes, corroding and consuming the structure it is initially housed within transforming itself from a transmitter to a transducer (Fig. 9).

11 Conclusion On Scale The aspiration of narrating the Fatberg serves to evidence a relationality to ourselves (both as authors and the readers) and our surrounding environments not to fictionalise the reality of the fatberg. The narrative brings to light the many corresponding relationships that shift depending on the position of the observer, the tools of observation and the techniques by which they are applied, and the scale of viewing. The shifting relationships can be described in terms of ‘non scalability’ by Anna Tsing: Project scales jostle and contest each other. Because relationships are encounters across difference, they have a quality of indeterminacy. Relationships are transformative, and one

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Fig. 9 The sewer network

is not sure of the outcome. Thus diversity-in-the-making is always part of the mix. Nonscalability theory requires attention to historical contingency, unexpected conjuncture, and the ways that contact across difference can produce new agendas. [2]

The Device We (the authors) have been here all along, quietly guiding and organising the sequence of each scene and the encompassing narrative. The intention has been to foreground the act of looking, the frame of drawing, and the resultant multiplication of modes of understanding through the subject of the fatberg. We recognise that the voice that is absent is that of the fatberg itself, as this would require an anthropomorphic projection of the ever changing mass. We have sought to include the devices of representation as enmeshed in the production of the diversity this collection of nine views that together reveal the complexity of the urban environment. They explicitly include the orientation and representational devices of the observer as a critical element to inform an understanding that we exist in a network of complex relationships operating at a multitude of scales that encompass material performance, technologies, representations, and narratives.

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References 1. Gissen D (2009) Subnature : Architecture’s other environments: Atmospheres, matter, life, 1st edn. Princeton Architectural Press, New York 2. Tsing A (2012) On nonscalability: the living world is not amenable to precision-nested scales. Common Knowledge 18(3):505–524 3. De Landa M (1997) A thousand years of nonlinear history (Swerve editions). Zone Books, New York

Representing Landscape in the Digital Era: The Obligation Toward the Difficult Whole

Representing Identity and Contradictions of Contemporary Landscape Rossella Salerno

Abstract As Robert Venturi wrote, the main job for an architect consists in organizing conventional parts as a unitary system by skillfully introducing new elements where the old ones prove to be unsuitable (Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, ed. it.,). In the light of the foregoing, the concept of Venturi is effective both in analysis and in design project and can be applied to contemporary landscape where it is considered for its complexity: in other words both when we look at landscape as an identity place and as a result of manifold and sometimes contradictory changes. So, if the European Convention of Landscape [5] calls on people living a territory to take care of their own landscape, preserving the identity, it’s also possible to look at landscape as a complex problem, as layering of various historical traces, in other words, as a palimpsest. In order to decode the parts characterizing such system, distinguishing or proposing new elements regard the old and unsuitable ones, employing methods, tools and technologies of landscape representation is crucial, both to reveal the identity and to clarify the contradictions; especially Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality allow today to effectively visualize past changes and anticipate forthcoming projects. Keywords “Common landscapes” · Picturesque ideology · Complex systems · Landscape representation · Virtual reality and augmented reality

1 Introduction Rethinking Robert Venturi’s book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture [12], in a key which takes in consideration landscape, leads to interesting reflections regarding in a sense his point of view about architecture: in the vision of Venturi in fact, architecture doesn’t stop at building scale but involves the urban dimension too. In the foreword of the Italian edition of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture [13], Vincent Scully highlights such point of view and underlines that the American R. Salerno (B) Politecnico Di Milano, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_9

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architect embraces complexity and contradiction in all the levels of urban experience, assuming among his theoretical foundations the continuous adjusting to multiple everyday activities in Italian towns [10]. This interpretative key, concerning the broadening of architecture scales and, at the same time, an attention to changes introduced in the cities by usual activities, represents the starting point in order to face some crucial questions for this paper: • What does complexity and contradiction in landscape consist of? • In what way can we “apply” the vision of Venturi to contemporary landscape? • Further, can graphic representation, mostly digital, help in understanding and better detailing complexity and contradiction in contemporary landscape?

2 Identity and Contradictions in Landscape Maybe the most evident contradiction emerging in the contemporary approaches to landscape—where we can see a recall to Venturi thinking—lies in the clear search and maintenance of identity by the infinite number of local landscapes. This issue is very slight because it involves a complex balance between conservation and transformation of those elements characterizing a specific landscape. In other words, the issue regards the equilibrium between a need to hand down the main aspects of identity—given by people residing in a territory to living, representative and productive buildings—which is responding to a multifaceted dialectics between obsolescence and regeneration of tangible and intangible functions distinguishing of a specific site. The lesson which the American architect takes from the Italian towns, i.e. from their continuous adapting to the everyday several activities, recalls instead a very new idea of landscape: it can be connected to that approach which today aims to recognize and enhance the “common landscapes”, so called just because of their difference as compared with the “outstanding” ones. In other terms, two different visions seem today arise: on one hand the UNESCO’s one (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), well documented through a large number of publications which in this paper can only just be mentioned [8, 14]; on the other, the idea outlined in the European Landscape Convention which invites people to “reclaim” their everyday landscapes [5]. So, according to main contemporary landscape design practices, on one hand UNESCO and ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) recognize a need to preserve “outstanding” landscapes, whose significance is generally known as a relevant cultural outcome of a work made at the same time by nature and man; both the institution proposes a kind of conservation respectful towards environment, but in a way, their intervention methods aim to “freeze” the situation, countering each likely change. On another side revolve EU policies, which looks at Heritage as a driver for social cohesion, hoping that preserving and enhancing tangible and intangible past legacy be able to generate a new and better Europe. In this perspective Heritage is expected

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to regenerate everyday landscapes, so starting new job possibilities, creating new communities whose values can be shared. The resident population is thus called into question, people are invited to take care their own landscape through journey of knowledge leading to make decisions. The theories of Robert Venturi look today interesting when compared to “common landscapes” issue, i.e. when they are related to complex landscapes which—recalling the book title—are rich in contradictions; Venturi’s point of view seems in fact opposite to that Picturesque ideology which highlights the “serene” architecture, not dulled by contradictions after time changes, inevitably transforming environments at each scale. To take note of changes need, introduced in a territory by altered living and economy requirements, implies accepting the challenge coming from a new kind of complexity which cannot be solved by a reconciling “freezing” of the situation: at least, that is what seems to be suggested by Robert Venturi when states: “I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent Architecture nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or expressionism” (Chap. 1, Nonstraight-forward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto, p. 16).

3 Complexity Versus Picturesqueness As additional specification and in order to make clear such cultural position, a support then reaches from the idea of complexity which, for Venturi, doesn’t “deny the valid simplification, which is part of the process of analysis, and even a method of achieving complex architecture, itself. [However] An architecture of complexity and contradiction does not mean picturesqueness or subjective expressionism” (Chap. 2, Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness, p. 21). It is interesting to note how Venturi often counterposes to a positive idea of complexity a persistent critique against the Picturesque, seen as result—as we previously noticed—of a “serene” architecture, i.e. of an architecture free from contradiction. A disagreement towards the so called “symmetrical picturesqueness” corresponds, if we look carefully, to a certain distancing from the category of “uniformity”, instead strongly enhanced by the Rationalism in architecture and by the “zoning” planning ideology. In the light of such assumptions, some remarks of Venturi with a specific design significance, will appear clearer; on one hand we have already noticed the lesson coming from the Italian towns: “Much of the richness of the Italian urban scene results from the tradition of modifying or modernizing every several generations the commercial ground floor interiors” (Chap. 6, Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element, p. 53); on the other side, it looks very thoughtprovoking the lesson coming from the Pop Art, as it showed how the trivial is “often the main source of the occasional variety and vitality of our cities, and that it is not their banality or vulgarity as elements which make for the banality or vulgarity of the

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whole scene, but rather their contextual relationships of space and scale” (Chap. 6, Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element, p. 56). Nonetheless Venturi most profound conviction seems emerge when he advises architects and urban designers that they should confine themselves to introduce “slight” changes, planning in the urban landscape: “By attempting too much they flaunt their impotence and risk their continuing influence as supposed experts. Cannot the architect and planner, by slight adjustments to the conventional elements of the townscape, existing or proposed, promote significant effects? By modifying or adding conventional elements to still other conventional elements they can, by a twist of context, gain a maximum of effect through a minimum of means. They can make us see the same things in a different way” (Chap. 6, Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element, p. 56). The relationship between Architecture and Urban landscape is an idea that we can often find in the consideration exposed in the text, also with reference to recent experiences: “It seems our fate now—Venturi wrote—to be faced with either the endless inconsistencies of roadtown, which is chaos, or the infinite consistency of Levittown, which is boredom. In roadtown we have a false complexity; in Levittown a false simplicity. […] Cities, like architecture, are complex and contradictory” (Chap. 7, Contradiction Adapted, p. 68). In order to adjust situation like those now mentioned, Venturi finds a useful solution in the Pop Art, because it is able to let emerge contradiction in scale and in the context, at the same time it is able to wake “architects from prim dreams of pure order, of the urban renewal projects of establishment Modern architecture and yet, fortunately are really impossible to achieve at any great scope.” (Chap. 10, The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole, p. 123)

4 Urban Landscape Representation In his book, Venturi does a perceptual and formal reading of city and landscape, recalling the Gestalt psychology; the reason is why “Gestalt psychology […] shows that the nature of the parts, as well as their number and position, influences a perceptual whole and it also has made a further distinction: the degree of wholeness can vary. Parts can be more or less whole in themselves, or, to put it in another way, in greater or lesser degree they can be fragments of a greater whole” (Chap. 10, The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole, p. 107). The perceptual-formal analysis carried on by Venturi, and the related design proposals at urban scale, aim to focus those parts, elements, fragments which seem less or more coherent in an urban context, confirming, at the same time, that urban and landscape systems are complex. A complex system, following Herbert A. Simon’s definition [9], adopted by Venturi, includes a large number of parts that interact in a non-simple way; for the American architect, this kind of “difficult whole in an architecture of complexity and contradiction includes multiplicity and diversity of elements in relationships that

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are inconsistent or among the weaker kinds perceptually” (Chap. 10, The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole, p. 106). Employing Gestalt psychology as a support for a formal reading of urban and landscape contexts, implies to recognize a crucial role to representation methods and tools, both in the analytical and design process at each scale; in the meantime, such reading put a question till interesting today: which tools can we face an analysis of a “complex” landscape with? What could today a perceptual reading of a complex landscape be supported by? Which are the most effectual tools able to clearly bring out complexity and contradiction in an urban landscape? Anglo-Saxon urban design tradition is largely based on a perceptual environmental survey and on a consistent employ of representation forms: just think of Gordon Cullen’s serial visions, shown in Townscape [4], which depict urban contexts by pictorial and perspective repertories. According to this tradition, an urban image is normally the result of a visual approach, as well exemplifies the collection of essays Representing Landscapes: Digital [1], edited by Nadia Amoroso, which tries to systematize the most effective cases of “good” visual techniques and visual presentation of ideas. The whole contributions gathered by Amoroso more in general aim “to capture visually various landscape types and case projects, using drawing conventions (drawing types), composed digitally, and taught in the profession to communicate concepts” [1]. Together with conventional forms of representation—such as plans, sections, axonometries digitally “translated” (Fig. 1)—some innovative tools today allow us to better carry out an analysis on urban parts and elements. Among these tools, Mapping in landscape architecture “is often related—as wrote Amoroso—to visual markings and notations referenced to geographical areas. Mapping can be a creative process, as described by Corner [3], and helps us understand the complexity of site by visually abstracting selected pieces of the geographies and visually recording objective and subjective measures of the site”: in Mapping comes back, in a clear way, the analytical process based on focusing parts (pieces) constituting an urban or landscape system [2] (Fig. 2). A visual control of analysis and design actions lies on the base of those applications which employ, at the same time, 3D Gis and GeoData; in fact, these ones—as states Amoroso—“can offer landscape architecture and urban design students the tools to analyze and visualize data from multi-dimensional perspectives” (Fig. 3). Finally, the perspective drawing is enhanced as crucial: “The designer can compose fairly realistic “view” of the landscape via a photorealistic application in a perspective drawing […] We have adopted a new term to draw the perspective drawing—‘photoshopping’. Textures, colors, and effective lighting can be quickly added to change the space. Existing sites transform into new landscapes with the addition of elements, textures, people, and lighting effects overlaid on the aspects of existing site contexts” [1] (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 1 Axonometry of pedestrian pathway system. In Amoroso N (2015) (ed) Representing Landscapes: Digital. Routledge, London

Fig. 2 Mapping pedestrian movement and activity flow. In Amoroso N (2015) (ed), Cit

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Fig. 3 Rendered perspective. In Amoroso N (2015) (ed), Cit

Fig. 4 Road network representation on a hilly terrain. In Fricker P, Kotnik T, Piskorec L, Structuralism: patterns of interaction computational design thinking across scales (2019)

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5 Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality The relevance of visual monitoring both in the analytical and design stages lies also on the base of most updated VR/AR (Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality) technologies, which can be addressed to test, and in a way to anticipate a landscape project, employing visual languages easily understandable by people. In fact VR aims to simulate experience reproducing it entirely in a wholly virtual environment, in a different way of what occurs for AR, where real world and digital contents share the same simulation space in such manner as the parts “rebuilt”, “augmented”, are a result of digital information joined in real time, so leaving the “real-real” in background. Virtual reality and Augmented reality employ a communicative process that—as Tufte noticed—goes beyond representation, becoming an interactive story about the context, shifting he challenge level, from a trial of responding to a need of landscape project, to the knowledge of the need itself [11]. Pia Fricker sees in immersive technologies an useful tool able to realize an intuitive interaction easily available for each kind of person; this specific interaction looks like processes which happen in a real environment; the benefit coming from AR/VR lies just in realizing models rich in information and able to generate interaction in very short time [6]. More in general, immersive technologies concern an environmental simulation process, which enriched by information and various types and sources data, represents today a big challenge underlying the virtual environments modeling; further, exploring visualization immersive technologies right now allow to monitor audiovisual interaction fields and to interpret, in the meantime, data flow connected to specific sites, employing multiple and new tools able to implement a knowledge of changes in our life environment (Fig. 5). In this wide field exist interesting cutting-edge experience, produced in experimental laboratories—it’s the case, for example, of the Aalto University’s Digital Landscape Architecture Laboratory—addressed to carry out VR/AR innovative platforms; this experimental research allow designer and forthcoming users of architecture and landscapes projects, to actively understand and to interact with layers and with datasets related to a site. Perception, imagination and use of abstract data should so give access to a new possibility offered by such datasets in order to shape a landscape project. These innovative tools match different features of the human cognitive neuroscience system—perception, experience, memory—and decision making: the technological aspect by itself, in fact, would not represent a solution for the questions arising in urban design process both in analytical and project steps. Furthermore, as noticed Giannachi, the space perception—and in a specific mode, the perception of urban space—resulting from such analytical methods addressed to investigate complex systems, allow to simulate in the best way the design outputs, so permitting a user-friendly participation in decision making processes regarding urban and landscape environment [7].

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Fig. 5 Walk in the Park, VR application, presentation at Vr-Lab by Katinka Evensen. Photo Ramzi Hassan

Definitively, adopting AR/VR digital technologies enables a wide access to urban and landscape characters, so permitting to a growing number of people to understand complexity and contradictions in their own landscape.

6 Conclusion Re-reading the book Complexity and Contradiction in architecture aimed to highlight a possibility of widening the analytical and design criteria outlined by Robert Venturi at urban and landscape scale. The city and landscape vision, as complex system to make clear and explicit also in its contradictory elements, implies a comparison with those approaches considered today mainstream. These ones are based, on one hand on preserving “outstanding” landscapes, following a point of view aiming to reduce as much is possible every change, so freezing the situation of places; on the other hand, other approaches show a clear attention towards so called “common” landscapes, which are often riches and full of contradictions. About the last ones it is necessary a careful reading addressed to understand the complex transformation and stratifications through the times, accepting also their contradictory features, in order to focus on the possibility to make little changes, to slightly modify them, introducing new architecture in the situation of a place. So, the ability to analyze and to represent an urban and landscape context becomes crucial: re-thinking the analytical methodology of Robert Venturi—based on perceptual and formal investigation, on focusing part less or more whole in a context, on identifying fragments in the city as in the landscape—the paper intended to do a

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survey about the tools today more suitable for such kind of analysis, both in the field of conventional techniques and in the digital environment. A careful attention has been payed to the possibilities of Virtual and Augmented reality: these, as seen, are based on a communicative process which goes beyond the representation and turns into interactive story about a place, shifting the challenge’s level from the trial of realizing a landscape project aware of “the Difficult Whole”, to the inclusion of a growing number of people in the knowledge journey and in decision making processes.

References 1. Amoroso N (ed) (2015) Representing landscapes: digital. Routledge, London 2. Amoroso N (2015) Representations of the landscapes via the digital. Drawing types. In: Amoroso N (2015) Representing landscapes: digital, Cit 3–6 3. Corner J (1999) The agency of mapping speculation, critique and invention. In: Cosgrove D (ed) Mapping. Reaction Books, London, pp 213–252 4. Cullen G (1961) Townscape. The Architectural Press, London 5. European Landscape Convention (2000) Florence 6. Fricker P (2018) The real virtual or the real real: entering mixed reality. J Digit Landscape Architect 3:414–421 7. Giannachi G, Kaye N (2011) Performing ‘presence’: between the live and the simulated. Manchester UP, Manchester 8. Mitchell N, Rössler M, Tricaud P-M (2009) World heritage cultural landscapes: a handbook for conservation and management. World Heritage Centre—Unesco 9. Simon HA (1962) Proc Am Philos Soc 106 (6) 10. Scully V (2002) Introduzione. In: Venturi R (ed) Complessità e contraddizioni in architettura, cit 11. Tufte E (2001) The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press LLC, USA 12. Venturi R (1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 13. Venturi R (2002) Complessità e contraddizioni in architettura. Dedalo, Bari 14. World Heritage Papers (2003) 7, Unesco World Heritage Centre

Landscape: Expression, Meaning and Representation Francisco Juan-Vidal and Ignacio Díez-Torrijos

Abstract In its current conceptualisation, the Landscape, rather than from the physical and tangible reality of the territory, arises from the cultural representation that societies make of it (Council of Europe in European landscape convention (ETS No. 176). Florence (2000) [7]). We can say, therefore, that the “substance” of the Landscape does not reside so much in the Territory (tangible), as in its Perception and in its Representation (intangible). To represent is an action intended to substitute o to evoke. In this sense, the concept of Representation is very close to what semiologists define as a Sign: “everything that, from a previously accepted convention, can be understood to be in the place of something else in a certain aspect” (Eco in Tratatto di semiotica generale. Bompiani, Milan (1975) [9]). This parallelism explains, in part, the relations between landscape theory and semiotics. This study attempts to reveal the keys that qualify to the Landscape and their “expressions”, as systems of effective signs with deep roots in our societies. That will allow us to understand better its condition and, thereby, to state some guidelines to orient the production of graphic specimens (drawings) intended effectively to communicatively and significantly represent it. Keywords Landscape semiotics · Visuality · Graphic expression

1 Introduction One should not forget the ultimate signified of the landscape as a cultural construction that relates to a society and its territory. The banalisation of the landscape focus, which is sometimes reduced to the appearance of the territory or to a more or less beautiful appearance of it, must be avoided. Mathiew Kessler, a German philosopher, suggests F. Juan-Vidal (B) Instituto de Restauración del Patrimonio de la Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] I. Díez-Torrijos Cercle: Territorio, Paisaje y Arquitectura, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_10

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that the landscape seems to demand more than the perspective of a simple spectator. An experiential approach is required, an attitude in which contemplation means wisdom and perception, an intimate relationship with the physics of geographical space [14]. The notion of landscape currently appears frequently in territorial-environmental legislation or in scientific-technical disciplines. Despite this, there is a gap between how it is interpreted in the academic-professional arena and how it is perceived in society in general. To address this duality in the concept of landscape, Martínez de Pisón differentiates between landscape-image and landscape-territory. Landscapeterritory emerges as a geographical form and object, accumulator of territorial history, and landscape-image as a created image, as a repository of perspectives in time, sum of experiences, practices, studies, thought, identities and art [17]. According to Joan Nogué, the landscape is, to a great extent, a social and cultural construction, anchored in a material, physical substrate. The landscape is at once a physical reality and the cultural representation we make of it; the external and visible physiognomy of a certain portion of the Earth’s surface and the individual and social perception that it generates [21]. Between the society and its territory, functional and symbolic relationships are established that form part of the ways in which a community inhabits a place. In his monograph Landscape Anthropology (1936) the Japanese philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji talks of human “mediance” as a structural element of their existence (the translation into Spanish uses the term “environmentality”; the term “mediance” is owing to Agustín [4]. Mediance (or sense of the medium) is the way in which a dynamic relationship is established according to which society cannot be understood without its environment and the precise environment of a reading incorporating the subjectivity of a community. It lends spatiality to human experience and signified to the relationship with the medium. Mediance is at the root of the concept of landscape. But the physical environment and culture evolve over time and this causes a continuous reconfiguration of the relationships between them: a toing-and-froing process between medium and society. There is therefore a continuous feedback between the environment and the collective image. That is to say, mediance is dynamic and mutates over time according to the phenomenon of “trajection” (a term also coined by [4], the result of the common history of society and its environment: the environment is transformed and the signifieds change and the idea and values of a community change and the way to transform the medium changes and so on. Thus, every moment and place can be characterised by a mediance that we know is not static. For us to talk about landscape, understood to be a mediance, there must be a collective physical and/or mental conquest of geographical space. There has to be a transformation, either of the territory or of the perspective on it. For authors such as Alain Roger, the territory is the ‘zero degree’ of the landscape, that is, what precedes its transformation, both direct (working its physiognomy “in situ”) and indirect (working its representation “in visu”) [25]. Anthropological studies have demonstrated that scenarios with high “imageability” (the term used by Kevin Lynch in his famous treatise The Image of the City [16]), understood to be the ability to convey a vigorous and easily communicable (iconic)

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image, have been used by primitive peoples to erect myths of social importance. This fact demonstrates that to build robust mediance, neither a physical conquest nor modification of the geographical space (“in situ” transformation) is necessary; a mental conquest (“in visu” transformation) may suffice. This study arises from the conviction that both nature and the mechanisms explaining the function of the landscape concept in societies can be better understood if they are studied as phenomena based on systems of “signification”.

2 Landscape and Semiosis For Arthur Schopenhauer, representation was the illusory and sensory form of the world [27]. Representing is an action aimed at “substituting, evoking, being a specimen of, occupying the place of…” [18]. The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (Real Academia Española, RAE), in its second sense, also defines Representation as an ‘image or idea that substitutes reality’ [24]. In this sense, the concept of Representation closely approximates what semiologists define as a “sign.” This parallel explains, in part, the relationships between landscape theory and semiotics. Authors such as Sotelo [28], Pickenhayn [23] and Busquets [5] have coherently defended the utility studying the analysing the landscape as if it were a semiotic phenomenon. The importance of signified in knowledge of the landscape had already been demonstrated in the visual structure studies that Higuchi did in Japan. A qualitative analysis, with a major historical component, in which he covers seven archetypal Japanese landscapes based on historical documentation and direct observation [13]. The concept of a sign is somewhat vague: its boundaries are not clear. Since Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) formally established semiotics as a specific field of knowledge, many authors have tried to define it precisely, juggling various notions that do not always agree. If one had to start from a generic definition, common to (almost) all of them, we could say that “sign” is ‘everything that, based on a convention accepted in advance, may be understood to be in the place of something else” in a certain aspect [9]. Since Saussure, the present object or phenomenon that acts as a substitute has been called the ‘signifier’, and the absent object, concept or phenomenon, which is substituted by it, is known as the ‘signified’. The sum of both is called a sign [26]. Using both concepts, Morris defined the three areas of study of semiotics: the study of the forms and articulations of the signifiers, which he called ‘syntactics’, the study of the rules for their interpretation in signifieds, which he called ‘semantics’ [19]. Following Eco, one might add certain points to his definition: • For there to be a sign, it is not necessary for the substituted ‘other thing’ to exist or subsist at the point at which the sign substitutes it. The unnecessary physical existence of the substituted object or phenomenon refers to the concept of the referent, which is different from the signified (although at times they have been

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confused). Related to the pre-semiotic tradition, the subject of the referent has attracted considerable attention within the discipline. The distinction between “extensional” and “intensional” semantics is derived from it, a timely discussion to address the signification and representation of the landscape. We will deal with this later. • It is also not necessary for an emitter to exist, but it is necessary to consider a ‘possible’ human recipient, though he or she is not necessarily present. The possible absence of an emitter and, therefore, of intentionality and artificiality in the sign, is one of the great dilemmas of semiotics. Saussure, for example, understood the sign as a strongly conventionalised communicative device, among humans, with the intention of communicating with each another. He did not consider unintentional natural manifestations to be signs. His enormous influence on the later development of the theory of signs conditioned the debate. It is an essential aspect in the conceptualisation of the semiotics of signification and, therefore, in the consideration of certain natural features as signifying units; this is true of, for example, the landscape. • For the signification to occur, the existence of a system or code linking present entities with the absent entities is essential; in other words, one that establishes between them a ‘valid’ correspondence for any possible recipient. The validity of the message for ‘any’ possible addressee, even when he or she is physically absent, is implicit in the social and conventional nature of the sign propounded by Saussure, as derived from an ‘agreement’ prior to the specific communicative event. Occasional or one-off signifieds which are valid only for individuals cannot be considered signs (as happens with, for example, intuitions or with some stimuli) as they are not the result of a culturally recognised correlation. This code would be an autonomous cultural construction (semiotic construction), regardless of whether or not it materialises in a specific communication act. The autonomous and abstract nature of the code indicates the difference between “signification” and “communication”: the former focuses on the system of relations between expression and content and operates on the plane of it exists in a certain culture even when the communicative act does not occur (this is true of the landscape); the second refers to acts, and deals with studying the source, the signal, the channel and the recipient of the communicative act. For Eco [9], ‘it is possible (albeit not desirable) to establish a semiotics of signified that is completely independent of a semiotics of communication, but the opposite is not possible’, since signification establishes an operating framework, whereas communication studies, within this framework, the specific communicative acts. Hence, it relies on a broad definition, which encompasses both definitions. In the mid-twentieth century, the semiologists in the Copenhagen Circle offered a different approach to the classic distinction between signifier and signified. Hjelmslev [12] replaced the concept of a sign with that of “semiotic function”: the sign would no longer be a physical occurrence or a fixed entity replacing another, but rather a “meeting place” between elements with different natures, some located on an “expression plane” and others located on a “content plane” and correlated by

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means of a “code” recognised by a human society. According to this approach, we should not speak of a “sign”, but of a function (the semiosis), and the elements located circumstantially on the expression plane (representative) and the content plane (represented) will contain nothing but the “functive” (the actors) of that function. This more humanistic approach introduces the concept of a sign in a dynamic field in which the correlations between functives may be transitory and, as a consequence, the functions (signs) may be functional: just as in a specific context it is located on the expression plane, in another context it may be on the content plane. At the same time, this way of understanding semiosis increases the importance of the code, which ceases to be a mere relationship between fixed elements and becomes the sign generating condition itself. When Eco, in his definition, warned that ‘substitution’ occurs only ‘in a certain aspect’, he was indicating that the substitute in the sign (or in the representation) is never full but rather is partial. If not, we would be faced with a double or a replica, which would not be an instance of representation but of impersonation, and would not be considered to be a sign unless it was used as an ostension (a manifestation of itself). Both the elements of the expression plane and those of the content plane are presented or exist, a priori, as diffuse totalities, without clear limits (if they have them) or apparent order or hierarchies. They constitute what is called a continuum or, in other words, a universe incapable of generating signification. In order to become a functive, there must be a prior selection and organisation process: selection of the elements, features or properties that are ‘relevant’ for that signified/communication and discarding those that are not; organisation to give them an order that makes them comparable, thus preparing them for correlation. The selection process is known as “segmentation”; the organisation process is usually called “association” (also known as systematisation or categorisation). On some occasions the separation of two processes is only a theoretical exercise, since both are integrated into a single one. The set of relevant units should be cut and grouped into well-defined discrete units (categories), and then related, graduated and ranked (associated) in order to finally ‘stabilise’ these cuts socially so that they are comprehensible. For this process to be useful to the semiotic function and for there to be interaction, segmentation cannot be based on specific or individual experiences or expectations, but rather on collective ones. Each culture, in each historical period, produces characteristic schematisations, which entail perceptual habits and become “quasi objects”. Our worldview depends, to a great extent, on those schematisations or “objects” that establish the systems from which the grounds for pertinence arise. The most important part of this functional interpretation of the concept of a sign is that the concept of representation literally fits into it and shows the importance of approaching the comprehension of a landscape from the point of view of semiotics. However, we must be aware that the science of signs belongs to the field of humanities and, therefore, its purpose is not (and cannot be) to establish objective certainties. Its models are diffuse and its postulates will always be governed by a type of ‘principle of indetermination’ [9].

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2.1 Interpretant and Landscape The functives of the semiotic function are structured as follows: On the one hand, on the expression plane, is a “syntactic system” consisting of a series of expressive units that are selected (segmented) from an expressive continuum and articulated according to internal combination laws. On the other hand, on the content level, is “semantic system” consisting of a series of ideas extracted (segmented) from a continuum of notions or signifieds which may be articulated and become the contents of a message. These ideas may or may not refer to a series of states of affairs (referents). They include a series of conventionalised rules (or code) that associate elements of the syntactic system with elements of the semantic system. It could be defined to begin with as the ‘common ground between the sender and the recipient’ [6]. This scheme, the basis of the theory signs, is clear and intelligible thanks to its simplicity. However, for the same reason, it is incapable of responding to a considerable number of significant assumptions whose semiotic mechanism is substantially more complex: this is true of the sign-function of natural objects, such as the landscape. The nature of the semiotic code is diverse and complex. We are almost never faced with a series of clear and intelligible element-to-element (or group-to-group) correspondences, as happens with, for example, a dictionary or with a list of conventional signs (the legend of a plane). In information theory, codes can become very complex, but their function is clear: to enable the transmitter to convert a message into pure signals (encode), and to enable the receiver to convert the signals into a complete message (decode). However, in the broad field of signification, typically the mechanism of semiotic function is more imprecise, and correlation occurs through intermediary elements functioning as vehicles of the code: what Peirce called “interpretants”, which he himself defined as ‘what the sign produces in the mind’ of the interpreter or recipient [22]. The concept of an interpretant is, in itself, indeterminate. It may be anything: a synonym, an example, an object, an image, etc., so long as ‘it comes close to explaining the content (signified) of the sign’ [9]. It seems clear that it is a mental or conceptual entity, which many have linked (when not identified) to the extrasemiotic concept of “cultural unity”: something that a given culture has defined as a unit (relevant portion of a different continuum) of others (valley, mountain, tree, etc.). To start with, using this definition, it might seem that the interpretant belongs to the content plane (the signified). However, in the signification process, the interpretant is another representation that refers to the content and hence becomes significant. Cultural units are entities that come from fields outside semiotics. They cannot be identified merely from interpretants. Moreover, they are related (opposition, equivalence…) other cultural units and they jointly define a “semantic field” (mountain landscape, desert landscape, jungle landscape…) (Fig. 1). The semantic field uses socialised patterns of recognition to make some elements of the continuum, and not others, pertinent, and thus give life to cultural units. The set of semantic fields

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Fig. 1 Semantic field pattern of a mountain landscape. High Atlas, Morocco, 2012

constitutes the “worldview” of a given culture. They are mutable: they are subject to change and, therefore, tend to have a more limited life than the expressive units of syntactic systems. In the same culture, a cultural unit may be part of different semantic fields, so they are open to several readings (‘senses’). In “natural” languages (such as landscape signifieds), cultural units may not be precise but rather diffuse, forming what is known as “fuzzy concepts”. On the other hand, within the same culture, codes are not always unique for all social groups. In some cases, certain groups with a greater degree of specialisation develop deeper models and “intentions” for a given semantic field, and in other cases the opposite happens. These situations are known as “hyper-coding” and “hypocoding” respectively. Hyper-coding can be interpreted as an enrichment of the code that in some cases regulates macroscopic chains of units that the normal code does not regulate (for example, landscape patterns); and in other cases, lower micro-units (for example, textures or light), using more analytical subcodes. Hypo-coding occurs when the receiver lacks rules to decipher the signifieds due to partial or total ignorance of the code, and turns to generic, more precarious codes that allow him to reach vague or inaccurate contents (for example, in the reading of exotic and unknown landscapes).

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To thus conceive the more complex operation of the code moves away the theory of the signified as articulated in structuralism, making its mechanisms more confusing in exchange for bringing the models nearer to the real behaviours of human societies. In fact, the concept of code, understood to be interpretants for the landscape, would closely approximate what Watsuji [30] defined as “mediance”. Its mutable nature, as the “worldview” of that particular culture evolves, would allow us to understand the phenomenon of the “trajection” (trajectory) introduced by Berque [4].

2.2 Referent and Landscape Not all acts of communication refer to things, physical objects or “states of the world.” Ideas, concepts, values, arguments can be communicated; and, in any case, since there is communication, there is also a semiotic function. When the sign refers to physical things, occurrences or states of the world, the concept of a “referent” appears, which comes to be identified with the actual or physical object to which the sign refers. Since Aristotle, it has been recognised that there is a clear difference between the ‘signs’ (expression or signifier plane), ‘things’ (referent) and the thoughts or ‘feelings of the soul’ (content or signified plane). A simple example: the word tree (expression plane or signifier, which would be equivalent to árbol in Spanish or baum (with minuscule) in German) corresponds to the concept or idea ‘tree’ (mental image, soul affection, content plane or signified, which is uniquely or substantially equivalent in Western culture), and can be applied to refer to a specific tree, for example, the Guernica Tree (referent, state of the world or physical occurrence) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Conceptual diagram of the sign and the referent

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Fig. 3 Landscape without territory: proposal for the “Nou Espai Botànic”. Díez-Torrijos, 2017

The referent is therefore beyond the content plane, it is an “extension” and, therefore, it is outside the semiotic function, as defined by Hjelmslev. In other words, there may be a sign, even where there is no referent. In statements that refer to states of the world, Umberto Eco goes further, stating that the semiotic function may be valid even when the content does not correspond to the referent: when lying [9]. And the truth is that the expression may be correct and the signified of the message received intelligibly (there may be effective communication) even if the content differs, to a greater or lesser extent, from reality. In landscape semiotics, the physical territory would not be the signifier of the symbolic signifieds (or the level of expression) nor the signified of its different representations (the level of content), but rather the referent: the physical occurrence or state of the world. It would, therefore, be an extra-semiotic reality and would be outside the sign-function. And it is certainly the case that there can be a “landscape” without any territory (Fig. 3). We have very obvious examples of this in literature: for example, the landscape of Campos de Castilla, by Antonio Machado, refers to the territory of Soria without his poems pointing to specific places (referents); or the landscape of La Mancha in Don Quixote, which is located in ‘a place’ that Cervantes ‘did not want to remember’, thus deliberately depriving him of a referent. More obvious examples may be found in fiction cinema: Who can deny that there is indeed an urban landscape in films such as Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) or a natural landscape in others such as Avatar (James Cameron), without there being a physical reference territory in either of them? One would thus partly understand Alain Roger when he says that the territory is ‘the zero degree of the landscape’ [25]. It should also be noted that in the field of ‘intensional’ semantics (without considering the referent), the function of the sign is only to ‘signify’, a function that intrinsically belongs to expression, while in ‘extensional’ semantics its function is also to ‘mention’ (or refer to), and it belongs to whoever makes use of the expression through a statement. In this sense, in the representation of the landscape, we will be able to

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deal, on the one hand, with the content without considering the referent (intensional focus); on the other hand, we will be able to concern ourselves with the referent and observe the truth status of the expressions referring to the landscape (extensional focus). The first strategy belongs to the semiotics of signified and would correspond to the “landscape-image” of Martínez Pisón; the second to the semiotics of communication (or, rather, to the theory of sign production) and could be assimilated to the concept of “landscape-territory” (Martínez Pisón, 2008).

2.3 Connotation and Landscape On the content level, there are two kinds of signifieds: denoted and connoted. In a preliminary definition, it may be said that the former is formed exclusively from the features or properties present in the expression plane, while the latter requires the involvement of context factors (other signs, phrases or senses of the same text or speech) or the circumstances (moment, place, location, condition, etc.). For example, seeing the leaves newly fallen from trees on the ground in a poplar grove (denoted content) when the trees are deciduous and this is happening at the end of September (the connotation is that autumn is beginning) is not the same as when they are evergreens and/or do it at the end of March (this connotes the fact that something strange is happening with the weather and, therefore, with the landscape). It is commonly stated that the denoted signified is that which is found in the dictionary, and not the connoted one. Starting from this distinction, almost all the definitions apply to the denotation attributes of objectivity, property, stability, consensus, etc., and to the connotation of subjectivity, disjunction, instability, attachment, etc. The denoted has also been related to the univocal and the rational, and the connoted with the diffuse and the emotional. There are semiologists who are not satisfied with these interpretations. For them, the difference between denotation and connotation is simply a difference in level within the level of content: the denoted signified would be the primary signified and the connotations would be at lower levels (secondary, tertiary, etc.) subordinate to the previous one. In that sense, they reject the proposition that subjectivity is inherent to connotation and allow for the possible existence of connotative (and, therefore, culturally instituted) codes, which would always be sub-codes based on denotative codes [9]. Following this interpretation, Hjelmslev defined, within the Semiotics of Signification (when an object signifies something, without its having been produced for that purpose, as happens with the landscape), what he called “connotative semantics”: it would begin on an expression plane E1 that would make it possible, through a set of interpretants I1, to reach a content plane C1; on a second level, the E1-I1-C1 system would become a simple element, which would constitute, as a whole, a second expression plane E2 which, through a new group of interpretants I2, would make it possible to reach a new content plane C2, and so on… The content of the first level (system 1) would be the denoted signified (denotative system) and the contents of

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the following levels (systems 2, 3…) would be the connoted signifieds (connotative systems). Thus, the system of each level constitutes the expression plane or signifier of the system of the next level. In the previous example, the newly fallen leaves on the ground (expression E1) denote the process of hibernation or dormancy (C1 content), due to their correspondence with what is “recognised” to occur in autumn to deciduous trees (interpreter I1); on a second level, the entire E1-I1-C1 system becomes a new expression plane E2 and, depending on a contextual interpreter I2 (for example: it is the end of September), it allows us to reach new connoted content C2 (=autumn begins). If the contextual interpreter I2 were different (for example, it is the end of March and/or the tree is evergreen), the connotation would be different (=something strange is happening with the weather) though based on the same expressive system E1 and C1. This model led Barthes to define, within the Production of Signs (when we produce expressive specimens to convey content), a kind of process that works in the opposite direction: from a C1 content an expression is produced that denotes E1 using a code or interpreter, I1; on a second level, the C1-I1-E1 system becomes simple content C2 which can be connoted in a new expression plane E2 by a new interpreter I2 (connotative system C2-I2-E2). Barthes himself called this type of subordinate expression “metalinguistic production” and defined it as ‘a system whose content plane consists of a signified system’ [2]. This is what happens in, for example, the expression of the territory when, based on descriptive representations (its form, its elements, its aspect, its matter, etc.), it is also aspiring to express the semantic contents of the landscape, both denotative (its natural, geographical, anthropic condition, etc.), and the ideas or values that it connotes (for example, ideas such as prosperity, dominance, hostility, etc.).

2.4 Signification and Landscape For many (Prieto 1966; Mounin 1970) [6]. Roland Barthes is the father of semiotics of signification. In the introduction to his Elements, he said that ‘semiology is aimed at all sign systems, whatever these systems’ substance and limits: images, gestures, (…) objects and sets of these substances (…) constitute, if not “languages”, at least systems of signification’, and defined “signification” as “the act that unites the signifier and the signified, an act whose product is the sign” [2]. Regarding objects that are used and concerning the form/substance distinction (which he took up from Hjelmslev), Barthes identifies the substance with its utilitarian function or “raison d’être”, differentiating it from its other function within the ‘semiological system’: the ‘sign-function’. However, it finds an inevitable link between the two: the primary content of that sign-function (the denoted signified) comes from the semantisation of the self-same utilitarian function, which is systematically “pregnant with meaning.” That is, the first semiotic function of an object that is used is to be a sign with the same use.

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However, once this denotation is established, society institutes new levels of signified in the ‘sign-function’ of the object (new semantisations) belonging to the order of connotations (social position, ideas, values, etc.) and add signified to objects. Barthes warned that this sequence is purely operational and does not involve real temporality: both levels of signified may happen simultaneously. There is no doubt that objects that are used, as semiotics of signification argues, constitute effective sign systems that are deeply rooted in our societies. But not only them, but other relevant “states of the world” of our environment also do so, such as the physical environment: the territory where our life is led; because ‘man needs to orient and take root in the objects that are part of his existence’ [18]. It is specifically when the territory begins to function, for a given culture, as a signification system, that it becomes a landscape. In instances of exploitation/anthropisation of the territory, the mechanisms of signification would work as described by Roland Barthes: it will be the utility function that will semantise the territory to begin with; the use itself is the main primary signified of the landscape: the orchard, the vineyard, the olive grove, the pasture, the watchtower, etc., will denote, in their respective cultures, the role they play as such. Following Roger [25], we would talk, in these cases, of “in situ” semantisation. But not all territories are (or have been) exploited, nor do all cultures know whatever utilities. What will the “raison d’être” of the territory be in these cases? What will their cultural “substance” consist of? From the most primitive attribution of mystical-anthropological senses to their scientific-geographical rationalisation (geological, biological, hydrographic, etc.), through the direct interpretation of natural phenomena (volcanoes, ravines, alluvial plains, etc.) will be, in each case and for each culture, that which explains its existence which will semantise, to begin with, the untamed territory. We will talk about a mental or “in visu” semantisation [25], which sometimes is more symbolic and sometimes more intuitive (by abduction) and, often, merely rational (by induction or deduction). In any case, that (real or figurative) “raison d’être” will be its main denotation. The secondary connotations or signifieds will arise from a new expression plane, formed by the combination of the denoted signifieds, certain features of the “formal/visual system” of the landscape and certain interpretants related to the context or circumstances (for example, shared history) (Fig. 4). It is not possible (nor, no doubt, desirable) to try here to cover all the possible signifieds that a landscape asset may connote to the different communities of inhabitants or visitors who experience it; but, in any case, they will refer to ideas, beliefs, values, etc., related to their respective cultures (their semantic fields). In landscapes, secondary or connoted signifieds often achieve greater importance than those that are denoted, to the point of being able to become, in some cases, the main reason for assessing them and, as a consequence, for protecting them (their reason for “remaining”). A landscape acquires the status of “heritage asset”, not so much because the government declares it so or because experts point to its values, but rather because some of its connoted signifieds (such as identity or shared memory) displace the ordinary denotation it possessed due to its utilitarian function or its raison d’être, taking its place as the primary signified for that particular culture.

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Fig. 4 Conceptual diagram of the structure of the landscape function-sign

Landscapes often have various signifieds that affect different social groups. Only the affected groups know which traits are most significant. For the rest of the groups or communities the signifieds do not exist or are illegible. Illegibility is not a matter merely of the intensity or quality of what we intend to read. As in any sign, it also depends on the “reading” ability of the person who is to interpret it: they have to be in possession of the code. Sometimes, a landscape may have an intense signified for a small group of people: it constitutes “their” landscape. It has been stated more than once that the main cultural function of landscapes is to generate identities: we could say that “identity” is one of its more recurring secondary signifieds (which sometimes become primary). In reality, its function is not to generate them but rather to symbolise them. They represent an identity that was generated previously: a group, a community, a society, etc. They contribute to its continuity, or even to its growth, but they do not generate it. They work as an emblem. Just as a flag represents a people (it is “instead of” its citizens), so often does a certain landscape: Mount Fuji represents Japan. They function as signs of unmotivated nature (symbols). The highly symbolic property of some landscapes propitiates it, but the recognition mechanisms are

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diffuse: they condense affections and feelings which make adherence and social consensus easier. History and, above all, shared memory plays a crucial role, but it also influences the iconic power of its features.

2.5 Visuality and Landscape By applying the theory of signification to the landscape, we have begun to have an understanding of what constitutes the “semantic system” (the signifieds or content plane) of its semiotic function. If, for the purposes of this function, the physical and tangible territory constitutes the referent and must, therefore, be considered an extra-semiotic reality, then we would have to ask what the true social and cultural nature of the “signifier” is: the “syntactic system” (or expression plane). Visuality (visualidad in Spanish), as a term and concept, has been used in the performing arts and in visual language to explain the visual qualities of a work or action. Even its use in other disciplines refers to the qualitative visibilisation of something, whether the interface of an application, a virtual scenario or an advertising message, having shyly penetrated into geography, architecture, town planning or the field of landscape knowledge. The use of the term visuality, in the context of reading art, points to the need to reflect on what is perceived with a deep and rigorous reading. Implicitly incorporated into the landscape from the works of the Landscape Character Assessment [29], the concept of “visuality” is considered to be enriching and it contributes qualitative aspects to the discipline (planning, management and intervention). It is an integrative concept in which terms and concepts of landscape theory converge, such as: environmental image, visual form, tophophilia, visual structure or other details dealing with aspects which speak of visual mediance between a community and its territory. There are two main vectors through which a collective landscape image is constructed: image and language. Although the casuistry is greater, the pre-semiotic tradition basically differentiated between these two kinds of signs: words (verbal or linguistic signs) and images (iconic or non-linguistic signs). The former, which are based on symbols, are more suitable for expressing abstract concepts and correlations; the latter are more closely related to the forms and “states of the world.” In this sense, the image and the study of visual mediance has become increasingly important, as a property that allows us to discover the character of a landscape, make it known and project it into future scenarios in a society that increasingly uses visual language. It is true that verbal language, as a semiotic artifice, is richer and more selfsufficient than other sign systems, since it makes it possible “to speak” about practically everything (as can be seen in this very text). But it is also true that there are other systems capable of covering portions of the semantic space that verbal language only reaches inaccurately [10]. Moreover, it is produced through national languages or dialects, which are valid for only a portion of humanity, while many

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nonverbal systems can be understandable, to a greater or lesser extent, by the majority of individuals regardless of the country. Rudolf Arheim, in his work Visual Form of Architecture [1], states: ‘There are certain descriptions that cannot be quantitatively confirmed by measuring or counting data. It often happens with certain aspects of nature and this does not prevent them from existing or being important. This lack of numerical proof excludes them from objective discussion. The “ostensible” method of pointing out and recording perceptible facts, making comparisons and drawing attention to important relationships, is a legitimate means of increasing understanding through common effort’. According to him there is no difference between perception and cognition: our perspective is filtered through, among other things, our culture, and thus visual perception is also visual thought. The landscape does not depend upon absolute quantitative values; rather, it requires an analytical perspective that rigorously demonstrates the qualitative features that are part of its nature. It is necessary to analyse the common features that make it possible to describe the relationships established between society and the territory, and which form an objectifiable basis for study on which comparisons can be established. Visuality is a core concept in landscape analysis, as a notion that also addresses the mediation, trajectory and semiosis of a society with its territory and develops within the conceptual theoretical framework of the landscape (Díez-Torrijos [8]). The landscape cannot be analysed as a mere environmental variable: it requires a holistic approach. Visuality generates a field of knowledge for analytical and propositive perspectives, where disciplines like environmental psychology, sociology and urban anthropology, landscape architecture and town planning or geography of the perception converge. It is not static: it evolves over time in response to the changes in the territory or the ideas that are transmitted in a certain social group (Fig. 5). The cultural image that a community shares of a territory (its collective imagination) is nothing more than the segmentation of its iconic status, according to which the affected group or society selects the features and qualities of their ‘relevant’ physical and relational reality for the shared culture, and it is built as an articulated set of common scenes that nurture the cultural legacy and foster intra-group bonds and links with the territory. Analysing it makes it possible to characterise the “syntactic system” of the landscape (as semiosis) beyond its physical reality (of its referent). In this way, transmission vectors can be investigated, such as historical cartography, painting, literature, photography, tourism or others that have promoted a certain visuality. The images become communication vectors and objectifiable basis of expressions (expression plane) that make it possible to reach the signifieds related to the territory. Something similar happens when it comes to exploring future scenarios that allow for changes to be conducted “in situ” without undermining the mediation relationships between a society and its geographical space. The debate is more necessary when working on visual representations of landscapes that reflect the “in visu” aspirations of a community towards its surroundings: its “horizon of expectation”.

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Fig. 5 Significant process flow diagram at the visuality system

At the root of the current concern for the landscape is, without a doubt, the loss of environmental quality. Massive urban growth, the abandonment of agricultural activity, the execution of infrastructure, the dispersion of practices such as industry, mining or others, have transformed the territory in recent decades. These alterations generate an increasingly widespread concern for the landscape, as a continuation of a growing environmental awareness in society. In a changing world and, therefore, in a culture that evolves rapidly from generation to generation (in a “fluid” society), the landscape represents the “common world” that remains, that is stable, that survives across the generations. Society values them, as it does the assets of its cultural heritage, because it is one of those “anchors” that preserve the essence and guarantee the deep continuity of a culture; hence, resistance to change is usually one of the qualities. Therefore, the expression or signifier arises from a search for character, an archetype or a collective “mental image.” In that sense, as with the cultural units of the semantic system, the physical reality of the territory may become more ephemeral than the syntactic system that represents it (expression plane or collective image). Joan Nogué states that a ‘crisis of representation’ is taking place, which is shown in the open fracture between certain landscapes and their respective archetypes, that is to say, between the real image (referent) and the cultural image (signifier or

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expression plane) of the landscape, which distorts access to its cultural signifieds. This gap is also behind growing social concern about landscape conservation and is, in turn, the cause of the different attempts and demands for fossilisation, freezing or musealisation of certain spaces of cultural value [20].

3 The Representation of the Landscape We can attribute the properties of the ‘autographic’ arts to the landscape, as defined by Goodman (1968): it is usually a “dense” expression (many unrelated features are perceived simultaneously) that does not support reproduction or notation. It is true that it is not an artistic work, nor is it from a single moment in history, such as painting or sculpture (paradigmatic examples of autographic arts), but rather its essence is the result of the evolution of history, the object that comes to us has features equivalent to works of art. Its expression is dense because it has produced them over time, they cannot be repeated and they are usually the result of many phases and many phenomena. They can be represented (it is possible nowadays to make images of extraordinary realism), but their representations do not constitute denotation, or at least they do not do so satisfactorily. It is implausible to think that someone will experience the sensation of “inhabiting” a landscape through their representations, even as a simulation. In the field of communication semiotics, we may define the production of a sign as the emission of a word, image, gesture, object, sound, etc., that is duly articulated and intended to communicate something. It involves work. The fluidity of this emission will depend on the degree of knowledge of the code the emitter has and the articulation must obey acceptable (expected) sequences that make them understandable [9]. Graphic expression of territory can become a system of landscape communication. It is the main way to represent it. Its “raison d’être” is to substitute some purpose or some aspect of it. It fully meets the definition we gave as a sign, as ‘everything that, based on a convention accepted in advance, may be understood to be in the place of something else in a certain aspect” [9]. The expression plane will consist of graphic objects (lines, points, arcs, circles, etc., regions, surfaces, frames, gradients, etc.), coherently grouped and articulated; the content plan, on its first level, by the formal scenery model of the landscape. An iconic code relates elements (or groups of elements) of the expression plane, to elements (or groups of elements) of the content plane. In landscape drawings, as is typical in all semiosis, the signs are not isolated but in articulated combinations with other signs that, together, form graphic “texts”. It is a fallacy to suppose that the representation of a landscape through graphic objects is, in fact, a visual “translation” of the optical image of the landscape: something like translation to paper, by means of traces, of the mental image that is formed in our retina. Actually, as we have seen with the sign, in the communicative function, the substitution of the content by means of the graphic objects produced in the expression is never full but rather partial. The (real or projected) landscape is

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presented for us to understand it, a priori, as a dense and diffuse totality, apparently without priorities or hierarchies. It constitutes what is called a continuum or, in other worlds, a universe incapable of generating signification. In order to become a functive, the previous “segmentation/association” process must be mediated. The pertinence criteria for segmenting the landscape continuum so it may be represented are diverse in nature. On the one hand, there are the models or mental images that are involved in the perception by the recipient, on the other the specific purpose or intention of the communication act by the emitter and, finally, the amount of information that is possible and appropriate to include in the message, depending on the channel used. The pertinence criteria derived from both perceptual models and intensional levels and from the scale or approach environments, although largely dependent on the operator, are not completely arbitrary. There is a common horizon of expectation, in the field of the discipline, that is more or less socialised (in some cases, even conventionalised), which is necessary for the interaction between the sender and the receiver to occur. To communicate efficiently through the graphic expression of the landscape, it is necessary to share that common horizon of expectation in the segmentation process. In addition to segmenting, as we have seen, the semiotic function makes it necessary to organise the expression plane and the content plane so that they can be correlated. The set of relevant units should be cut and grouped into well-defined discrete units, and then associated in such a way as to be comprehensible. Semiotic systems need association to encompass complex objects. In the graphic expression of the landscape, this association is not derived from the “categories” of the territory, but rather from graphic procedures concerned with the code that produces the semiosis (which relates the expression plane and the content plane), and with the syntactic code which articulates the graphic objects. In the case of topo-sensitive images or views of objects, and of a descriptive-formal correlation, iconic codes are predominantly used. Among the various ways of producing iconic signs, representation of the landscape mostly uses “projection” and other operations that are systematised by projective geometry as a way of representing three-dimensional content in two-dimensional formats.

3.1 Metalinguistic Production As we have seen, the landscape, as a phenomenon inserted into a society and into a culture, in addition to the denoted signifieds (its usefulness or “raison d’être”), conveys secondary signifieds (connotations), subordinated to them and related to the context and circumstances. For its graphic representation to function effectively, it must be able to represent the territory (to substitute it), not only in its morphologicalthree-dimensional aspects (its form and its matter), but also as a signifier of the denoted and connoted semantic content: it must be instituted as an intermediary to achieve, in their absence, the signifieds that the landscape conveys. Only then may we

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speak properly of landscape representation. Otherwise it would be a mere descriptive representation of the territory, as with, for example, cartography. However, in the graphic expression of the landscape, the content of the first level of its sign-function will be the mental image or three-dimensional model of the territory represented. It is a denotative level only and it is limited to the descriptiveformal function of the drawing (first level of communication, according Weaver [31]). It is the primary signified of the representation of the landscape, which can be obtained directly from the expression, without turning to the context, by applying a conventional iconic-descriptive code: it belongs to the ‘language’. All features of the territory referring to its formal configuration will be relevant. An iconic code will be used based on descriptive projections and will be obtained from drawings produced by reliable representation systems in the objective representative function or “from outside” (axonometric systems, such as the military perspective) and also by efficient systems for the purposes of resolution and restitution functions (bounded system or cartographic systems). Descriptive codes are mono-planar: they produce denotation, but they are not able to establish connotation (Fig. 6). The second level of its sign-function will begin from a new level of expression, made up of the set of graphic texts and the descriptive-formal signified it denotes

Fig. 6 First level of expression: relief cartography of the “Vall de Guadalest”. Díez-Torrijos [8]

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(mental image or three-dimensional model of the territory). From this new expressive level and thanks to a new code, the denoted signifieds by the landscape, relative to the semantisation of the utility function or “raison d’être” of the significant units, can be achieved. It is the primary signified, denoted by the landscape, which becomes secondary signified of its graphic expression (second level of communitation, according Weaver [31]). The drawings or graphic texts generated for the previous semiotic level (formal descriptive) may not be expressive enough, since these new denoted signifieds reside in landscape features or properties: they do not reside in the drawings, but rather in the territory they represent. The iconic code will be based on the mental idea of the cultural units that function as interpretants of that landscape: beginning with the formal features that make them recognisable, it will be possible to access their signified through abstraction. For recognition to be possible, two conditions must be met: the relevant formal features of the cultural unit must be well-represented in the graphic specimens and can be identified in the conceptual model of their form; and the recipient must have the appropriate mental models to perceive them. A trained recipient can achieve these signifieds from the resolutive descriptive drawings (descriptive geometry). A new recipient, on the other hand, will not be able to do so and will have to turn to representative descriptive drawings (perspective systems) and certain graphic resources that make them more illustrative (colour, texture, shadows, etc.) (Fig. 7). The third level of the sign-function of the graphic expression of the landscape will begin with a new expression plane, made up of the sum of the set of graphic

Fig. 7 Second level of expression: representation of the “Vall de Guadalest”. Díez-Torrijos [8]

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texts, the descriptive denotation of the formal system of the territory (mental image or three-dimensional model) and the signifying denotation of the ‘semantic system’ (semantisation of its usefulness or its raison d’être). From this new expressive level, it is possible to access the connoted signifieds that are subordinate to the previous ones (the formal signified and the functional signified). Again, the drawings or graphic texts generated for the previous semiotic levels may not be expressive enough: connotations usually reside in landscape features or properties that do not have to be relevant to the previous levels of signified. On the one hand, connotations acquire their signified due to factors in the discursive context and the circumstances surrounding the landscape. On the other hand, while denotations belong to language (stable and conventional), connotations belong to speech (specific use of the language which, in this case, would have to be identified with the experience of inhabiting the territory). This means that, in general, they will preferably be accessed from particular or “subjective” views of the landscape: signifieds will be understood by “experiencing it”. Communication of this level of signifieds will be favoured by the inclusion, in descriptive-formal and/or descriptive-illustrative graphic texts, of elements that favour the “realistic” perception of the landscape in its place, such as: surface finishes, textures, shadows, reflections, real-seeming skies, background profiles… (Fig. 8). The representation of people “inhabiting” the scene, will bring added realism and give the drawing an experiential nuance. It should be noted that each connoted signified may reside in specific features that may be pertinent to it and not to the rest.

Fig. 8 Third level of expression: rendering of “Plan Director del Carraixet”. Díez-Torrijos, 2018

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Fig. 9 Integral image for prospecting landscape scenarios: PATIVEL. Díez-Torrijos [8]

Although the different levels of the sign-function of the landscape drawing have been described, successively in a linear sequence, reading (or the semiosis process) does not follow this pattern. Each graphic text is perceived as an integrated and unitary whole, and access to the different levels of signified is simultaneous (Fig. 9). The graphic expression of the landscape produces dense and continuous texts, with nonlinear articulations which in general do not make it possible to discover the sequence of the process that generated them. Some levels of signified can influence others (especially those corresponding to the sign-function of the landscape), generating influences that condition how they are read. The three-dimensionality and hyper-reality of the advanced representations are allowing these eminently descriptive graphic expressions, which had always been closer to the register or to the mention than to the signification, today make it possible to access some of their primary (function or raison d’être) and secondary (connotations such as beauty, identities, ideas, beliefs, or values…) signifieds or even to simulate the experimentation of the stimuli that cause fruition (tertiary signifieds or third level of communication, according Weaver [31]). In fact, some iconic landscapes already have hyper-realistic 3D replicas that can be traversed and contemplated through some telematic resource, either by watching an online video or experiencing immersion in the virtual model through devices installed in visitor centres.

3.2 Digital Production The graphic specimens produced at the different expressive levels described here are apparently emitted by analogue means or channels: two-dimensional supports on which lines, figures, frames, spots or gradients are traced to produce drawings or images. However, in most, if not all, cases, digital tools are used nowadays to produce them. This is an important aspect because these media sometimes exert a significant influence on the production process, making significant changes with respect to purely analogue production.

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The use of 3D digital models in the process of producing graphic specimens of the landscape drawing leads to considerable changes in the semiotic structure. Although the final digital model directly represents the referent, its impact can affect the entire structure and the production process itself (Fig. 10). Both the iconic and the syntactic code (representation systems) are confined to the final production of graphic specimens and are no longer necessary to achieve the descriptive-formal signified: the model itself reproduces it, because the form and model are identified. In the intensional field there is therefore no need for any code between signifier and signified: there is no semiotic function. That is to say, on the first level of expression (descriptive-formal), there is no representation, but rather reproduction. However, in the extensional place, the 3D model is in the place of the territory (referent) and, therefore, it represents or signifies it. At the levels of landscape expression, there is still an iconic code between signifier and signified (similarity relationship) and, therefore, there is sign-function. The main potential of 3D models in the territory gestation-communication process lies in its ability to enable the modelling (and therefore control) of complex forms, which are not drawable or controllable by means of graphic specimens produced by conventional means, as is often the case with the landscape. For many of these organic forms, the projections obtained by the representation systems are not operational, since they are not capable of guaranteeing the three capacities: representation (it is not possible to get a complete idea of the form by using plans and sections);

Fig. 10 3D digital model representing the proposal for “Nou Espai Botanic”. Díez-Torrijos, 2017

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resolution (they cannot offer true form or true dimension, or access them through simple operations); restitution (they do not offer enough information to modify the complex form unambiguously). For these types of forms, there is nothing to be done other than to turn, in one way or another, to 3D models. By using digital models, we guarantee that they can be controlled and subsequently modified. Almost simultaneous to the development of 3D modelling applications, processes have been implemented to obtain photorealistic presentation of them using infographics. The word render, which has given rise to “renderizar” in Spanish, indeed means ‘represent’. Within the structure of the semiotic model that we propose for the landscape drawing, the infographic will be another document (a ‘text’), within the final graphic discourse. One of the commonest objections to this type of images has been their excessive realism, which has gone as far as to question its semiotic function by minimising the difference between the representation and the referent [3]. However, several authors have demonstrated the usefulness and importance of realistic virtual images to validate future architectural and urban spaces, first from theoretical studies (Appleyard 1977; Sheppard 1989; Radford et al. 1997), and then through experimental research (Bishop and Rohrmann 2003; De Kort et al. 2003; Westterdahl et al. 2006; Bates-Brkljac 2008). In general, these studies on graphic expression in the field of psychology show that there are similarities and discrepancies in the perception of the environment through real and simulated experience and, though they do not attempt to determine the causes, they mainly conclude that, the greater the degree of realism in the simulation, the more satisfactory the answers (Fig. 11). With immersive virtual media and hyper-realistic scenes, the graphic specimen continues to function as a “substitute” for reality (there is representation), but the attributes of semiosis do not operate: there is no segmentation, nor association, nor iconic code, between signifier and signified. The graphic text is not composed of signs, because it is a pure “replica”. But, even so, it differs markedly from the referent

Fig. 11 Rendering to show a landscape modification proposal: PATIVEL. Díez-Torrijos [8]

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or extension, which is the real territory: for precisely this reason, virtual reality, with all its hyper-realistic appearance, can “lie”. It is worth mentioning the specific function of rendering as a stimulus. In her research on the Emotional Response of the Observer in renderings of urban landscape, Susana Iñarra concludes that parameters such as colour, nature and architectural quality are what most influence the emotional impressions which the image evokes in the observer. Colour has a greater influence than the rest in all semantic axes. Nature (trees, plants, gardens) has a direct impact on emotions related to well-being and harmony. The quality of the architectural scene may influence the image to appear more innovative or functional, but it does not influence the image to generate more well-being. However, people being willing to inhabit the scene is what has the greatest signifying importance; in all cases it is the area of the image where the observer looks fixedly the longest (Iñarra et al. 2015). In this study, the experimental tests were performed cognitively (conceptual semantic axes) and probably due to this they were not able to determine the subjective emotional effect (hedonic/excitative) caused by the presence of people as a stimulus in the image. If we consider Ernst Gombrich’s theories [11], apart from the “cathectic” function of the features of the scene (colour, light, nature), the pleasant attitude of the “characters” that inhabit the space must have had a “sympathetic” function, spreading its emotion to the observer. This resource does not go unnoticed among specialists in the production of infographics and that is surely why they make liberal use of people inhabiting the scenes, especially in the images intended to express secondary (connotative) and tertiary (emotional) levels of the semantic contents of the landscape.

4 Conclusions The nature of the concept of landscape and the mechanisms that explain their functioning in society can be better understood if they are studied as phenomena based on systems of signs. Understood in terms of semiosis, the existing physical territory will not be the signifier or the expression plane (in an intensional approach), nor the signified or content plane (in an extensional approach), but rather the referent: the physical occurrence or state of the world. It will, therefore, be an extra-semiotic reality and will be beyond the sign-function of the landscape. It is specifically when the territory begins to function, for a given culture, as a system of signification that it becomes a landscape. In the event of exploitation/anthropisation of the territory, the signification mechanisms will work as described by Barthes [2]. It will be the utility function that will semantise the territory to begin with, the use itself is the main primary signified (or denoted) of the landscape. Following Roger [25], we would talk, in these cases, of “in situ” semantisation.

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In the other situations it will be, in each case and for each culture, that which explains its existence that will semantise the territory to begin with: its “raison d’être” (real or figurative) will constitute its main denotation. We would talk here of a mental or “in visu” semantisation [25]. The secondary connotations or signifieds will arise from a new expression plane, formed by the union of these denoted signifieds, certain features of the “formal/visual system” of the landscape and certain interpretants related to the context or circumstances. They will refer to ideas, beliefs, values, etc., related to the culture of the various communities of inhabitants or visitors who experience it. One of the contents often connoted by the landscape is the identity of a group, a community or a society. They function as signs of unmotivated nature (symbols). History and, above all, shared memory plays a crucial role, but it also influences the iconic power of its features. In the semiotic function of the landscape, beyond its physical reality (of its referent), we may identify the syntactic system or expression plane with the concept of “visuality”: something like the cultural image shared by a community over a territory. It will be defined as the segmentation of its iconic status, by which the affected group or society selects the ‘relevant’ features and qualities for the shared culture. It is constructed as an articulated set of common scenes that nourish the cultural legacy and foster intra-group ties and their ties with the territory. It can be traced in transmission vectors that propitiate certain visuals, such as historical cartography, painting, literature, photography, tourism, etc. The graphic representation of the territory can become a coherent system of landscape communication. It is the main way in which it may be expressed. In order for it to fulfil its semiotic function effectively, it must be able to represent the territory (to substitute it), not only in its scenographic aspects (its form and its matter), but also as a signifier of denoted and connoted semantic contents: it must be instituted as an intermediary to achieve, in their absence, the signifieds that the landscape conveys. Only then may we speak properly of landscape representation. The three-dimensionality and hyper-reality of advanced representations are allowing these eminently descriptive graphic expressions, which had always been nearer to register or mention than to signification, make it possible today to access some of their primary signifieds (function or raison d’être) and secondary (connotations such as beauty, identities, ideas, beliefs, or values…) or even to simulate experiencing the stimuli that cause fruition. With immersive virtual media and hyper-realistic scenes, the graphic specimen continues to function as a “substitute” for reality (there is representation), but the attributes of semiosis do not operate: there is no segmentation, nor association, nor iconic code, between signifier and signified. It is a pure “replica”. However, several authors have demonstrated the usefulness and importance of realistic virtual images to validate future architectural and urban landscapes.

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References 1. Arheim R (1998) El Pensamiento visual. Paidós, Barcelona 2. Barthes R (1964) Elements de sémiologie. Comunication 4. Spanish edition: (1968) Elementos de semiología. Madrid: Alberto Corazón 3. Baudillard J (1978) Cultura y Simulacro. Kairós, Barcelona 4. Berque A (1997) De peuples et pays ou la trajection paysagère. In: Collot M (ed) Les enjeux du paysage. Ousia, Paris, pp 320–330 5. Busquets J (2009) El Análisis Semiótico del Paisaje. In: Busquets J, Cortina A (eds) Gestión del Paisaje. Manual de Protección, Gestión y Ordenación del Paisaje. Ariel, Barcelona, pp 151–164 6. Casetti F (1977) Semiotica. Academia, Milan. Spanish edition: (1980) Introducción a la semiótica. Fontanella, Barcelona 7. Council of Europe (2000) European landscape convention (ETS No. 176), Florence, https:// www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/176. Accessed 16 Sept 2019 8. Díez-Torrijos I (2015) Visualidad de los paisajes agrícolas-culturales, PhD thesis, Universitat Politècnica de València. https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/59065. Accessed 12 June 2019 9. Eco U (1975) Tratatto di semiotica generale. Bompiani, Milan 10. Garroni E (1972) Proyecto y semiótica. GG, Barcelona 11. Gombrich E (1980) Four theories of artistic expression. Archit Assoc Q XII: 64–70. Spanish edition: (2002) En recuerdo de Sir, Ernst H. Gombrich (1909–2001) (trans: Montes, C.), EGA 7: 5–10 12. Hjelmslev L (1943) Omkrig sprogteoriens grandlaeggelse. English edition: (1961) Prolegomena to a theory of language. Madison, Wrentham, MA. Spanish edition: (1971) Prolegómenos a una teoría del lenguaje. Gredos, Madrid 13. Higuchi T (1975) The visual and spatial structure of landscape. MIT Press, Cambridge 14. Kessler M (2000) El paisaje y la sombra. Idea universitaria, Barcelona 15. Iñarra S, Juan-Vidal F, Llinares MC, Guixeres J (2015) Visual attention in the evaluation of architectural espaces. EGA 25:228–237 16. Lynch K (1960) The image of the city. MIT Press, Cambridge 17. Martínez de Pisón E (2008) La experiencia del paisaje. In: Mateu JF, Nieto M (eds) Retorno al paisaje. El saber filosófico, cultural y científico del paisaje en España. Evren, Valencia, pp 31–67 18. Montes C (1992) Representación y Análisis Formal. Valladolid Univ 19. Morris CHW (1938) Fundations of the theory of signs. Chicago Univ 20. Nogué J (2006) La necessària revisió dels paisatges de referencia. Nexus 36:36–50 21. Nogué J (2008) Al margen. Los paisajes que no vemos. In: Maderuelo J (ed) Paisaje y Territorio. Abada, Madrid, pp 181–202 22. Peirce CHS (1935) Collected papers. Harvard Univ. Spanish edition: (1974) La ciencia de la semiótica. Nueva Visión, Buenos Aires 23. Pickenhayn J (2007) Semiótica del Paisaje. Espacio Y Desarrollo 19:229–243 24. Real Academia Española—RAE (2018) Restauración. In: Diccionario de la Lengua Española. https://www.rae.es/. Accessed 3 Sept 2019 25. Roger A (2007) Breve tratado del paisaje. Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid 26. Saussure F (1916) Cours de linguistique generale. Payot, Paris. First spanish edition: (1945) Curso de lingüística general. Losada, Buenos Aires 27. Schopenhauer A (1819) Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig. Spanish edition: (2013) El Mundo como Voluntad y Representación. Alianza Editorial, Madrid 28. Sotelo JA (1992) Paisaje, Semiología y Análisis Geográfico. UCM - Anales De Geografía De La Universidad Complutense 11:11–23 29. Swanwick C (2003) Recent practice and the evolution of landscape character assessment. In: Landscape character assessment. Guidance for England and Scotland. Gloucestershire and Edinburgh: The Countryside Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage

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30. Watsuji T (2006) Antropología del paisaje; climas culturas y religiones. Sigueme, Salamanca. First spanish edition: (1973) El hombre y su ambiente (trans: Mataix. A.). Castellote, Madrid 31. Weaver W (1949) The mathematics of communication. Sci Am 181:11–15

Landscape and Hashtag: The Ambivalent Dialogue with Genius Loci Through the Media Raffaele Federici

L’immensité est, pourrait-on dire, une catégorie philosophique de la rêverie. Bachelard [1, p. 209]

Abstract The saturation of mediated communication in contemporary cultural life demands that sociologists develop alternative methods of social research with regard to the landscape. In the dual and ambivalent relationship between social group and territory, or rather, between individual and physical world, through a series of digital tools have been inserted, mainly based on the Internet, which reproduce part of the relational dynamics of individual-territory and individual-individual relationship in a landscape, transposing them into an area that I could generically define as a representation of the landscape. These forms of representation produce a certain number of questions regarding what social actors develop as the sense of sight and what can be seen, and more profoundly, how the landscape could be lived, embodied, and practiced. Keywords Landscape · Hashtag · Perception · Ambivalence · Genius Loci

1 A Real Radical Hyper-Realism Over the past fifteen years, social media has changed how people communicate, allowing for a sharp, and broad transit of information so impactful even about the perception of the environment, the landscape, and the living way [5, pp. 15–20]. Landscape, as a term, has been subject to a wide range of disciplines, such as art, aesthetics, geography, ecology, planning, sociology, anthropology, politics, ecology, and design. Landscape, as a complex phenomenon, has been associated with mainly physical traits of an environment; nowadays the expression landscape refers to much more than just a scenery, including the way social actors tell and describe their experiences. This shift could be understood under the question of mediation that «has R. Federici (B) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_11

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become one of the central intellectual problems in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in part because of the extraordinary acceleration of technology, the rampant proliferation of digital media technologies that sometimes goes under the name of mediatization» [11, p. 124]. By adopting Grusin’s [11] notion of the dialectical nature of mediatisation, understanding the landscape is objectively subjective even under a digital context. Moreover, the participative evolution of users interactions enabled by the web 2.0, the wide diffusion of social networks, the digital mutation of media communication, sets the scenario in which happens a cultural migration defined by Jenkins [13] as participatory, convergent culture or trans-mediality culture. Jenkins [13] uses the term convergence to articulate the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want He suggests that convergence should be viewed as a cultural shift rather than a purely technical process given altered relationships «between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres, and audiences» and changes in how media are produced and consumed [13, pp. 15–16]. That means a flow of contents coming from different platforms, cooperation among may different sectors of the media industry and the migration of the audience looking for new entertaining experiences. This proliferation moves toward an hyper-realism of the photographic representation of the landscapes that is often presented as so accurate that it becomes more real than the object of its representation, as something that exists in reality but it is transfigured [3], and changes individual’s interactions with places, of any sort, dynamically couple physical features, activities; cultural symbols; social practices; personal narratives; affects, and multisensory, corporeal dimensions (Fig. 1). Baudrillard’s notions of Simulacres et simulation (1981) could be useful to look at to comprehend this paradigmatic shift. According to Baudrillard, simulation is the experience of the real through what one knows. The simulacra is the representation of it. His theory is that society lost contact with reality. Because of the simulacra copying itself again and again, it has blurred the points of references between the image and what it initially represented. The simulacra ends preceding and defining what the real is. Simulations take over the relationship with real life, creating a real hyper-reality which is an infinite reproduction that has no original. This real hyper-reality, or better this hyper-real representation of the real, happens when the difference between reality and representation collapses and the society is no longer able to see an image as reflecting anything other than a symbolic trade of signifiers in culture, so not the real world. Three orders of simulacra exist: the first in which reality is represented by the image, a map represents territory; the second order in which the distinction between reality and representation is blurred: the myth; and, the third order of simulacra is that of simulation which replaces the relationship between reality and representation. Consequently reality itself is lost in favour of a hyper-reality. Media shape these symbols as agents of representation, not as messages only. The media create a new culture of signs, images, and codes without referential value. So contemporary society consumes these meaningless signs of identity and

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Fig. 1 Raffaele Federici, “small atlas of complexity”, oil on canvas, 2014

the distinction between the real and the simulation is not immediate. Digital representations show about the terrain of relations [9] of landscape to viewer, viewer to viewer, and viewer to social communities (Fig. 2). Within the contemporary culture, in the dual and ambivalent relationship between social group and territory, or rather, between individual and physical world, through a series of digital tools have been inserted, mainly based on the Internet, which reproduce part of the relational dynamics of individual-territory and individual-individual relationship in a landscape, transposing them into an area that I could generically define as a representation of the landscape. These forms of representation produce a certain number of questions regarding what social actors develop as the sense of sight and what can be seen, and more profoundly, how the landscape could be lived, embodied, and practiced. Moreover, societies have their own material substance, and it is essentially through their activities that they transform their environments. This social substance refers to the inter-subjective landscape on which social actors have their opinions and to which they attribute values. It is thus important to consider more closely the immaterial dimension of landscape. This complexity refers to the social and cultural construction of landscape and how different types of landscapes provide different services and feelings, and how landscape heterogeneity can influence a variety of functions (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 2 Raffaele Federici, “oscillations of perspective”, oil on paper, 2013

The social and cultural landscape seems to be built as a flowing of digital photographic representations that nourishes social media continuously and rapidly fashioned by culture. Digital cultural representation becomes the agent, natural areas the medium, the cultural landscape results. Under the influence of a given culture, itself changing through time, the landscape undergoes development, passing through phases that nowadays are very changeable, and unstable (Fig. 4). The profound transformations in the media industry, brought about by these technologies, are transforming how social actors think about themselves and how they represent their spaces. In particular social actors are no longer passive consumers of the media, but, increasingly, also actively producers. At the most banal this means that through social platforms individuals can programme their media content as they wish, rather than in the way it is presented to audience by mass media representation. In this frame the web represents a literally universal interconnection system, the most complete form of globalisation, where people have shown a tendency to organise themselves, as happens in social landscapes, according to aggregation dynamics starting from presupposition of a catalysing element and its experience of relational interconnections. From this perspective, the hashtag works toward a digital aesthetization of landscape through the massive use that is made of it also to favour the continuous sharing of digital photographs. In this process of profound transformation of the modes of representation of landscapes, the role of images, specifically of digital photographs, is revealed indeed decisive, as emerges clearly from observing

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Fig. 3 Raffaele Federici, “contradiction and complexity”, oil on canvas, 2010

the commonly used practices of using social media, which allows users to take photographs via mobile devices, apply a set of predefined filters and share the final result on their own social platform and on a multiplicity of other network (Fig. 5). In this perspective of information overload,1 social networks play a significant role in helping individuals cope with, navigate, and mitigate challenges in their environments. These practices have produced a significant impact in a context in which the signs of multiply, variability, mobility, and temporary permanence of messages dominates, where the communication project has the task of contributing 1 Information

overload has been drastically exacerbated by social media. On sites such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, more videos and images are uploaded, blog posts written, and new messages posted than people are able to process. In this perspective, social media platform, attempt to mitigate this problem by allowing users to subscribe to, or follow, updates from specific users only. However, as the number of friends people follow grows, and the amount of information shared expands, the information overload problem returns.

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Fig. 4 Raffaele Federici, “E-E”, oil on canvas board, 2018

to the construction of identity, precisely through the generation of signs that they act on the body of things, involving the whole human surface as an hyper-real space. One of the aggregation symbols for the perception and the exchange of information of the social world is the hashtag. Hashtags within social media context are user-generated phrases preceded by the “#” symbol. Which consists of a string of characters preceded by the hash (#) character. In many cases hashtags can be viewed as topical markers, an indication to a specific context. Besides, hashtags have the intertextual potential to link a broad range of informations on a given topic, or disparate topics as part of an intertextual chain, regardless of whether, from a given perspective. These hashtags serve as a built-in search function on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and on the bloggers platform. Adoption of hashtags allows social media and individual platforms to efficiently aggregate dialogue within a specific subject domain, allowing users to contribute and view relevant content in one place. Although some hashtags have emerged as a label for certain events, other hashtags are deliberately created to collocate dialogue for specific subjects or topics, to establish connections, relations, knowledge, and meanings. Some of them contribute to realise socio-geographic information both rural and urban and many scholars are using social media geographic information in planning process to improve knowledge [14, pp. 15–32].

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Fig. 5 Raffaele Federici, “ortensia blue”, oil and plaster on canvas, 2019

This logic entailed a set of embodied social and cultural dispositions shaped by informational society that oriented actors toward: (1) building horizontal ties and connections among diverse, autonomous elements (e.g. iconic buildings or blocks, museum, food, etc. or any other aggregation space or content); (2) the free and open circulation of information; (3) collaboration via decentralised coordination; (4) self-directed perception of the space reality, including an alteration of spatial coordinates. In such perspective the digital stillness of the landscape, within the so-called hashtag culture, provides an extraordinary impact on proprioception. Landscapes are therefore mediated, or, better, mediatised or re-mediatised [7], and interpreted in the light of these representations that the social dimension elaborates and returns as an immersive experience of the places (Fig. 6). The way individuals react today to landscape experience is often the result of a long cultural discourse, resulting in internalising of cultural connotations for that landscape [15]. From this perspective, the images of natural environment, as well as of everything else in the physical and social world, are constructed images. This interpretative framework raises the problem of landscape reading. In fact, landscapes are located in the physical world that the social actors can experience through sensory impressions, involving for example the natural and built environments of the idea of destination or daily settled life. Landscapes are typically conceived of aesthetically, as views and sceneries, or as natural conditions, such as water, wind, mountains, snow,) to enjoy or contest. Socioscapes are more floating or infinite, referring primarily to

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Fig. 6 Raffaele Federici, “shots of complexity”, oil on canvas, 2018

the social of the landscape, through which basically material spaces are turned into places for particular forms of social interaction such as shops, restaurants, beaches, train stations and so on. Both landscapes and socioscapes are interpreted through the social and cultural representations which are conveyed and built also within the frame of digital mediatisation of the real. These platforms built a relationship between the text and the image, in a complimentary link. If the image is overvalued, it is also

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because of the potential proliferation of comments that will follow its publication. The photograph can be like “captioned”, in a short way. But very often, when the photographer benefits from an early aura by his presence on the platform or by his main activity outside the network, the comments are multiplied, in various forms and contribute to increase the “notoriety” of the mobile photographer. To be is to be seen. The recognition of this identity passes through these looks that recognise the photographer attested by likes and comments. It works both for people or digital profiles as well as for places and sites.

2 The Mediated Representations of the Landscape These mediated representations produce the forms of meaning of the contemporary social landscapes dimension of construction of Genius Loci. Originally, Genius Loci was a Roman invention driven by the Greek extension of Daimon: it was not only man that had his genius, a sort of guardian angel that accompanied him through life and determined his fate, but also certain places. Not only villages, towns and communities had their Genius Loci (Genius vici, oppidi, municipi, Genius urbis Roma, etc.); also the places of natural landscape were attributed to a genius, that is the genius of the valley, the spring, the river, the mountain (Genius valli, fontis, fluminis, montis) or of a certain part of a mountain (Genius huius loci montis). In contemporary context the concept refers in a broader sense to a location’s distinctive atmosphere, geography, climate, social, cultural, and historical background. Especially in landscape architecture it has been an important principle that landscape designs should be adapted to the context in which they are located. In contemporary architectural theory the spirit of the place, the Genius Loci, has implications for place-making, both falling within the philosophical branch of phenomenology and within social landscape and urban planning. This construction has profound implications for the perception and the knowledge of a landscape, falling within the philosophical branch of phenomenology. The substructure of such an approach were laid by Christian Norberg-Schulz [18], who indicated that each space was a resultant of the concrete realism defining and effecting the place, as well as the certain phenomena that each space possessed, established by countless aspects of the environment in which the space was located. Thus Genius Loci, as an identy-making key, seems to be the result of a medial transposition and of its substratum into another medium; intermediality, in the narrow sense of media combination; and what can be called postproduction intermediality, when the social actors emphasise or border a certain digital representation of the real world. With respect to this tripartite division, it is important to emphasize that a single medial configuration may fulfil the criteria of two or even of all three of the intermedial categories outlined above. Nevertheless this communication design driven by social sharing of certain part of the reality allows us to re-think the way in which we understand and observe territories, including the possibility of fragmentation understanding and loss of landscape semantics.

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Besides, the endless flow of digital pictures can enhance a digital aesthetic experience of the landscape which is considered as a perceptual phenomenon, and contribute to shift how the media construction of Genius Loci works. That’s why I would like to defer all the dialectic processes of so-called objectivation developed by Barthes [2, pp. 113–117]. The contemporary objectivation cannot been not seen in isolation from action. First, the referential meaning of signs is constituted by constant interaction, that is mainly driven by media interactions. Moreover, signs are produced by the communicative action itself as products of an objectivation in the common environment of signs, and symbols of sharing and aggregation, and thus the production of hashtag. Third, these objectivations are produced with the intention of transmitting some meaning. Since the understanding of this meaning is anticipated and, in the course of its production, indicated and mirrored by the other’s expression, action or response, objectivations, finally, function as co-ordination devices for the interactants. By means of objectivations actors can gear their actions into one another by retrospectively and prospectively interpreting their corresponding motivations. The objectivation is made by the use of sophisticated and portable media devices that fed the constant narrative inherent the representation of a certain landscape. This content is composed of a series of episodes of personal life, made accessible starting from operations largely codified of clipping, put into discourse and sharing of ordinary life practices.

3 The Ambivalence Effervescence of the Emotions The growing success of these applications, the spread of the Istagramming representation, stresses the emergence of a series of practices increasingly codified and shared in the choice of tags to associate with images, testify to a progressively more evident process of channelling of the media experience strongly attested in everyday use, and that contributes to nourish a semiotics of common feeling. In other words: a widely regulated representation of the sensitive activity that permeates the paths of ordinary living. These photographic representations are ambivalent, fragmentary, but are part and parcel of human way of comprehending the world. And ambivalence is much needed as central to the understanding of these representations. Due to the inherent fluidity of the various photographic representation of landscapes, different versions could emerge, in an ambivalent dialogue in terms of knowledge and documentation. The huge and widespread uptake of networked photographs has produced a new imaginary. Not only individuals are taking, manipulating, and sharing more photos, more often, but they are building new fields of aesthetic value as well as new forms of communities. The technological and practical changes associated with networked photographs, and the never-ending avalanche of images that carry them, demand a new interpretative frame for landscapes Perhaps most importantly, the quantity and circumstances of their production, and their presentation in a continuously updated stream, suggest a relational or contextual significance that exceeds the boundaries of

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the photograph itself. This significance is specified in part through the use of hashtags, which provide photographs with a codified, as opposed to narrative, contextual significance. The ambivalence of digital perception of landscapes doesn’t reside in its aestheticization but in the fact that it seems to be able to give life to a new way of thinking, of seeing, and of imagining the landscape. Besides, the landscape should be understood as a form of communication by images that depends on social actions, on what it is generated and share, then it is also possible to observe the idea of landscape from a predominantly imaginary, in strict etymological sense, to a performative imaginary which allows to take into account a process complexification of the landscape that characterises the contemporary experience of knowledge. In phenomenological sense, it means that the notion of place crystallises and focuses one essential aspect of human existence: the inescapable requirement to always be somewhere as an Hic et Nunc experience. Landscape is not only the sum of environmental, cultural, social, and historical part, it is synergistic construction through the way of catching and sharing digital photographs inside the endless flow produced by social media. In some ways, it goes further to Heidegger [12] philosophical proposition because it is not a matter of the relationship between person and world that could be reduced to either an idealist or realist perspective. In fact, in an idealist view, the world is a function of a person who acts on the world through consciousness and, therefore, actively knows and shapes his or her world. In contrast, a realist view sees the person as a function of the world in that the world acts on the person and he or she reacts. Heidegger claimed that both perspectives are out of touch with the nature of human life because they assume a separation and directional relationship between person and world that does not exist in the world of actual lived experience. This process of growing preference for natural and cultural toward emotional landscapes has had direct influence on the deeper meaning landscape has for people. What is emerging is something that doesn’t belong to idealism or realistic perspectives, it belongs to the sphere of emotions. It happens by sharing a landscape of photographs that around these representations social actors may build an emotional community that goes toward particular themes and practices. Belonging practices can result in attendees experiencing a sense of kinship and belonging that goes beyond the representation or the perception. These shifts in views on landscape seem to be related to the growing idea of connective societies, convergence culture [13], and the so-called “mental urbanisation” [10, pp. 97–112] of culture as a consequence of globalisation, and other macro-sociological forces. It is an emotional imaginary representation of the landscape, and my reasoning for assuming this form of effervescence would be generated from the idea of contemporary tribes or, better, neo-tribes. Maffesoli [16] has distinguished between abstract, rational periods of history, marked by individualism, and empathetic periods of history, which are marked by a strong sense of collective spirit and sociality. According to Maffesoli, we are currently living through an empathetic era, which is manifest in the emergence of a complex forms of neo-tribalism. The Author uses this term to describe a diversity of groupings, all of which share a commitment to the communal ethic even through sharing of information. Shared space, both physical

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and symbolic, underpins the development of the communal ethic amongst neo-tribes: «Space guarantees a necessary security. We know that limits fence one in, but also give life […] the stability of space is a focal point, an anchor for the group» [16, p. 133]. Sharing certain representation of the landscapes become a communitarian experience of the places as it happens for some iconic scenarios. Those mediated landscapes become something floating and stable, the place for the communities beyond a specific group of people or a geographical location. In this interpretative framework it there develops a hiatus between the geographic location and the landscape itself, and the landscape is completely freed from the physical aspects to become a place for the communities. It is the sense of feeling, of emotions, to become predominant and [8, p. 96] explains it in his own words: In der Wahrnehmung der Atmosphäre spüre ich, in welcher Art Umgebung Ich mich befinde. Diese Wahrnehmung hat also zwei Seiten: auf der einen Seite die Umgebung, die eine Stimmungsqualität ausstrahlt, auf der anderen Seite Ich, indem ich in meiner Befindlichkeit an dieser Stimmung teilhabe und darin gewahre, dass ich jetzt hier bin. […] Umgekehrt sind Atmosphären die Weise, in der sich Dinge und Umgebungen präsentieren.2

A sense of feeling that belonging recalls within one’s body, the reality of how the emotional reaction that is experienced feels. In other words the emotions seems to predominate in how the landscape is understood and perceived. Emotions of landscape that reflects aspects of desire as well as multiple positions of sensory engagement, attraction, and legibility—ways in which landscapes can be read, imagined, and experienced, from diverse points of view and positions of orientation. This view of landscape challenges traditional views that interpret place as simply fixed and located, and in relation primarily to humanistic ideas about emotions, meaning, and place attachment, as in “sense of place”, a sense of belonging to a certain community. Many examples could be used to illustrate these points, but this section highlights just two. The first is the hashtag #landscapes_gopro that represents a collection of various landscapes photographs took through a gopro camera. These digital photographs constitute a unicum in which different landscapes become a single landscape that intends to represent the aspects of a community that bases its experiences on emotional action. Understanding the meaning of landscape images today requires a capacity to enact a theoretical shift generating new dialogues between visual, digital, emotion, and material culture. Images seem to insistently invite us to expand our approaches beyond representation, semiotics and indexicality. Highlighting questions of multimodality, relationality and materiality, images speak increasingly of relations, between objects, individuals and communities; of new narratives, and hence stories, build in a dialectic between the audience and the image-makers. The second could be the hashtag #landscapes_and_sunsets where the focus is on sunset. Again these experiences build a landscape through a non-linear flux of images of the sunset 2 «In the perception of the atmosphere I feel kind of environment I find myself. Thus, this perception

has two sides: on the one hand the environment that exudes a mood quality, on the other hand, I, as I participate in my mental state at this sentiment and the fact perceive that I’m here now. […] Conversely atmospheres the way in which things present themselves and environments». Author’s translation

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experience. Entering this space, viewers must progressively learn to suspend the conventional distinctions about landscapes on which their visual culture builds. At the base of this assumption is the overcoming of the idea of atmosphere created by the landscape and shared by on-line communities. There are two different landscape spatialities being hinted at in this passage. The first is the spatiality of the sphere in the sense of a certain type of envelope or surround. The centre and circumference of an affective atmosphere may, however, be indefinite or unstable. Especially if an atmosphere is taken not only to occupy a space, but to permeate it, to become a symbolic experience. The second spatiality is spherical but it is, more specifically, a dyadic space of resonance, atmospheres radiate from an individual to another. It appears and disappears alongside the dynamics of what Sloterdijk [19, p. 223] terms as «being-apair». In both cases it is possible to find that atmospheres are interlinked with forms of enclosure, enveloping, surrounding and radiating. Atmospheres have, then, a characteristic spatial form of diffusion within a social and cultural context that nowadays are linked to social re-mediated experiences. What I have in mind, with regard of the aesthetic of landscape [6], as a product of a radical re-mediation through the so-called social media, is therefore a “non-expert” knowledge based on the first impression that can circulate endless, that becomes ontologically solid as a perceptological experience based from a flow of emotions. By this atmospheric perception of the landscape, as a result created and shared by on-line individuals, I mean a meso-psychological and meso-scopic situation, synaesthetic and preteoretic, that touches social actors significantly due to its salience.

4 The Imaginary Re-mediated By way of conclusion, I would like to think a little further about what the landscape atmosphere of ambient media might imply as an alternate model for how to live in a mediated contemporary world. The question is: from a cultural perspective, where is landscape? In this framework, landscapes can be considered as co-constructed by re-mediated forms and the people who create and animate those re-mediated forms. The ways in which humans being engage with the material landscape on an everyday basis seems to be the result of an objectivation emotionally-skewed perceptions. And it is something that belongs to the radicalisation of the media. Any truly radical media innovations stem from an alchemy of the mind, both cognitive and imaginative, the machine, and the imaginary over a long and involved process of technological convergence, interdisciplinary creativity, and cross-industry transfer. These processes are going to modify the way in which individuals remember and memorialise. In fact, the manner in which social actors recognize, remember, memorialise and commemorate their connections to landscapes is often dependant on imagined engagements, and relationships. Connections with the real, and with the hyper-reality re-mediated representations of landscapes where people want to belong, whatever the place to consider. Social actors want to know a geography and unproblematically fit into a landscape, even if that relationship or landscape itself is imagined. Media,

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memory and imagination play important roles in those ambivalent connections to landscapes and places. Landscape is not an mere place it becomes a process. It is a visual style: «that privileges fragmentation, indeterminacy, and heterogeneity and that emphasizes process or performance rather than the finished art object» [17, p. 8]. Re-mediation as part of the landscape narrative, as result of the process of media hybridisation, is part of the performativity of belonging [4]. Although the spatialisation of this process brings social actors closer to understanding the link between imagination, land, identity, and the resonances and connections between various ways of knowing, including social media. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a multidisciplinary cooperation to understand landscape perception research.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Bachelard G (1957) La poétique de l’espace. Les Presses Universitaires de France, Paris Barthes R. (1970), Le Guide Blue, in Barthes R., Mythologie, Paris: Seuil. Baudrillard J (1981) Simulacres et simulation. Débats, Paris Bell V (1999) Performativity and belonging. Sage, London Bidwell NJ, Browning D (2009) Pursuing genius loci: interaction design and natural place. Personal Ubiquitous Comput 14(1) Böhme G. (1995), Atmosphäre. Essays zur neuen Ästhetik, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Bolter J, Grusin R (2000) Remediation: understanding new media. MIT Press, Cambridge Böhme G (1995) Atmosphäre. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main Bourriaud N (2001) Esthétique relationnelle. Les Presses du Réel, Dijon Buijs AE (2000) Natuurbeelden van de Nederlandse bevolking. Landschap 17:97–112 Grusin R (2015) Radical mediation. Crit Inq 42 Heidegger H (1927/2001) Sein und Zeit. Auflage Niemeier, Tübingen Jenkins H (2006) Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide. New York University Press, New York Lefebvre H (1974) La production de l’espace. L’Homme et la Société, pp 31–32 Löfgren O (1994) Die wahre Landschaft ist im Kopf; Landscape of the mind. Topos 6:6–14 Maffesoli M (1996) The time of the tribes: the decline of individualism in mass society. Sage, London Mitchell WJ (1994) The reconfigured eye: visual truth in the post-photographic era. MIT Press, Cambridge Norberg-Schulz C (1979) Genius Loci: towards a phenomenology of architecture. Rizzoli, New York Sloterdijk P (2005) Foreword to the theory of spheres. In: Obanian M, Royaux J (eds) Cosmograms. Lukas and Sternberg, New York

Chance, Ambiguity, and Indeterminacy as Idea-Generating Mediums Applied in Creative Design: Encountering Uncertainty in Mediums of Drawing in the Design Process Maryam Fazel and Sukaina Almousa Abstract This chapter explores the use of chance as a generative factor that participates in the design process, and compares the use and presence of chance in three of the main representation mediums used by architects to generate conceptual forms: conventional sketching, digital design, and parametric design. The study compares the different affordances of those mediums in terms of utilising chance as a creative tool. When discussing chance as encounter in the design process, ambiguity becomes a key theme of inquiry, as does its role in generating creative possibilities for a particular design product. Venturi’s notion of ambiguity in architecture, along with theories of chance, prepares the ground for this discussion to develop around recent practices in design mediums. Through a theoretical framework that applies theories of chance and ambiguity to contemporary practices in the design process, we compare architects’ levels of engagement with chance, in all three mediums, from the user’s viewpoint. By comparing these mediums, we highlight the interrelationship between chance and the concept of medium specificity. Keywords Medium specificity · Chance · Design process · Open-ended design · Ambiguity

M. Fazel (B) Independent Researcher, Vancouver- British Colombia, Canada e-mail: [email protected] S. Almousa Alasala College of Architecture and Design, Alasala Colleges, Dammam, Saudi Arabia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_12

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1 Introduction Chance is an increasingly recognised mediator in terms of generating architectural visuals.1 However, some architects attempt to disregard chance, as they approach architecture in a linear way—as a stretch between concept problems and solutions. Architects’ opinions and approaches diverge, from holding fixed opinions to being open to chance. Architectural discourse and practice are dominated by a false dichotomy between design and chance, and are also governed by the belief that the architect’s role is to defend against the indeterminate [1].2 An in-depth study by [1] explores the idea of chance and its application in design. Manolopoulou challenges the conventional position, arguing that architects must develop a more creative understanding of chance as an aesthetic experience, a critical tool, a generative medium, and a design practice in its own right. Using chance in a similar context, new aspects of its role in the design process will be explored in this text. In the field of architecture, few studies have considered the involvement of chance in design mediums, processes, and end products. This article, explores the expansion of chance as an influential factor in the design process, as well as the extent to which architects acknowledge it as a design tool. This will help develop an understanding of whether the profession openly accepts and explores the possibility of chance’s influence on design. One of the earliest discussions of uncertainty and its role in generating meanings was presented by Venturi in his text Complexity And Contradiction in Architecture. Venturi’s concept of ambiguity and the meaning of architecture invoke connections between ambiguity and the generation of ideas, and, therefore, meanings. Venturi also suggested that the medium of architecture should be re-examined, noting that its 1 Chance is accepting an unexpected outcome—appreciating indeterminacy and vagueness. Chance

is about interpreting vagueness through relying on a series of familiar forms, meanings, objects, ideas, and entities. Chance is about uncertainty and letting uncertainty manoeuvre. In this text, we interpret indeterminacy and vagueness as factors of chance. Vagueness creates a gap for imagination to manoeuvre. The combination of vagueness and familiarity leads to creativity. Chance is about vagueness, combined with familiarity. If there are some missing pieces, the mind can creatively [connect] the dots[;] this is how line drawing and sketching benefit from the quality of chance and [create] meanings. For artists and architects, chance is about accepting the full power of uncertainty and liberating part of the design process, and its control, to chance. What we discuss here is giving part of the design control to a medium outside the human body, which, in this case, is experimental drawings, sketching, digital design, and parametric interfaces. Chance could be seen as an active mediator in design thinking and in the process of conveying mind impulses into ideas. 2 The Latin origin of the word accident, accidere, derives from cadere, which means ‘to fall’ (‘Accident | Origin and Meaning of Accident by Online Etymology Dictionary’ (n.d.; [2], p. 12). Accidental figurations, which have not or cannot be made by human intention but resemble recognisable shapes—such as the appearance of a face in a cloud formation—have particular value in art and are widely accepted as images made by chance. Indeed, they are referred to as ‘chance images’. This phenomenon is a manifestation of the primal human desire to find meaning in ambiguous figurations through pictorial association. Adolf von Hilderbrand describes the phenomenon as enhanced perception, where the accents of the object and the eye coincide. This coincidence requires an active power of imagination in the beholder, as the existence of chance images strongly depends on the perception and acceptance of the beholder’s imagination [1].

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focus should be shifted from creating superficially complex form towards exploring the variety inherent in the ambiguity of visual perception. Extending this notion to address the design process, Venturi’s discussion is an insight into how external and internal design conditions can elaborate the original or the intended meaning of architecture, or else it can alternate that meaning ([3], p. 19). Similarly, The ambiguity and variety of landscape in relation to architecture illustrate the question of indeterminacy. Referring to landscape design, studies have shown that designing with uncertain conditions that are exposed to unexpected natural circumstances may challenge landscape architects to create alternative framework to design with the flux [4]. Indeterminacy in landscape design invites to extend Venturi’s notion of uncertainty as it becomes a process that starts early in the design thinking. Likewise, in the architectural design process, architects interact with mediums of thinking that have similar uncertainties and are more exposed to unexpected happenings which may be an encounter of new meaning emergence. The present text examines the same notion of meaning generation as it is directed to each medium of design thinking, and explores the ways in which each medium interacts with the situations of ambiguity, uncertainty, and chance. In his infamous book Complexity and Contradiction, Venturi promotes the flaws of architecture as ‘encountering necessary uncertainty, and that ‘meaning can be enhanced by breaking the order’. (Venturi 1977, p. 44). While Venturi discusses uncertainty in terms of encountering the space, this chapter presents it within and during the design process. The following discussion argues that the specific qualities and associations of each design medium can create a context of possibilities that were not originally intended by the designer, and any change in the context of design exploration causes change in meaning, form and consequently the final built product which will become part of the constructed experience. Being open to the possibilities of chance unlocks architecture to new imagination. This could generate imaginative architectural forms, but it also has the inexhaustible power to bring coincidences, subjectivities, actions, and desires, into play, together, in one story and one place—making a unique social occasion to be remembered in relation to architecture ([1], p. 134). Architecture is between chance and necessity. It expands beyond the building, as an actual whole, and covers the journey from possibility/virtual to actual. This journey is packed with moments of imagination, chance, and subjective perceptions. Chance brings a wide array of possibilities to architectural discourse, design thinking, and idea generation. Most architects engage with chance rather quietly; many ignore its creative power and most do not accept chance openly [1]. This is due to the profession’s established views, which demand rationality in design thinking. This is what we refer to as a linear approach towards design, which starts with an idea and leads to a final product—leaving no room for chance. It is a general and broadly accepted belief that architects are not supposed to act irrationally or on impulse because their responsibility is to act based on predictions and control. However, we believe that ‘a world without chance is unbearable and an architecture not driven by impulse would be unimaginable’ ([1], p. 115). Architecture, as a non-linear process

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based on creativity and imagination, is a discipline heavily intertwined with impulse, indeterminacy, and unpredictability—perhaps more often than the field is willing to openly acknowledge. Because architecture has been perceived as a systematic process, chance has been widely denied as part of the discipline. Vitruvius famously tried to represent architecture as a practice run by order. He gives precise instructions as to what should be included in an architect’s education, extending his discussion to the products of the discipline. Architecture depends on ordination, the proper relation of parts of a work taken separately and the provision of proportions for overall symmetry ([5], p. 152). Architecture, from this perspective, is an act of imposing order ([6], p. 135). Similarly, Bernard Tschumi—as an example of an architect who keeps intellectual control over design situations—tries to control all factors involved in the design process by utilising strategic and rational thinking. This method of dealing with chance is the conventional and accepted method of rationalising design in most design schools. Resistance towards accepting chance is partly due to human interest in control and order.3 In the architectural discipline, there is a tendency to prioritise some qualities of space over others, such as clarity and transparency over ambiguity, stillness over dynamism, and—most certainly—control over indeterminacy. This interest in control was mainly observed following WWII, and it was accompanied by a fear of disorder and chaos. To some degree, this fear of disorder/indeterminacy was the outcome of scientific approaches up until that date. Science then aspired to solve human problems by relying on determinacy and calculating possibilities. The scientific obligation was to find order, organisation, and control in every possible way. However, as science further developed in the mid-twentieth century, this desire for control became less dominant and less prioritised, mainly as chaos and chance became accepted as scientific facts, but also likely affected by the influence of existentialist philosophers in Britain and throughout Europe [7]. Resistance towards accepting chance still exists in the architectural discipline. However, as in science, this mode of thinking accepts that chance has been tested for, positively embraced by, and integrated into recent architectural study. Still, many aspects of chance are yet to be explored. Chance’s role has influenced the design process, but there is still a need to understand in which medium chance appears the most. Exploring the existence of chance in mediums allows thinkers and designers to understand the process of chance and allows it to have a creative influence on design outcomes.

3 In

The Architecture of Chance, Yeoryia Manolopoulou points out that the idea of chance is secondary and derived from reality dependent on the search for order and its causes. It is through our understanding of the reversibility of order and rationality that we are able to recognise their opposite. It is exactly this combination of causality and chance that satisfies the human mind ([1], pp. 64–65).

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2 Literature Review (Chance as an Instrumental Tool) Although image and chance are more interrelated in art, certain architects also try to understand the concept of chance through design thinking mediums. They have used chance as an instrumental and influential quality for generating ideas and enriching imagination and creativity. This method of thinking will first be explored through the work of experimental architects (e.g. Nat Chard), surrealists, Dadaism, and the Dérive artist. This is mainly to provide an overview of the application of chance in creative practices that use similar thinking mediums. This will provide a background for discussions of specific design thinking and mediums of production. Architects interested in collage, the assemblage of possibilities and complexity, have developed various methods to test and explore chance. For instance, working with chance as an apparatus, architect and professor Nat Chard uses special devices to draw uncertain conditions. Using machines—such as optical projection, folding pictures, and, especially, the picture plane—he explores ‘the sublime, uncanny, and indeterminate occurrences that are also significant parts of our lives’ ([8], p. 149). To explain his intention behind using these apparatuses, Chard notes that ‘these sites of wonder provoke our imagination beyond the didactic intention. They have the capacity to relate tacit and explicit knowledge as well as to seduce the imagination to delve into unexpected realms’ ([8], p. 149). While drawing in architecture is intended to meet the needs of a specific programme, the process of drawing is likely to contribute to and alter the architect’s original notions of what they intended to draw. The logic of Chard’s system is that he uses latex paint as the projection system. latex paint is a non-Newtonian, fluid material and like blood it creates an unexpected encounter between the two mediums when projected towards an object. This method of splattering latex material, along with high-speed photography and a subtly folding picture plane behind or beneath the object, creates a system to reveal potential in the realms of uncertainty. In his model of splashing paint on drawings, Chard states that ‘the degree of chance is therefore subtle and allows the discussion of indeterminacy to be held within a range of ideas rather than as completely open-ended’ ([8], p. 151). This approach greatly relies on chance, in terms of showing new spatial relationships. It acknowledges the creative, uncertain outcome of an apparatus that is not fully controlled by rules and measures. Dadaism has a similar approach to chance and indeterminacy. Artists of this school of thought employ chance as a general attack on order or as an opposition to society’s formal and rational values. For these artists, reliance on chance is part of a greater, anti-artistic approach to the conventional, accepted values of rationality, which has frequently become an overpowering concern ([9], pp. 61–67). Exploring chance as a manifestation of the natural power that rules the universe (i.e., ‘the voice of [the] unknown’ ([10], p. 33), artist Hans Ritchter considers chance a ‘mysterious collaborator’ that is introduced by appealing directly to the unconscious, which is part and parcel of chance. This is a system that closely relates to alternative, antirational modes of creation—a process that tries to eliminate the power of subject and

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rational thinking and to eliminate the control of reasoning and conventional codes of meaning-making [10]. Accommodating this method of thinking about art, artist Katarzyna Zimna proposes a concept of play that refers to an approach to creating art in which subject-control is eliminated; which encourages non-rational states of mind, as well as free and productive information absorption [10]. Similarly, chance is a significant factor in the practice of Dérive. The Dérive [11] artist, similar in practice to the Flâneur4 [12], is interested in exploring a city by wandering through constantly changing urban spaces and by creating dialogue between control and chance. Part of their original practice was to switch from one theatre to the next without finishing the movie, screening, or performance. Thus, they created a live montage of pieces of virtual scenes, combined with other factors associated with chance, such as urban narratives, free wanderings, and accident.5 The constantly changing, psycho-geographical relief of the city and its diverse microclimates and centres of attraction made Dérive a practice of unpredictable wandering, engaging with spaces through un-programmed events. Chance is central to the process of perceiving, collecting, and making collages of subjective memories, narratives, events, and accidents. Influenced by the artistic modes of the first part of the twentieth century, Freud presented chance as impulsive— an intuitive mechanism of creativity that could ‘unlock’ unconscious desire to escape Cartesian thought (Manolopoulou n.d.). Chance has the capacity to correlate images, narratives, memories, and events. This kind of correlation between indirectly related, or even irrelevant, pieces of images, memories, and narrative impulses, which chance assists, ‘this correlation plunges into indeterminacy, offering momentary glimpses of a causal world that transcends existing knowledge’ (Manolopoulou n.d., p. 67). Influencing knowledge, chance can be an active encounter that can contribute to the thinking process of the designer; not only be generating thoughts but also by shifting decisions and the plans of the design. Chance may be considered an active mediator in design thinking and in the process of conveying mind impulses into ideas. The architect Coop Himmelb(l)au has a liberating and non-linear approach to the design process, which, instead of a sequential design approach, openly and interactively explores design juxtaposed with complexity, flexibility, and chaos. As they are interested in the intuitive mechanisms of creativity, mind impulse, and chaos theory, Coop Himmelb(l)au uses specific 4 Flâneur is defined as free exploration of a city and enjoying making sense of the city in alternative

ways—either visibly or invisibly, like a shadow. It is also characterised by the construction of a free collage of city parts; not in the way an ordinary person or a tourist would explore the city, but rather with more significant details and more deliberate choice. 5 Artists and architects explore chance in different ways. Artists, like Francis Bacon, attempted to capture/trap chance. For Bacon, the concern was the accident as non-representable reality, whereas, for others, chance was a tool rather than the object of enquiry. It was the medium that participated in creating art/architecture or a special event. For instance, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed a whole exhibition space because he encountered an object accidentally. Mies van der Rohe presented a marble piece in the exhibition pavilion space in Barcelona, and the story behind the piece began with an accidental encounter with the piece [1]. In this interesting story, recounted in Architecture of Chance, the force behind a design was dictated by a chance encounter. The accidentally found material became the basis of highly controlled design.

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methods of concept generation. In this method of creating ideas, an ideographic sketch is created, called a psychogram. The psychogram acts in much the same way as the surrealist game, the Exquisite Corpse [13]. Coop Himmelb(l)au works thus represent a degree of indeterminacy and indicate that chance is actively prescribed in their design processes. Concerning their Open House project, the firm stressed a degree of myth-making in the description of this process. This project highlights that design is not limited to reasoning and that it could be affected by feeling or impulsive chance. As such, it illustrates an open architecture and unfinished design that intentionally use chance to generate form [1]. Being used in various stages of the creative process, chance is an active mediator in multiple ways. One way to consider chance’s role is to address its presence in design thinking mediums. The question raised here is: How does chance exist differently in different mediums of image production, and, therefore, how do mediums of the design process give shape to design in both controlled and uncontrolled situations? In order to address this question, mediums must be considered separately in order to expand on their specific role in design, since they become mediums within which the design process progresses and develops. If sketching, for instance, constitutes a medium of a design stage, it has its own association with chance that is related to the very nature of sketching. This also applies to the other mediums discussed in this paper: digital and parametric design. There is an interesting relationship between, subject, object, and chance. Chance comes from the object—the surface—where the subject captures the existing ambiguity inherent in an image or any type of surface, drawing, or membrane. Artists from Leon Battista Alberti and el Greco to Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Gerald Richter have used chance as generative devices in their work. Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci theorised, acknowledged, and appreciated chance as a generative agent and associated chance with the origins of painting and sculpture. His habit of staring at the sky and at crumbling walls is well known: ‘I have even seen shapes in clouds and patchy walls which have roused me to beautiful inventions of various things, and even though such shapes totally lack finish in any part, they were yet not devoid of perfection in their gestures or other movements’ (Da Vinci, as cited in Gombrich [14], p. 60; [1]. Lack of stability, finality, and clarity forms these gestures, as ‘confused things rouse the mind to new inventions’ [1]. When staring at unfinished, unstable pieces of nature, the imagination is stimulated and aroused by their numerous possibilities. It is necessary to highlight that chance appears differently based on mediums, and there is a relationship between the mediums of creating art and the way chance appears. Therefore, the purpose of this text is to highlight that chance appears quite differently in various mediums, which is due to medium specificity6 [15]. Chance 6 Medium

specificity will be discussed in the context of design process. Medium specificity is introduced as part of the discussion to show that chance appears inversely based on mediums, and there is a relationship between mediums’ affordance, specificities, and the condition they have for creating art and the way chance appears. Medium specificity theories generally concern themselves with the idea that different media have ‘essential’ and unique characteristics that form the basis of how they can and should be used. The limitations of the medium are the valuable features

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appears in the creative process not as a tool to present a specific product, but to influence the way of thinking and the direction taken to reach the final product. Referring to Deleuze’s notion of chaos, architecture scholar Grosz addresses the quality that chance brings to the live process of making creative material. She refers to it as ‘intensifying a performance that may eventually have an impact on the final product’ (Grosz 2008, p. 3). Chance appears lively within the situation of art production, acting within and influenced by the context. This means that each medium of image production may receive chance differently, depending on the medium’s inherent rules and flexibility. The above discussion explores the approaches of architects and artists, who have specific definitions and understandings of chance and who have used it as an instrumental factor in their design processes. This highlights the relationship between mediums and underscores the ways in which chance appears differently, depending on medium specificity. The follows sections explore the relationship between chance and three mediums of the architectural design process (digital design, parametric design, and conventional sketching). We investigate the use of chance as a generative factor in the design process and explore the effects of medium specificity on how chance is formed, how it is made accessible, and how it possibly influences design ([15], pp. 55–63).

3 Medium Specificity Medium specificity will be discussed in the context of the design process. It is introduced as part of the discussion to show that chance appears inversely based on mediums, and there is a relationship between a medium’s affordances, specificities, and the condition it has for creating art and the way chance appears. Therefore, the purpose of this text is to highlight that chance appears in various mediums quite differently, and this is due to medium specificity7 [15]. We compare the use and presence of chance in three of the main mediums architects use to generate conceptual forms: sketching, digital design, and parametric design. The study compares the potential of those mediums for utilising chance as a creative tool and investigates how instances of chance could be exploited differently as a matter of specificity of the design environment. By comparing these mediums, guaranteeing the personality and identity of a specific medium. http://www.artandpopularculture. com/Medium_specificity. 7 Medium specificity theories generally concern themselves with the idea that different media have ‘essential’ and unique characteristics that form the basis of how they can and should be used. The limitations of the medium are the valuable features guaranteeing the personality and identity of a specific medium. Each medium is an active agent shaping ideas and generating meanings. We are not dealing with medium as a transparent entity ‘ready to hand’; rather, we analyse it as an object ‘present at hand’, where the medium influences and affects its own content and formalises the outcomes of the design process. In this sense, the medium of the design process is the subject of enquiry.

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we will highlight the interrelationship between chance and the concept of medium specificity. The concept of medium specificity8 developed in the era of modernism and has become associated with the art critic Clement Greenberg. At the beginning of the 1940s, Clement Greenberg expressed his idea of ‘medium specificity’ as a characteristic that distinguished modern art from previous art.9 By introducing this idea, he wanted to shift attention away from the values that comprised classical art, where art tried to represent reality, to modern art, where art become a self-representational object10 [16]. That means for him, and the artists of that mode of thinking, that each medium of art production has different limitations and constraints, and the artist throughout the process of production becomes aware of those limitations and affordances. For instance, painting or photography each has specific material quality and different effects and they are distinguished from one another in terms of their effects, features, and properties.11 In the context of modern art practices, medium specificity was introduced to emphasis the involvement of the artist with the art medium itself or the art practice, instead of engagement with the social aspect or the reality. Classical art tends to represent reality without signifying or referencing to the production medium ‘ready to hand’ [16]. However, for the modern artist, modern art practice becomes a selfreferential object (representing the medium ‘present at hand’) in which different formats, limitations, and properties of the medium become important. Medium specificity in this context suggests that a work of art can be said to be successful if it fulfils the promise contained in the medium used to bring the artwork into existence. Much debate remains as to what a given medium best lends itself to [15].

8 ‘The

OED [Oxford English Dictionary] defines “specificity” as “The quality or fact of being specific in operation or effect”, or “being specific in character”. The OED defines “medium”, in terms of the arts, as ‘any raw material or mode of expression used in an artistic or creative activity’ or ‘a means by which something is communicated or expressed’. In linking these two words to form the term ‘medium-specificity’ a composite definition can be made: “the quality of being specific, in operation and effect, to the character of the raw material being used as a mode of artistic expression”’ (Chicago School of Media Theory 2019). 9 Origin: Late sixteenth century (originally denoting something intermediate in nature or degree): from Latin, literally ‘middle’, neuter of mediums. 10 Both terms borrowed from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, where he refers to the hammer as an extension of the body and ‘ready to hand’, and possibly transparent, when it is in use; while it is ‘present at hand’ when it is the object of speculation and scrutiny. 11 The concept, however, can be traced back to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s 1766 essay, Laocošn. Lessing dismantles Horace’s famous claim ‘ut pictura poesis’ (as is painting, so is poetry), arguing that these media are inherently different, because while poetry unfolds in time, painting exists in space. According to Clement Greenberg (1940), in ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’, medium specificity holds that ‘purity in art consists in the acceptance … of the limitations of the medium of the specific art’, arguing that mediums are inherently different: poetry spreads with time, and painting is confined by space.

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Medium specificity in the discussion presented here12 refers to the series of qualities, specifications, and characteristics that differentiate idea-generating mediums from one another. The qualities inherent to each medium, are: material quality, effect, feature of the interface, operational and idea-generating affordance, atmospheric quality, and the way a medium operates (its logics) and how it interacts both with the artist and the user. Through this concept we discuss the specific qualities of medium such as: visual effects, constraints, affordances, and limitations. Medium specificity talks about each medium having a way of operating to develop the idea, creating specific conditions for idea generation; it thus communicates with users/artists in a specific way. Mediums have different limitations, conditions, constraints, and affordances. Medium specificity affects the outcome, impacts the process of idea generation, and also produces different effects (meanings, ideas, and visual qualities). For instance, if we take the example of a same-design concept and try to develop it in various mediums, different outcomes, visual features, and effects might emerge due to the specificity of each medium. Through this idea we will question whether the design concept could separate itself from the medium of development or representation, or whether its existence is intertwined with the quality of medium. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who famously coined the phrase ‘The medium is the message’, acknowledged in his media theory that the forms of media would re-situate their users by the power of the medium and its embedded message [17]. Medium specificity also talks about how the message is transferred and whether the message could separate itself from the medium that generates it or not. As we briefly pointed out, the purpose of introducing medium specificity is to define the context of our discussion and the context in which chance appears in the design process. We would like to bring to attention those qualities of each design medium that dictate and formulate different types of encounter with chance. Architecture scholar Elizabeth Grosz [18] thinks that each medium of image production may receive chance differently, depending on the medium’s inherent rules and flexibility [19]. Referring to Deleuze’s notion of chaos, Grosz addresses the quality that chance brings to the live process of making creative material. She refers to it as ‘intensifying a performance that may eventually have an impact on the final product’ (Grosz 2008: 3). Chance appears alive within the situation of art production, acting within and influenced by the context and by the inherent rules. Architects are accustomed to drifting away for the initial idea, and this is a result not only of the nature of discovery but also as a result of encounters with chance/the unexpected. Chance and uncertainty have different definitions. Uncertainty as we approach it is a characteristic of inquiry/questioning, or speculation. Chance is an unexpected encounter or encountering the unexpected. The act of encountering with chance might be totally unexpected or—to an extent—it could possibly be planned in 12 Exploring the concept of medium specificity in relation to the conceptual design process could also mean the enquiry into the technical aspects, technical potentials, or scripting nature behind the medium, which is outside the scope of the current text. However, throughout the text, the discussion is concerned with medium specificity at the interface level where designer deals with the medium in practice mainly at the front-end stage of idea generation.

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a creative process. Enquiring into the planned or the plannable chance, the medium’s rules and its flexibility in relation to chance. Prof. Bryan Cantley,13 discussed his method in which, drawing starts with a set of rules for graphic behaviours these vary project to project, drawing to drawing. Rules do not dictate formal choices, they only define parameters for behaviours during conditions. Chance dictates the meetings, rules suggest possibilities, when that meeting occurs. Over the course of design, artist introduces a new set of rules—these are established as the drawing progresses, which helps to see new relationships and potentials as the linework accrues on the surface. These rules are often in conflict with the start rules, and those points of uncertainty and friction are where some of the more interesting encounters are developed. These secondary ruling systems often begat other tertiary ones as well’.14 Chance as we perceive, occurs at the verge of transition from one mode/medium to the next or at the meeting point of two. Chance occurs in transition between mediums or systems of production (it occurs at the point of transition, shift, verge, gap, mainly when entities/systems have to work out a way of communication). Whenever there is a transition, and the plan is on the verge of shifting from one medium or production system to another, chance appears, and it is likely that creativity will also be generated in that transition space. Chance has a strong relationship with control, and, once the designer liberates part of his/her mind-control and reduces human control, chance appears productively. Once a designer lets the impulses, the indeterminacy, and the uncontrolled situation come forward and manoeuvre, design begins to follow new and stimulating directions, which are unexpected and thought provoking. Chance is a game of call and response. There has to be the initial statement, then filling an [hopefully] appropriate response. Cantley asserted that sometimes this response works in tandem with the original statement, other times it challenges it, and in others it outright negates it. Chance does not happen without the meeting and yet sometimes it is the catalyst that causes a potential meeting. ‘We are beings of choice, and choice requires a system that enables the emergence of that condition’.15 There is no doubt that the tools, systems, and design mediums we use have specific settings, parameters, systems, and frameworks, and thus they impose their own rules, constraint, limitations, and conditions, as well as their affordance and potentials for chance to appear. As Prof. Cantley pointed out, and we agree, mediums, through their own parameters, create specific conditions for chance to emerge and various formats of mediums will have their own parameters of chance conditions. The following section outlines a number of design mediums and illustrates how the inherent rules and frames of the medium dictate a specific condition for chance and how different mediums accommodate chance.

13 We

have extracted some parts of the interview we had with Prof Bryan Cantley that are relevant to the current discussion. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

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3.1 Drawing, Sketching and Chance Architectural drawing is the conventional medium of generating the basic concept of a structure, and it exposes the context and space to subjectivity, imagination, narratives, complex events, fantasy, and unexpected incidents, which can meet and coexist. Drawing is the place of fantasy—the place to generate possibilities, where the virtual and reality meet. It produces buildings, tells stories, and poses questions in, of, and about the world. Chance is manifested in the assemblage and antagonism of these differences ([1], p. 152). Chance acts as a generative and productive method in drawing, since ‘[w]ithout the presence of chance I could not fully appreciate architecture’ ([1], p. 96). Chance shows its use in architectural mediums at various points in the design process. In the conventional method of sketch drawings, chance can be perceived and applied very differently. For instance, chance could be seen as an interpretation of a series of line drawings that an artist has generated. The artist could decode the lines into new meanings, causing new associations to emerge. Architects use drawing to transfer ideas, form concepts, and transfer thoughts into concepts. As the initial step in forming an idea, architects take advantage of the image formation and vagueness of architectural line drawing. They benefit from the unintentionally of the sketching medium—reading and decoding the vagueness. Kirsty Badenoch (referring to qualities of drawing by hand), stated the importance of chance as a quality integrated within hand drawing: ‘To draw by hand requires slowness. It requires a physical presence of body and of mind to dwell within the spaces they imagine and construct. It requires patience, frustration, and a certain number of accidents, the traces of which become bound within the final work’ ([20], p. 172). Chance, for example, could be used in sketch drawing when the artist pours watercolor on a canvas, which then slowly forms a figure. The artist, based on some defined ideas and his/her initial thoughts—plus a series of unexpected incidents, thoughts, and imaginations—interprets the new form and creates new meanings. Chance could present itself when the artist overlaps layers of sketch drawings or when a designer— to develop the design and decode the lines—overlaps layers of parchment papers. So, when the artist/architect overlaps papers and redraws or modifies his/her initial line drawings, chance appears. Sketching, in the design process, is used as a medium of thinking that can also help designers to generate new ideas, when the direction forward is not clear. Vagueness, incompleteness, and ambiguity are among the properties of sketches (Figs. 3 and 4). Researchers have already explored sketching as an instrument to play with ambiguity, which can drive the design process forward. There is a strong relationship between modes of seeing and the interpretation of design ideas. Sketches can engender uncertainty by changing the way of seeing, by revealing errors of recalling and recollecting thoughts, and by promoting new reading and interpreting (which promote reasoning about depicted objects) ([21], p. 465). Translation between modes of seeing is thought to both develop and stimulate new ideas through reinterpretation and recollection ([22], pp. 519–546).

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Fig. 1 Palimpsest landscape of micro spaces. Artist used chance actively in the process of assembling the surfaces and micro spaces. In this case, she defined and employed a series of actions and reference points and kept them along the whole design process. But, apart from this controllingsystem, the assemblage and the form of the final sculpture were unexpected. The image belongs to the author’s personal archive| Maryam Fazel

Prof. Cantley interestingly discussed how uncertainty, speculation, and drawing work together, and he argued that, without uncertainty, there is no speculation and investigation: ‘If all is certain, then what more investigation is needed? The inbetween liminal threshold space is the space of uncertainty, speculation, questions, blurs, shifts, glitches, and pure discovery’ [23]. Drawing is a space of encountering chance and the unexpected. It acts as the medium of speculation and investigation. It works as a means to reassemble possibilities. Drawing creates conditions/behaviours for exploring possibilities, and it is not limited to the notion of function solely as the medium of representation (Fig. 1). It is different from the representational medium, which renders the object. Instead of looking towards the outcome, ‘the object’, drawing refers to possibilities that meet and cohabit within its medium. Drawing is widely invested in re-presenting ‘the object’, and is recognised as acting ‘as a signifier’. Most schools of architecture are still invested in interpreting architectural drawing as archiving and presenting ‘the object, the thing’. Yet, there is an opportunity to go beyond this accepted mindset. Architectural drawing is not limited to presenting an image of the thing. The ‘thing’ itself, the architectural medium, could go beyond this mannerism and be understood as the process of exploration and generation of a multiplicity of events or spaces. Understanding drawing as the thing that cannot/should not/might not be ‘built’ leads to a different mindset, one where there is always a series of multi-temporal spaces and non-stable environments within the boundaries of drawing. This is where we can interpret architectural medium.16 Architects such as HipoTesis have referred to architecture as a narrative, and, by using the concept of

16 Extracted

text from an interview with Prof. Bryan Cantley, conducted in 2019.

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narrative (i.e., writerly text), they highlight the nature of drawing as transformative and open to interpretation, and less directed towards building as the intention.17 We would like to go beyond this mindset and consider drawing as the transcending space or [the process] that explores the multiplicity of possibilities, events, and spaces—[places to actualise virtual realities/possibilities]. Multi-temporal spaces are always created, are then re-created, and vanish within architectural drawing over the course of a design (Fig. 2). This multiplicity is what we believe defines drawing as a temporal/speculative space and what gives it potential to accommodate chance and uncertainty, temporalities, and non-stable events. By highlighting drawing as a medium of speculation or exploration, the intention is to emphasise the possibility of the co-existence of multiple ideas and multiple possibilities, and imbue the space of encounter with chance. Architectural drawing, as an instrumental tool, is capable of representing conditions and behaviours, not just fixed shapes and forms (Fig. 2). Encountering chance and indeterminacy could take design in new directions. Chance has the possibility to act as a mediator or a turning point—affecting and redirecting the design process. Architects may accidentally reach unexpected results, while possibilities meet in the medium of drawing. Apart from accidental encounters with chance, chance might also appear at the meeting point of two or more possibilities or ideas, or at the point of assembling virtualities, within the context of drawing. This is why we think that drawing, as a relational context (a transcending space), has more potential for uncertainty, speculation, and for chance to emerge. (Fig 3). For architects engaged in the design process, the mind is actively engaged with an idea and it unconsciously tries to correlate visual objects, materials, and fabrics to the project at hand (Fig. 4). Drawing provides the space for all those materials, visual objects, ideas, and possibilities to meet and to converge into a new potential. There is always room for novelty and creativity through developing new combinations and associations between already existing elements (predictable relationships) and through non-predicted relationships. Artists and architects have adapted various methods to develop new associations. We discussed the idea with prof. Perry Kulper to have new insights on creativity in the design process and its relation to chance. ‘automatic means’ is one of his adopted design methods influenced by surrealism and its relations to relational thinking and system design. It enables chance, or indeterminate possibilities and allows heterogenous ideas to come into the space of many of the drawings, provoking unpredicted and unpredictable outcomes that might have merit and relevance in the work. Based on the description in this method artist uses Automation as an intermediating mechanism to replace the existing relationships with new concepts. In this system artist is willing to see the possibility of emerging new relationships through replacing some of the ingredients of design process with other mediating concept, in order to generate unpredicted, unintentional, or possibly unseen and new relationships. This relaxed and accommodating approach allows creativity in broadened ways by supporting expanded relational capacities in the drawings 17 HipoTesis

[24] CAD blocks for the present of drawing. In: Allen L, Pearson LC (eds) Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture. London, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, p 53.

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Fig. 2 Palimpsest landscape. Drawing here is perceived as transcending space to explore a multiplicity of possibilities, events, and the space (Drawing as a place to actualise virtual realities and possibilities). The image belongs to the author’s personal archive| Maryam Fazel

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Fig. 3 Vagueness, incompleteness, and ambiguity are among the properties of sketches

Fig. 4 Drawing and decoding human interactions into mechanical machines: a case study that explores drawing as a space of speculation, uncertainty, and events. The image belongs to the author’s personal archive| Maryam Fazel

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to discuss things that might not otherwise be in play. Prof Kulper, also pointed at a range of methods and strategies in architectural representation and drawing that helps with a creative design process. These include compositional drawing, relational drawing, Collage, using multiple representation languages simultaneously in the same drawing; strategic plotting—plotting relations of agents, actions and settings, over and through time;—thinking and working through likenesses with things, events, conceptual structures, etc. Drawing and chance have strong associations, according to views collected from architects and students. Chance does occur despite systematic and planned design process, and it is up to the designer to grasp its occurrence or resist its influence while drawing. Because drawing is a very specific medium of creative thinking, its relationship to chance and their combined relevance invites exploration of the same potential in other mediums of the creative process, such as the digital design medium.

3.2 Digital Medium| Computational Design, and the Concept of Glitch| Architects use computer programmes to decode and demystify the complexities of thinking and rationalising thoughts. Digital technologies, since they are designed based on order and rationality (e.g., programmes and scripts), tend to provide systematic probabilities, however they could also act as an alternative testing platform and chance might appear unintended. This claim is supported by digital design studies that test the uncertainty and possibility of chance against the programmed topology of design. An example of this is a study by architect Luciana [25], who addresses the presence of control in design decisions within the digital medium. She states: The introduction of the invariable function in computational planning also reveals that cybernetic control now relies on the calculation of differentials and uncertainties. In the computation of urban design, this is evidenced by the use of growing algorithms or open-ended instructions that respond and adapt to the external environment, thus including contingencies into programming. This indicates that, with the advancements in design technology, the digital medium can offer a level of uncertainty that allows chance to participate in developing design concepts. Digital technologies are used to systematically and rationally enhance thinking, as they attempt to quantify chance in terms of probabilities. In principle, they aim to tame the errors, accidents, and imperfections of human skills. However, contrary to developers’ primary attempt, architects and other software users interpret and utilise the interface in new and unexpected manners (Figs. 3 and 4): ‘Digital simulation can make and break more models in a few seconds than a traditional craftsman could in a lifetime, thus making intuitive, heuristic form finding by trial and error a perfectly viable design strategy’ (Carpo 2013a, p. 60). Computational design can be responsive to certain environmental algorithms and thus change while receiving a live feed from the environment. However, apart from

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the systematic and rational logic of the system, from a bottom-up view, users incorporate this medium more creatively and playfully. Computational design, especially those mediums that have more flexible interfaces, can be a useful tool for creatively engaging with conceptual design stages (e.g. Rhino, SketchUp) (Fig. 5). Users find such software more adaptable and flexible for incorporating indeterminacy and to serve as tools for playful actions and unanticipated results. However, the other kind of software (e.g., AutoCAD, ArchiCAD) is counted as a rigid platform to use in the early stages of conceptual design, but still practical and rational for further stages of the design process, such as design development or technical development. Could architects develop designs, with chance, from a rational system? Does the medium of digital design exert constraints on designers who prefer to work irrationally and based on impulses? Could chance exist independently from the medium, or does the specificity of a medium insert constraints for chance to manoeuvre? Does

Fig. 5 Digital design and craftmanship is perceived as an environment for translating reality into other possibilities. In this example, the artist translated a text (the story of Alice in Wonderland) into a parallel universe in which every object works as an extension of the human body. In this project, the artist dealt with text as a verbal coding system that transforms the materiality of the text into verbal signals to be transferred out. It also engages with the notion of the subjective body within the special filter of the imagination. The filter is the tactic of dealing with bodies in the spaces. Bodies are space makers that create space through their actions on objects. This is an example of using digital design as the medium to code, decode imaginative stories into architectural forms. The image belongs to the author’s personal archive| Maryam Fazel

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the architect, by liberating part of the design process—from the medium of body— and by giving control to a medium outside the body—the digital medium—take advantage of chance more effectively? Digital design, specifically the conceptual design stage, is an activity similar to craftsmanship, where the craftsman is involved in series of activities, utilising their skills for planning, making, or executing. Rosy Greenlees, executive director for The Crafts Council of the United Kingdom, defines craft as ‘an activity where a process of exploring material takes place’ [26]. In her view, ‘craft entails intellectual and physical activity where the maker explores the infinite possibilities of materials and processes to produce unique objects’ [26]. Kolarevic [27] articulated that this concept to emphasise the role of risk and uncertainty in current digitally-enabled practices of making. Characteristically, craftsmen ‘deliberate actions based on continuous, iterative experimentation, errors, and modifications that lead to innovative, unexpected, and unpredictable outcomes, discovered in the intertwined processes of conception and production’ of effortlessly digital making ([27], p. 127). Digital craftsmanship, like any craftsmanship, uses experimentation with its materials, tools, and media to pursue unpredictable outcomes. Other studies highlight the uncertainty involved in the digital design process. Some view conceptual design as the environment in which to create other possibilities or virtualities. Marenko [26] refers to chance and uncertainty in computational design as virtualities that might find an environment/space to become actualised. Referring to Deleuze and Gataries’ notions of an event and their famous concept of virtuality, Marenko asserts that uncertainty and indeterminacy should be perceived as virtualities or modes of possible realities that are implicated in the emergence of new potential and produce actualities [26], p. 122). For Deleuze and Gattari [28], virtualities are perceived as possibilities that exist parallel to reality, yet have not been actualised. Marenko problematises the relationship between computation and making through the concept of glitch, as a form of virtuality or as a possibility that cannot be denied. She states that uncertainty and indeterminacy are embedded states and the characteristics of digitally-driven processes, where both computation and making come together. Marenko also notes that the relationship between what a designer proposes and the direction that their design takes is mainly due to unexpected opportunities, suggesting that digital production accelerates the option production phase and expands its possibilities, as the ability for trial and error means more options are developed. Marenko conceptualises glitch as a possibility (or an event), asserting that it ‘is first and foremost an uncanny or overwhelming experience of unforeseen incomprehension … which shows aspects of machine-operationally (and disarray) not normally witnessed or contemplated’ [26]. Glitch represents aspects of technological and digital design operation. It is ‘accident, chaos or laceration’ ([29], p. 29), but also a sign of portent that emerges from the depths of the machine and seems to formulate idioms that are not exclusively, not necessarily human ([26], p. 112). ‘The glitch becomes the tangible, yet undersigned evidence of the autonomous capacities of digital matter’ that goes beyond and away from the intentions of the programmer and signals the existence of other possibilities [30]. Referring to the possibilities

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of digital design and the irruption of unpredictability, Gage [31] points that unpredictability produces wonder and delight: ‘But there is more. This unpredictability should be taken as signalling the extent of an unknowable digital potential’ ([31], p. 20). We have explored the concepts related to chance and uncertainty, and have asserted that chance exists within the computational environment as virtuality, which is not necessarily a human product, but one that emerges from the depth of the machine, and which formulates new, unexpected meanings and idioms (Figs. 5 and 6). In the next section, we will see whether chance in parametric design appears similar to chance in sketching or digital design, or if it has a different format and nature. Digital design’s command systems and operational logic allow architectural drawing to take advantage of chance more effectively. In comparison with sketch drawing, chance appears in steps, and it affects the design process in between the phases of working with sketch drawings.

Fig. 6 Another example of using digital design as an environment to explore imaginative possibilities. The aim of this project was to see the whole entity of the body schema as several fragments of actions and events that come from the temporal interpretation of the body with objects. The behavioral actions of_ Alice in Wonderland _are translated and then reprogrammed as a verbal essence of the space. Digital design is used from a bottom-up approach and differently from the rational intention of developers. The image belongs to the author’s personal archive| Maryam Fazel

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3.3 Parametric Design and Chance Parametric design has been discussed as a medium that can potentially expand the design exploration space, through applying computational algorithms, variables, and parameters [32]. Parametric design emerged as an advanced design computational support environment, one based on exploration, cyclical re-editing, and interpretation processes. Essentially, it works based on processes of associative relationships in a geometrical solution space [33]. The logical and sequential step-by-step components of the design process have thus been transformed from the conventional design approach of hand drawing and sketches, and now the designer, instead of designing the object itself, ‘designs’ the code of the parametric schema in order to design the object secondarily. In parametric design, objects can be modified or edited by an associative set of algorithmic rules [33], and the architect deals directly with the object, contrary to the way a designer engages with conventional design mediums. In this system, chance is fundamentally different from its step-by-step appearance in conventional mediums. In parametric design, changing the system’s rule sets and modifying its variables will generate a new architectural outcome. Any change in the relationships of parameters, values, and the rules of the script will result in a new object, which is instantly updated and visually presented on the interface. Therefore, user input directly and instantly modifies the design object, and the design appears as a whole new object (the whole form will be instantly modified). This is how chance appears in this system, which means that by changing the association of variables, modifying the parametric values, or playing with the variables, unexpected outcomes may be created instantly and holistically. Some studies strongly connect parametric design with design indeterminacies: ‘For example, the introduction of indeterminacies into the source code of parametric programming has transformed the binary logic of yes and no into the fuzzy states of the logical conditions defined by maybe and perhaps’ ([25], p. 172). The traditional role of the designer’s visual pencil strokes has now been replaced by the computer’s algorithmic mode of thinking. Algorithmic thinking can be defined as a set of rules written by a source code of explicit instructions that initiate computational procedures and generate digital forms. Writing algorithmic code has become a fundamental component of a designer-ly way of knowing in models of algorithmic design. Scripting, or writing code, provides a new way of design thinking. It demands the development of cognitive and computational skills for understanding the formalisation, representation, and coding of design procedures. Scripting software programming languages allows designers to adapt, customise, and reconfigure software behaviour to adjust the dialogue script to their mode of thinking [34]. Parisi (2013) has pointed out that the ‘continual relation between the parameters and their changing mode of operation affords a series of emerging user-dependent spatial configurations’ ([25], pp. 108). With the elaboration of the presence of indeterminacy in parametric design process, there is an associated observation of emergence that leads to new design solutions within this design medium.

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Parametric design changes users’ modes of design thinking. Operations in parametric design are based on objectile, a term coined by Deleuze, which refers to the whole set of typological variations of a generic object. In fact, it refers to a group of items sharing a set of identical and inherent qualities. Since users are creating objectile, rather than mere objects, the environment acts as an experimental space for testing, trial, and error. Knippers (2013) argues that the creative style of thinking has today been replaced by experimental design. This new experimental logic is supported by topological parametric design. The outcomes of this system are generated based on algorithms, and, with each change in the variations, variables, and system rules, the outcomes are automatically, immediately revised. The outcomes are not constructed based on step-by-step logic, but the system is designed based on relational thinking and associations between variables. Therefore, parametric design systems may be interpreted as experimental spaces, in which the whole design object emerges at once, and the outcomes can be regenerated and edited based on each change in the variable associations. In this context, Parisi (2016) states: Parametric aesthetics, however, inherit the onto-mathematical diatribe between extension as a field of continual variations (determined by an underlying infinitesimal series) and extension as a sequence of spatio-temporal actualities able to connect and disconnect. This diatribe will be here discussed by emphasizing the contrast between topology and its aesthetics of smooth control, and mereotopology, offering us an aesthetic of discontinuous relations between control and events. (p. 168) Since the parametric design medium has systematically introduced randomness into the generative algorithm and into the design process, it provides a strong context for generating forms openly and creatively. In regard to chance, uncertainty, and randomness, certain questions arise: How does the randomness in parametric design generate possibilities? Does the chance generated through this medium have a totally different characteristic, if it is compared with other instances, or not? Does the chance generated in parametric design have a different logic, compared to digital design or sketching or drawing? As a hypothesis, from the mentioned mediums of generating architectural forms, it appears that parametric design has used chance rationally and intentionally as a factor in its software logic. The type of chance active in parametric design systems is controlled chance. By saying this, we do not intend to undermine the presence of other types of chance or to say that other types of chance are less likely to act. However, we do aim to highlight the type of rational and systematic chance that exists in the parametric medium. The more we move towards parametric design, the more rationally we can apply randomness and controlled chance. Architects, who work with chance and the mediator of randomness in parametric design, understand that it is a controlled form of chance. Even though randomness in parametric design software might lead to entirely unexpected outcomes, since this factor is an inherent aspect of the system’s logic, it exists within a controlled system. The outcome of chance in this model emerges from a logical system and it is not impulsive. Responding to chance in parametric design, Parisi [25] delineates the controlled qualities that are available for the parametric design medium and explains how chance

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comes with widespread possibilities and open-endedness. There is a wide range of options available for the design to evolve, allowing indeterminacy to act strongly in decision-making: ‘Here there is no core, no end point and no individual response: only the continuous fluctuation of a total form enveloping all parts’ ([25], p. 88). Parametric design particularly highlights the influence of chance through its multiple operations. Designers tend to allow tools to apply open-ended commands and, thus, end up with unplanned results. Changes, in this case, are not always anticipated, and, for some participants, this is part of the creative contribution of chance. Parametric software, as an experimental or speculative space, because it is modified through scripting and programming rules, offers a range of speculations that are not conceivable using conventional modelling software that is intended to perform specific and limited functions.

4 Conclusion Going beyond the conventional and didactic systems of exploring architecture, this chapter introduced the specific context of inquiry in order to understand the roots of chance’s association with design practices. Uncertainty and ambiguity as related encounters of design are key concepts that contextualise the core of the present argument. The discussion then highlighted the role of chance as an instrumental and generative tool in architectural mediums. This study underlined the importance of chance and indeterminacy in developing design concepts and highlighted the intertwined relationship between chance, creativity, and the impact on conceptual design of medium specificity (a medium’s constraints and possibilities). In using each medium, chance appears to various extents—impulsive, controlled, planned, systematic, or silently. It is apparent that mediums, due to their specificity, open different gaps and creative spaces for chance to manoeuvre. Chance could also be seen as totally unexpected, or it could appear in steps in sketching. Digital design (specifically used in the conceptual-design phase) could be considered as an environment promoting irrational development of objects/models. Thus, it can be concluded that it promotes impulsive and irrational chance. However, comparing digital design to parametric design scripting, in parametric design users engage with chance more systematically and holistically because of the system’s logic, as well as the interface and the programming of the medium. Since parametric design has systematically introduced randomness to the generative algorithm and to the design process, it provides a strong context for openly and creatively generating forms, and chance becomes increasingly more systematic in algorithmic-based software solutions. Thus, a wide range of possibilities could become feasible and be actualised only through developing associations between variables. Parametric design clearly shows the influence of chance through its multiple operations. Designers tend to allow tools to apply open-ended commands and thus end up with unplanned results. Changes in this case are not always anticipated, and, for some participants, this is part of the creative contribution of chance.

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Parametric software, as an experimental or speculative space because it is modified through scripting and programming rules, offers a range of speculations that are not conceivable using the conventional modelling software intended to do specific and limited functions. Computational design, especially those mediums with more flexible interfaces, work as creative tools for users at the conceptual stages (e.g. Rhino, SketchUp). Users find such software more adaptable and flexible for incorporating indeterminacy and serving as tools for playful actions and unanticipated results. However, the users referred to other software such as AutoCAD and ArchiCAD as rigid platforms to use in conceptual design stages, but still practical and rational for further stages of the design process, such as design development or technical development. Chance that exists and appears within a computational environment is a virtuality, not necessarily a human product, emerging from the depth of a machine, which formulates new and unexpected meanings and idioms. This unpredictability should be taken as signaling the extent of an unknowable digital potential. The appearance of chance depends on the specificity of the medium and is affected by its setting, rules and materiality, constraints, and affordance of the medium. And similar to the way an artistic concept takes different forms and shapes based on the medium the artist applies, chance is a by-product of the medium. According to the specificity of design mediums, it accommodates various shapes covering a wide spectrum: impulsive, irrational, unexpected, or systematic and holistic.

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“A Car with a View”: Considerations on the Landscape Seen and Represented through the Windshield Fabio Colonnese and Paolo Rosa

Abstract The twentieth century development of architecture and the contemporary definition of landscape are inextricably bound with the rise of the automobile. Baptized by Le Corbusier as a symbol of a rational and industrial culture, the perspective “view from the car” gradually embodied the freedom and anarchic wandering of the American on-the-road culture. Although allowing for a new way of considering the landscape, cars were designed to give as little feeling of the road as possible, eventually readdressing the driver’s perception of space and turning the windshield into a screen. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’s analysis of Las Vegas presents a retroactive, theoretical gaze on the effects on the suburban city promoted by the automobile development which is largely resulting from driving along the Strip and looking at the buildings and signs through the windshields. As signs replace architectural aesthetic devices in the city, they also translate the corporeal perception of the road into visual codes in the car’s cockpit. While the Venturis were trying to readdress the theoretical debate on the city towards reality, their moving “observatory” was getting them farer from reality, imposing on them as a new kind of medium. Keywords Automobile · Car-architecture · Las Vegas · Robert Venturi · Visual perception · Mobility · Perspective · Denise Scott-Brown

1 Introduction This chapter is dedicated to automobile, to its conflictual, fluctuating relationship with architecture and urban space and to its agency as a medium able to turn the territory into landscape, in particular through the progressive isolation and anesthetization of the driver’s body and the reformulation of the cockpit in a fictitious, figurative interface. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour’s Learning from F. Colonnese (B) · P. Rosa Sapienza University, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] P. Rosa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_13

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Fig. 1 Dardel, The City of Le Corbusier, 1992

Las Vegas (1972), a book dedicated to a car-oriented city and largely performed by exploring it by car, offers several elements of interest to frame and discuss the pervasive, mutual interaction between the automobile and the urban landscape. In the twentieth century, the development of architecture and city is inextricably bound with the rise of the automobile. Both Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier were fascinated by means of transportation and designed experimental cars, car-oriented buildings and urban plans while the engineers’ drive-in architecture reshaped consolidated urban typologies. Since the 1920s, the construction of parkways and freeways had been changing the century-old relationship between the road and the city. Whilst supporting the development of suburbs and car-oriented districts, the emancipation of the road from architecture promoted an original, dynamic and comprehensive idea of landscape based on the visual experience from the car. The perspective “view from the car”, though baptized by Le Corbusier’s views of the Cartesian city as a symbol of a rational and industrial culture, became a symbol of freedom and anarchic wandering in the American on-the-road culture (Fig. 1). In the 1960s, after the decades-long Townscape campaign promoted by Nikolaus Pevsner and Gordon Cullen on the pages of The Architectural Review to actualize the English Picturesque tradition into the idea of Visual Planning [1], Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities [2] revealed the peculiar, fragile condition of American towns. In the same years, several architects and researchers got interested in the road as a main topic of both town planning and landscape. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University’s collaboration produced the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, whose Joint Center for Urban Studies published Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City [3]; Donald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch and John R. Myer’s The View from the Road [4]; Serge Chermayeff and Christopher Alexander’s Community and privacy: Toward a new architecture of humanism [5]; and Stanford Anderson’s On Streets [6]. Other critical contributes on the topic came from Dame Sylvia Crowe’s The Landscape of Roads [7], Reyner Banham [8, 9] and his studies on the America-born drive-in typologies and the case of Los Angeles, and Bernard Rudofsky’s Streets for People [10]. In particular, after The View from the Road achieved a large success, Robert Stern edited the issue 9–10 of Perspecta, The Yale Architectural Journal with polemical

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pieces on contemporary city, in which Robert Venturi published an excerpt from his forthcoming book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture [11]. In that piece, he criticizes Blake’s [12] position against the vernacular Main Street and preannounces the polemical study of Las Vegas by quoting the famous duck-shaped building [13]. In Complexity and Contradiction, Robert Venturi deals with the effects of increasingly complex functional and symbolic programs on the architectural form and the contradictions surfacing when men and women walk around and within buildings conceived as philosophical systems, in both the Renaissance and the Modern, and they see them from their concrete point of view. Hence the apology of a series of optical devices and spatial solutions that privilege the presence of men and women and their movement with respect to abstract geometric and proportional systems. Hence also the exaltation of spatial categories—the hybrid, the twisted, the ambiguous, the corrupt, the inclusive, the inconsistent—which, on the one hand, give back people the task of reconstructing their own idea of reality and, on the other, suggest the sense of metamorphosis and interaction that shapes the landscape. Eventually, Venturi returns on the diatribe between Bildung and Gestaltung set by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in his studies on morphology [14]. He had confronted the idea of a form that is expressed in the continuous transformations of its appearance produced by its own development and the adaptation to the context, with the idea of a form that manifests itself pure, incorruptible and alien to the actual human nature, like certain crystalline buildings that metaphorically aspire to mathematical truth. When, years later, he inquires the American city, the focus shifts to the complexity of a territory in which landscape, infrastructure and architecture conflict and to the contradictions brought by the men and women who move in the car and perceive the landscape in a mediated way: a way that is distracted and distorted by speed, which unexpectedly accentuates the symbolic value of the landscape. In 1972, when Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour publish Learning from Las Vegas, they describe the Sin City as a spontaneous product of the urban sprawl. Their definition of Las Vegas as “a new landscape of big spaces, high speeds, and complex programs [in which] styles and signs make connections between many elements, far apart and seen fast” ([15], 8–9) is pointing out the automobile as the main cause of its dilated spaces, impassive buildings and gorgeous signs. This chapter conjectures that the car, which is also the medium the Venturis adopted to explore, picture and analyze the city, works as a post-modern device for framing and selecting visual information disconnected from the urban form, preventing from a full corporeal, kinesthetic perception of space [16, 17]. While the windshield is looking more and more like a screen [18, 19], the cockpit space, in which electric and electronic signals are designed to translate the sensorial experience of space into a visual code, seems to reflect the development of Las Vegas itself, a sort of prototype of the media-city. On the one hand, the automobile literally oriented the development of Las Vegas and, retrospectively, can explain and justify its form and organization; on the other hand, while the Venturis were trying to readdress the theoretical debate on the city towards pragmatism and reality, their anesthetizing four-wheels observatory was getting them farer and farer from it.

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This chapter pursues this thesis assuming Learning from Las Vegas as a source to understand the role of the car in the formation and exploration of the automobileoriented city. In particular, the second part of this chapter explores the effects of the automobile diffusion upon the architects, architecture and city in the first half of twentieth century: in particular, its agency in re-shaping architectural typologies, dilating streets, neglecting space for walking and supporting a cinematic idea of landscape. The third part focuses on the development of the car as a medium to landscape. Through the coeval observations of the anthropologist Edward T. Hall [20] about the American automobile, its impact on the urban landscape and the driver’s perception of space are discussed in relationship with the technological development of the car interior. A particular attention is given to the experience of drivers, whose immobilized body activates the virtual gaze that interprets the visual perception of the moving landscape through the experience of media like cinema. The fourth part resumes Venturi and Scott Brown’s experience and analyses of Las Vegas, pointing out the effect of perception in motion on the building typologies and the landscape of signs. The fifth part provides some considerations by associating the experience and development of urban landscape with those of the car and its internal space. The sixth part presents the conclusion.

2 Car, Architecture, City, Landscape Conventionally, the automobile was born in 1769, with Joseph Nicolas Cugnot’s fardier à vapeur, a massive, Leonardesque machine with a giant boiler fixed in the front but only in 1886, when Karl Benz patented his famous tricycle, the first actual car was constructed and equipped with an internal-combustion, four-stroke engine. From that moment onward, the growing number of cars has been changing the human space year after year, affecting the architecture on several levels. Automobile required a necessary revision of building types and the invention of innovative types; inspired a formal relationship between car bodywork and architectural envelope; suggested the sharing of methodologies and processes between the mechanical and building industry; mediated the perception in movement and the experience of speed, as well as all their effects in the media. The twentieth century began in the myth of the automobile. In the 1914 Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, Antonio Sant’Elia presented his idea for a New City in which automobile, transport, and movement were to have a decisive role. His perspective views show tall buildings crossed by roads and suspended bridges ready to accommodate an intense stream of vehicles. The FIAT Lingotto in Turin, a building designed a year later by the engineer Giacomo Matté Trucco, seems to translate some of his ideas into constructed forms. The multi-storey building, designed as a factory for the construction of cars, is characterized by a load-bearing structure in reinforced concrete, two helicoidal driveway ramps at the ends of the long building and a spectacular test track for cars on the roof, with parabolic-section elevated curves to compensate the centrifugal force developed by the cars. In the Lingotto, the object

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“car”, with its dynamic function of locomotion and its motion ascending to the roof, which is first helicoidal and then elliptical, shows a way the car can have formal, functional, and conceptual influences on architecture. The Lingotto fascinated Le Corbusier and, in 1930, he offered the French colonial authorities of Algeria a plan for the city of Algiers which included a series of buildings (or rather a single kilometers-extended branched building) with a roadway located on the roof. Although this project remained unbuilt, Le Corbusier succeeded in applying this idea in the construction of the Unité d’Habitation, where he confirmed the basic concept of a practicable coverage equipped with various services. In particular, he reduced the size and replaced the car track with an athletic one, the running man representing the car of the Lingotto. Such an association between man and car is revealed also in Pierre Chenal’s short film Architecture d’Aujourd’hui [21], in which Le Corbusier can be seen arriving at Villa Stein by car, getting quickly out of it, ascending stairs and exploring rooms almost mimicking the rhythm and energy of the car itself. The penetration of the automobile into modern architectural culture is also evidenced by the diffusion of the image of cars in architects’ drawings and the adoption of the driver’s point of view in the presentation perspective view, like. Le Corbusier is among the firsts to give centrality to the streets in the images of his urban projects, like those illustrating the Ville Radieuse in 1924, but presentation drawings framed by the windshield can be found throughout the century, such as: Marcel Breuer’s house at Welfleet in 1949 (Fig. 2); Cedric Price’s Perspective of Mobile Teaching Machines for the Potteries Thinkbelt Project in 1966; OMA’s sketches for

Fig. 2 Marcel Breuer, House at Welfleet, MA, through the car windshield, 1949. Rendering by DC Byrd. Courtesy of Syracuse University, NY

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the Torenstraat project in 1985 and the collage perspective of Fifty-third street façade of MoMA Expansion in 1997. Le Corbusier’s consideration of automobile is quite controversial. On the one hand, he is critical towards the means of transportation that distort the visual perception and calls “inhumaines” and “infernales” the sights offered from trains, automobiles and even bicycles ([22], 8; [23], 2184). On the other hand, he is fond of cars. He is known to have traced the curved wall of the ground floor of Villa Savoye according to the curve of the owners’ car. In 1936, he designed a small car with a wedge line and a tail consisting of a single descending curve, a sort of very modern minivan as a conception, with some similarities with the later Citroën 2CV. Adolf Loos had designed a car in 1923, too: when observed from above, this apparently traditional automobile reveals a wedge shape designed to give more space to passengers, and a curious volume assembled behind the machine, in a raised position, to accommodate additional passengers. Frank Lloyd Wright, a fervent car collector [24] and designer of a three-wheeled car, took a different approach from Le Corbusier about the relationship between car and city. In his famous Broadacre City project, lowrise residential buildings and tall, isolated towers were designed to be perceived by moving cars on highways (or by futuristic flying vehicles sketched in the perspective views) like tall masts or bright stripes in the countryside.

2.1 Drive-in Architecture The process of contamination between automobile and architecture promoted the ideation of innovative types. First of all, the multi-story garage, with a number of phantasmagoric projects, like Konstantin Melnikov’s designs for Paris [25]; second, innovative car-oriented buildings, such as Wright’s Gordon Strong Automobile Objective in 1925 (Fig. 3), which was to inspire the form of the Guggenheim Museum in New York [26]; third, the drive-in buildings, involving cinemas, banks, churches, supermarkets, etc. [27–29]. Enthusiastically illustrated in magazines, they represent an authentic expression of American culture, according to which the car is considered as an emanation of the space of the house, which is constitutionally sacred and inviolable (Fig. 4). Parallel to garages and drive-in architecture, this process required the adaptation of traditional residential, productive and recreational building types to the presence of the car. While American engineers had no problem in formulating new districts for automobiles, the academic-oriented architects rejected the spatial opportunities offered by this process. On the occasion of the 12th International Conference on Housing and Development Plans in Rome, Marcello Piacentini ([30], 3) mocked some of the bizarre architectural inventions that were experimented in America and in Northern Europe, labeling them with nicknames like the “skyscraper with the toboggan” or “the house without stairs and without elevators” (Fig. 5). To understand such sarcasm and resistance, it is sufficient to observe a multi-storey garage, as suggested by Thomas Hine [31]: “Get carefully out of your car and consider where you are. You may be standing on a sloping floor. The space in which you stand is

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Fig. 3 Frank Lloyd Wright, Project of Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, 1925. Rendering by F Colonnese

ambiguous and endless […]. Every element of traditional humanistic architectural space—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—is ambiguous, askew or both. The parking garage subverts all architectural expectations. […] Most architecture is solid and static. Parking garages make room for dynamism. And each of the cars is a private realm that has entered the place but is essentially unaffected by it. The classical principles of architecture seem not to apply. In our world, the renaissance man—standing firm, heroic, contemplative but ready to act—would probably get run over”. It is quite evident that in 1930s, architecture and automobile were still running on two separate rails. Think how old-fashioned the cars look like in the photographs showing them in front of some of Le Corbusier’s house, for example. While the building consists of ethereal planes, large glasses and slender pillars, the cars show the lines of the old carriages, large protruding bonnets and slender mudguards separated from the body. This merciless confrontation makes the buildings even more innovative and futuristic while the cars (even the most modern and sophisticated ones) more dated, almost as if they belonged to decades before. Today, the opposite seems to be happening as one compares the aerodynamic shape and the technology in the cars—the integration of the components, the systems with the bodywork and the car interiors—with the look and the systems of a common residential building, with their poor integration and maintenance difficulty.

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Fig. 4 New Departures of Tomorrow, Scientific American, 1956

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Fig. 5 Marcello Piacentini, Skyscraper with the toboggan and house without stairs and without elevators, Il Giornale d’Italia, 1929, September 24

This slow process of mutual formal contamination between automobile and architecture had several protagonists. In the 1930s, Richard Buckminster Fuller studied the question of transportation in relationship with architecture and attributed a common name, Dymaxion, and a common philosophy to the projects of an experimental house and automobile. Dymaxion represent a new way of conceiving the personal means of transport as a sort of airplane fuselage with three wheels, and, at the same time, the house with a circular shape to optimize spaces and internal distribution, equipping it with integrated systems of natural ventilation and temperature control, as well. After the Second World War, automobile and airplane technology began to be transferred to architecture and industrial design first by Jean Prouvé, whose famous pavilions and furniture seem to be inspired by the lightened tubular frames of racing cars; then by Konrand Wachsmann, who, in designing his gigantic hangars, took inspiration from the fascinating trellis structures of the pre-war airships; finally, by Bertrand Goldberg, who, with his transformable mobile units, proposed cars that could be expanded with mobile tubular and curtains in five stages. Inspired by the automobile industry assembly lines to optimize the building process, he designed prefabricated units (entire portable houses) to be assembled, rather than built, in various ways to obtain different types for new urban settlements to be built quickly. The research on the car aerodynamics influenced not only the adoption of the streamline style in the industrial design but also the architectural research. In 1973, Carlo Mollino designed the volume of the great hall of the Teatro Regio in Turin as if it were the aerodynamic bodywork of a car, following a formal approach similar to that adopted in the design of the Bisiluro vehicle, his famous racing car. The latest effects of this research can be appreciated in the Circuit of Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, where the second skin of the box buildings clearly refer to the engine hoods of the recent Formula 1 cars, in a sequence of sinuous undulations and splits revealing the buildings inside. Vice versa, examples of how architectural research influenced

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Fig. 6 Mario Bellini, Kar-a-sutra, 1972. Photo by F Dagostino, New York, 2016

automotive production can be found in Gio Ponti’s Linea Diamante project developed in 1953, whose rational configuration was to influence the later production of the Renault 16 and Volkswagen Passat, and in Mario Bellini’s [32] Kar-a-sutra, a car with a minivan body produced by Cassina, the Italian furniture company, for the Italy: the new domestic landscape exhibition at the MoMA, New York. Bellini’s proposal is innovative in the car configuration, which is a single large interior space on a rectangular platform: a sort of transparent room on four wheels that can be configured and furnished according to the needs of the inhabitants (Fig. 6). This type of design approach, which combines automotive design, architecture and interior decoration, reminds the genesis of the first iconic Mini Minor because the brilliant designer Alec Issigonis placed four chairs on two rows and drew the outline of the famous little car around it in order to contain the size as much as possible.

2.2 City of Cars The advent of the automobile, its hasty diffusion and the consequent technological development not only changed the way of thinking of architecture but had a decisive influence on urban planning. Parallel to the death or “slow agony” of the rue corridor as a place of experience and relationship, the road as a space of motion became a central figure in the development of the city surfaces [33]. Even before the Second World War, the American parkway is evoked by Le Corbusier ([34], 78) because it is

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unrestricted from the position of the buildings and favors a dynamic vision in movement. Sigfried Giedion ([35], 721–725) celebrated it for it is “closely connected with the space-time conception of our period” and allows to separate “the intermingling functions of traffic and vehicles and pedestrians”. The automobile affected also more traditional and classical urban models, such as the EUR district of Rome, designed as the site of the Universal Exposition of 1942. The monumental buildings, which are placed either at the end or on the sides of large avenues, are designed to be perceived at speed. The cubic volume of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana appears to be rotated as a gigantic scenic object when perceived by the axis of Via Cristoforo Colombo. Adalberto Libera’s unbuilt massive semi-elliptical triumphal arch was a signal designed to be perceived by car from both the sea, specifically the new settlement of Ostia Lido, and the city center. This type of monumental approach to planning is in the wake of the Renaissance gardens, Pope Sixtus IV’s star-shape axes or the Royal Palace of Caserta, but in 1930s, automobile allowed to extend the size of this kind of projects and to share these dynamic visions to anyone in a car. In the post-war period, the need to equip the buildings with integrated parking lots led to the development of celebrated projects, oscillating between realism and utopia. In 1952, Louis Kahn redesigned the center of Philadelphia through innovative cylindrical “car towers”, which were functional and symbolic at the same time and to reshape the skyline. Built between 1959 and 1964, Bertrand Goldberg’s two residential towers of Marina City in Chicago constitute an example of the harmonious integration between architecture and automobile. Each of the two cylindrical buildings, which have become the symbol of the downtown Loop, houses a series of parking floors in the lower section and residences on the upper floors: cars and people “live” together in this fascinating concrete skeleton consisting of horizontal disks with convex battlements and slender pillars (Fig. 7). At the same time, allowing people to get to their apartment directly by car, they certify the uselessness of entrance halls and gorgeous stairways as well as the definitive rupture between the human body and most of the Vitruvian tradition of architecture. Finally, in 1964, Ron Herron and Archigrams’ Walking City showed how the whole city could be conceived as a gigantic architecture on wheels, a sort of mobile caricature of Le Corbusier’s concept of machine-à-habiter, while Hans Hollein, with his ironical Monument to Ettore Bugatti 1st Version in form of a huge model of the car engine, can be interpreted as the conclusive mark of the Machines Age.

2.3 Landscape at Speed Since early years of twentieth century, a new idea of landscape emerged from the experience at the speed of the car. Between 1894 and 1902, Frederick Law Olmested and Charles Eliot had planned the so-called Emerald Necklace for Boston, a set of roads and green areas, already aware that “The speed of automobiles has made a great expanse of open country accessible to the automobile owner. The whole

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Fig. 7 Bertrand Goldberg, Marina City in Chicago, 1959–64. Photo by F Dagostino 2016

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country-side has become the motorists’ park” ([36], 28). This innovative type of road, which acquired the name of parkway in the United States, frees itself from its age-old relationship with the built fronts that delimit it and starts to be designed as an independent urban entity. The Bronx River Parkway, completed in 1925, demonstrates its ability to enhance existing natural reserves within or nearby cities and to optimize available natural resources, supporting the process of suburbanization of the American cities. Since the 1930s, a parkway built and managed by the National Park Service was to respond to goals that were different from those of an urban and suburban parkway. In the latter, the opening of views of the landscape represents above all a way to make the experience of traveling by car as pleasant as possible [37]; in the former, the spectacle of the visuals accompanying the tracks has also the intent to illustrate the natural beauty of the American continent by offering a biographical account of the country in which the myth of nature is celebrated. Designed either to traverse some of the most spectacular and wild areas of the country or to relate places of particular historical interest, these routes create tourist itineraries in the midst of nature and make the most remote areas accessible to mass motorization. People are suddenly allowed to reach some of the places that had been reproduced in paintings by artists like Thomas Cole as well as in the early photographs and films as they can associate those representations, which work as a figurative key to an aware discovery of the landscape, with their own experience of sites. As a consequence of this ability to turn the nature into landscape by means of a unique experience of knowledge and enjoyment of the landscape, parkways were also used to promote the strengthening of a national identity, as pursued in the 1930s with the construction of similar roads in the Netherlands, with the Commissie Weg in het Lanscap and in Germany, with the Reichsautobahnen. American and European parkways—and then motorways, highways, etc.—not only connect big towns with the intact rural areas and monumental sites but also allow the thrilling experience of the speed and freedom, inaugurating the aesthetic dimension of car travel. Mechanical speed transforms the landscape reading methods. They introduce a perception in motion that gives the driver a view of the surrounding environment in a cinematic form, attributing a narrative character by its own rhythm. A peculiar attention to the perceptive and visual aspects of the tracks constitutes the characterizing element also of the post-war experiences. While cars become a constant element of the landscape itself, as ironically witnessed by James Wines and SITE’s works such as the Ghost Parking Lot in Hamden, CT (Fig. 8) or the Highway 86 at the Vancouver Expo in 1986—a monumental procession of monochrome vehicles on an undulating ribbon of concrete—the driver’s gaze becomes the central element the road layouts are structured onto. As the speed increases, the elements in the foreground literally disappears. According to [16], this kind of “panoramic vision”, which was inaugurated by the railway, not only oriented people’s perception towards a “panoramization” of the world but also promoted a reorganization of space and territory. For example, as the driver’s attention moves to the background elements, which structure his or her field of view, the road engineers are called to trace ways involving these elements in order to offer an ever-changing, exciting

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Fig. 8 James Wines and SITE, Ghost Parking Lot in Hamden, CT, 1977. Photo by F Dagostino, 2016

vision able to fight monotony and boredom. The travel is gradually designed in sequences, like a movie. The soil is modeled and the plants arranged to favor a cinematic perception. Alternating openings and closures, foreshortenings and perspectives, is adopted to create scenic effects and views of the landscape in accordance with certain picturesque principles elaborated in the eighteenth century English gardens ([38], 213–252). At the same time, as experimented by Houben [39] and the Mecanoo, the perspective from the windshield can be assumed retrospectively as a visual figure to analyze and decipher complex and layered territories which resist to be turned into landscape (Fig. 9).

3 Car with a View Reflecting on the differences between the human locomotion and the motion of the cars, Giancarlo De Carlo ([40], 127) noted that the former is “slow, inaccurate, erratic; if one is forced to go straight from other more aggressive motions like the motorized one, he or she tends to follow sinuous trajectories; people look for the meeting and, when they find it, they can change direction and get back, they get tired but not so much proportioned to the distance, but rather in inverse relation to the number of inducements they meet”. Like almost every means of transportation, the car’s peculiar movement alters and reshapes the innate relationship between human body and space, and cinema may offer illuminating examples of the way

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Fig. 9 Mecanoo, Flevoland, 2003. Courtesy of F Houben/Mecanoo

this happens. In Nanni Moretti’s Caro Diario [41], the snaking swing of the Vespa, driven along the empty, sunny streets of Rome, still preserves something of human locomotion. Nostalgic of the picturesque age and aware of their cinematic value, Moretti purposely chose winding roads designed either before 1930s or by the 1970s, with altimetry gradients and disclosing perspectives (Fig. 10). The camera, placed on a car that follows the protagonist, suggests a progressive discovery of the urban landscape, indirectly demonstrating that when one moves slowly on a scooter, the city’s “incitement to action, to stage for movement and interaction” ([42], 67) can be still fulfilled. The spectator may even have the feeling of driving Moretti and his scooter on the screen, like in a video game, until meeting the beloved Jennifer Beals along the Aurelian walls. Different from walking and scootering, someone driving a car in the city streets generally cannot stop but at precise parking places and only after having planned it in advance, like an elevator in a building. As still noted by De Carlo ([40], 127), “The motion of cars is fast, peremptory, determined; [the driver] avoids the meeting because it would be a clash and he comes back only after reaching the pre-established destination; [the car] does not get tired or stop, except for failures of its mechanisms or obstacles that block its route; it is completely indifferent to the environment it passes through because it relates to the tape where it runs, that is the horizontal surface of the road”. What one can see and feel when walking on foot or riding a Vespa is different from what one can see and feel when driving a car o sitting on a train or airplane. In particular, the speed and position of the body in the car have a profound effect on the quantity and quality of the visual perception of both interior and exterior space. Just one hundred years ago, cars were open (Fig. 11). Drivers and passengers were constantly blown by the wind and affected by the weather’s changes. Moreover, cars’

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Fig. 10 Nanni Moretti, Caro [41]. Plan of the Roman streets filmed. 1. Via delle Fornaci; 2. Via Dandolo; 3. Sottopassi di Lungotevere Flaminio; 4. Via Bruno Buozzi (left picture); 5. Via Antonio Rubino (Garbatella); 6. Viale Mazzini; 7. Viale dei Caduti nella Guerra di Liberazione (Spinaceto); 8. Viale Alessandro Magno (Casal Palocco); 9. Via delle Mura Latine (right picture). Drawing by F Colonnese

suspensions were primitive and drivers and passengers could perceive each single hole in the ground. They had to fight against mechanical vibrations by holding on tight to keep themselves onto the seats [16, 43], like the chariot on which Thomas de Quincey ([44], XIII, 283–284) “needed no evidence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity. […] We heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling”. But such a problem was also a source of excitement: an artist like Tatlin disliked airplanes and had proposed a Leonardesque Ornitopter in order to purposely miss no bodily sensation of flying ([45], 4–7).

3.1 The Car as a Medium Today, trains and cars are closed, not to mention of airplanes, of course (but many kinds of Ornitopters fly, too). While train passenger wagons have turned into comfortable living-rooms, whose perceptual conditions have been analyzed elsewhere [46],

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Fig. 11 Comparison between car cockpits from 2000s (left) and 1920s (right). Picture by F Colonnese

car drivers and passengers are neither blown by wind nor do they suffer from the weather’s changes and the streets’ despicable surfaces, thanks to glass and suspensions. The technological evolution of glass surfaces in automobile industry has been decisive not only in producing an insulated, transparent vehicle and in dealing with the physiological feature of human vision but also in determining a specific mode of visual perception of the landscape. In the 1940s, a common car still had small flat glass both in the rear window and, often, in the windshield, too. In 1946, although Pinifarina had released the celebrated Cisitalia 202, which had been exhibited at the MoMA in New York as an evidence of the best automotive design, with an enveloping, aerodynamic bodywork, its windshield was still consisting of two flat glass plates separated by a thin metallic profile. The search for a better visibility was central in the project for a two 6-foot wheels car Wright had designed in the late 1950s: “Visibility should be wonderful, for from a point of view over the driver’s head down to his knees the entire front of the passenger department is to be of some transparent material. Even the doors are transparent right down to the running boards” [47]. However, only in the 1960s, car manufacturers began to use large-size windows that are curved in accordance to the aerodynamic bodywork and enhance transparency and visibility. Transparency, already a symbol of modernity and efficiency, was transforming the car from a means of transportation built around the human body like a sort of exoskeleton into a bubble-like medium capable of promoting and orienting the visual perception of the landscape. This is somehow testified by Elio Petri’s La decima vittima [48], a 1965 science-fiction movie, in which a Citroen DS is turned into an ultramodern car by replacing the roof with a transparent polycarbonate shell. Added to a greater transparency of the vehicle, hydraulic, pneumatic and magnetic suspensions were developed to isolate that vehicles’ cockpit from vibrations coming

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from the ground beneath. While car manufacturers increasingly underlined their cars’ interior tranquility, the availability of car audio sets enabled drivers to transform their car, once a noisy contraction, into a highly personal, controlled and relaxing sonic bubble, a space for acoustic cocooning, even creating target sounds for specific consumer groups [49]. Today, drivers can choose a precise, customized sound, climate and even fragrance for the interior of their car. Somehow, “every car journey may be thought of as a unique and non-reproducible event in the lives of the drivers and passengers concerned on account of the variable psychological and situational factors involved” ([50], 585), only secondarily depending upon the external space. In the second half of 1960s, when the Venturis were driving along the streets of Las Vegas, the anthropologist Edward T. Hall was already aware of how the features of the American car were affecting drivers and passengers’ perception of both the car interior and the space they were driving through. “Consider Detroit’s broad-base behemoths that clog our roads”, wrote Hall ([20], 60–61). “Their great size, davenport seats, soft springs, and insulation make each ride an act of sensory deprivation. American automobiles are designed to give as little feeling of the road as possible”. He found this is particularly evident when a huge American car is compared with a small European one. While the former is designed to make long travels as comfortable as possible, the latter is conceived for the narrow streets of villages and offers “the sense of being in contact with the vehicle as well as with the road” and a “joy of riding” that is similar to “the interplay of visual, kinesthetic, and tactile experiences” ([20], 60–61) of sailing. Like the Vespa for Italian people, “The French automobile is designed in response to French needs. Its small size […] is just as much an expression of the culture as is the language” ([20], 144). Hall ([20], 144) states that “The American behemoths give bulk to the ego and prevent overlapping of personal spheres inside the car so that each passenger is only marginally involved with the others”. Moreover, in the cars, “the kinesthetic sense of space is absent. Kinesthetic space and visual space are insulated from each other and are no longer mutually reinforcing. Soft springs, soft cushions, soft tires, power steering, and monotonously smooth pavements create an unreal experience of the earth. One manufacturer has even gone so far as to advertise his product by showing a car full of happy people floating on a cloud above the road! Automobiles insulate man not only from the environment but from human contact as well. They permit only the most limited types of interaction, usually competitive, aggressive, and destructive” ([20], 177). The excesses of the driver’s condition have been enquired by literature and cinema. While the clash between the cars is perversely pursued by the protagonists of James Graham Ballard’s Crash [51], as a sort of desperate, uncanny search for humanity in the metropolis, Dom De Lillo’s Cosmopolis [52] describes the neurosis of a young, rich man who isolates himself in a gorgeous limousine moving in the streets of a chaotic metropolis in which riots are getting more and more frequent. At a sociological level, Jean Baudrillard ([53], 58) explored the extreme consequences of car-oriented space in Los Angeles, a city in which the car represents the only recognized, social identity: “if you get out of your car […], you immediately become a

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delinquent: as soon as you start walking, you are a threat to public order, like a dog wandering in the road”.

3.2 Representations and Signs The more the means of transportation isolates, immobilizes and neutralizes the body, the more the dissociation between the cockpit space and the external space increases. According to Hall ([20], 176), “The automobile not only seals its occupants in a metal and glass cocoon, cutting them off from the outside world, but it has a way of actually decreasing the sense of movement through space. Loss of the sense of movement comes not only from insulation from road surfaces and noise but is visual as well. The driver on the freeway moves in a stream of traffic while visual detail at close distances is blurred by speed”. Thanks also to the increasing size of glass surfaces, the relationship between the cockpit and the external space is no longer tactile, physical but it is almost exclusively visual and is based on two main elements: the windshields (with the rear-view mirror) and the set of light and acoustic devices. In the everyday experience, the windshield of a car, originally conceived to protect the driver and passengers from the wind and to maintain a controlled microclimate, works as a perceptual and figurative filter between them and the landscape. Here, the two domains of mediality and mobility crossover. The windshields, by ordering the landscape in trapezoidal pictures framed by the beams, produce intermedia relationships and metaphorical interpretations involving perspective, fiction and time. Since the fourteenth century, the perspective contributed to an aesthetic and cognitive model which was strictly based on the instantaneous vision. Referring to the experience of “an open window through which the subject to be painted is seen”, ([54], 55) Leon Battista Alberti had defined Velo (veil) the transparent picture plane onto which the visual pyramid’s edges identify the points that constitute the twodimensional picture of any three-dimensional item behind it. A few decades later, ([55], 87) suggested explicitly to use a flat glass to experiment the graphical procedure to produce a projective image, as Massimiliano Fuksas mimicked years ago in a car commercial in which he can be seen drafting both on a window and on the front windshield (after stopping the car, of course). From that age onward, the metaphor of the window and its association with glass had been marking the process of perception, knowledge and representation of the world: “we know the world by what we see” ([19], 1). In the car, while the body is condemned to immobility, larger and larger glasses translate the three-dimensional, physical world into two-dimensional, immaterial images flowing all around the driver. As Schwarzer ([56], 71) pointed out, “Speed turns the city seen through the windshields into a surface of motion, a stream of form that somehow eludes the consciousness of form” and mentally dissociate the driver from his or her actual nomadic condition. At the same time, the framed windshields, which support the visual separation between the monadic cockpit and the world outside, work as screens that activate the

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“virtual gaze” of the spectator, which, according to Friedberg “is not a direct perception but a received perception mediated through representation” ([18]: 2; emphasis in text). The “virtual gaze” turns the subject into a spectator of the mobile landscape mediating visual experiences from Robert Barker’s Panorama to cinema and current tablets. Freidberg states that, through the combination of mobility with virtuality, the immobility of the spectator, either in the chair of the cinema or in the seat of a car, has become the needed condition to the movement of viewing, virtually through media or literally through means of transportation. While the immobilized body evokes virtually the physical experience of a visual medium like cinema or television, the sight gives a narrative form to it by combining media experiences from the individual consciousness with the actual vision of landscape into a common frame, which, as already intuited by George Simmel (2004), provides a unity of place and time to the scene. Think of how the urban backdrops projected behind the protagonists conversing while driving in so many movies sharpen the sense of fiction of the image on the windshield, indeed. As cinema often tried to reproduce the experience of immersive panorama and rollercoaster-like phantom rides—“films shot from a moving train, subway, boat, car or even air balloon, where in most cases visual references to the mode of transportation are avoided as to ensure that the spectator is transported through the screen as a ghost” ([17], 13)—the presence of the frame around the car window works as a reference recalling the presence of the subject looking in time and space. For example, in Lisbon Story [57], Wim Wenders manifests the importance of this filter by framing the whole opening sequence within the windshield and the single-brush wiper of the protagonist’s Citroën CX: it really looks like a screen of a drive-in on which the images of curving viaducts, service stations and motorway barriers flow in a frantic soundscape of rain falling and European voices and songs. On the contrary, in Duel [58] Steven Spielberg filmed most of the deadly duel between the protagonist and the goliath truck through the windshield of the car, but only the rear-view mirror, the key element that alternately shows the anguished gaze of the protagonist and the nose of the truck getting closer, is framed to remind the presence of the glass (Fig. 12). A time-based interpretation of the cockpit itself is another effect of this innate, compensatory strategy of the body against the sensory deprivation. From a metaphorical point of view, the car windows organize the space in three different times: the front windshield “represents” the future, the way to go; the side front windows “represent” the present, being also the openings through which the body can directly interact with external space; the upper and side rear-view windows “represent” the past—not to talk of the recent screen placed in the center, which may represent a sort of timeless space (Fig. 13). In addition to these virtual and metaphorical effects affecting the optical perception, the car is providing the driver with an increasing number of light and sound devices whose task is to inform him or her about the speed, the fuel level, the engine temperature, and so on. Over the decades, drivers de-learnt to listening to engine sounds and vibrations and took the habit to rely more and more on electric and electronic devices [49]. From this point of view, as the car is perceived more and more

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Fig. 12 Steven Spielberg, [58]. Poster for the French market, unknown author

as a prosthesis of human body, the cockpit of a car offers itself as a sort of layered interface to reality. In discussing the differences between the calque and the interface, ([59], 3) Umberto Eco highlighted how the former is the “most biologically and physiologically elementary form of the interface” as its iconic affordance and consistency prevents from any kind of mediation. Unlike either a prosthesis or a tool,

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Fig. 13 Temporal connotation of cockpit space. Drawing by F Colonnese

a machine works autonomously and generally requires an interface to mediate the human body with its functions. A car is a complex machine, of course: it has “parts that are of the machine (the engine); parts that are tools (the brake and accelerator pedals, the shift lever); parts that are perfecting prostheses of nature, such as the seats; parts that are magnifying prostheses, such as the windshield wipers or the horn; parts that are extensive prostheses, such as rear-view mirrors” ([59], 3). But with the spread of electronic devices taking place of tools and prosthesis, and interfaces taking place of calques, the car is losing the very last traces of the mechanized velocipede it developed from and is turning into a pure machine.

4 Las Vegas by Car In the 1960s, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown addressed their interest to the needs of contemporary men and women in the American city, trying to replace the monumental realism of Louis Kahn’s structures with the vernacular realism of symbols. Possibly inspired by Kaufmann’s ([60], 130) study on Claude Nicolas Ledoux and his idea of architecture parlante, they were convinced that an architectural work has to express a clear message and the quickest and cheapest way to do it is to cover it with murals or billboards: a symbolic decoration clearly interpretable even by those who saw it by driving a car. Las Vegas was the place for them (Fig. 14). Learning from Las Vegas, the forgotten symbolism of architectural form contains the results of years-long researches by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, together with a group of young students from Yale University. The

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Fig. 14 Nighttime view of the Strip of Las Vegas from a walkway. Photo by F Dagostino, 2016

book, largely discussed and criticized, presents a retroactive, theoretical gaze on Las Vegas as a suburban city shaped by the automobile development. It includes “classic visual and sequential landscape analyses in the style of Lynch, and to a degree Cullen, showing a clear lineage to the earlier publications, whilst pushing forward to show how the vehicular experience privileged communication over space to the experience of space in itself” ([13], 800). The Venturis adopt a sort of Surrealist approach—the city as a cadavre exquis—by considering Las Vegas as a city planned and built by people. In this way, the city in its actual existence is supposed and assumed as a fact while the architect is only a reader and interpreter of a cultural and urban aggregate. This approach produced at least two operative, critical contributes to the architectural discussion. A first contribute is concerning with the role of architects and their culture, which was generally oriented towards the European Modernist models promoted by Eastcoast academics and intellectuals. Defiantly, Robert Venturi focused on the conventional elements of the American city, whose cultural relativity and uniqueness he was aware thanks to his stay at the American Academy of Rome between 1954 and 1956. He assumed Las Vegas independently of its architects, a city—apparently—without architecture. As already noted by Tom Wolf [61], the casinos, the stands, the signs are the new monuments, its architectures, and in Las Vegas, as elsewhere, most of the things that are built are not built by architects. Against the suburban utopia of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, in which each single building and space is supposed to be designed and approved by the architect, the Venturis opposed the dystopia of the vernacular automobile strips of Las Vegas, a spontaneous expression of the pragmatic middle class oriented to the popular aesthetic values of the commercial society it belongs to. They were pursuing the ideas of Herbert Gans, according to which mass popular culture does not only reflect the impositions of the

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economic-political system but represents the tastes of a social class. According to him, that popular culture is not simply imposed on the audience from above but it is also “shaped by the audience, at least in part, albeit indirectly” ([62], XIII). Thus, if high architecture wanted to be relevant to the mass society, it had to orient itself to the imagery of the latter, although quite paradoxically the first edition of the book itself, for its luxurious photographic format and high cost, was explicitly reserved for the East Coast elite, which could afford the book ([63], 265). A second contribute is related to the car-oriented transformations of both urban devices and traditional typologies as well as the diffusion of drive-in buildings. Together with Los Angeles, Las Vegas was the place in which the drive-in architecture developed more intensively, producing, according to Banham [7], “true American conquests” such as Bowling alleys, Shopping Centers, Drive-ins, Motels but also drive-in restaurants, churches and graveyards. Accordingly, larger and larger streets and parking lots feature the urban landscape of Las Vegas and Venturi’s idea of using the poché technique, which was conceived by Giovan Battista Nolli’s Pianta di Roma in 1748 to represent the city plan, somehow demonstrates and certifies the automobile-city as a radical mutation of the traditional European city. While the major casinos of Las Vegas feature eclectic styles, other buildings are silent, autistic behind their impassive mask, their semantic function entrusted to external signs. Although sometimes the building is the sign, like the mentioned “duck”, most of them simply communicate through street signs. As stated by the Venturi ([15], 13), through “their sculptural forms or pictorial silhouettes, their particular positions in space, their inflected shapes, and their graphic meanings […], they make verbal and symbolic connections through space, communicating a complexity of meanings through hundreds of associations in few seconds from far away. Symbol dominates space. Architecture is not enough. Because the spatial relationships are made by symbols more than by forms, architecture in this landscape becomes symbol in space rather than form in space. Architecture defines very little: the big sign and the little building is the rule of Route 66”. The Venturis are known to have attributed the greatest importance to this aspect and adopted the celebrated image-manifesto showing a building with no apparent formal quality and a huge sign saying I am a monument. This separation between the body of architecture, reduced to a simple, functional container, and the message, entrusted to external, ephemeral communication tool, properly created The City of Blinding Lights: an immense anamorphic scenery with its ephemeral forms constantly oriented towards the visitor, who moves strictly by car along the streets.

5 Considerations Most of the Venturis’ considerations on Las Vegas and its architecture result from driving in the streets and looking at the signs and buildings through the car windows, as testified by their own pictures. The car is the moving station from which they have gathered most of the impressions and visual data as well as the laboratory in

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which data have been discussed, analyzed and converted in information and sketches. Somehow, the car is the medium of their experience and conclusions. Were they aware how this medium was to condition their research and results? Were they aware that the car promoted a peculiar perception of the city, disenabling the corporeal perception? Surely, they were aware of the contradictory effects of car driving onto space as well as the fundamental role of street signs in orienting the driver: “A driver 30 years ago could maintain a sense of orientation in space. At the simple crossroad a little sign with an arrow confirmed what was obvious. One knew where one was. When the crossroads becomes a cloverleaf, one must tum right to tum left […]. But the driver has no time to ponder paradoxical subtleties within a dangerous, sinuous maze. He or she relies on signs for guidance-enormous signs in vast spaces at high speeds” ([15], 9). The Venturi already knew that the contemporary city is a maze in which only a quick, correct interpretation of signs may help the driver move in it and in which “complex programs and settings require complex combinations of media beyond the purer architectural triad of structure, form, and light at the service of space. They suggest an architecture of bold communication rather than one of subtle expression” ([15], 9). One could say that complexity and contradictions are somehow connatural in the experience of car-oriented landscape and the presence of signs constitute a visual evidence of this condition. At the same time, automobile orients and shapes the gaze of the driver. In the description of Las Vegas, they focused on three kinds of buildings: the style buildings or “decorated sheds”; anonymous buildings with huge signs nearby; and the “billboard-buildings”, such as the duck store in the shape of a duck. These three categories can be considered as different responses to the reception in a state of distraction due to increasing speed of cars: “decorated sheds” for slow perception; huge signs for a medium-speed perception; and “ducks” for a faster perception (Fig. 15). As Benjamin ([64], 239) had pointed out in the 1940s,

Fig. 15 Las Vegas typologies as a response to speed of cars. Picture by F Colonnese

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“Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art, the reception of which is consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction”. According to the German philosopher, buildings are generally appropriated in a two-fold manner: use, which implies touch, and perception, which he had associated with sight. Use configures the habits that largely shape optical perception, which occurs less by rapt attention than by “noticing the object in incidental fashion”. The car, working as a medium that isolates the driver from the space and frames the buildings in quick shots, promotes the optical perception. Moreover, thanks to the distance it generates between the driver and the perceived objects, it can “sanctify” them and attribute an aura even to the ephemeral signs and casinos, which actually become the monuments of Las Vegas. Accordingly, “If you take the signs away, there is no place” [15]. As the presence of huge, flashy signs can provide the visitor with the information that architecture is no longer able or interested in giving, most of the buildings often say little or nothing to a direct perception from the street. Architecture is reduced to an indifferent container, to an autistic structure intended to accommodate certain functions while its semantic function is entrusted to signs. A first consequence of this phenomenon is that a building fulfills the Functionalist mission and can represent only itself, forcibly breaking away from the intertextual chain that links every building to others of the past [65]. Only the signs, like labels below the paintings hanging in a gallery, can frame, identify and communicate its functions. In this, it is opposite than the style buildings, whose eclectic decorations work as an iconographical, ephemeral structure designed to refer to historical models and convey their features of magnificence, power, etc. A second consequence is that urban space is no more attractive (or is no more at all). In Las Vegas, Venturi could experiment Hall’s ([20], 62–63) provocative feeling that “the automobile is at war with the city and possibly with mankind itself” as the idea of walking in the streets gets less and less attractive and the traditional market street with shop windows is replaced by malls in large avenues crowded by signs. While one can still walk along the sequence of shops, marriage chapels and casinos on Main Street (Fremont Street), the Strip does not allow this as “everything takes place in cars and highways. In the Strip, one drives from one casino to the next even when they are next to each other, due in part to the distance between them, but also because there is often a gas station in the middle” ([66], 18). Hall ([20], 175) would say that “Not only do people no longer wish to walk, but it is not possible for those who do wish to, to find a place to walk”. In particular, as noted by ([67], 158), “The light and objects disseminated along the Strip, the doughnut and hot-dog stands, the huge parking lots for shopping centers, the drive-ins, the casinos and hotels, all of them are part of a car-oriented use of the city, everything must be traversed, observed and used as one’s own car, the symbol of individual freedom”. A third consequence is that architecture’s aesthetic component turns into pure, oriented communication to the driver in the car. Somehow, the car and the signs in the streets can be considered as the two components of a single, complex dispositif —or apparatus or device, according to Michel Foucault’s [68] definition—through which Las Vegas and its buildings unveil to visitors. But the question is even more tangled. The same Postmodern process of dissociation between the container/content—the

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building—and the communication—the sign—that affects architecture can be found also in the development of the form of the car and its interior space. First, the car is more and more configured as a closed and compact volume, an isolated and apparently inaccessible monolith. Second, the driver’s perception of the external space becomes more and more indirect and, from a certain point of view, coded. The increasing sensory isolation of the driver in the cockpit is accompanied by the proliferation of first electrical and then electronic devices. All of these lights and sounds are entrusted with the visualization of the control parameters of operation and guidance. In this way, little by little, driver’s gathering of data that activate the set of actions necessary to govern the car relies less and less on a direct and bodily perception of the engine sound, the air speed, the inclination of the ground, the many vibrations and squeaks, etc., while it relies more and more on the messages transmitted by the indicators of the car itself. As in Las Vegas the signs replace a traditional agency of architecture and are necessary to connote the buildings’ function, so the signs in the cockpit become necessary not only to drive the car but also to connote the space and to interpret the multitude of events the driver can feel no more. This sort of symmetry between urban and car space reveals that they are aspects of the same phenomenon of dissociation between body and space, directly proportional to the increase of driving speed and to the diffusion of oversized infrastructures. The car, getting faster and more insulated, is somehow responsible for neutralizing both the architectural and the driver’s body. On the one hand, architectural body’s semantic value is neutralized, transferring it into signs external to it; on the other hand, human body’s multisensory attitude is neutralized, entrusting the task of driving almost exclusively to the sight. While the urban signs deal with translating the city into decipherable icons and landscapes, the car signals and the vision from the windshield, mediated by pictorial and cinematic models, take care of translating the space around the car into inputs and narratives. Besides a few acoustic signs in the car, both processes translate sensorial data into visual information, organize the communication for a mostly mental approach, and turn an interrelated set of corporeal perceptions into a conventional set of icons. From a semantic point of view, the two phenomena are different but not so much. While architecture is generally considered for the peculiar symbolic agency of some of its components, like pediments, stairs, vaults, domes and so on, its experience is largely based on feelings and suggestions induced by a kinetical multisensorial perception [38] as much as the visual perception from the car is supposed to deal with sensorial stimuli. How is this loss or deprivation of sensory activity compensated? On the one hand, it is compensated by the “visuality”—a combination of the perception with the conditions by which it happens—activated by the “virtual gaze” [19]; on the other hand, the car cockpit is filled with complementary tools and gadgets, eventually celebrating its separation from space. The most evident case is music. Think of the experience of listening to songs while driving. Feelings and images are quite naturally associated with the views from the car and, even years later, listening to the same song can call back the same feelings and images. Obviously, music does not provide useful data to make decisions about driving but it can deeply affect the

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psychological and perceptive status of the driver. And besides music, flavor, climate, air conditioning and other gadgets may contribute to create an autonomous, peculiar atmosphere inside the car and to turn the journey into an event largely detached from the outside space [50]. This process of colonizing of the internal space of car is currently on the run [69]. The more the car becomes a medium that filters most of the sensorial attributes of external space, the more the space of the cockpit is available to other functions, like an incubator of complementary events. While this occurrence is monitored and promoted by automobile companies, which are frantically planning new products and solutions for the up-coming revolution of the autonomous or driverless car [70], it was already prefigured in 1950s and illustrated in a picture that show a self-driving, futuristic car covered by a glass dome in which the passengers are playing Scrabble on a central table, eventually neglecting the landscape around them (Fig. 16). Parallel to this, as in the car “the tools and even the prosthesis become more and more a machine”

Fig. 16 Driverless Car of the Future, advertisement for America’s Electric Light and Power Companies, from Saturday Evening Post, 1950s

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([59], 3), calques disappear and interfaces controlling both the driving parameters and the “gadgets” contaminate the cockpit, blurring the boundary between the main activity—driving the car—and the secondary ones—turning up the volume of the music or the heating. The next step is to replace the “superfluous” windshields with curved high-definition digital screens equipped with Augmented Reality. This is presumed to let the virtual and optical gazes coincide, and the internal space be turned into a sort of flexible living room, as prefigured by Bellini. With the entire car turned into a virtual interface to reality, the driver’s, or better, passengers’ separation from the external space shall be complete. While the travel duration will be available to new activities, the experience of travel shall be declassified to a trivial session of work or videogames in front of a screen, like when sitting in room.

6 Conclusion Since the early twentieth century, the automobile established a mutual, manifold relationship with architecture. While artists celebrated the machine and the myth of speed, architects took into account the growing number of cars in the cities, adapted traditional building types to their presence and invented new types, occasionally communicating their own projects with perspective views through the front windshield. By either designing cars or borrowing elements from automobile industry, some of them promoted the exchange of processes, technologies, materials and forms between the two fields. Slowly, architects joined the engineers who were developing drive-in buildings grounded on a post-Renaissance idea of architecture, the car as the new reference measure of the anthropic space. While engineers and architects took part in a top-down process to orchestrate the growing “complexity” of urban space, a parallel, bottom-up process, which was driven by people self-organizing their space around the car, contributed to enhance the “contradictions” between different ways of living the city, promoting a pervasive metamorphosis in both landscape and the perception of it. The car became the medium through which the landscape was perceived and defined. Thanks to the spread of parkways, roads definitively detached from the urban fronts and citizens could develop an aestheticizing gaze on territory, reach the rural and monumental sites they knew by paintings, postcards and films, and contribute to both the transformation of these places into landscapes and the formation of a shared national heritage. At the same time, the technological development of cars, in terms of speed, transparency, convenience and electrical systems, changed the perception and organization of space. On a perceptive level, the driver, whose body is immobilized and neutralized, relies more and more on signals and less and less on the body perception of the road that runs beneath him. Even the landscape he sees through wider, curve windows is depowered: the “virtual gaze”, fueled by the experience of cinema, activates a mediated and intermedial interpretation that reduces it to a flow of framed, incorporeal and distant images. On a physical level, this has

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consequences on both the way roads are traced and the shape of the city itself, of course. When retrospectively read in the light of these considerations, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas highlights the mutation of the American urban model of the main/market street to meet the automobile’s characteristics. While the types they identified—“decorated sheds”, “bill-board” buildings, and “ducks”—appear a graded response to the growing speed of cars, an analogy between the evolution of the urban landscape and the instrumentation of cars emerges. In order to guarantee a rapid and efficient interaction with the human brain, both the automobile and city make a growing use of signals that involve complex messages, otherwise unattainable. On the one hand, urban pictorial and textual signals recall urban functions, enclosed in functional but anonymous containers; on the other hand, the luminous and acoustic signs in the cockpit replace the corporeal reception. Since they deal with complex iconographic codes, in both cases the flow of information is diverted from the body to the brain through the eyes. The experience of space is increasingly indirect, codified and mental, mediated by linguistic superstructures. Somehow, the car, with its signals and screens, and the city, with its signs and sheds, constitute two parts of the same dispositive: a device of communication, of orientation of movements and actions, and of definition of the meaning of landscape itself. From this point of view, the two iconic apparatuses combine to mediate the experience and knowledge of space. Such a symmetrical development individuated in the 1970s is still running. Although with many exceptions, the car, with an increasing equipment of gadgets and the prospective of the autonomous driving, is today proceeding towards its prefigured destiny of being a bubble separate from the world: a space functionally and perceptively autonomous from the territory it passes through; a space in which different journeys are possible, thanks to the devices connected with the virtual space. The city, in the smart, sensitive prospective emerged in the last decade, is counteracting private cars, trying to offer alternative, shared modes and more walkable spaces. At the same time, city seems to be moving towards the prototype of the mediacity embodied by Las Vegas: a city made of iconic buildings, billboard buildings and screen buildings. Added to this, one must consider the opportunity of transforming neutral buildings through direct technologies, like Projection Mapping, or mediated technologies, such as the Augmented Reality on a mobile phone, the representational medium that is reshaping both our days and the landscape itself. What about the Venturis? Were they aware their car was addressing their own experience of Las Vegas and shifting the perception of urban space on a restricted visual level? We think that, lacking specific documents on this, hints on this matter can be found in a picture of the young Denise taken by Robert himself (Fig. 17), showing her standing in the desert with Las Vegas’ signs and totems in the background and no visible car, exhibiting her body as a challenge to the “landscape of signs”.

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Fig. 17 Denise Scott-Brown in a photo by Robert Venturi, Las Vegas, 1966. Courtesy of D ScottBrown

Acknowledgements This chapter is the result of the collegial work of the authors. In particular, P. Rosa edited the second part, Car, Architecture, City, Landscape, while F. Colonnese edited the rest.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

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16. Schivelbusch W (1988) Storia dei viaggi in ferrovia. Einaudi, Torino 17. Verhoeff N (2007) Panorama Behind Glass: Framing the Spatial and Visual Design of Highways. http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit5/papers/Verhoeff_PanoramaBehindGlass_M iT5.pdf 18. Friedberg A (1993) Window shopping: Cinema and the postmodern. University of California Press, Berkeley (CA) 19. Friedberg A (2006) The virtual window: from alberti to microsoft. The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) 20. Hall ET (1966) The hidden dimension. Doubleday, Garden City (N.Y.) 21. Architecture d’aujourd’hui (1930) Motion picture, architecture d’aujourd’hui, Paris 22. Le Corbusier (1930) Précisions sur un état présent de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme. G. Crès et Cie: Paris 23. Talenti S (2015) Visions “humaines” ou “infernailes”: les moyens de transport et la perception de la ville chez Le Corbusier. In: Le Corbusier. 50 Years Later. Editorial Universitat Politecnica de Valencia: Valencia, pp 2184–2204 24. Herink R (2015) The car is architecture. A visual history of frank lloyd wright’s 85 Cars. Fideli Publishing, Martinsville (IN) 25. Garrido Colmenero G (2004) Melnikov en París. Del pabellón soviético a los garajes. PhD Dissertation, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid 26. De Long DG (1996) Frank Lloyd Wright. Designs for an American landscape 1922–1932. Thames and Hudson, London 27. Jackson KT (1987) Crabgrass frontier: the suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, Oxford 28. Jakle JA, Sculle KA (2009) Motoring: the highway experience in America. University of Georgia Press, Atlanta 29. Longstreth R (1999) The Drive-In, the supermarket, and the transformation of commercial space in Los Angeles, 1914–1941. The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) 30. Piacentini M (1929) Che cosa ci ha insegnato il Congresso degli urbanisti. Il Giornale d’Italia, Sept 24:3 31. Hine T (1994) Ramps give a slant on design. The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 11; also in http://www.quondam.com/31/3122u.htm 32. Bellini M (1972) Kar-a-sutra. https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1783_3 00062432.pdf 33. Consonni G (1986) La strada urbana tra sentimento e funzione. Urbanistica 83:8–16 34. Corbusier Le (1997) Maniera di pensare l’urbanistica. Laterza, Roma-Bari 35. Giedion S (1954) Spazio, Tempo. Architettura, Hoepli, Milano, p 1984 36. Eliot CW (1922) The influence of the automobile on the design of park roads. Landscape Archit 13(1):27–37 37. Zapatka C (1988) I parkways americani. Origini ed evoluzione della strada-parco. Lotus Int 56: 98–128 38. Colonnese F (2012) Movimento percorso rappresentazione. Fenomenologia e codici dell’architettura in movimento, Kappa, Roma 39. Houben F, Calabrese LM (2003) Mobility: a room with a view. NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 40. De Carlo G (1995) Nelle città del mondo. Marsilio, Venezia 41. Diario Caro (1993) motion picture. Sacher-Banfilm, Rome-Paris 42. Yudell RJ (1975) Body movement. In: Bloomer KC, Moore CW, Body, Memory, and Architecture. Yale University Press, New Haven-London, pp 57–75 43. Larsen J (2001) Tourism mobilities and the travel glance: experiences of being on the move. Scand J Hospitality and Tourism 1(2):80–98 44. De Quincey T (1987) The collected writings of Thomas De Quincey. A & C Black, London 45. De Carlo G (1999) Letatlin’s wings. Spazio e Società 85(1999):4–7 46. Colonnese F (2017) Territorio e rappresentazione: lo “sguardo virtuale” dal treno. Eikonocity 2(1):35–51 47. Stein R (1959) Mr. Wright’s wonderful automobile. United Newspapers Magazine: pp 13–15

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48. La Decima Vittima (1965) motion picture. Compagnia Cinematografica Champion-Les Films Concordia, Italy and France 49. Bijsterveld K (2010) Acoustic Cocooning. How the Car became a Place to Unwind. Senses Soc 5(2):189–211 50. Pearce L (2017) ‘Driving-as-Event’: re-thinking the car journey. Mobilities 12(4):585–597 51. Ballard, JG (1973) Crash. Jonathan Cape, London 52. De Lillo D (2003) Cosmopolis. Picador, London 53. Baudrillard J (1988) America. Verso, London-New York 54. Alberti LB (1972) On Painting and on sculpture: the Latin Texts of ‘De pictura’ and ‘De statua’. Phaidon, London 55. Leonardo da Vinci (1947) Trattato della Pittura. Carabba, Lanciano 56. Schwarzer M (2004) Zoomscape: architecture in motion and media. Princeton Architectural Press-Chronicle Books, New York 57. Story L (1994) motion picture. Axiom Films, UK and Ireland 58. Duel (1972) Motion picture, ABC, New York 59. Eco U (2003) Osservazioni sul design del futuro prossimo. Disegno e Design Digitale 2(6):1–3 60. Kaufmann E (1955) Architecture in the Age of Reason. Baroque and Post-Baroque in England, Italy, and France. Harvard University Press, Boston 61. Wolf TW (1964) Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can’t hear you! Too noisy) Las Vegas!!!!. Esquire, February 1:97–105, 121 62. Gans HJ (1999) Popular culture and high culture: an analysis and evaluation of taste. Basic Books, New York 63. Stierli M (2013) Las Vegas in the rearview mirror: the city in theory, photography, and film. Getty Publications, Los Angeles 64. Benjamin W (1969) Illuminations. Essays and Reflections. Schocken Books: New York 65. Davies C (2011) Thinking about architecture: an introduction to architectural theory. Laurence King, London 66. Scott Brown D (1971) Learning from Pop. Casabella 359–360:15–18 67. Rossi Ugo (2017) Learning from the road. Autopia vs dystopia. Firenze Architettura 1:154–161. https://doi.org/10.13128/fiar-21070 68. Foucault M (1980) In: Gordon C (ed), Power/Knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977, New York, Harvester Press 69. Mitchell WJ, Borroni-Bird CE, Burns LD (2010) Reinventing the automobile: personal urban mobility for the 21st Century. The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) 70. Hyatt N (2017) What happens when self-driving happens. Spark, Apl 19. https://medium.com/ spark-capital/what-happens-when-self-driving-happens-f48f3b93f9ba 71. Simmel G (2004) Saggi sul paesaggio. Armando, Roma

Codes and Structures in Landscape: The Normative Superstructure and the Difficult Whole of Signs and Significance Marco De Simone

Abstract The ten topics posed by Venturi evidently overcome a purely formal evaluation and should be considered as topics of semiotic research. As such they can therefore be read in terms of structures and codes; complexity and contradiction, in a wide and open system such as the landscape, are not arbitrariness and caprice but rather the reflection of a not entirely conscious overlay of codes. Landscape is a fact of culture, therefore mutable due both to the transformation it undergoes and to the transformation it induces in the observer: a powerful subject and not an inert object. In our daily life however the term landscape always appears connected with themes such as ‘protection’ or ‘tutelage’; that means that for us the landscape is weak, and no longer able to play its active role. The natural structures of landscape, firmly based on complexity and contradiction, are commonly replaced by a set of normative prescriptions. Does this set of rules constitute a valid code? If not, what remains of the connections suggested by Venturi? Are they still applicable to a sick, fragmented and static surrogate of the Landscape? Keywords Semiotic · Code · Language · Tutelage · Traditional · Normative

1 Introduction In the introduction of the first edition of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), Vincent Scully declared that it was the most important writing on the making of architecture since Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture of 1923. The enduring influence of this book is enormous and it is more than licit to ask how to interpret it today, when the limits of architecture seem to fade. In their most common meanings, Architecture and Landscape are distinct disciplines; contiguous and similar in many respects, affected by continuous mutual overlaps, but still distinct.

M. De Simone (B) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_14

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If we want to try to extend the applicability of Venturi’s theories to the landscape, we must therefore first define a shared field for the two disciplines, and afterwards the method to be used for its analysis. Although its definition is more complex than it may seem we will take for granted that everyone agrees on what architecture is. Herein we will merely emphasize that for Robert Venturi the analysis of architecture is not intended as a formal research— i.e. about the way its elements are spatially composed together—but rather as a linguistic research in all respects. On the other hand, the most recent research on the subject has finally made available a scientifically solid definition of landscape. In this definition the pictorial conception has been clearly overcome and replaced by an idea of landscape as a constantly evolving fact of communication and culture: a stratified and complex palimpsest of signs whose value depends on the cultural meaning we attribute to it [8]. This extensive definition of landscape includes, with equal dignity, also areas to which many people are inclined not to attach any value [13]. These misunderstood landscapes, so susceptible to radical changes, constitute perhaps three quarters of our habitat; they tell about us much more than we would like but, despite this, we do not feel the need to interpret and signify them. Evidently believing that there is elsewhere a supposed real and consolidated landscape seems to be a sufficient alibi.

2 Closed Systems Versus Open Systems Venturi’s theory is explicitly conceived as a tool for reading and designing architectural systems, that is systems that aim to be closed. A system such as this can be widely influenced by the context, but its parameters are generally considered as external data rather than internal ones. In other words context data are used by the system but they do not belong directly to it. Consequently complexity and contradiction appear as elements of the project induced by elements external to it that are filtered and selected by the architect. The design process preserves an aura of mystery because its internal mechanisms are not completely exposed, and the architectural project is still perceived as a sort of creative heroic act. On the other hand the landscape is to be considered an open system by definition, whose essential characteristics are always inherited and not pre-figured by us. A proper reading of the whole set of social conditions, history and environmental parameters,1 define quite strictly both the goals to be achieved and the instruments needed to reach them [11]. 1 The multidisciplinary approach

to the landscape is a complex mix of social science and deterministic disciplines: history and geomorphology together define landscape as an ‘antropogeographic’ interpretation of the territory [21].

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Fig. 1 The complexity of the landscape as a sedimentation of ordinary elements

In this case complexity and contradiction, rather than being elements conceived in the project, are elements conveyed by the context (Fig. 1). In a landscape intervention what modifies the general level of complexity is not the complexity of the added sign, but the tension that is generated between this sign and the pre-existing ones. In other words, even if in every design activity both reading and writing skills are always necessary in the case of landscaping the former seems to be predominant, whereas in the case of architectural design the latter seems to lead the process. In recent years, however, the border between architecture and landscape and between project and context has become more and more blurred; we could say that this process started with the modern movement and that it accelerated with the developments due, at least partly, to Venturi’s theories. By using a fitting definition given by Paola Gregory contemporary architecture has acquired over time its own landscaping facet [5]. Surely it played an important role in this evolution the fact that never before had it been possible to impose to the landscape, which by its nature is slow sedimentation of signs and meanings, such rapid and pervasive transformations. Architecture has invaded the field of landscape physically, even before it did it conceptually.

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Another element to consider is the radical innovation of the construction systems that we have experimented in the last century. For centuries the same building system, based on the use of masonry and of a limited number of materials (stone, brick, wood and a few others …) has favored a continuous but linear development of the landscape. The irruption of new materials and the systematic use of framed systems has allowed the abandonment of the massive and stereometric construction and has spread out the door to open and centrifugal configurations. That led to a radical rethinking of the shell systems, and to a new relationship between interior and exterior and between the building and its surroundings.

3 Method Semiology is challenged by natural and spontaneous communications and by those facts of cultures whose primary purpose does not seem to be communication, such as at fork or a house Cultural phenomena are facts of communication where individual messages are understandable with reference to codes Umberto Eco [4].

The first edition of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was published in the same years in which Umberto Eco devoted himself to the writing of The Absent Structure [4], the work that started his semiotic research. The text of Eco, initially born as university lecture notes for the students of the Faculty of Architecture of Florence, has been elaborated between 1964 and 1968 and includes a whole section dedicated to the semiotic analysis of architecture. The coincidence of the dates is not at all accidental; the interest in the critical interpretation of signs and languages appeared between the 1960s and the 1970s as an impelling need for a society under revolution that had to renew itself urgently in its forms and contents. The aim here is not to trace the development of semiotic research, but to recognize a common origin in its manifestations. The two texts are born in the same cultural melting pot and, especially when we observe them through the social mood that produced them, they define a concordant interpretation.2 The most significant conclusion of the Absent Structure was the questioning of the existence of a Code of Codes: a General System from which to derive all the local structures that allow the reading, analysis and development of singles cultural facts. The analysis of the way we live the world, that is, of our cultural facts—and architecture and landscape are obviously among them—is not based on an absolute, but on a rich and changing relativism. 2 The

two texts were not considered as definitive by their respective authors, but rather as a starting point for further studies and revisions (as Learning from Las Vegas). La Struttura Assente, for example was already considered partly outdated by Eco in the early seventies, and he integrated its conclusions with the Trattato di semiotica generale edited in 1975.

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The language itself, to which we can attribute an Heideggerian ontological value (for Heiddeger we are language), works on the difference, on the gap between absence and presence, on elements that signify precisely because they come into conflict with each other. The existence of language itself presupposes contradiction. Venturi’s architectural theory is about the same balance of elements in tension, and it arises in a declared opposition to a vision of the modern movement that he believed to be founded on absolute principles; actually these principles were often declared in the theory and then contradicted in practice by the great masters themselves. Following Venturi’s vision the modern movement justified itself with what Umberto Eco, even considering it within the limited area of architectural phenomena, might have assimilated to a sort of absent structure. Concepts such as conventional, contradictory, ambiguous, which are pivotal concepts in Complexity and Contradiction, are concepts that pertain to the theory of language and to semiotic research. A stone wall can become living matter, subject to critical judgment only if (and precisely because) it evokes the culture underlying it. A stone wall is therefore a matter of architecture only if (and inasmuch as) its use leads to a reflection on the difference between a pre-industrial constructive culture and different phenomena which arise from processes and functional needs completely new. It is only by comparing these cultural facts and not by comparing objects that we can define what is conventional and what is not, what is ambiguous, what is contradictory, what is vernacular or picturesque. Each built element into the landscape is a bearer of culture: size, shape, color, material are real data that only a specific subject, in a specific moment and under the guide of a specific code, manages to provide with a meaning (Fig. 2). In other words the landscape is such because we make it a fact of communication in relation to codes that we revise and renew continuously. As a result we should be aware that the landscape changes even when it is not undergoing any transformation, because of the continuous changing of the observer; therefore it hosts contradictions and a potentially infinite level of complexity since infinite new codes can be created for its interpretation. So, for example, an idyllic wood was just a few years ago an hostile space; an arcadian countryside may, in recent past, have evoked effort and suffering, and many urban landscapes conceived to bring progress, only speak to us today about blight. All that we see and experience can be, and frequently has been, the opposite of what it is today. All those codes that describe, and have described, the landscape are talking about us; the language of the landscape speaks to us and we are spoken by it. In this sense, the interventions on the landscape are actually always interventions in the landscape, which is therefore a powerful active subject and not an inert object.

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Fig. 2 Disused buildings in which we read the progressive abandonment of the rural world, the suspension between a lost function and a new one that is still yet to come

4 Landscape Is the World We Revere, but Is no Longer the World in Which We Live This is, very briefly, what we can deduce from the theoretical bases of the texts of Venturi and Eco. In the way we relate ourselves to the landscape do we still recognize the legacy of these theories or has something changed in the last few decades? The number of people and parameters involved in the large-scale transformations of the territory increased enormously and it appeared obvious that these processes could not be carried out without some specific guidelines. The European Landscape Convention [13] tried to fix these guidelines, and its preamble proposes one of the most plain, effective and powerful definition of the landscape:

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Acknowledging that the landscape is an important part of the quality of life for people everywhere: in urban areas as in the countryside, in degraded areas as well as in areas of high quality, in areas recognized as being of outstanding beauty as well as everyday areas.

The landscape then is everywhere, its definition is related to the people who live in it and it extents beyond the areas of high quality or of outstanding beauty. The European convention tried to highlight a narrow path on the edge between two dangerous slopes: the need of protection on one side and the need of a continuous development on the other. The Convention, far from being a practical tool, was followed by national codes whose purpose was to translate its principles into usable instruments. It is difficult not to perceive that in this process some of the ideas of the convention have been misunderstood. What exactly did not work properly? Could it have been different? The Italian code, for example, clearly fall back on an aestheticized conception that the Convention had tried to overcome. In this code the landscape is considered as a work of art, like a statue or a painting, that is as the material result of a concluded creative process [11]. The definition itself of landscape heritage3 in it uses terms such as aesthetic value or beautiful panoramic views, while the word function is not even mentioned. A normative code, by its own nature, tends to reduce to a bare minimum ambiguity, doubt and the risk of possible different interpretations: its logic does not admit contradiction. Therefore we should find naturally inappropriate to choose as the source of a normative code something so uncertain, questionable and elusive as the concept of beauty. A structure based on this statement appears consistent and valid in itself only if it presupposes the weakness of the landscape as a preliminary hypothesis: landscape has already given all the beauty that it could give and nothing new is expected from it [10]. In our daily life then the term landscape always appears connected to concepts such as protection or tutelage. Our relationship with the protected landscape is made operational by a set of descriptive and prescriptive rules that establish how it should be read and written. This set of rules constitutes a code—and therefore a structure— which implies, under a linguistic and an ontological point of view, weakness and fragility: for all of us the landscape is sick by definition. Too weak to be enriched with new signs and new codes, landscape is no longer able to manage complexity and contradiction. The natural mechanism that we derived from the theories of Venturi and Eco goes into crisis. By defining the landscape only in terms of protection we relegate it to a passive and subordinate position and we entrust ourselves a paternalistic role that hides the real nature of the problem: the supposed fragility of the landscape is actually the fragility of our unsustainable models of consumption and development (Fig. 3). Yet our survival requires the continuous manipulation and transformation of the environment; to be used the world must be transformed and the only way to do it within the limits of the code is to separate landscape and territory: different concepts 3 Codice

dei Beni Culturali e del Paesaggio (2004), Parte III, Titolo I, Capo I, art. 136 [14].

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Fig. 3 The fragility of the protected landscape

that are no longer applied to the same physical space. Thus territory is measurable and its quantities are expendable while the landscape, as a cultural residue of a lost past, is protected from transformation (although that is obviously impossible) by putting it under protection. Consistently with these statements the operative level of the code uses as its main instruments identification and delimitation, that is, the physical and conceptual fragmentation of the territory. So the world is cut into pieces, literally vivisected. The remains of the landscape are a discontinuous set of limited portions of physical space subject to protection; each of these portions represents a virtually closed system in which purely aesthetic values are selected and preserved. A definition of landscape, that we believed to be outdated, is before us once again; according to it landscape is merely “a more or less large territory which is constituted as object of potential pictorial representation”

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Fig. 4 The fragmentation of the urban landscape as imposed by the tutelage tools of the municipality of Rome for the late XIX century expansion around the Coppedé district. The red spots over the body of the landscape appear like wounds or as the marks of a disease [16]

[20].4 A photogram extrapolated from the whole. It is a static rather than dynamic interpretation of the landscape, aimed at emphasizing its iconic dimension to the detriment of its narrative one (Fig. 4). This fragmentation dictated by the legislation is harmful both for that part of space that we cut-out and ennoble as landscape, and for the remaining part that we inhabit. Recently Michele Serra [7] published a novel in which the main character seems to be a unspecified non-place of the Po Valley. The lifetime of the people in the novel consumes entirely in a territory with which it is difficult to establish any emotional bond and from which it seems impossible to escape; the residual existence of a mythical and unreachable landscape suddenly reveals itself with the incongruous appearance of a wild boar: a sort of alien presence in an alienated community. The physical space inhabited by this fictitious community appears to be meaningless, a complicated—but not complex—set of forms juxtaposed without tension. These de facto are the spaces where we live. If our life is hectic and complex, the landscape must be an oasis of peace. If our life is full of contradictions we ask the landscape to make us forget them and we ask 4 It

seems symptomatic that the words “considered as a painting” referred to landscape have been omitted from the Italian code only in 2008, in a later revision of the text [15].

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it to be immediately recognizable and communicable by a few simplified codes: “the wine route”, “la costa del sol”, “the city of the palio “ and so on. For each one of these fragments a different idealized form is defined, and the code forces the landscape to adapt to it. We clearly no longer manage its evolution but, if we look more closely, we do not even protect its material consistency. In the name of these forms, converted into idols, the matter of the landscape is selected, removed, modified. Any inevitable addition or enhancement must be carried on without generating tension, tending more towards mimesis than to a real integration with the context. For example, we are naturally encouraged to believe that in a landscape defined as the “valley of apples” only apple orchards exist. First of all this means that all the other crops are omitted from our perception—therefore our perception of the place is distorted—, thereafter what is real tends to succumb to the dominant perception and to the commercial image of the place, evolving to a point where the monoculture really is encouraged. The simplified image of a territory imposes itself on its real consistency and influences its transformations. Is important to highlight that the definition of this hypothetical ‘valley of apples’ is made for the use—and consumption—of those who live in the city, not of those who live in the valley itself: what was a natural vocation has turned into slavery. In this example the territory, made landscape by a monolithic commercial definition, still preserves a productive function, but it is not always like that. Very often the prevalence of a static and partial representation of the landscape no longer permits it to interact with our real needs and so it is driven to become an uninhabitable desert of meaning (Fig. 5). When in the transformation processes the set of material, typological and constructive prescriptions overcome the functional needs the project is reduced to an uncritical procedure. The modification of the landscape is accomplished anyway, but it follows pre-established paths in which the set of rules is used as an alibi, allowing the weak disengagement of all the involved subjects (Fig. 6). In the famous frescoes of the Sala dei Nove Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted a powerful image of what a good government of the landscape should be: a balance based on the complementary role of urban and rural areas, as organs of the same body. The current polarization of functions and population has broken that balance. Next to high densified areas a set of useless parts of territory is constantly on the verge of succumbing [9]; to avoid the definitive fall of the preserved landscape we militarize it, but any further increase of the level of its protection only makes it more and more weak. Although in many respects these considerations can be generalized, there is no doubt that this analysis starts from the observation of what happens in Italy where a hyper-conservative approach for the areas under protection is combined with the systematic plundering of the residual territory. Instead of inducing a deep reflection on such complex issue as territorial rebalancing the public debate seems trivially reduced to the attempt to stabilize the borders between this two areas (Fig. 7).

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Fig. 5 Protective restrictions focused only on the material consistency of the build environment often condemn it to abandonment

Italy is a country aground under different points of view: economic stagnation, social inertia, political instability are all connected aspects that speak to us of a widespread fear of the future. This fear gives shape to a normative grid which in turn triggers more stagnation, more inertia, more instability, nostalgia and more fear. The typical spiral of a depressive syndrome; a vicious circle where it is difficult to discriminate between causes and effects. In the imbalance between fear and hope get lost that equilibrium between protection and development that the European Landscape Convention identify as the key of a responsible planning.

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Fig. 6 Protection is mistakenly confused with a restriction of a responsible design process: the project is reduced to the choice of new elements from a defined catalog of eligible items. In this case the aim of this kind of prescription is the preservation of the landscape in the Stelvio National Park [17]

5 Conventional and Traditional The rules of tutelage, by confusing improperly its objectives and its instruments, seem to aim to describe and give substance to a sort of absolute structure, a superstructure that invalidates the codes and the natural structures of the landscape and replaces them with operational tools.

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Fig. 7 The boundaries of the protected landscape define different and irreconcilable approaches to our built heritage. What was supposed to be protected is often condemned to isolation. In the picture the peculiar shape of the ‘Scaccabarozzi House’ built by A. Antonelli in Turin

This constitutes an evident perturbative element in the mechanism described by Venturi especially concerning key concepts such as picturesque or conventional element. The exact understanding of these deviations with respect to the theoretical model deeply involves themes such as perception, technique, history and the concept of project itself. By proposing and defending a synthetic, historicized but timeless, image the protected landscape obviously moves towards what we commonly call picturesque. Actually the true meaning of picturesque, if we consider for example the definition given by Choisy,5 does not have a negative connotation and does not refer to any specific typology, style or construction technique. Nor should picturesque be confused with vernacular which, according to Pikionis (1925), is the way the villager builds: frank, essential, honest and based on an intrinsic economy of function and meaning. The picturesque that overflows in our landscapes is rather an affected ostentation of traditional elements in which the word tradition evokes the image of a past society, definitely separated from the current one. The picturesque is used precisely to make manifest our extraneousness from the picture.

5 In

his Histoire de l’Architecture (1899), Auguste Choisy defined picturesque that quality present in Greek architecture for which the buildings had a profound relationship with the place and were composed volumetrically like a balanced landscape. Obviously these features still have value today.

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If, on one hand, the intention is to smooth out any contradictions and present an image as uniform as possible, the creation of mostly fictitious pictures on the other hand implies unquestionable ambiguity. These ambiguities, however, are generally not the result of a conscious perceptive choice and they generate contradictions that are not intended to be resolved nor highlighted. Ultimately they are not elements that can be used to define our perception of the landscape. Many pre-existing built elements in the landscape are automatically placed under protection as historicized; what is preserved of these artifacts is not the relationship between form and function but the pure material consistency of the shell. A typical example is represented by those rural service buildings that are transformed, uncritically, into residential ones. The wealth that could derive from the ambiguity generated by the change of function is generally eliminated in order to create objects without history. The conventional structure of the legislation does not seem to be interested in buildings as organisms and is not interested in the linguistic value of building systems. It exclusively deals with the public mask. The missing relationship between exterior and interior is a reflection of an unresolved, hidden and definitive disconnection between public and private; a sort of Pirandello’s drama that characterizes our society and that inevitably also reflects itself in the way we build. Simulated traditional constructions hide ordinary structures, typologies and distributives schemes. But, between a traditional element and an ordinary one which one should be considered conventional? Etymologically in italian conventional means “what is established according to a convention”; whereas in English, and therefore in the sense attributed to it by Venturi, conventional means ordinary, that is, which follows a custom. In this sense, many things that are imposed in the landscape regulations are defined by an artificial convention that has meaning only in the logic of the norm itself, while they are often considered obsolete by custom. Traditional elements and conventional solutions are often imposed regardless of the fact that they may or not constitute the best available answer (therefore the ordinary answer) to a specific constructive problem. The traditional elements, despite being objects full of meaning in their natural context, are re-proposed almost as simple stage tools.

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6 Conclusion If you know in advance what people desire, and the only purpose you have is to give it to them then you are molding a world where any desire is anticipated, satisfied and essentially imposed Edward Hollis [6]

Cut into pieces, and mutilated over space and time the landscape ceases to be such. Landscape cannot be elsewhere: either is one or it is not; in other words there is a Landscape, but there are no landscapes. The artificial reduction of its entropy definitively replaces its unity with a local uniformity. If it is not a cultural object anymore landscape loses its meaning; its signs are reduced to pure form and any semiotic analysis on it becomes useless or even impossible. The mechanism conceived or identified by Venturi used doubt as a motor to move towards the future. But this mechanism was conceived in a society very different from the current one in which empty shells, which we mistake for monolithic certainties, make us move frantically towards no-where. It should be underlined that this is not at all a question of taste or style; the plundering of our territory, the debasement of languages and the lack of architectural quality in our constructions are so evident that clearly this text is not needed to denounce them. Highlighting the direct effects (what we build and how we build it) is important but it is of little use if we do not try to highlight the causes and the indirect effects, such as the loss of method and the fading of a long-term perspective. It is fair to admit that several positive examples have demonstrated their capability of hosting and strengthening the dynamic of the landscape; despite that these interventions seem not to have produced a wide discussion, outside specialist circles, about the need to renovate methods and tools. The intrinsically open nature of the landscape requires the participation of a great number of actors instead of a few isolated gestures, even if they are of high quality: the incidence of the so-called minor architecture turns out to be, at the scale of the landscape, much greater. The recovery of a healthy relationship between ourselves and the landscape would represent a revolution, and a revolution to be such—and not a coup—must originate from the base of the social body and not from its peak. According to Heidegger ‘the relationship of man with places, and through places with spaces, is based on living’, that is on the capability to perceive places as spaces full of life. The biggest limit of the current codes is precisely the conception of landscapes describable and manipulable regardless of the presence of life in it; in such a landscape ‘all that once was lived, has moved into representation’ [2]. As happens for the performing arts, whose real value evolves continuously and cannot be judged without performers, the richness of the landscape is fake without the community to which it belongs: only the continuous reinterpretation of the landscape by the people who live in it provides it with a meaning.

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Only a common feeling of the inhabitants of a place can encourage the return of a project culture that could have potentially disruptive effects. In this sense the approach to the project appears to be much more important than its scale. There is a hidden thread that, through Robert Venturi, links John Ruskin (for whom architecture is sacrifice, truth, life and memory), Adolf Loos (who questioned the improper use of the traditional element) and more recent approaches to the project based on a critical and conscious local adjectivisation of the Landscape. For Peter Zumthor [12] “every house is built for a specific purpose, in a specific place and for a specific society and the project has to answer the questions resulting from these circumstances in the most precise and critical way that it can”. Critical means dialectical, therefore tension between opposites, and then contradiction and complexity. A mature and critical approach to the context even in an intervention of limited dimensions is therefore to be considered as a landscape intervention in all respects. In the present conditions, the search for the dialectic of the landscape should be seen as a necessary effort; and if this effort is necessary during peacetime it becomes urgent in wartimes such as those which central Italy is preparing to live after the earthquake of 2016 (Fig. 8). The reconstruction of a wounded landscape that social and economic dynamics had already put to the test is a challenge that we are not allowed to lose. Very few people, among the policy makers, seem to have focused the right approach to the problem [3]. We would not be facing now such a level of destruction if this mostly protected territory had not slipped during decades into a noble, silent and predictable decay.6 This is the time to define the way we populate this territory; they will be indeed hard times if we will not be able to fill with meaning the huge material void that the crater left us.

6 Only

in recent years the cohesion policies are object of attention by the EU; a critical analysis of the effect of space-blind structural reforms can be found in the analysis of the evolution of inner areas [1].

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Fig. 8 Present condition of a village in the Apennines after the earthquake of 2016

Acknowledgements All the photographs in the text are part of photographic projects created by Chromophobiae|Photography. Many thanks to Christian Norberto Tognela for making them available for this work [18, 19].

References 1. Barca F (2017) The European Union’s great opportunity. In: 7th Cohesion Forum, Brussel 26–27 June 2017

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2. 3. 4. 5.

Debord G (1967) La société du spectacle. Buchet-Chastel, Paris De Rossi A (ed) (2018) Riabitare l’Italia. Donzelli Editore, Rome Eco U (1996) La Struttura assente. Bompiani, Milan Gregory P (1998) La dimensione paesaggistica dell’architettura nel progetto contemporaneo. Laterza, Bari Hollis E (2009) The Secret lives of buildings. Picador–Macmillan publ. New York Serra M (2015) Ognuno potrebbe. Feltrinelli, Milan Settis S (2010) Paesaggio, costituzione, cemento. Einaudi, Turin Wolf N, Roses JR (2018) The Economic development of Europe’s regions, a quantitative history since 1900. Taylor & Francis, Abingdon Zagari F (2018) Paesaggio/A che punto è la notte? Dove, come e quando il progetto è lavoro e bellezza. In: Bianconi F, Filippucci M (eds) Il prossimo paesaggio, realtà, rappresentazione, progetto. Gangemi, Rome Zurli D (2018) Paesaggio: intervenire sui rischi naturali per conservare la bellezza. In: Bianconi F, Filippucci M (eds) Il prossimo paesaggio, realtà, rappresentazione, progetto. Gangemi, Rome Zumthor P (2004) Un modo di vedere le cose. In: Pensare architettura, 2nd edn. Electa, Milan

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

References to the Cited Normative Prescriptions 13. European Landscape Convention (2000) Florence 20 October 2000 14. Decreto Legislativo n.42 (2004) Codice dei Beni Culturali e del Paesaggio, Rome 22 January 2004 15. Decreto Legislativo n. 63 (2008) Rome 24 April 2008 16. Carta della Qualità (appr.ed 2008) extr. from General Master Plan municipality of Rome 17. Schemi progettuali tipo (2010), extr. From Elementi tradizionali dell’architettura storica, municipality of Rabbi

References to the Pictures 18. 19. 20. 21.

Tognela CN (2018) The hidden deer. Chromophobiae Photografy, Milan Tognela CN (2017) By this river. Chromophobiae Photografy, Milan Assunto R (1973) Il Paesaggio e l’estetica. Giannini, Naples Sestini A (1963) Il Paesaggio. Touring Club Italiano, Milan

Ambiguity and Complexity Between Drawing and Space Cristina Càndito and Alessandro Meloni

Abstract For Venturi (Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966) the search for complexity in architecture is achieved through the use of contradictory elements, able to act simultaneously on different perceptive fronts. In Vanna Venturi House (1962), it is possible to observe the theories defined by the American architect, such as the ability of the surfaces making up this piece of architecture to show a double significance. In this and other projects by Venturi, we can also observe, ambiguous references to human features, in line with an ancient tradition. Some of the most significant episodes were framed in the seventeenth century, and also involve the scale of the territory, as is shown by the anamorphic landscape by Athanius Kircher (1646). Still in Venturi’s work, it is possible to find similar ambiguities in the scale of the landscape, in which collective experience is an important element in addition to the perception of the images. Following the influence of his wife, the urban planner Denise Scott Brown, Venturi’s message is projected onto the urbanistic scale (Learning from Las Vegas, 1972), which systematically welcomes symbolic interpretations and new ways of representations. Keywords Ambiguity · Anamorphosis · Anthropomorphism · Drawing · Symbol · Shape · Representation

1 Introduction In the passage from the text Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) to Learning from Las Vegas (1972), we recognize an extension of the thought of Robert Venturi (1925–2018) not only in terms of scale—from architecture to urban planning—but also in the adoption of tools and in the introduction of elements,

C. Càndito (B) · A. Meloni Department Architecture and Design, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy e-mail: [email protected] A. Meloni e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_15

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which are mainly attributable to Denise Scott Brown (b. 1931), wife and, since 1967, colleague in the Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates of Philadelphia firm (VSBA). The 1966 book was programmatically conceived as a critical examination of a part of Venturi’s architectural production, in which he supports his analytical design method, based on the decomposition of the elements ([24], 12), in a creative reworking of the architecture of the past. In the 1972 text, we find a strong interest in the formal values of space configuration, and a description is given of the new study strategy aimed at analysing the Las Vegas Strip through the collaboration of the three authors with some students of a course held in 1968 at the School of Art and Architecture (Yale University). The programs and the topics of the course, reported in the second part of the text, are attributed to Scott Brown ([23], 101), Principal-in-Charge of urban planning, urban design and campus planning of the VSBA, and the value of her contribution is further emphasized by Venturi with his signing of the petition for the joint award of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, attributed only to Venturi himself in 1991 [10]. This correct acknowledgement is functional to an explanation about the multiplication of the suggestions of Venturi’s work, which, in this paper, focuses on some characters that can be traced back to styles of the past reworked in a creative key. In particular, we refer to the use of references to human features according to an expansion of visual perception to those phenomena of illusion and evocation traces of which are found in architecture, urban planning, but also in photographs produced by Venturi and Scott Brown.

2 Venturi and the Ambiguous Elements in Architecture For Venturi (1966) the search for complexity in architecture is achieved through the use of contradictory elements, able to act simultaneously on different perceptive fronts, “Both-And”: the double meaning that certain compositional elements can have generates often contradictory images and thoughts in the mind of the observer. In Vanna Venturi House (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1962), it is possible to observe the theories defined by the American architect such as the ability of the surfaces making up this piece of architecture to show a double significance. In the main view of the building, for example, one can observe how certain design elements linked to tradition are re-proposed in an ambiguous way with respect to a comprehensive interpretation of the building, as they may appear as later additions. In this building, Venturi shows how the multiplicity of interpretations has a fundamental role in architecture. The architect must therefore be able to generate contradictions, highlighting distortions, fragmentations, asymmetries and changes of scale in order to modify his architectural vision. Perez [16] defines Vanna Venturi as a manifesto of postmodern architecture, defined by a composition of rectangular, curvilinear and diagonal elements that come together or sometimes juxtapose to create complexity and contradiction.

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These characteristics are recognizable in the representation of the plan, which, programmatically, is not symmetrical. It recognizes a central element, containing scale and fireplace, asymmetrical with respect to depth—as it is set against the entrance—but almost perfectly symmetrical with respect to width (Fig. 1a). Staircase and fireplace compete for the bulk of the core, leading to a reduction in the width of the ramp designed to accommodate the fireplace compartment, which deviates to the left; the fireplace is empty while the staircase is solid and both elements twist in shape to make room for each other. The fireplace-staircase system becomes the centre of the project; from here, two oblique walls are generated, which interrupt the orthogonality of the system and outline the internal distribution of the house. Rafael Moneo ([15], 57) highlights how the planimetry in this project has a fundamental role, recognizing it as a generating element of the project, while at the same time it takes on a secondary role with respect to the facades. It is the plan that relates the front and rear facades, as opposed worlds, respectively referable to the public and private scale. Moneo also emphasizes the interest of the main elevation (Fig. 2a), where there is a continuous conflict, of the elements composing it. The symmetrical bipartite pediment is a reference to the classic but also an allusion to the Casa del Girasole by Luigi Moretti (Rome, 1950)1 . The entrance of the Venturi house is provided by a hole in the centre of the façade leading to a patio, above which there are an arch and a lintel at the same time; these are two elements linked to the architectural tradition that reflect two completely different construction technologies in contrast with each other, as already seen in the case of the fireplace-staircase. Arch and architrave would be able to characterize the façade independently, but the co-presence creates a conflict that thanks to their overlap—absurd from the static point of view—is further emphasized. Symmetry governs the large masses of the facade, but in the details this is affected by internal asymmetries and it is still the fireplace that intervenes with leftward movement of the chimney (Fig. 2b). The windows and the other elements of the façade generate further negations of symmetry, because they have shapes and dimensions linked to the interior spaces and not designed according to a compositional logic aimed at standardizing them: the kitchen has a ribbon window, while for the bedroom and the bathroom, Venturi opts for square windows, although of different sizes. Analysing the text of Venturi (1966) one can observe how the aspect that most interests his design work is inclusion,2 understood as acceptance by the architecture of the multiplicity of aspects present and the attempt to conjugate them harmoniously. This process must be pursued through the emphasis on elements belonging to different scenes and contexts, to try to arouse ambiguous and contrasting sensations; people observing the space play a fundamental role, because they must be able to understand and contextualize the various elements according to their knowledge. According to Moneo ([15], 55), Venturi proposes to design using what is already the heritage of our experience of architecture: it is a continuous accumulation of known images and references that resurface from our memory once they are recalled. It is remarkable to note how even Peter Cook [6] indicates how the legibility of architecture is linked to experiences: through appearances it is possible to perceive

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Fig. 1 Casa Vanna Venturi (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1962): a original plan where the chimneystaircase area is highlighted; b selection of the elements considered; c reading in pareidolic key

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Fig. 2 Casa Vanna Venturi: a original main elevation; b selection of the elements considered in a pareidolic key; c, d reflection of the main elevation and highlighting the elements that allow a reading in pareidolic key

sensations and atmospheres that our mind places within a given context. The vision of ambiguous images, in which the elements that compose it are recognizable but not entirely clear, allows us to oscillate between reality and detachment from it. This attitude gives the observer the possibility of capturing the characterizing elements, analysing them and acquiring them, thus being able to define a space and at the same time expand his knowledge. For Marco Frascari too, reading of the architectural project takes place through the experience and vision of the details that make up the architecture ([11], 12): these elements allow the observer to break the building down into different parts, process them and provide an interpretation of his own of the built environment. It is evident, therefore, that the link between the observer and the building is strongly influenced by the acquired experiences, which find a privileged field in the recognition of faces and human bodies, in that illusion that takes the name of pareidolia. It is a perceptive illusion that allows us to interpret a vague and confused stimulus as a recognizable form [3], highlighting how this perceptive process was received and used throughout history without it ever being classified. Leon Battista Alberti in his book on sculpture (De Statua, 1464), while not citing the term pareidolia, describes the perceptive abilities of a sculptor when he is faced with the raw material to be worked on, in which he recognizes features and characteristics that can be traced back to known forms: this ability makes it possible to predict the finished work and the phases of adding or removing the material. Frascari highlights how architecture is defined by anthropomorphic relationships that are fundamental for design. Vitruvius, in his treatise (De architectura, I cent

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BC) Is the first to highlight how in antiquity the reference to the human body was a fundamental factor for the construction of buildings: a regulatory element capable of defining fundamental canons and proportions for design. Frascari cites many characters from the past who have used the human body to design architectures, from representation in plan to prospect, such as Francesco di Giorgio Martini (Trattato di architettura civile e militare, 1482–1486), with the well-known anthropomorphic representations of plans and elevations. Frascari underlines how contemporary architecture abandons the anthropomorphic relationship to approach totally functional rather than compositional aspects, running the risk of simplifying the components of the project. In the Venturi house, it is possible to identify anthropomorphic elements in the main elevation and in the plan. Schematization of the plan of the project (Fig. 1b) reveals how the fireplace-stairway architectural centre of gravity also becomes the fulcrum of the pareidolic vision, representing the nose of a face, while the parallel and oblique septa define its contours and mouth; finally the furniture allows you to imagine the eyes. In this way you can get the vision of a smiling face that dominates the entire architectural space (Fig. 1c). The Venturi house façade requires a greater breakdown of the elements, but it allows the incorporation of various face configurations according to the elements that are considered. Looking at the prospectus, and excluding some elements, allows one to generate different configurations. For example, if one focuses only on the central bathroom window and on the first window of the kitchen, blanking out the other windows together with the arch above the entrance, one may see an emoticonlike face, with a single eyelash. Instead, looking at the facade in a mirror, one can see a stylized human face, with the entrance appearing as the mouth. Around this mouth, the face changes, depending on which windows one chooses to represent the eyes (Fig. 2c, d). Despite the hypothetical value of these representations, it is underlined that similar ambiguous interpretations are also present in the Meiss House of Princeton (New Jersey), which Venturi designed in 1962 ([21], 134). In the main façade of this building, it is possible to observe how the recognition of a human face is more explicit than in the previous project: the holes in the windows and the void generated by the entrance allow us to imagine two eyes, a nose and a mouth, referable to a schematized mask (Fig. 3). In these examples it is possible to observe how Venturi’s research linked to the decomposition of architecture into fragments, arouses in the viewer a contrasting and variable interpretation, since each single element possesses a multiple value, which integrates ambiguously with respect to the totality of the building. This analysis process makes it possible to reinforce the link between architecture and observer and to generate new figures within the real image of the architecture, in line with the poetic “Both-And”.

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Fig. 3 Meiss House (Princeton, New Jersey, 1962): a original main elevation; b selection of the elements considered; c highlighting the prospectus in a pareidolic key

3 Anamorphism and Anthropomorphism in Landscape The idea of recalling the appearance of the human face and body in inanimate forms and spaces dates back to ancient times, and was of particular interest in the seventeenth-century and in the work of the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.3 Kircher carried out his scientific activity, publishing numerous works concerning natural philosophy, theology and cryptology, mainly in Rome starting from 1635, where he taught mathematical physics and Oriental languages at the Collegio Romano. In this prestigious building, Kircher founded a museum in 1651, which appears to be one of the rare Italian examples of art collection and characteristic wonders of northern Europe. In fact, contrary to what commonly happens in Italy, the collection is not ordered by a criterion of specialization, but naturalistic oddities, minerals, fossils, scientific instruments, artistic works and objects from the Middle and Far East are all put together. A collection of naturalia and artificialia that provides information on various fields of knowledge and constitutes an essential complement to the Library of the College [2].4 Kircher was also the author of a text on optics, Ars Magna lucis et umbrae (1646) [7], which, besides dealing with traditional topics, also constituted a real encyclopaedia of the symbolism of light linked to religious mysticism. In the text on optics, Kircher introduced the most disparate topics (from the climates of the earth to

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Fig. 4 A perspective instrument by Albrecht Dürer (Underweysung der Messung, Nürnberg, 1525) and the mesoptic Instrument by Athanasius Kircher ([12], 171)

human races, from cartography to pharmacopoeia), confirming himself here too, as in his museum, a supporter of the unitary ideal of knowledge [4]. In Book X of the Ars Magna lucis et umbrae (Magna lucis & umbrae, Horographica, Parastatica, Catoptrica), the most wonderful shows of the universe are protagonists, such as the rainbow; in the chapter on Parastatic Magic (magic of representation), Kircher described the representations produced randomly by nature through particular arrangements of plants, rocks and mountains ([17], 217). The deception of appearances can be used to obtain images different from the same object if observed from different points of view. It is the stratagem adopted in ancient anamorphoses5 that are also reflected in contemporary works. Kircher treated optical anamorphoses in Book II ([12], 183) where he also described the Mesoptic instrument (Ibidem, 171), which appears to be very similar to one of the perspective instruments by Albrecht Dürer (Fig. 4). It is a perspectograph that allows one to draw an object in orthographia, scenographia and sciagraphia. In actual terms, the tool allows the tracing of orthogonal projections, perspective projections and the shadow of an object. Though there is nothing innovative, an extension of its possibilities is described in another passage of the treatise (Ibidem, 809–810), which speaks of its use for the design of landscapes and gardens [5] that assume, from a certain point of view, similarities with the people ([12], 185) (Fig. 5) or with objects that often have a symbolic religious meaning. A similar idea is described in a treatise by a confrere of Kircher, Mario Bettini ([1], V. 32) (Fig. 6). Kircher, notoriously interested in all aspects of the phenomenon of optical reflection (Book VII), also took the opportunity to deal with human Metamorphoses obtained using different catoptric instruments. Mirror machines were not thought of solely to design scenographic settings, but also to conceive architectural and environmental spaces: starting from a small casket internally lined with mirrors, Kircher

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Fig. 5 Anthropomorphic anamorphic landscape ([12], 185)

Fig. 6 Anamorphic landscape: the Garden of the Instruments of the Passion of Christ ([1], V. 32)

ended by hypothesizing landscapes populated by reflected images which, as in the case of gardens designed with the Mesoptic instrument, earned Kircher the title of architect philosopher [4].

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4 Architecture, Landscape and Representation The forms that generate ambiguous images also find in Venturi an expression that goes beyond the architectural scale to project itself into the urbanistic one. The architectural elements can assume positions or dimensions that allow them to lose the primitive connotation and turn into symbols, as is clarified in the fundamental text dedicated to Las Vegas [22] and in the evocation of a photographic image in which we compare a sign, a human figure and an architectural archetype.

4.1 Styles and Styles Robert Venturi himself declared his predilection for the styles of Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo ([24], 12)—a good reason to consider some traits of these schools, not so much to track down the protagonists of the creative reworking, as to identify some principles shared with Postmodernist poetics. A common character can be identified, between the Postmodern and the Baroque, in the desire not to adopt the forms of the prevailing tendency, be it constituted by the Renaissance style, or rather identified in the rooted Modernist taste. We can extend the vision of post-modern society by Jean-François Lyotard [14] in an evolution towards the awareness of the non-linear, but discontinuous and paradoxical nature of scientific evolution. Postmodern is not just a question of style, it is also the expression of a rebellion against the illusion of finding the whole meaning of architecture in geometric and functional purity. Venturi and Scott Brown made a comparison with another style of the past: Mannerism [25]. Without entering into the critical debate, which often identifies this trend as an essential premise for the Baroque itself, we want to emphasize here that the pretext serves to specify the theme of the figurative meaning of architecture. The two authors distinguished—through the presence or otherwise of the initial capital letter—between the term of “explicit Mannerism”, which designates a style characterized by inspiration for another style, and that of “implicit mannerism” which aims at creative interpretation. They want to provide a new interpretation of the existing and this could also happen by looking for new ways of representation that reflect the dynamic vision experienced along a path travelled solely by motor vehicles [22]. Another “stylistic” attitude is that which can be held regarding human features. The human body and face can become a model for the perfection of proportions, as happened in the classical period and in its Renaissance and more recent reworkings, or to indicate monstrous features [11], but also, as we have seen, as an element to highlight ambiguous interpretations.

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Fig. 7 The Dunes Hotel Casinò, Las Vegas (NV)

4.2 Arabian Nights, Arches and People Similar ambiguities can be seen in a well-known photograph, which depicts Denise Scott Brown in full-length with the background of a section of the Las Vegas Strip that includes the tower and the sign of the Dunes Hotel Casino (Fig. 7). To better understand the meaning of the image, it may be interesting to explore the history of this construction. The Dunes Hotel Casino was built on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise (Nevada) by architects John Replogle, Robert Dorr Jr., Milton Schwartz and Maxwell Starkman. It was in use from 1955 to 1993, when the Bellagio Hotel took its place. The Diamond Tower was the tallest building in the state of Nevada at the time of its construction (1961) by architect Milton Schwartz and engineer Paul Rogers [18]. The complex, characterized by the ostentation of luxury and the promises of exotic entertainment, while not proving to be a particularly profitable investment, became a symbol for the Las Vegas of the Sixties, but a negative example for contemporary architecture. It is in this context that the photo taken by Robert Venturi during the preparatory studies to the 1972 book must be placed. In the photo (1966; [20]) (Fig. 8), Denise Scott Brown is depicted with her arms in an amphora pose that, at first glance, refers for formal similarity to the Arabic arch of the terminal part of the Dunes sign. The latter, placed in the background, assumes dimensions comparable to the figure in the foreground, thus emphasizing the reference to the theme of anthropomorphism in architecture, even if in a provocative version.

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Fig. 8 Denise Scott Brown in front of the Las Vegas Strip. Photo by Robert Venturi [21]. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Associates, Philadelphia (drawing by A. Meloni)

However, going deeper into the history of the Dunes, we find testimony of a gigantic statue of the legendary figure of Aladdin (also nicknamed Sultan) (Fig. 9) for which the casino hotel was famous, together with the Arabian Room, a theatrical hall with dimensions comparable to a Broadway theatre. The pose of Aladdin is precisely that the one taken by Scott Brown, and had become a promotional poster, as evidenced by its presence in the advertising brochures and in the menus of the restaurant as well (Fig. 10). The presence of Denise Scott Brown as the subject of a photo must not deceive us about the assumption of her role as inspiring muse: there is a photograph, shot by Scott Brown with the same background, that portrays Robert Venturi with his back to the viewer, a clear reference to the work of René Magritte (Not to be reproduced, 1937). The real theme of the photo, in fact, is the symbolism that is also the true subject of the entire Las Vegas study, as Scott Brown herself made clear ([23], 15). The

Fig. 9 Aladdin statue, Dunes Hotel (1955 ca.) (drawing by A. Meloni)

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Fig. 10 A Dunes Hotel restaurant menu (1955 ca.)

analysis of the characteristics of the 1960s Strip thus became a pretext to consider the reformulation of the relationship of the symbol with architecture, without exalting, or even condemning, the implications of the commercial model. The posterior analysis of the text and of the influence it has exercised, leads to interesting considerations related to the professional personality of Scott Brown, whose South African education featured a mingling capable of developing in her “a taste for studying the shocking” [13]. Moreover, we should remember that, as we told, Scott Brown is Principal-in-Charge of Urban Planning in the VSBA studio, as well as being the creator of the educational project underlying the Learning from Las Vegas essay ([23], 101).

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One of the objectives of the Las Vegas research is to identify new ways to represent the presence of symbols such as signs, which exceed the dimensions of the buildings or become themselves teaches, as happens with the Long Island Donald Duck, a drivein which takes on the shape of the little duck. On the urban scale the phenomenon of Las Vegas is investigated: a city generated in the desert, organizing itself along a route intended to channel commercial enterprises and place them in the best condition of usability by motorists.

5 Conclusion The symbolic meaning of the architectural elements of some of Venturi’s works assumes anthropomorphic forms that stand out from those of Athanasius Kircher and other seventeenth-century examples due to the prevalence of the ability of ambiguous elements to arouse contrasting perceptions and interpretations. Recognition of human faces can highlight a new key for reading Venturi’s architectural work, strongly linked to the observer’s vision and at the same time capable of reflecting the compositional theories of complexity and contradiction fundamental for the realization of an architecture. Systematization of the enhancement of the symbol takes place on the urban scale, thanks also to the contribution of Scott Brown, able to engage three professionals and a university course to develop a risky research by subject—an example considered deleterious as is the urban development of Las Vegas—and for methods—the search for new forms of representation capable of expressing the values of the elements considered secondary or negative, such as advertising signs. Complexity allows contradictions to coexist which, like science and the wonder of the Kircherian museum, live together to lead to an advancement of knowledge, where roads and results are almost never predictable. Notes 1. Venturi mentions Luigi Moretti’s building because of its ambiguity: “Is Luigi Moretti’s residential building in the Parioli district of Rome one building with a crack, or two adjacent buildings? The calculated ambiguity of expression is based on a confusion of experience, which increases the richness of meaning at the expense of clarity of meaning” [19]. 2. A criticism of the modern world, accused of excluding design components in order to follow the iron-clad rules of composition, which however simplifies the design and makes it trivial. To the concept “Less is more”, Venturi replies “Less is bore”, pointing out how inclusion of different elements is basic to design [21]. 3. Athanasius Kircher (Fulda 1602–Rome 1680) joined the Society of Jesus in 1618; in 1633 he left Würtzburg and stayed in Avignon and then Rome [4]. 4. The keeper after Kircher’s death (1680) was Filippo Bonanni. After the suppression of the Jesuit order (1773–1823), the College was returned to its founders in 1825. In 1870, the College became the property of the Italian state [9]. 5. See De Rosa [8] for seventeenth century anamorphosis.

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Acknowledgements The present study has been conducted partially thanks to the P.R.A. 2019 funding (Athenaeum Research Project), entitled “Inclusive Architectural Representation”; scientific coordinator: C. Càndito). The paper was conceived and elaborated as a team—the paragraph “2 Venturi and the ambiguous elements in architecture” was written by Alessandro Meloni, while Cristina Càndito wrote the others.

References 1. Bettini M (1642) Apiaria Universae Mathematicae in quibus Paradoxa et nova pleraque Machinamenta ad usus eximios traducta, 3 voll. Ferronii, Bologna 2. Bonanni F (1709) Musaeum Kircherianum. Georgii Plachi, Roma 3. Capuano RG (2011) Bizzarre illusioni. Lo strano mondo della pareidolia e i suoi segreti. Mimesis edizioni, Milano 4. Casciato M, Ianniello M (1986) Enciclopedismo in Roma Barocca. Athanasius Kircher e il Museo del Collegio Romano fra Wunderkammern e museo scientifico. Marsilio, Venezia 5. Cassanelli L (1986) Macchine ottiche, costruzioni delle immagini e percezione visiva in Kircher. In: Casciato–Ianniello, op. cit., p. 239 6. Cook P (2013) Drawing: the motive force of architecture. AD Primers, Chichester 7. Corradino S (1993) L’Ars Magna lucis et umbrae di Athanasius Kircher. Archivum Historicum 249–279 8. De Rosa A (2013) Ed. Jean François Nicéron. Prospettiva, catottrica e magia artificiale. Aracne, Roma 9. De Ruggiero E (1878) Catalogo del Museo Kircheriano. Salviucci, Roma 10. Etherington R (2013) Denise Scott Brown petition for Pritker recognition rejected, 14 June 2013. https://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/14/pritzker-jury-rejects-denise-scott-brown-petition/. Retrieved in May 2019 11. Frascari M (1991) Monsters of Architecture. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, UK 12. Kircher A (1646) Ars Magna Lucis et umbrae. Ludovici Grignani, Roma 13. Korody N (2016) Learning from ‘Learning from Las Vegas’ with Denise Scott Brown, archinect features. https://archinect.com/features/article/149970924/learning-from-learningfrom-las-vegas-with-denise-scott-brown-part-i-the-foundation. Retrieved June 2019 14. Lyotard JF (1979) La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir. Paris 15. Moneo R (2005) Inquietudine teorica e strategia progettuale nell’opera di otto architetti contemporanei. Mondadori Electa, Milano 16. Perez A (2010) Vanna Venturi House/Robert Venturi. Archdaily. https://www.archdaily.com/ 62743/ad-classics-vanna-venturi-house-robert-venturi 17. Rivosecchi V (1986) Il simbolismo della luce, in Casciato–Ianniello, op. cit., p. 217 18. Rogers P (1966) The Dunes Hotel project in Las Vegas. J Proc 63(1):83–92. https://doi.org/10. 14359/7615 19. Santoro S (2013) Il talento dell’ambiguità. Complessità e contraddizioni nella casa del Girasole. Hortus 73. http://www.vg-hortus.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id= 1656:il-talento-dellambiguita&catid=13:studi-storici&Itemid=15. Retrieved in May 2019 20. Stadler H, Stierli M, Fischli P (2008) Las Vegas studio: images from the archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 21. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Museum of Modern Art, New York 22. Venturi R, Brown DS, Izenour S (1972) Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form. The MIT press, Cambridge 23. Venturi R, Brown DS, Izenour S (2010) Imparare da Las Vegas: il simbolismo dimenticato della forma architettonica (Italian translation of the revised edition Cambridge: The MIT press 1977). Quodlibet, Macerata

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24. Venturi R (1984) Complessità e contraddizione nell’architettura. Dedalo, Bari 25. Venturi R, Brown DS (2004) Architecture as signs and systems. For a mannerist time. The Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass

The Cartographic Representation of Rome at the Time of Imperial Rome and Its Contemporary Implications: The Forma Urbis Romae of the Emperor Septimius Severus Emidio De Albentiis Abstract The Forma Urbis Romae of the Severan era is the first extraordinary example of representation of a great ancient city of fundamental importance as Rome: made of marble, it was elaborated at the time of the empire and was exhibited in the heart of the city, in the Templum Pacis, in the area of the Imperial Forums. Detection and representation techniques are the result of a centuries-old cultural tradition of territorial measurers (the so-called gromatici) that played a large part in the whole civilization process of the Roman empire. The working hypothesis proposed here has a twofold objective: to seize the fortune of the Forma Urbis model, also examining the fascination it has exercised over the centuries in a very interesting study history, which has led, among other things, to the expression Forma Urbis ad often used as a reference point in cultural contexts and in the planning and architectural-urban planning of our contemporaneity; secondly, that ancient experience of measuring and surveying the territory still constitutes the conceptual basis of every representative, ideational and planimetric operation in the most diverse contexts, including the very modern methods representative of a virtual and materialized character and the same combinatorial poetics so close to post-modern, to the point of almost becoming a symbol of it, which characterized Robert Charles Venturi jr. Keywords Forma urbis severiana · Ancient cartography · Topography · Urban representation · History · Memory · Archeology · Postmodern architecture · Concreteness · Abstraction · Virtuality

1 Part One The Forma Urbis Severiana: brief history of the cartographic monument and illustration of its main features

E. De Albentiis (B) Accademia Di Belle Arti “Pietro Vannucci”, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_16

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Just as it would be naive to imagine that the invention of writing is due to undefined expressive needs, even the birth of ancient cartography was not the result of abstract intellectual digressions. Just as the first cuneiform characters of the Mesopotamian civilization were elaborated in close relation with fiscal and administrative necessities of that remote, already sufficiently complex society, the need to measure areas and buildings, both in cities and in rural areas, was the result of an almost similar process: the preparation of a modern and functional land register. A series of texts collected in the late ancient period gives an idea about the activity of Roman land surveyors, called gromatici by the groma, the instrument (probably already known in Greek and Etruscan times) that they used in their profession. Measuring the territory, especially for the complex operation of the land division (essential for the distribution of land in uniform lots to the veterans of military campaigns) and, as a very frequent consequence, the foundation of new cities and colonies: defining limits and boundaries, in rituals in which sacral and religious aspects could also be decisive, it was therefore a fundamental act, a sort of physical and intellectual appropriation of geographical vastness otherwise difficult to incorporate into a forma mentis that ended up taking on the essential role of the Forma Urbis. And it is this expression that appears in the technical name of the Forma Urbis Romae (or Forma Urbis Severiana), the most famous map of ancient Rome—a result, in turn, of a tradition certainly alive since the late Roman republic—arrived at by fragments equivalent to no more than 15% of the original. Made of marble at the time of Emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 209 AD, it was displayed in an environment of the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace), a building dating back to the emperor Vespasian (69–79 AD), to whose reign it is probably also the redaction of a previous map of Rome that was destroyed or seriously damaged due to a fire that broke out in 192. The dimensions of the Forma Urbis Severiana are impressive (about 18 meters wide and about 13 high, for an extension of no less than of 235–240 square meters), also the material used (150 slabs of Proconnesian marble) and the placement on a wall of the above mentioned Templum Pacis. This immense map (on the base 12 in scale 1:240) restored the city of Rome at the time of Augustus into a single large image, for a surface that in actual size corresponded to over 40 square kilometers: it was not a representation aimed at a documentation of the cadastral type, although those who wrote it undoubtedly had a geometrical-mathematical education in this sense. The main end of this splendid map (as of its probable although not certainly antecedent of the Vespasian’s time and even of a similar previous Augustan of which some scholars have authoritatively assumed the existence) was to underline the greatness of Rome as caput mundi: the marble map had the South–East at the top with a very recognizable axis that, through the Via Latina, pointed towards the Alban Hills where the temple of Iuppiter Latiaris stood, sanctuary linked to one of the primitive cults of all the Latin peoples. The Forma Urbis Severiana depicted in plan (that is through the well-known method consisting of an ideally passing section through the floor) the various buildings of the city, the streets, the alleys and the squares: very important is the presence of captions (Fig. 1), generally reserved for buildings publics of great importance

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Fig. 1 Fragment of the Forma Urbis Severiana (203–209 d.C.)

(such as, among others, the Amphitheatrum [the Colosseum], the Circus Maximus, the Theatrum Pompeii) or even less relevant, such as the popular suburb of Subura: however, in some cases sporadic, written directions they also refer to private constructions, probably in cases where these constructions had become topographical points of reference. Sometimes, in the captions, errors appear that might seem surprising (such as Minerbae [more precisely Miner/bae on two staves] instead of Minervae, corresponding to the temple of Minerva on the Aventine): it is not however excluded that such apparent improprieties are to be related to the desire to intercept popular language. Despite the substantial accuracy of the representation we sometimes notice some planimetric simplifications (it is a good example of this that occurs in the temple of Divo Claudio on the Celio, on whose platform the large upper portico is missing). In the Forma Urbis Severiana, the significant contribution to our knowledge appears to be fundamental, both with regard to the ancient technique of the cartographic survey on a projective basis and on a priori established trigonometric benchmarks, and on the use, in Antiquity, of symbols and graphic conventions, both on the conceptually abstract rendering of certain data, such as those related to different altitudes, and on the representation of covered or open spaces, and still on the representation of common buildings with respect to those of great size: a wealth of experiences that, as we will see, is still capable of speaking to modern concrete and conceptual needs of graphic-projective representation.

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2 Part Two The interest in the Forma Urbis by historians and topographers of the modern and contemporary era from the Late Renaissance to today As mentioned in the first part, what remains today of the Forma Urbis Severiana is only a small percentage of its own, plus in small fragments: collapses and spoliations of this large walled plant must have occurred already in the Middle Ages, while the first interest in the modern sense (albeit still in embryonic and contradictory ways) towards the recovered fragments—although without the care they deserved—it began in 1562 when they were collected north of the Roman church of Saints Cosmas and Damian (who had occupied a portion of the Templum Pacis in which the marble plan had been set up). This date undoubtedly marks a watershed, even if later the fragments underwent subsequent depletion, as will be seen later on, it began in 1562 when these fragments were drawn and later collected in a code of the Vatican Apostolic Library [1] (Fig. 2), datable to the papacy of Clement X Altieri (1670–1676): it is interesting to note that in the cases in which the drawn fragments were then lost, this graphic documentation remained the only one available. Author of most of these line reproductions, then inked, it was probably the Tuscan architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1611), author, among his other works, of the important Villa Caruso of Bellosguardo of Lastra a Signa: just in the years of his youth, who lived in Rome in a precarious working dimension, Dosio specialized in the graphic reproduction of various antiquities. But according to other theories, in some ways even more concrete (but it must be remembered that the designers had to be more than one) is that the reproduction of this series of fragments has been curated by the great lateRenaissance humanists Onofrio Panvinio and Fulvio Orsini. However, according to the Vatican Code mentioned above, it seems evident that the singular marble plan attracted the interest of men of culture of that second Renaissance season who arranged the copying with the intent to study it and preserve its memory, to the point that there was no lack of attempts at organic reconstruction of the fragments found. After various fortunes, in which the Forma Urbis ran the risk of being forgotten, it returned to being investigated in depth by one of the greatest connoisseurs of art of the seventeenth century, Giovan Pietro Bellori, universally known for the Vite de’ pittori, scultori et architecti moderni of 1672. Admirer of ancient Rome, examined what remained of the admirable marble plant, publishing in Latin, just the year after de le Vite [2]. This remarkable historical-antiquarian work, which over time had several reissues largely posthumously (the last, perhaps the most important, was published in [3]): the scholar worked above all on the basis of the Orsini drawings, but in the space of time between the latter and his work a considerable part of the fragments had been incredibly chopped up—even if they were equally incredibly recovered, though compromised, in the nineteenth century, see below—to derive building material for the so-called Secret Garden behind Palazzo Farnese towards Via Giulia and the bank of the Tiber. The great admiration of Bellori for the Forma Urbis is not surprising, even if so little preserved: in his aesthetic classicism, the fragments of the marble plan must have seemed to him a privileged way to revive life—even if in the form of

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Fig. 2 A fragment of the Forma Urbis Severiana drawn in the Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3439 (sixteenth century, bound between 1670 and 1676)

a drawn map reappearing almost by chance from Antiquity—to that definitively lost greatness, a common dream, this, to anyone who cultivates the idea of stopping the inexorable becoming of things and the consequent definitive loss of everything that is regretted and considered worthy of being removed from oblivion (Fig. 3). In this same wavelength, but with a very personal cultural inclination suspended between the Enlightenment rationality of his time and the passion that almost anticipates the future romantic anxiety, the use of the fragments of the Forma Urbis Severiana realized by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, artist, engraver and architect of extraordinary versatility. In the first volume of his masterpiece [4] then reissued posthumously, the fragments appear from the initial table: the composition is very singular, since in the center there is a plant of ancient Roman monuments reached

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Fig. 3 G.P. Bellori, some fragments of the Forma Urbis Severiana drawn in his monograph of 1673

until the time of Piranesi, while on the two sides of this table the fragments of the Forma Urbis are drawn, numbered as consciously as the monumental remains are (Fig. 4). Each fragment is followed by a brief description of what it represents. It matters little if the Piranesian interpretations are not always impeccable: what is to be reported is once again the myth of Rome that what remained of that extraordinary Severian map continued singularly to feed, in all probability going along with the purpose itself—as was stated in previously—for which it had been created many centuries before. All this is very significant also in consideration of the fact that at the time of Piranesi, with the decisive contribution of his master, the great cartographer Giovanni Battista Nolli (author among other things of a map of modern Rome exemplary for clarity and rationality) and thanks to the impulse of the popes Benedict XIV, the surviving fragments of the Forma Urbis were posted in the Campidoglio, a place of obvious historical-symbolic connotation. Not being able to follow the history of the Forma Urbis studies in a totally analytical way, we will focus on some particularly emblematic figures for the decisive XIX and XX centuries that marked the scientific development of the studies on this fundamental cartographic document: a critical edition of the Severian map is certainly the monumental work of H. Jordan [5]. Result of a valuable positivist-style setting, Jordan’s work is an attempt to classify and interpret all the fragments of the plant known since the late Renaissance, reproducing them with very accurate drawings

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Fig. 4 G.B. Piranesi, plan of the archaeological remains of ancient Rome surrounded by various fragments of the Forma Urbis Severiana, detail (from Antichità Romane, 1756)

which sometimes are even more precise than those made in important twentiethcentury editions. However, the studio of Henric Jordan had, so to speak, a sort of historical misfortune, although it remained of absolute value: after the publication of this extraordinary monograph, it occurred, between 1888 and 1891, thanks to the new high banks built along the Tiber, a discovery that is both casual and fundamental at the same time: following these works, those fragments of the Forma Urbis which had unfortunately been used—as mentioned above—for the arrangement of the Secret Garden of Palazzo Farnese. Through these new findings, which ended up making it obsolete because it was incomplete, the monograph of the Jordan, further reconstructive integrations were possible. But it is in the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the joint action of high-profile scholars such as, among others, Guglielmo Gatti and Rodolfo Lanciani who, in addition to developing further scientific analyzes of this precious map, act concretely to mature the conditions for the preservation of what, over time, remained of the Forma Urbis: all this had its crowning with the definitive placement, in 1924, of the famous fragments in the Capitoline Museums, which took place in 1924. It is important to underline the importance of the scientific and intellectual figure of Rodolfo Lanciani (1845–1929); it certainly does not appear accidental that the University of Rome specifically established for him the chair of Roman Topography: his knowledge of the territory of the Capitoline city and of the almost millennial history of his excavations, as well as an equal competence around the historicaltopographical events of the Roman Campaign, made him the greatest scientist of this particular area, especially in a historical moment when Rome was radically changing its face after the Savoy conquest, which led to the sacrifice of many vestiges of the past that Lanciani documented to best pass them down as possible to posterity. It is

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Fig. 5 R. Lanciani, from Forma Urbis Romae [6]

not really important that some of his interpretations were subsequently questioned: his work method and the publication, among his many things, of an extraordinary map of Rome (1893–1901) that he wanted to call—certainly not to case—Forma Urbis Romae, thus marking an ideal continuity with the ancient paper written in the Severian age [6]. Moreover, the map of Rome by Lanciani (Figs. 5, 6), also a section at the level of the zero elevation, mixes the ancient monuments and the building and urban planning realities with great graphic effectiveness and with equal clarity. of modern Rome. The second half of the twentieth century has a date of primary importance for studies and knowledge of the Forma Urbis Severiana in 1960: thanks to a team composed of four eminent topographers, Gianfilippo Carettoni, Antonio Maria Colini, Lucos Cozza and Guglielmo Gatti, all the known fragments of the map, in addition to being studied in their most varied features, they are systematically photographed, offering scholars for the first time the opportunity for insights never before attempate [7]. The only drawback of this meritorious work, The marble plan of ancient Rome. Forma urbis Romae, the low circulation of just 400 units. It is in any case from this work that the most recent, refined analyzes, which involved international specialists such as the Spanish Emilio Rodríguez Almeida and Filippo Coarelli, were at work: but in reality the Forma Urbis is continuously the subject of scientific investigations, testifying, if needed, of its enduring fascination with posterity (for example [8–14]).

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Fig. 6 R. Lanciani, from Forma Urbis Romae [6]

3 Part Three An unsuspected link with the poetry of Robert Charles Venturi jr. and the luck of the Forma Urbis concept. The reasons that led me to present this brief study on the Forma Urbis Severiana on the occasion of a study collection dedicated to the great American architect Robert C. Venturi jr. must be seen, first of all, precisely in the formal and design features of the latter: having been one of the fathers of post-modernity—a tendency that has innervated the end of the twentieth century and still holds an important role in this beginning glimpse millennium—and the declared union between the critical and conscious memory of the past and the design of buildings that are fully contemporary in spirit but also inspired by intrinsically contradictory formal elements (strong, for example, the references to Mannerism and its ramblings as it happens, among the others, to Palladio or Giulio Romano), prompted me to reflect on the coexistence of settings of an often opposite nature (see [15]). From the point of view of symbolic meanings, the work of Rodolfo Lanciani, quoted above, takes on almost the value of a metatext that can be associated with all (or almost all) Venturi’s architectural production: Lanciani, in fact, besides calling his topographical work Forma Urbis Romae (with declared homage to the Severian map), intends to bring together several phases of the history of the Eternal City, as well as Robert Venturi jr. mixes different wisdom and formae mentis. The Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin (Ohio) is

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Fig. 7 R. C. Venturi jr./J. Rauch, widening of the dell’Allen Memorial Museum Art, Oberlin (Ohio–USA), 1976

a particularly indicative example of this, created with John Rauch in 1976 (Fig. 7), in which the nineteenth-century façade of the Museum (already clearly inspired by the imaginative Mantuan architecture by Giulio Romano), a building of considerably higher height is set back, distinguished by a white and red checkerboard face (the latter color obtained from blocks of the same sandstone used for the existing building). A graphic-design solution but with a strong impact as an architectural mass, which also recovers pieces of fifties brutalism in the part of the building that gives access to the new museum complex, illuminated by large windows at the top. A plastic-architectural composition in which the juxtaposition between eras, styles, materials and design ideas marks not only the full legitimacy of a method, but a creative perspective of significant conceptual developments, without prejudice to the need to ensure a balance between the parts, although difficult to identify in an abstract theoretical context. But, on closer inspection, even the Forma Urbis Severiana itself, which has been analyzed above, is the conceptual result of a process that is not too dissimilar: that map, created at the beginning of the third century AD, reflects a stratified urban-monumental reality, making coexist—as will happen in the paper by Lanciani just mentioned—landmarks, now more less significant, of different epochs. But even more interesting is another consideration: when we are about to visit an extensive monumental archaeological complex, such as the Roman Forum, for example, we usually resort to plans of the area that only minimally correspond to this that a Roman citizen of the early imperial age (at the time of Augustus, just to limit ourselves to an exemplification) could concretely see in that area: in other words our Forma Urbis of the Roman Forum mixes with the abstract and at the same time typical effective forms only partial and virtual historical concreteness of a plant. And it is precisely this mentality to which we are almost automatically accustomed to constitute a theoretical support—often unconscious—of the post-modern aesthetic practice. However, there is another reason that inspired me to take as a starting point the ancient Forma Urbis Romae, the fortune that the very concept of Forma Urbis has

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had up until now in the theoretical elaboration concerning urban planning and architecture. Many conventions, studies, technical reports and projects bear in this title, absolutely not by chance, this very expression conceived by the Ancients: to give an example of this, we recall the figure of the architect Duccio Aristide Staderini (several times editor of a prestigious magazine such as “Controspazio”) which, in a significant article of 1989 (see [16]), to define the magmatic character assumed by cities and, more generally by the modern landscape, examines—by contrast—historically previous situations specifically speaking of their Form Urbis: for the scholar, with this concept it must be identified with what connotes “l’identità formale e la memoria storica” of a specific city and with the concrete possibility of “individuare peculiarità tipologiche delle differenti strutture edilizie che ne rendevano possibile anche un’analisi comparata” (ibid., p. 71). In a nutshell, the practice of representing a given historical-monumental reality by using the map of a plant, a practice that in the Mediterranean civilization in which we are inserted is in all probability far more ancient than the Romans themselves (to whom, however, belongs what remains of one of the most extraordinary examples in this sense, the Forma Urbis Severiana), documents not only birth but the constant enduring to the present day of a mental habit in which the concreteness of the data and the abstraction of representation merge: and this appears all the more true and important even in the presence of that virtual and IT dimension that seems to be the future of this particular modality, a future which, moreover, cannot ignore either the knowledge of its historical antecedents or—perhaps even more importantly—from those same epistemological methods and scientific.

References 1. Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3439, fogli 13–23 (manoscritto risalente al secolo XVI e rilegato tra il 1670 e il 1676) 2. Bellori GP (1673) Fragmenta vestigii veteris Romae ex lapidibus Farnesianis nunc primum in lucem edita cum notis. Tipografia Giuseppe Corvi, Roma 3. Bellori GP, Bartoli PS (1764) Ichnographia veteris Romae XX tabulis comprehensa. Accesserunt aliae VI tabulae ineditae cum notis. Stamperia Camerale 4. Piranesi GB (1756) Antichità Romane, Tomo I. Stamperia Angelo Rotilj, Roma 5. Jordan H (1874) Forma Urbis Romae. Regionum XIIII. Weidmann, Berlin 6. Lanciani R (1893–1901) Forma Urbis Romae. Consilio et auctoritatae Regiae Academiae Lyncaeorum. 1–4, Ulrico Hoepli, Milano 7. Carettoni G, Colini AM, Cozza L, Gatti G (1960) La pianta marmorea di Roma antica. Forma urbis Romae. 1–2, Comune di Roma, Roma 8. Rodríguez Almeida E (1977) Forma Urbis marmorea. Nuovi elementi di analisi e nuove ipotesi di lavoro. MEFRA 69(1):219–256 9. Rodríguez Almeida E (1981) Forma Urbis marmorea. Aggiornamento generale 1980. Quasar, Roma 10. Gatti G (1989) Topografia ed edilizia di Roma antica. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma 11. Coarelli F (1997) Il Campo Marzio. Dalle origini alla fine della Repubblica. Quasar, Roma 12. Rodríguez Almeida E (2002) Forma Urbis antiquae. Le mappe marmoree di Roma tra la repubblica e Settimio Severo. Collection MEFRA, 305, Roma

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13. Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project (2002–2016), https://formaurbis.stanford.edu/ index.html 14. Dodero E (2016) La documentazione grafica della Forma Urbis tra XVI e XVIII secolo: approcci, metodi e finalità. BullCom CXVII:135–151 15. https://www.webofstories.com/play/robert.venturi.and.denise.scott.brown/1 16. Staderini DA (1989) Al di là della «forma urbis» . La ricerca folklorica. Contributi allo studio della cultura delle classi popolari 20:71–74

The Landscape and Its Representation: New Visualization and Fruition Systems Stefano Chiarenza

Abstract In recent years, the representation of the landscape has undergone considerable changes. These changes, are the result of renewed communication codes, but they are indeed strongly correlated to the increasingly varied possibilities of landscape representation use. In particular, new media (smartphones, PCs, tablets, satellite navigators, etc.) have played a crucial role in redefining the representations of both the landscape and the territory. This led to progressive development and enrichment of the visualization forms which saw the participation not only of cartographers but also of experts in communication and graphic design. As part of the cultural debate on the landscape and its representation, and on the basis of the philosophical ideas offered by Robert Venturi’s theoretical reflection on complexity and contradiction as permanent and distinctive landscape features, the present study intends to focus attention on the most recent ways of representing the landscape and the territory, and on the new approaches to their use. On the basis of the most recent scientific researches, the role of the new modes of representation as cognitive systems able to allow reflections on spatial phenomena and on the related constitutive processes is discussed and highlighted. Keywords Landscape · Map · Display · Eidomatic representation · Complexity · New media · Visualization

1 Introduction Landscape is by its nature the synthesis of a place identity. It contains not only distinctive elements linked to nature and geomorphology but also cultural and anthropic elements that constitute a nomos within which man is placed. This mixture is composed of antithetical rather than harmonic relationships, giving rise to various levels of complexity and contradiction which the American theorist Robert Venturi considered an identity vehicle in itself. The representation of the landscape therefore S. Chiarenza (B) Department of Human Sciences and Promotion of the Quality of Life, San Raffaele Roma Open University, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_17

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has a function of highlighting these levels of complexity by redesigning it as a real cultural process. Even more in the contemporary world where representation and use are closely related to technology. The representation of the landscape has played a key role over the centuries in allowing the knowledge of the territory but also the transmission of information related to it. The approach to scientific representation marked a decisive turning point in the objective communication of physical space. However, an important part in this descriptive process was the progressive definition of graphic communication codes which, through the conventional and symbolic component accompanying the geometric model, allowed us to communicate the landscape with a wealth of information that is not comparable to any pre-scientific representation. In contemporary society the fruition of the territory representation has become very vast, including, together with sector operators, also a large number of non-specialized users. This has been an essential element in redefining the representations of the territory, increasingly linked to various media (smartphones, PCs, tablets, satellite navigators, etc.). The result was a progressive development and enrichment of the visualization forms that saw the participation not only of cartographers but also of experts in communication and graphic design. For a little over a decade, a further epochal stage has consisted of landscape representations of eidomatic type, or representations characterized by new IT approaches to visualization, including multimedial and multimodal. The literature in this field, relating to the most recent developments, appears to be broad and articulated, although not yet fully consolidated. The present contribution, based on a structural analysis of the new modes of representation, discusses and highlights the role they are having as true cognitive systems capable of generating reflections on spatial phenomena and the related constitutive processes.

2 Contemporary Visualization of the Landscape: Between Scientific Representation and Graphic Design The visualization of the landscape, also in cartographic and geographical sense, constitutes one of the many declinations of the scientific visualization. The representation by means of maps has been, up to the contemporary, the privileged model of information transmission and interaction in visual terms between man and landscape. As Cardone recently noted the current society, considered by all to be an information society, is above all a society of images. Images are essentially conveying society, if we think that more than three quarters of the information we receive comes to us visually. Of course, these are now visual images in a broad sense, no longer only graphic images. This implies a general radical updating effort, if we do not want to be swept away by scientific and technological evolution [2]. The growing implementation of visual aids has therefore led to recognizing in the geo-cartographic field the possibility of representing also through new modalities and new supports, attributing a scientific character to studies on visualization.

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According to Alan MacEachren, cartography must be understood today as “the use of concrete visual representations—whether on paper or through computer displays or other media—to make spatial contexts and problems visible, such as to engage the most powerful human information-processing abilities, those associated with vision” ([12], 101). Some interpretative studies on cartographic visualization in the scientific field [6] have also underlined a dual role of the map: that of favoring on the one hand the subjective visual thinking in the scientific phase of study of the territory, on the other hand of facilitating the so-called public visual communication of final results, highlighting the dyadic public-private dimension. If visualization cannot be considered a new aspect of cartography, it certainly outlines a renewed way of looking at it. Through visualization, cartography becomes a research tool capable of balancing attention on both visual communication and visual thinking [11]. Each representation of the territory can actually be considered as a significant tool that collects and integrates spatial information (Figs. 1, 2). The traditional static support, however, over the last few years, appears increasingly limited especially in relation to those dynamic interactive processes, typical of the most recent developments, of those representations destined in particular to non-cartographers. The role of visualization tools in the cartographic analytical approaches of the last decades becomes a crucial point. As highlighted in some studies conducted by Taylor [17], with the use of new media able to offer greater interactivity, the representation of the territory or more generally cartographic, must find in the visualization the meeting point between scientific knowledge, communication skills and formalism, meaning with the latter term the need for a strict adherence between the structure of

Fig. 1 Map that uses property function to visualize the volume of pedestrian foot traffic at intersections in Toronto. OpenStreetMap® (CC BY-SA)

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Fig. 2 California Air Quality Tracker: the New York Times by Mapbox. OpenStreetMap® (CC BY-SA)

a graphic image and a command, in the context of the use of computer technology. In other words, in the field of eidomatics—that is computerized graphics—visualization is required to address not only problems of analysis and knowledge, but also questions related to formalism. The link between visualization and video graphic therefore gives a particular emphasis to technological support. It should however be emphasized that visualization, regardless of the medium, includes both a component of visual analytical thinking and a communication-outsourcing component. It therefore seems undeniable that the developments in computer technology have made possible once unimaginable interactive approaches. Just think of the so-called real-time interaction processes for which MacEachren and Monmonier [13] have carefully analyzed not only the technical differences between the tools used to carry them out, but have also distinguished the nature of the relationships that analysts establish with cartographic representations. Some recent and significant examples are represented by the research initiatives of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the study of modifications of urban, material and social phenomena, according to real-time interactive graphics. (Ratti, Senseable City Lab) (Fig. 3). The use of eidomatic visualizations therefore favors, in many cases, the immediate representation of both movement and change; offers the possibility of seeing the same data differently; generates visualizations based on realism through the use of three-dimensional stereography and other techniques; or on false realism, exploiting the potential of fractal geometry for geomorphology, and the combination of papers, graphics, text and sounds. Using information technology, the geographical visualization allows the interaction between visual thinking and the map to update and proceed in real time. The representations on the display can appear almost at the same time

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Fig. 3 Isochronic Singapore. Taxi travel time data between different location. Image from the project Live Singapore! by Senseable City Lab

as the analyst considers their use necessary. The representation of a landscape in the form of an interactive map thus becomes a graphic structure in continuous evolution whose fleeting and temporary character denies its being paper or the link with the support from which it historically takes its name. But what are the substantial changes with respect to traditional representation processes? According to MacEachren and Ganter [10] in the traditional communication process the message is known and only the optimal definition of a map is required. In the new models, based on digital visualization, the message is not predefined, and it is the user who analyzes the data with the aid of the system that allows to retrieve information and support the intuitions of the user. This type of use of paper is fundamentally based on the interaction within Computerized Cartographic Systems (Fig. 4). The realization of such mappings in a digital environment allows the visualization of a sort of map on demand or custom-made map for each type of user with great advantages in reading and communication times, cost-effectiveness and versatility. The general problem of visualization in the representation of the territory consists then today not only in the use of geometric and graphic models, but also in the development of graphic structures capable of activating interactivity or, in other words, of interfaces and signs, able to allow users access and navigation in the descriptive and informative construct of the map (Fig. 5). In fact, if traditionally it was sufficient to combine the basic geometric model of the landscape (that is, that which is able to give back metric distances, urban agglomerations, orographic characters, etc.) one or more thematic models through which to explain the spatial or temporal distribution of attributes or themes, today a study on how to structure the

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Fig. 4 Fisher Island, Florida with buildings as a Point Cloud Layer that could be made interactive, surfacing up Real Estate values in a tooltip. By Mapbox—OpenStreetMap® (CC BY-SA)

Fig. 5 Before and after image pair (interactive tool) to understand the effects on territory of California’s Most destructive Wildefires in October 2017. By Planet—OpenStreetMap® (CC BY-SA)

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graphical-cognitive map on the interface appears to be unavoidable, even before it is drawn or assembled. Multimedia communication, in fact, through a simple and easily approachable language must be able to allow a large number of people to actively share information [15]. A representation of the territory based on this conception then requires new strategies. Compared to traditional paper representation systems, the display on new media must take on another appearance, embracing problems related to web design, video production or other multimedia techniques. Those who perform the representation and those who read it must share a new language. This, composed of assemblages of images, videos, static and dynamic symbols, terminologies, icons etc., must be tested on all potential users of the map [14]. As Clarke noted, “the cartographer … must be a data base expert, a user-interface designer, a software-engineer, a retain a sense a map aesthetics, and still produce maps” [5].

3 Landscape Representation and New Media Multimedia and multimodality today represent two significant developments in cartographic visualization. The two approaches, both strongly linked to the new media, appear to be closely related to one another, however entailing different implications in project and map design. Multimedia is not a new concept in the field of representation of the territory. The use of multiple tools to communicate information (combination of images, sounds, movements, etc.) appears to be a consolidated approach [9]. In the various experiments, however, it turned out that one of the most significant tools for creating and displaying spatio-temporal data typical of territorial contexts is animation. The computerized animation allows to properly understand the space-time attributes of the map. In fact, these data can be viewed in different ways by manipulating the variables that describe the graphic model. According to William Cartwright “By varying the appearance of graphic objects using changes in the position, direction, shape, size, textures and intensity, different perspectives on various types of data can be depicted” ([4], 83). The inclusion of multimedia elements—of which the animations are an important part—possible in the visualizations through new supports, seems in fact to be able to improve the reading ability of the users. Shiffer writes ([16], 88) (Fig. 6). “Representation aids can influence the display of various data so that they can be read more readily understood by users, using multimedia tools that are humanmachine interaction becomes so engaging that the computer is essentially transparent to the human”. Representative aids are of course of various kinds, and among them are sounds (generally combined with animations). The sound experimentation in the representation has found application for example in the so-called fly-by or those spatial changes obtained by changing the observer’s point of view on static objects. Sounds, like vocal narratives, combined with fly-bys, are now increasingly used in the growth of the

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Fig. 6 Data Analysis and interactive visualization of taxi pick-up and drop-off in New York City. Image by Kepler open source geospatial analysis tool on Uber open source data

dynamic visualization of the territory [1]. But even the use of realistic or abstract sounds has found significant experimentation since the early 1990s [8]. However, the non-belonging to the traditional variables of the map, has led, over the years, to the need for numerous cognitive psychology studies that take into account the sound component in the production of mental images not directly linked to visual perception (imagery). The use of this variable has paved the way for new multimodal approaches in which more interaction modes are used between the map and the user. The interaction of more than one sense avoids, in some way, the overload of the visual channel, increasing the breadth of communication. The non-linguistic sound interaction was one of the first multimodal representation experiments. Tactile and gestural interactions then began to define a broader framework of the multimodal type of visualization. The formulation of a set of rules capable of matching signals and meanings is, to date, a research field that is still extremely open in cartographic representation. With the development of these new approaches to cartographic representation, the role of design appears increasingly significant. Infographic language is not a mediated expression; before that image it is pure formal language and, in the generation of the images, the nature of the processes is symbolic and not physical ([3], 346) . The structuring of graphic interfaces on new media for interaction with users must have

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the ability to show all the traditional elements of a representation but at the same time, unlike static maps, it must offer the possibility of a deeper interaction. From the point of view of graphic design, in this case a large number of new requirements must be taken into account with respect to the traditional static graphic display. In particular, attention must be paid to the definition of the various interaction styles between the user and the machine such as menus, form fields, icons for direct manipulation, etc. with the aim of visualizing dynamic, interactive, modifiable, multimedia properties that are able to communicate schematically [7]. An efficient communication then becomes fundamental and can take place through a graphic composition that uses a series of logical sequences based on the experience of the user and able to anticipate the information needs of the user. The graphics must be, in other words, able to gradually and effectively express the information on the pages by offering visualizations that progressively strengthen the previous ones. The implications in terms of representation and design are numerous. In fact, beyond the object to be represented, the graphical formulation of the interface (user interface) requires a great mastery of the visual communication language, made of images, colors, spaces, symbols linked to the computer concepts of usability and accessibility (Figs. 7, 8). In the logical path of the interface design, the representation assumes a fundamental character in the structuring of the display layouts, also in relation to the type of device. The choice, for example, of layouts that adapt to the resolution of different devices and the resizing of browser windows make the interfaces responsive, without elements overlapping and loss of information; in the same way the study of typographic characters and their readability within the navigation system (navigation bar, header, footer etc.). These are just some of the main precautions in the study

Fig. 7 New York City population map containing an interactive data analysis of 2010 Census tract population data of NYC. Image by Kepler open source geospatial analysis tool

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Fig. 8 A 3d hexbin density map showing every single street in San Francisco. By Mapbox, OpenStreetMap® (CC BY-SA)

of the structuring of the interface which are precisely design problems in the interaction between user and machine and therefore with significant implications for the visualization. If the design of the interface is configured today as a mainly computer-based type of competence, with a transversal impact on web communication, it should be pointed out here how graphic-visual design stands in the visualizations of the landscape and of the territory–including those of a scientific nature– and is becoming one of the basic skills of the cartographer.

4 Conclusion Based on Robert Venturi’s theoretical reflection, this study aimed to highlight the most recent models of representation and fruition of the landscape. Thanks to new technologies, it is now possible to represent the complexity of an even contradictory reality in an ever-changing way, redefining the centrality of the human dimension also as user. In particular, the paper presented examined the new possibilities of using multimediality and multimodality in the cartographic representations of the landscape and the key role of the graphic representation in the visualization processes, also of scientific type, of the maps on the new supports and in the processes of design structuring of user interfaces. These latter aspects are closely related to each other,

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so that the fields of graphic and computer studies find unprecedented re-elaborations in the skills of the cartographer and the graphic designer. The image occupies an important place in usability and responsiveness linked to the widespread use of new portable devices which, in recent years, has greatly expanded the use of territorial representations (including urban ones) for several uses. These are often new ways of offering, in an interactive and dynamic sense, those that Sestini already called representations of concrete phenomena visible or not, or of abstract, qualitative or quantitative concepts; modalities that also find important means in the auditory and tactile component to expand the repertoire representative of the cartographic design. The rapid examination of the most recent orientations was carried out in order to highlight new and fruitful fields of research and application of design and representation on which the attention of study groups is increasingly turning with a multidisciplinary approach.

References 1. Andrews SK, Tilton DW (1993) How multimedia and hypermedia are changing the look of maps. In: Proceedings Auto Carto 11, Minneapolis, pp 348–366 2. Cardone V (2016) Immaginare un’area culturale delle immagini visive. L’immagine nella scienza e nell’arte, XY digitale, I, gennaio-giugno 2016:12–27 3. Cardone V (2015) Modelli grafici dell’architettura e del territorio. Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN) 4. Cartwright W, Peterson MP, Gartner G (eds) (1999) Multimedia cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 5. Clarke KC (1990) Analytical and computer cartography. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs 6. DiBiase D (1990) Visualization in the earth sciences. In: Earth and mineral sciences, bulletin of the college of earth and mineral sciences, vol LIX, pp 13–18 7. DiBiase D, MacEachren A, Krygier J, Reeves C (1992) Animation and the role of map design in scientific visualization. Cartography GIS 19(4):201–214 8. Edler D, Kühne O, Keil J, Dickmann F (2019) Audiovisual cartography: established and new multimedia approaches to represent soundscapes. KN J Cartography Geographic Inform. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42489-019-00004-4 9. Hu S (2010) Multimedia mapping. In: Warf B (ed) Encyclopedia of geography. Sage Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp 1952–1953. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939591. n789 10. MacEachren AM, Ganter JH (1990) A pattern identification approach to cartographic visualization. Cartographica 27(2):64–81 11. MacEachren AM, Taylor DRF (1994) Visualization in modern cartography. Elsevier/Pergamon, Oxford 12. MacEachren AM (1992) Visualization. In: Abler R, Marcus M, Olson J (eds) Geography’s inner worlds: Pervasive themes in contemporary American geography. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., pp 99–137 13. MacEachren AM, Monmonier M (1992) Geographic visualization: introduction. In: Cartography and geographic information systems, vol. IXX(4), pp 197–200 14. Peterson Michael (ed) (2003) Maps and the internet. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, Cambridge

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15. Salerno R (2014) Rethinking Kevin Lynch’s lesson in mapping today’s city. In: Contin A, Paolini P, Salerno R (eds) Innovative technologies in urban mapping. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, pp 25–31 16. Shiffer MJ (1993) Implementing multimedia collaborative planning technologies. 1993 URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) proceedings. URISA, Park Ridge, pp 86–97 17. Taylor DRF (1991) Geographic information systems: the microcomputer and modern Cartography. In: Taylor DRF (ed) Geographic information systems: the microcomputer and modern Cartography. Pergamon Press, Oxford, pp 1–20

The Complexity Around 3D Lighting of a Natural Landscape Lorena Greco

Abstract The features Venturi attributes to architecture – of complexity and contradiction – can be even applied to its representation. The same author turns its gaze to the past, tracing the communication strategies in the field of visual languages. Since computer graphics were used for architectural communication, the visualizers operate in the same way, accepting the novelties of IT development and finding models of inspiration in the history of visual arts. The computer images increasingly include evidence and cultural references coming from traditional painting; they make use of the landscape representation as an ecstatic and phenomenological construction. From a technical point of view, the rendering process of a natural environment, through digital chiaroscuro, can be articulated by exploiting complex calculation solutions, combined with refined discretization strategies of vegetation systems. Two case studies will be illustrated here, to highlight some solutions that, in 3D reconstructions, streamline the calculation of light for the representation of the natural landscape. Keywords Lighting · Rendering · Photorealism · 3D vegetation · Landscape · Complexity

1 Introduction: From Architecture to Architectural Visualization In a study entitled Drawing in Italian architecture [1] Franco Purini aims to identify complex relationships between architecture and its representation. Drawing is described as a sort of infinite palimpsest, which – in a more or less explicit way – conveys «narrative elements, iconic suggestions, diversions, symbolic and allegorical objects» [2]. Furthermore, Purini underlines how the role of architectural project representation goes well beyond the transcription of an idea and its communication; L. Greco (B) Department of History, Drawing and Restoration of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_18

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it stratifies memories, reasoning, and repentance, to leave traces even of indecisions, arrests, and resumes in the design process. Through a continuous interaction of mind and design, as Roberto De Rubertis states [3], architecture is outlined as a form; in other words, it is only in the act of representing that it can be possible to develop a design concept. Considering the observations by Purini and De Rubertis, it is clear how the terms complexity and contradiction, associated by the American architect Robert Venturi with architecture [4], may at the same time concern its representation. Furthermore, it is Venturi himself who affirms, taking up the words of David Jone [5], that the art is the domain of practical intelligence and not of speculative knowledge. Today, it is mainly the practice of digital design, called 3D visualization or archviz, to show us a series of connections with the thoughts of Robert Venturi, linking sociological aspects of the transition age of mass media revolution with the current computer science. Between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, with the spread of personal computers and low-cost software, we are witnessing the most widespread use of architectural 3D visualization. The young discipline strongly follows the path of the historical tradition, as in the manner of Venturi, whose meaning refers to the “sense of the past”. For architectural design, the new digital tools are welcomed by the most innovative critics, such as Bruno Zevi, for their ability to simplify procedures and, mainly, for the possibility of generating new visual languages. Among the most appealing aspects in the field of representation can be outlined new expressive possibilities given by digital tools, that feed a specific professional specialized in architectural communication: the archviz artist. This character renews and strengthens the link between architectural design and traditional visual arts. architectural design and traditional visual arts. In the construction of an image, and in the process that goes from the three-dimensional modeling to the post-production and compositing phase, the computer graphic artists (CG artists) reproduce and handle in a digital environment the visual and technical strategies that come from the cinema, animation, art, and mainly from photography. Thus, in the architectural visualizations, we can see déjà-vu and citations of films, paintings, and photographs continuously. Each of these elements implements the visual content of additional meanings and information. An attitude demonstrated by the same Venturi who, for restoring the dialogue between architecture and its users, examines and absorbs the studies of Marshall McLuhan and the lesson of the American pop-art artists. Venturi understands how the mechanism of communication is profoundly influenced by the commercial language that, immediately and persuasively, manages to involve the middle class more directly. As Alessandra Muntoni states [6], Robert Venturi analyzes the ancient city with an utterly anti-historical method; he separates the architectural object, the monument from the cultural context to see it again with the eyes of the possible user, recognized as a consumer of forms. In this sense, what interests the American architect of the historical architecture is the informative content, arriving at scientifically analyzing the sequence of advertising signs along the central Las Vegas street (the Strip) as tangible proof of an immediate language, which involves the viewer. Venturi turns its gaze to the past to trace its communication strategies, and it is evident how visualizers operate in the same way: accepting the novelties of IT development and finding

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models of inspiration in the history of visual arts. The outcome is complex and contradictory elements, precisely like in architecture. The present study delineates these connections employing analysis of the many aspects involved in 3d lighting model, which, combined with materials and virtual camera models, contribute to defining the rendering process in architecture. To support these analyses, are included some tests and experiments, starting from the three-dimensional reconstruction of landscape elements.

2 Visualization of Natural Landscape and Connections with Traditional Painting At the end of the 1990s, the limits of computer graphics contributed to the development of non-photorealistic rendering. Many CG artists, in that period, preferred an illustrative approach instead of a photorealistic look. Visualizer references can be found in science fiction filmography and in digital painting compositions developed in those same years. To cite an example, Eric de Broche des Combes – founder of one of the first visualization agencies: Luxigon – claims to be inspired by light and special effects designed by Douglas Trumbull for the film Close encounters of the third kind (1978) by Steven Spielberg [7]. The images realized many years later for the National Museum of Fine Arts of Québec [8] (2013, New York) – commissioned by the OMA architecture studio – confirm what would have become a real illustrative language for Luxigon. Since the early years of the 2000s, the global lighting model has introduced the possibility of a photographic rendering using physical properties, such as a more accurate solution for the phenomenon of reflection and diffusion of light. These technical advances have allowed to the visualizer Alex Roman of representing, in his CG film The Third and The Seventh [9] (2009), even a credible refraction of light. Glass animated spheres, accurately rendered, populate the three-dimensional reconstruction of the Auditori amb els Grans D’Europa (1999) by Rafael Moneo. It is also interesting to note that some frames of the 3D animation refer to the film Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by the director Dziga Vertov, making explicit reference to the masters of cinema. Alex Roman takes the split screen and the temporal inversions used by Vertov in editing, but above all calls into question the cine-eye theory [10] according to which the mechanical eye – and therefore, the camera – unlike the human one manages to show reality from a new point of view. In more recent years, the development of materials based on a shading and rendering method called physically based rendering (PBR materials) has allowed a realistic representation of the natural elements, with the possibility to emphasize the translucency of trees leaves and the caustics of water. The presence of nature, in the computer images, has generated more visual connections with the pictorial imagery of Romanticism. An ever-increasing number of architectural visualizations refer to the picturesque style, for which nature is represented in its most spectacular form. If we look at the image created by the

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Spanish agency Beauty and the Bit for the Hans Christian Andersen Museum (2020) by Kengo Kuma, we can find the same compositional structure as in the painting Flatford Mill (1817) by John Constable. A natural path, framed by trees in the foreground, leads to the museum – or to the mill in the case of the painting – which corresponds to the most illuminated part of the image. The strokes of white lead, which detail the foliage of the trees in the painting, correspond to the vividness and translucency of the leaves in the 3D visualization. Even The bridge (2017), a computer image by Bartosz Trocha can be associated with a painting by Constable: the Malvern Hall (1809). The reflection of architecture in the water mirror plays a compositional role in both images. Finally, to cite another example on the theme of nature, the dawn light in the rendering Valley Village Project (2017) is as a personal project by Denis Guchev that can recall the pictorial work Le départ (1837) by the romantic and naturalist painter Thomas Cole. The visual associations between paintings and renderings, just described, confirm the phenomenon of déjà vu, which, according to Luigi Ghirri – a contemporary master of photography – always characterized the language of art. In one of the lectures given at the University of Reggio Emilia, at the end of the 1980s, the photographer argues: When we talk about cinema, photography, painting, we talk about the feeling of déjà vu, that is already seen, which in itself is not to be considered derogatory but rather recalls a contact with the collective consciousness, with the imaginary of others that seems to inevitably appear in our everyday life, in the images we see, in the cinema that we see, and that remains within us. This is somewhat the character of déjà vu that currently circulates in all artistic languages [11].

“The image in us” – according to scholars Olaf Breidbach and Federico Vercellone – is an archive image: a surface on which and in which we order what we gradually learn, a bit as if it were a matter of an atlas that traces the morphological order of memory [12].

3 Complexity in the Representation of Light for the Landscape One of the aspects that most characterizes the photorealism of a computer-generated imagery is precisely the possibility of inserting in the virtual environment: trees, plants, lawns, bushes, blades of grass, leaves. Reproducing vegetation in 3D allows, unlike photographic compositing, a coherence between the lighting of natural elements and architectural ones. It also makes possible to represent translucency and reflection of materials, difficult to manage in the post-production phase. Although in archviz is made use of extensive 3D vegetation, its management concerns complex challenges both for the simplification and optimization of 3D models and for their interaction with light, to the point that a specific analysis would require a broader treatment. In this study, the procedures for modeling the landscape context will be summarized and, instead, the aspects of lighting related to materials and shaders will

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be investigated, i.e., the algorithms that describe in materials how happens the transition from an enlightened point to shaded one. The shading in computer graphics regards how the light interacts with polygons, based on the absorption or reflection of the light, the angle of incidence, and the angle of vision. To understand the complexity of the representation of light, we will refer to two aspects: • solutions adopted in computer graphics to simplify the modeling of primary elements; • strategies used by developers for the calculation algorithms. Regarding the first aspect, we will refer to the case study of the chapel built in 2000 and designed by Spanish architects Sol Madridejos and Juan Carlos Sancho (S.M.A.O.). The project is located on a hill near the town of Almadèn in Spain (Fig. 1). In the interiors of the chapel in Valleacerón (Fig. 2), we can notice as the light is interpreted as a real material, the second in importance compared to concrete. Architects write: Light thus assumes the role of a second material in the chapel, a material that contrasts with cement, fragile, changeable, mobile, unstable, dominant or evanescent [13]. The chapel in Valleacerón is a small construction (11.20 × 8.40 m, and high 10.80 m), oriented on the east-west axis. It is designed concerning the possible views from the surrounding environment, and the only openings present are arranged on the west elevation. The different positions of the roof slabs allow direct sunlight to illuminate the interior space; the project does not include artificial lighting. The formal research of the project is developed around the theme of the folding architecture. The surfaces of an ideal parallelepiped – a boîte inspired by Le Corbusier – bend about a particular point, which is strategic both formally and structurally.

Fig. 1 Chapel in Valleacerón (Spain) designed by S.M.A.O. in 2000. 3D reconstruction, photo matching of the environment and 3D visualization by the author

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Fig. 2 Chapel in Valleacerón, 3D visualization of interior space

In the context, the chapel is phisically surrounded by rocky boulders, shrubs, and olive trees. The development phases, which preceded the lighting and rendering process, can be summarized as follows: • Acquisition of GIS data (geographical information systems). The entire modeling step of the terrain, from data acquisition to the use of a 3D sculpting module, is managed through mesh surfaces, appropriately divided. The creation of a subdivision surface allowed the creation of complex morphologies such as land and rocks. • Use of camera matching for terrain and rock modeling. For the development of 3D modeling, the terrain mesh (obtained by GIS data), the photographs of the area, and the 3D model of the chapel, were compared using a camera matching tool that allows the compositing of the elements. The reconstruction started with the photographic material provided by the architects of S.M.A.O. (Fig. 3). • Procedural modeling of vegetation. Software advances have permitted the development of specific solutions for 3D vegetation. In the pre-visualization phase of the scene, geometries in the viewport are simplified to reduce the calculation performed by the graphics card. In the rendering process, on the other hand, a rather standard method consists in cloning both procedural and modeled trees by the use of proxies and rendering instances. The proxies import a geometry outside the work file used only during the rendering

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Fig. 3 Chapel in Valleacerón, compositing in the virtual space between the mesh acquired through GIS data, the 3D model of the chapel and the real photos

phase; instances allow you to clone an object by keeping its properties in memory. Both methods reduce the overall calculation of the scene (Fig. 4). • Texturing phase (Fig. 5). The behavior of vegetation when under a light source is determined by both the 3D modeling, from which derive the shadow and the light parts of trees and shrub, and by the texturing phase concerning the materials. In software dedicated to vegetation modeling, a strategy to reduce the number of polygons consists in replacing elements in full geometry with billboards. The latter is a mesh that presents a small number of polygons (or even a single plane/polygon) with applied a texture (Fig. 6), oriented towards the camera. The texture mapping of a billboard generally uses a channel referred to the albedo or diffusion where it is possible to insert the leaf image with its color, an alpha channel to mask the external parts to the apparent leaf outline (Fig. 7), and a bump channel that simulates surface reliefs by means of normal map (Fig. 8). The use of full geometry models and billboard-based models together ensure a remarkable level of detail and reduce rendering times. However, a high level of photorealism in CGI is given by the materials generated by the photogrammetric acquisition of vegetation. This is the case of megascans: high definition scans employing the shading method based on physically-based rendering materials (PBR materials). The peculiarity of PBR concerns the reflectance property of materials. It is based on the Helmholtz principle of reciprocity, for which the incoming light rays are inversely proportional to the reflected ones, due to the phenomena of refraction or absorption of the materials. Therefore, PBR method gives the materials greater accuracy compared to other models, and were used for mapping rocks and terrain in the case study of the chapel in Valleacerón.

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Fig. 4 Assets used in the scene. 3D reconstruction of grass and shrubs surrounding the chapel

It is interesting to understand how the calculation algorithms concerning the shape of the trees are simplified. The lighting model developed by researchers Alexandre Meyer and Fabrice Neyret, entitled Multiscale shaders for the efficient realistic rendering of pine-trees [14], is an example of the logic through which shaders are designed for vegetation. The goal of the researchers is to obtain a realistic rendering of scenes containing a large number of data, simplifying the calculation through a priori knowledge, such as the geometric shape [8]. Their analysis is aimed, in particular, at pine forests, as the morphology of this tree genus allows light to pass through branches and leaves, and therefore requires a more complex calculation. Researchers highlight how, despite the fronds let light rays enter inside, some of the elements that make up the tree become, at a certain distance, indistinguishable from each other.

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Fig. 5 Comparison between rock photography and rendering. Materials based on the photogrammetric acquisition were used for the texturing phases

Fig. 6 Billboard examples: a mesh framework consisting of a few textured polygons, oriented towards the camera

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Fig. 7 Alpha channel used to mask the external parts around the apparent contour of the leaf

Fig. 8 Normal maps are particular types of textures that inform rendering engine of the presence of a normal vector to the surface, and for this reason they allow to simulate reliefs that do not exist on the modeled surface

Specifically, second-generation branches and needles (pine leaves) are perceived at a distance as a single element. Meyer and Neyret base their shader model on the possibility of replacing these groups of components with simpler geometries, to which the same photometric behavior corresponds. In the proposed scheme, from a computational point of view, at first the groups of needles distributed on the branches are replaced by a set of conical surfaces, at a later time each conical surface, which is a

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ruled and developable surface, is replaced by its generator and by the law that regulates its movement. This one allows, in terms of calculation, to have three different levels of detail (LOD) relative to the distance then to the degree of approximation of the calculation: the needle (cylinder), the set of needles (cone) and the branch (set of cones). The three geometric examples allow applying the bi-directional distribution function (BRDF) reflectance model in a parametric and analytical way to pine trees. Before going into the merits of the innovation introduced by Meyer and Neyret – that consists in the parametrization of the BRDF model – the functioning and limits of this method must be considered. From the studies of Graziano Mario Valenti, we understand that the BRDF is a reflectance model that examines the relationship between light source, surface, and observer, and describes the intensity and spectral composition of the reflected light received by the latter [15]. The model takes into account the contributions of the three fundamental lighting components: ambient light, diffused light, and specular light. The contribute of ambient light is approximated if it is assumed that it is uniformly distributed on the surfaces and is reflected independently from the position of the observer. The contribution of direct light is considered according to the principles of the bi-directional reflectances distribution function (based on azimuth and zenith angles of both the incident ray and the direction of sight). The reflected ray is broken down into the two components of specularity and diffusion; the latter is produced by the dispersion of the incident light ray, while the specular component is calculated in consideration of the micro-articulations of the surface, the Fresnel equation and the position of the observer. On the limitations of the model, Meyer and Neyret affirm that: shaders based on a normal distribution function difficultly account for the shadowing inside the small scale; shaders consisting in a sampled BRDF are more accurate, but can not easily be parameterized; shaders consisting in analytical BRDF can be both visibility compliant and parameterized but are not easy to derive [16].

The model proposed by the two researchers, based on the three levels of detail (needle, set of needles and branches), succeeds in making the BRDF model analytical through an a priori study of the geometric elements: • in the case of single needles, the diffused and specular light of the cylinder associated with each needle is calculated, and the intersection between the cones formed by the needles is also considered to exclude the invisible parts of the geometry; • The contribution of the cone generated by multiple needles is calculated with the association of a single semi-opaque cone; the degree of opacity is described by the ratio between twice the number of needles and the radius of the cone. • The contribution of the branches is calculated considering how much this is equivalent to a semi-opaque anisotropic cylinder. To conclude, each of these three calculation schemes corresponds to a specific shader that represent the chiaroscuro of a forest or a single tree at various distances from the observer. In other words, the innovation brought by Meyer and Neyret consists in having simplified the calculation in terms of distance and shape of the

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tree, because as the distance increases the morphology of the trees is reduced to a simpler formal scheme without lowering the quality in the final rendering.

4 Conclusion As Venturi states, taking up the words of David Jones, the art is the domain of practical intelligence and not of speculative knowledge. Today, the practice of digital design, in the form of 3D visualization or archviz, shows a series of connections with the thoughts of the American architect. The possibilities offered by digital tools have contributed to the consolidation of a professional figure specialized in architectural communication, called archviz artist. This character, currently, is renewing and strengthening the link between architectural design and history of traditional visual arts, enriching the project with new communicative contents. The realistic representation of natural elements, with the simulation for example of leaves translucency or water caustics, has increasingly generated visual connections between the rendering and the pictorial tradition of Romanticism. An ever-increasing number of architectural visualizations refer to the picturesque style, for which nature is represented in its most spontaneous form. However, the management of the natural elements in the virtual space concerns complex challenges both for the simplification and optimization of the models, and for the interaction with the lighting calculation algorithms. The current discretization strategies, related to the calculation of chiaroscuro, are based on many factors, including the remoteness of the viewpoint, that are decisive for effectively representing as many polygons as possible. The 3D reconstruction of the landscape surrounding the Chapel built by S.M.A.O and the multiscale shaders model developed by Alexandre Meyer and Fabrice Neyret highlight some solutions concerning the complexity of landscape representation. In the first case, we have seen how the modeling of a terrain can be managed with mesh surfaces from GIS data, appropriately divided and modeled through 3D sculpting; while the considerable amount of natural elements in the virtual scene can be simplified through procedural modeling. Finally, in the rendering phase, trees, shrubs, and grass can be cloned through the use of proxies and instances by facilitating the calculation. The proxies import a geometry outside the work file used only during the final rendering; instances allow to clone an object by keeping its properties in memory. To simplify the calculation, even more, is the replacement of models in full geometry with billboards. As regards, the multiscale shaders model shows how it is possible to have three different configurations related to the distance of the observer. As the distance from camera increases, the morphology of the trees is traced back to a more accessible formal scheme that simplifies the calculation of chiaroscuro and the representation of the elements on the screen, without reducing the quality of the rendering. In this way, even complex forms of vegetation appear quite accurate and able to be compared with reality.

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Acknowledgements A special thanks go to the architects Sol Madridejos and Juan Carlos Sancho Osinaga (S.M.A.O Arquitectos) for making available the documents, photos and drawings related to the chapel in Valleacerón. Copyright The respective authors of the images are attributed paternity through the relative captions. All the images realized on the case study (the Chapel in Valleacerón by S.M.A.O.) are made by the author.

References 1. Purini F (2011) Il disegno nell’architettura italiana. In: Petreschi M, Diario per segni. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, p 31 2. Ivi, p 178 3. De Rubertis R (1995) Disegni, luoghi natali dell’architettura. In: Moltedo A et al (eda) Disegni di Architetture. Gangemi editore, Roma, p 31 4. Venturi R (2005) Complessità e contraddizione in architettura. Original edition: Venturi R (1966, 1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 5. Jones D (1959) Epoch and Artist. Chilmark Press Inc, New York, p 12 6. Muntoni A (2000) Lineamenti di storia dell’architettura contemporanea. Laterza, Roma, Bari, p 328 7. Broche des Combes E (2011) Interview with Luxigon. In: Ronen Bekerman Architectural Visualization Blog. https://www.ronenbekerman.com/interview-with-luxigon/ 8. Ibidem 9. Roman A (2009) The third & the seventh. https://vimeo.com/7809605 10. Rondolino G, Tomasi D (2014) Manuale di storia del cinema. Utet, Torino, p 163 11. Ghirri L (2010) Lezioni di fotografia. Recanati, Quodlibet, p 51 12. Breidbach O, Vercellone F (2010) Pensare per immagini. Mondadori, Milano, Torino, p 75 13. Thema Magazine (2018) https://www.themaprogetto.it/s-m-a-o-sancho-madridejos-architect ure-office-cappella-a-valleaceron-ciudad-real/ 14. Meyer A, Neyret F (2000) Multiscale Shaders for the Efficient Realistic Rendering of PineTrees. http://graphicsinterfa-ce.org/wp-content/uploads/gi2000-19.pdf 15. Valenti GM (2009) La rappresentazione digitale del chiaroscuro. In: Migliari R (ed) Geometria Descrittiva. CittàStudi, Torino, pp 606–607 16. Meyer, Neyret, op. cit. Multiscale shaders for the efficient realistic rendering of pine-trees

The Drawings of Contemporary Architectural Treatises Thought: Relationships and Graphic Representations Andrea Donelli

Abstract In the mid-1960s, a series of publications arose sequentially, whose aim was to observe and scrutinize in depth some of the themes of architecture, the city and the territory. These architectural treatises focused on the question of knowledge as a method of investigation based on the morphological relationships generated by the city and the system of its territory. The treatises, which were also articulated and developed graphically as manuals, were based on the knowledge of the rules intrinsic to the construction of the city through the constituent elements. These writings have played an important and strategic role in relation to studies and training regarding the relationships between architecture—city and urban space—territory. This cultural fact coincided with the moment in which a sort of disdain was manifested by the scientific community towards the mere exercise of the profession, aimed above all at the uncontrolled manner of concretizing architecture through building practices. In fact, in this same cultural moment, a rich theoretical production flourished accompanied by a fruitful reflection and graphic composition determined to represent architecture, as well as urban and geographical space. In this way, theoretical conception was combined with drawing, forming one of the most advanced moments of thought and giving rise to profound relationships in the unity of architecture—city—territory. The drawings from this period and the thought of its intellectual architects, protagonists of a generation that goes from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, form the basis of the present-day method of investigating and representing the architecture of the city and its territory. Keywords Drawing and design city—territory · Drawing and the shape of urban space · Drawing the conceived city · Observe the drawing of treatises and contemporary architecture manuals · Thought and representation of the architecture of the city and the territory

A. Donelli (B) University of Trento, Trento, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_19

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1 Introduction Architectural treatises and manuals have always been a privileged moment to analyse, investigate and explore the scientific process, and the critical reasoning within architecture. The same scientific rationality has acted in creative spheres, especially in the twentieth century, both as an aspect of a formal and a methodical model. With this we intend to say that at the root of everything there is an architectural fact considered not so much as a collection of empirical principles, but based on the articulation of knowledge, representation and interpretation. From these three categories, different forms of thought depart, all of which can all be traced back to the recognition of their nature and essence. Indeed, it is thanks to drawing that it is possible to discern the hand of the author—researcher. Through the forms of representation, the geometric rules, (Fig. 1) and the techniques that define the image, it is possible to generate a geometric model capable of constituting a critical selection, implying interpretative or hermeneutical components. The architectural treatise developed during the twentieth century contains the wisdom of the past as well as the cultural principles of its time and intends to explore introspectively the thought of the avant-garde and the Modern Movement (Fig. 2) through the multiplicity of facts. The strength of the drawing demonstrated in the last century has therefore been able to interrupt the specialization of competences and the homogeneity of the fields, which have instead been reconstituted in actuality in the form of variables and technical and formalistic variants. With the terms analepsis (flashback or retrospection) and abduction we want to give back to knowledge that which the architectural treatise has produced through its written graphic contents, with the possibility of describing levels between reality and its interpretation.

2 Analepsis The term analepsis derives from the Greek ¢ν αληψις, ´ anál¯epsis, and indicates the “flashback”, the telling of an event that happened in the past. It is intended, in fact, in this paper to summarize some aspects considered specific with regard to the vicissitudes of modern and contemporary architecture which treatises and manuals have analysed, demonstrating a new focus on questions relating to the relationships between design, architecture, the city, and the territory. We do not intend to overlook some fundamental passages such as the contribution offered by the manuals of the beginning of the twentieth century which was affirmed in the form of a “code of practice”, in that the content within them related to the art of building contemplated annotations and indications focused on normative and practical references, also with reference to material and construction requirements. The architectural treatises, on the other hand, are articulated toward a study centred on housing and the city, investigating the systematic nature of relations produced by the constituent elements. This

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Fig. 1 Geometric and constructive system of complex vaults. Source Barrera et al. [6], p. 84

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Fig. 2 Ebenezer Howard. Model through diagram of the social organization of the town. Source free https:// www.design-is-fine.org/post/ 83188199833/ebenezer-how ard-garden-city-concept1902

fact is historically attested in parallel with the development of the historical avantgardes that gave rise to the systematic study of the elements belonging to the house and the city. It is therefore possible to see how the theoretical and operational fabric established over the course of a century was characterized not only by theses and analyses deemed useful and active, even today, but also by the different interweaving of relationships, theories and practices, as well as overlapping themes. It is therefore possible to ascertain how the theoretical and operative fabric defined over the course of a century was characterized not only through theses and analyses deemed valid, useful and active, even today, but also by the different interweaving of relations, of theories and practices, as well as overlapping themes. At times, this has also configured chaotic aspects that are often problematic, in which some cognitive paths have emerged and in some cases are interrupted, while in others they come together. It is also a question of verifying those aspects that are articulated both in the confused parts and in those that tend to demarcate with spaces having simple and clear contents. The reading carried out on some particularly evident references to this condition was complex, and perhaps contradictory. In this way a natural hazard occurred, an attempt, albeit partial and provisional, to arrive at a kind of check referring to a moment in twentieth-century architecture, as well as a way to approach the present reality. Through a contribution and a critical vision less tied to the set of interpretations that have also been ideological and that have deeply marked the historiography of modern and contemporary architecture, significantly conditioning it, we have tried to understand the role referred to the thought emerging from within

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the treatises and manuals in the relationship established between the written word and representation. In the first half of the twentieth century, inferred from past experiences regarding the themes of the city and the built environment, two macro research strands that once again dealt with literature and manuals became evident within the knowledge process, through a specific cultural recognisability. The first re-examined the “concept” of treatise. The writings were founded primarily on the analysis of the city, and the meaning of studies about urban space. This approach was a derivation gathered from the experience of Camille Sitte’s treatise, “L’arte di costruire le città” (Fig. 3). The other vein took into consideration the question of manuals, evolving or translating into a sort of handbook with excellent content, of technical and graphic value, in which the writings and, above all, the breadth of the drawings, reported with particular precision details relating to the workmanlike realisation of constructions. The manuals of Donghi, Musso and Copperi and also of Formenti, and others, took the place of nineteenth-century manuals, with the aim of turning toward the practice of exercising the profession also with institutional recognition (Fig. 4). The question of the nineteenth-century culture of the manual dealt with, in a conspicuous and very detailed way, a whole series of dispositions, norms and observations regarding hygienic sanitary and social conditions; consequently, the dwelling, public buildings, and collective spaces were thought of with a structured purpose and at the same time as reforming. The case of the Belgian Joussey, who in 1871 introduced the hygienic records of the houses of Brussels, was affirmed through analogous examples in other European countries. The prophylaxis for hygiene and the hygienic-building question are themes that also led to reformulate the urban planning technique in view of what would have been and considered the near future, thus also rethinking a series of other areas related to the design of the city and territory towards a nascent capitalist economy. The manuals from the start of the twentieth century represent, in an exhaustive manner, a series of technical elements made more valuable by their representation, which propose in a rigorous manner drawings of building architecture in section. The sequence and the minuteness of the graphic-geometric drawings in these manuals describes carefully and in detail the systems, drains, and the water system by applying the new knowledge of sanitary engineering that is established in a peremptory manner with the aim of directing and applying the principles of healthiness. In this way, the evolution of thought about the art of building, understood as a practical and professional aspect, further elaborates within the manuals, through writings and drawings, all of those demonstrations that are similar and that contribute to the complete training of the professional architect-engineer. Examples of stereometry are introduced through the basics of descriptive geometry, thus forming a set of observations and experiences that constitute a dual relationship, a whole that still demonstrates the coherence and the strong motivation relative to the interest and involvement addressed to the art of building. With other intentions, but the same coherence, value and significance are attributed to the meaning of building, acquired from the demonstration of editorial and professional awareness; in this are also contained reflections inherent to the design of the house and the city.

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Fig. 3 Camillo Sitte. Drawings of city squares. Source with account: https://www.pinterest.it/pin/ 63824519693282329/

In this context, the question of the city-garden is also inserted; this also takes on within its requisites the nodal theme of a healthy life; moreover, the design of the house and the city is considered as an opportunity to create new urban spaces and new neighbourhoods with the aim of offering a dignified accommodation for the lower classes. In the period between the two World Wars, both for the need to rebuild to respond to the housing emergency and for the redistribution of the inhabitants of the cities as well as for the reformulation of new residential programs intent on

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Fig. 4 Giuseppe Musso and Giuseppe Copperi construction manual with the insertion of the hydraulic systems of hygiene and salubrity of the house. Source Barrera et al. [6], p. 102

building new homes, different and multiple studies were implemented for drafting plans, projects, and research related to social housing. The themes that emerge from the role, study and project competences involve architects and urban planners, who detect and compare elements that are later recognized as fundamental. A first, generic instance of positive feedback is provided by the contribution of each of the different actors involved in the design of the city. In them, affinities prevail, which proved to be

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important, such as the support for the construction of a community of inhabitants, and the design of shared and open spaces for the city. It is known that these assumptions have not always found a concrete response or complete implementation. There are many cases in which the construction of new housing has not been supported by the realisation of services and many homes are deprived of the meaning of relations. In fact, within the sector reserved for twentieth-century manuals, the part most attentive to questions of art and the science of construction investigated only relatively the theme of living, as well as the theme of typology for developing the program—urban project with a cultural and scientific conception in which the morphological and typological relationship was shared. The European or Italian cases that have faced this question are many; this can be understood in all respects as a common theme that concerned the principle relating to the rational construction of the house. Twentieth century manuals that were written between the wars were particularly and precisely concerned with the theme of the house, and studied its organisation, the various arrangement of its functional elements, and the ergonomic forms and aspects. The drawings included in the manual by Enrico A. Griffini (Fig. 5) are the technical demonstration, within which are inserted the studies of Alexander Klein that analyse the influence of the depth of the building in a systematic series of residential plans (Fig. 6). Another strategic theme relates to the Siedlungen, the new neighbourhoods of the city of Frankfurt, conceived and designed by May,1 and realized to form new housing areas. The project for these areas is based on a rule founded on the control and design of rural space in relation to the study of the historic city. Particularly efficient are the graphic tables of Gropius, graphic demonstration schemes where the distances between buildings are represented on the buildings’ volumes. The exercise requires that the angle of incidence of the light be measured at 30°. This determination establishes a ratio between the height and the distance between the bodies of the building, useful for preparing a proportion in the arrangement to respect the orientation criteria necessary for the planimetric solution of the dwellings. Italy also made use of the discussion centred on the practical aspects concerning the treaty and the manual in which it inevitably makes use of the example of topics related to the study and the project for a neighbourhood relative to a hypothetical city. This experience finds its place within the literature as an example of a scientific nature and as a technical practice. The manual “Ordine e Destino della Casa Popolare” by Diotallevi and Marescotti (Fig. 7) gathers and orders a series of case studies with particular attention, in a philological and rational way. In this way the manual deals with the analysis of 1 May’s

action leads back to the awareness of the tradition of the city. It is a systematic research in which May proves to be intelligent, acute and patient. It is an “unobserved” work, that is almost not visible due to the capillarity with which it is conducted. The difficulties are due to the fact that, unlike other German cities, Frankfurt does not have a well-defined classical urban layout (with the exception of the Römerstadt area) and therefore the study is elaborated in relation to the Gothicmerchant city. This means that for May to possess a specific knowledge of the urban theme, which is the result of a patient conquest made through the reading of the stratifications that the city and the cities have acquired over time, a reading and a concrete analysis made for Frankfurt through the historical typologies is necessary. Through this rational process the objectives that lead to the

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Fig. 5 Enrico A. Griffini. Rational construction of the house. Source Barrera et al. [6], p. 193

the home and housing through a series of graphic drawings prepared in a sequential and comparative succession of examples. Finally, a fundamental contribution is “Manuale dell’Architetto” by Mario Ridolfi from 1946, a text that is presented as an irrefutable and precise guideline, a practical instrument for a process of rationalisation within the professional studio. The text contains applied examples that belong to a simple, though not simplistic, constructive technology, adding value to the experiences returned and designed as architectural details. This manual summarises the experience derived from the early years of the last century, capable of witnessing and transmitting the meaning and responsibility of knowing how to put into practice and to report on the normative aspects, stating with rigor that what is drawn later is built. choices on the typology and consistency of the intervention that will lead to the construction of the city on the city are reached.

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Fig. 6 Alexander Klein. Point method and method of successive increments in the Klein housing. Source Barrera et al. [6], p. 196

Thus, the basis of a conspicuous editorial production was established that has covered for a century the treatises and the manuals supported by action and by scientific and technical rigor. This vast and rich experience has witnessed the extension and the transversality of the interests inherent in the study of housing, the city and the art of building, on which they were founded, almost overlapping, reaching a further form of

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Fig. 7 Irenio Diotallevi and Franco Marescotti. Examples of urban systems related to the design of low houses. Source Barrera et al. [6], p. 208

clarity and theoretical and scientific introspective capacity, the relations produced in the architecture-city relationships from which the treatises published around the midsixties of the twentieth century were derived. In the discussion and representation related to the publications, those contents that were acquired as specific and connected to the constitutive and formative aspects of both the architecture and the design of the city have been explained with particular clarification and fixation. Robert Venturi, for example, explains and renews the concept of context. In the years of Venturi’s training, studies tended to focus their main reflections on two very strong macro issues. The first addressed and supported the thought and work of Le Corbusier, the second was centred around the spatial relationships espoused by F. L. Wright. In the case of Le Corbusier, it was argued that architecture derived its meaning from the processes of conceptualization and abstraction, whose forms derived from the ability to compose and relate to one another by alienating the architectural object from its place, while in the case of Wright’s lesson the composition of architecture derived from the understanding of the relations derived from the reading of space, in which the architectural object was combined with it and was controlled as an integral part of the habitat. Venturi’s thesis, based on the theme of context, determined a new and wide reflection on the way to investigate the place, considering it the basis and the theme from which to derive the characteristics triggered by the relations with

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the architecture. The time span from the mid-sixties of the twentieth century to the mid-seventies marks, in a specific way, a phase in which the conviction of being able to give a robust sense to the question of the community is interposed to methodological research on the city. This attitude was considered the right reason to be able to have a new impact on the choices, producing in this way forms of paths considered alternative and indispensable to a society that had to start in the future. This attitude towards a form of participation in the collective value was also felt and encouraged within the academic sphere especially, but not only, by student phenomena.2 This time became a sort of bridge between the established and recognized masters of the Modern Movement and the emerging figures: architects—urban planners—artists who would then become the heirs who determined, through their research, another new cultural season. This decade was very demanding and difficult, since the thought on the architecture of the city was often replaced by bitter debates, hard clashes and social polemics directed towards those expectations considered valid for a new future. However, this also allowed a close circle of figures to initiate, and to articulate in a space that has become as historically privileged as it is strictly formative, a process of reflection which included both research enriched by pictorial expression and the investigation of a dual line of thought on architecture. The first articulation relative to the line of research on architecture analysed the inherent geometric values related to the knowledge of drawing the character of architectural space, through forms that were established with the theory and representation of the techniques. The second line studied the constituent elements that form the urban and territorial relations with architecture, giving life to a form of investigation. On the basis of these points of an eminent physical value of things, we went on to constitute a set of intellectual relationships and networks that developed in a path interspersed with exhibitions, meetings and writings. This path was also embellished by the contribution offered and guaranteed by drawing, considered and at the same time observed as a favourable contribution aimed at recognizing and fixing the materials of architecture in research, in morphological values and in its theoretical and disciplinary foundations. In this way, two macro-research groups were ideally established: the Roman one with Balbo, Latour, Purini, Thermes, Vinciarelli and others, and the Milanese one with Rossi, Grassi, Cantàfora, and Scolari. In particular the “Milanese group” developed its own research theme around the question of urban, formal and historical analysis as a relative act considered as an advanced moment for the knowledge of the city and its territory. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the architecture designed at this time also showed its maximum tension towards the construction phase. In fact, many of the exhibitions that have taken place since the end of the seventies, often held in art gallery spaces, urged us to perceive a singular phenomenon, exhibiting project drawings and entering into contradiction with the previous gesture characterised by the attitude of refusal determined by the idea that construction was a mere practical realisation of architecture. In fact, the cultural climate of architecture that was in the air between the 1960s and 1970s brings to mind the paradox of Léon Krier: “I make architecture because I don’t build. I don’t 2 Semi

F. (2019) A lezione con Carlo Scarpa.Edizioni Hoepli, Milano, pp. 43–46.

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build because I’m an architect”. The most attentive theoretical culture has overcome this concern; in fact, it is the same Krier who would build, on behalf of Prince Charles of England, the city of Poundbury in Dorset, perhaps the last “ideal” city that was concretely realised in the last century (Figs. 8, 9). This new city is outlined in progression with the conception fixed by a design that is connoted to the different scales of relationship, from the territorial, urban to the architectural one in which, correctly, the distributive characteristics of the buildings form an integral part of the spatially conceived urban design, enriched by prescriptions and recommendations that nevertheless leave amplitude and freedom of action within well-defined specifications. In this, we also find the cultural and expressive identity of the individual architect. This can only refer to a community, to a cultural tradition of collective matrix in which there are reminiscent references to the fact of sharing, but also to an area in which it is only possible to trace and recognise individual identity. This time of experimentation, or better said analysis, of studies on the characteristics of the city has in fact marked the dimension of the investigation, animating the complex paths of invention. This is the time in which the treatises by Aldo Rossi matured, including “The Architecture of the City”, published in 1966, which discusses and explains the new concept of Fig. 8 Leon Krier. Drawing of the city of Poundbury. Source with account: https:// www.pinterest.it/pin/524458 319087846631/

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Fig. 9 Leon Krier. Drawing of the city of Poundbury. Source with account: https:// www.pinterest.it/pin/394065 036121883704/

analogy. “The Logical Construction of Architecture” by Giorgio Grassi who, in the dissertation of the study, elaborates thought on architecture as a form of investigation through description, comparison and classification. Further, “The Territory of Architecture” by Vittorio Gregotti discusses the relationships between architecture and territory, determining and recognising the place in plural meanings also referring to physical environments. Finally, Robert Venturi’s treatise “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” is placed in a condition of complementarity and constant dialogue with the past. Venturi, while refuting a form of simplification, searches for complex and also contradictory elements within the works produced by the action of the Modern Movement. This cultural phase for architecture determined and marked a main path in which greater attention was paid to opportunities. This involved a type of research that, together with the representation of architecture, aligned itself in the direction of wanting to combine the reasons deduced from the analyses in order to search for practical answers. The necessity of the theory characterised this historical phase of contemporary architecture as a phase of structuring and reformulation on an intellectual level. The drawing of architecture has proved to be the centre

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of these studies in that through its expressive and figurative geometric force it has had the opportunity to intercede and to make the theories of architecture graphically explicit. In the same way, the sector related to the design of the contemporary has investigated the geometry of the environment3 and space, just as in an introspective way it sought the reasons related to the relationships determined by the architectural object. Perhaps, only apparently, descriptive and projective geometry did not have such an obvious location, bearing in mind that the close connection between the notion of projection and that of drawing is paradigmatic. As part of the reflection on the twentieth-century treatises and manuals, drawing achieves a sort of formalisation of both operational and representation techniques. Drawing, logic, philosophy and mathematics are applicable to the technique. The revelation of the treatises and manuals is based on this assumption, which has become a theme of revelation of knowledge.

3 Abduction In the philosophical sphere the term “abduction”, from the Greek apagõghé, was used by Aristotle to distinguish it from induction and deduction. In the lexical meaning it is intended as a form of reasoning which demonstrates the logical achievement of facts demonstrated through parameters or hypothesis control. For Aristotle, the initial premise is certain and from it, through the syllogism, minor hypotheses arrive which, on the other hand, are possible but not certain. Abduction, based on the thought of Charles Sanders Peirce, is the only form of reasoning that can increase our knowledge; that is, it allows us to hypothesize new ideas, to guess and predict. In reality, all the inferences identified allow an increase of knowledge, in a different order and to a different extent, confirming that only abduction is totally dedicated to this growth. It is also true that abduction is the inferential means most subject to the risk of error. Abduction, like induction, does not contain its logical validity and must be confirmed empirically. This confirmation cannot ever be absolute, but only in terms of probability: we can say that we have carried out a correct abduction if the rule we have chosen to explain our result receives such and so many confirmations that the probability that it is the right one is a reasonable certainty and if there are no other rules that explain equally well the observed facts. Therefore, abduction is the logical modality that allows one, given an object considered as an effect or an event, to go back mentally to its cause. This does not happen mechanically; in fact, this term is distinguished from deduction, and from induction, where the particular facts correspond to lead to the general statement. Abduction proceeds by scattered, risky, and random experiences. In the mid-sixties of the twentieth century, a series of publications took place sequentially, whose objective was to observe and scrutinize in depth some of the 3 March

London.

L, Steadman P (1971) The Geometry of Environment. Edition RIBA Publications Ltd,

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themes of architecture, the city and the territory. Preceded by Kevin Lynch’s text “The Image of the City”, many of the main architectural treatises including “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” by Robert Venturi, “The Architecture of the City” by Aldo Rossi, “The Territory of Architecture” by Vittorio Gregotti, and “The Logical Construction of Architecture” by Giorgio Grassi, will form the backbone of studies on architecture and the city. As well as Adolfo Natalini, who with Super Studio in the pages of the magazine “Casabella” wrote incisively and with knowledge a sort of panegyric, an encomiastic and persuasive discourse on the relationship and the social relations between man and the city. The text includes a kind of prediction: “the visions of twelve Ideal Cities, as the supreme goal of twenty thousand years of blood, sweat, and tears of humanity; the definitive port of Man who possesses the Truth, finally devoid of contradictions, of doubts, of misunderstandings, of indecisions, definitely, totally, immeasurably filled with one’s own perfection”. The discussion of time also includes the concepts relating to the dual relationship between architecture and city in which Rob Krier’s analysis prevails through the text of: “Stadtraum in theorie und praxis”, with which he followed a wide series of essays observed together with his brother Léon, which concerned the dissemination of texts focused on the analysis-project description supported by an exhaustive and connotative demonstration and graphic representation. This fervent period relating to the study period, which took shape in the relationship between analysis and the project together with the representation of the architecture of the city, continues to reopen debates and discussions. It is in this context that Dario Passi’s drawings fit into the dialogue, through demonstrative models, capable of orienting a creative and technical process by controlling its conceptual and operational path. Alongside these experiences, the introspective drawings on architecture relating to the scholarly thinking of Brunetto De Batté, which include representations of the city and the territory, are positioned as a premonitory sign (Figs. 10, 11, and 12). The drawings of Arduino Cantàfora stand out for their refined sensitivity due to a sort of dreamlike, divinatory art that develops between oneiromancy and oneironautics (Figs. 13, 14). The collection referring to the set of drawings by Passi, De Batté and Cantàfora, not easily, or only with difficulty juxtaposed, if not with abduction, constitutes a world and a way that appears over time and in the story on paper that describes and outlines architecture and the city. Such attitudes concerning a form of research, of representing architecture through drawing alone, are evocative. Although these are not architectures and cities that existed, they are “truer” than those defined by their real spaces. Above all, they are drawn, as they want to reveal the shapes of cities in their depths, in which memories and fragments of urban architecture are found. This sort of apparent narrative chronological path is strictly connected, if not by a variety provided on the events, as it has been said that abduction is a parallel thought, a form of hypothetical reflection that tends to be placed by necessity, challenging deduction. In fact, there is no a priori relationship based on what happened, since the facts lie on the cultural values driven by a need to go further. The treatises based on representation intend to go beyond the fact of fixing documentary and didactic solutions, and, in turn, the representation itself becomes a treatise within the treatise. This observation is the privileged moment that springs

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Fig. 10 Brunetto De Batté. Ritratti Visioni Paesaggi, scritti scelti, di segni presenze di architettura. Source Brunetto De Batté, Ritratti Visioni Paesaggi, scritti scelti, di segni presenze di architettura, p. 152

Fig. 11 Brunetto De Batté. Abaco: disegni, progetti, ricognizioni. Source Brunetto De Batté. Abaco: disegni, progetti, ricognizioni, p. 46

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Fig. 12 Brunetto De Batté. Abaco: disegni, progetti, ricognizioni. Estratti da quaderni azzurri 2017/2018. Source Brunetto De Batté. Abaco: disegni, progetti, ricognizioni. Estratti da quaderni azzurri 2017/2018, pp. 62–63

from within the abduction. In this we can see what can be fixed and re-established. As with the representations, the drawings of architectural treatises from the mid-sixties, in addition to being didactic, informative and enlightening with respect to the text, also express purely conceptual aspects. They anticipate or confirm the content of the text in a cerebral way and, in some circumstances, precede with their image the consequence of the case. Thus, the dual question of drawing as a language or as a moment of reflection is closely connected to its abductive nature and value as defined by Brandi and Tafuri who revealed the relations between “structuralism”, “visibility and/or pure constructiveness”.4 In an overall view, the drawing within architectural treatises from the period beginning with the mid-1960s, highlights an “etymological” chain of undertakings. It describes the characteristics of the text, explains the reasons, originates with the formation of geometric graphic models an autonomy which absolves the unity of the arguments. Each of these passages which outlines the contents and the modalities of the treatise, is based on a sort of probability5 attributed to the occurrence of other passages which form part, in a specific manner, of the concepts that in turn fall within the procedural process of the document: a process of the treatise and of knowledge that the treatise and manual formulate as 4 Sergio

Los. In March L, Steadman P (1974) La geometria dell’ambiente. Editore Gabriele Mazzotta, Milano, p. XXVI. 5 March L, Steadman P (1974) La geometria dell’ambiente.Editore Gabriele Mazzotta, Milano, p. XXII.

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Fig. 13 Arduino Cantàfora. Le stagioni delle case. Source Arduino Cantafora. Le stagioni delle case, Edizioni Kappa, Roma, p. 7

an objective, but which, however, must not guarantee a sense of certainty in relation to research relevant to scientific thought. In fact, the probabilities constitute a free and bound form of understanding,6 knowing that we cannot know everything, or find everything, or what, effectively, we are looking for. This establishes other measures of the level of knowledge and penetration by the user both in understanding the manual or the treaty and in research. In conclusion, summarizing what has been said, we report a process of reasoning relating to the relationship between the manual and the treatise according to the thought of Vittorio Ugo which begins from a statement by Giorgio Grassi: “… manuals - whether technical, typological or formal - can be considered the expression of an implicit theory. On the other hand, it is grafted into a cultural tradition that, apart from the individual disciplinary declinations, can be traced back to the culture of the season of the Encyclopaedias: the one that, by completing the modern, inaugurates the contemporary. Historically, - continues Ugo in his examination – “the fundamental critical nucleus of the phenomenon is placed in a period of transition; it therefore places itself in a period of transition, in the saturation of the seventeenth-century and Enlightenment Rationalism, which in 6 Op.cit.

p. XXII.

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Fig. 14 Arduino Cantàfora. Le stagioni delle case. Source Arduino Cantafora. Le stagioni delle case, Edizioni Kappa, Roma, p. 11

Europe opens to positive sciences, to large urban planning projects, to industrial and mercantile development, to the renewal of social relations…”.7 This consideration reiterates how treatises and manuals are custodians of a knowledge, of a condition that arises between a way of knowing and knowledge, since for both there exists a transmission of a theory and an exhaustive and impeccable method. But it is between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that a continuous experience and enrichment of the drafting of the manual as a practical act is being consolidated. At the base 7 Ugo

V. (1997) Fra trattatistica e manualistica: teoria e rappresentazione. In Rappresentazione dell’architettura forma, geometria e tipologia, volume I MURST, Milano, p. 91.

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of this attitude there is a new increase and growth of the technical rather than of the literary-scientific aspect which was more in correspondence with a treatise and therefore reflexive. The presence and affirmation in this historical period of many publications of technical manuals, testifies in fact to an evolution initiated by the process of the industrial revolution. Without wishing to enter into the disputes of Galilean origin relating to the definition of art, technique and science, these new manuals verify an incentive towards a greater observation of the constructive detail and the mechanical detail. This attitude also coincided with the privileged recognition of the role and profession of the engineer, to the detriment of the architect. In brief, to conclude, again citing the writings of Vittorio Ugo: “Among the treatises and manuals “in reference to the current situation we read that: the manual as a genre of architectural publishing (and of the research that it implicitly presupposes) no longer makes sense today, or by making the elements coincide with the components of a constructive procedure now managed exclusively by technology and the market, it is reabsorbed within a general cataloguing of products on the market, obviously computerised, but without critical content …”.8 The current crisis of the treatise and the manual corresponds in a certain way to the crisis of the design of the city. Its formal degradation is caused by the eradication of any recognition, even historical, of the drawing, and by its wise use, by morphological and typological characters, but also by increasingly defined and specialized technical procedures. “… Today’s construction of the city is characterized by the fracture between man and his product, between its essence and its existence …”.9

4 Conclusion The drawing within twentieth-century manuals and treatises has proved to be a form of general control and an indispensable testimony of the building, architectural, and territorial construction. With the twentieth century, alongside treatises and manuals are handbooks that replace the historical dictionaries, encyclopaedias which were a sort of integration between the treatise and the manual, followed by vade mecums, as well as compendiums. The drawing in treatises and manuals served a different purpose, from a demonstrative and eloquent value of how to build, to a descriptive meaning related to deductive and mental facts. The categories and ways of representing the texts adapted according to the cultural theme, and to the tendency of how the study was articulated, ordered and organized through a specific research mode and cultural attitude. The treatises of the mid-twentieth century that were established around the 1960s were created and embellished internally through a particular and lively intellectual, and also social, debate that dealt with different issues. The key themes concerned and involved the study of the architecture related to the city, just as the question of architecture was combined with the question of territory in a unitary 8 Op.cit. 9 Renna

p. 93. A (1980) Costruire e abitare. In L’illusione e i cristalli, Edizioni Clear, Roma, p. 174.

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organic reading. In the same way, a dimension related to the representation of architecture and the city takes place, detached from the purely theoretical component. The drawing, despite an apparent autonomy and free interpretation, aims to bring the captions of the treatise and the manual back to constant reflections and continuous references. The drawing returns to being at the centre of the discussion, assuming a new autonomy in free thought. The architectural treatises of the mid-1960s formed the basis for the resolution of a debate and, without foreseeing it, they also called for a new reopening. Acknowledgements There are many people to whom I am grateful for the valuable suggestions I received and for their constant availability regarding this demanding study work. Thank you for your kind attention to professors Brunetto De Batté, Arduino Cantàfora, and Dr. ssa Gisella Bertini of the BE-MA, Milan Editions. Thanks for the courtesy Dr. ssa Simona Cappabianca of the Kappa Editions Rome. A sincere thanks also to Dr. ssa Ceil Jann Friedman. Thanks to Maddalena also for having given up the summer holidays because I was busy with this research.

Copyright All images are restricted as they come from different sources. Figures 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are courtesy of the BE-MA Editions (Milan). The figures number 10; 11; 12; Professor Brunetto De Batté was kindly released directly by the author. Figures 13 and 14, courtesy of Professor Arduino Cantàfora and Edition Kappa, Rome. The figures number 2; 3; 8; 9 are taken from free online acquisition as shown in the list of images.

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50. Hilberseimer L (1981) Architettura a Berlino negli anni venti. Edizioni Franco Angeli, Milano. Deutsch edition: Hilberseimer L (1967) Berliner Architektur der 20er Jahre. Florian Kupferberg Verlag, Mainz 51. Hunziker J (1900) Das Schweizerhaus nach seinen landschaftlichen Formen und seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung. H.R. Sauerländer, Aarau 52. Jencks Ch (1980) Late modern architecture and other essay. Edizioni Rizzoli NY, New York 53. Klee P (2016) eds (1960) Paul Klee Diari 1898–1918. Edizioni Il Saggiatore, Milano. Deutsch edition: Klee P (1957) Tagebücher von Paul Klee 1898-1918. M. Dumont Schauberg Verlag, Köln 54. Kleihues JP (1984) Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin 1984. Verlag Quadriga, Berlin 55. Klotz H (1985) Postmodern visions. Drawings paintings and models by contemporary architects. Abbeville Press, New York 56. Krier L, Kunstler JH (2009) Drawing for architecture. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and London 57. Krier R (1979) Urban space. Academy Editions, London 58. Krier R (1975) Stadtraum in theorie und praxis. Edition: Karl Krämer Verlag, Stuttgart 59. Lambertucci A (1983) Realtà disegno forma Architetture. Edizioni Kappa, Roma 60. Lynch K (1977) Il tempo dello spazio. Edizioni Il Saggiatore, Milano. English edition: Lynch K (1972) What time is this place? Institute of Tecnology, Massachusetts, Cambridge and London 61. Lynch K (1960) The image of the city. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and London 62. Marras G, Pogaˇcnik M (2006) Giuseppe Samonà e la scuola di architettura a Venezia. Edizioni Il Poligrafo, Padova 63. March L, Steadman P (1974) La geometria dell’ambiente. English edition, Editore Gabriele Mazzotta, Milano 64. March L, Steadman P (1971) The geometry of environment. RIBA Publications Ltd., London 65. Massironi M (1982) Vedere con il disegno. Edizioni Franco Muzzio, Padova 66. Mezzetti C (2003) Il disegno dell’architettura italiana nel XX secolo. Edizioni Kappa, Roma 67. Moneo R (2005) Inquietudine teorica e strategia progettuale nell’opera di otto architetti contemporanei. Edizioni Mondadori Electa, Milano 68. Montaner JM (1996) Dopo il movimento moderno. L’architettura della seconda metà del Novecento. Edizioni Laterza, Roma, Bari 69. Moschini F (1989) Il disegno tra utopia e teoria: le linee portanti della ricerca. In XY Dimensioni del disegno, 1968–1988 Vent’anni di architettura disegnata, vol 10, pp 27–34 70. Nicolin PL (2012) La verità in architettura. Pensiero di un’altra modernità. Edizioni Quolibet, Macerata 71. Palmieri V (1997) Mario Ridolfi. Guida all’architettura. Edizioni Arsenale, Venezia 72. Passi D (1982) Architettura di città. Edizioni Kappa, Roma 73. Pastor V (2017) Tracce. Edizioni Il Poligrafo, 4 voll. Padova 74. Portoghesi P (1994) I grandi architetti del Novecento. Edizioni Newton & Compton, Roma 75. Purini F (2018) Pensare rappresentando o rappresentare pensando. Edizioni Published by Europa concorsi MAXXI, Roma, In Divisare piccola antologia Dario Passi 76. Purini F (2007) Una lezione sul disegno. Edizioni Gangemi, Roma 77. Renna A (1980) Costruire e abitare. In L’illusione e i cristalli, Edizioni Clear, Roma 78. Rogers EN (1997) eds (1958) Esperienza dell’architettura. Edizioni Skira, Milano 79. Rossi A (1978) eds (1966) L’architettura della città. Edizioni Clup, Milano 80. Rossi A (1974) L’analisi urbana e la progettazione architettonica. Edizioni Clup, Milano 81. Sacchi L (1989) Il disegno dell’architettura americana. Edizioni Laterza, Roma - Bari 82. Samonà G (1982) La casa popolare degli anni ’30. Edizioni Marsilio, Venezia 83. Sanmartn A (1986) Venturi Rauch & Scott Brown. Accademy, London 84. Scolari M (2005) Il disegno obliquo. Edizioni Marsilio, Venezia 85. Semi F (2019) A lezione con Carlo Scarpa. Edizioni Hoepli, Milano 86. Sitte C (1980) L’arte di costruire la città. Edizioni Jaca Book, Milano. English edition: Sitte C (1909) Der Städtebau nach seinen küntlerischen Grundsatzen. Vienna

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Connections: Complex and Contradict Contemporary Places

Landscapes of the Spanish Royal Sites: A Complex Contradictory Historic Development Pilar Chías and Tomás Abad

Abstract The landscapes of the Spanish Royal Sites have undergone significant functional, aesthetic, symbolic and cultural changes over the course of centuries. Most of them were depicted in paintings and drawings, as well as in ancient cartography. The image of Monarchy to be exhibited during each historic period, together with the reiterated financial crisis took direct effect on land uses, but also on urban morphologies and architectural design. As a result, some incoherent and contradictory elements were brought into the territories, that were frequently charged with symbolism and showed an inadequate increasing scale. They overlapped with the existing complexities and contradictions, and with the richness of meanings that had been woven for centuries. According to Robert Venturi, the idealisation of the historical is in danger of turning into a picturesqueness that sacrifices the original variety and refinement. Despite all this, the Royal Sites around Madrid still preserve numerous vestiges of the rich original settings, meanings and uses, that were described for centuries by artists, architects and engineers. Keywords Royal Sites · Spain · Landscape drawing · Ancient cartography · Architectural plans · Townscapes · Historic Sites · Urban development · Territorial planning

1 Introduction The architecture of the Royal Sites was built throughout the centuries according to the Vitrubian attributes of utilitas, firmitas, and venustas, meaning utility, strength, and beauty [22, 23, 25]. But the complexes which we know today have an implicit high degree of complexity and contradiction, resulting of the differing emphasis on significance in each historical epoch [24]. P. Chías (B) · T. Abad University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] T. Abad e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_20

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Until the last century, these territories consisted of complex sets of various constructions and uses but preserved a homogeneous scale. The disposal of most of the Royal properties in 1855 broke the territorial unit that was forged for nearly seven centuries, as the new landowners introduced new uses and constructions whose building typologies were inconsistent with the traditional ones. From 1950 onwards, the remaining conceptual integrity of the Royal Sites was again threatened by new infrastructures and phenomena as tourism and industrialisation, that tried unsuccessfully to detach architecture from everyday experience and from the values of visual perception, while erasing the significance of the whole. Fortunately, the formerly Crown-owned goods and property have been efficiently managed by Patrimonio Nacional and the corresponding city councils, that prevented it from happening. However, from a formal and perceptive point of view, distancing from life experience introduced small simplifications and industrialised picturesque that remembered some old craft traditions. Likewise, the genius loci were occasionally disturbed by some isolated changes of scale. The main target of our research is to reveal the important role played by the Vitrubian attributes in the construction of the Royal Sites, that was developed for centuries in order to create their own complex and contradictory identity. For this purpose, we will refer to the abundant set of paintings, historical images, and cartography, that depicted their uses together with their aesthetic and symbolic values.

2 Methodology The conceptual frame of our study draws from the Vitrubian attributes, and the complexities and contradictions that appear in some singled out architectural examples. In the spirit of Robert Venturi their impact on their respective significances will be addressed hereunder. To this end we drew on graphic, cartographic, and written sources that were produced between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. The first set is composed by: • Architectural and urban drawings and plans. • Overview plans produced to outline the structure of streets and walks, and of orchards and gardens. • Infrastructure projects: hydraulic, roads and pathways, railways, bridges, dams and canals, etc. • Landscape drawings and cityscapes. • Due to their capacity to show daily life qualities and scenes of courtly pleasure, pictures became most useful to our research. From the nineteenth century onwards, they explore also the feelings and emotions evoked by these landscapes.

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• Despite their particular use, that is evidenced by the election of settings and points of view, the historic and contemporary photographs provide relevant objective information about the Royal Sites. When they are compared to the preceding images, some aesthetic, formal, constructive, symbolic, and functional changes are evidenced. Among the cartographic sources, two main sets of maps must be highlighted. On the one hand, the cartography produced by means of scientific methods from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards. On the other hand, maps that drawn mainly in previous centuries that lack of metric or projective accuracy but provide valuable topologic and toponymic information. We used different types of maps and plans, both manuscript and printed, that were produced for various purposes [9, 10]. The research into the graphic sources was completed with the irreplaceable study of the written documents, both kept in archives and libraries. Ambassadors’ reports and travelogues at the Spanish court were particularly interesting to our targets, due to their subjective and critic perspectives. The methodology was performed in two main steps: 1. We defined the different ways under which complexity and contradiction appear in the architecture with reference to the three Vitrubian attributes of utility, strength, and beauty, and to their related significance and symbolism. 2. According to this conceptual framework, we looked for such complexities and contradictions in the proposed case study (the Royal Sites) at the architectural, urban and territorial scales.

2.1 Utilitas (Utility) The study of uses and functionalities in architecture evidences some complexities and contradictions resulting of particular design strategies and devices that affect directly itineraries, but also the way spaces are used (sole or shared use). Itineraries introduce the time dimension, and a viewer in motion throughout the building and on the outside, or just walking across the town, may experience the significance of such strategies in all its magnitude [7, 8]. When the itineraries inside a palace are directional and become abruptly truncated ending against a wall, they provide an interesting case of contradiction. Similarly, in the Baroque city the broad urban views are closed by buildings with a strong symbolic character, whose façades are designed as true theatrical sceneries. In fact, the main finding of baroque architecture was the creation of towns that were artworks regarding to the visual perception. To this effect, the strategies provided by perspective were used. Although they were a legacy of Renaissance art, they were successfully applied in the Baroque period designing focal perspectivist spaces [12, 213–218]. Accordingly, other Baroque devices were based on the straight line, the monumental perspective, and a programmatic homogeneity that subordinated the particular to the whole [17]. Thus, perspective provided a new concept of space to the world [14].

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Shared buildings and spaces become also an interesting case study due to their complex functional organisation that has a direct impact on their shapes. On historic architecture they result frequently from the changes in use or in the functional programme that happened over time. It was caused by new needs and requirements or was due to changes of customs or etiquettes. Sometimes they were linked to taste and fashion, or were just due to changes in ownership, or to the new concepts or ways of using spaces. In this respect, specialisation of spaces and their corresponding shapes that is inherent to modern architecture, can be interpreted as a simplification that does not enhance the experience of buildings, urban spaces, or landscapes.

2.2 Firmitas (Strength) Ambiguity between form and structure is another design artifice that has been frequently used in architecture, and that affects the complexity of significances. But in the field of painting, such a calculated ambiguity was based on the collective experience and concentrated in the points of greater poetic effectiveness in order to create tension [15, 237]. Some historic periods usually combined both of them with the aim of enhancing the richness of significances. At the core of this design strategy are the several levels of interpretation provided by historic buildings and towns, that are able to work at many levels simultaneously. They can manage ambiguities that affect form and perception, introducing interesting contradictions between what image is and what it seems, as Baroque architecture handled wisely. For instance, some structural elements are frequently hidden under the appearance of decorative elements or extend into false structural elements that are just painted or modelled. Other examples are rhetorical elements as those that have a dual function as decoration and structure. Historic architecture shows many examples, as the baroque pilasters that are used to get a rhythm.

2.3 Venustas (Beauty) From an aesthetic-formal point of view, historic architecture has developed several design strategies that enable the introduction of some levels of complexity and contradiction in the perception of the ensemble. This was conceived by the Gestalt Psychology as the sum of the parts, and the way they can influence the whole by means of their situation and number. The system of interrelationships that can be established between the parties is very complex and may be perceived with varying levels of intensity. When applying this strategy, the whole may strengthen the parties,

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as in the case of the “unified unity” that Wölfflin discovered in the Baroque art, or in the inclusion of antagonisms into a whole. From the perspective of the organisation and the hierarchical structuring of forms and spaces, contradiction affects the relationships of the parties with the whole as it admits various significance levels between elements of different values. In this respect, differences in form and scale, or in character (open or closed), become devices that create tension and sharpen the capacity of perception, that are particularly effective when they are combined simultaneously. If this happens, the whole becomes the binder of the hierarchy. Another kind of contradiction appears when shapes, textures, materials, and colours are juxtaposed in a two- or three-dimensional way. Such strategy also affects to contrasting rhythms (e.g. curvilinear and straight), and to juxtaposed functions into a single element that becomes both ornament and structure. Other cases are “accidental collages” [24, 104] and “violent contiguities”. Dualities, as particular cases, also appear at various conceptual levels. Such contradictions are also evident at the urban scale, and perceived as changing heights and rhythms, in the false regularity of some aligned constructions, etc. Contradictions that appear by contrast between the inside and outside of a building or an urban space must be highlighted. They are evident in a great variety of designs that give a broad significance to Louis Kahn’s statement that a building is an object that shelters. In this regard, the façades that conform themselves to their functions can be considered as “adapted contradictions”. This can be achieved by means of the superposition of elements, or opening and closing spaces, as in the lower galeries at the palaces or in the loggias. Spaces that are apparently residuary become also contradictory, as those created between the architectural elements that conform a faux façade, and there is a real enclosure wall running along behind it. It is the case of a “redundant enclosure” that can also appear in columned rooms, in transparentes (skylight cuts that allow shafts of sunlight to strike into the back of an altarpiece), etc. At a second stage of the research we found and analysed all these strategies at the Royal Sites located around Madrid. Although each one has its own singular character, they were chosen as case studies because of their architectural and urban values, and their outstanding landscapes that were built for more then six centuries. Among all of them we selected the most representative ones considering the targets of the research as the Royal Sites of El Pardo, Aranjuez, the Monastery of El Escorial, and La Granja de San Ildefonso.

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3 Justification and Short Presentation of the Case Studies: The Genius Loci of the Royal Sites From the Middle Ages to modern times, Kings used to choose some particular places in the surroundings of Madrid with the aim of building a series of temporary residences to be used at different seasons as hunting grounds and fishing areas [3] (Fig. 1). The Royal family and the court could also exercise warlike arts in these estates, that conformed a territorial system that caused admiration among the visitors, as confirmed the writer and chronicler Ramón Mesonero Romanos: Few monarchs have as the Spanish, however great and powerful they are, so many and so varied Royal Sites for leisure and utility, where to rest of the duties inherent to the Crown and exhibit their majesty and strength. Only fifteen miles around Madrid, at least there are sixteen wonderful palaces, most of them embellished with sumptuous gardens and broad woods, were the architecture and the ornament of the regal castles gathered all what the human imagination can produce with the support of such a powerful Kingdom […] [18, III, 194].

Their increasing complexity led Emperor Charles to create about 1545 the Real Junta de Obras y Bosques (Royal Council for Works and Forests) “to protect, manage, and care of the palaces, the castles and the royal woods; the construction of new buildings; the works and repairs of them and the gardens, and the preservation of game in their forests […] with a particular jurisdiction over the actions of justice and govern […]” (Archivo del Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, envío 580, nº 85). Such a territorial system reached its maximum splendour during the reign of Ferdinand VII (1814–1833).

Fig. 1 Anonymous, 1567: Boundaries of the hunting grounds of El Pardo. Archivo General de Simancas, Valladolid

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The Royal Sites were located in places that fulfilled the Vitrubian criteria of healthiness, productivity, and good winds. Their surroundings were water abundant and have enough resources for building and meeting the demands of everyday life [25]. Many essential infrastructures were also built in order to ensure provision of safe drinking water and irrigation water, as well as the savage and path networks, including canals, dams and bridges [6]. They were designed by the best engineers who were in the service of the Crown of Spain. Despite the continuous improvement of the roads, until de eighteenth century these palaces remained isolated in their territories, as there was any construction around them but the Casas de Oficios and other service buildings. The palaces were surrounded by forests and gardens and were placed at the center of a natural environment, whose vicinity was gradually urbanised [2, 4, 5]. In the eighteenth century the Bourbon dynasty undertook some essential institutional reforms and boosted the construction of towns in the vicinity of the palaces. The new urban spaces, streets and constructions, were built according to the more favourable orientation, avoiding heading for adverse winds, and fostering ventilation, healthiness, and right lighting. Their arrangement and design were the most suitable to their functions [25]. The relationships established between the palace, the town, and the landscaped environment, changed over the course of the centuries, but the representative status of the absolute royal power continued until 1855. This year the bankruptcy of the Royal Treasury forced the sale of a significant part of the royal estates, what had grave consequences for the royal heritage. Once given the common characteristics of the Royal Sites, we will see the way each one developed its own genius loci.

3.1 El Pardo El Pardo is the Royal Site located closer to Madrid, about two leagues (14 km) to the north. For this reason, it was used mainly in winter. The first reports of its existence date from 1312, but its use as a royal hunting estate increased in the fifteenth century, at the expense of the forestry use. This situation was consolidated throughout the centuries, when the boundaries of the Royal Wood were significantly enlarged [16, 108–113], as a result of the successive purchases of communal and private owned lands of the Villa de Madrid. The Royal Site reached an extension of about 16,000 ha. The actual forest arose from a sustained human action. The original landscape was composed by a Mediterranean scrubland with thick low bushes, that has evolved into a holm-oak wood with meadows due to a secular game exploitation with an added livestock farming.

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Fig. 2 View of the Palace at the Royal Site of El Pardo. (Photography by the authors)

The outstanding palace was built by Emperor Charles in 1543, according to the project by architect Luis de Vega. Shortly after it was completely refurbished by his son Philip, and in 1772 was substantially expanded by King Charles III. This King was the promoter of the construction of the town, because there were only some service buildings in the surroundings of the palace, as stated the enlightened writer Antonio Ponz (Fig. 2): This palace had any accessory buildings but a Casa de Oficios with stables. But during his reign, the old House has doubled its size and a new one was built, the Guardias de Corps headquarters, royal stables, a big house to accommodate the Infantes don Gabriel and don Antonio, some other for the village supplies, a theatre, and many private houses. The existing old barracks and huts near the palace and the Casa de Oficios were demolished, and the result is a nice populated small town, that has all the commodities when the court sojourns there [20, VI, 175–176].

Site plan was designed in 1770 by López Corona. The main square was located in front of the southwestern corner of the Casa de Oficios and was a civil service space. At three of its sides there were buildings with porches for commercial uses, and stores for provisions (Fig. 3). Unfortunately, a large part of the original setting disappeared when dictator Franco inhabited the palace, and important urban reforms were carried out. The new urban plans were drawn by architects Méndez and Andrada in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Fig. 3 Diego Méndez, 1940: The main square in El Pardo. Archivo del Palacio Real, Madrid

3.2 Aranjuez The Royal Site of Aranjuez was mainly used in springtime, due to its pleasant climate. It was located south of Madrid, in the fertile floodplain of the rivers Tajo and Jarama. It forms a landscape of orchards and gardens, both aesthetic and productive, that “did not result from the spontaneous free occupation and transformation of the arable plain, but from a leading will and a rational planning.” [8, 22]. In origin, it was a medieval estate that belonged to the Order of Santiago, but their properties were extended in 1487 when it became a property of King Ferdinand the Catholic. His grandson the Emperor Charles improved the medieval irrigation system and built the dams of Alpajés and El Embocador on the river Tajo between 1530 and 1540, together with the canals of Aves and Azuda, that still run along the riverbanks. In 1550, when Philip II was still a prince, he defined a Mannerist geometric structure for the orchards, that was based on tree-lined streets that were directly influenced by the urban works of Juan Bautista de Toledo in Naples, and of Domenico Fontana in Rome. The natural areas that were not used as game exploitations or for fishing, were designed as Flemish gardens and orchards. Crops, and livestock farming lived together with exotic animal breeding, to the point of being essential to the royal supply [21, 38]. The King also improved the irrigation system by building new ones, and the outstanding Ontigola Dam.

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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, only the southern wing of the Palace and the Casa de Oficios y Caballeros were built, beside two interesting open spaces as the Raso de la Estrella and the Plaza de las Parejas (Fig. 4). The Palace was only finished between 1728 and 1732, when King Philip V decided to extend the Habsburg construction according to the traces by architects Pedro Caro Idrogo and Étienne Marchand, they followed the guidelines of precedent projects by Juan de Herrera in 1574 and Juan Gómez de Mora in 1626 (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4 Hauser y Menet, 1891: Panorama of the Royal Site of Aranjuez. (Authors collection)

Fig. 5 Pedro Caro Idrogo and Étienne Marchand, 1728: Renovation and expansion project of the Palace of Aranjuez. Ground floor plan. Centro Cartográfico y de Estudios Geográficos del Ejército, Madrid

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It was his son, King Ferdinand VI who promoted the construction of the town, and commissioned Giacomo Bonavia to design the urban plan. The sumptuary aim of the project was later critisised by the Neoclassics, who reproached him for using “unreasonable” acute angles on the blocks’ ground plan, and for an urban planning that was strained by the location of the Palace and its service buildings. Nevertheless, the correspondence between the structure of the new town and the existing tree-lined streets must be stressed, as their alignments appear also in the urban plan and became perfectly integrated into the environment. From 1760 onwards, King Charles III extended once again the Palace and consolidated the town. He published an ordinance to regulate the new constructions and to control the urban growth, and promoted the construction of new urban spaces as the Plaza de Abastos (Market Square), and numerous service buildings inside and outside the town boundaries, as the slaughterhouse, the cemetery, or the butcher, among other. As a result, a new expansion of the urban plan was needed in 1765. It was traced by architect Jaime Marquet. To align the streets and squares that should be built, the old houses that were built in 1750 were tore down, and those that were better built, or did not hinder the urban development, were also destroyed in 1761. The urban planning did not take into account the main winds, because it was more important to satisfy the sights from the balconies in the eastern façade of the Palace, facing the three main streets of the Reina, Príncipe and Infantes. It was decided to build the new town to the East of the Palace, because the road from Madrid arrived the Puente de Barcas, where the old houses stood. But it would be better to choose the southern area, because of the higher elevation and venting of the terrain. No levelling was performed with an accurate knowledge of the water drainage, though many clearings and embankments were carried out. Although alignments were carefully ensured, the ground plan of the blocks resulted with sharp and obtuse angles, due to the fan-shaped streets of the Reina, Príncipe, and Infantas, that opens the upper part. To discharge the wastewater in the streets was prohibited […] [1, 234–235].

The result was a new model city built by the enlightened monarchy, that gathered the emblematic pageantry with the delights of the countryside (Fig. 6). King Charles III introduced some interesting initiatives. Three enlightened farming operations should have been the model to be followed in other parts of the country, representing an ideal picture of Spain. Accordingly, the Real Cortijo and the Campo Flamenco were added to the Huerta Valenciana and the Huerta de Picotajo, built by King Philip II. Each one had their own characteristics, plantations, and landscapes, and all of them were easily accessible through the new tree-lined streets, the functional layout, and the new bridges. The years of splendour of Aranjuez culminated with the coming of the railway in 1851. Eighteen years later, the 1869 Act dismembered the Royal Site as it allowed the sale to private individuals of a significant part of the crown’s patrimony. As a consequence, landscapes changed substantially. Nevertheless, due to its historic value, the historic town centre of Aranjuez was declared a Historic-Artistic Site by Royal Decree 2860 of 14 September 1983.

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Fig. 6 Domingo de Aguirre, 1775: Topography of the Royal Site of Aranjuez. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid

3.3 La Granja de San Ildefonso From the first third of the eighteenth century, the summer residence of the Kings of Spain was the Royal Site of La Granja de San Ildefonso, built by the first Bourbon King on the northern slope of the Guadarrama Mountains. The new Palace replaced the old Habsburg Palace of Valsaín, that burnt out at the end of the seventeenth century. The original structure was an old estate that belonged to the Hieronymite order. In this case, the new Royal Site was entirely planned by King Philip V to be used as a place of retreat. Architects, engineers, gardeners, and artists that worked previously for the French King Louis XIV in the Palace of Marly, designed the ensemble according to the King’s wishes. Many authors cite the Palace of Versailles as a precedent of La Granja, but Philip V did not want to emulate its broad monarchic scenography, but to build a French style garden and a worthy residence for the powerful King of Spain and the Indies. It should be rich in sculptures and fountains, but should be traced according to the present style and formal codes, that no longer were those by Le Nôtre, but those by Dézailler:

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The location on a hillside site is in great demand and very advantageous, provided that it is not a steep slope, but soft and unnoticeable, with sufficient available walking areas, and amount of water […] that will provide one of the most pleasant location, because the mountain will shelter from high winds and from the burning sun, and will allow you fully enjoy the warm air; the waters descending from the top of the mountains will create in your gardens all the fountains, canals and even cascades that you will desire [13, 8–9].

Due to the geographic and formal similarities, to the coinciding purposes and uses, and to the nearness in time, the precedent of La Granja was Marly (Figs. 7 and 8). Answering to the King’s needs and after a short abdication, the Royal Site went from being a place of retreat to be the summer residence. As a consequence, the Palace is a highly complex building that was successively built and extended over a short period of time (1721–1743). The various stages of the construction process still evidence the evolving taste at the Spanish court, that followed the patterns of the European art, and particularly the Italian style that was preferred by the Queen. The Palace was designed by outstanding Spanish architects (as Ardemans), and Italian artists (like Procaccini, Subisati, Juvarra, and Sacchetti). The result was a perfect monumental example of the jardin de plaisance ou de propreté. King Philip V did not take care of the consolidation of the town that was emerging by the northwestern side of the Palace and the gardens. Again, King Charles III was

Fig. 7 Anonymous author, c1740: Plan Général du château et des jardins de Saint Ildefonce. Blibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

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Fig. 8 Jean Laurent, c1870: San Ildefonso. The Cascade. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid

concerned with the organisation of the Site’s development, and with this purpose he commissioned architect José Díaz Gamones to design a town-model between 1766 and 1788. The urban plan followed the enlightened principles of regularity, order, propriety, and cleanliness. The main guidelines suggested to draw a geometric plan with long straight streets, quadrangular blocks, and buildings that were formally and typologically homogeneous. But the rugged topography and the existing buildings prevented to build such an ideal urban plan, producing in turn a trapezoidal Plaza del Palacio with the Medio punto (semicircular arch). Although some picturesque elements were introduced at the end of the nineteenth century, such as big trees and an English style parterre, the Royal Site keeps its original unitary and austere aspect, that is animated by the coloured mortar renders on the façades.

3.4 San Lorenzo de El Escorial Finally, the Real Monastery of San Lorenzo of El Escorial can be considered as a singular example of ecclesiastical lordship created during the full control of the authoritarian monarchy of Philip II [23, 367].

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It was built on the south side of Mount Abantos between 1564 and 1584, following the successive projects by Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera. Since its creation, the institution enjoyed independence both of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. And for this purpose, the King donated an extensive heritage compose by a large number of estates and of important incomes [3]. From the beginning, the main building or cuadro incorporated the uses of convent, college, seminar, basilica, palace, and a private house for the King. Outside were located the Gallery of Convalescents and the Apothecary [11], and two Casas de Oficios (that were separated from the principal building by a big square or Lonja), the Houses for the Doctors (who gave lessons at the college), and other service buildings as the Compaña. The King prohibited specifically to build any construction in the surroundings of the Monastery, what caused discomfort and unnecessary nuisance to courtiers and visitors. The Monastery was encircled on the eastern and the southern sides by a set of gardens, orchards with magnificent ponds (El Castañar, La Herrería), pleasure houses (La Fresneda, Campillo, Monesterio, El Quexigal, and San Saturnín), meadows and forests, that were bounded with El Pardo. Thus, the royal estates formed a single continuous spatial and functional area (Fig. 9). Due to his great passion for hunting, Charles III used to frequent the woods of El Escorial in the autumn, and he was accompanied by a large entourage of nobles and servants, that lack of an adequate lodging. The King was again promoter of the

Fig. 9 View of the Monastery of El Escorial from the North-West. (Photography by the authors)

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town at the Royal Site, when he allowed the individuals to build houses by a Royal Decree of May 3, 1767. This caused a long dispute with the Hieronymite order of the Monastery. Regardless the steep slopes of the Royal Site, the new town was planned and built to the north, behind the Casas de Oficios. It was provided with new service buildings, with porticoed galleries for the market, and with a theatre and a hospital. Architect Juan de Villanueva built new buildings between 1770 and 1785 to the service of the royal family and for the Minister of State, that closed the northwest angle of the Lonja using an architectural style and typology inspired in the neighbouring Monastery and its sixteenth century dependencies. Accordingly, the new constructions had plain masonry façades, with the unique decoration of the projecting jambs and thresholds over doors and windows, the protruding cornices, and the attics under the slate roofs [19, 62–63]. The housing was bounded by the Ordinance to have two or three levels, with a ridge roof. The façades were made of masonry reinforced with ashlar in the corners or made of brick with a lime stucco. The protruding cornices were also usual, sometimes replaced by an eave. Urban growth was enabled along the main roads to Madrid (one across Galapagar, and another via Guadarrama by the North), that were very much improved (Fig. 10). During the reign of King Charles IV, an unexpected urban growth took place, and due to the topography, the resulting neighbourhoods were deficient in easy adequate road accesses. In 1799, the instability of the Monarchy limited the urban development, and then the Peninsular War (1808–1814) stopped it for almost a century. As a consequence, the town centre declined until King Ferdinand VII restarted the stays at the Royal site in the autumn. The expulsion of the Hieronymite friars in 1837 implied the sale and dismembering of most properties. As a consequence, new uses were introduced as the extraction of wood charcoal and the lease of pastures. Forests were partially cut down, and landscapes changes profoundly. Such a period of uncertainty went through when new projects arouse with the arrival of the railway to El Escorial, and the transformation of the Royal Site into a summer resort. In addition, in 1893 the Augustinian order dealt with the management of the Monastery. In 1984 the Monastery and the Royal Site were inscribed on the World Heritage List of UNESCO. Most of the buildings are now protected, together with the natural environment.

4 Complexity and Contradiction in the Royal Sites As we saw, the complexity of the Royal Sites makes them singular places with their own distinctive identity.

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Fig. 10 H. Merlo, 1785: Topographic plan of the Royal Site of San Lorenzo. Archivo del Palacio Real, Madrid

According to the methodology, at the second stage we will develop some illustrative examples related to the utility, the strength and the beauty, that affect significances and evidence the contradictions that were defined in previous phases.

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4.1 Complexity and Contradiction in Utility During the Habsburg dynasty the Itineraries inside the Palaces were designed according to the strict rules defined by the protocols of Castile and Burgundy, that were valid at the Spanish court until the arrival of the Bourbon dynasty in 1700. From the reign of King Philip V (1700–1746) on, some customs from the French court were introduced, while the old Habsburg ones were reduced. There were usually two parallel paths, one for the royal family, and another for the servants, that never met. On the other hand, those who visited the King must follow a hart symbolic ritual, that included to go through a succession of rooms before reaching their final destination. As a consequence, the design of the interior itineraries that visitors must complete, was carefully structured and planned directionally, in a theatrical symbolic way. And they were frequently truncated against a wall (Fig. 11). At an urban scale, similar design artifices were applied. For instance, the broad perspectives of the streets used to be closed by some buildings with a strong symbolic character, whose façades were true theatrical stages. At Aranjuez, architect Bonavia designed the axis of the Plaza de San Antonio to be aligned with the Puente de Barcas (Bridge of Boats) and the road to Andalucía, while the shape of the square was defined by the location of the bridge, the parterre, and the Casa de Oficios y de Caballeros, that must conform one of the sides of the urban space.

Fig. 11 Filippo Juvarra, 1735: Succession of rooms inside the Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia. (Photography by Patrimonio Nacional)

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Fig. 12 View of the convent and square of San Antonio at the Royal Site of Aranjuez. (Photography by the authors)

On the other hand, the scenography of the curvilinear façade and the porticoes of the Church of San Antonio should connect with the gallery of the Casa de Oficios y de Caballeros, and with the twin block that should have been built opposite (Fig. 12). Spaces and shapes for changing uses or multifunctional rooms were frequently designed for the royal palaces. An outstanding example is the main stair of the Royal Palace in Madrid, that changed its location many times between 1747 and 1800. The first project by Sacchetti included two symmetric stairs and was soon changed by Sabatini into a single one to the left of the main hallway in 1760. Finally, the symmetric stair on the right side of the main entrance was built during the reign of Charles IV. It was also frequent to close loggias and galleries due to the introduction of new uses. This happened on the lower part of the south aisle at the Palace of Aranjuez, that was originally an arcade that opened to the private garden, accordingly to their function as a suburban villa in the Italian style (as, for instance, Villa Madama). But the need for space to accommodate the large family of King Charles III, required to close the arches and partition such a magnificent gallery. Some other functional contradictions can be appreciated in the big fake arch (non-structural) that covers the small bracket since the middle of the eighteenth century (Figs. 5 and 13). Another issue to be considered about the changes of use was the new concept of family that was introduced from the end of the eighteenth century onwards and affected the private life of the royal family. As a result, they inhabited some private rooms that were just located in one part or aisle of the Palaces, keeping the rest for

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Fig. 13 Royal Palace of Aranjuez, secret garden of King Philip II and the porticoed gallery that was closed in the middle of the eighteenth century. (Photography by the authors)

representative functions. As an example, we can mention the “Cabinet of precious woods” that was located in the Tower of Damas and decorated for Charles IV in the last decade of the eighteenth century (Figs. 14 and 15).

4.2 Complexity and Contradiction in Strength The integrity of structures is frequently the subject of different kind of artifices that distort the true resistant elements. These can be hidden by a profuse decoration or doubled in a way that hinders their readability due to the ambiguity that affects form and perception. There are many examples of those practices, that use to rely on pictorial decorations, particularly in the mannerist and baroque architectures. For instance, the extension of the constructive elements on the frescoes that decorate the lower Cloister of the Evangelists at the Monastery of El Escorial, create the illusion of an expanded space by means of a frontal view. Another interesting example are the fake tribunes embedded in the big solid pillars that support the heavy load of the dome in the Basilica at the Monastery. This compositional device simulates the existence of spaces and functions that are simply impossible because the tribunes have no way to access and are just unattainable (Fig. 16).

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Fig. 14 Monastery of El Escorial, Cabinet of Charles IV. (Photography by Patrimonio Nacional)

4.3 Complexity and Contradiction in Beauty With respect to the forms, the strategies of design that introduce high degrees of complexity and contradiction are directly related to perception, and affect the architecture, the town and the landscape. They may vary in nature, and impinge on various aspects as the scale, the relationships between the parts and the whole, juxtaposition, dualities, perception of rhythms, inside-outside, open-closed, the creation of “residual” spaces, etc. Some of them can appear at once, or individually. The hierarchical arrangement of shapes is a compositional device that is due usually to changes in use and to the different relevance of significances. The human scale and the open character that shows the Gallery of Convalescents at the Monastery of El Escorial, contrasts sharply with the closed symbolic mass of the monumental main building. As a result, its design denotes various significances and values, and

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Fig. 15 The Tower of the Damas at the northeastern corner of the Monastery of El Escorial (Photography by the authors)

at the same time reflects the needs that are a consequence of functions. In this case, the whole becomes the binder of prioritisation (Fig. 17). Two- and three-dimensional juxtaposition of forms can be fostered by means of a wise combination of diverse materials, textures, and colours. If we look at the main façade of the Palace of La Granja, where the extension by Procaccini copes with Juvarra’s central part, the juxtaposition of styles and the contrast of rhythms are evident. And the use of various types of stones introduce some subtle chromatic nuance in its perception (Fig. 18). Dualities are another frequent case that appears at the ground plan of the buildings that will be extended. The Spanish royal palaces whose functional and spatial organisation was around a patio, a useful solution was to replicate the first patio by building a symmetrical one. Such device was applied to the old Alcázar in Madrid, but also to the Palace of El Pardo when Sabatini projected an enlargement as required by King Charles III (Fig. 19). “Residual spaces” are without doubt a kind of compositional device that seems contradictory, but they provide a redundant effect of great interest from the point of view of significance. They appear as faux external façades, or as series of duplicities in columned halls (as the Salón de Columnas in the Royal Palace in Madrid). The case of the invisible spaces that have to be seen through concealed openings that

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Fig. 16 Basílica of the Monastery of El Escorial, fake tribunes embedded in the pillars. (Photography by the authors)

are strategically located and oriented, is particularly interesting. As we said, such transparentes are mainly used in some Mannerist or Baroque churches and allow the sunbeam to strike the tabernacle giving the appearance of a magic transcendent place. An interesting example is the trasaltar-transparente (retrochoir) in the Basilica of the Monastery of El Escorial, that is located behind the high altar and allows a coloured light to penetrate through the tabernacle (Fig. 20). Another interesting case are the galleries or ambulatories that run half-hidden behind the walls of spaces that are apparently closed, as happened in the perimeter wall of the altars in. the Basilica of the Monastery (Fig. 21).

5 Conclusions Historic architecture, as well as towns and landscapes built over the course of centuries, still show many complexities and contradictions that need to be defined and analysed prior to making an intervention. It is the only way to avoid misleading

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Fig. 17 The Garden of the Friars at the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial. (Photography by the authors)

simplifications and incoherences, as those provoked by the sales of the Real Heritage that jeopardised the disappearance of the historic imprint that characterise their identity and singularity. Obviously, the built heritage will require adaptations and changes, but a deep awareness of what cannot be touched is needed, in order to keep or reinforce its significances. Consequently, each action in a Royal Site or a built heritage must check carefully all possible complexities or contradictions relating to the three Vitrubian attributes of strength, utility, and beauty. In fact, changes of use in historic buildings and urban spaces are commonplace, but any priority issue may be threatened. Similarly, the variety of issues and the underlying order can disappear if simplifications are introduced inside the apparent chaos that is inherent to strong vitalities. For this reason, it becomes essential to define clearly the rules of a game that range “between order and compromise” [24, 66]. In this respect, it is also necessary to review the role that the technical innovations play in this game.

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Fig. 18 Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso: main façade to the gardens. (Photography by the authors)

Fig. 19 Francisco Sabatini, 1772: Ground plan of the Royal Palace of El Pardo after its extension. Archivo del Palacio Real, Madrid

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Fig. 20 Juan de Herrera and Pedro Perret, 1587: Monastery of El Escorial. Fifth Design (Longitudinal section), detail. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid

William Wordsworth [26] showed the way when he stated that “the principal object, then […] was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.”

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Fig. 21 Juan de Herrera and Pedro Perret, 1587: Monastery of El Escorial. First Design (Ground plan), detail. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid

References 1. Álvarez de Quindós J (1804) Descripción histórica del Real Bosque y Casa de Aranjuez. en la Imprenta Real, Madrid 2. Cervera L (1986) El conjunto escurialense con naturaleza urbanizada. El Escorial La arquitectura del Monasterio. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos, Madrid, pp 89–113 3. Chías P (2016) Los Reales Sitios en España: de cazaderos reales a poblaciones consolidadas. Territorio, paisaje y ciudad. In: Chaves MA (ed) Ciudad, Arquitectura y Patrimonio. Universidad Complutense de Madrid/CSIC, Madrid, pp 29–42 4. Chías P (2013) Territorio y paisaje en el entorno del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial: planos y vistas desde el dibujo de Hatfield House a Guesdon. Revista EGA 22:38–49. https:// doi.org/10.4995/ega.2013.1687 5. Chías P (2014) Fincas y cazaderos reales en el entorno del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial: tradición medieval e influencia flamenca. Revista EGA 23:46–53. https://doi.org/10. 4995/ega.2014.2171

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6. Chías P, Abad T (2014) La construcción del entorno del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Agua, territorio y paisaje. Informes de la Construcción 66(536). https://doi.org/10. 3989/ic.14.027 7. Chías P, Abad T (2015) Los Reales Sitios en España: de la imagen ideal a la ciudad construida. In: Marotta A, Novello G (eds) Drawing & City/Disegno & Città. Gangemi Editore, Roma, pp 497–506 8. Chías P, Abad T (2016a) Los Reales Sitios: Patrimonio y paisaje urbano. In: Calatrava J, García Pérez F, Arredondo D (eds) La cultura y la ciudad. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Granada, Granada, pp 507–518 9. Chías P, Abad T (2016b) The Peninsular War 1808–1814: French and Spanish Cartography of the Guadarrama Pass and El Escorial. In: Liebenberg E, Demhardt IJ, Vervust S (eds) History of Military Cartography. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, pp 263–281 10. Chías P, Abad T (2018a) Drawings and scale models used in building the Spanish Royal Sites. diségno 2:33–42 11. Chías P, Abad T (2018b) The Botica or Apothecary in the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial (Madrid, Spain): written sources, historic drawings, and new surveys applied to architectural analysis. Buildings 8:4. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8010004 12. Chueca F (1968) Resumen Histórico del Urbanismo en España. Instituto de Estudios de la Administración Local, Madrid 13. Dezallier D’Argenville A-J (1709) La théorie et la pratique du jardinage où l’on traite à fond des beaux jardins appelés … ‘les jardins de propreté’. Chez Jean Mariette, A Paris 14. Giedion S (1949) Space time and architecture. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 15. Hyman SE (1955) The armed vision. Vintage Books, New York 16. Íñiguez JL (1952) Casas Reales y Jardines de Felipe II. CSIC, Roma 17. Lavedan P (1959) Histoire de l’urbanisme: renaissance et temps modernes. Henri Laurens, Paris 18. Mesonero Romanos R (1832–1842) Escenas matritenses, vol 4. Imp. de Yenes, Madrid 19. Moleón P (1988) La arquitectura de Juan de Villanueva El proceso del proyecto. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos, Madrid 20. Ponz A (1776–1794) Viage de España en que se dá noticia de las cosas más apreciables, y dignas de saberse, que hay en ella, Tercera edición, vol 18. Por D. Joachin Ibarra, Madrid 21. Puerto J (2003) La salud, la alimentación, las diversiones y la vida cotidiana de Felipe II y su corte. In: La leyenda verde. Naturaleza, sanidad y ciencia en la corte de Felipe II (1527–1598). Junta de Castilla y León, Salamanca, pp 123–231 22. Terán F (1949) Huertas y jardines de Aranjuez, Revista de la Biblioteca. Archivo Y Museo (Ayuntamiento De Madrid) 58:261–296 23. Valenzuela M (1974) El Escorial. De Real Sitio a núcleo turístico-residencial. Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños t. X:363–420 24. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 25. Vitruvius M (1761) Compendio de los Diez Libros de Arquitectura de Vitrubio. Escrito en Francés por Claudio Perrault … Traducido al Castellano por Don Joseph Castañeda. Madrid, en la Imprenta de D. Gabriel Ramírez 26. Wordsworth W (1800) Preface to Lyrical Ballads. In Famous Prefaces. The Harvard Classics. Available at: https://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html. Accessed 31 July 2019

The Representation of Complexity and Contradiction in the Las Vegas Landscape Victor Hugo Velásquez Hernández

Abstract Complexity and Contradiction in architecture as well as Learning from Las Vegas, Robert Venturi’s two most famous books, share the approach of new analytical procedures and the eminently graphic character of it discourse. In the case of the research in Las Vegas, Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour accosted the study of the meanings existing in the urban landscape and, simultaneously, presented a reflection and an experiment on representation systems. The experience produced a large number of graphic documents of various types, some of which were very original and innovative. This graphic exploration usually goes unnoticed by the forcefulness of the message and the editorial requirements in the preparation of the book. The original 1972 edition is followed by the 1977 edition, which makes a drastic modification of all graphic material. The contrast between the two editions has already been thoroughly studied and discussed. However, questions about the specific tools of representation used in the book, as well as their implementation in the study of the landscape, still remain. In particular, the first part of the book is the one that best reflects the research experience carried out by the architects in 1968. The detailed study of these documents and their function within the book makes it possible to reflect on the possibilities of representation systems as analytical instruments of the landscape. Keywords Venturi · Scott brown · Representation system · Landscape · Contradiction · Learning Las Vegas

1 Introduction The impact of Robert Venturi’s two main books, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972), the latter co-authored with Denise Scott Brown and Steve Izenour, is well known. The relationship between the two books certainly has many readings. Venturi himself exposes one of them in the V. H. V. Hernández (B) Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_21

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prologue of the second edition of Complexity and Contradiction, where he proposes a possible interpretative link: “… in hindsight this book on form in architecture complements our focus on symbolism in architecture several years later in Learning from Las Vegas” [10, p. 14]. Later, he described Learning from Las Vegas as a book that “… represents perhaps an evolution from the concept of form, which was essentially the subject of Complexity and Contradiction, to symbolism, a revolutionary idea in the context of its time” [11, p. 8]. Beyond a feasible line of thematic continuity—the interest that shifts from form to symbol—it seems clear that the two books share the same research spirit that is translated into terms of analytical procedures. In the first case, inspired by T. S. Eliot, the author considered analysis and comparison as instruments of criticism and creative processes in architecture, while the second book was described as the result of an academic work that began as “Learning from Las Vegas, or Form Analysis as Design Research.” Although there are many nuances regarding the scope, operations, and objects of study for each book, they can be understood as attempts to explore and adjust different analytical instruments aimed to study the relations between architecture and landscape. In Complexity and Contradiction, with a predominantly architectural nature, there are significant references to the urban environment and the landscape. On the other hand, although in Learning from Las Vegas the urban landscape gains greater prominence, this approach not only does not exclude the analysis of the architectural pieces, but in many cases it is based precisely on them to address the study of the street, the city, and the landscape. Another aspect common to the two books is the editorial structure, which divides the contents into two main parts: research argumentation and projects. Each book has two different editions due to the reorganization of its content. In the case of Complexity and Contradiction, the Museum of Modern Art re-edited the original 1966 edition in 1977 with an important modification of the format and its orientation, so as to provide more space to the images. Similarly, Learning from Las Vegas has two very different editions: the 1972 edition was followed by another in 1977; the latter was a reduced version, which involved a radical reorganization of images and texts. Although the eminently visual character is one of the fundamental features of the two books, little has been said about the graphic tools and representation systems used as part of that analytical process in the two books, nor about their technical characteristics and application strategies. In Complexity and Contradiction the argumentation part includes graphic material with a clear predominance of photography (68%), essential to demonstration. Of the 253 images that accompany the text, 168 correspond to photographic material and only 85 are distributed between planimetric documents (48 floor plans, 23 sections and elevations), and other drawings. In contrast to Learning from Las Vegas, the graphic material is much more varied: the representation systems include photographs, maps, diagrams, different types of plans, and even film material. However, its quantification and classification pose difficulties due to the differences between the two editions of the book. The 1977 version makes a drastic reduction of all graphic material, in addition to some important modifications to its location, arrangement, and size. The contrast between the two editions of Learning from Las

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Vegas has already been thoroughly studied and discussed [1, 8]. It is worth reiterating the obvious disadvantages of reduction in the dimensions of the book for the correct reading of a good part of the original graphics. Not only does the large format achieve greater legibility, but it also imposes a greater visual impact, especially on the double page spread (21 × 14 1/8 in.). However, the question about the specific representation tools used, their characteristics, and implementation in the book remains unanswered. This is the objective of this article.

2 The Original Version of the Book The 1972 edition is clearly divided into three parts: the first, entitled A SIGNIFICANCE FOR A&P PARKING LOTS, OR LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS, consists of a republication of the article originally published in the journal Architectural Forum (March 1968), the true seed of all research; the second part, entitled UGLY AND ORDINARY ARCHITECTURE, OR THE DECORATED SHED, develops the central argument by making “… a generalization on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl from our findings in Part I;” and, finally, the third part—eliminated in the 1977 edition—entitled ESSAYS IN THE UGLY AND ORDINARY: SOME DECORATED SHEDS, consists of an exhibition of the projects carried out by the Venturi and Rauch office. It is in the first one in which the representation systems have greater relevance, especially those developed in the research that preceded the first edition of the book. The first part comprises 64 pages with 48 maps, architectural and urban plans, around 1500 photographs (those isolated and those forming part of collages, frames, or demonstrative paintings), and 16 different types of drawings and schemes. In contrast, in the 39-page second part the presence of graphic messages was reduced to 74 photographs, 2 architectural plans, and 15 different drawings. The third part comprises around 30 projects, each with its own graphic information. The chapter begins with this warning: The work covered here is that initiated since the publication of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The text-image relationship in the first part of the book is conditioned by the argumentative structure of the authors, operating a new subdivision of contents. On the one hand, they re-edited the aforementioned article “A SIGNIFICANCE FOR A&P PARKING LOTS, OR LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS” as the “main” text of the chapter. But, on the other hand, they develop parallel argumentation, explained in subtitles, in which they present a series of reflections on the meaning of research itself and the purpose of architectural representation for the analysis. This second text is easily readable thanks to its location, on the margins of the page, and its typographical differentiation. The two passages, both the “main” and the parallel, have numbered links according to the images. It seems that instead of modifying the wording of the “main” text, the authors preferred to “add” a new text, which often complements and clarifies the original paragraphs.

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These functions of alternative discourse are very much disrupted in the 1977 edition—and in subsequent re-editions—since it is relegated to a kind of independent annex that separates the two parts of the book. In this way, the links between the parallel wordings of the two texts are broken; sometimes this gives the impression of some themes being reiterated. The connections between the two texts and the images are also more difficult to read. The authors try to alleviate this disconnection by resorting to a complicated nomenclature system that helps the reader to relate the graphic material with the text. § See material under the corresponding heading in the Studio Notes section following. [10, p. 3]

All the graphic material used in the chapter comes from the work carried out by the group of researchers until January 10th, 1969. Led by the three authors, this group included nine architecture students, two urban planning students, and two graphic design students, all from Yale University [9, p. ix]. From the outset, researchers were aware of the difficulties they faced in their endeavor, as they had to resolve a number of operational questions in the graphic field: “… Our problem is to find the graphic means to distinguish our hard knowledge from the [t]remendous [sic] variety of subjective, but no less meaningful, knowledge we all brought back from Las Vegas” (Venturi et al. 1968). Despite the effort involved in the study, they themselves were not satisfied with the results, since “… Unfortunately, with twelve or so people, we were not able to cover all the research topics we had programmed, nor did we have available time or data to cover other subjects adequately” [9, p. 24]. However, the final product of this challenge was quantitatively considerable and qualitatively significant due to its experimental peculiarity. The material finally comprised a substantial number of documents, including maps, tables, and diagrams, as well as sequences of films and slides [5]. Analyzing these graphic documents made it necessary, first, to highlight their objectives and their elaboration process. It was the fruit of an arduous and systematic task that sought to unravel some aspects of the complex, lively, and elusive phenomenon that is the city and its landscape. It was a task that had also been carried out after a long incubation period, monitored by highly skilled architects and possessors of a sharp and competent gaze. It is feasible to classify all this material into at least three types of documents: maps and plans, photographic material (including frames, photographs taken by the team, collected images, postcards, and advertisements), and finally analytical diagrams and charts subsequently developed by the team.

3 The Maps of Las Vegas The first part of the parallel text, entitled A STUDIO RESEARCH PROBLEM, begins by clarifying the authorship and direct responsibility for much of the material produced: “The studio programs and work topics were designed by Denise Scott Brown. Portions of them are quoted in this column.”

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She herself then highlighted the importance given to the graphic representation tools: This has been a technical studio. We are evolving new tools: analytical tools for understanding new space and form, and graphic tools for representing them. Don’t bug us for lack of social concern. We are trying to train ourselves to offer socially relevant skills.

Unlike the bewildering order of the graphics in the 1977 version of the book, in the original edition the layout and order of the images chosen is perfectly understandable. For example, on double-page spread 4–5 the text message and images are closely linked. The paragraph entitled LAS VEGAS AS A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM immediately refers to the “spirit” that guides the introduction, and perhaps the entire book, through these words: “WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS, FREE ASPIRIN—ASK US ANYTHING, VACANCY, GAS.” The photographs, composed in line on the opposite page, repeat and reinforce the introductory message Fig. 1. This opening paragraph is fundamental to understanding the organization of the rest of the content. There is a first classification of the material obtained by means of three categories or, as she calls it, three “message systems” that order the relationship between architecture and symbol: the heraldic, the physiognomic, and the positional. Each category is accompanied by a first sequence of maps of the area studied, complemented with some eloquent photographs for each case (Figs. 2 and 3). The idea is completed by stating that the three categories are mixed in the street: “… as when the façade of a casino becomes one big sign or the shape of the building reflects its name” (with day and night photographs of the Stardust) “and the sign, in turn, reflects the shape. Is the sign the building or the building the sign?” (with a photograph of La Concha, whose sign repeats the original shape of the building). The paragraph ends the message by referring once again to the difficulty in the representation and communication systems of the phenomenon studied: “… we have no good graphic tools for depicting the Strip as message giver. How can the visual importance of the Stardust sign be mapped at 1 inch to 100 feet?” [9, p. 4]. Gradually, concerns about representation systems begin to take on a real role in the parallel text. The topic is especially addressed in the paragraph on page 15, where questions about how to represent some of the bewildering features of Las Vegas demand new methods of analysis:

Fig. 1 Photo sequence, page 5 (fragment)

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Fig. 2 Double page 4–5. Location of “parallel” text and map of “heraldic symbolism”

Fig. 3 Double page 6–7. Maps of heraldic, physiognomic and locational communication

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The representation techniques learned from architecture and planning impede our understanding of Las Vegas. They are static where it is dynamic, contained where it is open, twodimensional where it is three-dimensional—how do you show the Aladdin sign meaningfully in plan, section, and elevation, or show the Golden Slipper on a land-use plan? Architectural techniques are suitable for large, broad objects in space, like buildings, but not for thin, intense objects, like signs; planning techniques are able to depict activity (land use), but in excessively general categories, for the ground floor only, and without intensity… … How do you distort these to draw out a meaning for a designer? How do you differentiate on a plan between form that is to be specifically built as shown and that which is, within constraints, allowed to happen? How do you represent the Strip as perceived by Mr. A. rather than as a piece of geometry? How do you show quality of light—or qualities of form—in plan at 1 inch to 100 feet? How do you show fluxes and flows, or seasonal variation, or change with time? [9, p. 15].

Experimentation with different techniques for the representation of these new urban scenarios would condition some of the graphic documents used in the research. For example, that discussion about the relevance and the exploration of analysis tools is accompanied by a second sequence of maps. All of them are strikingly particular: white figures, describing matters such as Undeveloped Land, Asphalt and Autos, Buildings and Ceremonial Space, are contrasted against a black background. The sequence ends with a strange Nolli map and a sort of summarizing image, with touches of color, which tries to capture the intensity of communication by types of building. In fact, the entire map sequence tries to build a “Noli” plane. Fig. 4. But the graphic coding of the whole series may have another explanation. Indeed, researchers were motivated to find a type of representation that accounted for

Fig. 4 Double page 16–17. Noli’s maps of strip

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the transformation and intensification of the Las Vegas nighttime communicative phenomenon. The events of use, perception, and communication were highlighted and enhanced by the use of light and color, by means of a kind of exuberant explosion of messages that tended to overwhelm the passer-by, even from the road, by stimulating him and making him a participant in the curious urban event that characterized Las Vegas. A new map can be added to the sequence, located a couple of pages ahead that represents the Strip lighting levels, so the sectors where the night luminosity was concentrated or dimmed can be observed. A third sequence is closely linked to the paragraph in the “main” text, significantly entitled MAPS OF LAS VEGAS. The graphic codes were more conventional, representing aspects such as land use, location of commercial establishments, distribution of churches, food stores, wedding chapels, and auto rentals Fig. 5. The sequence aimed, on the one hand, to detect and to make the existing possible urban “patterns” visible and, on the other hand, to capture something of the “environmental qualities” in the route on the planimetric diagram. For this purpose, graphic experimentation was combined with the collection of other types of documents of different origins. They elaborated, for example, an unconventional attempt: on a street plan each and every one of the signs visible from the road were labeled, drawn with the same typeface, relatively neutral, but respecting the proportion of size, location, and original orientation within the main Las Vegas Strip (Fig. 6). The sequence ended with a tourist map and brochure. For Venturi and Scott Brown, the task of tracking different latent patterns in the city was part of the work of the architect-planner (Vinegar and Golec 2008, p. 35). Thus, the inquisitive eagerness

Fig. 5 Double page 18–19. Possible urban “patterns in Las Vegas”

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Fig. 6 Double page 20–21. Every written word seen from the road and Illumination levels on the Strip

encouraging the team offered a new sample of its spirit free of disciplinary prejudices and open to experimentation. The attempt to make those possible immanent patterns of the city explicit was indeed one of the main challenges in the graphic representation of the book. The paragraph entitled precisely LAS VEGAS AS A PATTERN OF ACTIVITIES includes this reflection: A city is a set of intertwined activities that form a pattern on the land. The Las Vegas Strip is not a chaotic sprawl but a set of activities whose pattern, as with other cities, depends on the technology of movement and communication and the economic value of land.

Immediately afterwards, the questions about the representation systems became more explicit and concrete: The questions are: How can the traditional city planning methods for depicting activity patterns (land-use and transportation maps) be adapted to a city such as Las Vegas? How can they be made useful as inspiration sources and design tools for urban designers? What other methods are there for coming to an understanding of the city as an activity system? [9, p. 15]

The phenomenon to be traced was too complex to conform to the usual recipes and graphic codes of urban planimetry. Finding and understanding the patterns that govern the reality of the city was a shared concern at that time. There was actually a temporal coincidence between this analysis and Christopher Alexander’s research in Language of Patterns. The representation systems implemented in the maps by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour made it possible to identify a series of activity

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patterns referring to mobility on the road and its correlation with the types of roads existing in the urban structure of Las Vegas. These representation systems also aimed to reflect the system of uses by identifying not only its impact on urban land, but also its intensity and environmental implications. The interest in the elaboration, use, and implementation of communicative systems of the maps was not alien, above all, to Denise Scott Brown. She had already expressed this concern in the article entitled “Mapping the City: Symbols and Systems” (review of Passoneau and Wurman, Urban Atlas), published by The Journal Landscape 17. She stated: “A graphic representation of urban phenomena can help visually-minded people perceive and understand complex but ordered relationships in the city as no table or verbal description could” [4, p. 22].

3.1 The Plans of Las Vegas’ Buildings Within the extensive number of graphics used in the book, the very scarce existence of conventional architectural plans is striking, in contrast, for example, with Complexity and Contradiction, where plans, sections, and elevations played a fundamental role in the argumentation. The trend towards experimentation with graphic codes in Learning from Las Vegas can be observed in some examples of planimetric representation, this time on an architectural scale. Indeed, all the concern about the symbolism of the street was transferred to the study of concrete cases, strategically selected, among the casinos-hotels distributed along the Las Vegas Strip. Fig. 7. It is not surprising that these buildings became the specific object of analysis by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour, as they were emblematic points of the complex urban relations existing in Las Vegas, true compendiums of day and night activities that they were so interested in studying. There, symbology, architecture, and city converged in a more than complex and contradictory way. The authors again deployed a series of original and imaginative graphic resources for their research. In the first sequence of maps they had already advanced certain characteristics of a group of these buildings. The scale of the maps, moreover, was very appropriate for visualizing certain aspects of their expressive condition, such as “heraldic” and “physiognomic” communication, and the position of the signs that conditioned their relationship with the street. In another specific map, the uses of the buildings had been discriminated in detail by delimiting position and size of types of spaces through color: Rooms, Casinos, Concessions, Restaurants, Patios, and Conferences spaces. The second sequence of maps also shows the considerable parking area required by each of these casino-hotel complexes. The criteria for the specific selection are never explained. There is no doubt, however, that the cases chosen clearly represent a series of significant aspects for understanding their function and implementation in the urban landscape of Las Vegas. The seven selected cases were: Sahara, Riviera, Stardust, Caesars Palace, Dunes, Aladdin, and Tropicana. The plan and section representation of these cases, drawn on the same scale, went beyond the usual graphic codes. The conventions used

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Fig. 7 Double page 36–37. Architectural case studies

resorted again to color instead, so the same themes of the use map were repeated. A first fundamental issue achieved by the unification of the conventions to represent the seven sets had to do with the repetition of the same functional structure, but differentiated regarding its particularities for each case. The five tones then distinguished the different components of activity (hotel rooms, common areas, casino, open space, and meeting rooms), both on plan and in section. It can be understood how they were distributed in each set following the same interrelation patterns. It was, as they say, about finding “the system behind the flamboyance.” An equally important detail can also be observed in the elevations: the location and proportion of the main advertisement. The authors were especially interested in this element, since it embodied, in a conclusive way, the interaction factor between architecture and communication. Its presence and function in the transmission of the message was so decisive that, in some cases, it equalled or even surpassed the height of the room tower. The application of the tonal conventions exposed the distribution of the components of each set in plan and section, as well as the relations established between the set itself and the road. The spatial sequence was invariable and seemed very neat: “once the parking lot is passed, from the front door back progresses from gambling areas to dining, entertainment, and shopping areas, to hotel.” In addition to the discrimination of functional components in the plans and sections, there is a thorough classification of a series of analytical categories based on photographs Fig. 8. For each case, a panoramic view of the complex and three general views (front, side, back) are presented, this is followed by sections of the

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Fig. 8 Double page 38–39. Elements of architectural case studies and fragment

building (floors, walls, gas pumps, parking lots); then the entrance, the roof, and the parking are shown with new photographs. Subsequently, there is a representation of the central open space of the complexes, called “oasis” by the authors. The elements contained there are almost always the same: “courts, water, greenery, intimate scale, and enclosed space. Here they are a swimming pool, palms, grass, and other horticultural importations set in a paved court surrounded by hotel suites, balconied or terraced on the court side for privacy.” The analytical series is completed with the following items: fountain, foliage, sing, sculpture, and interior and aerial photograph. Finally, there is a curious stylistic cataloguing with names as strange as “Miami Moroccan,” “Hollywood Orgasmic,” or “Bauhaus Hawaian.” The organization of all this material, directly linked to the plan and the section of each set, was performed by means of a matrix table, or “a schedule,” as they called it. There, all the categories applied for each case can be compared directly with the rest of the sets. The table, as the authors suggested, has several reading possibilities: “Reading across the graph, we have one building; reading down, all elevations of that building type on the

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Strip; and on the diagonal, a prototypical building.” The result is a document of great graphic eloquence and analytical clarity. This shows how a strict pattern of compliance in the distribution of the components of hotel-casino complexes underlied their apparent architectural chaos. The elaboration of this piece proved Robert Venturi’s analytical strategy of verifying certain characteristics through direct comparison, as he had already demonstrated in Complexity and Contradiction. The verification of common features found credibility and demonstrative character thanks to the more than 150 photographs that made up the mosaic (in some cases, a single box can contain 4 different shots). The comparative matrices or “schedules” were also used for the other architectural pieces studied: Gas stations (40 photos), wedding chapels (12 photos), street furniture (65 photos), and motels (29 photos) Fig. 9. This large number of photographs gives an idea of the efficient planning of field work carried out in Las Vegas. The preparation of these mosaic-paintings was intended to be presented in an exhibition, such as that of January 10th, 1969 at the Yale School of Art and Architecture, as the correct visualization of each photo demanded a considerable final size for the entire mosaic. Although in the 1972 edition the complete mosaic can be seen thanks to the size of the double page spread, the individual images are still difficult to read, a remaining problem after the readjustment of the 1977 edition. The same problem occurred, to a lesser or greater extent, with other documents of the true central instrument in Las Vegas research: photographic material.

Fig. 9 Double page 42–43. “Schedules” of gas stations, motels, wedding chapels and strip street furniture

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4 The Photography of Las Vegas Strip Main The use of the photographs taken by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour was very varied and experimental. There are isolated photographs, in collages and in frame sequences, in black/white and color; there are aerial shots, shots from a car, and at pedestrian scale; indoors and outdoors photographs; day and night photographs. The formats have different sizes and origins. All the photographic documents included in the book accounted for more than 1500 shots. Moreover, there is a large number of discarded photographs, stored in the Venturi-Scott Brown archive [5]. The attempt to capture and offer an integral image of the particular urban phenomenon in Las Vegas Strip was ambitious. All this work was preceded by a series of photographs taken directly by Denise Scott Brown during her first stay in the city, in April 1965, and the second trip made with Robert Venturi, in November 1966. From this series, the two architects chose the 15 photographs included in the article “A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas,” published in 1968 (all subsequently used for the 1972 edition of the book). It is worth highlighting, first of all, the images on double page spreads 26–27 and 28–29 among the various uses of photography Fig. 10. These are sequences of photographs of the façades of the Strip, on both sides, and mounted in a consecutive linear fashion. The series are entitled An “Edward Ruscha” elevation of the Strip, with the following addition: “Tourist maps are made of the Grand Canal and the Rhine showing the route lined by its palaces. Ruscha made one of the Sunset Strip. We imitated his for the Las Vegas Strip.” The explicit reference to the American artist was not accidental. The work of Ruscha, who was famous for his sensitivity and keen eye for architectural and urban phenomena, was well known to Denise Scott Brown [5, p. 15]. Indeed, the sequence represented a kind of photographic survey at an urban level, which managed to give a good idea of the environmental and landscape characteristics of the street at a glance. It is possible to relate the formal features, the texture, and the visual impact of each façade with the global image of the whole route. But not only did this work, actually called “Every Building on the Sunset Strip” (1966), inspire Scott Brown. Ruscha has two other works that could be linked to the photographic experimentation she performed in Las Vegas: “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” (1962) and “Thirtyfour Parking Lots” (1967). In the first series, the artist analyzed some examples of the seemingly nondescript architecture of gas stations, in which their formal and communicative particularities showed their relationship with the surrounding landscape and the road. In the second series, he made a kind of photographic compositions of the trace left by cars and road surface markings, only visible through aerial shots, unexpected geometric patterns can be observed in the vast spaces of the parking lots. Ruscha’s two works had a subtle interpretation in some shots taken for the study of Las Vegas. Another curious experimental exploration of the street through visual means is shown on double page spread 40–41: This time the sequence is referenced as follows: “Movie sequence traveling north on the Strip from Tropicana Avenue to Sahara Avenue.” Fig. 11. These are fragments of a 93-frame tape from one of three films

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Fig. 10 Double page 28–29. Edward Ruscha elevation, and fragment

made by students during their stay in Las Vegas for fieldwork. Once again, Scott Brown expressed preference for audiovisual means as the true new means capable of truly approaching the Las Vegas scenic experience: “New analytic techniques must use film and videotape to convey the dynamism of sign architecture and the sequential experience of vast landscapes” [3, p. 26]. However, in this case the book ended up being short and the frames could only give a pale and static reference to the original moving image. The films made for the study, in spite of the precarious technical means, were really remarkable, they contained sequences filmed from a car, from a helicopter, and from pedestrian routes. They recorded day and night scenes, took general shots and travelings, or explored architectural details. In this way they brought the reader closer to the visual, architectural, and advertising spectacle of Las Vegas, as was perceived and recorded by Venturi and Scott Brown.

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Fig. 11 Double page 40–41. Sequence of movie frames and fragment

Two new collages of photographs are presented on double page spread 54–55, and a last sequence on double page spread 60–61 that closes all the first part of the book. The two photographic compositions can be related to one of the fragments of the “parallel” text: We feel that we should construct our visual image of Las Vegas by means of a collage made from Las Vegas artifacts of many types and sizes, from YESCO signs to the Caesars Palace daily calendar. To construct this collage, you should collect images, verbal slogans, and objects. [9, p. 58]

Despite the apparent disorder, the collages actually had a certain thematic organization. In the first case Fig. 12 the 98 photographs are distributed in horizontal stripes that cross the double page spread, the images of each strip share the same places but are different shots: Stardust, Aladin, gas stations (Texaco, Gulf, Shell), Caesers Palace, aerial shots (especially at night), Riviera, Flamingo, The Mint, La Concha, and various other advertisements for food establishments. The second collage Fig. 13, called “Strip Communication Images,” was made with a more elaborate composition, by collecting more than 300 photographs in the double page spread. A perimetral frame with images of different origin (including

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Fig. 12 Double page 54–55. Sequence of photo collage 1 and fragment

postcards and drawings) encloses new horizontal stripes justified on two vertical bars, with texts referring to the place portrayed. New establishments—usually motels—are interspersed with some well-known casino-hotels such as Tropicana, Tahitti, Aladin, Steak Piramids, Dessert Pussycat, El Morroco, La Concha, Riviera, Tunderbirdth, among others. The amount of photographic material produced by the authors and their collaborators was little, as it mostly came from archival research; however, that amount was still significant. In particular, the use of historical photographs, postcards, and reproductions of paintings was implemented. In the first case, the aim was to insist on the particularity of the urban development of Las Vegas, a city of sudden growth in the middle of the desert and, nevertheless, with an unstoppable economic impulse. As for the postcards, their persuasive force was used as advertising claims aimed at fulfilling its illustrative role in the speech. For instance, they demonstrated the tremendous contrast between the “oasis” of the casinos, with available natural lighting, and the interiors, overcrowded and with a permanent lighting that denied the exterior. The two paintings reviewed seemed to fulfill a concrete task of initiating and concluding the message. The Trip (1965), a painting by Allan D’Arcangelo, in the first pages embodies the pure contradiction that characterizes life on the motorways:

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Fig. 13 Double page 60–61. Sequence of photo collage 2 and fragment

for example, the driver must be in the right lane for a left turn. Victor Vasarely’s painting, Planetary Folklore (1964), at the end of the book, captures some “complexity and contradiction” that lives in the heart of Las Vegas: The moving eye in the moving body must work to pick out and interpret a variety of changing, juxtaposed orders. The message is completed by a quote from August Heckscher’s work: “It is the unity that maintains, but only just maintains, a control over the clashing elements which compose it. Chaos is very near; its nearness, but its avoidance, gives… force” (p. 56). There is a group of photographs that are actually subordinated to some comparative tables and analytical schemes that complete the message of the book text paragraph.

5 Las Vegas Strip Diagrams The book contains a series of graphic resources that could be classified, in a generic way, as diagrams, since they are argumentative constructions that combine text and image by discriminating and classifying their contents. Robert Venturi’s analytical

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procedure had already been mentioned; this procedure was based on direct comparisons as a method of determining the differences and similarities of the issues studied and therefore to clarify hypotheses. Used discreetly in Complexity and Contradiction, the comparative method acquired a more explicit character in Learning from Las Vegas. In the second part of the book, precisely entitled “Some definitions using the comparative method,” comparison became an effective instrument, for example, for contrasting the Guilford House building, of his own authorship, with Paul Rudolph’s Crawford Manor. The comparison in the text was already eloquent, but acquired greater conviction in the graphic aspect by equating plants and photographs of the façades and details of the two buildings. Textual comparisons were also essential in the first part, for example, through certain suggested and explicit analogies between Las Vegas, on the one hand, and Versailles or Rome, on the other. Regarding the graphics, the comparative method was summarized in several analytical tables. Throughout the first part, four comparative tables shared graphic codes, analytical procedure, and interrelated issues: Space, Scale, Speed, and Symbol. The four tables highlighted the transformations that the perception of the landscape had undergone throughout history. Then, each painting approached different concepts: Directional Space, Vast space, Billboard in space, and Pleasure Zones characteristics Fig. 14. They referred to the eastern bazaar, Versailles, Amiens Cathedral, and the Alhambra. Venturi showed his vast architectural culture to play with references and to use them for his story, in a very persuasive way. The characteristic features of the Las Vegas Strip found an orderly method of highlighting the particularities thanks to direct comparison with similar cases of urban systems. On the

Fig. 14 Diagram A comparative analysis of vast spaces page 9. Fragment

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one hand, there are historical references: Egyptian Pylon, Persian Garden, Bath, Hadrian’s Villa, Medieval Street, among others, or in other latitudes: Main Street, Highway Interchange, Shopping Center, Disneyland, Miami Beach, among others. On the other hand, the Strip was compared with more utopian and paradigmatic modern urban projects: Broadacre City and Ville Radieuse. The paintings were able to reinforce one of the underlying hypotheses: a new type of urban system has been consolidated in the world, and particularly in American reality, while architects and urban planners have not yet become fully aware either of the phenomenon itself or of the way to study it and control it. Another experimental comparative form was performed through graphic collage, this time in a more suggestive way based on analogy rather than analysis. This was the case of the intervention of two iconic images of the eighteenth century and the history of architecture in general, both referring to Rome, an archetype of the city inherited from the past: the Nolli map and the image of the Piranesi’s Pantheon. The two images, as an intervention of pop art, suffered an intrusion of contemporary images, extracted from Las Vegas. The first case in the context of reflection on the conditions of public and private spaces in Rome suggested new and unexpected categories for the case of Las Vegas: undeveloped land, asphalt, automobiles, and ceremonial spaces (approached each with a particular map, as seen). The Strip therefore expected the architect to use a hitherto unknown instrument capable of representing its “Noli map.” In the case of the Pantheon, the insertion in Piranesi’s engraving of ads coming from the Caesar Palace referred to the photograph taken by Scott Brown in the same casino, where the Greco-Latin goddess Venus (Aphrodite) and the sign “Avis, Rent a Car” paradoxically coexisedd. The two images, intervened engraving and photography, synthetically portrayed our “postmodern condition.” The diagrams in the book are complemented by another type of freehand painting with calligraphy betraying the direct authorship of Robert Venturi. Four documents in the book have this characteristic; this makes it somewhat difficult to read their texts. However, they are included in the book because of the relevance of the issues approached. The first of these deals with the types of changes and experiences lived in Las Vegas by explaining topics such as the stratification of façades and plans to be widened spatially or stylistically, the increased competition between signs and symbols, the ability of The Strip to become a place, and the ability of the building to become a sign. The second compares concepts applied to old and new architectural monumentality. The third graphically analyzes the characteristics in the physiognomy of a typical casino advertisement. And finally, a “Message to The Strip Beautification Committee” is transcribed, in which the architect assumes a more prescriptive role to advise the authorities not to intervene too much in the resulting landscape of the city. In his opinion, the determining elements of this landscape (trees, paving, signs, gas stations, and hotels) are “almost well” (Fig. 15).

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Fig. 15 Collages with Rome images. Pages 15 and 51

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6 Conclusion Most of the graphic material produced and used in the first part of the book tends to serve both demonstrative and illustrative purposes. Like the “parallel” text, the images are distributed throughout the book so as to reinforce and renew the message of the main text, which has remained virtually unchanged since its publication in Architectural Forum. It seems that the whole research consisted only in testing and verifying the hypotheses described therein. This may mean that, both in the field exploration phase and in the layout and elaboration of the book, the authors followed a perfectly pre-established script. This sensation is attenuated in the second part of the book, in which the research aimed to continue its natural argumentative evolution towards the complex relations between symbolism and architecture. This did not detract, however, from the large number of graphic documents studied here. On the contrary, the constant dialogue between texts and images gave the book—especially in its original edition—a special narrative force that helped to understand its indelible impact on both the academic and practical spheres. The original research and the book itself were a part of a process of theoretical reflection that meant the opening of new horizons of approach to the phenomena of architecture and the city. This process, as the authors themselves acknowledge, was inspired by specific sources, such as the books of Kevin Lynch, Jane Jacobs, Bernard Rudofski, among others. Due to its volume and experimental character, all the graphic material was the foundations for reflection of the authors themselves and a generation of subsequent thinkers, since it helped to promote a radical debate [1]. Actually, despite the radical changes made in the 1977 edition, the layout and the edition of the book maintain a mysterious graphic force in both versions. The authors managed to demonstrate global coherence in the work as a whole in spite of the variety of sources, formats, and formal characteristics of the representation systems used: “Bear in mind that, however diverse the pieces, they must be juxtaposed in a meaningful way.” Some of the virtues of the book can be explained precisely to the deep reflection of the authors, especially Denise Scott Brown, about the need to explore the techniques, means, and scope of representation systems. That exploration also made it possible to implement new analytical procedures according to the phenomenon studied. The experience of Learning from Las Vegas should be considered in the context of contemporary graphic tools; thanks to technological advances, now these tools provide more possibilities of scrutinizing increasingly complex urban realities. The technological means in the digital age and big data are advancing steadily, so our critical ability to discern their application in a more controlled and efficient way is short. The lesson learned from Las Vegas should not go unnoticed as now there are tools unsuspected at that time, such as the internet, digital modelling, or Google Maps, in addition to social networks and their seemingly unlimited capacity for data collection and verification. Compared to the time of the study of Las Vegas, information is currently much more accessible and achieves greater penetration capacity and global dissemination. Nowadays, a good part of the documents produced by

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Scott Brown are more accessible thanks to the internet [2]. For example, the films made during the 1968 research by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour can now be watched on Youtube, thanks to the lecture by Martino Stierli at the AA School of Architecture [7]. Likewise, the landscape analyzed by Venturi and Scott Brown has changed radically and many new buildings have emerged, however their experience remains relevant for new landscape studies [6]. A more careful review of this type of research experiences can be very useful to reorient our capacities as architects. Golec’s interpretation of the changes applied in the 1977 edition suggests that they refer to fundamental problems in the study of urban phenomena. According to this author, “the crux of Learning from Las Vegas is the critical tension between Scott Brown’s early modernist notions of objectivity and Cooper’s late modernist notions of subjective judgment.” (Vinegar and Golec 2009). In fact, throughout the book Scott Brown insisted on an objective commitment necessary to face the study of the city as it is and not as it should be. For this reason, the debate about the construction, use, and purposes of representation systems as instruments for recording and analyzing urban realities remains open. The lesson learned from Las Vegas is still valid, as are some of the questions posed by Venturi and Scott Brown to develop their study: An image for a designer should be something very evocative, something that does not limit him by being too defined and too concrete, yet helps him think of the city in physical terms. Laughing or crying faces or people sitting at gambling machines are not enough. What is an urban designer’s image, or set of images, for the Strip and the big low spaces of the casinos? What techniques—movie, graphic, or other—should be used to depict them? [9, p. 58]

References 1. Didelon V (2011) La controverse learning from Las Vegas. Mardaga, Bruxelles 2. Scott BD (2019) Denise Scott Brown photographs, 1956–1966. Graham Foundation, Chigago 3. Scott BD (1984) “Learning from Pop”, 1971 in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, The View from the Campidoglio: selected essays, 1953–1984. Harper & Row, New York 4. Scott BD (1968) Mapping the city: symbols and systems (review of Passoneau and Wurman, Urban Atlas). J Landscape 17 5. Stadler H, Stierli M, Fischli P (eds) (2008) Las Vegas studio: images from the archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich 6. Stefan A (2017) The strip: Las Vegas and the architecture of the American dream. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass 7. Stierli M (2009). AA School of Architecture Lecture date: 2009-05-14. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=2IlP5yhvhKU 8. Vinegar A, Golec M (ed) (2008) Relearning from Las Vegas. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 9. Venturi R, Scott BD, Izenour S (1972) Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass 10. Venturi R, Scott BD, Izenour S (1977) Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, 2d edn. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass

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11. Venturi R, Scott BD (2004) Architecture as signs and systems: for a mannerist time. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass

Architecture According to Nature: Studies on Survival of Self-construction in Córdoba, Colombia. Contradiction Adapted Massimo Leserri, Sonia Gomez Bustamante, and Merwan Chaverra Suárez

Abstract Colombian Cordoban landscape turns out to be an interesting case where an adaptation degree is acknowledged to identify both control and spontaneity. Need of people to change places to survive, determines moving and transporting knowledge from one part to the other. Changes can be unforeseen, gradual or catastrophic and, they obviously cause and determine the effects. In the outskirts of the city, developed informal experiences reveal their origin, ancestral practice of adaptation and selfconstruction. Montería, (Córdoba) is just one of the many Colombian cities where in the last thirty years peasants arrive to find refuge and hostility, without accepting the new relationship between nature and environmental habits consolidated throughout the years. Self-construction, as one of the processes to develop housing, is the only option for these people of limited resources who lack assistance from the government, since it provides economical and available materials, generally from waste, that aesthetically generate a contradiction. Within the informal forming city, any order idea loses full potential despite people adaptation. In this landscape, natural and artificial categories that seem determinant, because can serve to identify the “wild” or “domesticated”, become reading instruments on how man interprets such categories to achieve a habitat. Keywords Architecture · Colombia · Self-construction · Montería · Informal

1 Introduction Landscape is a certain territory part which character derives from actions of natural and/or human factors; and populations perceive it this way, resulting in continuous M. Leserri (B) · S. G. Bustamante · M. C. Suárez Universidad Pontificia BolivarianaSeccional de Montería, Medellin, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] S. G. Bustamante e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Suárez e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_22

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metamorphosis not being a matter of changing ornaments. It is not always articulated to a change of tendency proposed by an archi-star and there are not only issues due to specializations, technological innovation or new sophisticated clients [7]. City contrasts manifest testimony, such as the conflict between the idea of consolidating a preset order and another reality derived and assimilable to a work resulting from the spontaneous effect of the need for contingent solutions, by not conventional forms or schemes. In Colombia, as in many places of the world, with history teaching, the adaptation continuous exercise is revealed due to unforeseen and unavoidable changes, able to cause obvious urban contradictions. Armed conflict and violence, for instance, have represented events that have forced displacement of millions of people, who with resilience created the minimum habitability conditions with extreme difficulty when arriving in the big city. Today in many cities there is an unstoppable urbanization that separates the center from the outskirts, originated by people who have moved from rural areas, encouraged by the survival illusion. They were architects without an architect title and anonymous builders with no companies, who owned the city by building and destroying at the same time [1]. In fact, as Luigi Snozzi thinks, there is always destruction at any time in a building, even though it can be controlled, ignored or perfectly considered [4].

2 Self-construction as Adaptation Process The process of self-construction as a phenomenon of producing an informal and spontaneous city has been the main object of study of a research carried out in several sectors (Fig. 1) of the city, which brings together all the variables considered in this study carried out for several years in neighborhoods located in areas of former agricultural use (Fig. 2). The phenomenon itself reflects the condition of social dynamics associated with poverty in which house building is a self-constructed or self-managed process by the user and, in the case of the study area, it begins with an interesting relationship between construction and destruction represents an indisputable and representative contradiction, real and symbolic, in which several meanings can be associated considering, on the one hand, most of self-built homes that induced destruction of an order idea designed through urban planning instruments, and on the other, archetypes of conventional architecture and all the technical, administrative and other procedures. Nonetheless, in the same city, legalized and developed by means of regulated instruments, each realization often seeks equally destruction, perhaps accompanied without any conscience or ethics from the architects who designed it. Furthermore, the construction-destruction relationship in its most concrete and tangible aspect seeks a perceptible link between the two urban realities (peripheral and central) as

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Fig. 1 Aerial view of the example of land conserved in canal round, settlement Ranchos del Inat. Source Google Maps (2018)

each new formal work also produces waste from the production of remains that become reuse (Fig. 3) material on occasion of self-construction in the informal city. It is undeniable that architecture always seems more like the most political art and at the same time the clearest and most obvious power representation perhaps that is why conventional architecture always follows politics more, with much more attention directed towards interest of the private than public clients, creating a considerable distance with citizens. It is not a case that the perception of the informal city leads to register next to a palpable demand to build minimum conditions of habitability, a total absence of concern for public space by the State. The contemporary vision of the informal city derives from the modern concept of organization of state, society and economic system with its rules of inclusion and exclusion. Precisely, from the capitalist society model is established that what does not respect the rules of the formal system game, is considered marginal and illegitimate. One of the differences between the first world and the third world is precisely relationship of proportion between size of the formal and informal sectors of society [5]. The landscape achieved is [3] a creative architecture within the framework of an inhuman reality, perhaps an adapted contradiction or an adaptation with contradictions. Authors of new constructions carry an informal burden as Pop-art (popular art) artists, changing the context that is hosting them by denial of conventional terms and with unusual solutions such as the change of scale or materiality.

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Fig. 2 Sketch of the land conserved occupancy in canal round. According to Colombian law, the State owns the 30 m of land adjacent to the banks of the water bodies. Source Authors (2018)

Similarly, rurality is present in that use and transformation in which immanent customs and new accommodation expectations are juxtaposed to urban dynamics to which they must adapt. For these communities, this ambiguity represents conflict in the appropriation of public spaces when projecting perception of boundaries of the collective in a continuum, transcending the private; in the sense that at the same time it is, and is not their own. Dwellers use it but do not intuit it as their own. Nonetheless,

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Fig. 3 Photo of the land conserved occupancy in canal round. According to Colombian law, the State owns the 30 m of land adjacent to the banks of the water bodies, in Monteria. Source Authors (2018)

formation of large outskirts with an image of common elements and magnitude of the problem itself, makes it very complicated to establish an intervention model to collect all the complexity as well as to adapt a solution to each of the particularities. This does not operate the trial and error that can mean very high social costs. Landscape is a continuous adaptation to changes and circumstantial conditions modified perpetually despite intentions of creating order. Whether populations perceive a landscape as a certain territory part, which character is derived from actions of natural and/or human factors, the interaction between them is the one that determines adapted contradiction cases, despite the underlying reason.

3 Methodology Although the research has started from the architectural survey used as an instrument for several semesters by UPB students from the Architecture Program, this is an exploratory research developed to obtain first tangible data for the phenomenon subjective understanding and then, through representation, describe it to a different scale according to De Rubertis [2]. Similarly, photography is highlighted as a tool that allow us to observe and analyze the context under study.

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Table 1 Mocarí neighborhood survey data, Montería Classification of Self-constructed Houses According to materials

%

N°

Natural (Wood)

3

5

Hybrid, wood and materials for industrial constructions

5

10

88

171

Hybrid. Materials for reuse, new materials. (Industrial and/or handmade)

2

4

Hybrid. Recycling material

3

6

100

195

Industrial According to reuse and recycling

Total

In each academic period students have been assigned a certain number of homes not only to survey the spatial dimensions, but also a diagnosis of architectural aspects (such as architectural program, height, normative aspects, housing density, functionality); materiality (roof, facade, external and internal walls, floors); social and economic characteristics (age, income scale, family conformation) and other characteristics not used in this study such as structure, green areas, lighting, ventilation, solar incidence, and environmental conditions that will later be used in a wider research. Based on this collected data, it was possible to identify some types of selfconstruction such as the hybrid house built entirely of wood, which includes wood but additionally uses conventional materials, easily achieved in the market. Also reuse materials and new homes with new materials (Table 1).

4 Results That is why self-construction is given at two scales: city and housing. In each one, elements that materialize the expression of spatial dynamics coexist so that the landscape of adapted contradiction can be identified and studied from them. A landscape of order and changing and adaptive disorder in a time seeking to respond to diverse needs. Colombia has a strong collection of laws, regulations and provisions to plan cities. Nonetheless, it is contradictory that in this context developments are outside these provisions. Since the second half of the last century, the way in which these cities found themselves unable to adapt to the needs required to receive human support of the change in the economic model was questioned. From an eminently rural means of production, with peasants whose idiosyncrasy was evidently related to nature, it went to an industrialization route that only developed in some sectors of the economy to the detriment of others that also caused the move of a large part of people from the countryside into the cities (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4 Freehand drawing of a self-constructed house in Montería. Source Authors (2018)

Monteria, a city on the north of the country, was not the exception of these processes with the aggravating factor of having been at the center of an armed conflict of strong social, economic and political repercussions that forced displacement of many peasants who settled in the outskirts of the city. They created large precarious and informal urban spaces that, despite the uprooting of a life in contact with nature, have adjusted to new behavior patterns that reveal adaptation and survival. An unequal city with serious institutional weakness observed in lack of control of the apparent spontaneity from the built city and, in which social and economic powers cannot fight against. It is a dichotomy between something spontaneous and informal, that informal dwellers make without regulations, but at the same time allowed by the government. Conditions to which the state has not yet given an answer, even though different perspectives on how cities intervene, led to what is now the planning in the country under the territorial planning approach, which aims to order the land towards sustainable development. This, under processes and attributes expressing spatial practices of relationships from the different social agents involved in the city construction: private companies with greater purchasing power try to obtain maximum use of urban income, the popular sectors, with lower incomes, self-build their habitat, and the State that, from standards and public spending, seeks to support the economic logic from both sectors [6] (Table 1).

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If the economic bias from the above is omitted, an apparent order of formal, organized and legal architectures arises in that scenario, located in sectors that guarantee certain advantageous habitability conditions such as access to public services, mobility, collective equipment, generous green areas and average housing densities. A harmony landscape in constructions opposed to a consolidated informal city, not only implying insecurity about property ownership but also absence of all the statements characterizing the formal city. Informality in urbanization processes also cause an illegal land market in which private owners, who take advantage of housing needs from arrived peasants in the city, have participated. Usually in sectors from the periphery of cities, undeveloped areas, without road infrastructure or public services, in sectors of lower land value in which the owner fully appropriates capital gains obtained in this market that, in the case of Monteria, must be shared with the city. In one way or another, they adapt to the planning and construction regulations that are conveniently violated as in the case of the division of land without legal support. It is a contradiction that respect for property is not made through a legally constituted act but under the social convention of a tacitly accepted behavior of each “owner” that recognizes the delimitation or the negotiated space. At this point the State intervenes with the omission of controls that are supposed to exist to formalize any infraction. It acts only at convenience in which the institutional weakness of the municipality also implies contravening the established laws and regulations (Fig. 5). Thus, self-construction is also a response to the few possibilities that people with limited resources have to access decent housing with minimum habitability conditions (established with a minimum 20m2 of built area per person per house, complete public services of water, sewage, electricity and gas, and with kitchen, bathroom and materials that guarantee safety). Roof sheets become walls, cement blocks serve as support for household appliances, furniture as wood, and spaces become multifunctional: what in the day is a product manufacturing area that feeds

Fig. 5 Freehand drawing of a self-constructed house in Montería. Source Authors (2018)

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informal commerce, at night is a dormitory and the living room is a parking for motorcycles. The traditional system to build a framework or structural part, both in the buildings of the countryside and in those from the city, is based on wooden horcones obtained from a good-sized tree. All over the world choice of materials and consequent typologies giving life to the houses do not possess an arbitrary character. It is about the results of a deep evolutionary process. There are cases of urban dwellings that have a structural system formed by wooden pillars and beams, derived from use of trees which selection of the records seems to occur according to the recognition of the dimensional conditions of the cross sections. Each structural component (trunk or branch) still appears because of a simple cross-section, without the use of additional longitudinal cuts or work planned for the elimination of geometric perception irregularities such as the continuous spiral pattern (Leserri M, Olmos Lorduy JP, Castillo Ayazo HE, Castillo Sarmiento MA (2017)), but there is also the use of wooden boards to make the wall. The structure made of domesticated and unprocessed logs with respect to a modern idea of regularization, in fact is presented with a morphological image still natural. Over time, the home, the house, is closed by a wall that has the idea of being a “protector” of primitive cane despite the material used. All knowing, patterns of the vernacular architecture from the peasant builder, the anonymous architect, are not being lost in the urbis. On the contrary, the ability to self-build an enclosure continues through a consolidated and constant ability to adapt to all circumstances, enjoying every natural or artificial material and turning them into building material. Procurement of materials is an arduous and complicated task, so adapting waste, residues or debris is frequent and predominates in a landscape that clearly seems contradictory because the characteristics of each material are adapted creatively (Figs. 4 and 5) and, in some cases, even new such as the use of zinc sheets (the cheapest material used for roofing) as enclosure of spaces inside or outside the homes. Or, given the impossibility of buying a window or some openwork, ventilation and lighting are guaranteed by separate arrangement of cement blocks commonly used to build walls. Or, as in the same urban layout, which surveyors do in a simplistic way in the processes of informal urbanization, in a spatial organization of the urban form that also causes an additional adapted contradiction because from the apparent disgust and homogeneity of the landscape emerges a repetitive and homogeneous order. During the last semesters, 231 surveys have been carried out, 195 of which are selfbuilt homes are produced by the State (through the National Institute of Affordable and Urban Reform Housing, INURBE), which delivered a minimum unit (bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom) to be extended later by the owner. These 231 have been classified with respect to their materiality in natural (wood) hybrid (wood and industrial construction materials) and industrial. Another classification achieved is according to the recognition of the reuse and recycling of the materials used: hybrid (re-use with new materials (industrial and/or handmade) or “puzzle” (set of single recycling materials) hybrid with wood. Meaning is that re-use

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is when building components are used without transforming them, either as a technological element or building component. Recycling is a material that undergoes some modification or transformation to be reused. Because of this classification of materials used, the research can determine (Table 1) that, the self-built housing with conventional materials (88%), produced industrially, stands out over the other types of housing, not only for the easy access in the market but for the knowledge of the construction systems used, particularly referred to cement blocks, fiber cement tiles, aluminum, and other materials. It is followed by hybrid housing (5%), a mixture of wood (used in the structure and walls) with industrial materials. To a lesser extent, those built entirely of wood (construction system described above) (3%), hybrids with reuse or recycled materials, 2% and 3% respectively.

5 Conclusion Self-construction in Montería, as an expression of a process that builds housing and develops a city, is an enduring contrast in the landscape made by man, between a formal reality and another one that gives spontaneous response to social and economic conditions which adaptation is revealed when learning its history. The inrush of an unstoppable urbanization that has extended urban frontier from the foundational center to the outskirts, at the same time excluding people from a legalized city because they simultaneously face, through informal construction, a destruction of the archetypes of formally admitted conventional architecture. It is an adapted contradiction or an adaptation with contradictions, as in the case of legal reuse of waste materials that generates creativity and contrasts with the environment, characterized by breaking the materiality conventional terms; or the conventions tacitly admitted about property boundaries. Thereby all this situation that arouses the landscape in conditions of survival and adaptation points to a contradictory and paradoxical future since the people’s aspiration in the middle of that context is to precisely arrive at a formality represented by elements that characterize the formal city, developed within any of the other ways to access urban space or housing, which again implies slowly releasing what they have built to successively enter into an adaptation to the new ways of being urban (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6 Survey of Self-constructed house in Montería. Source Authors (2018)

References 1. Cesareo V, Magatti M (2005) Le dimensioni della globalizzazione, Franco Angeli Milano 2. De Rubertis R, Soletti A (2000) De vulgari architectura. Indagine sui luoghi urbani irrisolti, Oficina Editore, Roma 3. Gonzalez Lobo C (1996) Architettura e partecipazione sociale. In: Gutiérrez R (Ed) Architecture and social participation in Latin America, Space and Society. Latin America in the 20th century, Jaca Book, Milan, pp1–90. https://www.domusweb.it/it/architettura/2016/03/01/la_bie nnale_di_aravena.html 4. Lintas E (2011) Luigi Snozzi. Parole sull’architettura. In: Architetture di Carta Iuav Vennezia 2011 5. Saldarriaga Roa A (2002) La arquitectura como experiencia. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá 6. Vío M (2008) La producción de la Ciudad Metropolitana. In: Reflexiones sobre el desarrollo urbano de la Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires entre 1990 y 2008. V Jornadas de Sociología de la UNLP, 10, 11 y 12 de diciembre de 2008. La Plata, Argentina. En Memoria Académica (2008). Retrievable at: https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/trab_eventos/ev.6509/ev.6509. pdf 7. Zamboni A (2016) La Biennale di Aravena. In: Domus 2016. Editoriale Domus, Milano. https:// www.domusweb.it/it/architettura/2016/03/01/la_biennale_di_aravena.html

A Double Level Landscape, Studies for Documenting Chima Territory: The Opposing Juxtaposed Contradiction Massimo Leserri and Merwan Chaverra Suárez

Abstract Landscape as a set of elements from a territory related to each other, is an interpretation instrument in which a vision of patrimony, culture and collective identity is built. Identification of these elements is fundamentally linked to acknowledge and characterize a land, its population, and material and immaterial cultural heritage. A landscape that cannot be observed but, in which actions and natural and human interactions, can be defined through emotional experience that occur when traveling. In this sense, landscape of Ciénaga Grande de Chimá [Spanish for Large Marsh of Chima] has a double territorial configuration that juxtaposes in time, i.e., on the one hand, dry landscape (lacustrine in dry season) contrasts with the watery landscape on the other (lacustrine in rainy season), a region’s geomorphological contradiction established by layers and water levels where population is adapted to both dry land and water. A natural condition that allows people to be regarded as amphibian communities. Chima means “Pretty Land” in the indigenous language. The municipality is located on the northwestern part of Cordoba Department in Colombia; in the marsh complex of the lower Sinú river and with an area of 33,668 km2 . The region has a predominant thermal ground of dry tropical forest, a relief of plains, slight undulations and geological formations of small height. The territory was part of the old Finzenues’ province, which people has kept traditions and funeral beliefs of the Zenúes’ community. This prehispanic culture built a system of drainage canals and artificial ridges that allowed the community to adapt to floods and preserve irrigated crops. This majestic adequacy of hydraulic engineering caused a modification in the landscape by establishing spatial patterns of artificial platforms in the land, which started to dissapear in the second half of the sixteenth century when Spaniards and other cultures arrived during the conquest. Nonetheless, this research aims, by means of cultural-religious itineraries, at recognizing the most significant elements of this marshy complex to rescue orientation sense and values of greater religious, symbolic and natural identity from its people, especially, the Zenues communities present on M. Leserri (B) · M. Chaverra Suárez Pontifical Bolivarian University at Monteria, Córdoba, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] M. Chaverra Suárez e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_23

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the banks of Ciénaga Grande from the Lower Sinu region, without losing contact with water levels variation occurring in separate times of the year. This juxtaposed contradiction of water levels in the land, suggest understanding and representing different forms of the same changing landscape, where observation and travel allow to read and reveal, in this first approach to research, the constant and recognized elements by the indigenous community, despite changes and transformations suffered over time. The research study, based on oral tradition and territory observation, allows to develop and establish a first form of documentation on the landscape of the marshy complex from the Lower Sinu region in Chima. Keywords Landscape · Juxtaposed contradiction · Cienaga grande de chima · Water levels

1 Introduction This article is born as part of the research project: “The Eye and the Lens.” Scientific survey as an instrument for knowledge of architecture and cities for conservation of architectural and urban heritage, based at CIDI (Development and Innovation Research Center from Pontifical Bolivarian University at Monteria),1 where the initial undergraduate dissertation “Reassessment of the cultural and religious itinerary in the Chimá municipality, Cordoba and the Arache and Sitio Viejo towns”2 ; was a first approach to research the river lacustrine landscape of double level in Chimá Municipality. Despite little information and documentation from this work, practices were found part of the oral tradition, i.e., collection of local knowledge embodied in cultural and religious itineraries, landscape transformation; as well as in the forms of land geo-cosmic representation (Fig. 1). Geomorphological territory of the Municipality of Chima and districts such as Campo Bello, Sitio Viejo, Corozalito, Carolina, Punta Verde, Pimental, Diez and villages such as Bellavista, Boca de Catabre, Buenos Aires, El Brillante, El Cerro, El Sabanal, Guayacán, La Laguna and Tambor, extends over an area of 3366 hectares. The municipality is in the Colombian Caribbean region on the Northwest (9° 9’0’ North and 75° 37’ 59’ West) of Cordoba Department with a 9.15 latitude, a –75.633 longitude, a 10 MASL altitude and a thermal ground of tropical dry forest, making up a river-lake landscape with terrains, plains, geological undulations, flooded by the Ciénaga Grande waters from the lower Sinu region. The swampy complex of the Lower Sinu is part of the Sinu River basin and streams, a complexity of water bodies levels extending in the Chimá Municipality from the boundaries of Cienaga Grande on the Northeast, to the geological undulations of Tofeme hill on the Southwest, formed by marshes, spouts and streams such as Cienaga 1 Filed:

210-07/ 17 - G018. GICA Civil Engineering and Architecture Research Group, Pontifical Bolivarian University at Monteria. 2 Dissertation carried out in the second semester of 2018, within the framework of the research project “The Eye and the Lens”. Pontifical Bolivarian Pontifical University at Monteria.

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Fig. 1 Aerial photo image from the Swampy Complex of the Lower Sinu Region. Source IGAC (1968)

de los Charcos [Puddles Swamp], Caño Aguas Prietas [Brown water stream] and the Mocha and Ancho streams, elements of natural environments that stratify water levels, frequent settling resulting from the dry and rainy seasons of the year (Fig. 2). This juxtaposition of seasonal periods with distinct water levels in the land, contrasts with the spatial structure of the amphibious culture, the modification and transformation of landscape and cultural and religious itineraries. A constant today, where amphibious communities keep building artificial ridges, a kind of “retaining walls” operating as a barrier to prevent water levels from reaching the most fertile populations and lands, a cultural duality linked to agricultural production and geo cosmological cognitive myths of Zenues.

2 Space Structure of the Amphibious Culture Location of indigenous villages and relationship with natural conditions of Cienaga Grande from the Lower Sinu in times of rain and drought, has led some inhabitants to preserve this amphibious lifestyle. These amphibious communities carried out different activities involving adapting themselves to the various climatic conditions presented throughout the year (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 2 Geographic context map of Chimá Municipality. Source Mendoza and Bonfante [6]

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Fig. 3 Itinerary through Ciénaga Grande of the Lower Sinú Region. Source Leserri and Chaverra (2018)

Due to this life condition adapted to dry land and water, Zenu indigenous people were considered as amphibious communities. Considering the etymological meaning of the amphibian word, the Greek word means two lives. Most amphibians live part of their life under water and the other part on land. From this concept the denomination ‘amphibious communities’ is born, which are those human beings who acquired a similar lifestyle, i.e., they live and subsist on natural resources provided by water bodies such as rivers, lakes, beaches, marshes, spouts, ravines and slopes [9]. According to Orlando Fals Bordas,3 through observations on trips made on the Sinú River, the amphibious culture is part of the social and cultural structure of the communities of the lower Sinu region. We refer to a complex of behaviors, beliefs and practices related to management of natural environment, technology (productive forces) and agricultural, fishing and hunting production norms prevailing in the reproduction communities from the Momposina depression. Amphibious culture is therefore included among the manifestations of the society superstructure dwelling on this coastal subregion.

These types of amphibious communities were supported by a series of elements mostly manufactured by themselves. “Basic tools of riparian agriculture remain (besides fire): the digging stick (“espeque”), machete and ax, with complementary elements such as the ‘rice mowing knife’, the ‘fruit lowering hook’, the choco (small 3 Orlando Fals Borda, researcher, Colombian sociologist, founder of the Department of Sociology of

the National University of Colombia (1959), developed social research in the Colombian Caribbean.

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Fig. 4 Photo of Indigenas Island or Perez Island. Source Chaverra and Leserri (2018)

seedbed), the grinding stone, the small shovel and the pañol or raised tank. In addition, the fishing and hunting instruments found in most river houses are: canoe, gutter, hanger, hooks, fisto shotgun, wooden traps, slug hooks, and rubber slings [2]. In this spatial structure of amphibious culture of juxtaposed contrasts, underlies a culture of water and landscape as cultural and religious heritage. Where spatial patterns are linked to the building of artificial levels with canals, ridges and platforms used as habitat and connection routes among the communities from this land.

3 Artificial Platforms and Landscape Transformation The Zenú culture built a system of drainage channels allowing them to avoid flooding and conserve crop irrigation. This hydraulic adaptation was causing a landscape modification, establishing housing areas. The land extracted from the excavations was the one that was used for the construction of what now is named as artificial platforms4 (Fig. 4). These practices were already common among Zenues, a pre-Hispanic community from the Momposina depression who drained the area with complex configurations of artificial canals while taking advantage of the fauna richness and soils’ fertility 4 Artificial platforms are patterns of a morphological grouping system created by Zenu communities,

for some cases such as agricultural production, housing construction, and burial tombs.

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periodically abandoned by the sediments; thus, creating a system of canals and ridges as flood control and maintenance of crops and population [7]. Natural landscape was modified with construction of artificial platforms for house settlement on flood areas such as the archaeological site of the Perez Island or Indigenas Island, formed by a system of five artificial platforms [8].

4 Cultural and Religious Itineraries Presence of indigenous communities in the land introduces behaviors linked to culture, religion and itineraries. Cultural aspects of Cordoba are mainly related to indigenous communities that dwelled the area such as the Zenues, whose territory was divided into three provinces governed by brother caciques. The Sinu river valley corresponded to the Finzenu province, the San Jorge river to Panzenu and the Cauca and Nechi valleys to Zenufana. According to archaeological and ethnohistoric data, these populations of ethnic groups had progressively occupied large regions with different ecological conditions, establishing an economic system with interdependent activities: Panzenu was a food producer, where communities took advantage of natural fertility of soils for agriculture and the richness of the aquatic fauna. Zenufana was in a region of rich gold floods, land of miners and supplied raw materials for the goldsmith communities, some of which were in Finzenu, land of specialists located in the Sinu pit and surrounding areas [4]. Cultural itineraries in the Chimá municipality, are mainly based on the descendants of indigenous populations of the Zenu ethnic group located on the banks of the Ciénaga Grande from the Lower Sinú region. Where the chiefs of Panzenu and Zenufana had arranged the burial of their subjects in the lands of Finzenu, place of greater importance where a funerary festival was realized. The municipality of Chimá belonged to Finzenu province, which maintained the funerary traditions and beliefs of Zenúes, such as cemeteries. The significant position of these indigenous settlements in the territory were mainly in the place known as “Indigenous Cemetery” also known as the Perez Island, located on the west of the marshy complex [4] (Fig. 5). The Finzenues’ province stood out for the temples and ceremonial centers where funeral festivals were held. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Finzenu emigrated towards the east of Cienaga Grande of the Lower Sinú, area of the Chima Municipality, where vestiges of a cemetery have been found, with small clay pots with gold powder without presence of human remains. Apparently, these are offerings (from funeral festivals) deposited on behalf of the dead that could not be buried in Finzenu. Due to looting and colonization of Spaniards, and over time, cultural aspects of these populations were disappearing. It is acknowledged that they were goldsmiths, weavers and their majestic proposal of hydraulic engineering, reaching a highly structured level. Each province centralized power under a chief figure, who could be male or female, and who allowed the advance of hydraulic works, evidenced in the building of irrigation canal systems. Currently richness and cultural diversity of the Sinu inhabitants is the result of a historical evolution enriched with the pre-Columbian era, the arrival of Spaniards,

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Fig. 5 Cultural and Religious Itinerary Map of Chimá Municipality. Source Mendoza and Bonfante [6]

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slavery, the French and North American exploitation, Lebanese Syrian immigration, Antioquia’s influence, and high indigenous presence. Today this mestizo community, is made up of excellent farmers and artisans weaving ‘caña flecha’ hats [cane arrow] and cotton hammocks. Immaterial culture of this indigenous community has been fading, the language is monolingual, Spanish is spoken, Zenu music has evolved, people no longer mimic sounds from the environment, animals and natural phenomena, and clothing has been accommodating day-to-day needs and climatic change, adopting a ‘form’ of the mestizo settler [5]. Even with all these changes arisen in the Zenu people, the mythical character is still established in the sacred hills forming the San Jeronimo mountain range. In the cognitive cosmological geo map, sacred hills demarcate boundaries of the ancient and legitimate land of Zenues. The mythical character is still established in the sacred hills forming the San Jeronimo mountain range, part of the myths and sacred traditions, thus constituting their cultural identity [3]. In the boundaries between Chima and San Andres de Sotavento municipalities, one of the enchanted hills is located, with an approximate height of 200 meters ASL, and named Tofeme hill, a hill where the spirits, myths and legends are kept alive and in touch with the indigenous culture and communities (Fig. 6). This hill is meaningful for the Zenu tradition since it is said that: “Natives hid a sun and a golden caiman in one of the caves of the hills of Vidales, Peñón Petaca, Cristo, Tofeme, Mohán or Sierra Chiquita”. The Golden Cayman is a charm that resides in

Fig. 6 Photo of Tofeme Hill. Source Chaverra and Leserri (2018)

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these sacred caves, the best-known story in these ancestral communities. The legend says that the day the alligator is dug of their ancestral dream, the indigenous Zenú will be doomed to become aquatic beings and the town will flood [1]. Currently, Tofeme hill is seen as one of the scenic attractions where the magnitude of the great marshy complex of the Lower Sinu region can be seen from the top of the hill. This is considered the place where the golden caiman is located and the relationship between land and water is established, making it a pilgrimage place where tradition is based on making an itinerary along the route climbing to the top of the hill to explore, enjoy and see the caves full of fine golden sand, such as gold, fauna and flora that intermingle with the oral tradition of myths and legends around the hill.

4.1 Funeral Rites in the Zenu Indigenous Community Among Zenues’ beliefs, funeral festival stands out. These are ceremonies for death as the Finzenu did. Rite was about representing life after death, burying dead in an East–West direction. There is an ancient cult of Ithioco, the masculine and feminine, lunar and solar deity of Zenues, in which rituals, the division between genders disappeared. Ithioco woke up in all people as carriers of both essences. Cumbia was originally a female dance, which lasted the three days of San Simon festival or the Sinu funeral rituals. Where women danced circularly, silently, lighting the dead with fire on his hand for the trip to the next world. Correspondingly, funeral rites were covered with scope, having three phases: separation, transition and incorporation. In the separation phase, person loss was expressed socially, and the body was buried facing east with countless pieces of gold and belongings. During the transition, the spirit wandered tirelessly because it had not entered the new state, there being fear of the damage that could be caused to the living. In the incorporation, the deceased reached a stable state, being celebrated with a ceremony called the soul’s departure. All these funeral characteristics are still preserved today by new Zenu generations.

4.2 Religious Itinerary at Flood Level Religiosity and veneration of saints is a fundamental practice of the Catholic Church. In the case of Chima Municipality, there are two Patron Saints, St. Emygdius and ‘Domingo Vidal’, the latter being the most relevant, since it is about a ‘saint’ born in the village, non-canonized by the Church. His legend begins the day in which his mother’s house caught fire and everyone considered him dead because of the flames scorching the old bahareque and palm house. But this was not the case, and Domingo Vidal who had remained bedridden more than 33 years, was left unharmed without any scratch or burn, making the town to mitify his figure.

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Fig. 7 Photo of Ciénaga Grande of the Lower Sinú Region from the Tofeme Hill. Source Chaverra and Leserri (2018)

People from all neighboring towns came to Chima to venerate the new miraculous saint, who painted virgins and to whom miracles were attributed. Devotion is manifested in patron festivities, eucharist, wakes, fandangos, bullfights, and cockfights, all of them, festivities of cultural traditions. It seemed that, processions honoring Santo Domingo began by the Cienaga de los Charcos, an authentic cultural and religious river itinerary, the same as the funeral festivals from the Zenúes were in the past (Fig. 7).

5 Conclusion Talking about landscape is to talk about a set of elements from a territory related to each other, easily observed and bordered, since it is not only the image visually perceived, but sensation and emotion produced when recovering them. All this forming the landscape. Identification of these elements is fundamentally linked to recognizing and characterizing type of site, population, existing cultural resources and historical components, both material and intangible.

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This research was carried out without contribution of a bibliographic documentation expressing qualities of Chima´s landscape. Nonetheless, it is the same landscape when traveled, observed and read as a book that allowed to decipher some of its traits; in addition to the cartography and aerial photography superimposed on direct observation, which established a confrontation with each other in a single open system of various knowledge levels beginning to define a first image of that dynamic reality at double level. The orality, finally represents the link to interpret the most relevant presences of the landscape associating it with the ancestral uses, kept with respect by the community of the Lower Sinú region. In this sense, the landscape of Cienaga Grande is nothing more than a set of elements and activities signifying the amphibious culture, landscape transformation, through platforms, ridges, canals, and spouts, which, although serving for connection and communication between the different populations of the swampy complex of the lower Sinú region, have also contributed to the cultural recreation and religious itineraries linked to myths and legends part of the collective imaginary since preHispanic periods. This double level game represents different forms of the same landscape—watery, changing and transitory, where routes and itineraries structure the organization of the land.

References 1. Alzate AG (2010) El paisaje como patrimonio cultural, ambiental. (Landscape as a cultural and environmental heritage). KEPES Magazine, 106 2. Borda OF (1995) (s.f.) Fundamentos de la Cultura Anfibia (Foundations of Amphibious Culture) 3. Drexler J (2002) En los montes, si, aquí, ¡no! (In the mountains, yes, here, no!) Quito—Ecuador: Abya Yala 4. Falchetti AM (1995) El Ocaso del Gran Zenú. (The Sunset of the Great Zenú). Harold Calvo— Adolfo Meisel, Cartagena—Colombia 5. Mejia IS (2008) Lugar encantado de las aguas: Aspectos económicos de la ciénaga grande del bajo Sinú (Enchanted place of waters: Economic aspects of the Ciénaga Grande from the Lower Sinu region). Revista Economía Regional, vol 13 6. Mendoza S, Bonfante AM (2018) Revaloración del itinerario cultural y religioso en el municipio de Chimá, Córdoba y los corregimientos Arache –Sitio. (Reassessment of the Cultural and Religious Itinerary in the Municipality of Chimá, Córdoba and the Arache-Sitio Viejo Villages) In: thesis dissertation, at Pontifical Bolivarian University at Monteria 7. Plazas C (1983) Sociedad hidráulica Zenú. (Zenú Hydraulic Society). Bogotá Bank of the Republic 8. Rojas SH (1992) Asentamientos prehispánicos en el bajo río Sinú. (Pre-Hispanic settlements in the Lower Sinú river). Bank of the Republic, Bogotá 9. Wieckowski K, Levin R, Heffez A (2003) Una guía para el monitoreo de los Anfibios del Parque Natural Metropolitano. (A Guide for Monitoring of Amphibians from the Metropolitan Natural Park). MC Will University, Panama

Understanding the Difficult Whole: The Structures of Diu Town Anisha Meggi and Yuri Hadi

Abstract It has been stated that Venturi emphasises a sense of pluralism whilst also legitimising that many beliefs of conflicting and contradictory nature can also coexist. When documenting and reading complex urban contexts within South Asia, where layers of historical, social, cultural and architectural values contradict and conflict with one another there is profound ambiguity, complexity and a sense of contradiction within the urban environment. In this paper, a selection of orthographic drawings and photographs will be used to read the complexity, contradiction and ambiguity perceived on individual structures in Diu Town, a former Portuguese colony with a distinct Indian character yet a Mediterranean essence. In reading the contradictions, ambiguity and complexity of the built structures of Diu Town, the paper aims to pave the way for a re-interpretation of the derelict and abandoned heritage structures of the town and their potential future adaptive reuse. In this paper, the complexities and contradictions from which the architecture of the residential area arose will be investigated and reconciling towards the “difficult whole”. Keywords Diu island · Diu town · Portuguese colony · Reading culture · Orthographic drawings

1 Introduction Diu Island is a former Portuguese colony located off the south-west coast of Gujarat, India. On the Eastern tip of the island between a fort and city wall is the main urban area, Diu Town [20], as seen in Fig. 2. Its narrow winding streets have been described as those from its Turkish/Muslim rule, whilst its residential houses have an Indian touch to their facades and living spaces, in addition, a collection of churches denote the long Portuguese colonial rule with their own residential area in the town giving a A. Meggi (B) · Y. Hadi De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] Y. Hadi e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_24

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Fig. 1 The urban fabric of Diu Town

Mediterranean charm [34]. Indian civilisation is known for its continuity of traditions that are embedded within the country’s culture [43]. More recent colonial era created an amalgamation of eastern and western values manifesting within the daily lives of the royals down to the common people. Colonial architecture has been stated to help form the discourse on nineteenth-century empire [41]. However, the meeting of the east and west, the resultant effects and products which are contradictory, but more complex have not always been appreciated or understood where there should be an “obligation toward the whole: its truth must be in totality or its implications of totality. It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion,” [42] (Fig. 1). In this paper, the focus is on the individual heritage structures of Diu Town, that have been subjected to neglect, decay and demolition due to urbanisation and a lack of knowledge and appreciation for the value of the structures, Fig. 1. Heritage urban environments are known to be difficult to read and understand especially due to their complex, interweaving, overlapping and often contradictory meanings, comparable to a palimpsest [12]. In addition, post-colonial urban environments have been the subject of study from the various opposing viewpoints; colonial, native, rather than understanding the urban fabric as a collective composition. Therefore, a selection of individual structures from Diu Town that have been surveyed during a series of field trips and orthographically represented will be analysed for their complex layered, multiple contradictory meanings and understand them as part of a whole rather than separate fragments. The paper utilises Venturi’s manifesto, specifically taking into account, that “valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning and combinations of focus: its space and its elements become readable and workable in several ways at once”. This allows the latter extent of the paper to divulge towards the conversation of what the future could hold for the otherwise neglected and decaying heritage structures. By reading the multiple meanings of the structures, a reinterpretation and

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understanding of the values can be re-established, hence, allowing for future use for the buildings through adaptive reuse opportunities.

2 Literature Review This literature review comprehensively covers the larger topic areas of adaptive reuse, the reading and interpretation of heritage structures in complex urban environments in South Asia alongside the theoretical underpinnings of key authors. “If we think of buildings in connection with the life that produces them, then we can see that when we look at the ruins of buildings, we are looking at powerful and incontrovertible evidence of something; but evidence of what?…… If we are to understand the ruins of buildings of cultures that have long vanished, we need to know something about the cultures by way of sources other than the buildings—perhaps from texts, or from other, smaller, artefacts” [3]. It is with this key quote that the discussion and analysis of methods of reading buildings commences. In addition to methods of reading ruin or dilapidated buildings, the adaptive reuse and restoration opportunities that the readings allow will also be presented and discussed. Cities, even more so than buildings are experienced over time, as collective pools of memories and experiences [28]. South Asia has some of the oldest urban centres, these are often densely populated, informal and house the poorest in society. Inadequate standardised planning, rapid urbanisation and growth of cities is putting cultural urban centres that are known for their heritage and cultural practises at risk of being lost. In addition, they are also sidelined within urban regeneration agendas, whilst heritage conservation is a low priority. However, urban centres that are like the soul of the city due to their cultural relevance are usually neglected during restoration and city planning. In fact, newly developed cities which are overly planned are said to have “deadness” about them due to the lack of importance and attention designers and architects have given to ambiguity which in turn creates a multitude of meanings and can be relatable to the many Rapoport and Kantor [28], holding the gaze for longer in curiosity. This is a contrast to overly simplified and clarity contemporary architecture exudes that is comprehended in a glance [28]. Furthermore, tangible and intangible heritage are understood to be the main components in a city’s identity that allows inhabitants to feel a sense of belonging and cohesion are concentrated and are living aspects of cultural neighbourhoods [13]. This is a concern for older buildings that have no significant “historic” value, those which are regarded as monuments or landmarks are often the ones that are demolished. Nonetheless, it is those very structures that are the vessels of life containing the narratives of those who inhabit it. Furthermore, ageing and aged buildings are those which have changed over time due to use and inhabitation, they are storage memories and an embodiment of the past and ongoing formation of experiences [21]. A psychological point of view in the paper, “Complexity and Ambiguity in Environmental Design”, Raport and Kantor question modern contemporary architecture which is about simplicity and clarity and state how the human being prefers complex

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and ambiguous visual fields. This is linked to psychological growth, stimulation of the mind through novelty and variety are enjoyed where evidence suggests creative minds and complex environments are linked [28]. Recent urban transformations of old urban centres in South Asia are understood to be conflicting and contradictory in nature [8]. In a country, 70% of the population still resides in villages or rural settlements, but the 30% in urban centres are still the largest urban populations of the world [27]. In addition, the arts and crafts movement is still a living tradition in India as most of the population is still employed or work within the informal sector with a skill or craft that is the means of their daily living [44]. Therefore, contradiction within India’s working class and the higher classes involved in the service and technology sectors are a common sight of the current landscape that can be witnessed in and as the built urban forms. The complexities and contradictions that are visually available to experience in South Asia are probably the reason why such urban environments are considered so exciting; tight narrow old cities with rikshaws, animals and people all living and sharing the shame footpaths whose horizons are lined with glass clad skyscrapers. Cultural neighbourhoods when demolished and give way to new developments are an example of weak understanding of the difficult whole and how to deal with a “whole” that is composed of contradictory fragments”. It is here that Venturi’s statement comes in, “I prefer “both-and” to “either-or”, black and white, and sometimes grey, to black or white…..But an architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation toward the whole, it must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion”. In a similar manner Jane Jacobs also states that for the complex whole of the design to be successful, authentic belonging and sympathy towards the context is vital [6]. In the paper, “Architecture and the Four encounters with complexity” [6], the author consolidates the four main methods to consider complexity. The four types of complexities within architecture are; wicked, messy, ordered and natural, from which Venturi’s “inclusive whole” is a messy complexity shared by Jane Jacobs “authentic fit” also messy, and mathematician Christopher Alexander’s “pattern fit” messy complexity [6]. This consolidation of complexity in regard to the whole enables an understanding of how to deal with difficult whole and the various components which are contradictory to one another in the whole. For some time now, it is possible to witness the heritage conservation of various monuments being conducted in India. At the same time, it is possible to witness the political agendas behind, for example the renaming and rebranding of monuments to heighten national pride and identity whilst suppressing certain aspects of colonial history [14]. This can be witnessed as kind of picking and choosing of the cultural components of the “whole” context of the urban environment, where only certain aspects are chosen with no consolidation to the “difficult whole”. On the other hand, it can be understood as a reading that allows excess chaos to be cleaned up, as understood in Rapoport and Kantor [28] where too simple or too chaos can also lead to a disliking by the human psychology, and yet again this is the very cleansing of entire fragments of the historical context of the urban environment. This kind of revisiting and contention of the colonial and historical monument is seen in many countries and rather than taking a particular view on this it is more

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interesting to understand how Venturi’s Contradiction and Complexity in Architecture can help to understand, analyse and reconcile such urban environments. For example, “A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning and combinations” [42], enables the perspective to become wider in allowing the various meanings of the built urban environment to co-exist, as part of the whole truth. The most complex built urban environments in India, especially the cultural urban centres and neighbourhoods are those which are most in need of a wider inclusive reading of their inherent values. In addition, the mixing of cultures and architectural styles within post-colonial architectural landscapes like that of much of India and the primary case study have allowed for Venturi’s concept to be well adhered and utilised towards. For example, “I like forms that are impure rather than pure, compromising rather than clean” [28], allow for the viewing and closer inspection of “impure”, urban environments that have no clean or one answer as to style or time period that they are from. When reading the built urban environment, the complexities and the contractions, the inclusion of the different histories, characters and conflicts can make the reading interesting but also wholesome in creating an overall understanding of the whole. The reading of the built urban environment can be conducted through its form and through its cultural constructs [15]. Hays states that in fact each kind of interpretation, cultural and formal, has several interpretations and is not exhaustive. Moreover, the relationship between the two is that of correspondence and informing one another rather than exclusion. In a similar manner, Venturi states that the various meanings of architecture, its spaces and elements become workable and readable in many ways. Adam Shar’s introduction to “Reading Architecture and Culture”, states a redolent connotation of the appearance, organisation and atmospheres of buildings. The connotations are appreciated in conjunction with memories of other buildings visited, experience of other cultural forms like art or films, hence what people experience is different from person to person [31]. Furthermore, J Mordaunt Crook proposed three ways in which to read a building. The first method being that of studying what is written about the buildings “vicariously, on the basis of external evidence”, the second method is that of studying the structure as an art with relation to aesthetic theory and the third method is based on the reading of the building from its’ internal evidence, as a monument from its own tectonic equations. Hence, in some manner, Ballantyne’s essay, “Architecture as Evidence”, supports the idea of methodically examining the built fabric for evidence of the buildings meanings [31]. The most interesting readings of structures come through the discrepancies between the physical artefact, its aesthetics and the emotional effect of the physical that can be completely different to one another [42]. Venturi states that this juxtaposition is rooted in art, where the image is read differently to its psychic effect on the viewer. Similarly, with buildings that can be experienced from within and externally, as well as captured through orthographic drawings or even photographs, the emotional and aesthetic meanings one interprets can be wide-ranging and contradictory in many cases. An architectural photo is an example of the representation of a built structure and interprets the structure which has been stated to endanger the authenticity of the “informational” nature of the building’s appearance. Hence,

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making it difficult for the photographer to satisfy the interpretation and the informational aspect of the photograph [30]. It can be said that the information a building exudes in itself has multiple meanings, the visiting experience, the livedin experience, the real experience of the plans and sections can all emit different meanings. The notion of built structures being able to exude multiple meanings allows for many people to be able to engage and relate to the structure not just local inhabitants but tourists, those of different culture and places. In this manner, the reading of the urban environment is vital for the future of cultural neighbourhoods which are neglected during urban regeneration schemes. Most cultural neighbourhoods are demolished entirely by developers or heritage structures are individually demolished by owners. Nonetheless, a greater understanding of the multiple inherent cultural values when the structure in interpreted can allow for a newly validate use for the structure. For example, the walled urban centre of Ahmedabad dating back to the Mughal Empire is a densely populated maze of “pols”, lined with large wooden haveli with carved brackets and balconies [40]. The old town became derelict of its original owners who moved into suburban apartments blocks and became an overpopulated area for rural migrants and those looking for cheaper housing. The larger havelis became dilapidated and overall heritage knowledge was low within the local inhabitants. However, a group of entrepreneurs came together in repairing a haveli, Deewanji ni Haveli, to its former glory over a period of ten years and started a small revolution by helping others to do the same and creating a city heritage centre that raises awareness through heritage walks and other programs [29]. In doing so, the original values of the haveli were read and interpreted which resulted in the first floor of the haveli becoming a heritage hotel, with the larger spaces of the haveli becoming conference rooms. In addition, the ground floor formally became the City Heritage Cell that is part of the council [37]. Adaptive Reuse has a long and deep history as understood in these papers [22, 24, 26], but more recently has been considered an appropriate method for its sustainability element [25, 38]. When making decisions about the future use of derelict structures, practical issues such as the scale of the structure, new use and number of users, specific furniture or equipment, plumping and electrics, passive heating/cooling techniques as wells as financial costs will be investigated for feasibility [4]. However, from a design point of view, the reading of a structure for its design elements and their multitude of meanings can allow for the redesigning of the ruin or dilapidated structure in a more informed meaningful manner. One such example of such adaptive reuse or restoration projects are the work of Lina Bo Bardi [11]. It is understood that in most of Bo Bardi’s work she not only attempts to preserve the poetics of the spaces, not only looking at the structure but also the “spirit” and “internal soul” of the structure [5]. Hence, allowing for several readings of the structure by its users, inhabitants and owners but also by visitors and onlookers the relatability increases to a larger number of the population. A multitude of meanings in addition, draw attention back to Venturi’s concept that an architecture that is “valid” evokes many layers of meanings [42]. The multitude of meanings can therefore allow a future for an otherwise derelict or dilapidating structure.

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Nonetheless, it has been advised that over the interpretation of the building can lead to an unauthenticity and degrading of the overall reading of the building. Whilst there are as many readings of the structure as there are viewers and users, too many readings contaminate the story of the building. The story is stated to be a simple reading of the evidence that is captivating but also convincing. In order to articulate the evidences of the building to that compelling stage, it is vital to acquire knowledge of how to read the structure in the first place that is understood as similar to that of Aristotle’s concept of “phronesis”. In all, the reader is required to make a responsible judgment rather than concoct fictitious opportunistic interpretations [31]. The literature review collates some of the main methods of reading buildings that can help formulate the methodology within the following section. The methods of reading will be further critically evaluated within the methodology section in order to design a method of reading the ruins and dilapidated building’s façade of Diu Town. In addition, the adaptive reuse discussion that is started through the literature review will be continued through the reading of the Diu Town buildings firstly and then follow into the discussion of how adaptive reuse can play a part in the future of the ruin and dilapidated buildings.

3 Methodology A series of field trips to the primary case study of Diu Island resulted in the surveying of traditional heritage structures in Diu Town conducted through a snowball effect through acquaintances with owners of private heritage structures. The paper, “Towards a Digital Heritage: Evaluating Methods of Heritage Interpretation, Diu Town—A case study” [19], evaluated survey methods which resulted in onsite impromptu surveying of heritages structures with a simple kit of a laser measurer and notebook. The measurements acquired were later converted into orthographic drawings consisting of floor plans, sections and elevations. This is considered one of the more common and accessible methods of surveying [1] compared to the hitech methods of laser scanning or photogrammetry though the latter is becoming an accessible method through widely available mobile applications and software’s [19]. In this paper, the orthographic drawings of a series of individual structures from Diu Town will be analysed, reinterpreted and read for their multiple meanings in accordance with Venturi’s manifesto complexity and contradiction in architecture as the underpinning theory. This will allow the reconciliation of differences and complexities of this postcolonial town where the urban environment, its people, traditions and value systems over the centuries have merged together. In the paper, “Representing the Colony: Documenting the other Perspective” [20], untold myths and folklore of the native Indian perspectives of the town were documented through a series of urban mappings. However, when documenting the individual structures of the town; the drawings of elevations and floor plans and analysing photographs of façade details it became clear that the whole was constructed of several different meanings and fragments of different natures. Henceforth, documenting the entire whole

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rather than selecting what to exclude would be enriching, as stated by Venturi, “it must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion”, when referring to totality. In this paper, the main methods of reading the ruins and dilapidated structures arise from the aim to consolidate the “difficult whole”. In consideration to the three methods of reading structures by J Mordaunt Crook, the first being to study the building from documents and books is not possible in the case of structures from Diu Town as they are the residential structures owned by native inhabitants. Therefore, no documentation is available. The drawings in this paper, therefore, are the first drawings or documents being produced of the structures in their current state. Henceforth, the second method of reading the structure is that of analysing it from an art point of view, where the structure is observed through the formal elements and composition. This is relatable and similar to the formal analysis that mentioned in Hays [15]. As a result, the formal analysis of the orthographic drawings will be conducted. The cultural contextual reading as stated by Hays [15] will be conducted through the understanding gained of the structures from the owners and local inhabitants whilst J Mordaunt Crook’s third method of reading the structure from the inside as a result of the evidence the structure suggests is exercised through the site visits and personal accounts of the researcher. The sample of individual structures in this paper, as marked in Fig. 2, includes a city section cutting through the market square, market arcade, Bundar Road (coastal seafront road), Hotel Mozambique the former home of the wealthiest Parsi family; this will lead to the closer examination of the façade and floor plans of Hotel Mozambique structure. A mixture of urban interventions from different periods and by different people of the town will allow for the reading of the various complexities

Fig. 2 Map of Diu Town showing the location of the fort, sea bastion, city wall and case studies

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and contradictions that lie in an otherwise collective looking open urban public space. The next structure is the Gandhibhavan, the façade of this structure along with its location will allow for a closer examination of the contradictory transformations that this structure has witnessed. A series of residential façades: Kamalia Haveli, Indo-Portuguese Haveli, Beco de Mouros and Mirrored Façade will be analysed for contradictions and complexities of the façade compositions, that are understood as the faces of the streetscape to reveal cultural and social implications they exude about the town and its people and past.

4 Cases: Diu Structures 4.1 Section of Market Square Showing Hotel Mozambique and Market Arcade The market square is one of the few formal squares found on the island. A crosssection cutting through the square and its neighbouring structures helps illustrate the buildings which encompass the square along with demonstrating the proximity of the square to the coastline. The square is centred around a stone-carved post, known as the “whipping post” [35], from the Portuguese Era. The first contradiction occurs at this point. A space that was known for its public punishments is a vibrant social space where currently locals come to buy and sell fruits and vegetables along with clothes, shoes and some household items are also available. It is not clear who the punishments were directed towards but the proximity to the coastline suggests prisoners who were held captive in the sea bastion. This square is, therefore, a reminiscent of more wellknown public squares around the world which have dark historical meanings and urban surroundings that locate memories from the past [10]. The square is closed off from the coastline with a market arcade on the Northern edge, As witnessed in Figs. 3 and 4, this arcade functions as a covered market

Fig. 3 The market place. Left: view of market place showing main land, right: vegetable market during midday

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Fig. 4 Section through market square showing east elevation of Hotel Mozambique. Ground floor plan of market square and details of Hotel Mozambique ground floor spaces

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place, selling predominately clothing. The structure is long and narrow with a central square-based dome rising centrally. During several visits into the market arcade, it was noticed that the concrete in situ stalls were usually empty. Instead the structure is serving as a gateway into the market, keeping the market place safe from the busy coastal road, Bundar Road. The structure offers a cool shaded space that allows respite from the extremely hot climate which one is exposed to during the shopping experience within the market place. The market square is lined by a various other structure, for example, next to Hotel Mozambique is a large ruin of two storeys. This structure is an example of the many structures in decline around the town. On the Eastern edge are fairly new

Fig. 5 North Elevation and section through Hotel Mozambique and market square

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structures of differing aesthetics which are mainly in the international style where shapes and forms have no particular meaning but are based on the designer or residents liking. The Western edge of the market square leads out of the market and lined with “modern” hotels. The façades of the hotels are constructed of overhanging balconies and elevations devoid of decorations, signs or symbols aesthetically. This is a stark difference and moves away from the prominent Hotel Mozambique that curved around the corner into the market square with its tapered columns.

4.2 Hotel Mozambique The hotel is known to be the residence of the last Parsi family on the island. Parsi’s are famously known to have fled Iran and seek refuge in India, Bombay specifically. However, it has been understood through research [33, 35] that the Parsi’s for some decades lived on Diu Island, mainly around the market square and commercial hub, setting up a fire temple and towers of silence further in on the island as surveyed by the Shokoohys in Shokoohy [33]. Within the market square (Fig. 5), this is one of the only structures that can be easily visually related to other Indo-Portuguese structures, Fig. 6, on the island due to a sharing of the column element. In addition, such structures are a common sight

Fig. 6 Hotel Mozambique with the vegetable market taking place midday

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in Goa like those in Carita and Sapieha [9]. The prominence of this structure is not as much associated to its scale as much as it is to its corner site, first-floor balcony, ground floor porches with tapered columns and balcony roof which forms a small pitched corner turn. In all, the aesthetics of the facades exude a colonial flavour to the market place which is felt strongly in Goa, though it can also be seen and felt in smaller pockets around Diu Town. Internally on the ground floor, Fig. 5, the use of the structure is separated into two main functions; the bar, and the hotel. The bar is accessed through the entrance on the Northern façade. The hotel which consists of the ground floor, kitchen and back yard spaces and access to the first floor and terrace spaces is accessed through the Eastern façade. The interior spaces have been modified to accommodate for the functioning of a bar and hotel. These changes can be witnessed for example, within the partitioning of the first-floor balcony to give each hotel room a private balcony space. It has been understood that the hotel is perceived as an “old” structure which

Fig. 7 Gandhibhuvan elevation and analysis of spatial use from elevation

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cannot surface modern needs, whilst the interior attempts the modernisation process through the tiling of surfaces it lacks a certain interior quality associated to new builds or newly restored or refurbished status.

4.3 Gandhibhuvan Gandhibhuvan, Figs. 7 and 8, is located on the corner of Bundar Road, at Bundar Chawk, close to the Portuguese Bell Tower Gate. This structure shows six units that are as large as a shop/house each with a central unit for the circulation. It can be analyzed that the main structure is composed of the central circulation and two units

Fig. 8 Above left: Gandhibhuvan elevation, above right: veranda, below: view of Bundar Chawk from first-floor balcony of Gandhibhuvan

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on either side allowing for symmetry and pattern on the face. The extra two units which rise two storey’s show an extension in the original structure, that in turn create an asymmetrical façade. However, an attempt has been made for continuity of the façade to be maintained by using similar tapered columns as the original structure. The tapered columns are like that of Hotel Mozambique, however, they are placed on high pedestals allowing for a much grander aesthetic to be exuded. What makes this structure further aesthetically different is that each unit between the columns has a curving balcony creating a reticulating curved edge to the first-floor balcony edge . The initial function of the structure is unknown, however, currently, it serves a variety of different businesses and services. On the ground floor, the extension structure houses a couple of bars, a hotel and a bank. The first floor that can be accessed through the central staircase, it is where a post office is located along with a bank. The extension of the structure is a hotel on the first and second floors. As a large structure with many entrances on the ground floor, it can be difficult to understand what each entrance leads into without clear shop signage. Yet, the beauty of the structure lies in the columns Fig. 7, which unite the various different uses of the structure and continue to let the structure be read as one whole rather than separate fragments. In some ways, the structure is a complex of services somewhat like that of a shopping centre or Roman forum. In addition, the balcony spaces and ground floor porch allow for a shared shaded space for users and inhabitants.

4.4 Kamalia Haveli The façade of the Kamali Haveli, Fig. 9, is possibly the most aesthetically appealing and intricate on Makata Road. Makata Road being the central residential road running east-west in the town has several large havelis but the Kamalia Haveli is one of two that have been included in this paper due to its specific façade design elements that create contradiction, ambiguity and hold a multitude of meanings to be explored. The haveli has two storeys, which are depicted differently in style and proportion within the façade detailing. Starting from the ground floor, the otla (a small pedestal and edge lining each home that functions as an outdoor social space [17]) features two main entrances into the structure. However, the ambiguity occurs with a larger entrance on the right hand of the façade which in fact leads into the circulation segment of the interior that in turn leads up into the first and second floors. A common pattern witnessed in the large havelis of Diu Town is that the family living quarters are situation on the first floor and beyond. Hence, the ground floor is not as important, which is why the larger more impressive entrance is the one that leads on to a staircase. The right-hand segment of the façade from ground level indicates a balcony on each floor above. However, this is how the circulation has been covered which in turn makes the façade and overall structure look and seem larger than it is. The first and section floor façade of the main structure becomes simpler and more private as the floors rise. The first floor shows a balcony whilst the second floor is a modest arrangement of windows. On one hand, this arrangement shows the first floor is the

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Fig. 9 Drawings: front elevation with facade analysis and ground floor plan with analysis. Photographs showing ground floor on front facade and door detailing of the courtyard entrance

living space, open and in need of more light, the second floor would be the sleeping spaces, hence smaller windows. But more recently, the internal spaces have been changed to convert all spaces into self-contained en-suite. Hence, this hierarchy that is shown in the façade of public to private no longer as the floors rise is no longer conforming to the interior plan.

4.5 Indo-Portuguese Haveli This haveli is an example of a large-scale residential structure that is derelict. It conforms to the overall pattern large haveli entrances follow. Similar to the Kamalia

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Fig. 10 Facade and ground floor plan with analysis of facade composition and entrances into courtyard-interior spaces

Haveli, it has a gated entrance to a courtyard which leads into the circulation of the structure. On the other hand, entrances directly into the ground floor are from the road entrances beyond the otlo space. Hence, the main confusion here is that the entrances that are most accessible of the road are of the ground floor space that is not used and usually empty. Once again, it is the courtyard entrance that leads into the circulation area of the structure that allows access to the first-floor living space and floors beyond.

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The haveli’s main façade, Fig. 10, is overly simplified whilst the gate and façade behind it are alluring and intriguing. The hierarchy of façade elements is clear in the main roadside façade. This structure is similar to that of the Kamalia Haveli though this structure illustrates a shallow balcony on the first floor and the absence of it on the second floor allows for an understanding of the living spaces and sleeping quarters. The havelis façade detailing continues this confusion; the roadside façade is plain and geometric as compared to the pushed back façade that is behind the gate. The façade behind the gate is an arch with decorative plaques adorning the top of flat curved arches. The plaques are reminiscent of Portuguese seafaring elements such as ropes, knots, swirls of the ocean and floral elements which border the Hindu symbol of “aum”, ॐ , Fig. 11. The mixing of styles and symbols of different cultures and religions has been witnessed on other structures like that of the neighbouring Nagar Seth’s (Town Chief) haveli. However, in order to understand the “difficult whole” it is vital to accept the mixing of the styles through relationships between higher class natives who were predominantly businessmen, and the Portuguese officials. The elderly native inhabitants speak of good friendly relations with Portuguese officials in the latter part of the colonial rule. Such co-existence rather than mixing are seen on many of the larger structures within the higher caste residential areas of the town but are interpreted usually as Indian “or” Portuguese rather than Indian “and”.

Fig. 11 Photographs showing facade details

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4.6 Beco de Mouros This structure is the simplest example of a residential structure, it can one-day to a detached structure. Its façade design, Fig. 12, is symmetrical and geometrically simple. This façade elements of this structure allow for the isolation of the various façade elements to understand their isolated meanings but also the multitude of meanings that arise from a combination of façade elements and overall façade. The main door on this façade is typical of the native’s residential houses and some of the older commercial units in the town. The door comprises of a horizontal lintel, side timbers and double doors with intricate carvings on its wooden surface. This is a common scene not only in Diu Town but also around India, within smaller villages and towns [2]. This façade features an otlo, which is an external plinth where social activities take place [17], however, it is subjected to the gradient of the street. The otlo, in this case, serves as a traditional social element on the façade, though its function ceases as the gradient rises where the otlo becomes level with the rising ground plane. The otlo is one manner is a type of “double functioning” element, as a social outdoor space but also a plinth that the entire structure is built upon. Moving on, other elements on the façade include the five windows, two on the ground floor and three on the first floor, which are geometrically simple, each with their own decoration element placed above them. These decoration elements in themselves show indicate central windows with a different pattern and side windows with a different pattern. As a whole, the façade is simple and exudes a sense of order within its symmetrical elements. Though when examining this structure from its side façade it can be understood that the first floor is a mere one room spectacle. One might get the idea from the façade of a large mansion with a deep plan. However, upon inspection of the side façade, it is clear to understand that the first floor is composed of a set of three rooms only, which makes the façade a two-storey composition giving the house a grand appearance.

4.7 Mirrored Façade a Ruin This façade, Fig. 13, whose structure is owned by a large extended family is a further façade example to showing how façade elements are used for aesthetic and functional purposes but exude contrasting meanings. What is interesting about this façade is its abundance of “front entrances”. Each of the front-facing rooms has its own entrance which makes for a façade that is open yet closed, permeable to people and interactions off the streets which each of the spaces. This is similar to that of the patio houses of Goa as seen in [9]. However, in Diu, most of the facades in the residential town area are devoid of the cornice and pilaster detailing that one might see on most of the civic structure after the seventeenth century. Here the façade is a mix of Indian carved wooden entrances and simple geometric windows with vents designed into

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Fig. 12 Drawing showing elevation and analysis, with facade elements isolated. Photographs showing main door entrance and gradient of Beco de Mouros

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Fig. 13 Drawings showing elevation and analysis diagrams and isolated facade elements. Photographs showing structure being prepared for demolition and interior frescoes

decoration elements. Whilst in Goa the simple geometric nature of the facades in the Italian mannerist style was a clue of austerity yet power and a clear stronghold of the colony, this façade too is clean but shows signs of an overarching native touch in its Gujarati floral elements on the vents and wooden carved doors. Similar in form and façade elements to some of the other façades in the residential area of town, this façade is not only grand and imposing but the interior also speaks the same language. Internally the rooms are each painted meticulously with thick floral borders tracing the edges of each wall, doors and windows. The painted walls,

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alcoves and the variety of floral borders and wall paintings in each room indicate the importance of each space. The paintings depict a native Hindu family home which is reminiscent of the living quarters of the royals and statesmen of Rajasthan illustrating how higher class families often imitate the spaces of the royals [39]. The façade in this sense is a contradiction to the painted interior spaces. When the structure was visited and surveyed it was in a state of demolition due to structural damage which was the result of long-term non-inhabitation and under maintenance. This is a common problem and a reason for demolition taking place within the town.

5 Discussion In this paper, the urban environment has been represented as orthogonal twodimensional drawings that allow for the perception and analysis to be from a flat surface. In that manner, as Venturi compares ambiguity in art [42], ambiguity can be analysed from the linework constructing the image of the heritage structures. Therefore, the structures can be analysed as artwork for their ambiguous forms, patterns, icons and symbols. A comparative analysis takes place in this section that allows for a greater understanding between the various structures and the overall built urban environment of Diu Town. The market square is the urban square of the town that becomes exemplary of the mixed and somewhat contradictory elements of the difficult whole of Diu Town. On one hand, there is the Parsi’s former home, which functions as a hotel, inviting and becoming home to visitors of the island, and then there is the Portuguese Column known to locals for its darker days. It’s a kind of irony that the town can be witnesses for. Similarly, the market place is now lined with newly constructed hotels on the outward road into the town area whilst for example, the structure next to Hotel Mozambique lining the market place is a ruin in a dilapidated state. The long section through the market and into the sea shows the in contrast to the older image the amount of concrete that has been used to fill in the natural beach that occurred right off Bundar Road, and instead create an infill zone that functions as a dockyard, car park and man-made harbour. To understand the natural coastline of Diu Town and its importance as a political, cultural and social coastline for future development was undermined when infilling and creating a larger space for the dockyard and car park. The difficult whole was ignored for more practical unity of exclusion. Yet, it has been outlined by Bachman [6], that Pena (1969), separates the problem seeking and problem-solving as cultural-artistic passions are different to those of social ethical missions based on the ordered and wicked complexities theories [6]. The market place can be understood as a typically “Indian” space where the sellers are native Indians, the buyers are native Indian inhabitants, visiting diaspora members of the island and many of the structures are owned and modified for the Indian lifestyle, and yet the space is an era by era culmination of adaptation and progressive building forming the square. This part of the town, by the harbour, was,

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in fact, an international zone of commerce and business between the vast empire and its native population. In contrast today, the harbour is no more than a dockyard for large ships involved in the fishing industry. There was a time in the island history that shows the island was important due to its safe harbour and protected harbour, and it’s mixed population suitable for business and commerce, and the inherent location of the island which allowed the Portuguese access to the Eastern and Western coasts of India with rest relief after travelling the Indian Ocean from East Africa. And yet, in the context of India, Diu’s location is impractical, almost five hours away by road to a large city like Rajkot. In this manner, the past and present of the island’s political situation need to be understood as a whole rather than individual pieces of information that do not have a meaning or add up to a holistic understanding. Moving on to Gandhibhavan, which is one of those structures that need to be admired from a distance due to its scale. Its orthographic representation allows for viewing and analysing without the onsite issues. The columns on the façade can be read as shortened stunted elements or understood as being raised by a taller pedestal. In addition, the curve of the balconies’ can only be witnessed from an acute or obtuse angle but not looking straight on at 180 or 90 degrees to the façade. Hence, are the balconies curving outwards or are the columns pressing into the façade creating an excess to protrude? In the context of this paper, the opportunity lies in accepting both and more readings rather than picking between the different ones. The structure is located on a seemingly informal looking Bundar Chawk (bundar— port and chawk- square in Gujarati). The Gandhibhavan is located on the north-west edge-corner of the square, Fig. 14, and the northern edge is the bell tower and gate. The bell tower is a reminder of the importance of the harbour which was the gateway into the island during the Portuguese rule. Behind this bell toward, a large informal space occurs before the streets occur that stretch into the commercial area. This area is used as a car park and the easternmost area is an outdoor street eating area where at night the small parked carts come alive with street food vendors cooking snacks and meals. The culture of night time street food vendor can be witnessed in larger cities like Ahmedabad, where Manek Chawk [36] and Law Garden areas are known for their street food vendors and outdoor seating arrangements [32]. In this manner, the bell tower and gate to the city now witnesses the changing nature of the space into Indian cultures imported from the mainland. As public spaces that are being developed and “modernised” discourse of the difficult whole allows for a large range of design possibilities. Infilling the coastline of Diu Town can be compared to modernisation of the Ahmedabad riverside [23], which now “fits” the international standard and image of riverside promenades yet, compromised the natural riverside and the city’s inherent cultural dynamics. The informality of the Bundar Chawk and imported cultures of street foods and outdoor eating facilities are designed for one-day national tourists and in doing so allows the space to be a product of the current needs but doesn’t consolidate or make use of the context and design opportunities related to that. Kamalia Haveli and the Indo Portuguese Yellow Haveli are examples of the “mixed” nature of the higher-class residential structures. However, unlike mixing of people occurred in other colonial cities, mixing on Diu occurred on a much more

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Fig. 14 Satellite image marking out Bundar Chawk with Gandhibhuvan and Market Square with Hotel Mozambique and market building

formal level. There was no mass conversion of the native population into Catholicism unlike in Goa [16], which is illustrated within the native Hindu residential areas where mixing isn’t concentrated and forceful but rather a result of friendships and contacts of higher caste businessmen and Portuguese officials through work and legal matters. Both havelis illustrate a front courtyard that is gated, a roadside façade, with access to the ground floor that is utilised as storage and passage to the upper floors. So, the questions inevitably are raised. Are these structures Indian or Portuguese? In fact, they are both, their strong geometrical facades and simplicity as the floor rise are illustrative of a formalisation, privatisation. Whilst the Indian door, entrance is welcoming with its aesthetically pleasing formations. In a similar manner, Beco de Mouros also raising questions which allow one to judge an outright answer. Thought this might be possible the readings are somewhat eye-opening if not revealing of interrelationships. For example, if the entrance on the ground floor is Indian in style, and the Portuguese formality and geometrical clarity is within the first or second-floor windows, does that suggest the Portuguese were “above” the Indian population, deriving the colonial hierarchy? Adversely, it can also be read that the Indian entrance and ground floor were holding up the colonial ruler. In a similar reading, the Mirrored Ruin façade allows several contradictory but very insightful ways of perceiving the façade elements and the relationship between the façade and interior. The façade which like that of Beco de Mouros has Indian style

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entrances with carving on the wooden panels is followed by geometrical windows that are topped with vents covered with floral carving in the local sandstone. This is in contrast to the first-floor windows that are even more geometrically simple exuding the austere, simple but powerful and grand facades that Carita describes in civic buildings in Goa after the seventeenth century [9]. The interior is bespoke, with floral borders around each room, and each doorway and alcove referring to the higher classes on the mainland, specifically the royal and aristocrats of Rajasthan. Could the decision to have the interiors painted been one of showing their status or maybe an experience of Rajasthan and the mainland led the inhabitants to get their interiors painted in an exuberant and intricate manner. One reading could again imply the hierarchy of the façade where the colonial ruler is above the natives. It could also be read that the colonial ruler may have strong-hold, but the rules and lives are still Indian under politics. Similarly, the Indian entrance can denote the native Indian population have freedom of movement in private and public spaces, but the upper hand is always of the colonial ruler. Maybe such meanings that look at the different and many times contradicting readings of a building bring confusion and uncertainty surrounding the authenticity of the building. However, the process of the reading the sample of structures from Diu Town has made it evident that the poetics of a space cannot be accessed without attempting to read the pieces of evidence that the building stores, reading the cultural and social contexts and understanding the structure from its own formal elements.

6 Conclusion The process of reading the structures of Diu Town allows on the first instance the documentation of the structures through survey and orthographic representation as well as onsite experience during the surveying process which includes speaking to inhabitants and locals The reasons for reading the structures is to gain a deeper understanding and re-establish relatability to structures otherwise built almost a century ago in order to understand how one might treat or do with them next. In fact, it’s worth bringing in the concept of a structure, a home or a building of any type that has been inhabited transcending geometrical space and acquiring its own personality and physiological traits [7]. In some ways, the readings of the multitude of meanings of a building are like reading a human being, where there are contradictions and complexities within personalities and characteristics. In turn, certain experiences in one’s life also change and help them progress, as does a building that has experienced a storm that can now embrace itself in a downpour, that has acquired physical and moral energy of a human [7] Henceforth, this paper allows reading of some of the structures in Diu Town, in reading them is an attempt to understand them rather than raze them to the ground, and in understanding each structure is the potential future opportunities of what can happen to them in the future. For example, how the play between façade and interior space can be utilised in future designs of houses or restoration projects. How

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Fig. 15 Left to Right: Diu Town with its heritage structures, heritage structures in ruins, newly constructed structures showing an absence of the heritage and essence of the town

reading into the difficult whole can enable a whole host of design concepts to reveal themselves but most importantly how interpretation of old structures can allow for an empowerment of the locals, the inhabitants and the community to re-own, reestablish relations and validity of the structure through not only the current state of the structure which might be a ruin but also have a poetic and pragmatic methods for the sustenance of the structure in the future. The adaptive reuse of structures in Diu Town would be highly beneficial for the sustenance of not only energy and building materials but for the culture, history and traditions that the town was formed out of and formed by and continues to be formed with. Therefore, in this paper, the process of reconciling the various meanings of an urban fabric that is deep and complex by means Venturi’s proposition of pluralism in the built urban environment is conducted. It is clear that Venturi in his manifesto is criticising modernity and modernism [18] that leads to random and oversimplified forms erasing any cultural or historical relevance. Yet the criticism and the pluralism set out in his manifesto are applicable and valid for Diu Town where a complexly layered historical and cultural urban environment, Fig. 15, is difficult to read as an entirety with its various contradictions proving confusing to understand as a simple narrative. As a result, modern architecture and fast-paced development don’t have a choice but to ignore the problems associated with reading into cultural neighbourhood and instead chooses to move forward without the baggage of history. Henceforth, Venturi’s concept of pluralism and reconciling the difficult whole enables the various meanings of the same urban space, residential structure and ruin in Diu Town to be read from various angles. During the process of reading the various meanings, façades and façade elements along with interior spaces and plans could be analysed from a formal, poetical and practical point of view. The reading of orthographic drawings for the difficult whole allowed many other Venturi

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topics to be touched upon such as; contradictory levels—the phenomenon of “bothand”, contradictory levels continued—the double functioning element and the inside and the outside. In addition, the readings of each structured meant a building that was otherwise irrelevant, unrelatable or lost its value found new meaning and even possibilities of being used in a different way through the poetics of design that were revealed. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Mr Cantilal Meggi, Ketan Jethwa and the residents of Diu Island without whom the invaluable material for this paper would not have been possible.

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36. Shukla A (2017) Streets as public spaces : space : a case study of manek 8(5), 1367–1376 37. Silva KD, Sinha ASE-R (2016) Research in landscape and environmental design (2016) Cultural landscapes of South Asia : studies in heritage conservation and management. Routledge, New York, N.Y. Available at http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/leicester/detail.act ion?docID=4717802 38. Tam VWY, Hao JJL (2018) Adaptive reuse in sustainable development. Int J Const Manage. Taylor & Francis, 0(0), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1459154 39. Thapar B, Manto SK, Bhalla S (2012) Introduction to Indian Architecture. Tuttle Publishing (Periplus Asian Architecture Series). Available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fpfTAg AAQBAJ 40. UNESCO (2017) Historic City of Ahmedabad. Available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1551 41. Vasunia P (2013) The classics and colonial India. OUP Oxford (Classical Presences). Available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GcWoqkmFJW4C 42. Venturi R et al (1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Museum of Modern Art (Papers on architecture) 43. Vohra R (2001) In: Sharpe ME (ed)The Making of India: a historical survey. Available at https:// books.google.co.uk/books?id=IDKoyGjFo44C 44. Weiler K, Gutschow N (2017) Authenticity in architectural heritage conservation: discourses, opinions, experiences in Europe, South and East Asia, transcultural research—heidelberg studies on Asia and Europe in a global context. https://doi.org/10.15381/rpb.v15i2.1693

The “Japanese Landscape Inside”: The Transition of Architectural Spaces Cristiana Bartolomei, Anastasia Fotopoulou, Caterina Morganti, and Giorgia Predari

Abstract Japanese traditional architecture from its origins is harmonized with the natural environment. The relation with the landscape has its roots to the Heian period, where the connection between the interior and the exterior space was important. The landscape is inserted to the interior, rather than excluded, due to a variety of means such as shoji, bamboo screens, balconies, entrances and verandas or open corridors (EN). The physical and symbolic use of the Japanese landscape finds its maximum expression in the architectural space of the traditional buildings, in all its forms; the outer space and the inside are deeply interconnected and at the same time separated through a gradual transition process, which has as its main principle the connection between the man and the landscape, where the building, as a construction and physical model and as a social expression becomes the medium. The fusion between exterior and interior, thus forms a spatial continuity, typical of the dedicated places as for example the tea ceremony room (茶道). So Japanese architecture recalls some of the concepts exposed by Robert Venturi in his “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, such as the equilibrium generated between opposites, which in this case are inside and outside, which live in perfect continuity. This paper aims to comprehend the traditional Japanese architecture related to the landscape while investigating the design, the constructive choices and the adopted technologies, achieving awareness thanks to the fundamental instrument of representation. Keywords Japanese traditional architecture · Timber construction · Tea ceremony room · Pattern · Construction history C. Bartolomei (B) · A. Fotopoulou · C. Morganti · G. Predari Department of Architecture, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] A. Fotopoulou e-mail: [email protected] C. Morganti e-mail: [email protected] G. Predari e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_25

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Fig. 1 Characteristics of the shinden-zukuri style—drawing by Caterina Morganti

1 Introduction Historically in Japan, the architectural practice has always been related to the idea of working and living in harmony with the natural environment. Since the Heian period1 the building model was the shinden-zukuri 寝殿 造, a term that identifies the style of residential architecture of the palaces and aristocratic buildings built mainly in Japan in the tenth century. The main characteristics of the shinden-zukuri style were a precise symmetry of the group of buildings of the complex and the space enclosed by them. The main building, the shinden, was placed on the central north-south axis and faced south towards an open courtyard. Two additional buildings were built by the two sides, right and left of the shinden, both oriented in an east-west direction, and were connected to it by two corridors, in which were found some intermediate entrances giving access to the courtyard, a place where many ceremonies were celebrated (Fig. 1). The corridors were extended versus the south and ended perimetrically in small pavilions shaping a courtyard in a U-shape. This model was adopted since the Middle Ages until the post-war period, maintaining over time the concept that the space of a traditional Japanese house is interpreted as a space in which the limits between exterior and interior are not well defined. This close relation to nature is in fact the ultimate goal of the Japanese architecture. Consequently, the design of a Japanese house can be seen as composed of three parts: the exterior, the intermediate space and the interior [6]. The exterior is naturally expressed by the garden and the interior is the place where the inhabitants spend most of their daily time.

1 The Heian period (平安 時代 heian jidai) is an era of the Japanese history between the VIII and XII (794–1185) centuries and has taken its name from the capital of that period, Heian-Kyo, the current Kyoto.

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The intermediate area is an important area considered as a filter area among the other two spaces, allowing nature to penetrate the house while guaranteeing protection and safety at the same time [10]. Therefore there is no clear division between the exterior and the interior, but due to a series of screening elements, such as the veranda (engawa), door (mon), wall (hei), hedge (ikegaki), canopy (hisashi), the natural landscape is well blended with the anthropic one. Indeed, the traditional Japanese architecture reflects the basic dichotomy of the Japanese thought, known as Uchi and Soto (in and out), Uchi literally means house, while Soto (外) refers to the outside. Paraphrasing what Robert Venturi says about Shodhan House, it can be argued that even Japanese architecture is closed and yet open. The concept “yet” is therefore valid: “Contradictory levels of meaning and use in architecture involve the paradoxical contrast implied by the conjunctive “yet” (…). This series of conjunctive “yets” describes an architecture of contradiction at varying levels of program and structure. None of these ordered contradictions represents a search for beauty, but neither as paradoxes, are they caprice” [26]. It is therefore an architecture based on contradictions, finely resolved through the concept of equilibrium, since equilibrium must be created out of opposites. This clear distinction between inside/outside, internal/external, presented in many aspects of the Japanese culture, is also reflected in the organization of the living space as seen in the traditional Japanese residences. Great attention is given to the idea of the space that exists between things, such as the very space of transition between inside and outside, which in the Japanese tradition is known as the “knowledge” of the MA (間), and also on how to arrange the spaces to achieve harmony, not only in the geometric aspect but mainly in the idea of being/living. This duality between internal and external finds its natural fusion in the passage between the garden and the house but also internally, in the transitional spaces of the traditional Japanese house, which are those that connect the landscape with the space of life such as the entrance vestibule (genkan), the area that is found once you enter the main door [11]. The landscape intended as nature, is found in the house through a variety of materials and means with a certain degree of transparency and permeability such as bamboo curtains (sudarè), sliding walls in paper (shoji or fusuma) the tatami, the wooden gratings (koshi) etc [12]. These devices were born during the Heian period and were developed according the Shinden style allowing nature to enter physically and visually in the internal rooms (Figs. 2, 3 and 4). For the Japanese of the Heian period, the natural elements such as rocks, streams, trees were endowed with energy and the proximity and interaction with them was necessary for the well-being of the inhabitants. Therefore, built and natural environment never stop to invade one to the other: the construction of the house always follows the course of the land in which it is located; the interior, which follows and is adapted to the changing seasons, leaves nature enter through the shoji2 that move accordingly, allowing you to appreciate 2 The

shoji are very light sliding panels, consisting of a simple skeleton of thin strips of wood arranged to create rectangular meshes and framed by larger strips, on which the paper is usually

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Fig. 2 Connection between interior space and nature—picture by Caterina Morganti

Fig. 3 Connection between interior space and nature—picture by Caterina Morganti

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Fig. 4 Connection between interior space and nature in Tofukuji Temple—picture by Caterina Morganti

the maples in autumn, the cherry trees and azaleas in spring and the snow during winter time. In the most important room of the house, the tokonoma, a painting with a floral composition is often placed to reinforce the idea of how important the natural landscape is. Furthermore there is always a composition of flowers in pots (chabana), which changes shape and layout according to the seasons and the climate, but it is never positioned at the center of the alcove, thus reaffirming that nature is asymmetrical and so is life and the existence of beings. The flower, which is taken from nature and brought into the reality of architecture, becomes architecture itself and as architecture is made by man there is therefore a very close relationship that never stops to be brought to light. The close contact of the Japanese people with the landscape is also documented by the immense importance that is attributed to the external space of the garden (Figs. 5, 6 and 7). In Japan there are three types of gardens: those that are mainly naturalistic and that have been influenced by the typical gardens of the villas of the court of the nobles or the shogun family; those influenced by the rock gardens, which often can glued, whose texture is rather coarse, allowing the diffusion of the natural light, creating a generally light atmosphere. As the light conditions change throughout the day, so does the quality of light. The wooden slats are notched into one another to strengthen the frame. The lower part of the shoji is often opaque, consisting of a wooden panel. Usually the paper is placed to the external part of the shoji allowing the wooden trellis to be visible from the inside. In order to have it visible from both sides more elaborated manual work is needed, since a double frame should be constructed.

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Fig. 5 Nature and architecture in Eikando Temple—picture by Caterina Morganti

Fig. 6 Nature and architecture in Kyoto—picture by Caterina Morganti

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Fig. 7 Nature and architecture in Kyoto—picture by Caterina Morganti

been seen in Zen temples and finally those called roji 露 地, or “tea gardens”, which are inspired by the philosophy and traditions of chanoyu 茶 の 湯, “Japanese tea ceremony” [18]. Each one of them though is designed having thought each detail; in fact, Japanese culture approaches nature in a highly aesthetic way. In ancient Japan the word “nature” did not exist [15]. The words that were used—ame-tsuchi 天 土 (heaven and earth), yama-kawa 山川 (mountains and rivers), ue-sue 末 (above the end)—refer to separate entities extracted from nature [7]. When the Japanese try to imitate nature, they extract some essential elements from the whole, limiting themselves to a few carefully chosen species following the “less is more” principle and tend to miniaturize everything. Furthermore, Japanese architecture is an architecture in which right angles and rectangular shapes are used to create “paintings” in which architecture itself defines the landscape. With this artificial boundary, the so-called “domesticated” nature (construction) is separated from the external “raw” nature (the landscape) [5].

2 The Concept of the Natural Landscape Numerous definitions have been given to the term “landscape”. The European Landscape Convention (Council of Europe 2000) defines it as “a specific part of territory, as it is perceived by the people, whose character derives from the action of natural and/or human factors and their interrelations”. The Convention recognizes as worthy

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Fig. 8 Interior space of a traditional Japanese architecture—picture and drawing by Caterina Morganti

of interest both the landscapes that can be considered exceptional, the landscapes referring to daily life, and the degraded landscapes as well, considering the landscape, as an essential component of the context of life, expression of the diversity of the common cultural and natural heritage of people and the foundation of their identity. The landscapes are therefore spatially delimited portions of the real world that appear as environmental mosaics diversified by the different interactions between man activities and natural processes, through space and long periods of time [4]. The traditional Japanese architecture fits perfectly into this scenario, and in particular the residential one, which comes from an ancient millenary tradition that already in its first housing models established four fundamental elements that still now days accompany many of the residential expressions: an independent supporting structure from vertical closures, the sloping roof as upper closure, the rising floor over the ground and the use of light vestments of natural fibers or wooden lattices as internal divisions (Fig. 8). The natural scenery is therefore part of the overall design of the construction of a traditional house. Worth mentioning is that the Japanese landscape law defines the term landscape as “a form combined by nature, history, culture, means of livelihood and economic activity”. The architectural space is the result, in fact, of a complex of history, cultural, religion, linguistic and aesthetic traditions. Japanese philosophy is based on the concept that everything is nature, even architecture itself (Fig. 9). Therefore the building must be conceived as an extension of the nature that surrounds it and not as a simple insertion into it. Shizen3 which represents the harmony with nature, is a fundamental aspect of the traditional Japanese spatial organization. The same attention of the space integrated with nature is found in the use of materials, strictly natural: wood for the structure, floor and walls and cypress bark for the roof. In fact, the use of natural materials in the construction is favored 3 Shizen

began to mean “nature” according to the Western conception only from the eighteenth century, and precisely it was appeared in a Dutch—Japanese dictionary of 1796 where was used to translate the Dutch word “natuur”. Before then, the conception of nature as considered in the West was significantly absent in Japan.

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Fig. 9 Fusion between nature and architecture—picture by Caterina Morganti

due to their ability to age slowly. In the walls made of wood, in the paper surface of the sliding doors, in the straw of roofs and floors one can identify the profound harmony that is found in the natural environment. A traditional Japanese house is formed parallel to its garden and with it is being completed. This relation is translated by framed views of windows and meditative verandas that offer direct views of the garden. In every space, in fact, great attention is given to the positioning of the openings that are placed so as to capture views and frame them like a painting on the wall. The internal and external space is seen as a unicum, an ambiguous space created with no clear and strict borders. In this sense, Japanese architecture is in total opposition to one of the principal statements of the twentieth century, as reported by Robert Venturi: “Contrast between the inside and the outside can be a major manifestation of contradiction in architecture. However, one of the powerful twentieth century orthodoxies has been the necessity for continuity between them: the inside should be expressed on the outside” [26]. In Japanese culture, and consequently in its transposition into architecture, the opposite concept is exactly true: there must be perfect continuity between inside and outside. The house is transformed and changes character as previously mentioned according to the different seasons in order to allow the greatest possible connection with nature: in winter shoji sliding doors are joined by sheets of paper that make light less intense and protect from the cold; instead during summer period the doors give directly access to the garden. There is never a separation between nature and built environment, which is amplified by the contrast between the two parts: on

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the one hand the building that is being developed in extremely made by geometric architectural forms with very high level of symmetry, with prevalence of forms based on parallel and perpendicular lines, which produce a total perspective homogeneity within the space even after the rotation of the observation point, while on the other hand there is the natural landscape where geometry and symmetry seem to be totally absent. Therefore, if symmetry and order reign inside, outside order is broken [26]. In reality, a careful analysis reveals that nature, if not hindered by anything, would have a strong tendency to symmetry: trees, flowers, plants in fact tend to grow according to symmetrical and repetitive models and in order to study these models we use as a reference the fractal geometry, a geometry much more extensive than the Euclidean one, where in addition to the spatial symmetry, the scalar symmetry is also added. Yet environmental conditions, such as the different exposure of light or wind, produce an ordered asymmetry in the landscape thanks to which the balance between left and right is altered to create a dynamic beauty, which makes the Japanese natural landscape a place of contemplation: the Japanese take care of every millimeter detail in designing it. They gather the elements of nature present in the surrounding landscape, organize them in such a way as to maintain each one’s own specificity and recompose them so as to form a miniature image of the landscape itself and the house is precisely designed to be also inserted asymmetrically into the landscape. The garden is not just a simple view that can be admired from inside a building, as in the case of Western architecture: the Japanese house is conceived as an integral part of the landscape itself. Climate variability certainly influences considerably the way in which the living space is constructed, determining various interconnected and consequential factors between them: the type of domestic environment, the exploitation of landscape resources, the variety of crops, the festivities that mark the seasons and the agricultural year. For this reason should be avoided falling into the idea that the “traditional” Japanese house is a single invariable and isolated from any other influence.

3 The Organization of the Japanese House The Japanese building tradition is based on the organic integration between man and nature, giving attention to the use of natural materials, to the fluidity of the interior spaces, to the simplification of forms through the elimination of superfluous elements, to the continuity between the inside and the outside and as a whole to the harmony between the environment and the construction. The traditional Japanese house is designed from the inside out: the outside of the house evolves from the design of the internal distribution rather than being designed to adapt to a rigid pattern or to preestablished geometric shapes [2]. There are four elements that allow the occurrence of this: the particular protruding roofing system, a very flexible system of interior spaces, the detachment of the floor from the soil of about half a meter, the external walls built in wood, bamboo and clay bricks. Originally, according to the traditional model that is known as shinden, traditional Japanese buildings were developed around a large

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Fig. 10 The Veranda as an element of connection with nature—picture and drawing by Caterina Morganti

central space: the moya, which represented the main room that was characterized by four large cylindrical wooden elements. On either of the sides of this space were found the hisashi (whose etymology derives from “hi [ga] sasu”, “where the sun shines”), two porticos that over time would extend to embrace the central body forming a sort of gallery and a further external gallery (magohisashi) was added to this structure, functioning as a permeable screen to the external landscape. This allowed the internal space of the house to remain “open” towards the garden, allowing the Heian aristocrats to modify and expand considerably the space of their homes without changing the fundamental main structure. The core of the building (moya) is 3 × 3 ken wide4 and is surrounded on four sides by a 1 ken hisashi, bringing the external dimensions of the building to a total of 5 × 5 ken. Therefore the total area of the galleries surrounding the building is larger than the surface of the moya. The space of the house was therefore composed of open spaces that in fact were neither really considered as internal ones nor truly external but they guaranteed a constant desirable connection between the surrounding garden and the house. The Heian culture, which also strongly influenced later periods, was the symbol of an architectural model that places the man in the heart of the garden and the surrounding natural environment. Even when the old galleries were replaced by verandas and corridors which connected various rooms together, it always remained as a fixed reference that the garden had to remain connected to the house (Figs. 10 and 11). After the earthquake of 1467, 4 Ken (間) is a traditional Japanese unit of length, equal to six Japanese feet (shaku). The exact value has varied over time and place, but generally has been a little less than 2 meters. Nowadays it is standardized as 1/9 of a meter.

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Fig. 11 The Veranda as an element of connection with nature—picture by Caterina Morganti

which devastated Tokyo, a method of construction was developed, known as the “Shoin style”5 which normalized, according to a system of typical dimensions, the construction of the dwelling starting from the foundations, from the beams, from the deforming of the roof and from the floor to the dimensions of the living spaces and other elements of the traditional Japanese house. The large cylindrical columns of the moya were replaced from the square-shaped supports of the hisashi, thus obtaining a structural homogeneity that maintains the desired fluidity in the spatial organization. The internal divisions, which were initially fixed, are replaced by light and sliding elements. The doors, originally being heavy and massive, leave now place for a wooden framework, the shoji, on which a pad of rice paper is mounted making the element light and translucent. Tatami was used for the floor finishes. The structure of traditional Japanese houses therefore, according to the Shoin style, is characterized by columns or wooden pillars that rise from the foundations directly fixed to the pressed ground or to a stone. The space of the Japanese house is therefore not defined by walls and rigid separations. It is the columns or pillars that establish the shape of the space and as a result in the structure that forms the framework of the house there are two or more sides without fixed walls. To limit the effects of soil 5A

term initially used in the context of Zen to indicate the cell of a monk. Later was used to express the style of homes of the samurai class, a style that still constitutes the basic form of typical Japanese architecture. The shoin style was born from the shinden style of the aristocratic residence of the Heian period. After a long evolution and several variations, around the middle of the fifteenth century the main shape was established, characterized by rooms with tatami, divided by fusuma sliding doors.

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moisture and to minimize the damaged of the frequent earthquakes, the floor is raised by tens of centimeters and is made of bundles of horizontal wooden boards. This lack of contact precisely between floor and ground is one of the aspects that marks the connection between the domestic space and the outside, which amplifies the passage from inside to outside, allowing the level of the house to offer a higher “observation point” than that of the garden, so that it is possible to have different views and shots of the landscape from the inside than from the level of the garden. In ancient times, the walls of the houses were made of dried bamboo and stucco with soil on both sides. Nowadays, different types of materials are used, including plywood. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the columns were partly seen in the external part of the house while from the Meiji era (1868–1912) onwards, these columns were progressively placed inside the outer walls to reduce the risk of fire. The roofs were thatched, but nowadays many roofs are covered with tiles called kawara. However, the principle of all these models remains that the landscape should be free, natural and completely interconnected with the built environment. To reinforce this idea, in parallel with the shoin style, is developed in Japan the style called sukiya, which explored the design of a solitary, contemplative and isolated building in the middle of a refined garden, thus ensuring a close contact with nature and elevating to a high level of dialogue, a much more delicate and introspective style than the shoin and shinden models. In this model it is gained a maximum integration between inside and outside, natural materials show original colors and textures, everything is oriented towards those who live in the space and towards the natural frame of the landscape. Japanese buildings have been developed over the years by combining traditional forms with modern technology, improving their resistance to fire, but in any case the tendency has remained to investigate the inspiring principles of traditional constructions also for the development of new solutions. Even today the design of the house does not aim only at functionalism, but rather at the continuity between private space and public space that is manifested in the relationship of vertical walls to the ceiling or to the roof of the house. All Japanese architecture remains so faithful to the landscape and nature, as for example, that when there are no constraints imposed by an urban context, the houses are oriented to an east-west direction so that the top of the roof points to the east, thus ensuring the best orientation during the summer and winter months. It can therefore be concluded that the design of the space of the Japanese house, regardless of the style used, integrates the house in the garden and in the recreating landscape.

4 The Traditional Japanese Way of Building As in all cultures of the world, Japan’s traditional way of building is strongly influenced by the environmental context; on the one hand, as regards the choice of the materials used it is mainly wood, since the country is rich in forests from which it is possible to derive high quality construction elements. On the other hand, as far as inherent in the way of using them; in addition to the four seasons traditionally

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intended, in fact, in Japan, at the beginning of summer, there is a brief rainy season and typhoons in early autumn, so as to create a cycle of six seasons. In spring and autumn the climate is pleasant, in winter it is naturally cold. The three remaining seasons, namely the rainy season, the summer and the typhoon season— are hot and humid, and it is to these three that Japanese architecture is mainly oriented. The traditional Japanese construction system consists of simple skeleton structures of wooden beams and pillars, without diagonal stiffening elements, both in the vertical plane and in the roof slopes. As reported by Engel: “Because the structure is a simple post and beam framework without any braces or struts, the wall panels in between those structural members support only themselves and do not require foundations. Only at places of actual structural supports, i.e., at the columns, is the groundsill provided with a simple foundation of natural or hewn stone that raises the whole wooden framework above the damp ground” [3]. From this derives the possibility of large open spaces for the insertion of windows and doors, light external walls and movable partition walls [9]. On the base of the pillars can be found simple stone foundations that have the function of lifting the entire wooden frame above the damp ground, allowing the raised floor to be placed several tens of centimeters on a horizontal beam framework in wood.6 The vertical uprights, hashira, are erected above the frame of the plane, positioned at regular distances and connected to each other by means of horizontal connection elements. At the same time, the floor beam, ashigatame, is placed on top and the entire upper part is supported by the perimeter beams, thus completing the frame above. The constructive simplicity is even more evident in the roof. Heavy logs are simply warped from the eaves to the ridge beam, simply resting on each other. Wooden uprights are erected over the transverse beams to facilitate the arrangement of purlins and rafters. The Japanese way of building appears therefore very different from the western construction schemes, which mainly use stone and bricks, that is massive constructions based on the long duration of the building thanks to the use of heavy materials, to the organization for different environments characterized spatially in a different way and aligned in succession, to the absence of direct relationship between inside and outside, to the search for beauty and perfection through order, symmetry and proportions. The free articulation of the interior space, the independence between the supporting structure and the closures, the relationship of continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces discovered, the relationship between architecture and landscape, the point structure, the light materials, the normalization and prefabrication of the elements the characteristics of Japanese architecture are constructive. 6 Studies on traditional Japanese construction have shown three types of column foundations: hottate-

basira (wooden columns are inserted directly into the ground, without stones, but are very likely to decay), ishiba-date (with a base made of stone material of small size and the column is grafted on top on a stone) and dodai-date (similar to the previous one, but with the column set on a wooden sleeper).

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The choice of wood as the main material of these buildings, as well as other natural materials such as thatch and bamboo, therefore highly delicate, follows the principle of renewing the architectural form, thanks to which the construction technique is handed down. Great emphasis was given to the roof, the most important structural element of the whole building, as it was what provided shelter. The geometry of the roof is a pavilion or two-pitched shape; the cover is made with shingles, thatch or tiles.7 In any case, the complete roof structure is extraordinarily heavy: the tiles are very large and held by a thick layer of mud. The thatch, although not particularly heavy, becomes so after a heavy rain. Therefore the roof frame must bear a very big weight. The structural simplicity of the constructions conceived could be surprising, where the construction method, based on lightness, contrasts with the need to withstand heavy roofs for protection against strong winds and hurricanes, but which constitute a factor of great seismic vulnerability given that their masses induce high forces of inactivity at the top of the buildings, which can cause collapsing. Furthermore, the various specific elements are assembled without any type of rigid connection or riveting, since each component is connected by means of tenon and mortise joints, and no controversies of any kind are foreseen, creating a compatible system to withstand vertical connections but totally devoid of a mechanism capable of withstanding horizontal actions. In fact, the traditional Japanese method of building construction is mainly based on a structure of wood joinery, in which each structural element is joined without the application of other fastening elements and bracing not based on wood. In traditional Japanese architecture, the intricate components of the stirrups have been carefully carved into the wood, using pre-industrial hand tools for working with wood, and assembled together and held in position solely by the force of gravity and by the force in the connections of the joints themselves (Figs. 12 and 13). Not even the foundation offers any rigidity to the entire structure, but the weak connection between the foundation stone and the frame appears very appropriate in the event of an earthquake; studies carried out over the last century [22] have made it possible to understand how the construction technique alone could be sufficient, for the purposes of seismic protection, in the context of traditional buildings, when modern materials were still not available. In fact, the more a structure is rigid, the more the seismic action on it increases; for flexible structures with long natural 7 In

the common shingle roof, a wooden plank is first nailed onto the slanted joists and the shingles are applied to this with bamboo connecting elements. In the case of use of tiles, instead, shingles are first distributed on the roof boards, then a thick layer of mud is spread on this surface, on which the tiles are immersed, one row after the other. The thatched roof is by far the most widespread in the countryside of Japan. To spread the straw, the roof does not need to be specially prepared, but it is necessary that the inclined beams are close enough to each other to be able to support it. The straw is placed by hand, combed with fingers or adjusted so that the stems are all in the same direction. Then the groups of stems are fixed to the slanted rafters and pressed onto the roof with bamboo, which will then be eliminated. While the straw remains pressed, it is elaborated with a particularly shaped wooden mallet, so it is shaped with a pair of shears with a long handle. Once the work is completed, the roof looks incredibly neat and symmetrical.

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Fig. 12 Japanese wooden structure—elaboration by Caterina Morganti

Fig. 13 Japanese wooden structure—picture and drawing by Caterina Morganti

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periods of vibration, however, the seismic action is weaker. The Japanese wooden structure is substantially anti-seismic since it is ductile and elastoplastic due to the material and the way the structural elements are composed. The inclusion of diagonal bracings, recently integrated on a western derivation in the traditional construction technique, has ensured further stability and durability of the construction. Japanese houses have been developed over the years by combining traditional forms with modern technologies to improve their fire resistance. In today’s wooden constructions the construction technique remains the same as in the past; the supporting structures are still mainly made of wood, but the coatings are of stucco or synthetic materials, fixtures and doors and windows are made of light metals, the paper surfaces are replaced by glass. Reinforcements and metal joints have been inserted, especially for the foundation, which has now become continuous, with the construction constrained to it by anchor bolts. In the main frame, wall bracing is used to withstand earthquakes and wind pressure.

5 Natural Materials in Japanese Homes According to Feng Shui,8 for Japanese culture every manifestation that takes place in the Universe is characterized by the five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. The materials used within traditional Japanese homes are intimately related to these five elements of which nature is composed. Each of them is characterized by its own characteristics. The main materials found in Japanese homes are bamboo, wood, clay, stone and paper. With these materials nature is present in the house. All the parts of the building are unified and interconnected: the dimensions of the individual parts in an environment take the form of the side of the square of the wall, whose width is in turn in function of the size of the given environment, which is measured in relation to the modular dimensions of the tatami. In fact, the design of a traditional house identifies only the quantity of tatami in the room and indications on the space between columns or pillars. The tatami mats, which have always served as a module to size the house, are mats formed by the intertwining of rice thatch and rushes, of rectangular shape and standard size (3 × 6 shaku9 ), with perfectly squared corners edged on the long side from a black linen ribbon, with a footprint of about 90 by 180 cm and a thickness of two inches. Oriented to cover the floor, they serve as a soft surface for 8 The

Feng-Shui [literally "Wind and Water"] is an ancient Chinese discipline that deals with the energy interrelation between the man and the environment and in particular with the correct configuration of a space (living but also working) to assimilate the best fortune and maximum well-being; Feng Shui is based on the knowledge of the energies and rhythms of Nature, on the bio-psychic influences of the four directions connected to the five elements of Chinese Medicine, on the correct furnishing and layout of the premises and of the external environments. It finds correspondences in the Indian science of Vaastu Shasta, in the Japanese Ka-So and, in the West, in the ancient discipline of Geomancy and in today’s Geobiology and Bio-architecture. 9 It is the Japanese unit of measure, called the Japanese foot completely identical to the British foot. It is a traditional measurement system, imported from China.

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walking, sitting and stretching the futon to sleep, making the floor fresher because the tatami allows air to circulate on the ground. For the Japanese the tatami represents the grass, and therefore covering the tatami floor emphasizes the bond with nature. Bamboo is a material widely used in traditional Japanese homes due to its strength, durability and flexibility. In fact, it provides a high stability with a minimum weight and moreover it is not particularly affected by humidity. In addition being used as a building material to make roofs and beams, it also has a high aesthetic value, due to the beauty of the knots and the brilliant surfaces that evoke the sound of bamboo forests. The traditional Japanese house uses a lot of wood, used naturally and without being painted. It is a light material that responds well to earthquakes, and which embodies in itself the concept of transient, so important to the Japanese people. Primarily species of cypresses (Hinoki and Asunaro) are used, species of pines, both red (Akamatsu) and black (Kuromatsu), species of spruce (Tsuga) and Japanese cedar (Sugi) and also species of maple (Momiji) and mulberry (Kuwa). Clay is also used both for the construction of the roofing layers and for making of the external walls (Komai-Kabe). Several layers of clay, sometimes up to fifty, are used and spread on a bamboo frame, thus producing different varieties for structure, grain and color. Stone is a material that is used mainly in the exterior, to mark the paths in the gardens, as well as to support the foundations. This material is associated with the earth element, which symbolizes the place to life, which allows the seeds to grow. However, it is not normally used for construction, although the country is rich in stones that can be used as good building material. Finally the use of paper with which the shoji are made. Shoji are the mobile separating walls that are used as a division elements of the interior, but above all to mark the boundary between the inside and the outside. The paper, translucent and coarse-grained, usually glued on a wooden frame, on both sides (fusuma-gami) or on one side (shoji-gami) has the characteristic of allowing the passage of light but not drafts, although allowing ventilation (Figs. 14, 15 and 16). There is a strong attention in the use of the choice of materials and their colors (always neutral colors such as white, yellow, beige, gray or light brown or alternatively with pictorial patterns present in nature or with calligraphic decorations) and the accent always on the unfinished detail, as if to reaffirm the irregularities of nature. The choice of these materials is linked to the classical Japanese vision, where reality is temporarily, a flow in continuous transformation. The traditional constructions, conforming to an idea of naturalness, harmony and organic unity with the surrounding landscape, are conceived as not lasting but temporary constructions. This idea is still current, even when Japanese architects use materials and Western architectural techniques: Japanese cities are in fact the subject of a continuous transformation where the quality of the materials is always of absolute priority. The much appreciated Japanese order in fact, is based precisely on the nature and expressiveness of the material, made evident by the wise techniques of elaboration used.

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Fig. 14 Shoji with horizontal-moving section—drawing by Caterina Morganti

6 Space and the “Natural” Components of Transition Spaces Between Exterior and Interior The interior space of the traditional Japanese home is composed of a mix of lines and textures and the effects created by light. Their beauty lies in the effects of the shadows produced by the light on the walls: both define the interior space and recall the exterior through windows that frame the views. The interior space of Japanese homes is a neutral frame that comes to life only when activated by the presence of man. The hierarchy of spaces does not follow functional criteria, but changes in relation to situations. The spaces are open and permeable to allow nature to become part of the architecture; the rooms are simple, the dimensions vary, the internal panels (fusuma) allow to join or divide neighboring rooms, while the shoji give the possibility to visually prolong the horizon by combining more rooms. The shoji, the mobile panels that form the internal and external walls, are removed in the summer to let the breeze

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Fig. 15 Ordinary shoji—drawing by Caterina Morganti

in and enjoy the view of the garden, making the house a place closely related to nature and the seasons. These are the main elements that define the relationship of space within the home [21]. The minimalism of the rooms gives strength to the landscape that becomes the predominant element of the house. Both the floor and the ceiling have no role in the partition of the interior space. Everything that is built appears as an extension of the natural environment, which dialogues and merges with it. The Japanese space is thought to be seen and appreciated by the level of the seated man, in a meditation position. Only in this way is the perfect point of view to look outside and the rooms, which otherwise can appear small, cold, unbalanced, become instead gently welcoming, made on a human scale. From this point of view, the landscape enters the house, as Fosco Maraini explains very well in the book “Ore giapponesi”: “the fusion between outside and inside is perfect; every tree, every stone, every wave of the pond are designed according to how they will appear from the inside; and vice versa the house is designed so that from any side you look at it, from the outside, it completes a foreshortening” [16]. The construction of a space, in Japan more than

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Fig. 16 Shoji with vertical-moving section—drawing by Caterina Morganti

ever, needs an interior, an exterior, boundaries and a place of passage that unites and/or divides these elements. The set of material and symbolic practices, typical of Japan, such as the practice of bowing or taking off the shoes and overcoming various levels of heights different from the outside inside the house, do not aim to create a net distinction between outside and inside, but they constitute a path, a transition. In the relationship between exterior and interior it is interesting to note how the entrance into the domestic space of the Japanese house takes place gradually, overcoming various steps and with a precise logical sequence. Usually from the outside a path of stones starts, of which the latter is known as Kutsunugiishi 沓 脱 石, literally, “stone take off shoes”, on which the shoes are removed before entering the house. The stone does not only mark the act of removing the shoes for hygienic reasons, but above all it states the physical and symbolic boundary between the exterior and interior, between the public and private spheres. In addition to a gradual ascent from the ground to the raised floors with the use of stone and steps, there is a real change in the material, from the street (outside) to a concrete or stone area (transition space)

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Fig. 17 Shoji with vertical-moving section—drawing by Caterina Morganti

wood and tatami (interior). The transition between natural space and anthropic space takes place through three main elements: the veranda (engawa), the entrance vestibule (genkan) and the shielding elements (noren, sudarè, yoshizu). All made with natural materials almost as if they were bringing nature always with them. The first element is the veranda, it is the filter area between the garden and the house. It is that space that lies below the eaves of the roof structure. The veranda can be maintained at ground level becoming an essential part of the garden and can be made of stone or gravel to physically separate it from the garden or be an arboreal continuum with the garden, as if to bring the natural landscape inside the house. The veranda space, at times, is physically shielded from the outside with the use of shoji or fusuma and also the veranda, standing under eaves, is covered by a low roof that does not allow to see the sky (Fig. 17). In Japanese culture in fact the sky is never seen directly but only by reflexion.10 To signal the transition between exterior and interior the Japanese use to 10 It is thought the attention that is placed in the design and orientation of the water mirrors within the

gardens. The water mirrors are placed in fact so that from the observation point from the veranda of

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place in front of the veranda a large stone of particular shape that serves as a visual clue and is the place where the shoes are removed [19]. Engawa filters the natural light inside the house while protecting it from the rain: during the summer it becomes a part of the garden, in winter it can be closed so as to form an extension of the interior space. The second element is the entrance pre-hall (genkan). The genkan is the architectural expression of the transition, the spatial translation of the connection with the external landscape. It is the atrium at ground level where the shoes are still worn and which modulates the passage inside the house an intermediate space that constitutes a filter area with the function of reducing the contrast between inside and outside. The third element is the protecting devices that allow to provide ventilation, light and privacy at the same time, thus guaranteeing natural elements such as light and air to pass freely through the house. Among the most widely used forms of protection is the noren, non-continuous curtains in fabric or hemp that allow the “living” of the wind, producing a sensation of freshness even in the hot summer months and the sudarè or Yoshizu, sliding bamboo curtains vertical the first one and horizontal scrolling the second, much less soft than noren, but they have the advantage of not being opaque, thus allowing to always see the natural landscape from the inside. They are usually found attached to the lower edge of the attics and allow shelter from the glare of the sun, without however losing the perception of the external natural landscape: moss, stones and shrubs present in the garden can be appreciated from the privileged angle when viewed from a low angle. Therefore, it is clear that direct sunlight becomes a constant factor in the interior space. During each season the sunlight will reach the deepest areas of the space. Also during the evening hours, sunlight can cover half of the floor with direct light. Although the screen functions as a shading device, does not provide complete shade, but filters sunlight into a more diluted light. The screen also works best when combined with other shading layers, such as paper screens, to provide a second layer of shade. Through the shoji the rooms of the house are found, where the room in traditional Japanese architecture is nothing but a mobile interval within the space of the house, a temporary space determined by the opening and closing of movable walls that can form a bigger space (Fig. 18).

7 The Space of the Tea Ceremony The space that best celebrates the intense relationship with the landscape is the tea house, very important in Japanese culture, especially since the shoin period (seventeenth–nineteenth century). In the shoin period, a standard was established that prevented any creative architectural development, since the dimensions of the rooms were fixed, as well as the shape and materials to be used, so that any possibility of personal expression was practically prevented. The cult of tea, already present from the sixteenth century, then forcibly introduced its sukiya style from the seventeenth the house through the mirrors of water we can see the sky "beyond" the garden through the reflection in the water.

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Fig. 18 Shoji with vertical-moving section—drawing by Caterina Morganti

century, which allowed the expression of the personal taste of the owner of the house in the realization of the tea space. The tea house was designed to offer a port of nature and peace and to provide a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Even today it is an attempt to create a natural environment in the midst of the chaos of city life. Thus an architectural environment was born where space was shared within a main room, through mobile panels, called kakoi (fence). The name kakoi, later, designated those tea rooms that were integrated or physically annexed to the main house. The simplest style, referred to as souan, was an area organized by four and a half mats, which formed a square surface of about 7.29 m2 , with a sloping ceiling much lower than in the other rooms, made of bamboo weaving or from strips of braided wood [13]. The space was equipped with a skylight to allow the lighting of the space in function of the rising or setting of the sun, to place the accent on the strong emotional connection with nature. The significant character of this architecture is its apparent poverty: the walls are bare, the only element added is a smooth white plaster. The woods are never painted, so that they can show signs of aging and the effect of bad weather conditions. Apart from the plaster (and sometimes the tiles), all the materials used are of vegetable. In the tea house often beams, joists and other visible structural elements are made of bamboo. Set aside the recognition of constructive elements such as walls, foundations, roofs, doors and windows, the Japanese architecture of the tea house is very difficult to understand, except through a meaning that transcends the architecture itself [14]. The space intended for the ceremony evolves from an enclosed environment within the home to a smaller, simpler and more bare space, immersed in the landscape and destined for the sole use of this

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practice. These buildings are called chashitsu, and are isolated buildings inspired by the architecture of rural villages [25]. The building is in unity with the garden and this is in relation with nature. This commonality with the garden not only brings nature and the universe closer, but establishes a precise relationship between life and the universe by demonstrating that nature is a part of life and life is a part of nature. This is so apparent that this space is considered as an environment in which it is possible to experience sensations so intense as to cause a change in the consciousness of those who celebrate it. The individual identifies himself so strongly with nature and thanks to the neutral scenario of the tea room, devoid of furniture and dominated by soft colors, he is able to free thoughts and anxieties from his mind. This liberating path begins even before entering the tea room, it originates already while walking through the garden, as Bruno Taut describes very well in this passage, when he describes the imperial villa of Katsura, which he visited in 1933: “The path that through the woods and leading to the teahouse (Shokatei) is a philosophical preparation [1]. First of all there is a quiet pastoral, a murmuring stream and a small waterfall—from this point a clear transformation begins, with big stones as you could find on windswept beaches or on the tip of a promontory (…) The stones at the south seem to invite the visitor to meditation. A rough stone bridge leads to the teahouse. The tea ceremony is held without pomp or regard for differences in social status. However, once the group moves for lunch in the largest room, the sounds of the waterfall can be heard again and for the first time the sunlight is reflected in the water of the moving waterfall. A turtle enjoying the sun on a rock in the middle of the pond plunges into the water with a spray. The fishes jump on the surface of the water showing their scales while the cicadas sing delicious songs in the shade (…). The world is really beautiful (…)” [23, 24]. In these gardens one walks only along the prescribed paths. To access from the garden (roji) to the space of the tea ceremony there is a very gradual passage through a path of large irregular stones. The path is made of unified stones that are carefully arranged at specific distances. You must place your feet on these stones and on them only. In this way the pace of the passage is determined in the same way as the points of view proposed to it. Man and landscape merge once again. This path is also part of the ritual to immerse oneself in a state of inner concentration and catharsis in order to be prepared for the ritual of the ceremony which finds its roots in Japan’s Shinto animistic-naturalistic religious sense. Shintoism, survived the introduction of Buddhism and merged with it finding a particular affinity in the Zen spirit, especially in the concept of shizen which in Japanese translates the western term “nature”. The preferential way to cultivate and restore this original state of mind and things is thus translated into the search for a profound harmony and unity between man and the natural world. In the buildings designed for the tea ceremony, all the principles that guided the design of Japanese living spaces are realized: the complex relationship between interior and exterior and between buildings and garden, the absence of perspective centrality and the classic symmetry axes of classicism western, the modular and scaled conception of space.

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8 Conservation of the Traditional Architecture In Japan over the last 60 years the issue of conservation is strongly adressed, especially intense as a tendency to preserve the boundary lines of roads, land, following numerous reconstructions. It should be said in fact that in Japan the design is cyclical, in the sense that the Japanese people have the habit of periodically reconstructing the structures thanks also to the ability of the workers to reproduce original models with the same techniques [17]. The path to conservation, which began with the protection of the first minka11 as individual assets, then moved to the protection of the whole, defined in Japanese as machinami, which includes both the built and the surrounding environment, and it is finally extended to the protection of the natural and cultivated environment of groups of traditional buildings (denken). The latest conservation developments have extended the subject of protection even more to cover the issues of both the cultural landscape and the environment [8]. Following the rapid economic growth in the 1960s, which led to disorderly development, depopulation of rural areas and the consequent destruction of the landscape and traditional buildings, it was necessary to think about the issue of conservation. In 1965, triggered by the construction of houses in the courtyard of the famous Santuairo of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura, a movement was born for the protection of historical landscapes that led to the enactment of the law for the conservation of ancient capitals (LPAC) in 1966. For the cities not covered by LPAC, in 1968 Kanazawa was the first city to issue guidelines to preserve traditional environments, followed by other cities. This convinced the national government to rethink the LPAC in 1975. The “Denken” protection system that protects villages, historic urban landscape and groups of traditional buildings dates back to this period. In particular, this system guarantees the protection of sites where traditional buildings are one with the surrounding environment [20]. In Japan today, thanks to this protection system, there are 86 protected areas distributed in 38 prefectures and 74 municipalities, ranging from mountain villages to samurai residences, from industrial cities to mining towns, from cities born around Buddhist times or Shintoists, from fishing villages to trading districts. The Japanese government, then within these protected areas, chooses those of great value, called “J¯udenken” areas, based on one of these criteria: groups of traditional buildings that have an excellent architectural design as a whole, which have preserved the original appearance and finally showing significant regional characteristics. In 2004 the law on the landscape was spread to guarantee the protection and preservation of cultural landscape sites. This is to reiterate the fundamental importance of the close relationship that exists in Japan between landscape and construction.

11 The

Minka are rural houses of spontaneous architecture built in any of the different traditional Japanese styles. During the last part of the Heian period there are the first documented examples of houses of this type: they are characterized by the use of local materials and the extensive use of labor, being mainly built in wood, with small ground floors and thatched roofs.

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9 Conclusion If Robert Venturi loved complexity and contradiction in architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, Japanese architecture clearly transmits both of them, but often with different meanings from those proposed by him. An analysis of the Japanese space revealed an essential relationship between nature and construction. Traditional Japanese houses have always guaranteed free access to the elements of the nature, becoming precious building allies. Channeling nature and natural energy into a building is ultimately one of the goals of today’s design around the world. Although in contemporary cities the applications of other materials such as concrete, steel, laminated wood and wooden constructions have been developed around the classical traditional configuration, they are still about a third of the new constructions made in Japan, even if their use is more limited than in the past due to the restrictions imposed by the building code which prohibits wooden constructions for buildings higher than two floors. Technological development and the conception of the timber supply system for this type of construction was promoted after World War II in order to try to solve the housing problem. The government has studied and proposed standardized solutions for wooden buildings and in 1994 began to promote and spread the use of these solutions for residential construction. In recent years, innovations have also materialized in terms of materials and construction techniques, improving the efficiency of construction in terms of labor costs, construction times, preparation of manuals and documents, design and construction—thanks to computerized CAD systems. However, unlike the prefabricated houses, which are built by large-scale construction companies, the construction of these traditional buildings with cutting-edge features is entrusted on a small scale to local builders who demonstrate competence and historical knowledge, and who promote the constructive and cultural tradition of the country.

References 1. Berque A (2014) En 縁, le lien. Bonnin, Philippe; Inaga Shigemi; Nishida Masatsugu (éd) Vocabulaire de la spatialité japonaise. Éditions du CNRS, Paris, pp 117–119 2. Engel H (1964) The Japanese house: a tradition for contemporary architecture. Charles E. Tuttle Company Inc., Vermont/Tokyo 3. Engel H (1985) Measure and construction of the Japanese house. Turtle Publishing Inc., North Clarenton, Vermont 4. Farina A (2001) Ecologia del paesaggio. Principi, metodi e applicazioni. UTET, Torino 5. Filippucci M, Bianconi F, Verducci P (2006) Architetture dal Giappone. Disegno, progetto, tecnica. Gangemi, Roma 6. Fuccello F (1996) Spazio e architettura in Giappone. Edizioni plus Pisa University Press, Firenze, Un’ipotesi di lettura 7. Fujita H (2012) Nature and architecture. In The city of god and the land of the gods. In: Proceedings of the Bologna conference, Bologna, 28–30 June 2012

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8. Gutschow N (1998) Quest for the original state-reconstruction and restoration to an earlier state in Japanese conservation. In: ENDERS, Siegfried RCT, GUTSCHOW, Niels Hozon: architectural and urban conservation in Japan. Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart/London 9. Jinnai H (1995) Tokyo a spatial anthropology. University of California Press, London 10. Kalland A, Asquith PJ (1997) Japanese perceptions of nature. Ideals and illusions. In: Kalland A, Asquith PJ (eds) Japanese images of nature. Cultural perspectives. Curzon Press, Richmond, pp 1–35 11. Katsuhiko M, K¯ojir¯o Y (1987) The gardens of Kyoto. The Garden of the City Dweller, Shoin, Ky¯oto 12. Kuroda N (2010) Conservation of the cultural landscape in Shirakawa-g¯o: Heritagescape and cultural landscapes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK 13. Larsen KE (1992) A note on the authenticity of historic timber buildings with particular reference to Japan. In: ICOMOS International Wood Committee (IIWC) 8th international symposium. Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, Nepal, 23–25 Nov 1992 14. Larsen KE (1994) Architectural preservation in Japan. In: ICOMOS International Wood Committee, Paris, Tapir, Trondheim 15. Liotta SJ (2012) Patterns and layering: Japanese spatial culture. Nature and Architecture, Gestalten, Berlin 16. Maraini F (1962) Ore giapponesi. Leonardo Da Vinci, Bari 17. Miller IJ (2013) Japan at Nature’s Edge—the environmental context of a global power. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 18. Mizuno K, Yoshida K (1987) The gardens of Kyoto. The garden of the city Dweller. Shoin, Ky¯oto 19. Morse E (1972) Japanese homes and their surroundings. Tuttle Publishing, New York 20. Nitschke G (1966, March) MA: the Japanese sense of place in old and new architecture and planning. In: Architectural design, London, pp 113–156 21. Paolucci D (2001) Il restauro in Giappone. Alinea Editrice, Firenze 22. Tanabashi R (1960, December) Earthquake resistance of traditional Japanese wooden structures. Disaster Prevention Research Institute Kyoto University Bulletins Bulletin No. 40 23. Taut B (1933) Nippon mit europäischen Augen gesehen. Gebr, Berlin 24. Taut B (1933) Pensieri su Katsura da Diario giapponese e Nippon. Il Giappone visto con occhi europei. In: Katsura la villa imperial (2004), (by) V. Ponciroli. Electa, Milano 25. Tollini A (2014) La cultura del Tè in Giappone e la ricerca della perfezione. Giulio Einaudi editore, Torino 26. Venturi R (1980) Complessità e contraddizioni nell’architettura. Edizioni Dedalo, Bari

Representation, Narrativity, and Banality: Seoullo 7017 Skygarden and Superkilen Urban Park Gökhan Balık and Deniz Balık Lökçe

Abstract From a reading of public urban landscapes, Seoullo 7017 Skygarden and Superkilen Park, this study relocates Venturi’s complexity and contradiction as a critical tool. The transformation of road and rail infrastructure into these urban landscapes emerges as a continuous change of order and compromise, and supports the strategy of renovation in Venturi’s perspective. Superkilen displays virtually a hundred urban furniture from sixty nationalities to represent the coexisting multicultural society, whereas Seoullo contains thousands of plants familiar to Korean daily life, in addition to small pavilions for different cultural and commercial activities. Being the double-functioning elements in Venturi’s terms, clichéd urban elements and greenery were separated from their authentic contexts and reinstalled in these landscapes in an unconventional way. The banal and the vivid, action and inertia, signs and objects constitute the difficult whole and take over the former sites of everyday practices. The linear landscapes produce tension and ambiguity by functioning as both passages and stops, pedestrian bridges and spots, sites of continuity and articulation, urban backdrop and natural environment, mediated reproduction and social construct. Keywords Urban landscape · Urban renewal · Park · Context · Multiplicity · Representation · Cliché · Banality · Seoullo · Superkilen

1 Introduction As the first rule of the third book of his seminal work Principia, Isaac Newton [16: 160] states that, “Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous G. Balık Trakya University, Edirne, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] D. Balık Lökçe (B) Dokuz Eylul University, ˙Izmir, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_26

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causes.” Commonly used in scientific methods, this Law of Parsimony (Lex parsimoniae) suggests that a theory or concept with minimum, regular, and determinate components are more likely to be correct, leaving out unpredictable and complex– rich, dynamic, and asymmetrical—systems, which are now known as the mechanical disorder, or entropy, as a cosmic tendency. Within urban context, complex systems that overlap unpredictable, contrasting, visible and invisible, tangible and intangible components stimulate progress, change, and transformation. Encouraging ambiguity, uncertainty, plurality, and hybridity, the architecture historian Scully [22: 10] adapts this argument to the theory and praxis of Robert Venturi: “Many species of high quality can inhabit the same world. Such multiplicity is indeed the highest promise of the modern age to mankind.” In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Venturi poses an attitude against the modern emphasis on purity and clarity, which revolves around the separation and exclusion of elements from one another, as opposed to including various requirements or juxtaposing them. The separation of elements also entails the prominence of visuality over complexity and contradiction, and thus the division of architectural, urban, and landscape design from the experience of life and societal needs. His criticism was modern architecture’s inability to solve many complex and difficult problems at once, and to embrace complexity and contradiction based on ambiguity and richness of meaning, like it was exploited in arts, literature, and mathematics [21: 16–17]. Yet, almost a decade after the first publication of the book, he admitted that, apart from the theories on architectural form, the issues rose in the book were no longer valid [21: 14]. This study relocates Venturi’s approach of complexity and contradiction as a critical tool with a visual and spatial reading of public urban landscapes, namely Seoullo 7017 Skygarden (2017) and the Superkilen Urban Park (2012). The study first argues that these case studies strongly resonate with what Venturi had unfolded in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Postmodern strategies, namely the narrative, symbolic, and representational aspects expand through their design praxis. Yet, this is no surprise, given that in the first pages of BIG’s monograph Yes is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution, Venturi was presented as one of the influential actors for Bjarke Ingels, the firm’s founder architect. Secondly, the study argues that an examination through the lens of Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture reveals existing complications in the landscape and urban planning and design of these projects in terms of dichotomies such as sign value and use value, visuality and spatiality, cityscape and landscape.

2 Ambiguity and Simultaneity Today, degraded spaces, such as dumpsites, old industrial areas, and neglected wetlands are transformed into user-friendly and ecological zones that attract locals and tourists. Though not always successful, these projects promote pedestrian routes,

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surrounding commercial areas, and vegetation, as much as they improve visual qualities of cities. With these projects, areas that were once ignored begin to attract locals, tourists, and investors, while they develop culturally and commercially. They help to improve internal and external images of cities, using visuals, narratives, events, and advertisements as instruments, whereas they also produce sanitized and gentrified environments by means of urban redevelopment [18: 12, 15]. As far as Seoullo and Superkilen are concerned, the transformation of road and rail infrastructure into urban landscapes emerges as a continuous change of order and compromise that supports the strategy of renovation. For Venturi [21: 42], the change in the program and use during a renovation preserves integrity, while becoming a major source of contradiction. Seoullo is the renewal project of the Seoul Station Overpass, a derelict concrete and steel elevated highway from 1970s, redeveloped by MVRDV in collaboration with Ben Kuipers and KECC (Fig. 1). Having a length of 983 meters, it is accessible from eight points by stairs and elevators in addition to connections with adjacent cafés and hotels. Located over the Seoul Central Railway Station and multi-lane highways, thus having panoramic cityscapes, it connects divergent parts of the city, namely the neighbourhoods of Malli-dong, Jungnim-dong, Cheongpa-dong, Hoehyeon-dong, and Hanyangdoseong-gil, which were separated by traffic lanes. In Seoullo, circular plant containers in different sizes and shapes, as well as various pavilions scattered in various directions of the pedestrian walkway create a unity as a whole, while generating a contrast with the juxtaposed network of car traffic that passes below (Fig. 2). The objective of Seoullo as a bridge is to create an alternative social layer in the city, whereas the linear Superkilen Park intends to emerge as a social construct. It

Fig. 1 A section of Seoullo 7017 Skygarden, designed by MVRDV, Ben Kuipers, KECC, Seoul, 2017

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Fig. 2 Seoullo and its connection to the multi-lane highways that pass below

was built on a derelict area in place of former rail yards in Nørrebro, a dense residential area of Copenhagen, and was designed by the Danish architecture office BIG, German landscape architecture office Topotek 1, and Danish artist group Superflex. Being enveloped by massive housing blocks, it occupies an area of 3 hectares and has a length of 750 meters, which is cut by Mimersgade and connects with shopping and eating streets, Nørrebrogade and Tagensvej (Fig. 3). The landscapes accommodate new perspectives generated through new cultural values and uses. As in Venturi’s [21: 40] formulation of the double-functioning element, which refers to the adjustment of old landscapes to new uses both programmatically and symbolically, a change in the landscape program as the conventional element stimulates change and growth in the city. Yet the change in the program and the complex landscape designs persevere with the conception of the difficult whole. For Venturi [21: 88], unity is achieved through multiplicity and diversity of elements, complex and contrapuntal rhythms, as against singularity and simplification. Emphasising the advantages of dualities and trinities, Venturi [21: 104] points out that in a complex cityscape, the perception of unity within a whole is not achieved too easily or too quickly. In parallel, in the case of Superkilen, Ingels notes that the objects did not conform to the landscape and other objects; yet through these conflicts, they compose a unique whole [20: 18–19]. The colourful and enthusiastic image of the park, supported by the architectural drawings, connotes to the festival culture of Copenhagen and represents national diversities [19: 119]. The designers argue that they handled the landscape as an infrastructure for integration, rather than an aesthetic exercise of Danish design [9: 418]. They thus derived from the idea of representing the coexisting multicultural society of Copenhagen, since Nørrebro has been considered as the most ethnically diverse and socially challenging neighbourhood of the

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Fig. 3 A section of the Superkilen Urban Park, designed by BIG, Topotek 1, Superflex, Copenhagen, 2012

city with more than sixty nationalities that dwell in. Large groups of immigrants have been living in the area since it was founded in the nineteenth century [19: 119]. Accordingly, the park highlights the discourses of multiplicity, heterogeneity, fragmentation, and conflict in a public space [20: 22–23], which accommodate Venturi’s concepts of complexity, contradiction, tension, and the difficult whole in its essence. Although the project composes a whole in terms of landscape program, as illustrated in the architectural drawings, the concept splits the area into three zones, which are represented by three different colours: Red, pink, and orange tones overwhelmingly cover The Red Square, which is mostly used for sports and cultural activities (Fig. 4). The middle section, named as The Black Market, is mostly suitable for social activities and plays. Undulating white stripes on the black asphalt ground are the characteristics of this zone (Fig. 5). The Green Park, which is the largest section of the project, is mostly used for sports activities and picnics (Fig. 6). As Venturi elaborates, complexity and contradiction render landscape ambiguous, since architectural, urban, and landscape elements are simultaneously perceived as both form and structure, texture and material. These oscillating relationships that bear tension promote richness of meaning over clarity of meaning [21: 20, 22]. Accordingly, Venturi [21: 20] uses the conjunction “or” to describe such ambiguous relationships. Unfolding the issue on Seoullo in terms of design, program, perception, representation and image, one can ask if it is dividing the neighbourhoods or infiltrating in them (Fig. 7). The questions can extend further, such as if the landscape provides a scape of the city or nature (Fig. 8). Does it consist of more concrete or more greenery (Fig. 9)? Are trees and plants scattered at the borders of the walkway randomly or do they point to a straight direction (Fig. 10)? Is it a direct pedestrian

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Fig. 4 The Red Square of Superkilen

Fig. 5 The Black Market of Superkilen

bridge to walk from a neighbourhood to another, or a barrier that keeps pedestrians to access the neighbourhoods? Does it create a social layer in the city or damage existing social relationships? From the walkway level, is it a long and linear park or a union of various parks? Conversely, from the street level, is it one structure with many splits or are they different structures joined (Fig. 11)? In relation to the highway that passes below, does it have a big size or small? In the case of Superkilen,

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Fig. 6 The Green Park of Superkilen

Fig. 7 Is Seoullo dividing neighbourhoods or infiltrating in them?

one can ask if it is a landscape of signs and representation or urban furniture and experience (Fig. 12). Is it split into three zones in terms of activities and ground colour or designed as a continuous long and linear landscape? To overcomplicate this issue, questions can go as far as if the park is divided into two parts by the streets or if it flows into the streets and connects with daily life. Is it a unity of singular activities or a landscape where divergent urban furniture and objects are scattered

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Fig. 8 Does Seoullo provide a scape of the city or nature?

Fig. 9 Does Seoullo consist of more concrete or more greenery?

randomly (Fig. 13)? Is it a colourful image and a mediated production or a site of social construct? While the questions with the conjunction “or” could be broadened, it is also critically noted that these landscapes produce ambiguity and tension through the dichotomies of their programmes, such as being both passages and stops, pedestrian bridges and spots, sites of continuity and articulation, urban backdrop and natural

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Fig. 10 Are trees and plants scattered at the walkway randomly or do they point to a straight direction?

Fig. 11 Is Seoullo one structure with many splits or are they different structures joined?

environment, open-air exhibition spaces and recreational parks, mediated reproductions and social constructs, shelters from the sun and objects of gaze. Within this context, they resonate with what Venturi had termed as the contradictory levels of the phenomenon of “both-and”, which involves the conjunctive “yet”. He explains this concept with respect to hierarchical elements that are “both good and awkward,

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Fig. 12 Superkilen as a landscape of signs and representation

big and little, closed and open, continuous and articulated, round and square, structural and spatial” [21: 23]. With Venturi’s emphasis on double meanings that create tension and ambiguity, the landscapes of contradiction in terms of program and structure can be traced in the cases of Seoullo and Superkilen. Both are directional and dynamic as a route yet static as a place, articulated in design yet continuous in spatial organisation, act as urban backdrops for photographic images yet as natural environment for gaze, and both have multiplicity yet unity in their plans. Urban furniture and greenery are designed as objects of gaze and display yet as functional or spatial elements of recreation. Both parks are too long and narrow unlike many other parks, in addition to containing too many elements for a landscape organisation. Some urban signs in Superkilen are too big in comparison to other objects and furniture around, yet enough to be perceived from a distance. Pavilions in Seoullo have too small spaces, yet enough not to occupy the whole width of the walkway. Concrete covers too much space in Seoullo in relation to conventional green landscapes (Fig. 14), whereas the flooring colours and patterns in Superkilen are too puzzling and articulated. However, these executions are outcomes of their design concepts, as can be traced from designers’ initial sketches to construction drawings.

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Fig. 13 Is Superkilen a unity of singular activities or a landscape where divergent urban furniture and objects are scattered randomly?

Fig. 14 Seoullo walkway with plant containers, landscape objects, and a pavilion

In parallel, Venturi [21: 25] justifies this contradiction by stating that, “Apparent irrationality of a part will be justified by the resultant rationality of the whole, or characteristics of a part will be compromised for the sake of the whole”. The contradictions and complexities in Seoullo and Superkilen emerge for the purpose of preserving unity in terms of project concepts, planning, and landscape designs. As, for example,

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Fig. 15 The shifting perception of nature, concrete, and the cityscape in Seoullo

one moves through Seoullo, at one moment, nature and organic materials prevail, and at another, concrete containers and structures or the cityscape come forward (Fig. 15). In Superkilen, the dominance of perception continuously shifts from the bedazzlement of colourful objects and graphical flooring to the tranquillity of nature and smartly positioned resting spots (Fig. 16).

Fig. 16 The shifting perception of colourful objects, graphical flooring, and nature in Superkilen

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In addition to the contradictory level of the phenomenon of “both-and”, the production of complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, and tension also connects with the double-functioning element. Containing a double meaning in this sense, it promotes richness of meaning rather than clarity [21: 34, 38]. In parallel, [21: 16–17] understanding of complexity and contradiction over simplification or picturesqueness corresponds to the design and perception of elements through unity or juxtaposition of use, instead of being separated from one another, with an intention to solve many problems at once. Being the double-functioning elements that generate complexity and contradiction in Venturi’s formulation, Seoullo and Superkilen superpose abandoned road and rail infrastructure with landscape, and juxtapose a variety of activities with a multiplicity of users—both locals and tourists. The parks are thus simultaneously bridges and spots, passages and stops. Urban furniture, structures, and greenery combine old and new meanings by means of new or modified programs, users, structures, and contexts. In Seoullo, concrete cylindrical forms are both plant containers and sitting elements (Fig. 17). Trees and plants are green backdrops and natural environments at once, whereas pavilions are functional spaces as well as cityscape and landscape platforms. The areas where the landscape is lowered to the street level superpose vehicle and pedestrian traffics and allow a simultaneous perception of both layers (Fig. 18). In Superkilen, the double-functioning elements are spatial and structural simultaneously: The bright red colour of the giant wall of the adjacent building in The Red Square is the mark of the entrance from the axis of the subway at the same time (Fig. 19). The colourful and patterned flooring both encloses space and directs pedestrians’ and cyclists’ movements through landscape. Functional urban furniture performs as a sculptural display and graphical object of gaze (Fig. 20).

Fig. 17 Concrete cylindrical forms as both plant containers and sitting elements in Seoullo

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Fig. 18 The adjacency of vehicle and pedestrian layers in Seoullo

Fig. 19 The red wall as the mark of the entrance to The Red Square of Superkilen

3 Clichés and Conventional Objects As Venturi [21: 43] notes, “The architect’s main work is the organisation of a unique whole through conventional parts and the introduction of new parts when the old

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Fig. 20 Functional urban furniture as a sculptural and graphical object of gaze harmonious with the hilly topography of Superkilen

won’t do.” With an emphasis of old clichés as valid banalities, he argues that, “Commonplace elements are the main source of the occasional variety and vitality of cities… It is not their banality … that makes for the banality … of the whole scene, but rather their contextual relationships of space and scale” [21: 44]. Familiar elements in an unfamiliar context are perceived as both new and old. Within the whole, unconventional uses of conventional elements and unfamiliar organisation of familiar objects produce rich meanings. Therefore, when the context of the parts changes, meaning changes and cliché becomes fresh [21: 42–43]. Similar to Venturi’s exploitation of the unconventional element, banality, and commonplace, MVRDV believes that the rearrangement of the conventional elements of architecture and urban landscape could produce fresh effects and new meanings [12:15, 18]. With an intention to discover new tools, MVRDV studies and refers to universally familiar clichés in their works and use banality as a solution [1: 431; 15: 45]. Approaching the design problems from different points of view, they generate unconventional concepts. In Seoullo, along with Ben Kuipers and KECC, MVRDV displayed 50 families of plants or 228 species, which makes approximately 24,085 plants from around South Korea. The trees, shrubs, and flowers, with which people are familiar in their daily life, are organised unconventionally in Korean alphabetical order according to their species, and kept in 645 cylindrical concrete containers. The park contains eight compact cylindrical concrete pavilions for various cultural activities and commercial use, such as a restaurant, souvenir shop, information centre, performance space, reading centre, art gallery, cafés, multimedia and digital art installations, in addition to open-air platforms that include a trampoline playground for

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Fig. 21 Opaque and concrete surfaces of a multimedia installation in contrast to greenery in Seoullo

children, foot pool, performance stage, and observatory. While multimedia installation centres are massive with opaque surfaces, cafés are more transparent (Fig. 21). A fast walk could render these installation centres as well as some pavilions unnoticed in this concrete landscape. In addition to the white metal plates attached to the sides of concrete containers indicating the names of each plant in Korean and English, numerous signs that include QR codes, website links, and brief information on the plants that they are inserted into, create a network in the landscape as a new layer. Accommodating contradiction adapted in Venturi’s terms, pointed sun shelters for people and plants disrupt the cylindrical order of the landscape—they are obviously placed after the completion of the design; yet their quantity and volume is not sufficient for passers-by in summer (Fig. 22). As a compromise between the lower and higher levels of circulation, the concrete ground was punctured at some areas and replaced with hardened glass for pedestrians to observe the traffic below. In Superkilen, the designers collected and displayed 108 objects and 11 trees from 60 nationalities: Benches, tables, rubbish bins, trees and plants, murals, open air fitness equipment, sports elements such as basketball hoops, table tennis, and boxing ring, playground elements such as slides, swings, and racks, lighting elements such as lamp posts and neon signs. Small metal plates are installed on the ground near each item and give brief information about the furniture, object, plant, or artwork. They also reinforce Superkilen as a conceptual and narrative urban landscape with banal objects as conventional elements in Venturi’s terms. As noted by Martin ReinCano, the landscape architect of the project, the hybridity of the landscape derives from the objects, which “are connected to the banality of every day and not to the idealism of Ancient Greece” (Ingels et al. [10: 29]. The objects that we encounter in our daily city lives were separated from their authentic contexts at various places

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Fig. 22 Pointed sun shelters disrupting the cylindrical order in Seoullo

around the world and reinstalled on the Danish landscape in an unconventional, unfamiliar, and unexpected way. In this sense, the designers intend to give fresh meaning to clichéd elements that we see everyday, by changing their environments, juxtaposing commonplace parts with the new ones, and increasing or decreasing their original sizes (Fig. 23). The perception of familiar objects in an unfamiliar way from unexpected points of view also refers to Venturi’s [21: 56, 61] concept of

Fig. 23 Kazakh bus stop reinstalled in Superkilen

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contradiction juxtaposed, which reveals the contradictory relationships of rhythms, directions, adjacencies, and “superadjacencies”—the superimposition of contrasting elements. It produces a variety of levels of meaning, by involving a change in contexts [21: 61]. The contradictory dualities of order and randomness, large and small sizes prevail: The large sizes of playground objects and neon signs along with the small sizes of manhole covers and metal plates allow the possibility of new meanings with distant and remote perception. The bright red tones of The Red Square contrast with gray, white, and yellow urban furniture to enable figure-ground perception. The tension between the angular flooring patterns of The Red Square and the curvy lines of The Black Market breaks the continuous rhythm and order. The banal and the vivid, action and inertia, signs and objects constitute a unique whole and take over the former sites of everyday practices. Urban signs and symbols perform as reference elements, and in Venturi’s [21: 40] sense, become doublefunctioning elements as rhetorical elements that enrich meaning. Being originally located in other countries, these ordinary street signs and advertisement billboards turn into representation and expression at Superkilen: A black metal plate in the shape of a bull as the symbol of the Spanish wine company Osborne (Fig. 24), an advertisement for the shoe store Passo Firme on a Brazilian bench, giant neon letters of “Mockviq” referring to the Hotel Moskvich from Moscow in the Soviet times, a neon sign in the shape of a tooth and a crescent moon for a Qatar dentist, neon Chinese calligraphy on a rectangular board for the store Beauty + Beauty − Beauty Accessories from China, a Chinese calligraphy on a giant neon cup with straw as a promotion of milk in Taiwan, a red star shaped neon sign that belongs to the Star Sales Company, Inc. in the USA, and a sign in the shape of a giant donut from the popular American doughnut store, DeAngelis. It is also noted by the author that seeing the

Fig. 24 Metal bull figure located in Superkilen

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donut advertisement sign, a passer-by was asking for the donut store. These signs and symbols as conventional elements have lost their authentic meanings and uses, since they do not refer to real places anymore. They turn into rhetorical elements for the sake of the unity of the design concept. These landscape elements also produce tension in the Venturian opposition of complexity and contradiction over simplification or picturesqueness. Moos [14: 53] points out that Venturi in fact approved picturesqueness, since many of his aesthetic concerns and design attitudes toward issues such as contrast, symmetry, variety, and scale mostly refer to the picturesque tradition. The same approach prevails in Superkilen, as Rein-Cano notes that they worked towards fabricating ‘beautiful’ products with ‘better’ standards and conditions than the authentic ones. For example, in the drawings, the neon Qatar dentist sign in Denmark was reproduced with a different size from the original (Fig. 25). They intended to obtain a ‘better look’ and quality, since the original small sign did not “look good in the photographs” [11: 63]. Moreover, emphasising the primacy of the landscape’s visual quality over use, partners from Superflex remarked that Superkilen should be handled and taken care of like a work of art [23: 56]. Fig. 25 Qatar dentist sign along with lighting elements in Superkilen

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4 Conclusion When the Seoul Station Overpass was abandoned in 2006, it was associated with the attributions of unsafe and underdeveloped [8: 416], whereas the political image of Nørrebro has long been defined through protests, riots, violence, and criminal activities. Yet, with their new images promoted to locals and tourists, both districts intend to introduce Seoullo and Superkilen as the new landmarks of the cities [7, 13: 14]; 24: 50]. Seoullo was publicised as a living organism that sustains growth and change, whereas Superkilen was marketed as a process of public participation [7, 9: 418]. Both projects have also received various worldwide design awards: Seoullo won ArchMarathon Award, DFA Design for Asia Awards, and Ideat Future Award, while Superkilen was selected for the Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects, IEDC Excellence Award, Civic Trust Award, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. On the other hand, aside from the formal, representational, and visual aspects, contradictions in the social dimension become of crucial importance. Beginning with the announcement of Seoullo, for example, civic citizens and public in general have highlighted shortcomings of the project in terms of top-down management and communication, high budget, unresolved traffic flow, problematic installations, environment, landscape and urban planning [3, 5: 40–41; 7, 8: 423]. Yet, these critical implications and lack of social consensus were compensated to a certain degree by establishing a Citizens’ Committee in which residents, stakeholders, and experts could find a chance to participate in discussions [3, 6: 63]. In the case of Superkilen, much more than public participation, park furniture was designed as a result of authorial decision, since only eleven objects were proposed directly by residents even though posters and announcements of possible objects were continuously circulated around the neighbourhood [2, 17: 63]. However, instead of associating with the concept of intercultural encounter through collecting objects from different countries, the park has the potential to enable urban commons through the shared and participatory practices of everyday life [4: 17]. Apart from a socio-political criticism, Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture also acts as a critical tool to point out existing complications in landscape and urban planning and design. Seoullo bears the risk of damaging existing social layers by dividing neighbourhoods and traffic flow, and accentuating a scape of the city instead of nature by using considerably more concrete than greenery. In Superkilen, the exuberance of urban signs, colourful surfaces, and patterned objects gives primacy to image and visuality, rather than spatial concerns and use value. A visual and spatial reading of the landscapes through Venturi shows that they refashion the postmodern strategies of representation, narrativity, and banality. They superpose abandoned road or rail infrastructure with landscape and juxtapose a variety of activities with a multiplicity of users. For Venturi, a change in the program as the conventional element initiates urban growth and change, whereas a play of order and compromise supports the strategy of renovation. New cultural values, meanings, and uses emerge as the effect of the double-functioning element. The landscape elements promote ambiguity and richness, since they oscillate between

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simultaneous perceptions of form and structure, texture and material. Divergent orders and complex rhythms, rather than singular, conventional, clear, and simplified organisations, work toward constituting the difficult whole. The double-functioning elements as rhetorical elements and the unconventional uses of conventional and clichéd elements in a different context produce rich and fresh meanings as much as they give rise to opposing views. The perception of familiar objects in an unfamiliar way from unexpected perspectives also refers to the contradiction juxtaposed. It handles the contradictory relationships of rhythms, directions, and superimposition of contrasting elements, in addition to the contradiction adapted as the disruption of orders as a compromise. In the planning and design of the projects, Venturi’s complexity, contradiction, tension, ambiguity, and the difficult whole are rendered visible by their contrasting concepts. From a point of view, the objects and design elements of Seoullo and Superkilen represent the characteristics of multiplicity, heterogeneity, and fragmentation in their surrounding neighborhoods. The design approach responds to complexity and contradiction by addressing singularities in ethnic, social, cultural, and political diversity. Although they contain very different symbols from one another, the public urban landscapes unfold clichés and varieties through Venturi’s postmodern principles in terms of design, planning, and social urban metaphors, as much as they initiate open-ended conflictions and discourses.

References 1. Adam H (2003) Stacking and layering. In: Cecilia FC, Levene R (eds) El Croquis: MVRDV 1991–2002. El Escorial, Madrid, pp 426–434 2. Balik Lokce D, Balik G (2019) Frames of reality: the Superkilen Park as a lookbook. The international 4th conference of the paradigmatic city: transforming cities, 8–10 May, Istanbul 3. Centre for Liveable Cities Report (2018) Turning an overpass into a forest: Seoullo 7017. Better Cities 6, Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Singapore 4. Daly J (2019) Superkilen: exploring the human-nonhuman relations of intercultural encounter. J Urban Design. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2019.1622409 5. Eun-ju H (2017) Seoullo 7017: the city’s bridge in the sky. Koreana 31(3):36–41 6. Guo R (2018) Listen up! The people are speaking. Urban Solutions 13:56–63 7. Hartman H (2017) Seoullo performance. Arch Rev 1447:124–129 8. Hong Y (2018) Actual condition of Seoullo 7017 overpass regeneration project based on field surveys. Front Arch Res 7:415–423 9. Ingels B (2015) Hot to cold. Taschen, Cologne 10. Ingels B et al (2013a) Red, black, and green (Topography and typology). In: Steiner B (ed) Superkilen, Arvinius + Orfeus, Stockholm, pp 25–48 11. Ingels B et al (2013b) Imagine a Moroccan fountain! (Selection and realisation). In: Steiner B (ed) Superkilen, Arvinius + Orfeus, Stockholm, pp 55–68 12. Mansilla LM, Tuñon E (2003) The space of optimism: a conversation with Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. In: Cecilia FC, Levene R (eds) El Croquis: MVRDV 1991-2002. El Escorial, Madrid, pp 10–29 13. Moffet L (2019) High time for a Seoul high line. The Age, 26 Jan 2019, p 14 14. Moos SV (1999) Contextual oscillations. In: Moos SV (ed) Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates: buildings and projects, 1986–1998. The Monacelli Press, New York, pp 10–71

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15. Moreno CD, Grinda EG (2003) Redefining the tools of radicalism: a conversation with winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. In: Cecilia FC, Levene R (eds) El Croquis: MVRDV 1991–2002. El Escorial, Madrid, pp 30–47 16. Newton I (1687) Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica. Benjamin Motte, London. English edition: Newton I (1803) The principles of natural philosophy (trans: Motte A). HD Symonds, London 17. Pallarés VI, Castellanos IC (2016) Public participation process as a tool for innovation in the design of public spaces: the case of Superkilen Park by Bjarke Ingels Group. Architecture: a collection of scientific works, vol 9. Belarusian Technical University Press, Belarus, pp 210–215 18. Prilenska V (2012) City branding as a tool for urban regeneration: towards a theoretical framework. Arch Urban Planning 6:12–16 19. Sandström I (2015) The fragmentary demand: Superkilen in Nørrebro. In: Kärrholm M (ed) Urban squares: spatio-temporal studies of design and everyday life in the Øresund region. Nordic Academic Press, Lund, pp 115–139 20. Steiner B (2013) Beyond being nice. In: Steiner B (ed) Superkilen, Arvinius + Orfeus, Stockholm, pp 9–23 21. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 2nd edn (1977). Harry N Abrams Inc., New York 22. Scully V (1966) Introduction. Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 2nd edn (1977). Harry N Abrams Inc., New York, pp 9–12 23. Voss ML (2018) The activation of the social is the art: Superflex and the development of Superkilen (unpublished master thesis). The University of Texas, Austin 24. Yun J (2018) A copy is (not a simple) copy: role of urban landmarks in branding Seoul as a global city. Front Arch Res 8:44–54

Cutting and Overlapping: Moebius Strip in Max Reinhart Haus Domenico D’Uva and Paolo Tomelleri

Abstract Connection between external skin and inner core of the building is paramount for the case study of Eisenman’s Max Reinhart house. External envelope is generated by a series of surfaces perpendicular to a Möebius strip running through the whole building. Each square is constrained to a rotation in the space, so that a certain amount of overlapping, and subsequent cutting is generated. External surface is created by the extrusion of squares into boxes, which partially overlap themselves. The internal structure of the building is characterized by horizontal slices of the resulting volume. The work analyses the geometrical features of the Möbius strip by writing the discrete parametric equations that define this shape driver. A tentative equation system was worked out with a circular generator element. Through the variation of the parameter connected with the ordinate, it was possible to create a Möebius strip with an elliptic generator. This ellipsis lays on a vertical plane perpendicular to the ground. The resulting surface generated with the elliptical Möebius strip resulted to be ruled. There is a direct connection between urban landscape and building shape, both in the definition of geometric parameters and the constraint of morphogenetic characterization. The parametric geometry has been worked out with Grasshopper to generate an accurate solution within the given constraints. Keywords Geometry · Parametric · Envelope · Bisexual

1 Introduction This work is part of a larger research project [1] started years ago with the aim of pointing out existing link among form, geometry and structure through the analytic study of the main development of international architectonic culture. The core of this study is based on the analysis of the perceived shape of the building, starting from D. D’Uva (B) Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] P. Tomelleri Vicenza, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_27

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the knowledge of the geometry and the structure. The heart of this research is the recognition of the shape drivers, which populate the buildings, transforming themselves through a scheme that repeats to generate different elements. These drivers have been acquired as an architectural heritage through the analysis of the building, once its skin has been removed, becomes material for the creation of new geometries. Thomson [2] wrote, “My only purpose is to put in relation to mathematical definitions and physical laws some of the simplest external phenomena of organic growth [3], of structure and of form, considering as a hypothesis that the complex of the organism is a mechanical and material set,” meaning the laws that rule the connection between living beings and the development of their form are based on mathematical, geometric, physical, and mechanic constraints. As for organism, it is possible to apply this concept to construction in the contemporary terms of form finding. As the digital tools are evolving, it is always easier to generate shape complexity for the sake of complexity itself [4], [2], [5]. It is necessary for large scale object as architectures (which modify permanently the environment) to contribute to the development of urban environment with aware designs. The case study of this paper is Eisenmann’s Max Reinhart house. The choice of this building was addressed by the many parallel drivers within the work of Robert Venturi. Indeed, it is possible to connect some of the concepts expressed in his essay [6] Complexity and Contradiction in architecture with the peculiar elements of Eisenmann’s poetry expressed in this work. The main transformation that is implemented in this building is the overlapping and cutting of elements. These operations generate complexity and contradictions within the form of the building, whose generation will be explained in the core of this work. Max Reinhardt Haus site is located near the intersection of two of the city’s most important arterial road, the Unter den Linden and the Friedrichstrasse. It was previously occupied by the expressionist theater of Max Reinhardt, a theater producer active in Germany during the first decades of the twentieth century. In order to capture the energy and vision of the latter, the architect has designed an irregular prismatic shape, which would have reflected the changing and multifaceted character of the metropolitan city. The number two occurs frequently in the building, starting from the two towers that compose it, up to the seminal concept of double zeitgeist [7]. Furthermore, the physical location of the architecture within Berlin begins to address Eisenman’s issue of “bisexuality,” and the Max Reinhardt’s formal representation of the concept of two. Bisexual, as a connection with number two and with VenturI’s concept of ambiguity can be firstly retrieved in project’s site, which falls at the intersection point of the two most significant streets in Berlin, Friedrichstrasse, traveling north–south, and Unter den Linden, traveling east–west. Secondly bisexuality can be clearly referred to Venturi concept of ambiguity, in which the relations between the parts is expressed between the richness of the structure that is opposed to the clarity of the formal meaning. In this sense there is also a form of contradiction between the apparently complex external form that instead denotes an exemplary formal shape driver as Moebius strip [5]. A double parallel is therefore established between the outer skin/heart of the building and the urban landscape/building shape. In more explicit terms the dualism [8] that takes place in the internal/external relationship is also found in the relationship with the urban context in which it is placed. The shape

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of the building, in Venturi terms, is generated precisely by the urban context in which it is placed, just as the shape of an organism is shaped by the reaction of the gene with the external environment. At first, it seems that Eisenmann took little account of the context in which the building should have been built. In fact, compared to an average height of the buildings along the two arteries of 22 m, the height of the buildings of the building reaches 122 m. The choice to elevate building height from the context is a lack of attention to the context itself. Although, it is necessary to underline that the building was designed in 1992, just three years after the fall of the 1989 Berlin wall, when the feeling of contrast with the past, (which the historical fabric was the present emblem) was very intense. Eisenman in an interview with Lèon Krier [9] said “Because the reason I did not build [the Max Reinhardt Haus] in Berlin is because it was not considered humane. Those towers were monuments, they were icons”. The Max Reinhardt Haus, although very rich in critical analyzes, has been represented in a limited way with regards to morphogenesis and there is a general lack of drawings that explain the generative processes of form. This work is about the process that led to the definition of the building shape; for simplicity will be divided into 19 steps and three cycles.

2 Process 2.1 1–2 The shape of the Max Reinhardt Haus corresponds to a twisted irregular prism, generated from a Möbius strip, (a non-orientable surface) as it has only one side and one edge. Furthermore, it has an additional feature, a straight line (at least), completely lying on the surface of the strip itself passes on each strip point (for example the plane, the cylinder or the cone are ruled surfaces, whereas the sphere or ellipsoid are not). The whole morphogenesis process is essentially divided into three cycles: the first creates the outer envelope, i.e. the aforementioned irregular prism, by means of 23 quadrangular planes distributed along a Möbius strip and perpendicular to the latter; the second configures the texture of the external glass surface through the diagonals of the same 23 quadrangular planes; the third and final cycle defines the interior spaces of the building through a series of transformations applied to 5 cubic volumes, also distributed along the basic Möbius strip. The process of form generation begins with the definition of a Mobius strip. Because it is a mathematical structure, which is infinite, some discretizations have been introduced to improve result. The first is the use of an ellipse as extrusion path because of the geometric property of Moebius strip, where the normal vectors of the surface are defined in each point in two opposite directions. This geometric property brings to ambiguous results for the direction and verse of normal in a generic surface. The second basic approximation is considering the design scheme as a loft surface passing through 23 segments, whose numbers coincide with the floors that will define

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the external envelope of the building. These segments measure approximately 20 m and are distributed along the path of the ellipse lying in the vertical XZ plane, where the ground (and building lot) is XY plane, which is described by the following parameters: • the smaller ellipse axis measures 6.5 m and is parallel to the plane of the XY terrain; • the longer ellipse axis has a length equal to twice the smaller axis (130 m) and, it is perpendicular to the XY ground plane; • the center of the ellipse corresponds roughly to the middle of the lot, and it is translated vertically along the Z axis of a length equal to the size of the major axis decreased by half of that of the 23 segments mentioned above, or 12 m. Definition of the building lot can be approximated by a rectangle; its longer side is parallel to the X axis and is equal to 86 m, the smaller one is parallel to the Y axis and measures 55 m. Subsequently, the rectangle of the lot rotates 15° counterclockwise around the Z axis: this transformation will prove necessary for the processing of the external envelope of the building starting from step 16. From these very first steps of the project it is clear that the volume will come out from lofting operation between differently oriented faces. The process will arrive to a specific form which is a rigorous scientific series of steps. The idea behind this project is instead connected with bisexuality, because the shape can be obtained in two opposite ways. The first as an addition of forms, made by two legs connected to the top, the second as a subtraction, which is a sculpture carved out of a single piece of stone.

2.2 3 In the previous steps, Moebius strip has been approximated as a loft surface passing by 23 segments. These elements must be in space, by aligning them with 23 equidistant points laying on the ellipse. The first point corresponds to the intersection between the ellipse and a straight line lying in the same plane XZ (the plane of the ellipse), having origin in the center of the ellipse itself and parallel to the X axis. For clarity purposes, the numbering of the points (and of the subsequent geometric elements constructed by their means) proceeds clockwise starting from the intersection point just described.

2.3 4 Starting from each point identified on the trajectory of the ellipse, a segment with a length of 20 m is drawn (this measure has no effect on the outcome of the morphogenesis), lying in the plane of the ellipse (the XZ plane) and parallel to the axis X. The midpoint of these segments coincides with the corresponding point on the ellipse’s

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trajectory: in this way we obtain 23 segments parallel to the X axis, distributed along the trajectory of the starting ellipse and equidistant from each other.

2.4 5–6–7 In order to obtain the Möbius strip—starting from the 23 segments identified in the previous step—these must perform two types of rotations: the first in the plane of the XZ ellipse; the second in the plane normal to the XY ellipse, or on itself. With the first set of rotations, each segment rotates counterclockwise in the plane of the ellipse XZ and around the normal plane passing through the midpoint of the corresponding segment, by an angle equal to (a/b) * 360°, where b is equal to the length of the ellipse’s extrusion path, which a coincides with the measure of the arc of the ellipse between the midpoint of the corresponding segment lying on the trajectory of the ellipse itself and the point of intersection between the latter and a straight line lying in the same plane XZ (the plane of the ellipse), originating in the center of the ellipse itself and parallel to the X axis. In other words, the 23 segments rotate progressively around their own midpoint and in the plane of the ellipse at an angle directly proportional to their position on the edge of the base ellipse described in step 1, describing a full circle. With the second set of rotations, each segment rotates counterclockwise, in the plane of the XY, the ground, and around the normal plane passing through the middle point of the corresponding segment, by an angle equal to ((a/b) * 180°) + 90°. In other words, the 23 segments rotate progressively on themselves at an angle directly proportional to their position on the edge of the base ellipse, making an angle of 180°. As it is evident from the formula, the starting angle is 90° and not null. At this point, the surface passing through the 23 segments, which is obtained by means of the loft procedure corresponds to a basic Mobius strip (Fig. 1).

2.5 8 The Möbius strip and the 23 segments are necessary to delineate the quadrangular planes that define the external envelope of the building. To each of the segments, it corresponds a planar quadrangular surface, having its center in the middle point of the correspondent segment and it is defined by the following three axis: the x axis coincides with the segment corresponding to the quadrangular plane which is defined; the y axis coincides with the normal to the segment corresponding to the quadrangular plane which is defined;

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Fig. 1 Möbius strip is discretized into a surface passing through 23 segments, which have completed 2 rotations around their midpoints: the first in the plane of the XZ ellipse; the second in the XY

the z axis coincides with the tangent vector to the basic Möbius strip, originating in the midpoint of the segment corresponding to the quadrangular plane which is defined. By means of this procedure it is possible to obtain a series of quadrangular faces distributed along the Möbius strip and equidistant, whose inclination increases progressively to follow the torsion of the strip itself; this geometric transformation occurs because the z axis of the quadrangular surface coincide with the tangent vectors to the strip (Figs. 2 and 3). The series of quadrangular surfaces, considered as a whole, take on a regular conformation or, in other words, the quadrangular surfaces positioned within the upper half of the starting ellipse (and of the Möbius strip) are approximately mirrored compared to those located within the lower half. This configuration is somewhat dissimilar compared to the actual building, the Max Reinhardt Haus. Some of the aforementioned quadrangular surfaces in fact, undergo geometric transformations and/or perform rotations according to their position along the starting Möbius strip; however, central points of the planes remain fixed and coincide with the midpoints of the corresponding segments, in other words the quadrangular planes do not translate.

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Fig. 2 For each of the 23 segments corresponds a flat quadrangular surface of 50 m side, originating in the middle point of the same segment. The inclination of the planes varies in such a way as to follow the twist of the Mobius strip Fig. 3 For each of the 23 segments corresponds a flat quadrangular surface of 50 m side, originating in the middle point of the same segment. The inclination of the planes varies in such a way as to follow the twist of the Mobius strip

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2.6 9 In step 3, 23 equidistant points were identified along the path of the starting ellipse, to which a clockwise numbering system was associated. Because of the geometric construction procedures outlined above, the 23 points correspond to the centers of the quadrangular faces, as they were defined in the previous step. For clarity purposes, points and faces share the same numbering. The planes numbered between 14° and 23° (included) are mirrored the plane correspondent to the XZ ellipse, i.e. each plane rotates by 180°, assuming as a rotation axis a straight line parallel to the X axis and having its origin in the center of the same plane. The planes that carry out the rotation correspond approximately to those positioned within the upper half of the starting ellipse, and therefore belonging to the Möbius strip. The operations described in steps 10 and 11 consist of approximations carried out in an attempt to more accurately investigate the morphogenesis of the Max Reinhardt Haus and, consequently, to bring the formal outcome of the geometrical construction procedure in the implementation phase as close as possible to the actual shape of the building. These steps divert from the ordinary morphogenetic process, and it is a common practice among designers, as explained in detail in previous work of the author.

2.7 10–11 The surface numbered 19, 20 and 21 rotate by 75° counterclockwise around the corresponding axis of rotation, parallel to the Y axis and originating in the center of the faces themselves. Subsequently, the same planes make a second rotation of 30° in a counterclockwise direction, assuming as axes of rotation the lines joining the midpoints of two opposite sides of the planes (Fig. 4).

2.8 12 All the quadrangular faces are splitted into two triangular surfaces using the diagonals of the planes as cutting elements. This operation will be necessary in step 19 for defining the texture of the external glass surface of the building.

2.9 13–14–15 Triangular surfaces obtained in this way are extruded along the normal to the corresponding faces, defining the respective triangular volumes. In step 2 the lot of the

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Fig. 4 Some of the quadrangular surfaces (approximately those positioned within the upper half of the Möbius strip) undergo geometrical transformations and/or perform rotations, however these elements do not translate, keeping their intersection points unchanged with the Möbius strip

building has been approximated with a rectangle rotated 15° anticlockwise around the Z axis, the sides of which measure 86 and 55 m. An offset is performed towards the inside of the rectangle for each of the sides of the latter: an offset of 7.5 m is applied to the larger sides, while an offset of 2.5 m is applied to the smaller sides. Combining the segments obtained in this way and eliminating the portions of the same segments in excess, a slightly smaller rectangle is obtained, of which the larger sides are 70 m and those smaller than 50 m. This new rectangle is vertically extruded

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(along the Z axis) of a measure larger than the peak of the triangular volumes as defined above.

2.10 16 The triangular volumes defined in step 13 are truncated with a Boolean intersection between the latter and the box, as described in the previous steps. In this way, variously cut off volumes are obtained, which will allow the external envelope of the building to be configured (Fig. 5).

2.11 17–18 The vertices of the faces placed in front of the volumes obtained in the previous steps are joined by a series of segments. If the face of the volume n has a greater number of vertices than the face in front of the volume n + 1, some of the segments originating in the vertices of the face of the volume n will collimate in some of the corresponding vertices of the face placed in front of the volume n + 1. The segments obtained coincide with the margins of the meshes that define the final external envelope of the Max Reinhardt Haus, each of which consist solely of two flat faces (Figs. 6 and 7).

2.12 19 It is recalled that at step 12 the quadrangular planes were divided by means of their diagonals into two triangular surfaces. The latter were subsequently extruded along the normal and truncated by a Boolean intersection. Consequently, starting from the 23 quadrangular planes, 23 pairs of volumes have been obtained, variously truncated and lying on the same plane. Ordinary surfaces normally have two faces: one upper (or internal) and one lower (or external). In the case of the Möbius strip this principle is missing, in fact, there is only one side and one edge. Starting from any point on the tape, therefore, after covering one lap (equal to the margin of the starting ellipse) one is on the opposite side with respect to this point, and only after having completed two laps does it converge at the starting point. This feature is highlighted in the case of the Max Reinhardt Haus, as the architect deals with the glass surface of the building (the external envelope defined by a series of meshes in step 18) with two different shades of color. In fact, the volumes of the 23 pairs are divided into two groups, each of which corresponds to a turn along the Möbius strip, bearing in mind that two turns are required to cover the entire strip. The meshes that join the margins of the volumes of the first group are treated with a color of a certain gradation, while the

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Fig. 5 The triangular volumes defined in step 13 are truncated by means of a Boolean intersection between the volumes themselves and a rectangle box, whose base is defined starting from the lot of the building

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Fig. 6 The vertices of the truncated volumes are joined by a series of segments, which coincide with the margins of the meshes that define the final outer envelope of the building

remaining and joining meshes of the margins of the volumes of the second group are treated with a different color.

3 Conclusions The undertaken analysis has brought to light the generative criteria of an architectural work that has never been built and has become heritage. When one thinks of this lemma, it is common to imagine something to be preserved from degradation, wear and time in general. In this case the Max Reinhart Haus is abstracted from the problems of conservation, yet it remains an architectural heritage, whose forms have become iconic and persistent in the collective memory with an intensity equal to a real building. The study of these forms, both from the point of view of complexity dear to Venturi, both from the scientific point of view of mathematics and geometry

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Fig. 7 The vertices of the truncated volumes are joined by a series of segments, which coincide with the margins of the meshes that define the final outer envelope of the building

of the form, remain an invaluable heritage to be handed down to posterity for a truly innovative architectural morphogenesis (Figs. 8, 9 and 10).

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Fig. 8 The truncated volumes are divided into two groups (highlighted in white and grey). The meshes that join the volumes of each group are treated with different color gradations in order to highlight the geometric features of the Möbius strip

Fig. 9 Perspective view of the Max Reinhardt Haus. South–East side

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Fig. 10 Perspective view of the Max Reinhardt Haus. North–West side

References 1. D’Uva D (2017) Handbook of research on form and morphogenesis in modern architectural contexts. IGI Global, Hershey, USA 2. Rolando A, D’Uva D (2013) Hyperdomes: non–standard roofing strcuture, technological evolution and distinctiveness in urban environment. In: Proceedings of the 31th international conference on education and research in computer aided architectural design in europe, vol 2, pp 315–324. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands 3. Thomson D, Bonner J (1914) On growth and form. CA, Bridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 4. Rolando A (2008) Forma, geometria, struttura. Città Studi Edizioni, Milano 5. Moebius strip in Wolphram Alpha. https://www.wolframalpha.com/ 6. Eisenman P (1977) Complexity and contradictions in architecture, Museum of Modern Art Editor 7. Eisenman P (1994) Confronting the double zeitgeist. Architecture (AIA) 83(10Oct):51–55 8. Polvi G (1992) Double, not dual: a contextual and formal analysis of peter eisenman’s max reinhardt haus, Berlin 9. Eisenman P Q+A: Peter Eisenman and Léon Krier Talk Albert Speer (https://www.architect magazine.com) 10. Ciorra P (1993) Peter Eisenman: opere e progetti. Mondadori Electa

600 11. Eisenman P (1999) Diagram diaries. Universe publishing 12. Eisenman SP (1996) Trivellazioni nel futuro. Testo and immagini

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Rem Koolhaas and the Landscape as an Urban Medium Fabio Colonnese

Abstract This chapter investigates Rem Koolhaas’ early architectural work in the perspective that he gradually adopted the landscape as a concept to innovate OMA’s architecture practice and communication, also by means of the negotiation of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s achievements. After introducing the historical rise of the landscape, this hypothesis is explored along three parallel levels, dealing with concept, experience, and representation. The chapter enquires: the idea of using the landscape, through the postcard-mediated experience of New York, as a medium to get free from architectural figures, conventions and ideologies; then, OMA’s office organization able to turn the design process into a collective process, in which Koolhaas plays the role of editor and critic, and to give centrality to program, actions and movement, by declining Le Corbusier’s idea of promenade architecturale; finally, the role of representation in orienting both the research and the communication to present OMA’s work inside a fictive landscape made of different gazes and popular images. Keywords Rem Koolhaas · Landscape · Architecture representation · Design communication · Urban landscape · Popular media

1 Introduction This chapter investigates the early career of Rem Koolhaas and the emerging of the idea of landscape as a medium to innovate the architectural practice and representation in the wake primarily of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s disruptive positions. Both architects and writers, Venturi and Koolhaas have generally tried to make the two careers feed each other, yet with different attitudes. According to Orazi [1], “in the photograph that portrays the two newlyweds in the new Italian edition of Learning from Las Vegas […], which was taken by a student sitting in the back seat while Robert drives and Denise holds up his camera, Rem Koolhaas saw, more than F. Colonnese (B) Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_28

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a photo of a research group, ‘a love story’”. This comment clarifies immediately the narrative address that distinguishes Koolhaas’ from Venturi’s writing. In the former’s practice, writing comes before architecture. “I first wrote to create a credibility for the kind of architecture I wanted to do”, said Koolhaas. “Now it has become more diverse. Part of it is to describe architecture’s evolving present. Part of it […] is to prepare ourselves to deal with issues […]. Part of it I consider like pure ‘writing’, literary […]. I think that is very confusing to people” [2]. While Venturi was accidentally crystalized in his literary role, nevertheless his remarkable portfolio of buildings and the voluntary renunciation to a prosperous academic career, Koolhaas uses writing to invent multiple identities, generally with no fear of being contradictory. Allen [3, p. 43] describes him as “an architect identified with the program and diagrams who is also a formal innovator, allergic to repetition and formula, an architect capable of relentless production of new organizational schemas yet deeply aware of the unpolishable power of aesthetics; an architect committed to collaboration and the exchange of ideas who has nevertheless emerged as the author of a deeply consistent body of work over the course of a long career”. As Koolhaas candidly confessed once, “There is an enormous, deliberate, and—I think—healthy discrepancy between what I write and what I do” [4]. To Koolhaas, Venturi’s complexity and contradictions are the starting point for each architect who aims to understand reality. As architects depend on the provocations of clients, “incoherence, or more precisely, randomness, is the underlying structure of all architects’ careers: […] Coherence imposed on an architect’s work is either cosmetic or the result of self-censorship” [5, p. XIX]. Like Venturi and Scott Brown, Koolhaas rejects the modernist idea of the architect as a moralizing demiurge, sure that he “can make any kind of moral statement that makes the world a better world” [6, p. 19]. Accordingly, he is constantly searching for utopia in reality, and his ironic, amoral positions mostly seduce younger people, who live contemporary society’s complexity and contradictions more extremely. Both Venturi and Koolhaas have built a “retroactive”, urban theory from an existing, “untraditional” city. The former has “discovered” Las Vegas, the billboardcity the architects just wanted to keep on ignoring, and disseminated its controversial “lesson” about the popular iconicity of vernacular architecture. The latter provided the readers with new glasses to “see through” New York, the city the architects believed to know. In particular, by exploring the “bigness” category as a threshold affecting the quality and perception of architecture, he focused on the opportunity of breaking any distinction between architecture, city and landscape. This allowed him to consider his architectural works as merveilles [7] in a continuous territory open to an intense, kinesthetic experience, which constitutes a sort of actualization of Le Corbusier’s idea of promenade architecturale through the cinematic montage and comic-like experiences of Radical group Superstudio. Koolhaas’ relationship with Venturi is complex and contradictory, too. He has described the American architect as an “inspiration and threat” [8, p. 150]. He has recognized that both Learning from Las Vegas and Complexity and Contradictions contributed to create “a conceptual space for a possible architecture” [8, p. 153] that was not before. At the same time, he explicitly repudiated both Venturi’s and Colin

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Rowe’s formalistic, “contextualist” analyses. Accordingly, many elements distinguish Koolhaas from Venturi, especially on a formal level. Although sharing a postmodern approach, Venturi and Scott-Brown referred their projects to iconography after Renaissance-to-Neoclassical buildings, while Koolhaas, who is mainly interested in the processes generated in revolutionary social contexts, has “historicized” also the twentieth century avant-gardes’ projects and often focused on their utopias. Venturi studied the formal topics and their relationship with meaning and content, while Koolhaas has been studying the functional topics and their relationship with the context that generated them. By adopting the “decorated shed”, Venturi/Scott Brown proposed the programmatic contradiction between inside and outside as a specific contribution to the urban image, on the contrary, Koolhaas has critically recovered the generic, opaque envelope of the skyscrapers that gives centrality to space and human action and contributes to turn the city into a landscape, or better, a cityscape. While in the 1930s, landscape was considered above all an opportunity to strengthening national identity, in the post-war period, it was adopted as a figure to decipher the urban complexity and contradictions in a perceptive way. As a design key, it was adopted to overcome the limitations of the master plan, which often implied a still vision of reality and took too much time to achieve, and to restore centrality to place, human movement and a sensory experience of space. As a combination of physical and cultural elements, the landscape became central to the process of representation and communication of architecture. In the 1980s, by mediating his experience of New York through the lens of the touristic, popular media, Koolhaas addressed OMA, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture he had founded with Madelon Vriesendorp, Elia and Zoe Zenghelis in 1975, to new forms of architectural communication, which show a combination of storytelling, scientific diagrams, digital technologies and archaic popular media, often contaminated by cartographical codes and techniques. The surfacing of the idea of landscape in OMA’s works from 1975 to 2000 is here analyzed through writings and projects published in journals, books and OMA’s site, the interpretations provided by critics and historians, and the direct exploration, analysis and sketching of some of the built works. The second part of this chapter is dedicated to concepts: in particular, to the evolution of the concept of landscape from World War II onwards and its consideration as an architectural medium in OMA’s practice, as demonstrated by the project of the Convention Center in Agadir. The third part is dedicated to program and movement: in particular, to Koolhaas’ role of editor inside OMA to produce collective, inclusive works and the evolution of Le Corbusier’s concept of architectural promenade toward a pure, unrestricted flanerie. The fourth part is dedicated to images: in particular, to OMA’s techniques and visual models of architectural representation and communication with a particular focus on the influence of landscape and cartography techniques. The fifth part presents a conclusion which, as everything that deals with Rem Koolhaas, cannot but be partial, subjective and incomplete. Considering the number of projects released by OMA and of writings by and on Rem Koolhaas, any essay discussing about him and his work cannot but be partial and interpretative. Moreover, the absence of a recurrent design approach and his attitude to neither confirm nor deny the hypotheses of his exegetes, properly to preserve the “wealth of interpretations that everybody can have of what

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he has done” (Koolhaas quoted in [9], 105]), make any scientific study moderately conjectural.

2 Architecture, City, Landscape The nineteenth century idea of modern state is based on a concept of space that dates back at least to the Renaissance perspective. The territory of the state, like the space of perspective, is assumed as continuous, homogeneous and isotropic. In other words, a state is defined by a boundary that demarcates a portion of territory and by a law regime that is the same in all of its points, which, in addition, are oriented towards the capital, the single point embodying the political center. The structure of a state is therefore identified by stable parameters and a representation of a specific cultural, social, and economic identity. It works well as long as it remains a closed and static system, as long as the citizens stay within its borders [10]. With the movement, this structure malfunctions. The cities, formerly an expression of a precise community and local identity, begin to be contaminated and their image enters a transnational circuit of negotiation and re-mediation. The space loses its properties and the representation begins to get blurred, in the sense that the gaze moves from the form to the image and from the territory to the landscape.

2.1 The Rise of Landscape Formerly denoting an extensive view of natural scenery in seventeenth century Dutch painting, the term landscape was gradually adopted first by geologists then by geographers [11, pp. 20–24]. While in its Latin version—paysage in French, paysaje in Spanish, paisagem in Portuguese, paesaggio in Italian—it refers to the root of pagus, a village, and highlights the importance of human work as a cultural mediator, in its Anglo-Saxon version—Landschaft in German, landskip in Dutch, landscape in English—it mainly refers to the land-shape, taking, in the late 1880s, the meaning of tract of land with its distinguishing characteristics [12]. In the twentieth century, while the term territory, with its physical and political acceptations, passed from the romantic vision of the place endowed with a genius to a modern and utilitarian conception of reified site to use, the term landscape took on a mainly visual connotation. Landscape is all that the eye embraces and recognizes and, at the same time, is a concept and is a representation which “admits the potential co-presence of more points of view” (Aprile quoted in [13, p. 149]). It exists in function of human beings, only through and for them, and reflects their actions and work. Thus, it is a sort of theatre in which the close-up operational gaze and the estranged gaze in the distance, the father of geography, find a synthesis [14]. The landscape exists only when there are people who look at it with aesthetical intention. This kind of gaze requires a certain detachment. For example, the rural landscape,

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which is an invention of citizens, is somehow inaccessible to farmers who live in it and everyday work on in. At the same time, it requires a window, a sort of cultural frame mediating its forms [15]. It somehow requires a representation able to turn a territory, a village or a city into a landscape (or a townscape). As suggested by Antonino Saggio (quoted in [13, pp. 246–248]), such a representation forces people to a critical relationship with the everyday act of seeing, implies a project and hides always a self-representation. In this sense, a landscape is discovered by artists who offer it to public through their works. For example, Ferrando [16, p. 9] states the idea of urban landscape is a product of modern aesthetics resulting from the invention of photography, the advent of the metropolis, Impressionism and the Hegelian concept of artificial beauty. Among the many interdisciplinary definitions of landscape, Zagari [13, p. 13] has proposed that landscape is “a living entity which is mutable in time, a sum of endless individual actions that interpret and modify a place either according or opposing to habits, rules, laws. The accomplishment of a balance”. The quest for such a balance, which results of the oscillation between territory and landscape as well as between close-up and distant gaze, can be found in the post-war discussion on the city. In occasion of the reconstruction after the World War II, the canonical idea of master plan and the CIAM’s urban models found occasional, regionalist resistances based on the surfacing role of the landscape in the urban planning. On the one hand, the 1930s experiences of the American parkways and the German autobahn had demonstrated the importance of the road as a place and a kinematic tool to promote the national identity, giving the “gaze from the car” the power of turning the territory into landscape [17]. On the other hand, Pevsner [18] had endorsed the adaptation of the English Picturesque tradition [19]. According to Wöfflin [20], it was to be interpreted as a fusion of pictorial perception and movement effect, from the garden landscape to urban context, and promoted with terms such as “Visual Planning”, “Exterior Furnishing” and “Picturesque Planning”. Some years later, “Townscape” became the main label of a three-decades long campaign of English magazine The Architectural Review. Mainly disseminated by Gordon Cullen’s homonymous book, the concept of “Townscape” had a remarkable influence both in Germany [21], where it rooted directly onto the late nineteenth century tradition of Camillo Sitte’s Der Städtebau, and United States [22]. This contributed to the idea of landscape as an expanded disciplinary and perceptive field. In those years, everything became a landscape, the English term scape hybridizing a number of situations [23]. “As a matter of fact, we talk about ‘urban landscape’ as well as ‘built nature’ in parks, gardens, plains and hills, in some mountain areas” [24, p. 10]. Pevsner and Cullen’s campaign promoted a renovated “interest in place, specificity and ‘context’; the distain for large-scale master planning; the pursuit of historical continuity in architecture and urbanism; a reform and ‘humanisation’ of modern architecture and planning; an interest in tradition and vernacular building; and the re-emergence of a distinctly ‘visual’ or aesthetic approach to design” [25, p. 27]. According to Koolhaas, “The Smithsons, Venturi/Scott Brown and [Cedric] Price, all rooted in London in the 1950s, were united by a bold attraction to the ordinary. For all of them, the reality of the city became a surrogate Utopia” (Rem Koolhaas

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quoted in [26, p. 7]). In particular, the Smithsons defined the concept of as found to promote a project that is no longer designed on the ideogram of the place but on the physical place itself, with all its peculiarities and specificities, while the “The Venturi hoped to discover an energy in the commercial vernacular language that could revive architecture” (Rem Koolhaas quoted in [26, p. 7]).

2.2 From Las Vegas to New York Most of the mentioned positions and approaches have consolidated above all through the practices of movement [27]. As noted by Abruzzese (quoted in [13, pp. 144– 145]), “Only the flâneur grounds the modern meaning of the landscape. He distorts its nature forever, removes any illusion of naturalness from it. The flâneur is the metropolitan individual, he therefore has all the characters of the stranger […]. The one who travels to create images for use and consumption of the goods to be sold”. The touristic neologism sightseeing—the act of visiting and seeing interesting place and objects—had been coined properly in 1820s but only decades after Baudelaire and Poe, who had celebrated literarily the flâneur as firsts, the mass tourism, which was largely triggered by the regulation of the workers’ Annual leave or Statutory Vacation in the 1920s, changed—and is still changing—the experience of the city and territory as much as it fostered the production of souvenirs. The tourists live a foreign city just like a landscape, ignoring most of the activities and purposes that are the very reason for the existence of the city itself. They only aim to transform their experience into an emotional and cultural event. Their gaze is, and cannot but be, an aestheticizing one [28]: a gaze oriented to sight-seeing, programmed in recognizing landscapes. As “the landscape is above all an invention of the citizens, of those who are not usually immersed in the landscape” [23, p. 8], the city as a landscape is an invention of flâneur and tourist. The twentieth century proliferation of travelers and enhancement of the social value of travel gradually subverted the nineteenth century idea of state, affecting the nature of space and giving birth to world-oriented cities like New York, the metropolis, and Las Vegas, the entertainment city which was to become a collection of mockups after the world. Inspired by the provocations of Peter Blake [29] and Tom Wolfe, the sociological interests of Denise Scott Brown, and the perceptive analyses of Kevin Lynch, Venturi and Scott Brown, assisted by a group of students, in the late 1960s dedicated themselves to the exploration and analysis of Las Vegas. Formerly a T-junction between the interstate Route 91 and the Main Street in the sandy desert of Nevada, in the 1960s the so-called Sin City was growing very quickly on the measure of the automobile. Through a sort of estrangement technique and an objective analysis devoid of any moral judgment, the Venturi cynically described the conventional elements of the American city and classified some provocative, groundbreaking typologies such as the “Decorated Shed”, “Billboard Building” or the “Duck”, a vernacular pavilion using its own form to express its use. They defined Las Vegas as a “landscape of signs” [30] designed to be experienced at speed, through the windshield of a car.

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Finally, they interpreted Las Vegas as both a product of spontaneous initiatives, with no coordinator from above, as it would be Wright’s Broadacre City, another famous sprawl-city, and the interaction between capitalistic industry and popular, according to the opinions of Gans [31], Maldonado [32, p. 95] believed this is a mistake: “Las Vegas is not a creation by the people, but for the people”. In 1972, while Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas is published, Rem Koolhaas settles down in New York with a generic idea of studying the metropolis of modernity. Five years later, the results of his researches are published in the best-seller Delirious New York. As Stierli [33] has noted, the approaches in the two books are directly comparable on the methodological level. In both cases, the city in its actual existence is supposed and assumed as a fact. In both cases, the architect is only a reader and interpreter of a cultural and urban aggregate. New York is a metropolis: somehow, the “touristic marker” has already turned it into a “transnational place” [34], well beyond the logic of the nineteenth century State. New York is not an expression of a closed community as rather of an open, fluctuating society. Opposite than the radial, perspective-oriented plan of Washington DC, its plan grid is an expression of democracy and openness. Its growth was allowed by the elevator—incidentally an opaque vehicle controlled through an interface with signs on it. At the same time, New York is a catalyst of metaphors and visions. Already in the 1920s, the skyscrapers are described as enchanted mountains of steel and glass by the architect Ferris [35, p. 30], are connected by futuristic catwalks in Moses King’s Views of New York (Fig. 1), are climbed by Little Nemo in the Sunday comic-strips, and conquered by King Kong in the cinemas. The metropolis is lived, perceived and represented as a landscape by people from all over the world in every available media, from panorama to postcards and films, which negotiate the tourist and urban culture of the twentieth century. As Abruzzese (quoted in [13, pp. 144–145]) has written, “the metropolis technologizes the experience of the landscape and […] absorbs it in its powerful communicative machine” by means of media like painting, prints, photography, and cinema. Koolhaas negotiated his own experience and reception of New York through both the histories of its buildings and the thousands of postcards he uses to collect. The postcards, which Dalì [36, p. 108] had defined “exceptional documents for the study of popular unconscious thought” in his studies on the Surrealist method, put on stage a sort of analogue city: projects of unrealized buildings looking as modern merveilles, isolated towers that become lighthouses in the night, actual buildings photographed from inaccessible points of view to a tourist or revealing their advanced technologies in section. As the postcards—together with cinema, here necessarily neglected—provided Koolhaas with a representation of New York as a landscape, he used them as a figurative key to express his own ideas on the metropolis, narratively redesigning its history. For example, the connection between the metropolis as capital of the world, its popular imagery and the utopias of European architecture are depicted by Vriesendorp into The City of the Captive Globe, in which a miscellanea of modern buildings disposed in the Manhattan grid form an enormous incubator of the World itself. In the end, even Vriesendorp’s paintings, which show the “secret life” of anthropomorphized skyscrapers, can be considered postcards. As surrealistic

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Fig. 1 M. King, King’s Views of New York, 1915

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postcards, they explore the dreams and wishes of buildings themselves, becoming an incubator and a catalyst for new suggestions and interpretations out of conventions and rationality.

2.3 The Landscape as a Medium In his Delirious New York, Koolhaas invented his own New York by focusing on the “culture of congestion” and the spontaneous, architectural events in the Manhattan grid. His Surrealistic interpretation of New York oscillates between man and nature, between anthropomorphism and landscape. On the one hand, he recovered the memory of the 1931 Beaux Arts costume ball with famous American architects wearing a sky-scraper shaped costume; on the other hand, he browsed the cultural and visual imagery of the city as an immense landscape of marks. The anthropomorphic metaphor gave him the opportunity to find a narrative key for the city development, while the landscape metaphor gave him the opportunity to read it as a collective, open work. For example, he emphasized the lesson of the impassive envelope of Wallace K. Harrison’s Rockfeller Center, which marks the end of the “skyscraper as an individual” [37, pp. 483-484]. Like a city within a city, the complex celebrated the reconciliation of the trusts and collectivity on an urban scale and went beyond the obligations of an architecture to have to represent its interior outside. As explained by Koolhaas, “The genius loci of Manhattan is the simplicity of this divorce between appearance and performance: it keeps the illusion of an intact architecture while surrendering entirely to the needs of the metropolis” [5, p. 937]. In general, Koolhaas interpreted the schizophrenia between the impassive exterior volume and the indifferent schismatic interiors of skyscrapers according to the Surrealist paranoiac-critical method. This provided him with a disruptive, pragmatic approach to both the complexity and contradictions of architectural programs which could be used “to restore a kind of honesty and clarity to the relationship between architect and public” [5, p. XIX]. This lesson is evident in the 1982 project for the Parc de la Villette in Paris, which shows how postmodern concepts could work with landscape architecture through the overlaying of more cultural rather than ecological layers [38]. The park is conceived according to a “programmatic layering upon vacant terrain to encourage dynamic coexistence of activities and to generate through their interference, unprecedented events” [8, p. 73]. It is quite interesting that the landscape was the first field in which the practice of drawing on transparent papers suggested the idea of layersstructured analysis and planning. This approach was first suggested by Geddes [39, p. 21] and then adopted worldwide, by gardeners and landscape planners as first. According to Steinitz, Parker and Jordan [40], who traced this history, an associate of Frederick Law Olmsted proposed separate maps of soil, vegetation and topography for comparative purposes in 1912. The first explicit reference to this technique is due to the urbanist Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, who incidentally had an intense correspondence with both Sigfried Giedon and Marshall Mc Luhan on visual perception of space

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and media [41]. In Town and County Planning (1950), she showed a map that had been done by combining four thematic maps on transparent paper describing relief, geology, hydrology and soil drainage. Only in the 1960s, Christopher Alexander transposed this “overlay technique” from the field of analysis to that of design, also thanks to the diffusion of transparent plastic films, but only after MacHarg [42] illustrated his map overlay method, it became a paradigm of planning technique. Koolhaas’ original approach is a combination of this conceptual and operative practice with the architectural program as he had learnt in New York. Of the seven layers grouping the architectural and vegetal elements of the Parc de La Villette, the lowest one is divided in strips with different functions and its experience “is not unlike the experience of a high-rise building, with its superimposed floors all capable of supporting different programmatic events” [5, p. 923], like the Downtown Athletic Club in New York (Fig. 2). It is quite remarkable that the section of a schizophrenic, congested skyscraper is here re-proposed onto the ground plane in form of stripes that maximize the contact between the programs and can be crossed in several points. While this unconventional swapping between plan and elevation, which Lueder [43]

Fig. 2 Comparison between the plan of the Parc de La Villette and the section of The Downtown Athletic Club building in New York. Courtesy of OMA

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refers to Le Corbusier’s figurative practice, is occasionally adopted as an imaginative key to heuristic process, like the diagram of the Ascot Residence resulting in both an horizontal and a vertical version of the villa in 2003, the sequence of bands is also adopted as a matrix to extrude layered elevations: for example, the 1986 competition entry for The Hague City Hall is literally a representation of a city skyline in the distance, as a landscape (Fig. 3). These are only a few episodes of a long way towards freedom. First of all, Koolhaas aimed to free himself from every kind of vincula, like “structures”, “models”, “ideologies”, “orders”, and “genealogies” [20] and all of those crystallized, canonical figures of architecture making, like plans, facades, etc. Second, he intended to free people in using his buildings by means of undetermined programs. This position, which is likely a consequence of Koolhaas’ interest in story-telling, can be related to the German film director Wim Wenders. According to him, while planning tends to force citizens into a network of predetermined movements and behaviors, unplanned space frees their imagination, sets them free. Thus, quite paradoxically, “The quality of life in a city […] is also directly proportional to the absence of planning” [44, p. 100]. The collaboration with the talented landscape artist Yves Brunier convinced Koolhaas “about the change of route under way, about the fact that landscape was in the

Fig. 3 OMA, City Hall in The Hague, 1986. View from the model and plan of 4th floor. Courtesy of OMA

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process of becoming the only medium capable of establishing connections in the city […], because landscape is less expensive and politically correct. So, the twentieth century is drawing to a close with the death of town planning and with his highly cynical apotheosis of landscape” (Koolhaas quoted in [45]). In the concept of landscape, Koolhaas somehow found the opportunity for an architecture of freedom—or, at least, an illusion of it (Dovey and Dickson 2002). He embraced the landscape as a medium to architecture and city, as the following parts of this chapter intend to demonstrate—for it is an interdisciplinary, mutable and collective work: it is intrinsically connected to the socio-cultural conditions, is made of living and sensitive materials and is constantly vivified and mythicized by human actions and feelings.

2.4 Landscape Buildings New York could provide Koolhaas also with formal opportunities to experience the blurring of the borders between city, architecture to landscape, such as the Grand Central Station, whose development is illustrated in a number of postcards (Fig. 4). By the 1910s, ramps had been individuated as a solution for a smoother and quicker movement in the Grand Central Station of New York. On December 15th, 1912, the New York Tribune reports that “the terminal engineers, not satisfied with theoretical calculations, built experimental ramps at various slopes and studied thereon the gait and gasping limit of lean men with heavy suitcases, fat men without other burden

Fig. 4 Reed and Stern, Section of Grand Central Terminal, 1912, Scientific America, December 7. Drawing by HM Pettit

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than their flesh, women with babies, school children with books, and all other types of travellers”. Old postcards show how stacked thoroughfares would be interwoven with the city. Despite the presence of six secret staircases, in this First Great Stairless Railway Station travelers could go from the point where the car dropped them straight to their waiting berth in the Pullman, one level below the street, without finding a single step to descend. Compared to the stairs, which eventually modulate human locomotion according to a specific idea of the body and express the hierarchical organization of space, ramps favor fluidity, continuity and a more natural movement. Although “to a Beaux-Arts architect like Whitney Warren, for which architecture was about procession and stairs were an opportunity to invoke ceremonial ascent, Reed & Stem’s ramps must have looked like humanity reduced to hydraulics” [46], they kicked-off new aesthetic opportunities, also by introducing oblique lines in spaces generally dominated by orthogonal structures. This sort of interior landscape, which was abruptly addressing architecture towards engineering by negotiating urban form, processional routes and mobility demands, can be also found in the perspective views Le Corbusier made to illustrate the foyer of the Soviet Palace in Moscow in 1931. They show slopes designed to lead the masses towards the congress halls peacefully. Only one horizontal line at the top corner stops the reader from considering these drawings as a representation of an outdoor landscape. By removing that line, the foyer could be easily interpreted as a sort of artificial forest in an undulating land. In 1990, Koolhaas proposed a groundbreaking integration between architecture and landscape in the project of Hotel and Convention Center in Agadir, Morocco, which exemplifies several shared elements with his architectural production (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 OMA, Hotel and Convention Center in Agadir, Morocco, 1990. Poche section; plan of the covered square; views of the model. Courtesy of OMA

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Here, a huge box, surrounded by a C-shape podium towards the city, is cut horizontally to accommodate a covered square where the curvilinear landscape of the dunes continues over the socle, which accommodate the halls like caves carved in the earth. Different size columns support the upper undulating roof, with rooms arranged around square patios carved into the plate. As stated by Koolhaas [47] himself, “The landscape, which is generated with its concave and convex domes, with the forest of columns, its shafts of lights, is a modern interpretation of Islamic space”. This project has marked the architectural imagery, as shown by the following interpretations provided, among the others, by Kazuyo Sejima in the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, 2010, Mecanoo in the New Taiwan Performing Art Center, 2018, or Aires Mateus in the Muslim cultural center in Bordeaux, 2019. At the same time, it can be interpreted as a landscape-addressed version of Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture, almost a visual, unbound translation of his narration of the promenade architecturale in Villa Savoye: here, too, “the car moves among the pillars of the basement, turns around the common services, gets to the center, arrives at the entrance door, enters the garage and continues its way back: this is the fundamental fact […]. The house rests in the center of the lawn like an object, disturbing nothing. […] It’s walking, moving that one sees the architecture guidelines develop. […] a real architectural promenade that offers always different, unexpected, sometimes amazing aspects. It is interesting to offer so much diversity when, for example, from a constructive point of view, an absolutely rigorous scheme of pillars and beams is accepted” [48, p. 24]. The design communication oscillates between architecture, city and landscape, too. The artificial dunes are not only designed to be built by using natural dunes as a calque for concrete shells but also represented by contour-lines, like a natural soil in a topographical map. The poche technique, invented by the cartographer Giovan Battista Nolli for his 1748 Pianta di Roma, is here adopted to produce simplified sections in black and white, which are used to convey the richness of spatial effects as one moves in the in-between space defined by simultaneous undulation of the ground and intrados of the upper plate. The architecture itself is designed as a representation, arranging an artificial version of a dreamlike huge, forested cave. However, to Koolhaas, referring to nature never plays a mimetic or mitigating function of architecture, as it does in Stefano Boeri’s vertical forests, for example. Nature is translated into architecture to perform a Surrealistic, figurative function, a sort of objet trouvée. In particular, the undulating, seaside landscape is here used as a cultural medium, as a physical calque and as a figurative tool to stage a metaphorical model of the world in three levels: the lower, Chthonic layer of the caves/halls, which is dedicated to meeting and entertainment; the middle, Gaian layer of the surface, which dedicated to movement and experience; the upper, Rational layer of the city, which dedicated to rest and reflection. Layers composing a landscape, of course.

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3 Editing Trajectories The work of Koolhaas and OMA is based on complexity and contradiction. He has been spending years designing his office as an immense, collective machine for digesting and transforming ideas into shapes, beyond any coherence claim, of course [49]. The creation of the research office AMO, literally a mirror of OMA, as an agency to inquiry, structure and represent OMA’s work through media at the end of the 1990s is a demonstration of the importance of translating even incorporeal processes into images, literally by mapping the flows affecting the world through postcards or something more sophisticated. Basically, Koolhaas works in OMA as a critic and editor. This is mainly evident in the construction of his office, through a great ability to attract and choose talents. He “has a knack for surrounding himself with the most talented people in our culture, both as employers and occasional collaborators” [50, p. 61]. As Koolhaas himself confessed to Zaera Polo [51, p. 17], this collaborative strategy constitutes a formidable antidote against the typical instinct of architects to shut themselves up, to become “boring and unbearable”, full of themselves and their own work. Second, he works as a critic and editor when he intervenes on the several projects that his collaborators are carrying out simultaneously. The early design process, meticulously reported by Yaneva [52] as a sort of internal, cooperative ecology, contemplates an extensive use of blue FOAM, which is heuristically used according to practices of recycling and assembling, not so far from the Surrealistic cadavre exquis. In the general strategy, these concept models [53] are fundamental to develop the architectural process to a wider range of cultural products and let the design process be told as a sort of cinematic making-of that is useful to orient public judgement [54]. Koolhaas mainly contributes to this process by “picking and choosing among myriads of models, adding bits and pieces of his own ideas, and editing out others” [50, p. 61]. Third, he works as a critic and editor when he plans the communication of OMA’s projects. Koolhaas (quoted in [55, p. 71]) is “convinced that the works of screenwriter and architect are both based on editing processes, on the art of creating programmatic, cinematographic or spatial sequences”. This attention to the process as well to the social and ethical matters is directly proportional to the indifference towards purely formal questions. In the early years, such an indifference led OMA’s members to adopting elementary solids such as parallelepipeds, spheres and eggs in the projects. Koolhaas was surely influenced by the Land Art and the innovative proposals of artists like Tony Smith and Richard Serra. Since the late 1960s, they had been addressing their efforts in setting the sculpture free from its secular figurative mission in order to reveal its potential in perturbing the context and manifesting the space. By rejecting the representational statute, the sculpture could directly qualify the space and invite people to conquer it through movement and corporeality. Koolhaas’ constant adoption of boxes and solids was both an opportunity to distance himself from the emerging formalism and a consequence of the importance given to the section, the interior space, the route and the plot. As exampled

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by either Adolf Loos’ opaque villas, which hide their interior Raumplan, or by Le Corbusier’s concept for a Boite à miracles [56], this formal strategy can let people approaching his buildings be not overwhelmed by them and create their own expectations. According to Blaisse [57, p. 91], OMA’s main talent lies precisely in “scenography: actions are triggered by the character of a place or room but also it is about how you move through a building, what your experiences are as you move through, how you approach a building and even how you say goodbye to a building”. In particular, Koolhaas “is totally obsessed with what’s happening in the building. […] Circulation in the building is always more important” [58, p. 27] and the “Space is programmed for indefinite functions and chance encounter” in order to “encourage the irruption of events, social encounters, and opportunities for action”, allowing “a multiplicity of choices for pedestrian flow and encounter” [59, p. 5]. As declared by Koolhaas (quoted in [60, p. 156]) himself, the formula is to dose up together a maximum of program and a minimum of architecture: “where there is nothing, anything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing else is possible”. These principles require an appropriate ontological structure for architecture. The Renaissance perspective is a structure able to organize the territory and to make it measurable to a standing beholder or, better, to turn the world into an absolute model of itself to the advantage of a single vantage point. The promenade, and more generally the movement, is antithetical to this model. The promenade architecturale, a well-known figure of Le Corbusier’s rhetorical story-telling [61], engages the body and other senses to the advantage of a kinesthetic perception of the space that is also, and could not be else, relative to the path one chooses or is forced to follow. Needless to say, both perspective and promenade may be dictatorial, an expression of either the client’s or the architect’s power. Moreover, both of them constitute a massive contradiction within a building in which one is expected to find an ordered, flexible and user-friendly space capable of responding to the functional demands (and not to either play with people’s gaze or force them to endless routes). Robert Venturi, for example, generally choose the perspective, the façade as a canvas for his refined game of stylistic and iconographical references, to the advantage of the eye and memory. Engaged in action and narration, Koolhaas has instead chosen the promenade. He has declined it according to several trajectories and typologies, from the labyrinth to flâneurism, to engage people not only to use it as a tool to connote space from their own point of view but also to get critical toward the institutional limits of a house, a library or a museum, and, indirectly, toward the coercive nature of architecture itself.

3.1 From Exodus to Berlin In 1972, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, in collaboration with Madelon Vriesendorp and Zoe Zenghelis, designed Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, a project that already expresses architecture’s contradictions in

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balancing coercion with freedom. Inspired by the Superstudio’s Continuous Monument, the Japanese Metabolists’ proposals and the Wall of Berlin, this sort of macrostructure is a strip (a metaphor of a filmed celluloid tape?) aligned on the north side of Oxford Street, London. It is composed of 8 huge squares—and others are under construction at both ends—in the open air circumscribed by hollow walls with smaller rooms. Here, the “voluntary prisoners” attend a path of initiation or conversion to metropolitan life by following a mix of physical and psychological experiences. The report written by Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, which is conceived to emphasize how the power of architecture is much more ambiguous and dangerous than it seems, only occasionally seems to describe architecture. It seems more a script for a movie to be shot between those walls. In the vertically-tripartite Villa dall’Ava (1984–91), built on the Saint Cloud hills in Paris, the idea of architectural promenade, directly evocated by the several quotations from Le Corbusier’s vocabulary, permeates everything. Above a stone base surfacing from the slope, two boxes linked by a longitudinal wall and a suspended pool float, generating a completely glazed floor in the middle. From the pedestrian access, one can ascend a steep ramp (16% slope) through a sort of forest of metallic trunks and a helicoid metal staircase up to the pool on the minimalist “garden roof”, exploring a closed circuit that crosses the main space of the house. As Moneo [51, p. 264] suggests about Koolhaas’ unconventional approach, “This house is an excellent demonstration of how the cinematic vision is central in his work. The concatenation of spaces seems to be dictated by the traveling of a camera and this explains why there is no global and synthetic understanding of space”. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1987–92) provides a first complex version of Koolhaas’ promenade. A ramp welcomes the visitors approaching the box, a sort of bridge-building that overlooks a road and mediates the upper level of the embankment with the lower of the park. Through the glazed walls, one can see the pillars cladded with tree trunks that support the inclined plane of the conference room and ideally continue the external garden. As Hertzberger [63, p. 251] noted, one finds expressed here the instability of the contemporary world by means of spatial and figurative devices that border on Surrealism, on the natural and landscape, like the inclined planes or the fake trees. On the bottom of the ramp, one can see the light of the exit on the upper road, while another divergent ramp is suspended above. Entering from the upper door, at the intermediate level of the auditorium, one passes in a few steps from a slope to the opposite one. The vision of the hall with the inclined pillars is alienating and the balance is hard to find as one walks up towards the upper edge. The panoramic landing is the most spectacular place along the promenade (Fig. 6). From here, one can enjoy a panoramic view of the two inclined branches of the internal route and its horizontal development along the façade up to the exhibition hall on the right: the colorful auditorium is concluded by a framed wooden window open on the driveway and the concrete staircase ascends to the sloping roof-garden. Almost an homage to Claude Parent’s [64] fonction oblique, the entry for the Jussieu Libraries competition in Paris (1992) expands the combination of ramps of the Kunsthal to a pervading system of continuous surfaces. This parvis, which connects all of the programs and spaces of this sort of micro-city with the surrounding

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Fig. 6 OMA, Kunsthal in Rotterdam, 1992. Sketch by F Colonnese

urban spaces, is assumed as an objet trouvée. As in a process of colonization of a natural place, the local slope of the non-horizontal surface (around 35% of the total covered area) determines the compatible function. Areas with slopes between 2 and 4% gradient are deputed to accommodate reading rooms, warehouses, bars and cafeterias, while those with a higher gradient either are equipped with horizontal floors or accommodate amphitheaters and simple circulation spaces. The movement of people does not appear to be channeled but free to deal with slope variations, explicitly evoking the figure of the flâneur. The Villa in Floirac (1994–98) near Bordeaux offers a sophisticated, mechanized version of the promenade. The client, paraplegic after a car accident, had asked for a complex house as it was to define his whole world. Koolhaas responded with a tripartite construction: three distinct Dantesque kingdoms, whose separation is fought by the central elevator-room that allows the owner to explore the whole house bringing with him his whole world of books and objects. This lift, a “dream vehicle” that allows Koolhaas to “put together programmatic levels of delirium while avoiding the confusion” [9, p. 101], is a true cinematic device providing a vertical tracking and is complementary to panoramic upper box, where circular portholes offer a discreet panopticon on the surrounding landscape. The idea of a mechanized promenade unexpectedly returns in 1997 in the proposal for MoMA Charette project in New York. For this sort of “mass consumer adventure park” (Koolhaas quoted in [9, p. 101]), Koolhaas conceived Odyssey, a sophisticated platform on tracks, able to cross the museum horizontally, obliquely and vertically up to the top of the new tower. Halfway between a drive-in and a Disneyland attraction, Odyssey is designed to allow a fast and always different mass use of the immense artistic heritage of MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, overcoming the implicit separation in the tower typology and showing the skyline of New York in transparency (Fig. 7). The construction of the Dutch Embassy in Berlin (1997–2003) allowed Koolhaas to enquire and innovate the role of promenade once again [65]. The usual, isolated box is no more floating but rather rooted to the ground and the route inside the box

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Fig. 7 OMA Trajectories: Jussieu Libraries; MoMA Charette; Dutch Embassy in Berlin; Seattle Public Library. Courtesy of OMA

is defined. Like a mole’s den, it seems the result of the physical penetration of the dweller. It therefore prescribes to the user an itinerary as inevitable as an intestine zigzagging and folding several times, with fractures and cavities. The two-hundredmeter long route looks like a Surrealist device inherited from the delirious analysis of New York’s skyscrapers, a sort of objet trouvée around which the floors and rooms are painstakingly organized. Rather than designed to connect the rooms, the promenade is the secret goal of the whole program: it subordinates all the functional areas, reversing the famous Kahnian formula between serving and served spaces [66, p. 27]. There is no sequence that gives a sense of directionality or a goal but it is programmatically chaotic and surprising. Although in some occasions the path provides glimpses of what is next, often it is narrow and opaque and deceives the building’s empirical, aleatory structure. Rather than focusing in the interior, it puts the city on stage, framing a showcase of unusual city views, revealing to be open to what is remote as much as it looks closed and autistic with respect to the spaces it connects. The Civic Library in Seattle (1999–2004) gives Koolhaas the opportunity to achieve some of the solutions expressed in the Jussieu Libraries project. The amount

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of collected data on the typology of library are used to criticize and integrate the original program and setting a new order of relationships between spaces. The building is conceived as a micro-city, incorporating urban programs (parks, cafes and shops) to simulate an atmosphere of “metropolitan congestion”. By shifting and detaching four flat boxes, in-between spaces are created and enveloped by a transparent membrane joining the edges of solids. While the platforms/boxes (stable parts) are suspended in a sort of theatrical motion, the in-between spaces (instable parts) provide a visual relationship between the different processes and induce a frenetic desire to climb, explore, enjoy the views of the internal landscape and take part in the events. A continuous spiraling promenade architecturale enables a smooth transition from the exterior street life and links all of the programs, while the Book Spiral at the fifth level provides a continuous ramp connecting differing collections and travelling between the all storage levels. “The reader accordingly becomes a flâneur simultaneously seduced by the miscellaneous selection of books as well as by the possibility of social intercourse and visual stimulation” [67]. Readers and visitors are not directed by architectural elements through a predetermined path but are rather left free to explore. Thus, they swarm everywhere, excited by the variegated alternation of solids and voids, of lights and shadows, of compressions and expansions. Although the escalators occasionally pre-define the social ascending path, whereas the connection among the levels was designed to be achieved through the pliable surfaces in Jussieu Libraries, the number of flaneurs wandering around in serendipity is surprising and literally turns the library interior into a city. This is also indirectly confirmed by the barriers and signs the employees were forced to add in order to invite people to channel themselves along trajectories both for security reasons and to try to limit “the intrusiveness that often comes at the expense of operators and readers, unable to find a sheltered corner in which to carve out a moment of intimacy with the book” [68, p. 2].

4 Representing and Communicating Both Venturi and Koolhaas produced architecture that plays with representation and communication. Without evoking the several, learned citations to historical buildings present in Venturi/Scott Brown’s works, the Benjamin Franklin’s house in Philadelphia can provide an efficient example of this attitude. Built on the foundation of the original house, a metal frame evokes its three-dimensional shape like the outline of a drawing (Fig. 8). This sort of on-site full-scale model recalls an episode linked to the communication of Kollhaas’ Villa Dall’Ava. Pedretti [69] confessed that after seeing the early pictures, Casabella editorial staff rumoured that Villa Dall’Ava did not actually exist, that it was only a full-scale model or a marketing operation, perhaps a reflection on the surrealist unstable boundaries between real and virtual and indeed “the whole building recalls children’s drawings, the dreams of Little Nemo and, above all, the scenarios of certain Spirou’s comics” [66].

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Fig. 8 R Venturi, D Scott Brown, Franklin Court, Philadelphia, 1976. Photo by J. Klee

As already mentioned for their post-modern approach to references, also in the design communication Venturi and Koolhaas have turned to historical models, though with different attitudes. For example, both of them used the Beaux-Arts’ technique of poche, which denoted “the hatching or rendering in fields of colour of masonry that is sectioned” [70, p. 131] in presentation plan drawings. Venturi used it to express the space between the lining and the exterior wall, properly a manifestation of the contradiction between the inside and the outside [71, p. 80]. Koolhaas adopted it by taking the distance from both the classical meaning and the way Venturi (and Colin Rowe) was using it. In particular, in the Tres Grand Bibliotheque, whose model incidentally quotes Moretti’s (1972–53) plaster “negative” models of historical buildings, he adopted the poche to evidence the separation and contradictions between

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the exterior and the interior of the cube, resulting of a speculation on the qualities of an ideal isotropic, homogeneous and continuous space, with no trace of the force of gravity. “The radical inversion of architectural poche, in terms of space as well as tectonics, from a device of urban contextualisation to one of internal lobotomy, from antithesis of the free plan to enabler of the free section, conjoins ideas which previously were conceptual antagonisms” [70, p. 131]. Anyway, OMA’s early visual models came from the Modernist tradition. Their practice in the architectural representation was constantly on the borderline with visual arts, often referring directly to the experiences of the historical avant-garde as well as Archigram and Superstudio. In particular, early OMA’s members were oriented toward a design communication primarily made of axonometric views [73] and photomontage. The drawing technique was thought in order to convey every intention in great detail without reducing project’s sense of reality. Madalone Vriesdorp and Zoe Zenghelis, the two painters of the original team, used to produce wide isometrics and bird’s-eye views, often obtained by re-drawing the study-models, that were regularly coloured with combined watercolours, gouache and coloured chalks as a factor of contextualization or estrangement. Elia Zenghelis thought this presentation method was necessary to communicate the content of the project and to avoid purely abstract discussions on architecture. He claimed that their early architectural representations were “partly descriptive and partly didactic in nature” [74] but certainly, since Exodus, “The paintings are not only to show the realization of projects but to seduce the public” [58, p. 21].

4.1 Landscape-Oriented Representations After the Zenghelis left OMA, Koolhaas gradually readdressed the design communication, thought photo-montage has been practiced throughout the diffusion of digital tools in the 1990s and 2000s. With the re-organization of the office and the structuring of the design process as a collective process, he also opened himself to the visual contributes of his younger collaborators. On the one hand, he collected models and techniques able to illustrate the quantitative aspects, in particular the considered topics and the data gathered about the site and project; on the other hand, he collected visual models able to illustrate the qualitative aspects and to provide the project with a visual imagery and a narrative dimension [75]. A first group of them belongs to the tradition of folk media such as comics strips or the famous Image d’Épinal, and can be considered as an extension of Koolhaas’ peculiar interest in old postcards. Through this kind of representations, Koolhaas intends to immerse his projects in the fictive context of a popular, visual imagery. Like the postcards for New York, they have the task of orienting the reading of the project, generally conveying extraarchitectural, playful meanings, and to generate a dream-like dimension which is a combination between what the world thinks about the building and what the building thinks of itself.

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For example, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam is represented in form of developed elevations by cutting the building according to human motion along the routes: numbers and arrows are added to allow the cutting, folding and pasting of the six parts, half-way between a Goose-game and a Dolls’ House. The Educatorium in Utrecht is instead represented by developing floors and ceilings surfaces on a common plane, with curved arrows indicating the necessary folding to obtain a threedimensional cardboard model (Fig. 10). The Seattle Civic Library, which is formed by a continuous edged envelope, is represented as a developed surface, too, on a sort of postcard that could be bought on the place. On the contrary, the office blocks designed in Frankfurt, the Zeebrugge Sea Terminal and the Agadir complex have been presented through pen-drawn cartoon-like sketches, most of which were made by Jan Neutelings (Fig. 9). Although they have been systematically banned from the book S,M,L,XL, in which only orthogonal projections, model views and renderings are admitted, they were the main visual device for the communication of the Eurolille urban development. Sketches like the one of the Piranesian space, which makes a show of the infrastructural complexity through perspectival derogations, transparency effects and a general relationship with the comic art techniques, allow “a barrage of speculation and, secondly, to ensure certain communication requisites, in particular the political ones” [66]. A second group of visual models were instead borrowed from other fields, with a scientific attitude. For example, photographs of models are often used as shots from a documentary film. Generally depicting hands cutting, folding and pasting pieces of papers and foam, they put on scene a making-of the project, which contributes both to create a sort of aura around the work and to let the reader share the ludic side of its

Fig. 9 OMA Sketches: Zebrugge Terminal; Eurolille; Hotel and Convention Center in Agadir. Courtesy of OMA

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Fig. 10 OMA Postcards: Seattle Public Library; Utrecht Educatorium; Rotterdam Kunsthal. Courtesy of OMA

creation stages, as already practiced by Jörn Utzon in his design communication [76]. Besides photographs, OMA’s design communication is largely based on diagrams borrowed from scientific disciplines and cartography-oriented tools from geography and geology. Since the Parc de la Villette project (1982), the diagram has been elected as a privileged device to investigate and express the architectural phenomena. Statistical analyses, simplified plans and volumetric schemes to clarify design genetic, distribution or functional solutions have been systematically hybridised with texts, symbols and patterns from other disciplines, to communicate projects’ numbers and ratios through the same visual language of an atlas, a financial newspaper or one of his books. While describing the quantitative aspects of a building, these diagrams and graphs metaphorically convey the idea of the project as a scientific, tested solution. Cartographic suggestions can be found in the villa in Floirac, which is conceived and represented as an observatory box pointing towards the surrounding countryside. Accordingly, it is represented in form of circular panoramic profile, a central bird’seye perspective that can be seen, for example, in Niklas Meldemann’s circular view of Vienna from the time of the First Turkish Siege or, more recently, in Bernard Rudofsky’s orientation map of the island of Procida (Fig. 11).

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Fig. 11 Comparison between Bernard Rudofsky’s orientation map of the isle of Procida (1935) and the plan of OMA’s Villa in Floirac. Courtesy of OMA

More cartographic suggestions can be found in the contour-line plan of the Agadir Center and the designs of the Jussieu Libraries, as well. This is another fundamental example of his landscape-buildings, which confidently Koolhaas added as an appendix (a sort of message in the bottle) in his S,M,L,XL. The upper plans of the huge transparent cube show excerpts from Giovan Battista Piranesi’s plan of Campo Marzio while the roof plan presents two small hills, possibly a quotation of the roof-garden of Le Corbusier’s Unitè d’Habitation, drafted by contour-lines. The practice of geologists and geographers inspired the unusual vertical sections whose height is stretched at 500% to emphasize slopes and anticipate the direct experience of space, resulting in a deformed silhouette borrowed from a Tour de France’s mountain stage. Jussieu Libraries’ facades are instead developed as a long continuous ribbon focusing on the ascending route, perhaps a metaphor of a papyrus. This idea of unfolding the interior path is enhanced in the drawings of the Dutch Embassy in Berlin. Here, portions of the plan showing the ascending path are rotated around numbered hinges and assembled together to provide a developed synopsis of the internal trajectory projected onto a single horizontal plane (Fig. 12). This drawing is then combined with a developed section, composed of portions whose cutting plane moves along the axis of the path. While the black background on which the drawings float strengthens the geological suggestion of a carved, underground habitat, the representation of space in form of a grid of nodes can be associated to maps, from the Tavola Peutingeriana to the 1931 London Tube Map, which are formally unfaithful to the territory but are easy to carry and consult to organize a travel (or a plot) in a sequence. Most of these representations have the task of supporting a metaphorical interpretation of architecture and city in form of landscape. While the former group, which is based on popular media, is called to arrange a sort of cultural landscape around the projects, the latter is addressed to frame the design in an expanded context made of place and time, suggesting a visual key to translate it into a landscape. A later example

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Fig. 12 OMA Unfolding: Axonometric view and developed path of Jussieu Libraries in different scales (above); developed plan and section of the path inside the Dutch Embassy in Berlin. Courtesy of OMA

of this latter group is provided by AMO’s (2004) Post-Occupancy, a Domus d’Autore dedicated to the contribute of workers and visitors to built architecture, literally in the act of turning architecture into landscape. Here, OMA’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the IIT, Chicago is illustrated by both photographic sections and ring-shaped photographs. In order to decipher the latter, the reader has to take the chrome sheet purposely attached to the journal, to roll it and put it at the center of the photograph. According to the principle of the cylindrical anamorphosis, the picture mirrored in the sheet appears as a 360° cylindrical panorama which needs the reader to move around it while holding the sheet. They are just pictures but they require a collaboration of the whole body and eyes (Fig. 13).

5 Conclusion The contribute of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s studies to the architectural research of Rem Koolhaas is both methodological and operative. Learning from Las Vegas gave him the results of an objective method in which a city can be assumed as a spontaneous, collective work produced by a specific socio-economic condition and analyzed as a Surrealistic cadavre exquis. As the Venturi focus on the car as a key to understanding Las Vegas’ architectural mutations towards a landscape of signs, Koolhaas identifies the lift, a vehicle controlled through an interface of signs, as the key device to ensure the functioning of New York skyscrapers. While the Venturi underline the need of iconicity for the buildings perceived at speed, Koolhaas identifies the generic nature of the curtain-wall as an opportunity to free the architectural envelope from any rhetorical task with respect to the interior as well as

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Fig. 13 Cylindrical anamorphosis of the photographic views of McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the IIT, Chicago through the mirroring cardboard in Domus d’Autore Post-Occupancy. Photo by F Colonnese

to give centrality to the space and people, to their gazes and actions. As the Venturi, influenced by the studies being developed in Boston, read Las Vegas as a landscape addressed to tourists from all over, Koolhaas interprets New York as a metropolitan landscape built by generations of citizens, immigrants and travelers through postcards and cinema. Although Venturi’s direct influence is difficult to be measured and generally deceived by Koolhaas himself, the Dutch architect gradually focused on the landscape as a key for interpreting and planning the city. He assumed it not only as a process—like for the projects for the Parc de la Villette and the libraries of Jussieu— or as a figure—like for the projects for the Town Hall in The Hague and the Congress Center in Agadir—but mainly as a concept. In an age in which even cathedrals are industrially built of precast pieces in a few weeks, landscape appears to be a concept that embodies the value of a constantly changing, collective work. It can incorporate the points of view of an entire community and overcoming the institutional, anachronistic separations between architecture, city and territory. A term used by Koolhaas himself to describe both architecture and city, the landscape is gradually assumed as a medium capable of blending different disciplines and scales of intervention. This allows him to embrace serenely the complexity and contradictions, the

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architectural categories revalued by Venturi, which inexorably permeate the contemporary design process; to get rid of architectural conventions and canonical design figures and ideologies, eventually reducing everything to a brutal question of size. When compared with the consolidated design practice, the landscape allows to shift the focus from the architecture’s form and rhetoric onto functions, movement and narration. This complex strategy, which results of the experiences accumulated—first as a journalist and director, and then as a student and architect—is implemented by a series of radical choices. From the point of view of the design practice, his organization of OMA office after the Zenghelis left is fundamental. By opening the office to a multitude of subjects and collaborators, he favored the formation of a micro-model of the global society—the globe that appears in so many projects can be interpreted as a metaphor for OMA itself—and directed the design process in the form of a choral action that allows multiple parties to contribute. Like a cathedral, which arises from the work of generations of carpenters and stonemasons or a rural landscape that acquires form and identity from the work of generations of farmers and shepherds, a work of architecture can be a collective work, a true metaphor of the landscape that incorporates a myriad of gazes. From this point of view, the boxes and spheres, which embody the architectural program in the early projects, have the task to give unity to all of the contributes, to make the context look different and let the body focus on space, according to a certain Land Art approach. By giving up his authorship on the project and assuming the role of editor for himself, Koolhaas acquires the detachment to see the project in both critical and aesthetic terms. First, he lays the foundations for presenting the project scientifically, through an apparatus of schemes, figures and diagrams that somehow became OMA’s stylistic code, and demonstrating that that project is a rational, incontestable response to demands. Second, he builds a rich visual imagery around the project, through the use of historical visual models, popular media and a photographic making-of the design process, which eventually places the project itself in a sort of fictitious, cultural landscape open to narrative, emotive participation of readers. Through these actions, he tries to give an aura to the project by showing it as a sort of seductive merveille capable of activating real “event-fields” [59]. As Betsky [77, p. 39] said, “Architecture is no longer just a question of building, but of condensing into a form that is both insubstantial (modernist) and seductive (Manhattanist) enough to become mythic”. Finally, the work of architecture does not end with the construction but feeds on further looks and actions through the occupation and the transformations made by its inhabitants. In particular, the theme of the movement, so central to the formation of the modern concept of landscape, both in the formation of the detached gaze of the flâneur and the tourist, and in the experience of the territory at speed, is declined in multiple deviations of promenade architecturale that provide visitors and employers with a critical, perceptual instrument useful to realize the institutional limits of the building—think of the Disneyland-like Odysseus or the city-addressed route in the Embassy—and to contribute to new, disruptive ways of using and evolving it.

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In the early 1970s, De Carlo [78, p. 38] wrote: “In my opinion, contemporary architects should do all they can in order to make the architecture of the years to come less and less the representation of the designer and more and more the representation of who uses it”. In his sort of “un-authored”, landscape-inspired architecture, Koolhaas promotes the participation or, at least, a mediated version of it: while conceiving the program, by brutally assuming the social-economical context, during the design process, by opening it to collaborators and influences; in the presentation, by adopting a target-oriented communication; after the building, by promoting exploration, adaptive-strategies and posthumous representations.

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Complexity and Contradiction in Utzon’s Work Jaime J. Ferrer Forés

Abstract Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture reflects the general mood of the Third Generation. Venturi’s vision of architecture is essentially poetic. As Philip Drew states: “it arises from a belief in life as complex and ironic”. An architecture and a landscape enlivened by ambiguity and tension and based on the recognition of the inherent limitations of systems of order. Third Generation turned to unselfconscious architecture as a primitive model and inspiration for intrinsic, organic systems of order. Informed by engagement with place, phenomenology and tectonics, Nordic Architecture had a seminal role in shifting the theoretical dogmas of modernism towards a more humane and contextual direction. The work of Jørn Utzon (1918– 2008) represents a particular interpretation of the Nordic Empiricism with a transcultural dimension that provided a unique interpretation of place and landscape. Utzon’s work represent a poetic essay in the human and tectonic engagement with place and his courtyard complexes are an interesting attempt to move from the rigid parceling planning to create an urban proposal, which in a live form links house and garden seeking to avoid any form of monotony. The project creates a beautiful and natural relation to the green areas. In the project, dwelling and garden design is inextricably linked together and form a beautiful overall picture. Jørn Utzon’s work emphasizes his appreciation of nature and his capacity to read the context with a respectful insertion in the environment as a result of the awareness of the territory. Keywords Complexity · Contradiction · Landscape · Jørn utzon · Picturesqueness

1 Introduction Robert Venturi was one of the most coherent critic of the functionalist orthodoxies. In 1966, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture presented an inclusive and ironic eclecticism where the history of architecture came across more as a process of continuity than of rupture. The influence of the book has been constant. Its first J. J. Ferrer Forés (B) Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_29

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lines are a reference: “I speak of complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art” [19]. Venturi draws inspiration from the wealth of periods and from architects like Michelangelo, Palladio or Borromini, and among the moderns, Le Corbusier, Wright, Aalto and Kahn. Relatively few illustrations of the book convey urban scale and the text discusses landscape and townscape only occasionally. But in his 1950 Princeton Master thesis titled “Context in Architectural composition” Venturi describes how buildings he knew about from images, especially Medieval and Baroque piazzas, surprised him because of the opportunity to include and relate the individual building and the setting, to perceive in a perceptual. Venturi also describes how Sitte’s City Planning According to Its Artistic Principles (1945), inspired his enthusiasm for Italian piazzas and the strong emphasis on site specific and to relate in scale and material to their surroundings. Venturi expands the sources of architectural inspiration, taking cues from the context. For Venturi synthesis is everything. Alvar Aalto supported synthesis seeing in each architectural product the interaction between the local and general processes of architecture. The innovative nature of Aalto’s work shows more flexible principles and forms through his “humanist rationalism” [8]. The humanizing elements that had been missing in the International Style architecture became more obvious. The Masters of Modernism, such as Alvar Aalto began to incorporate primitive elements in their buildings. Aalto used in his buildings natural materials and methods which brought them in harmony with nature. The ideological break with the modern abstraction at the same time it is rooted in the tradition. Like Alvar Aalto, Jørn Utzon has achieved a lyrical synthesis of the vernacular and the modernist tradition, a new tradition to humanize architecture, as the gentle manifesto by Robert Venturi. Jørn Utzon’s response to landscape and people reveals a human architecture demonstrating the potential to develop and enhance the understanding of Aalto’s ideas [5]. Utzon wrote that Aalto “represented for the Scandinavian architects the home switched on that gave us warmth and inspiration”. In Utzon’s work there is a marked tendency to integrate the building into the site, manifesting sensitivity towards the topography and the context and revealing features that reflect the influence of Aalto’s thinking: the endeavor for a synthesis of organic and strictly geometric forms, of standard and individual elements; interest in more flexible building systems inspired by traditional architecture and taking into consideration the needs of nature and mankind [8]. Through exhaustive typological and morphological analysis the article presents Jørn Utzon’s experimental tradition in the field of housing as a landscaped composition that responds to the principles established in his early competitions: total separation between conflictive circulations systems, double access to the courtyard house, aggregate units formed by the addition of dwellings, and nature as a continuous central element of the grouping.

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2 Synthetic Contradiction. Landscapes for Living In his early years of practice, Jørn Utzon collaborated with his friend Tobias Faber. In their article “Tendenser i Nutidens Arkitektur” published in Arkitekten in 1947, they rejected the inhuman functionalism orthodoxies and define their understanding of architecture: “people’s fundamental feeling for architecture, a feeling which through the ages has been the foundation of a true architecture" [14]. To show their ideas selected 27 images from vernacular buildings, organic forms and some works by Wright and Aalto. In 1948, Utzon’s wrote an article entitled “The essence of architecture". Utzon reveals a sensitive and sensible approach, a sense of ancient values, “being in contact with our surroundings" [15]. By comparison, Venturi’s complexity theory shares his early interest in the significance of the context in architecture. In his Master thesis entitled “Context in Architectural composition” Venturi wrote: “existing conditions around the site that should become a part of any design problem should be respected". Venturi’s words are closely aligned with Jørn Utzon’s awareness of place. With Tobias Faber, they took part in various competitions for public buildings and housing complexes. In its emphasis on place, their proposals were consciously grounded in the particularities of the place. The housing competition in Viborg, Denmark in 1944, which received a mention in the competition, was one of the Utzon’s first attempts at large-scale housing development and landscaping. The project combines the urban systematic arrangement of the multi-family blocks and the one-family terraced houses which assume a more intense relationship with the natural area. The project was selected for purchase and the jury wrote: “the proposal show a free solution with a beautiful adaptation of houses in terrain and a characteristic utilization of the slope in the terraced houses. However, southern houses look too unusual” [9]. Despite the jury’s comments, the sequence of residential units in the landscape revealed a concern to ground the individual building to the terrain and the awareness of the landscape. The characteristic Danish landscape is emphasized in a playful sequence of displacements in his competition entry for a Housing complex in Caroline Amalie vej, Lyngby, Denmark in 1945. The proposal impressed Professor Kay Fisker, one of the judges. Utzon’s project was awarded as “an interesting attempt to move from the common rigid parcelling planning to create an urban proposal, which in a live form links house and garden seeking to avoid any form of monotony. The project creates a beautiful and natural relation to the green areas. In the project, dwelling and garden design is inextricably linked together and will form a beautiful overall picture”. The proposal was further developed over the many years ahead in a succession of housing projects, developed in the Skånska Hustyper competition (1953) and finally built in Kingo housing complex in Helsingør (1956) and Fredensborg (1959). In addition, the jury considers the Lyngby house unit as a “beautiful and clear plan, cleverly designed. Each room is in contact with the shielded outdoor space”. This unit built up around a sheltering wall was developed further in the Skånska Hustyper competition for low-cost housing in Skåne, Sweden in 1953. The project, submitted

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with the motto “Private life”, was developed in collaboration with Ib Møgelvang and was awarded first prize among 74 proposals submitted. The jury committee, composed by the Swedish renowned architect Erik Ahlsén and the Danish architect Nils Koppel, among others, commented on its high level, both as an idea and as well planned architectural project. “The idea, which is to build up every house within its four walls, can develop freely according to different families’ needs, presented in a convincing way in a range of options. Both described the project as evidence of a rational approach to an industrial production of the house” [1]. The house unit constitutes the elementary module of the grouping. The dwelling is developed on a square enclosure of 20 × 20 m and by two built wings. The courtyardhouse unit is built up around a patio demarcated by an L-shaped house and sheltering walls. The units are closed to the strong and constant wind and open to the south onto the faraway views and the protected landscape. The patio house is defined by a wall 3 m high. Utzon wrote, “the wall, as protection and an architectural element is something I have studied through the World, in China, Algeria, and in the Andes Mountains. One can place small, delicate living things in front of it” [18]. The proposal is conceived from the traditional model of Danish farms composed around a protected central patio [11]. The proposed model also alludes to Chinese traditional settlements constituted through private patios and Arab cities structured through courtyard houses archetype. As Utzon stated in the competition report: “The courtyard is the centre of family life” [1]. The neighbours all had huts, sheds or some kind of shelters for a variety of activities or simply storing items for family activities as a hobby room, greenhouse or even a boat building. But the courtyard also enhance the transition between the building and the landscape as a way of grounding the building in the place. The courtyard house as an archetype from ancient building cultures was developed simultaneously by Aalto and Utzon. The competition was promoted to propose low-cost houses and settlement patterns suited to the outskirts of rural towns in the Skåne region characterized by a smooth and windswept landscape. The jury asserts: “there are many opportunities to place this house-type in different environments, either side by side in a suburb, open air or in small independent groups out there in the countryside” [1]. The unit prototype is build up around a courtyard that mediates between the building and its natural surroundings. The patio establishes a private domain in close contact to the nature. The committee also stressed: “with the intimate protective farm, and the calm and character of the outer house may well be inserted in different landscapes. The interest of the proposal is thus that it offers many opportunities for a continued study of a vast number of variations adapted to individual needs. Even from an urban planning the proposal gives the rich opportunities for successful solutions. However, one should avoid the monotony that can occur when a dense plan of the type is developed” [1]. The jury appreciated all the principles of the proposal and its enormous potential for adaptation to different contexts and situations. Nevertheless, despite obtaining first prize, the scheme did not lead to any commission in Sweden, due to which Utzon promoted the development of the model in the Kingo housing complex in Helsingør

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(1956) and Fredensborg (1959–65) grounding the individual house to the specific place in the landscape and giving the complex a unique singular appearance. Organized around a lake and pronounced topographical variations the symmetrical variation of the units in the Kingo housing complex, from type A to type E, and their discontinuous succession allow adaptation to the specialized access roads, the views from the patios and the relationship with the next-door dwellings (Fig. 1). The development consists of sixty houses and the wall that emphasizes the boundary line of the courtyard house is interrupted and the patio is used as an element of mediation with the surrounding nature. The patio-houses are conceived with a limited set of materials: brickwork, wood frame and ceramic roof tiles. Developed on a 15 × 15 m square, the dwelling is set up on a 4.5 m bay around a central patio and unfolds according to family needs. The 45 courtyard houses built in Bjuv (1956) developed the principles and mechanisms of adaptation to the environment of the hoses conceived in the Skåne competition. The complex is organized in three groups not subordinated to the road system but are established on the basis of obliquity and displacement. Conceived by an association of residents living abroad, Dansk Samvirke, the Fredensborg housing complex is grounded in the distinguished locality of the Fredensborg characterized by the Royal Palace and the green open areas and gardens (Fig. 2). On a gentle slope to the south and on the edge of a verdant wood a succession of seven aggregate units is set out in four cul-de-sac specialized roads that give access to the courtyard houses (Fig. 3). The patio house unit, from type A to type D, is developed on the model constructed in the Kingo Houses. Established on two sides of an

Fig. 1 Jørn Utzon. Kingo housing complex in Helsingør, Denmark, 1956. Source Author

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Fig. 2 Jørn Utzon. Fredensborg housing complex, Denmark, 1959–65

approximately 15 × 15 m square, the 47 patio houses is organized around the patio as an element of mediation with the surrounding nature. The complex comprises also 30 one-family terraced houses and a social centre with units for guests. The housing complexes in Helsingør and Fredensborg construct a landscaped composition that responds to the principles established in the early competitions: total separation between conflictive circulations systems, double access to the courtyard house, aggregate units formed by the addition of dwellings, and nature as a continuous central element of the grouping. Aalto’s ideas on urban planning were based on the interaction between the built and natural environment. “When one talks with Aalto about a city should be like, he spreads his fingers: ‘Look at my hand. The fingers are housing areas, the area between is nature. (…) You should not be able to go from home work without passing through a forest” [12]. Utzon’s Fredensborg housing complex summarizes Aalto’s principle. Later on, he built the housing complexes in the outskirts of Bjuv (1956) and Lund (1957) both in Sweden. The Planetstaden housing complex in Lund (1957) is set up on two perimetral roadways. The 45 courtyard houses are closed off on the street side and extend over the continuous garden surrounding. The courtyard-house unit is built up around a patio demarcated by an L-shaped house and sheltering walls.

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Fig. 3 Jørn Utzon. Fredensborg housing complex, Denmark, 1959–65. Source Author

The units are closed to the strong and constant wind and open to the south onto the faraway views and the protected landscape (Fig. 4). The Skjern row houses (1954–1956) built with Bent Alstrup is also characterized by the private garden and the free-standing 3 × 4 service unit linked to the house via the pergola (Fig. 5). Thus it is guaranteed that the singularity of each dwelling is not watered down in the oneness of the 20 row houses.

3 Intricately Interconnected Venturi reveals a common sensible approach: “Cannot the architect and planner, by slight adjustments to the conventional elements of the townscape, existing or proposed, promote significant effects?” [19]. As a reaction against site division and individual houses, Utzon’s schemes combine terrace housing with a continuous green space. Utzon’s architectural group form variation is determined and essentially fixed by the place and topography. The diversity of forms resulting is a response to local circumstances. The skilful placement of the patio houses has created a landscape for living. With access road on one side and a view to the open landscape from each patio house, the patio is an enclosed space that proposes outdoor life with nature. The patio extend life into the landscape and provides an intermediate space protected to create habitable environment.

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Fig. 4 Jørn Utzon. Housing complex in Lund, Sweden, 1957. Source Author

Fig. 5 Jørn Utzon. Skjern Row-houses, Denmark, 1954. Source Author

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In his article “The essence of architecture”, Utzon summarizes his architectural approach deeply rooted in Scandinavian cultural tradition: “this is the way forward to an architecture that is both varied and human” [15]. The significance of the context Venturi’s theories of complexity sought to open architectural discourse to the “diverse” and “intricate” influences of the place and the “messy vitality” of daily life. Asserting a humanistic vision, Utzon’s work relates to Venturi’s arguments to incorporate social richness and formal complexity into architectural discourse and the sense of the multiplicity of urban perception emphasizing “a variety of focuses” in his housing complexes. His sensitivity to materials, site specificities, structure and his subtle use of the modular plan recalls Utzon’s connection with the cultures of the past and his immediate predecessors, as Alvar Aalto [6]. Utzon work combines with extremely delicate balance abstracted cultural characteristics with more modern practices. As Kenneth Frampton pointed out, “no living tradition remains to modern man other than the subtle procedures of synthetic contradiction” [4]. The fundamental idea of Critical Regionalism, Frampton argued is to “cultivate a contemporary place-oriented culture”, “locally inflected” [4]. Utzon’s work combines Scandinavian modernist tradition and the timeless eloquence of anonymous or historic architectures learned in his travels [3]. As Venturi pointed out: “I like elements which are hybrid rather than ‘pure’” [19]. Utzon’s obstinate repetition, simplicity and material textures originate from his trip to Morocco during the forties and the Mexican journey, where he discovered the ancient primitive forms of horizontal platforms. His works and projects illustrates Utzon’s masterly reinterpretation of the symbolic past.

4 Earthbound Architecture Utzon’s tenacious experimental tradition in the field of housing was developed throughout his long career (Ferrer Fores 2006; [20]. In his early competition project for the Bellahøj district of Copenhagen in 1945, carried out in collaboration with Tobias Faber, the isolated volumes located in singular environments and the assemblages of houses will give to the outskirts a certain urban character. When the traditional city grows generating new developments, it is possible to obtain a greater formal and typological freedom using an assemblage of freestanding pieces. In this way, Utzon and Faber have raised a combination of high and medium-rise blocks disposed to exploit and enhance the landscape. Residential towers make their way into the urban profile, becoming housing landmarks. Nevertheless, their proposal was purchased but not awarded a prize. The winning design, by Mogens Irming and Tage Nielsen, was a multi-storey housing blocks that freed the ground for parks and open areas. However, the judges had praised Utzon and Faber “landscape work” and wrote: “the combination of the high-rise blocks in connection with the low-lying building obtains a living silhouette”. Nevertheless, the jury, composed by Frits Schegel and Eske Kristensen, among others, had considered less well placed the multi-family

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blocks on the lake and also commented on practical criticism: high rise building shall comply correctly specific fire regulations [10]. On a hillside of Borås, Sweden, and with views onto a wide landscape, Utzon and Faber have pushed into the slope a stepped sequence of volumes in their next competition for housing in Borås, in 1947 (Fig. 6). A set of towers of massive appearance and a long and low-lying building compose a peculiar residential complex, whose stepped silhouette evokes the unevenness of the terrain. The proposal called “Kontrapunkt” exemplifies Utzon’s early desire to adapt construction to the topography and landscape. Utzon lyrically describes his proposal: “the dwellings open themselves as flowers towards the sun”. The configuration of the plan evokes Alvar Aalto’s fan-shaped layout opens toward the landscape. In addition, the party walls become large planes sheltering the deep shade of the balcony as an element to individualize each unit and also taking advantage of the slope to offer a different kind of dwelling at each level. The jury appreciates its “attempt to find a residential assemblage adapted to the landscape as contrary to the usual rigid forms of residential complexes” and had commended “the proposal, whose author unfortunately ignored part of the program required in the brief, is awarded with a mention”. In 1954, working in Helsingborg in association with Erik and Henry Andersson, Utzon developed the competition for and administration centre and housing complex in Marieberg, Stockholm in 1954. With the motto “Sol”, two guidelines define Utzon’s proposal: to emphasize the landscape, placing special interest on its natural condition, and to intensify its communal character proposing an almost urban density for the administrative facilities.

Fig. 6 Jørn Utzon. Competition project for housing in Borås, Sweden, 1947

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The proposal pays special attention to the geographical valorization of the site. In Marieberg, situated on Kungsholmen Island, the excellent views, the presence of water, the proximity with the city centre and the singular character of the site as a rocky promontory were emphasized. In this way, Utzon have raised a sequence of volumes in the bay of Mälaren landscape that contemplates an administrative centre laid out on a series of open blocks and a housing complex which descends across the terrain towards the shore. The jury emphasized its landscape integration: “the proposed scheme is consistently adapted to the topography and landscape, which gives the proposal a great interest”. The judges Sven M. Backström, Sven Markelius and Nils Tesch, among others, recognized the architectural values of the scheme, despite its not fulfilling all the demands of the program. Therefore, among 18 proposals submitted to the competition, Utzon’s proposal was purchased and the proposal with the motto “Butterfly” submitted by Ahlström, Bryde and Astrom had won first prize. His next effort together with the Andersson office, in 1954, was a competition for housing in Elineberg, Helsingborg, Sweden. In Helsingborg, facing the Øresund, Utzon has raised six fourteen-storey tower on a continuous platform along the edge of the slope (Fig. 7). During the first phase of the competition, the proposal was a 600 m long building in eight floors. At the second stage of the competition, the project, which avoids blocking the views of the area behind, is fragmented in a sequence of high-rise buildings set out on the slope on top of a podium. The high-rise towers were designed as incremental aggregates of the individual flats, much as in Borås housing project of 1947, stepping back and forth the units.

Fig. 7 Jørn Utzon. Elineberg, Helsingborg, Sweden, 1954. Source Author

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The setbacks produce spacious terraces and define a singular profile of the complex. Just the same arrangement he had proposed, in Borås (1947) and Marieberg (1954). In addition, the floors are terraced –the higher, the steeper the steps–, designed to make the most of the impressive panoramic views of the Øresund. The project which was awarded first prize was built by the Andersson, losing all the refinement of the competition project. However, Elineberg residential complex rises as an urban reference on Helsingborg’s waterfront. Utzon develops the sequence of towers tried out in Bellahøj (1945) and Elineberg (1954) facing the Øresund in 1959 in a large-scale planning design competition for the development of Frederiksberg, Copenhagen which won first prize. With the motto “Manhattan”, Utzon’s Elineberg towers were ranged along the frontage of Copenhagen lakes in Frederiksberg (Fig. 8). Arne Jacobsen was one of the judges in the competition. The committee considered: “among the 71 projects submitted, Jørn Utzon’s project was assigned first prize for its undeniable and purely artistic values”. In addition, the jury describes the proposal submitted: “the sketch presented is an abstract composition placed over a dream-like landscape” [13]. Utzon proposal was typical radically. He proposed to enlarge his ideas beyond the specific area extending a green area into the heart of the city to connect Frederiksberghave to the lakes. Utzon described it: “to create a huge, open space limited by the surrounding 5-story building uniform walls. This open area and location in Copenhagen will be able to give real qualities to the citizens as well as local residents and those working in the area. In order to reinforce the green area, a watercourse is proposed, which runs from Frederiksberghave to the lakes”. The jury responds enthusiastically to Utzon’s proposal: “naturally, the grand gesture which linked the project to Frederiksberghave, the municipality’s new centre and lakes in a breathtaking way is a great challenge to the economic and social powerlessness inhibiting urban building everywhere private property is a sacred cow” [13]. Despite obtaining first prize, Utzon’s urban design was not adopted, because the municipality pretended a greater density of building.

5 Conclusion. Simplicity and Complexity Utzon’s work may also be seen as a development of the Modern Movement rather than as a rejection of it, and as a way of reintegrating its spatial and constructional potential with the more tectonic aspects of the craft tradition. To Robert Venturi: “The best twentieth-century architects have usually rejected simplification -that is, simplicity through reduction- in order to promote complexity within the whole” [19]. Utzon’s work is far richer than the simplification of rationalistic orthodoxies. Utzon’s work incorporate formal complexity into architectural discourse. As Louis Kahn, Jørn Utzon reveals his “desire for simplicity”: “We find the same of logic in construction and dimensions everywhere in primitive architecture, where this simplicity seems clears relaxed and natural, while we have to make enormous efforts to achieve to clear and simple result” [16]. To Robert Venturi: “The Doric temple could achieve

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Fig. 8 Jørn Utzon. Competition project Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark,1959

apparent simplicity through real complexity” [19]. Jørn Utzon particular synthesis allows him to advance towards a mature building culture. To Robert Venturi: “An architecture of complexity and contradiction, however, does not mean picturesqueness or subjective expressionism. A false complexity has recently countered the false simplicity of an earlier Modern architecture” [19]. Utzon’s housing groups form complexity is as Venturi reveals: “part of the program and structure of the whole, rather than a device justified only by the desire for expression” [19].

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Utzon’s work is characterized by the progressive assimilation and reinterpretation of the Modern Movement and by the vindication of the cultural roots of the traditional constructive culture. Giedion, qualifies Utzon as the exponent of the Third Generation characterized by a “stronger relation with the past; not expressed in forms but in the sense of an internal relation and in a desire of continuity” [7]. To understand the richness of discourses on architecture in their full range and complexity, Complexity and Contradiction vindicates, a sensitive approach, a sense of ancient values. Utzon’s fascination with the complexity of other building cultures has influenced his work. His approach to architecture site specific and poetic is presented in the analysis of his landscapes for living. Utzon’s continuous explorations through competitions were designed with a lyrical language that echoes the landscape [17]. His sensitivity towards nature, deeply rooted in the culturally defined relationship with the landscape, achieves an intense sense of place, to adapt buildings to the surrounding landscape. Philip Drew reveals his sensible approach: “Utzon’s response to landscape and people imbue his architecture with an enduring quality of human richness” [2]. His architecture is inspired by the eternal values of life and nature and his designs incorporate a notion of constructive thought. Robert Venturi also support’s Utzon decision that “contrast between the inside and the outside can be a major manifestation of contradiction”. Contradictory interplay between inside and outside was expressed in Utzon’s work, as Sydney Opera House (1956–73) and Bagsværd Church (1968–76). Utzon’s work emphasizes his appreciation of nature and his capacity to read the context with a respectful insertion in the environment as a result of the awareness of the territory. Utzon ground his building in the topographic aspects of the built environment. Vernacular topography of the Kingo houses, with the landscaping intelligence of their courtyards arranged in sequences and the tactile sensibility of their brick textures summarizes his attitude towards nature and to the quality of materials. Housing landmarks tackle Utzon’s tenacious experimental tradition in the field of housing, designing building complexes that grow out of their unique landscapes creating, at the same time, landmarks. Most of his projects are conceived from a recognizable section, understanding the buildings as part of the territory, with the characteristic modern ambition of blending architecture and nature. Utzon’s landforms inflect the contours of the ground to reinforce the expressive attributes of the form. Utzon explored through competitions and projects unconventional possibilities and he realized that the essence of the problem, beyond the specific requests of the competition brief or the program, lay in the unique site.

References 1. Borg E (1953) Arkitekttävlingen Skånska Hustyper. Skånska Sparbanksföreningen, Lund 2. Drew P (1972) Third Generation The Changing Meaning of Architecture. Pall Mall Press , London 3. Ferrer Forés JJ (2006) Jørn Utzon. Works and Projects. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 4. Frampton K (1983) Prospects for a Critical Regionalism. Perspecta 20

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5. Frampton K (1999) Estudios sobre Cultura tectónica. Poéticas de la construcción en la arquitectura de los siglos XIX y XX. Akal, Madrid 6. Fromonot F (1998) Jørn Utzon: architetto della Sydney Opera House. Electa, Milano 7. Giedion S (1965) Jørn Utzon and the third generation. Zodiac 14 8. Gozak A (1981) Aalto and the Ethics of Creative Work. In: Mikkola K (ed) Alvar Aalto vs the Modern Movement. Alvar Aalto Symposium, Jyväskylä 9. Konkurrencem om en Bebyggelsesplan i Viborg (1947). Arkitekten Ugehæfte 29–30. 10. Kristensen E (1945) Konkurrencen om Bebyggelse på Bellahøj. Arkitekten Ugehæfte 4 11. Prip-Bus M (ed) (2004) The courtyard houses, Jørn Utzon Logbook, vol I. Bløndal, Hellerup 12. Schildt G (1986) Alvar Aalto: The Decisive Years. Rizzoli, New York 13. Skriver PE (1959) Konkurrencen om byplan for et område i Frederiksberg kommune. Arkitekten 9 14. Utzon J, Faber T (1947) Tendenser i Nutidens Arkitektur. Arkitekten 15. Utzon J (1948) The essence of Architecture. In: Ferrer Forés JJ (ed) (2006) Jørn Utzon. Works and Projects. Gustavo Gili, Bacelona 16. Utzon J (1952) Eget hus ved Hellebæk. Byggekunst 5. 17. Utzon J (1962) Platforms and plateaus: ideas of a Danish architect. Zodiac 10 18. Utzon J (2004) Jørn Utzon in conversation with Poul Erik Tøjner. Architecture as Human Wellbeing. In Jørn Utzon. The Architect’s Universe. Lousiana Revy 44 19. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 20. Weston R (2002) Jørn Utzon. Inspiration Vision Architecture. Edition: Bløndal, Hellerup

Contradiction Juxtaposed and Digital Representation in Contemporary Art: The Work of Dionisio González Angélica Fernández-Morales

Abstract The Spanish artist Dionisio González creates imaginary landscape images—urban or natural—from combining digital photographs of real scenes with renders of fictitious architecture, and extreme designs. His creative strategies are typical of contemporary artistic production, and can be compared to several ideas that Robert Venturi developed in his book “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, related to the phenomenon of “contradiction juxtaposed”: superadjacencies, shock effects, accidental contrasts, etc. The aesthetic results are also those suggested by Venturi: complexity, inclusion, richness of meaning and multi-faceted vision. González generates contradiction through the juxtaposition of reality and fiction, but also shows the contradictions of the real world through his selection of scenes, in which situations of social injustice, precariousness and vulnerability are often revealed—such as the favelas of Brazil, or places exposed to natural catastrophes, compelling the viewer into critical reflection. Dionisio González’s work reveals, on the one hand, contemporary art’s interest in architecture, cities and landscapes, and on the other the potential of digital representation—photographic rendering and retouchin—to construct virtual landscapes of extraordinary verisimilitude.

1 Introduction Art, architecture and landscape are disciplines that frequently interact and intermingle. In “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, although his analysis focused on architecture and the urban landscape, Venturi also made use of various examples of modern art, and especially, pop art, to illustrate his ideas. He believed that the ambiguity of images and complexity of meaning were part of the essence of art. Translating Venturi’s ideas into the XXI century, we present in this text an example of contemporary art in which complexity and contradiction play an important role, and that is also closely tied to the representation of art and landscape: the work of A. Fernández-Morales (B) University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_30

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the Spanish artist Dionisio González. Throughout the text we will see the visual and technical devices that Gonzalez uses to generate contradiction and discussion about urban landscape, and why, from the categories set out by Venturi in his various chapters—elements of double function, contradiction adapted, contradiction juxtaposed, etc.—it is contradiction juxtaposed that best defines the artistic strategy deployed. The text is divided into three main parts. The first part is dedicated to a definition of the concept of “contradiction juxtaposed”: firstly as Venturi describes it; then from the point of view of aesthetics; and finally, from contemporary artistic practice, including the implications concerning landscape. The second part is centred around the work of the artist Dionisio González: his work is presented from a general viewpoint and the role of contradiction juxtaposed is analysed. The third part is concerned with digital representation—a medium employed by Gonzalez—and the generation of contradictions through it. Lastly, some final considerations and conclusions are proposed, intended as a reflection on the implications that artistic compositions such as Gonzalez’s have beyond their own disciplinary field.

2 Contradictions Juxtaposed In this section, we firstly expound on what Venturi means by “contradiction juxtaposed”, the concept on which this exploration is based. Venturi illustrates it with examples both from architecture and art. We will then consider the aesthetic implications of the concept, before finally, exposing the presence of contradiction juxtaposed in the art of the XX and XXI centuries, including examples of its insertion into urban and natural landscapes.

2.1 Contradiction Juxtaposed According to Venturi Chapter eight of Venturi’s book “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, is titled “Contradiction Juxtaposed”. In contrast to contradiction adapted, addressed in the previous chapter, this type of contradiction “involves shock treatment”. Its contradictory relationships “become manifest in discordant rhythms, directions, adjacencies” and, especially, in what the author terms “superadjacencies”, that is “the superimpositions of various elements” [25, p. 56]. Contradiction adapted and contradiction juxtaposed are understood by Venturi as opposites—within a specific variable, contradiction, itself based on the existence of opposites; which makes the discussion about the very idea of contradiction even more complex. According to the architect “Contradiction adapted is tolerant and pliable”. (…) On the other hand, contradiction juxtaposed is unbending. It contains violent contrasts and uncompromising oppositions. Contradiction adapted ends in a whole which is perhaps impure. Contradiction juxtaposed ends in a whole which is perhaps unresolved” [25, p. 45].

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This last phrase seems to suggest that contradiction juxtaposed is, therefore, an accidental situation, not desired and undesirable, that must be “resolved” by means of adaptation, in order to “mitigate” the violence generated by the juxtaposition of opposites. However, although sometimes it is certainly generated spontaneously, or by virtue of accidental situations, a contradiction juxtaposed is also on many occasions designed or caused deliberately. The work of Le Corbusier—to whom Venturi repeatedly refers in the book—shows various examples of it: the Mill Owners building in Ahmedabad, where the repeated design of the brise-soleil, based on static and rectangular divisions, becomes violently interrupted by the gap created by the entrance, the ramp and the stairs, with a composition based on different diagonals [25, p. 56]: the two assembly chambers in Chandigarh, where the conical assembly hall, squeezed into the rectangular grid, represents a violent three-dimensional superadjacency [25, p. 56], the Villa Stein, where the scale of the entrance contrasts with the service doors [25, p. 66]. The negative attributes of contradiction juxtaposed that Venturi first appears to emphasize—inflexibility, violence—are turned into positive aspects a few pages later, by stressing that. Superadjacency is inclusive rather than exclusive. It can relate contrasting and otherwise irreconcilable elements; it can contain opposites within a whole; it can accommodate the valid non sequitur; and it can allow a multiplicity of levels of meaning, since it involves changing contexts—seeing familiar things in an unfamiliar way and from unexpected points of view—(…). Superadjacency can result in a real richness as opposed to the surface richness of the screen which is typical of a “serene” architecture. [25, pp. 58–61]

Despite the various illustrative architectural examples of this type of contradiction, both from modern and classical architecture, the author places greater emphasis on the urban scale rather than the buildings. It is in the city where we find more examples of superadjacencies, mainly the result of accidental and unplanned situations, and especially, of the conjugations of multiple authors, as opposed to a single author in the case of a building. This may be considered as the final conclusion of the chapter: contradiction juxtaposed occurs “more by accident than by design”, something that, nevertheless, many urban planners accept, permitting, in contrast to orthodox zoning, more violent proximities in their plans [25, p. 68].

2.2 Contradiction Juxtaposed as an Aesthetic Phenomenon A preliminary question in the aesthetic analysis of contradiction by juxtaposition concerns its relation with the concept of beauty. According to its classical conception, in general beauty related to proportion and harmony, a harmony based on the consonance of similar elements, and proportions based on the numeric and geometric relations between the parts of the whole. The juxtaposition of contradictory elements—contrasting elements or discordant parts—is associated with imbalance and a lack of harmony, and hence ugliness. The first Pythagoreans promoted this concept of beauty, based on mathematical and

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geometric ideas defined by duality: odd/even, limited/unlimited, unity/multiplicity, square/rectangle, straight/curved, etc., where one of the parts represents perfection (odd, straight and square are good and beautiful) while the opposite features are bad, erroneous and lack harmony [5, p. 72]. We find, however, a different concept in Heraclitus. He believed that if opposites exist in the universe (such as unity and multiplicity, love and hate, peace and war, stillness and movement, etc.) the harmony between these opposites is not arrived at by one cancelling the other, but by each being permitted to live in continuous tension. Thus, harmony is not the absence of opposites, but balance between the two opposed elements that neutralise each other [5, p. 72]. The tension between opposites is present in the divinities Apollo and Dionysus, to whom Nietzsche ([18], 1872) attributed two different notions of beauty: Apollonian beauty (serene harmony, order, proportion) contrasted with Dionysian beauty (disruptive, joyful and dangerous; the contrary of reason). Both divinities are represented on both the eastern and western pediments of the same building, the temple of Delphos, which demonstrates that, even with an ideal of beauty based on harmony, there is a place for antithesis and the juxtaposition of opposites. At the opposite extreme, ugliness, and even monstrousness, has also been frequently represented throughout history, especially since the medieval period. The juxtaposition of contradictory or discordant elements has played an important role in the representation of monsters and imaginary beings: different limbs and animal parts, distorted dimensions and shocking configurations, are grafted together to create fantastic figures. A second question to consider is the role of contradiction juxtaposed as a device or artistic effect, a theme addressed by aesthetics if not without conflict. The representation or the creation of beauty ceases to be an essential objective of art the moment the idea of its universal and objective nature is abandoned— that is, the idea of beauty as an inherent attribute of the object, regardless of the observer’s opinion—and, from the XVIII century, influenced by Hume and Kant, it starts to assume in the main its subjective and relative quality [21]. The concept of beauty becomes, therefore, a simple question of taste. Art assumes this subjectivity and, although it continues to pursue the creation of emotions in the spectator, these are not necessarily related to pleasure or delight in the contemplation of something beautiful. Surprise, confusion, or even displeasure, are also emotions sought by art. The juxtaposition of contradictory elements is a powerful tool in the generation of such emotions. The presentation of two opposing things, very distinct or usually associated with different contexts, has an unexpected quality, generating, initially, surprise and confusion—the “shock” effect, if we use Venturi’s term—that can be used for various ends, ironic, critical, transgressive, etc. Not only in the visual arts, but in all of art’s manifestations, such as literature or music, the juxtaposition of contrasting or contradictory parts is a common device. From a philosophical point of view, contradiction, as an inherent characteristic of XX century art, has entailed difficulties of methodology for its analysis, at least under the Popperian model, considered a scientific philosophical model that is also valid and applicable to the domain of the humanities [24, p. 14]. According to this

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model, the absence of contradiction is one of the basic suppositions of any research. When contradictions exist, the falsification process becomes complicated. This is a fundamental procedure to eliminate erroneous theses and theories. The contradiction cannot be taken as an unequivocal indication that the thesis or theory is incorrect, as the contradiction can also be derived from the subject being researched. In the fields of logic and ontology a Aristotelian vision has predominated, and the majority of philosophers throughout history have rejected contradiction; yet some others, such as Priest [20], have accepted it, developing a paraconsistent logic, suggesting, for example, the philosophical consideration of imaginary or fictitious worlds in which operate different logical laws, or proposing the existence of “hard” and “soft” contradictions. Outside of these fields, such as the areas of psychology or aesthetics, the existence of contradiction has been accepted with wider latitude— based on a more colloquial conception of the term, including, for example, notions like narrative inconsistency, ambiguity or metaphor [3, 13]. Thus, the presence of contradictions in the arts has been one of the drivers of conflict between philosophical and artistic theories, but also has been contemplated and accepted from within philosophy. Generally, the existence of contradictions in art is understood as the conscious and deliberate strategy of the artist that enriches the work’s meaning. With regard to cognitive theories of art, this meaning and its cognitive value are not solely defined by the artist, as the experience and interpretation of the spectator is needed to complete the definition [4, 19] and in the process, contradictory interpretations may be generated. In contrast, deconstructivist theories, out of scepticism, consider contradictions in art as involuntary and inevitable, caused by the inability of language—artistic language in this case—to transmit meaning [24, pp. 246–247]. Finally, we should mention Marxist theories that attribute a political dimension to the analysis of contradiction in art, placing the spotlight on the role of the artist. The mission of art is social: to express reality, reflect the contradictions of society. The artist themself, can fall into contradiction, when they criticise the capitalist system but at the same time be part of it, through the art market.

2.3 Contradiction Juxtaposed in Contemporary Art We find various artistic manifestations associated with the phenomenon of contradiction juxtaposed throughout the XX century. At the beginning of the century, the Dadaist movement clearly exploited the principle, in conjunction with other compositional devices that sought to create surprising contrasts, such as changes of scale, dislocations, decontextualizations, etc. Similar strategies were used by surrealism. The collage becomes the ideal graphic technique for Dadaist and Surrealist experimentation, and has the added value of novelty, offering an alternative to traditional artistic techniques (however, not abandoned). The collage is possibly the clearest expression of superadjacency in art, as it consists, literally, of the placing of elements or fragments from different and unrelated sources next to and over each other.

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Conceptual art, heir of Dadaism, from the second half of the XX century, also made use of juxtaposition as a creative strategy: the work of Joseph Kosuth, in which an object was usually juxtaposed with its own printed image and textual description, is an example. We also find juxtaposition of contrasting elements in the non-figurative paintings of conceptual artist Sol Le Witt (e.g. “Wall Drawing 901”, 1999). As an important follower of the Dadaist and conceptual currents in the XXI century a mention should be made of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who has used the juxtaposition of contradictory objects and symbols on various occasions (e.g. “CocaCola Vase”, 1994). His work is usually loaded with ironic and political allusions. Moreover, we find clear strategies of juxtaposition in the pop art of the second half of the last century. The movement seeks to unite art (intellectual, highbrow) with modern life and popular aesthetics, and in the fusion contradictions are often generated. The assemblage, based on juxtaposition, is a common format of pop art, which we find in renowned pop-influenced contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy or Damien Hirst. The second half of the last century also saw the birth of the genre of the happening, that Susan Sontag defined as “an art of radical juxtaposition” [23] for its relation with Surrealism and its use of the “principle of collage” in reference to the way the events were sequenced in time. “The happening operates by creating an asymmetrical network of surprises, without climax or consummation”. Finally, the contradiction juxtaposed is not only associated with the creation of fictions. Realism with its various manifestations (direct realism, social realism, critical realism) has also been employed, especially through photography, to reflect the strong contradictions and contrasts that exist in the real world. This was reflected in the title of the retrospective exhibition of XX century photography that was held in the Tate Modern in 2003: “Cruel and tender”, with photographers such as Walker Evans and Diane Arbus, who captured scenes and people full of contrasts.

2.4 Contradiction Juxtaposed in Landscape In the XX century the natural or urban landscape becomes another artistic stage on which it is possible to create superadjacencies and contradictions by juxtaposition. On occasions, the work of art contains its own internal contradiction, and landscape is simply space that accommodates both the work and the viewer. But often, the landscape itself is one of the operative elements: contradiction is generated between the work of art and the landscape in which it is placed. To speak about a contradiction juxtaposed, and not adapted, in Venturian terms, the continuity of the landscape has to be abruptly interrupted, without any space for transition, and the inserted element must be clearly contrasted, in formal, dimensional, material or semantic terms. We find contradictions by juxtaposition with the urban landscape in the sculptures of Claes Oldenburg, which consist of the reproduction, on a monumental scale, of banal objects from everyday life, not usually associated with a public space. The

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shock generated by the semantic juxtaposition is added to that generated by the object’s radical change of scale.1 As regards natural landscape, the artistic intervention generally known as Land Art inherited from the similarly titled artistic movement emerging in the late 1960s, does not obey the logic of the shock; in fact, its integration into the environment is its most notable characteristic [15, p. 11]. These works usually have an ecological genesis and attempt to exalt the value of nature, by attempting to maintain a formal and material continuity with the site, blurring the boundaries between the work of art and its natural environment. Even so, cases exist where violent visual contrasts are produced, as occurs in the ephemeral landscaping interventions of Christo and Jean-Claude, in which the monumental scale of the works also operates as shock value. The work of Christo and Jean-Claude is noted for the contrast between nature and artifice: the grandiosity of nature enters into combat with the magnitude of the impact that man is able to generate.

3 Dionisio González The work of Dionisio González combines three features that make it a particularly relevant subject for analysis: firstly, its main theme is landscape; specifically, urban landscape and natural landscape manipulated by man through architecture. Secondly, the representation of architecture has a special significance in his work, as it is done via digital means. And thirdly, that it presents an abundance of contradictions by juxtaposition, by which the richness of meaning and the artistic dialectic that the artist seeks is generated. In this section we present the general features of the artist’s work followed by a more detailed analysis of the presence of contradictions juxtaposed within it.

1 Venturi repeatedly refers to the change of scale as a generating factor in contradictions juxtaposed,

when it happens abruptly. As an example he cited the intervention of Michelangelo in the Palazzo Farnese, which increased the height of the upper floor and created large openings in the loggia of the back facade, that contrasted violently with the scale and rhythm of the adjacent elements (p. 57). He also mentions the combinations of various sizes in the columns of the University of Virginia, in Jefferson (p. 58), as well as what he termed “accidental collage” of the colossal head of Constantine and the louvered shutters in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museum (p. 66). As an artistic example he mentions Jasper John’s paintings of superimposed flags (p. 58) that reproduce the American flag in different sizes.

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3.1 The Work of Dionisio González Dionisio González (Gijón, Asturias, 1965) is an multi-faceted artist with a wellestablished professional reputation,2 who has worked with various media—interventions, sound installations, video, etc.—but is especially known for his photographs, or as they should be more correctly called photocollages. These are images of real landscapes (urban, peripheral or natural), digitally modified to create new invented scenes. The alteration of the landscape is performed by inserting architectural constructions or imagined pseudo-architecture, that in reality, do not exist. Gonzalez acts, therefore, like a real architect, creating designs with which he modifies the landscape, and he presents his ideas though a commonly used method in contemporary architectural practice, photorealistic rendering. Although González has photographed and virtually altered landscapes in the developed world, including New York, London, Amsterdam and Venice, his work is mainly centred on places at the margins, which feature poverty and destruction, and man’s struggle against the forces of nature, such as Brazil’s favelas, the floating villages of Halong Bay (Vietnam), the peripheral slums of Busan (South Korea), or the area of stilt houses on Dauphin Island (United States), devastated by hurricanes and tornados such as Katrina. Into these scenes, González inserts architectural proposals that contrast with the environment, to completely transform what exists, but which have also been designed ad hoc, after observing and studying their specific logic. This enables the artist to reflect, and invite the viewer to reflect on various questions, whether political, economic, historical, sociological, urban planning, etc. that determine the configuration of the city and its surrounding land, on a global scale. By this reflection, the artists reveals a constant preoccupation for the drift of the city in the XXI century towards an ever more exclusionary and “dissocializing” model, a cityscape which contains the specific forms of the evils and problems of society as a whole. He complains: Never before had architecture been so far removed from, so unoccupied with the socialization of spaces. This way of inhabiting could be defined as architecture of violence and security. These new aesthetics of security, along with the protection of shining spaces of culture and entertainment, are sowing dystopian ruins around the technological and urban territory. [11, p. 35] 2 González

has a doctorate in fine art (1996) from the University of Seville and is a professor at the same university. He has received numerous prizes, including the BBVA Foundation Leonardo Scholarship for Researchers and Cultural Creators (2016/2018), the National Prize for Engraving from the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Engraving (2015) and the European Month of Photography Arendt Award (2013), among others. His work is displayed in museums such as the National Museum Centre of Art Reina Sofia, in Madrid, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, In Chicago, or the Pompidou Centre in Paris, as well as some important private collections. He has exhibited his work in a host of galleries, art centres and fairs all over the world. His most important recent exhibition was a monographic retrospective, comprising almost a hundred of his works, entitled “Parrhesia and Site”, held at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Malaga in 2019. The exhibition catalogue gives a detailed curriculum of the artist (González, 2018b, pp. 219–228).

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And in another passage, we can read: A megalomaniac ideography (…) is inserted in the cities external to the air quality, education, pedestrian accessibility transferred, now, to the place of automobiles. We have lost the faculty to create cities where non-indispensable activities take place. On the contrary, we have made private spaces possible that do not belong to us as well as public institutions that broadcast us covertly with video cameras. In short, we have constructed a network of strongholds. [11, p. 37]

Thus, González adopts, by means of artistic production, a political position, relating to Marxist theory that bestows the artist with the social responsibility to denounce the errors and injustices of the system. He uses the contradictions in his images, as is appropriate, as a useful tool to denounce the intrinsic contradictions of our current society, generated by inequality, social injustice and the destruction of the environment. We encounter similar attitudes in some architectural initiatives of recent decades that we might describe as “urban parasites”, which have been carried out in practice (in general, temporarily, and mainly intended as artistic experimentation and for public viewing rather than having a real functional use). Among them we might mention the intervention “Parachutist” of Héctor Zamora in the Museum Carrillo Gil, in Mexico City (2004), various temporary installations by Santiago Cirujeda, or the dwelling “Parasite”, of Korteknie and Stuhlmacher, installed in Rotterdam in 2001. Gonzalez not only gives priority to his interest in popular architecture or anonymous subsistence architecture, which is the main subject of his photocollages, but also avant garde contemporary architecture and the works of the masters of architecture of the modern movement. This is reflected in certain works of videodocumentation—such as “Thinking Amsterdam”, 2018 or “Interviews”, 2015— and other 3D reconstructions—such as “The Sunlit Hours”, 2011, or “Somewhere. Nowhere”, 2013—that lie halfway between artistic creation and research work.

3.2 Contradiction Juxtaposed in the Work of Dionisio González In adherence to the main tendency in contemporary art, Gonzalez’s work embraces contradiction. The element of contradiction is produced at several levels, but that generated by juxtaposition stands out most clearly in his photocollages. Here, the work of González combines the features described by Venturi: complexity, inclusion, richness of meaning, multi-faceted vision [25, pp. 58–61]. At a general level we may speak, as a first contradiction, of the dichotomy between destruction and construction, or, in the terms used by Castro Flórez [2], “utopia and disaster”. According to Castro, Gonzalez unceasingly expresses an aesthetic of destruction, focusing on manifestations of “social wreckage”, yet in parallel he formulates “utopian projects” [2, p. 23]. Disaster is a product of observation and a

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faithful reflection of reality, utopia, on the other hand, comes from imagination and the “desire to not only intervene, but actively interfere in an extremely thorny issue, whether as a project designer or social regulator” [12, p. 49]. Realism and fiction imply a second level of general contradiction whose coexistence is possible in a single medium: the digital image. This question is tackled in greater detail in the section on digital representation. At an individual level, the various thematic series in which Gonzalez’s work is organized reflect specific contradictions. Several of these are analysed below. In the series “Maps for removal” [Cartografias para a remoçao] (2004–2007) and “Busan Project” (2011), the contrast is generated by the apposition of social levels: wealth compared to poverty, integration compared to marginality. The scenes are, in both cases, poor and marginal slums in great cities: Busan, in South Korea, and Sao Paulo, in Brazil. The buildings that form the composition are single-storey dwellings built by the occupants from modest materials and means (including discarded materials, in the case of Brazil) and in a poor state of conservation. The houses are arranged without any order or apparent planning, and the organized planning of public space is limited. These neighbourhoods are totally different from other parts of the city, where glass and steel skyscrapers, wide avenues and gardens predominate. A juxtaposition of images from different locations in the same city would be enough to reveal the powerful contradictions that exist, similar to what Rogelio López Cuenca and Elo Vega do in “History of two cities” (2010). However, Gonzalez opts, via fiction, for a juxtaposition that includes an extra layer of meaning: confronted with despair, hope; faced with abandonment, recovery. He also presents an adjacency which is much more multiple and fragmented between the contradiction juxtaposed and the contradiction adapted, to make use of Venturi’s categories. In both series, fragments of gleaming and unsullied architectural design emerge from between the precarious constructions (Fig. 1). In the first series they are more discreet and integrated and in the second, more structural and striking. His designs might well belong to architects such as Thom Mayne, Steven Holl or Daniel Libeskind. With these fragments of new architectures, the artist tries to demonstrate the potential of these precarious pre-existing structures, which in his way of looking should not be eradicated but renovated to improve the quality of life for the inhabitants.

Fig. 1 Dionisio González—“Ipiranga II”, 2006

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Fig. 2 Dionisio González—“Dauphin Island I”, 2011

I wanted, if possible, to take a social stance in defence of these settlements, advocating not their eradication but their improvement, which is the same as intervention; an alteration of the existing “cartography” The favela is the most substantial, iconic proof that urban architecture is a problem that can be solved by popular logic. [12, p. 49]

In the series “Halong Bay” (2008–2013) and “Dauphin Island” (2011) (Fig. 2), Gonzalez highlights a type of architecture that must be adapted to conform to nature, especially with the aquatic environment. Despite their adaptation, these constructions are vulnerable and are exposed at any moment to their destruction and deterioration. For these locations, Gonzalez proposes completely different architecture to the light wooden constructions usually found there (floating houses in Halong, and stilt houses on Dauphin Island): in contrast he suggests bunker-like constructions in exposed concrete, with abundant folds and twists and compact dimensions. Through superadjacencies, Gonzalez’s designs create contradictions juxtaposed with two elements. Firstly, with the natural environment: here, the contrast is generated semantically through the opposition of nature/artifice, similar to that featured in Christo and Jean-Claude’s land art interventions, as Gonzalez’s designs are interpreted as artificial constructs; although from a formal perspective, the inserted volumes present a certain mimesis with the natural environment through the concrete’s colour and texture, the organic shapes and the vegetation hanging from the facades. Secondly, visual contrasts are generated with the existing buildings: while these give an impression of lightness and fragility, their height comes from being constructed on wooden stilts, the artificial buildings are heavily supported on the ground giving a sensation of robustness and stability; the volumetric simplicity of the existing buildings, rectangular, straight walls and inclined roofs, contrast with the extravagant folds and curves of the constructions created by the artist. In the series “The Sunlit Hours” (2011), Gonzalez focuses on the city of Venice seen from its canals. A landscape that seems entirely unrelated to the previous series, as the architecture featured, palaces and luxury hotels, are not characterized by their precariousness, but once again, by their relation with the aquatic environment. The artist explains that this series has its origin in “prior research and investigation which determined the exact locations of absent works designed for this city by legendary architects (Wright, Le Corbusier, Kahn, Rossi). As such, they are photographs of positional precision, of geolocation” [12, p. 117]. From the perspective of this text,

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Fig. 3 Dionisio González—“Gardella restated” (fragment), 2011

that attempts to establish a relation between the work of Gonzalez and the theories of Venturi, this series probably creates the clearest connection, we recall that “Venturi’s primary inspiration would seem to have come from (…) the urban facades of Italy, with their endless adjustments to the counter-requirements of inside and outside and their inflection with all the business of everyday life” [22, p. 9]. Gonzalez’s photographs express the urban faces of the Italian city, in which facades of historic architecture from different styles and eras that so fascinated the American architect are aligned together. Using these photographs, González virtually reconstructed several buildings: Wright’s Masieri Memorial (1953 project), Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital (1964 project) and Rossi’s Teatro del Mundo (constructed in 1979 and dismantled). However he also developed his own designs that contrasted strongly with their immediate surroundings, which he inserted to replace existing buildings such as the Hotel Bauer, the Palacio Giustinian Lolin and the Palacio Gardella (Fig. 3). Here, the existing facades, essentially flat, composed of recognisable architectural elements, and organized around an orthogonal grid structure at regular intervals (individually different, and therefore enabling contrasts by juxtaposition, but always within the rules of composition for classical architecture), are opposed by extreme volumes, which protrude out from the frontage and whose composition is based on neither grid nor orthogonal structures. Lastly, in the series “Inter-actions” (2013–2014) (Fig. 4), the buildings are “Structures elevated on stilts, regulated by an unusual usage of space and an occupation that gives rise to estrangement and exception; due to the style of the architecture itself or its adaptation to the landscape and the equilibrium established when nature interacts with the architectural apparatus [12, p. 153]. As the artist himself describes it, the artefacts not only generate contradiction with the immediate surroundings by their decontextualization, but also by their own internal contradictions, that generate an uncategorizable morphology, thereby creating a double layer of contradiction.

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Fig. 4 Dionisio González—“Inter-actions 18”, 2014

4 Digital Representation 4.1 The Digital Image in Contemporary Art. Truth and Creative Liberty As stated by Lopis-Verdú [16, pp. 558–559], photography has undergone drastic changes, in terms of veracity, with the appearance of the digital image and its almost infinite possibilities of manipulation. If analogue photography was considered a technique that guaranteed a faithful record of reality—although still subject to the partiality of the photographer’s gaze, digital photography does not enjoy the same confidence, being susceptible to being used as a vehicle of suggestion, manipulation and even deception. However, the veracity of pre-digital photographs has been put in doubt by many authors [1, 6, 10]. At the margins of newspaper, documentary or scientific photography, in modern and contemporary art, with its consolidation as an artistic category, photography has undoubtedly lost its claim to veracity. In the early XX century, under the sway of the New Objectivity, modern photography laid claim to its documentary character, free from manipulation and poetic effects, to show reality in all its nakedness. However, the various avant gardes—Surrealism, Constructivism, etc.—explore the plastic and visual possibilities of photography beyond its documentary value, turning the photographic film into a canvas. In the second half of the century, the various artistic movements similarly adapt the use of photography to artistic ends.

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The photographic narrative gathers force, characterized by its fabrication of tales and fictitious dramatizations that are completely removed from documenting reality— Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman are some examples. What becomes known as the Düsseldorf School is an example of how the artistic value of photography has superseded its documentary value. Disciples of Bernd and Hila Belcher and, in theory, heirs of ideas from the New Objectivity—at least from the point of view of their aesthetic and compositional strategies—the members of this school and, in particular, its most prominent figure, Andreas Gursky, abandoned realism to accommodate the “appearance of realism”. Gursky created totally realistic images of scenes that, however, never existed in reality [17]. Thus, the observer of Gursky’s work always feels challenged by a guessing game about which part of the contemplated scene is real, and which part has been modified. A game in which, in the end, it is not important to know the solution, as the value lies not in the truth but in the image’s message. Truth in photographic art is therefore at the mercy of the artist’s intentions, as Fontcuberta has suggested [6, p. 15]: “Every photograph is a fiction that is presented as a truth. (…). The important thing is how the photograph is used, what is its purpose. The important thing, therefore, is the photographer’s control of the photograph to put an ethical spin on his lie. A good photograph is one that lies well about the truth.” Today, in addition to the creative possibilities of digital photography—images captured by a camera and subsequently manipulated—we now have computergenerated images that appear real but are not derived from any photographic capture of real scenes. Hyper-real digital painting and photorealistic rendering of virtual 3D models, are becoming increasingly believable, and a further step in the process of blurring the border between reality and fiction, just as is occurring between categories of art—painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, “analogue” categories that are losing their validity with the rise of digital technology. However, while the foundations of truth and the traditional structures of art are being destabilized, potentially disconcerting the viewer who seeks referents to cling onto, the artist enters into a new world of creative freedom as Kuspit suggests [14, p. 34]: There is greater potential for freedom in digital art —that is, the “mental elements” can be “combined and manipulated more freely” than in architecture, painting or sculpture. This is why nowadays there are buildings, two-dimensional images and three-dimensional objects that are designed and made by digital means using computers and manufactured by machines controlled by computers. (…). It also gives us an effective means to produce art that has never existed before.

This artistic production, he insists, transcends traditional art categories: The computer is not a new instrument to make the old architecture, painting and sculpture. Digital architecture, digital painting and digital sculpture—all the digital drawing software products that utilize computer embedded algorithms—are new artistic forms with a surprising aesthetic, creative and visionary potential, and are still partly unexplored.” [14, p. 37]

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4.2 The Use of Digital Photorealistic Representation in Dionisio González In terms of representation, the great contradiction of Gonzalez’s work, common to all his photocollage series, and intrinsic to all contemporary artistic photography, is the juxtaposition of realism and fiction. However, it is evident that truth as an artistic concept still concerns Gonzalez, as the title of his most recent retrospective, “Parrhesia and Place” testifies. “Parrhesia” is a term used by Foucault to mean, “a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself)” ([7], cited by Francés [9, p. 11]). Gonzalez’s use of the term reveals that he attributes the quality of parrhesia, or sincerity, to his own work. This may appear paradoxical, as his photomontages, entirely based on photorealist renders—impeccably realized from a technical point of view—have been designed to deceive he eye, and are so perfectly executed that the joins between the real photograph and the fictitious model appear impossible to distinguish. Nevertheless, if we attribute any validity to artistic language, including contemporary modes of expression—such as digitally manipulated photography, the meaning of the message does not reside in the medium, but in the “ethical spin” of the author, as Fontcuberta stated. Therefore it is not so contradictory to think that an artist can express themselves sincerely through visual tools that alter reality, such as the photorealistic renders employed by Gonzalez. In the words of Francés [9, p. 12], “In his projects Dionisio Gonzalez offers ideas of what these structures, buildings, homes and houses might have been, or should have been according to his way of thinking, his truth”. Constructions that Gonzalez places into existing scenes, that he has walked around and analysed to extract their complexity and intrinsic contradictions. Therefore, Gonzalez exercises truth through knowledge and from his ethical responsibility as an artist—“to tell the truth is a duty to improve and help other people”. The other concept associated with parrhesia, according to Foucault is freedom. He wrote “In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion” [8, p. 5]. The freedom by which the artist operates is granted to him again, among other things, by digital media. The use of technology allows him to develop and present his utopian landscapes that would be very difficult to realize in practice, through any other media that could be used. Digital media facilitates the creation of projects that are not limited by their materiality, legal implications or difficulties of execution. However, it should be stated that the freedom attributed to digital media is not made possible by the simple use of technology, but an understanding of it is also required, in fact, its technical mastery, as is clearly the case with Gonzalez. Just as with a Renaissance artist, the digital artist must be a trained craftsman—an artist that has to learn his trade both materially and intellectually—at a time when it might

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appear that much of art is pseudo-intellectual and bereft of talent, that is, lacking in both internal and external logic.” [14, p. 36]. Dionisio González is a digital artist who knows his trade and applies his skills with material and intellectual rigour. As we have shown, his renders are totally photorealistic and impeccably executed from a technical perspective. The visual impact achieved by his images on the viewer, the contradiction generated by the juxtaposition between reality and fiction, would not be possible if this were not true.

5 Conclusion Commencing from an analysis of the work “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, a text that, ever since its publication, has exercised a great influence on the theory and practice of urban planning, in this section we have presented the work of Dionisio González, an artist who creates images of landscapes—urban, peripheral or natural—characterized by complexity and contradiction, which are generated, in turn, through architecture. A new discipline thus joins architecture and landscape, entering into dialogue with them: fine art. Perhaps two types of contemporary artistic practice could be defined: those that are basically centred around their own discipline, trying to update, refine and explore its boundaries, etc.—art that speaks about art, it might be said—and those that are centred around everything else: humanity, society, politics, the city, the planet, etc. Dionisio González belongs to this second category. He is an inhabitant of the world he explores, interacts with it, reflects on it, and, as an output of this activity, generates his art. The intention of this artistic output is therefore to transcend the frontiers of artistic dialogue and initiate a dialogue with society in general. Dionisio González’s work is centred on three themes: the city, architecture and nature; the latter, in its relations with man. These three themes are, almost, united in one, as they are so interconnected that sometimes it is impossible to tell where one ends and another begins. Gonzalez’s regard is profoundly critical, revealing that which must be questioned and improved; especially, those situations and scenes— architectural, urban or natural, in which is encountered man’s precariousness and vulnerability, concerning specific people or population groups. Gonzalez deliberately produces contradictions and stark contrasts in his works, as he understands the aesthetic power that they have and the cognitive effects they can generate. Although he does this through fiction, in the first instance he does it by exposing the complexities and contradictions inherent in the real world. Contradictions that are often not desirable. In parallel, contradiction is manifested through utopia, from the utopias that the artist creates—the “solutions of how it ought to have been, or how these constructions, buildings, homes and houses should be in his mind, in his truth”; returning again to the words of Francés. Many urban planners, landscapers and architects work along the same lines as González, devising projects to resolve the complexities and contradictions of the city and the landscape that are not desirable, that have been generated by inequality,

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bad management, abandonment, etc., and that cause precariousness and vulnerability in the lives of their inhabitants. The advantage of Gonzalez’s proposals is, precisely that they remain in the realm of the imagination, fiction, and have no potential to be brought to fruition. This plays to his advantage in terms of his creative freedom. But some of them are not so unimaginable and may serve as inspiration for projects that may be realized. Evidence that Gonzalez can act as a real project influencer is the fact that his “Busan Project” originated from a real commission from the local authorities of Busan city to explore the possibilities of improving the city’s slums. Thus, just like contemporary art observes what is happening in contemporary architecture (like Gonzalez does by knowing its history, tendencies and most cuttingedge techniques of representation), architecture, town planning and landscaping could also pay attention to contemporary artistic production; not only from an aesthetic or stylistic point of view, as often happens, but also by taking into account the analysis that some artists make of the city and the landscape—natural or built, and the projects they propose for them. Acknowledgments Work financed by the Government of Aragon (group reference T37_17R, GIA) and co-financed with Feder 2014–2020 “Building Europe from Aragon”.

References 1. Batchen G (2004) Ectoplasma. La fotografía en la era digital. In: Ribalta J (ed) Efecto Real. Debates Posmodernos Sobre Fotografía, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, p 368 2. Castro Flórez F (2018) Utopía y catástrofe. Observaciones sobre el imaginario fotoarquitectónico de Dionisio González, in: Parresia y Lugar. CAC Málaga, Málaga, pp 14–31 3. Davies S (2010) Philosophical perspectives on art. Oxford University Press, Oxford 4. Dewey J (2008) El arte como experiencia Paidós estética Paidós, Barcelona 5. Eco U (2010) Historia de la belleza. Debolsillo, Barcelona 6. Fontcuberta J (1997) El beso de Judas: fotografía y verdad. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 7. Foucault M (2004) Discurso y verdad en la antigua Grecia. Paidós, Buenos Aires 8. Foucault M (1999) Discourse and truth: the problematization of Parrhesia: six lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct–Nov 1983. Adaptation from the transcript made by J. Pearson and consulted at the Bibliothèque du Saulchoir in Paris. https://foucault.info/parrhesia/ 9. Francés F (2018) La línea Maginot en la Parresia, in: Parresia y Lugar. CAC Málaga, Málaga, p 255 10. Garcia EC (2010) Photography as Fiction. J. Paul Getty Museum 11. González D (2018a) Entre medios: de la ruina distópica a la ciudad tecnológica, in: Parresia y Lugar. CAC Málaga, Málaga, pp 34–47 12. González D (2018b) Parresia y Lugar. CAC Málaga, Málaga 13. Haack S (2004) Coherence, consistency, cogency, congruity, cohesiveness, & c.: Remain Calm! Don’t Go Overboard! New Lit Hist 35:167–183 14. Kuspit D (2007) Del arte analógico al arte digital, in: Arte Digital y Videoarte. Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid 15. Lailach M (2007) Land art. Taschen, Cologne

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16. Llopis-Verdú J (2018) El paradigma fotográfico del dibujo arquitectónico digital. Arte, Individuo y Soc. 30, pp 557–573. https://doi.org/10.5209/ARIS.58128 17. Nayeri F (2018) Taking photos of things that do not exist. New York Times C2 18. Nietzsche F (2007) El nacimiento de la tragedia. Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid 19. Ossowski S (2012) The foundations of aesthetics. Springer, Netherlands 20. Priest G (2006) In contradiction. Clarendon Press, Oxford 21. Sartwell C (2017) Beauty. Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy. In: EN Zalta (ed). https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/beauty/. Accessed 22 July 19 22. Scully V (1977) Introduction. Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Museum of Modern Art, New York, pp 9–12 23. Sontag S (1962) Happenings: an art of radical juxtaposition. In: Sontag S (ed) Against interpretation and other essays. Penguin Classics, London, pp 263–274 24. Teske JK (2016) Contradictions in art: the case of postmodern fiction. Wydawnictwo, Lublin 25. Venturi R (1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture, papers on architecture. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Return to Italy: Reading and Representing Complexity and Contradiction in Signs Stratifications

Landscape as Itinerary: The Story of Trajan’s Dacian Wars on Trajan’s Column Mario Torelli

Abstract The emperor Trajan added his own forum to the monumental fora, which his predecessors Cesar, Augustus, Vespasian and Nerva said to have built to extend the public spaces of the Roman Forum. Actually, the real aim of the new Trajan’s forum was to celebrate his brilliant victories he had gained in two different wars, fought in 101–102 and in 105–106 against the Dacians, the barbaric people which inhabited today Romania. Trajan’s forum was an extensive porticoed piazza that had at its end two libraries, one latin and one greek, which had in a central court a marble column 100 feet high and therefore called “cententenaria”, in which the emperor had projected to place his tomb and the tomb of his wife. The surface of the column, possibly following a project of his famous architect Apollodorus from Damascus, is wrapped by a spiral frieze, on which in basrelief are sculptured the most important war episodes. Modern studies of this frieze have described the narration on the column as a “continuous” one: actually this narration can be better described as a succession of “pictures”, considered as the more important episodes of both wars, presented in the form of the itinerary of Trajan’s army in the barbaric country, following a model of ancient geographic maps like the Tabula Peutingeriana. This essay shows that the really unifying pattern of such itinerary is the continuity of landascapes, in which the wars take place. Keywords Trajan’s forum · Trajan’s column · Roman triumphs · Roman triumphal painting · Roman maps · Itineraria · Roman road maps

Aim of this paper is to show that the great architect Apollodorus of Damascus created the gigantic frieze wrapping Trajan’s Column inspired by the representation formula of the itineraria, i.e. the official documents containing the road maps of territories used by Roman generals, and that the tradition of the Hellenistic landscape gave him the tools to unify the scenario of Trajan’s Dacian Wars represented on the frieze. M. Torelli (B) Accademia dei Lincei, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_31

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1 Introduction Few monuments had the fame and fortune of the candid Pentelic marble column (Fig. 1), today still standing out above the wide expanse of ruins of the Roman Forum. This takes the name of Trajan from the Spanish emperor, who had it erected to house his heroic tomb in the heart of the forensic complex he wanted, as a perennial reminder of the conquest of the vast lands of Dacia, today’s Romania, in those days rich in gold. The extraordinary success of this brilliant invention, without precedent, designed and realized by Apollodorus of Damascus, who is the only great architect of the imperial age whose name and some works are known, can be measured from the number of times the column was object of imitation, from the ancient to the modern times. Beginning with the Aurelian Column (192 AD), a replica made in Rome eighty years after the inauguration of the Trajan masterpiece (112 AD), to commemorate the outcome of the two campaigns (168–172 and 173–174 AD) conducted in Central Europe from Marcus Aurelius against various Germanic and Sarmatian tribes, which were spread in the empire after breaking the defenses of the limes, the great defensive system created to defend the borders of Rome; a less brilliant success than Trajan’s Dacian wars, but certainly equally important for the fortunes of Rome. Fig. 1 Trajan’s column. Picture by the Author

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These columns were called coclid, because they had inside a spiral staircase to reach the top of the column, which resembled the cochlea, the word that defines the spiral-shaped interior of the snails shell in Latin. Similar columns, in marble or bronze, have arisen in all the ancient and modern cities that wanted to rival Rome, each of them exhibiting its own column with a historiated stem with the recording of events, not only warlike, starting from the “New Rome” on the Bosphorus, which has known three replicas of the two Roman coclid columns. In fact, in Constantinople, Theodosius, born in Spain, with the intention of rivaling Trajan, another great Roman emperor, had built the center of his Forum a coclid column with the registration of his exploits against the barbarians (388 AD); a similar monument was built by his son Arcadio to commemorate his victory over the Goths (403 AD). The two Constantinopolitan columns were destroyed after the Turkish conquest; the same fate reached the third coclid column of the city, erected to celebrate the victories of Justinian (543 AD). In modern times, all three empires’ great capitals had their coclid column in imitation of the eternal example of Trajan: Vienna with two coclid columns in front of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, illustrating episodes from the life of the Saint. St. Petersburg with Alexander’s column, erected for the victory of the Tsar over Napoleon. Paris with the Austeritz’s column commissioned by Napoleon to celebrate the glorious victory over the Austrians.

2 The Column and the Temple of Deified Trajan Object of studies since the Renaissance, Apollodorus of Damascus’ Roman masterpiece still presents aspects that are not entirely clarified, which should be briefly mentioned, because they touch on some profound meanings, which limit our perfect understanding of the message that the client and architect intended to entrust to the monument. The first and most important of these problems is the location of the column inside the colossal plant of Trajan’s Forum (Fig. 2). Placed in this way, the issue may seem as bizarre, since the place where the column stands is well known. However, after the great excavations carried out at the end of the last century by the Capitolina Superintendency in the area of the Imperial Forums, some alleged certainties of the last hundred years about the map of the Forum have disappeared and with these many of the current reconstructions of some parts of the monumental complex. First, the controversial presence of the temple of Trajan and his wife Plotina deified in front of the column, not wrongly considered in a close connection with it, with obvious consequences in terms of the meaning of the column itself. So far, all the known data lead to the reconstruction of the temple consecrated to them in front of the column, and the cinerary urns of the emperor and his consort were deposited in its basement. As the emperor’s sepulcher, the column should also be read as a gigantic tomb sign of Trajan and Plotina, and therefore an integral part of any nearby temple of the imperial cult. In any case, it is decisive the comparison between the layout of this part of the Trajan’s Forum and the location of the Aurelian column,

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Fig. 2 Trajan’s Forum plan before the recent excavations (da Gros-Torelli, Storia dell’urbanistica. Il mondo romano, Laterza, Roma-Bari 20073 )

which arises before the deified temple of Marcus Aurelius, well located under the current Palazzo Vedekind. This data authorizes us to believe that the Trajan column had also to be in front of the similar temple of the cult of deified Trajan and Plotina. The second question is the contrast between the meanings attributed to the Trajan Column, although with varying degrees of certainty. As we have seen, the column, destined to house the sepulcher of the divinized imperial couple, was a sort of colossal signage of Trajan’s heroic tomb, capable of “raising the holder above all men”, as Pliny explains, speaking of the honorary monuments in the form of a column. However, the Trajan Column was also a centenarian columna, with a high of 100 Roman feet (29.78 m), of Doric style, easily deducible from the visible grooves under the abacus, but crowned by an echinus with ionic ovules. The inscription engraved on the base, however, is silent on all these meanings, to declare instead that its height testified to the original development of the buildings of the hill system that joined the Quirinale to the Campidoglio, which were demolished to make room for the great complex of Trajan’s Forum. In reality, the column was meant to be all these things together. But what really made it unique in the ranks of the triumpahlia opera, of the constructions built to celebrate generals and emperors’ triumphs, is the spiral frieze surrounding the column (Fig. 3) which knows no precedents or comparisons in the surviving Roman monuments or even only known to be older or more contemporary. The second question concerns the nearly 200 meters of the low-relief frieze, between 0.89 and 1.25 m high (the difference in height of the frieze, which increases as it rises in height of the column, is the product of the necessary optical correction to

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Fig. 3 Detail of the spiral freize of the Trajan’s Colum. Picture by the Author

make the frieze seem always of the same height) and wrapped up to 23 times on the column shaft, and in particular the legibility and visibility of its story. The problem certainly exists and the criticism of the latter half a century insisted much on alternative readings to that, so called natural, of “continuous narration”. The suggestion sees the possibility of “vertical” readings, according to lines that go from the bottom to the top of the column and vice versa, bringing to light the ancient sculptor research aimed at showing the figure of the emperor always with the maximum legibility and compositional evidence. However, the galleries and terraces that almost certainly crowned the buildings surrounding on three sides the small courtyard (on the fourth side, if it existed, the alleged temple did not have these spaces), at the center of which stood the column, allowed a reading in some way close and therefore adequate for most of the development of the frieze. In reality, what counted for the client, the

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designer and the executor were the completeness and the correspondence of the figurative representation to the salient facts of the First (101–102 AD) and the Second (105–106 AD) Dacian War personally led by Trajan. Let us not forget that for the events of these two wars the column is a privileged and sometimes unique source, given the loss of most of the written sources from that period.

3 The Spiral Frieze and the Triumphal Painting As a matter of fact, the large ribbon wrapped around the column, illustrating the description of war facts was a completely new and exceptional variant of a custom that modern criticism placed under the name, even if reductive, of triumphal painting. This definition usually refers to the representations of the most salient moments of a war, mainly pictorial, but in some particular cases also in three-dimensional works, as for the large maquettes, set up by the artisans that accompanied the commanders of the armies in the republican age, and the emperors in the subsequent imperial era, to record the res gestae. For example, we know about painters following the expedition of Marcus Aurelius against Germans and Sarmatian. These works aimed to account to the senate of the conduct of the wars, showing them facts that, when the conflict was over, the Roman commanders themselves will normally write it down in their narrations. Of some of these paintings, we have more or less detailed memories, while for the maquettes, apart from a few hints in images and various authors from all eras, we fortunately have the accurate descriptions of Flavius Josephus (Jewish War VII, 143 ff). His descriptions present the maquettes, certainly memorable, destined to illustrate the long and difficult Jewish war of Vespasian and Titus to make clear to the Roman people the extent of the triumph granted to them for the success achieved in the bloody conflict against the Jewish revolt in Judea, celebrated in 71 AD. Before anything else, in the Republican age, when Rome pushed its conquests into ever more distant or simply little known lands, a victorious general had to prepare before his return to his homeland a report. Once arrived home he will give it to an oblivious and poorly informed senate, to whom it was essential to present a geographical picture of the places where the war took place. All the older readers of these pages, students of a school that did not disdain to learn by heatr literary texts of particular importance, will remember the beginning of Caesar’s De bello Gallico, « Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres… » an incipit that intends to describe, albeit briefly, the vast scenario in which took place the long and victorious wars led by Caesar: like everyone else, he had to set carefully his res gestae, to make clear to everyone the extent of his exploits. And that this was not a mere bureaucratic custom for political purposes, or the pure and simple fulfillment of a duty of the magistrate in command of armies, but it had precise feedback in the so called “material” practice connected to the triumphs, it is been confirmed by the precise testimony of Livy. In fact he describes (41, 22, 8–10) the tabula triumphalis, the painting that Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus dedicated in 177 BC in Rome, in the temple of Mater Matuta, near to the Triumphal Gate, following the celebration of the conquest of Sardinia:

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Fig. 4 Rome, Arch of Titus, panel showing the entrance of the remains taken from the Temple of Jerusalem. Picture by the Author

« Sardiniae forma erat, atque in ea simulacra pugnarum picta » . The painting consisted of a map of Sardinia and in this were painted the representations of the battles. If the senate granted the triumph, the paintings, in the form of tables or even long cloth banners, or the three-dimensional maquettes, were exhibited in the sumptuous processions that followed that concession: the meanings of the representations were often explained to the Roman people by means of explanatory signs. This is clearly shown by the inscribed tabulae (Fig. 4) represented in the famous panel of ¯ Titus’ arch with the entrance in the Porta Triumphalis of the Arôn habbђrît, the Ark of the Covenant, and of the Menorah, the Seven Arms Candelabrum, as a war prey taken from the Temple of Jerusalem, of which form and meaning were certainly unknown to the great mass of the Romans. Returning to the Trajan Column, we must point out that the courtyard in which the column was located had on one side the entrance to the Basilica Ulpia and on the opposite side the probable deified Trajan’s Temple, while on the other two sides there were two libraries, one Greek and one Latin, as was customary in Rome. It is logical to think that these libraries kept the copies of the Commentarii de Bello Dacico, which we know that Trajan, following the example of Caesar, written to narrate his exploits against the Dacians and their king Decebalus. The large frieze wrapped around the column was essentially the figurative version of his narrations, which had the task of transmitting the glorious contents even to the illiterate, who in ancient times were the overwhelming majority among the minute people, the main recipient of triumphal representations. However, let us see how this frieze is materially conceived, with absolute clarity it derived from a painting on a cloth support, of which the marble presents the enlarged rim of irregular shape. The powerful thickness of this edge can lead us to suppose that Apollodorus of Damascus’ intent was to imitate not so much a painted fabric as a tapestry: the figured carpets were a specialty of the Hellenistic handicraft and Apollodorus is nothing but one of the heirs of that tradition. At the beginning of the Second Century BC, Plautus speaks of « Alexandrina beluata conchyliata

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tapetia » (Pseudolus, 147), that is “Alexandria’s carpets with beasts and shells”, as refined products of the luxury textile industry of the Hellenistic kingdoms capitals, unfortunately for us completely lost, but of which we have direct reflections in the mosaic floors from the Second Century BC until late antiquity and in some ways still further. It is however unlikely that the distant prototype of the Trajan Column frieze is to be found in the tapestry: the weaving timing of tapestries and carpets are in conflict with the need for the rapid packaging of the artifact to be shown to the Senate and then possibly in the triumphal pump. For this reason, it is wise to stand with the traditional criticism, which indicates in the triumphal paintings the matrix of the frieze idea.

4 The Figurative Story: Cartography and Itineraries Over the years the frieze was reproduced in drawings and prints, among which the magnificent engravings by Pietro Santi Bartoli, made under the direct supervision of Pietro Bellori, great art critic and maître-à-penser of the prevailing classicism in Rome of the seventeenth century, published in 1673, until the devastating casts executed by Napoleon III for the strongly desired Saint-Germain-en-Laye museum. The great restorations carried out in the final decades of the last century have found that the frieze exhibited abundant traces of a lively polychromy, together with the traces of metallic appliques, like spears or other weapons, added to the characters to embellish the representation. The events apparently seem to be narrated continuously, to the point that a French scholar, Alain Malissard, in 1974 proposed to read the frieze with the same logic in use to analyze a cinematographic film, and he entitled his book on the Trajan’s Column « Étude filmique de la Colonne Trajane: l’écriture de l’histoire et de l’épopées latines dans les rapports avec le langage filmique » . Actually, as all those who have dealt with the column have always recognized, on the frieze we find a succession of events that easily describable as so many cartoons, juxtaposed together in an uninterrupted succession. Of these cartoons, all of equal length, the great French archaeologist Salomon Reinach made a classification in “scenes”, which became canonical and followed by those who dealt and deal with the Trajan’s Column, attributing 57 scenes (1–57) to the First Dacic War, the following 55 (59–114) to the Second War. Between the two groups of scenes is the scene 58, representing Victoria writing the Roman successes on her shield. Despite the obvious succession of these cartoons that “photograph” different moments in the development of wars, the impression the viewer gets from careful observation of the way Apollodorus of Damascus “built” the story in pictures is precisely that of an uninterrupted narrative sequence of war events. Starting from the entry of Roman troops into the enemy territory on the grandiose wooden bridge over the Danube, designed and built by Apollodorus himself, they conclude with the killing of the Dacian king Decebalus, the sacking of the royal treasure and the exodus of what remained of the populations won with all the cattle beyond the new

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borders traced by Rome following the conquest. However, if we are going to classify the scenes by subject, we immediately realize that only a few have the task of recording memorable events. Some of them not portray military moments, but ceremonial or “protocol” moments: among these stand out the numerous representations of adlocutio del princeps (scenes 11, 21, 33, 52–53, 56, 77 and 100), all allocations of great political and propagandistic significance. These, in the written version of the Commentarii, had to correspond to as many “transcriptions” of speeches, as it was customary to insert in historical recordings since the most ancient testimonies of Greek historiography. The literary character of these representations of speeches appears to be confirmed by the fact that the frieze also includes the representation of an adlocutio of Decebalus, according to the model imposed by the literary genre of ancient historiography: according to the rules of this genre, it is canon to present speeches of the leaders of the two warring factions. Other scenes have a “protocol” character, like the only image we have of a consilium principis (scene 6), which joins the various others that reproduce various fulfillments of the army life, such as the sacrifices of lustratio (scene 37) or also the soldiers engaged in the harvest (scene 83). This last scene not only illustrates the “good behavior” of the troop, which also performs humble tasks, destined however to procure food for comrades, but for the narrative structure purpose it also aims to mark the time of the war action, that is the summer time. In this regard, already in Thucydides, in the initial notations of large parts of his historical work, it recurred the indications “in winter” or “in summer”, which aimed to mark the times of the war actions and the times of the wintering of armies. However, another unusual trait, of a very little narrative value, but instead of great importance for the story structure, consists of the presence of 17 scenes representing the construction of castra, bridges and other infrastructures of the territory for military purposes. These scenes do not have relevance for the celebratory or triumphant purposes of the client, and neither for the ultimate purpose of the monument, therefore it is a fact that seems to contrast with the extreme minuteness of the figurative descriptions of these achievements. Yet these insertions, which appear to be so frequent, are of great importance to ensure a full understanding by the viewer of the events of the two Dacian wars. If each of these fortified camps had a name, the observer could easily read the progression of the military events, because these castra were real “markers” of the territory in which the war events were taking place. Moreover, if the spectator had before him—unlikely, even if theoretically not impossible—the text of Trajan’s Commentarii, he had the opportunity to read the events as they were articulated in the words of Trajan himself.

5 The Meaning of the “Structural” Scenes The representation of these details, despite their apparent insignificance, undoubtedly played an enormous importance in allowing the spectator to reconstruct the spatial progression of the war, an element that, as said before, signed the geographical and

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territorial starting point of the narration, exactly like, though with less evidence, the aforementioned harvest scene was a striking time signal. However, even more important for the construction of the narrative structure depicted on the frieze, are the 12 marching scenes of the armies. As shown in scenes 26–27 and 108–109, it may even appear separately on two different levels, with the purpose of pointing out parallel marches of two different contingents of soldiers: it may even happen that the two ranks are caught when they meet. This detail of the marches, together with the other “structural” scenes, helps us to understand the sense of the structure of this very special narrative in images: the whole tape wants to be the geographical container of the historical event, exactly like the tabula triumphalis of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a map of Sardinia, in which appeared military clashes. As can be easily guessed, the frieze was a particular type of geographical map, different from those developed from the Greek culture, since the sixth century BC with ever greater precision with the development of Hellenistic cartography, which are the basis of geographical maps as they have evolved from the modern age to the present. Behind the linear development of the column frieze is the mapping of territories in the form of the itinerarium, with obvious practical purposes and therefore very dear to the Romans, who conceive the map as a representation of the road network that innervates it. Of this itineraria written editorials are known: a singular example are the “glasses” (silver reproductions of milestones), dated to the first century AD and discovered in the nineteenth century among the ruins of the Roman baths of Vicarello, the ancient Aquae Apollinares near Bracciano. Another example of written editing is the text known as Itinerarium Antonini, probably named after by Antoninus, the official name of Caracalla, who may have ordered its composition. In this, as in other itineraria of late antiquity, connected with Christian pilgrimages, are recorded the routes of all the empire’s streets with the relative distances between cities and stations (mansiones) for stopovers. The origin of these documents is the map of the Orbis Romanus, the Roman ecumenism, painted by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa on the walls of his porticus Vipsania, a large portico, named after him, on the Via Flaminia where today it stands the church of S. Marcello al Corso, and where were located the horses stables for the imperial mail service. This map, mentioned several times by Pliny the Elder in his great geographical encyclopedia, recorded the itineraria, the road routes of the whole world subject to Rome, destined to branch out throughout the empire the imperial dispositions through the cursus publicus, precisely the emperor’s official post service. The map, which recorded all the urban centers of a certain size with the roads that connected them, painted as it was on the wall of a portico, had a lengthwise development. To get an idea of this type of cartography, we can refer to the Tabula Peutingeriana (Fig. 5), a late-medieval copy of a map of the empire painted on 11 sheets of parchment, in which appear also territories not included in the empire, as India and Sri Lanka. The twelfth sheet with the Iberian Peninsula, the extreme west of the Roman territory, has been lost. The original map was made in the fourth century AD, copying similar, much older maps, as evidenced by the fact that it includes Pompeii and Oplontis, destroyed in 79 AD. The original of the fourth century AD was born perhaps in conjunction with the drafting of other documents,

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Fig. 5 Vienna, Staatsbibliothek, Tabula Peutingeriana (da Internet)

the result of the activity of the imperial court bureaucracy, such as the calendar and the chronograph compiled in 354 AD: also in the Tabula Peutingeriana, as in the written itineraria, the roads that connected the cities are traced with all distances. In the Tabula, the vast territories represented have a strongly elongated aspect, very curious for us. This probably is related to the primitive source of Porticus Vipsania, which has a natural, pronounced lengthwise development, and, on the other hand, it might be connect with the practical, bureaucratic and military use of this kind of maps, which had to be frequently folded.

6 Conclusions: The Landscape as a Binder of the Story In light of all this, it is not surprising that for the frieze of the column, Apollodorus of Damascus took inspiration from this kind of documents, widely used in every empire legion headquarters. The final aspect of the frieze, the formal one, makes us forget all the conventions at the origin of the composition of the work, thanks to the succession of landscapes that animate the story without a reflection in the official representations of civil and military activity of the emperor, of his generals, magistrates and officials, which are the backbone of the imperial age Roman art. The landscape notations insert a note of naturalistic realism in these official choral (Fig. 6), often bloody (Fig. 7) scenes, like the twisted trees, according to a documented tradition of the Hellenistic landscape, or descriptions of countryside and villages, which the spectator does not easily forget, as he does not forget the natural setting of the events. Even that of the castra, the meticulous description of the built camp where the solemn lustratio scene

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Fig. 6 Consiglio imperiale (da Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

Fig. 7 Irruption of the Romans in a Dacian village (by Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

takes place (scene 37), officiated by Trajan himself (Fig. 8), or the majestic urban and natural landscape (scene 3–5) of the Danube (Fig. 9), crossed by the Roman armies on the Apollodoro bridge. In the hands of a great artist in possession of a centuries-old background of the Hellenistic culture, in which the landscape has a long history of collective research and enchanting conquests, the bureaucratic aspect, even if it is just a practical tool of the itinerary, becomes the narration. This, it is really continues, a passing of landscapes, as a true and proper glue of the different scenes, which appear along the entire surface of the frieze on the limelight, consisting of the imaginary ribbon that wraps the column like a tableaux vivants, with their natural environment contour.

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Fig. 8 The emperor officiates the lustratio (by Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

Fig. 9 The passage of Roman troops on the bridge over the Danube (by Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

According to a consolidated artistic tradition of Alexandria, entirely refused by the decorative tradition of the late republic Roman art, Apollodorus and his immense workshop—as we imagine—have included within this landscape continuum, using an anachronistic modern language, scenes that we could call sketches, scenes from real life: such as the transport of barrels loaded on small boats on the Danube currents (Fig. 10), or prospects of cities or small villages, often housing scenes of unprecedented violence (Fig. 11). All these scenes contribute in a decisive way to creating that highly realistic framework, which is not only the background of the unfolding

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Fig. 10 Boats carrying barrels on the Danube (by Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

Fig. 11 The Romans conquer a Dacian village (by Pietro Santi Bartoli, La colonna di Traiano)

story of the two wars, but it constitutes the true unifying element of the historical narrative, transforming the landscape into the concrete itinerary taken by Trajan and his legions.

The Fifth Landscape: Art in the Contemporary Landscape Diego Repetto and Fabrizio Aimar

Abstract At the Shaping the City conference organised by the European Cultural Center at the 2018 Venice Biennale, the concept of the Fifth Landscape (or Landscape 5.0) was exhibited for the first time. Thanks to creativity, the goal is to experiment with spaces for the sake of social and cultural imagination, in which it is no longer just a question of architecture but of dreams and social imagination. “Ideal” spaces are related to their impact on the architecture, art and human hopes. In the Fifth Landscape, the contemporary prefers the moment of the artistic gesture that will be remembered but that is not relived in everyday life. Temporary installations in urban centers and open spaces become an occasion for new uses of the different environments, such as living them in a completely new way with novel prospects for the future. If the First Landscape is the managed forest, then the Second is the cultivated field. The Third is the abandonment of places at the hands of man, according to Gilles Clément, and the Fourth is where art is used to counter urban degradation and solitude. The Fifth Landscape is generated by temporary works that, catalysing territorial force, stimulate people to live in the environment in a new way, making it dreamlike. The strong emotional impact on the collective memory transmits, in addition to the true meaning of the work, a sense of uniqueness of the moment that one is experiencing. New visions of landscapes are provided to the community, in which art, architecture, design and nature are confronted using environmental sustainability and the landscape itself as themes. What influences will cultural dematerialisation have on the landscape? How will the sense of beauty in the future society be transmitted and realised? If it is, through which artistic and ephemeral gestures will it appear? Helped by virtuous and suggestive artworks among which Vesuvius by Diego Repetto, Illusion by Alberto Timossi and ARTgo by Diego D. Repetto (B) DoT architetture Studio, Via Cavour 10, 12050 Guarene, Italy e-mail: [email protected] F. Aimar Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Polytechnic University of Turin, Viale Pier Andrea Mattioli 39, 10125 Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected] LINKS Foundation, via Pier Carlo Boggio 61, 10138 Turin, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_32

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Repetto, we try to answer the proposed questions, thus understanding more about the potential future perception of the landscape in a continuous search for beauty. Keywords Fifth landscape · Landart · Landscape resilience · Temporary art exhibitions · Robert venturi · Gamification

1 Introduction At the Shaping the City conference organised by the European Cultural Center at the 2018 Venice Biennale, the concept of the Fifth Landscape or the Landscape 5.0 is exhibited for the first time. Thanks to creativity, the goal is to experiment with important spaces for the social and cultural imagination, in which it is no longer just a question of architecture but of dreams and social imagination. They can be defined as “ideal” spaces for their impact on the architecture, art and human hopes. In the Fifth Landscape, the contemporary prefers the moment of the artistic gesture that will be remembered but not relived in everyday life. There are many examples from the past and present of temporary installations with a strong emotional impact that have influenced the collective memory, such as the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Yves Klein, Walter De Maria, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor and Jeff Koons. In addition to the sense of attraction that a given work transmits, the observer is involved in a perception of the uniqueness of the moment that he/she is living. Among the forerunners is the French artist Yves Klein, known as Yves Le Monochrome, who planned to illuminate the blue obelisk of Place de La Concorde in Paris in 1958 to accompany the exhibition “Le Vide" [19]. His intention was to conceptually fly the illuminated obelisk over the city as a magical symbol of the message of the arrival of the “La Révolution Bleue". However, the police district withdrew its authorization at the last minute, but it was later realized posthumously in 1983. There are many examples that involve the worlds of art, architecture, science and landscape and the human perception at various levels. For example, Olafur Eliasson is a Danish artist known for having exhibited the installation “The Weather Project” at the Tate Modern in London in 2003. Eliasson’s thought is well expressed in the book Olafur Eliasson. Colour memory and other informal shadows [13]: pp 21: In architecture and spatial arts, there has been a progressive understanding of the fact that a total and external (body) “escape point”, understood as a common goal or opinion on a park (or society), has been disappearing, leaving the possibility of raising to a higher level an internal or personal escape point. We can therefore relate more easily to space based on what I call a reversed perspective point of view. Since one internal or personal escape point can never be the same as another—being in each of the different users—then a higher level of personal experience can be considered.

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Therefore, art can stimulate high experiential levels, allowing the observer to change his or her point of view, generating new awareness and possible future scenarios. Through social networks, for example Instagram, the perception of landscapes and themselves is radically transformed. The users provide own images, even to an unreal level, in order to condition their followers, guiding them in their vision. Landscapes, with the application of “image filters”, are also modified to your liking. Sceneries or situations are photographed via a smartphone and then shared, making the subject of the photo “Instagrammable”. All of this represents a dematerialization of the developing culture, which the journalist Andrea Vaccaro of Avvenire [17] describes as referring to the new generations: Young people are still insatiable listeners of music and avid consumers of films, yet in their bedrooms there is no trace of long-lasting vinyls, CDs, videocassettes or DVDs. Everything has disappeared in the non-physical spaces of the artificial memories recalled by some digital devices often very small. All the music, the images and the words produced by human beings will hover, gaseously, in that cloud that best represents the state of dematerialization of our current and future culture.

The term “Fifth landscape” describes the material and immaterial works in which the installations temporarily condition the community, providing new visions of the landscapes lived in everyday life. Art, architecture and design are confronted with the themes of environmental sustainability and landscape, transforming the environment into a momentary image, striking the observer’s memory. Quoting August Heckscher in the book “Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture” [18], Robert Venturi speaks of the sense of paradox, which “allows seemingly dissimilar things to exit side by side, their very incongruity suggesting a kind of truth” (pp. 19). The contradiction between “incongruity” and “truth” stimulates the creation of new content with which to transform momentarily, in an ephemeral gesture, a place. The creation of visual paradoxes marks the collective memory forever, prompted by a “simultaneous perception of amultiplicity of levels” [18], thus making the visitor’s observation and experience more incisive. The following are some examples of Landscape 5.0: the proposed images and other works created from the concept of eruption of light in Vesuvius by Diego Repetto (2017) to the environmental works by Alberto Timossi (2015–2018).

2 Work in Progress on Vesuvius The Vesuvius project (Fig. 1) was born in 2017 from a research project by the architect Diego Repetto’s team through innovative studies on the development of tourist sites of architectural, archaeological and landscape value. It is part of the artistic universe defined as the Fifth Landscape.

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Fig. 1 The Vesuvius project; digitally reworked. Photo by Diego Repetto

Diego Repetto is an Architect, designer and artist active mainly in Land Art and Land Lighting. In 2017, he coined the term “Land Lighting”, a new artistic movement in the landscape field. In this perspective, he realized several projects developed in collaboration with public and University institutions, including the Vesuvius National Park Authority, the “Mauro Felli” Interuniversity Research Center on Pollution and Environment (CIRIAF), the International Research Laboratory on Landscape at the University of Perugia, the Municipality of Alba, the National Association of Italian Partisans, the Association for the Heritage of the Vineyard Landscape of LangheRoero and Monferrato, the Municipality of Turin, the New Italo-Chinese Generation Association (ANGI), the Polytechnic University of Turin and the University of Turin, the University of Portsmouth and the Dino Zoli Foundation of Contemporary Art. Together with operations between art and landscape, the Vesuvius light eruption is a work of planetary importance that is able to show the world the desire for redemption and the enhancement of the territorial area of Vesuvius and of Italy in general. Through this gesture of Land Lighting, the geographical area of intervention would benefit, including from the creation of new economic opportunities both for the local population and for tourism. Like Walter De Maria (1935–2013), he was aware of the political and bureaucratic obstacles that he was facing when he talked about his projects conceived in Germany, The elephant sculpture and The Olympic Mountain (1970) [7, 8], two works of great scope and with large mileage dimensions. This was also the case in the ambitious project Vesuvius (new visual, artistic, emotional and landscape frontier and emblem of the Fifth Landscape), where a great effort is required from all interested parties from the Vesuvius National Park Authority to the staff of researchers for the practicability study (2017). Proceeding towards a Memorandum of Understanding between the Authority of the Vesuvius National Park and the “Mauro Felli” Interuniversity Research Center on Pollution and the Environment (CIRIAF), of which the territorial structure is

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Fig. 2 Resized Volcano at MUST. Photo by Diego Repetto

composed of over 10 Italian universities for the feasibility study aimed at the realization of the Vesuvius project, Diego Repetto and his team developed an artisticexperiential installation. This was with the collaboration of the Kids Sound Fest staff, of the Giovani Genitori Magazine, the International Landscape Research Laboratory (CIRIAF-SSTAM) of the University of Perugia, the Europe Cultural Center of Venice of the Ideal Spaces Working Group of Karlsruhe (Germany) and the new-generation Italian-Chinese Association (ANGI) of Turin [14]. The installation between art and science Resized Volcano [14] represents a magma chamber (Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5). This is an area inside a volcano where the lava is stationed before erupting to the surface. Visitors (both adults and children) are projected into an immersive reality full of emotions: an adventurous journey inside the volcano which begins with the external vision of the monolithic installation. Thanks to sound designer Enzo Cimino, an imaginary place was designed and created; a context capable of opening the door of feelings. It doesn’t matter if the sound is real or generated (synthesized) on a computer. What matters is the resonance with the inner world, which is very personal and intimate. At the center of the magma chamber, the sound and stage perception are enriched by elements that make the experience rich in visual, reverberation and tactile suggestions. As in Venturi’s iconic project for the monumental fountain on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia (1964, Fig. 6) [18], Vesuvius and Resized Volcano are, in their sculptural and architectural structure, analogous and contrasting with respect to the context. At the same time, they appear to be directed and not directed,

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Fig. 3 Resized Volcano at MUST. Photo by Diego Repetto

Fig. 4 Into Resized Volcano. Photo by Diego Repetto

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Fig. 5 Into Resized Volcano. Photo by Diego Repetto

Fig. 6 Monumental Fountain on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Competition. Fairmount Park Art Association. Rollin LaFrance Collection, Architectural Archives University of Pennsylvania. source https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/superhumanity/68713/history-for-an-empty-future/)

designed from the inside out (starting from the volcanic site, the Vesuvius project involves the whole Campania and national territory) as from the outside to the inside

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(compressed inside the Olona Pavilion at the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, the Resized Volcano installation becomes a sort of antechamber to the Museum). In their different scales, both works attract the observer and, moreover, due to the intrinsic “sense of paradox”, they generate new cultural, social, economic and political energies in the installation site. The intention of the exibition, which premiered March 24th, 2019 in conjunction with the Kids Sound Fest at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology (MUST) in Milan, was to stimulate the desire for discovery and wonder. One of the goals of this artistic-scientific installation is to educate, to listen and to understand how sound enriches/creates a context, returns meanings and emotions and how this world is an inseparable part of our deepest being. Educating by listening to one’s emotions generated within the magma chamber means first and foremost embarking on a journey with oneself in the emotional “volcano” that is in each of us: exploring the immaterial landscape represented by our subconscious. In addition to the aforementioned, the Resized Volcano immersive chamber was presented in 2019 at the MUST in Milan to honor, on the 500th anniversary of his death, the largest volcano of ideas of all time: Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).

3 Towards the Collective Imagination Trying to talk about the imaginary implies the attempt to want to give shape to a dream universe in his thinker. A different world that, in its surrealist, symbolic, metaphysical or utopian declinations, has as its objective the transposition into reality by offering a different, critical and lateral view. The Vesuvius project (2017) was conceived thanks to the visionary intuition of the architect Diego Repetto. It fits into this projection using utopia as a possibility. In support of this thought, it offers a multiplicity of readings to its public and it does not limit itself as a mere effort to recalls what was a tragic historical event. Radical thought, in fact, offers the possibility of placing facts and events in the dimension of timelessness, in which the laws of time lose their validity because they are not daughters of that dream world from which they draw nourishment. Precisely for this reason, we often read or hear about “timeless ideas". This is also confirmed by the design intent of choosing the ephemeral as the “building material”, in which light becomes both an actor and a scene. It is completely reversible, and of places and representations. It is a choice that is also faithful to the world from which it comes, and this becomes the heart of the visionary project. Therefore the Vesuvius project cannot be exhausted only through this commemorative gesture; it keeps the other in itself. Transcending from this philosophical reflection that implies and returning to the everyday-life reality, this vision also has a provocative character by raising awareness of the turbulent themes that run through contemporary society. Among these, environmental problems are those that always

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call us back to realism, asking us insistently to reverse the global imbalances that the Anthropocene era is producing. In particular, without a doubt, light pollution has its sad centrality. Looking at a night map of the globe, we can see how Europe is fully affected by this pathology, which has as its areas of maximum intensity those of the Benelux and the entire Po Valley. Italy, in addition to the Adriatic coasts from Emilia-Romagna to Abruzzo, suffers in the same way from the similar problem in the metropolitan areas of the cities of Rome and Naples. If, as written, the radical attempt has as its objective that of utopia, then it is understood as a “place not yet realized". This is the expectation and hope for a better future; these must necessarily be armed with the research tools. From holism, we pass into militarism. The research implies the objective narration of facts, in which the dipole between knowledge and disclosure risks articulating in an antithetical way with respect to one another. It is difficult, in fact, to communicate without having to evade, dampen or trivialize concepts that would otherwise be difficult for the general public to grasp or the scarce attention and oblivion of the narrated. Therefore if the intent is to reach the masses, which combine with difficulty attention and intolerance towards complex issues, then we see the need to use a medium. This medium must contain within itself the plurality of meanings and objectives to which the debut refers, thickened into a powerful evocative charge just as the white color does by adding in itself to all other ones. At this point, the only possible help is that which comes spontaneously from the art world. Consequently, coming back to holism is here needed. Art as a means of mass communication is useful for conveying concepts and ideas through the most used tool in the contemporary world: that of provocation. He always travels in tandem with the interpretative need, which forces the user, active or passive, to meditate on it or with it. Imagine, therefore, a proposal of the field of application of Vesuvius (Fig. 7): almost 6 million citizens of Campania (ISTAT 2019)1 who turn their gaze towards that cylinder of light, about 20 km high, which unites the earth and sky. The sublimation of multiple meanings in a gesture that becomes land art is unlike the canonical material type. It aims to shake the mental imagination of every spectator thanks to the ephemeral. The proposal, therefore, finds its dimension fading the boundaries between the worlds of art, architecture, landscape, research and dissemination. The potentials offered by these fields are enormous, since the basin from which they draw is in turn vast, that is, the imaginary one. An utopian world both personal and collective is one of the common intangible assets on which a community is founded, be it local, national or international for the construction of its own identity. They can be considered as parts of a set that, if conjugated together, offer a vision of the world around us that is always new, once again to be built or re-constructed.

1 ISTAT,

Populations and Households, Population, Resident population on 1st January, Campania. Source: https://dati.istat.it/Index.aspx?QueryId=18460&lang=en.

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Fig. 7 The Vesuvius project seen from the archaeological park of Pompeii; reworked photo by Diego Repetto

4 The Temporary Metamorphosis of the Landscape To describe the Fifth Landscape, it is important to analyze some of the works by Walter De Maria, an American sculptor (1935–2013) and one of the main exponents of the Land Art artistic movement. In Hannover, Germany (1970), De Maria devised an ambitious project with a hundred elephants. In response to a tender for street art, he planned the division of the German city into vast areas, identifying the routes for these mammals as real paths through parks and roads (Fig. 8). The intent was to transform these large animals into a concrete presence in the city, but at the same time, he wanted them to be dreamlike due to the absurdity of decontextualization itself: “the elephants would have inhabited the city” [7]. De Maria’s most famous work is The Lightning Field [4] in New Mexico, United States of America (1977). This is a monumental installation consisting of 400 sharp metal poles which act as lightning rods, in an area of about 3 square kilometers in the desert of New Mexico. De Maria creates a remarkable work of Land Art in synergy with Nature. In fact, during thunderstorms, lightning rods collect and multiply the power of lightning in the service of a great light show. The installation, which can be visited directly from May to October or indirectly through photographs and videos, represents the union between artificial and natural in which the work of

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Fig. 8 “The elephants would have inhabited the city”, photographic insertion of a herd of elephants in the streets of Hannover, a tribute to Walter De Maria, a historical. Photo reworked by Diego Repetto

art is achieved through the conditioning of a frequent climatic event in the site area. All of the artistic experiences led De Maria to deepen in his Land Art works in his search for a relationship of “constant and living participation of the visitor/spectator” [4]. Other examples come from the Bulgarian artist Christo, who worked with his wife Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009) until 2009. One characteristic of Christo and Jeanne-Claude is the creation of projects of imposing dimensions, which produce a temporary metamorphosis of the intervention sites, visually transforming them into unrepeatable places. Their works have contributed to generating “new visual standards”, in which “a part or the entire rural landscape […] become archetypal images right in the midst of their real context” (Taube, Oberhausen 1999),2 thus altering the existing architecture and environments into new visions [3, 16]. 2 Text written by Marion Taube in 1999 on the installation The Wall

and the installation, again in the Gasometer, of the two exhibitions The Umbrellas and Wrapped Reichstag. Published in Bourdon D., Ganser K., Taube M., Volz W. (2001) Christo and Jeanne-Claude Gasometer, Oberhausen 1999.Taschen America Llc, Los Angeles. ISBN: 978–38-2286–877-5., and also in Taube M. (2001) Orizzonti in espansione. In: Parmesani L. (Ed.) Christo e Jeanne-Claude. Progetti recenti, progetti futuri. Skira editore. Milan, pp. 66–67. ISBN: 979–88-8118–940-2.

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Fig. 9 The Floating Piers, installation art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo by Diego Repetto

Marion Taube, author of the text “Expanding Horizons”, in Christo and JeanneClaude. Recent projects, future projects issued by the publisher Skira [16], writes3 : A sudden familiar image disappears, reappearing in a new way, […] creating a new space for imagination and reflection, enriched in its imaginary, playful, seductive and above all difficult to forget. The real prodigy found in the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude is revealed when the artists leave and their short-lived works are dismantled: nothing appears as before! […] What we have seen is no longer forgotten and is stored in depth in the observer’s associative memory.

An instance of the temporary metamorphosis of the landscape is the installation The Floating Piers (Christo 2016), which was conceived as a walkway that crosses the shores of Lake Iseo (Fig. 9). In addition to having generated in visitors a global curiosity in living it in person, attracting more and more tourists every day, the work of Land Art has generated a considerable economic advantage for the territory.

5 Environmental Installations by Alberto Timossi Alberto Timossi was born in 1965. He is a sculptor who lives and works in Rome. He is known for his environmental creations made mainly with red tubes. His works have been exposed in various personal and collective exhibitions, both in Italy and abroad, including “Le scosse dell’arte” at MUSPAC, Experimental Museum of Contemporary Art, L’Aquila, 2011; “Flussi” at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Manzù Collection, Ardea (Rome), 2013; “Alberto Timossi”, Source of S. Nicolò and Roman Forum—Archaeological Museum, Assisi, 2014; “Synonyms”, Palazzo Orsini of Gravina, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Naples Federico II, Naples, 2015; “INSIEME/MAAM Metropoliz Museum of the Other and Elsewhere”, Cittadellarte, Pistoletto Foundation, Biella, 2015 and “Simbiosi”, Pietraporciana Nature Reserve, Siena, 2015. In 2018, he won the installation award at the “Apulia Land Art Festival”, in Alberobello, Apulia. 3 Ibidem.

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His environmental artworks, characterized by tubular elements, generate complex relationships with the space in which they are installed. The combination of vertical, horizontal and/or diagonal lines, as well as the colors of the materials, overlap the existing in a contradictory manner, creating new harmonies and balances. From the website of the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture of Matera (MUSMA 2011) [12], we read: In his work, the artist welcomes the tube as a means to exercise the verification of his own operating method which from time to time finds application in the exhibition space or in the urban context. An object that Timossi takes from the real, industrial and productive world, and extracts from the real from which it came and for which it was created, investing it with an unprecedented aesthetic and changing its conditions, from an element of use to a bearer in shape. The tube thus becomes the dominant element, and the iconic and absolute protagonist of the work. Among the fruitful productions of the Neapolitan artist, there is the intervention of the tubes on the pre-existing architecture and the formal solutions in which the artist combines the rigidity of the tubular body, which seems to lose part of its characteristic dynamism, with that of the gravitational fall of the shape and its modification in contact with the ground.

With the work Illusion (Michelangelo Quarries, Apuan Alps, Italy, 2015–2018), Timossi creates an emblematic example of Fifth Landscape in which the temporary metamorphosis of the landscape is closely connected to the mutation of the material within which the installation is composed (Figs. 10, 11 and 12).

Fig. 10 Illusion by Alberto Timossi, Michelangelo Quarries (Ravaccione basin, Alpi Apuane)

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Fig. 11 Illusion by Alberto Timossi, Michelangelo Quarries (Ravaccione basin, Alpi Apuane)

Fig. 12 Illusion by Alberto Timossi, Michelangelo Quarries (Ravaccione basin, Alpi Apuane)

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Fig. 13 Illusion by Alberto Timossi, Michelangelo Quarries (Ravaccione basin, Alpi Apuane)

Initially, it was a out-of-scale orange PVC pipe that stands out on the white marble steps of the Michelangelo Quarries (Ravaccione basin, Apuan Alps). The apparently contrasting element seems to pierce the rocky amphitheater. The environmental installation was inaugurated at the end of July 2015 and it lasted until the end of December 2018 (42 months instead of 2). Thanks to this time frame, the tubular element has lost its original color by perfectly mitigating its presence in the marble quarry, becoming white (Fig. 13). A visual and physical graft in continuous mutation, it is able to maintain its own experiential content and generate new landscape and artistic values. This is thanks to a wise dialogue with the surrounding environment.

6 The Fifth Landscape The experiences above analyzed are first of all linked together by the sense of grandeur and suggestion that they transmit and by the interaction between the visitor/spectator and the artwork. Actually, the concept behind the Land Lighting Vesuvius project (2017) [2] is the conscious and desired correlation between art and scientific research in which one supports the other, thus generating a new landscape called the Fifth Landscape or the Landscape 5.0.

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In the Land Art works (a term conceived by the artist Walter De Maria, the author of the installation Lightning Field, New Mexico, USA 1977) “the accompaniment of natural phenomena is part of the work, it is constructive and sensorial support” [4]. It becomes “impossible to identify the factors which contribute to form the work […]” and “some elements of the score can be given, leaving to each one the execution and the imaginary arrangement” [4]. Over time, Land Art’s temporary works have always become more frequent. As in communication and in the industrial sector, even in the artistic field, there is an exponential evolution in which technological factors contaminate art, collaborating with the latter to amplify the message that the artist wants to convey with his work. Communication is fast. The ephemeral prevails. The contemporary prefers the moment of the artistic gesture/message that will be remembered, but it is not relived in everyday life. Therefore, tourists not only seek events that create temporary landscapes (of short duration), but they are able to convey a sense of uniqueness of the lived moment, compared to standard one visits in historical and known sceneries. Temporary installations in urban centers and in open spaces have become an occasion to generate moments of a different environmental use, living them in a completely new way and creating novel perspectives. There are non-invasive interventions in which the vanishing of the work, given the temporary nature of the same, leaves no trace in the landscape. As the French art critic René Huyghe suggests (Buddismo e Società no. 190/September–October 2018: pp. 17) [9]: “Thanks to the creative act, art introduces into reality a new virgin contribution, a type of extra wealth for which nothing seems to have paved the way.[…] The art exists only when it actually introduces the search for and the achievement of a quality that is totally unmeasurable but inevitably experienced in the active reaction provoked by the creator in the viewer”.4 Marc Augé writes in New Topics, Lessons of truth (2017) that there is a double diversity of landscapes projected in space and time: “a geographical and climatic diversity evident for all and, in addition to this, a diversity made up of looks, experiences and individual stories” [1]. Gilles Clément identifies the forest managed as the First Landscape, the field cultivated as Second Landscape, while with the expression of the “Third Landscape” identifying all of those places in a state of abandonment at the hands of man (2004) [6]. Credit is given to Clément for having introduced a new way of looking at space and for redefining the areas of biodiversity, the aesthetics of the landscape and the ways of designing it. In an interview with Gilles Clément by Laura Mandolesi Ferrini for RAI News (2015) [11], it is possible to read the following:

4 Excerpt

from the dialogue between René Huyge and Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhism and Society no. 190, bi-monthly of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai, Rome, September–October 2018: p.17.

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“Ferrini: You suggest that is possible to discover the Third Landscape ‘if we stop looking at the landscape as the object of human activity’. Yet this exists precisely thanks to the human presence. Clément: Only a part of the Third Landscape results from human activity: these are abandoned spaces. But there is also another part of the Third Landscape that is represented by the spaces not transformed by man since the dawn of time. These are the peaks of the mountains, the peat bogs and the uncultivated places that are carriers of an important but never exploited biodiversity. Ferrini: The tools of observation of the Third Landscape go, you claim, from the satellite to the microscope. How important is an education of the gaze? Clément: Nothing is more important than the eye education. In my ‘ideal government’, there would be a ‘Ministry of Knowledge’, which is the most important ministry of all. Then, all the others would come: the Housing one, the Health one, etc. … and then at the end, at the bottom of the pyramid, there would be the Ministry of Economy. What makes everyone else work but not the one who gives orders to others.” The project “Fourth Landscape. The urban experience of beauty” (Florence 2018) [15] has been promoted and funded by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze under the artistic direction of Virgilio Sieni/Centro nazionale di produzione in collaboration with Fondazione Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Scuola di Musica di Fiesole Foundation, Tempo Reale Research Center for Production and Music Education. This indicates a further landscape in which art is used to counter urban decay and solitude. Thanks to the creative act, a renewal of the landscapes is brought to light, acquiring novel values and able to transmit to the observers the desire to investigate themselves and their environment in the past, present and future, thus interpreting the existing and constructing fresh narratives. Currently, there is a further evolution in the world of art, which inevitably involves the landscape and its perception. This is the innovation of multimedia art, which through Virtual and Augmented Reality generates a hybrid between dream and creation. An example is Jeff Koons’ 2017 augmented reality project for Snapchat, in which some of his iconic sculptures, including Balloon Dog Yellow, Popeye and the shapeless Play-Doh mountain of pongo, made in 3D, are inserted into the real landscape. They can only be viewed through the screen of a mobile phone. In this way, it is possible to visualise the virtual monumental works of the American artist scattered in different points of the globe. In the Fifth Landscape, the creative act becomes the expedient to generate new searches for territorial and social identity while also exploiting the gamification processes and reaching a greater number of stakeholders. The gamification is the use of elements borrowed from games and design techniques in contexts outside of these ones. An example of using the gamification concepts applied to the landscape and cultural heritage, inspired by the Pokémon GO app, is the ARTgo project (2016) [2]. This was conceived by Diego Repetto in collaboration with Emilio Ferro and

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the startup Veicoli s.r.l. from the business incubator of the Polytechnic University of Turin, ran by the professor Carlo Ostorero. ARTgo, envisioned as an application for iPhones and Android devices, has become the expedient to promote “Tourism 3.0”: a new way of living and visiting international art sites. Thanks to the use of Augmented Reality, based on the recognition of markers, the points of interest of parks and cultural heritage come to life newly. Visitors of all ages are introduced to an alternative search for cultural heritage, traveling between the real and the virtual world. In this way, unexpected places and unique cultural assets can be discovered in a completely new form. Following an analysis to increase the tourist flow to the Royal Castle and the Racconigi Park, made up of about 127.368 visitors in 2016 (MiBACT 2017: pp. 18),5 and given the dynamics of the site, it was decided to improve the tourist network by exploiting the Park. This was characterised by a route of about 7 km in total. The distinguishing element of the Park is the presence of the storks: the great vases that adorn the attic of the Castle are occupied by the imposing nests of the native birds. Moreover, Racconigi boasts of being the Italian city with the greatest “density of storks”, a symbol that is not only auspicious but also an indicator of excellent environmental quality (Figs. 14, 15 and 16). The above was the input to determine the representative element of the place: the stork. The exploration of the Park encourages the tourists to go in search of particularities that tell the history of the place. In this regard, scenes have been developed for each point of interest, visible through a smartphone. While visiting the Park, the mobile device shows, with the help of the video camera, the birds made in augmented reality within the real environment. The storks are represented with the origami style, exalting their slender and imposing shape. In this way, virtual works of Land Art are created within the Park. The “interactive points” use the technology of Augmented Reality. This is where the user has the possibility to enjoy the dynamism of the contents and can, if he/she wishes, immortalise oneself in a snapshot of the site within the animated elements. The user, with the help of a map and a GPS system, can know exactly the position within the Park and identify or reach interactive and informative points of interest. The idea of the ARTgo app project is to renew and transmit the spirit of research and information, and to discover the international artistic, architectural, landscape and cultural heritage in a completely different way. This has never seen a concrete application. The Land Art operation combined with Augmented Reality and the application of stage lighting provides a renewal of the image of monuments and landscapes.

5 MiBACT

(2017). Table 7—Visitors and income from museums Monuments and state archaeological sites—YEAR 2016, prepared by the Directorate General for Budget Service II, Statistics Office of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Italian Tourism. Source: https://www.statis tica.beniculturali.it/rilevazioni/musei/Anno%202016/MUSEI_TAVOLA7_2016.pdf.

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Fig. 14 ARTgo in Racconigi. Photo reworked by Diego Repetto

Historical architecture is revitalized, enriching it with novel meanings and suggestions. Some areas that require more care or to awaken attention, thanks to these new inputs on the landscape, become more visible.

7 Conclusion The examples cited are the evolution of a landscape characterised by a cultural dematerialisation, in which the image of the subject immortalised is modified virtually and visually by the observer based on personal taste as defined by own socio-cultural level and sensitivity. This opens up new connections, in which the Fifth Landscape can be seen in the concepts of quantum architecture as by the architect Maurizio Cinà. The author of the work Quantum Architecture. The reading of the architectural event in quantum optics

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Fig. 15 ARTgo in Racconigi. Photo reworked by Diego Repetto

Fig. 16 ARTgo in Racconigi. Photo reworked by Diego Repetto

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[5] states that it is time to create an architecture that is based “on the spontaneous evolution of languages: where reality, the genius loci, the social, the user, the observer and where the affect of time is not linear”. The reading of the architectural event in quantum optics foresees, according to Cinà [5], the presence of a third actor: “the observer”, who influences with the examination of the event itself. The new quantum architecture uses a multi-dimensional model for the design process, so the result is a dynamic and fully interactive environment with either a virtual space and/or a physical one. Landscape 5.0 is able to stimulate, with its contemporaneity and temporariness, the will of the human being to improve his environment by seeking beauty and educating it (Fig. 17). The awareness of being a fundamental part of an ecosystem that is based on interdependence and the interaction between man and the environment is thus released. Aurelio Peccei, co-founder of the Club of Rome, says [10]: The range of abilities still dormant in each individual is so great that they can be transformed into the greatest human resource. Only by developing these capacities, adapted to our new condition in today’s world, will we be able to bring order and harmony in our lives and the relationship with nature, progressing towards the future.

The Fifth Landscape or Landscape 5.0 (also considered to be a consequence of Industry 4.0) provides a definition of the new artistic trends that can be found in the increasingly frequent temporary operations in the landscape. The landscape faced through concrete or purely virtual works of art such as through Augmented Reality is continuously materialised and dematerialised, transforming itself into a communicative vehicle that reflects the vital state experienced by society at a given moment. The Fifth Landscape represents a new frontier in the artistic and landscape field. Art opens up more and more to technological and scientific contamination, generating new temporary experiments that in the future will be able to find a more practical and less theoretical application. The examples dealt with here, from the Vesuvius project by Diego Repetto (2017) to Illusion by Alberto Timossi (2015–2018), go in this direction: environmental installations that are trait d’union between the art world and the scientific one. The key to understanding the Fifth Landscape is in Venturi’s thought (1980) [18]: Our destiny seems to be to face the infinite incoherence of the roadtown which is chaos, or the immense coherence of Lewittown, which is boredom. In the roadtown, we find a false complexity; in Lewittown, a false simplicity. One thing is clear: authentic cities can never be born from such a false consistency. Cities, like architecture, are complex and contradictory (pp. 68).

With its authentic temporary incursions into the landscape, the art reveals a “false coherence”, showing to the human being that in itself, it is “complex and contradictory” [18] and linked to his own habits, in addition to alternative ways of living in spaces in harmony between one’s peers and the environment.

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Fig. 17 Graphic poster of the Fifth Landscape by Diego Repetto presented at the MACRO in Rome in June 2019 at the Gaseous Architecture conference performed by Arch. Emmanuele Lo Giudice

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Acknowledgments We would like to thank the representative of the regional program Piedmont at Save the Children Italy Erica Bertero, the Director of the magazine Young Genitori Luisa Tatoni, Professors Franco Cotana, Fabio Bianconi, Marco Filippucci and Giulia Pellegri, the Architects Maurizio Cinà and Emmanuele Lo Giudice, the Founder, a member of the management board in the Ideal Spaces Working Group, Ulrich Gehmann and the artist Alberto Timossi.

References 1. Augé M (2017) Landscapes are cultural facts. In: AA.VV. (2017), Lezioni di vero, Nuovi Argomenti, 78. Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milan. ISBN: 978–88–0467–964–6. Available at https://www.che-fare.com/marc-auge-i-paesaggi-sono-fatti-culturali/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 2. Bianconi F, Filippucci M (2018) Il Prossimo Paesaggio. Gangemi Editore spa, Rome. ISBN: 978-88-492-3591-3 3. Bourdon D, Ganser K, Taube M, Volz W (2001) Christo and Jeanne-Claude Gasometer, Oberhausen 1999. Taschen America Llc, Los Angeles. ISBN: 978-38-2286-877-5 4. Celant G (1980) The Lightning Field, Walter De Maria. Domus, Milan. [online] Available at: https://www.domusweb.it/en/from-the-archive/2011/06/23/the-lightning-field-walterde-maria.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 5. Cinà M (2017) Architettura Quantica. La lettura dell’evento architettonico in ottica quantistica. Anima Edizioni, Milan. ISBN: 978-88-6365-419-6 6. Clément G (2004) Manifeste du Tiers paysage. Éditions Sujet/Objet, Paris. ISBN: 2845342365 7. Cummings P (1972) Oral history interview with Walter De Maria, 1972 Oct. 4. In: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, New York. [online] Available at: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-walter-de-maria12362#transcript. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 8. De Maria W (2015) L’invisibile è reale. Castelvecchi, Lit Edizioni Srl, Rome. ISBN 978-886944-364-0 9. Huyghe R, Ikeda D (1991) Dawn after the dark: a dialogue. Weatherhill Inc., Trumbull. ISBN: 0834802384 10. Ikeda D (2002) Education for sustainable development proposal. buddismo e Società, 94, Florence. Available at: https://www.daisakuikeda.org/main/educator/education-proposal/eduproposal-2002.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 11. Mandolesi Ferrini L (2015) Incontro con Gilles Clément, giardiniere planetario. Terzo paesaggio, dal nulla alla libertà. Rai News. [online] Available at: https://www.rainews.it/dl/rai news/articoli/terzo-paesaggio-aree-verdi-margini-spazio-natura-0e8aa24d-82dc-4855-8ef766d7d3960823.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 12. Musma.it (2011) Musma—Alberto Timossi. [online] Available at: https://www.musma.it/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=821. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 13. Olafur Eliasson. Colour memory and other informal shadows (2007). Postmedia Srl, Milan. ISBN: 978–88–7490–034–1 14. Resized Volcano: vivere l’esperienza di un’eruzione vulcanica (2019). Magazine Giovani Genitori, Espressione srl, Turin. [online] Available at: https://www.giovanigenitori.it/lifestyle/tech/ resized-volcano-kids-sound-fest-museo-scienza/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 15. Sieni V (2018) Fourth landscape. The artistic and performative practices against degrade and urban solitude. Artribune, Florence. [online] Available at: https://www.artribune.com/mostreevento-arte/quarto-paesaggio/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019 16. Taube M (2001) Orizzonti in espansione. In: Parmesani L. (Ed.) Christo e Jeanne-Claude. Progetti recenti, progetti futuri. Skira editore, Milan, pp. 66–67. ISBN: 979–88–8118–940–2 17. Vaccaro A (2013) Tendenze. E dentro la «nuvola» la cultura è gassosa…. Avvenire, Milan. [online] Available at: https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/dentro-la-nuvolo-la-cultura-gas sosa. Accessed 21 Nov. 2019

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18. Venturi R (1966) Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. ISSN 0548–7307 19. Weitemeier H (2019) Yves Klein. Book series Basic Art, Taschen GmbH, Köln. ISBN: 978-38365-7216-3

The Maintenance Representation: Research and Applications, Mixing UAV and Digital Models Matteo Del Giudice, Rachele Grosso, Umberto Mecca, Giuseppe Moglia, Francesco Prizzon, and Manuala Rebaudengo

Abstract In Italy, a frequent approach to building maintenance is—for evident cost reasons—to operate following an occurred fault; from this point of view, the opportunity to design a database containing structured information on building’s state of conservation is still a long way off. The paper focuses on an application to a real case study and leads to a methodological proposal for the construction of a spatialized model that shows the maintenance condition on an urban scale. The model is implemented in several steps, from a visual investigation (perception) and subsequent in-depth studies (surveys), to the definition of a spatialised synthetic data. After explaining the methodology, i.e. the definition of indicators, parameters and weights, the paper focuses on the specific case study to achieve a result as replicable as possible, highlighting any critical areas of the process. Keywords Maintenance · Digital models · BIM · Database construction · Spatial representation · Urban scale

M. Del Giudice · R. Grosso · U. Mecca (B) · G. Moglia Politecnico di Torino—DISEG, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. Del Giudice e-mail: [email protected] R. Grosso e-mail: [email protected] G. Moglia e-mail: [email protected] F. Prizzon · M. Rebaudengo Politecnico di Torino—DIST, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. Rebaudengo e-mail: [email protected] U. Mecca · G. Moglia · F. Prizzon · M. Rebaudengo Politecnico di Torino—R3C, Turin, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_33

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1 Introduction Representation is continuously considered dependent on recipients of its contents. Currently, the building process actors access to an information management system and its representation linked to digital technologies constantly developing [3]. Nowadays, the methodology adopted for the digitalization of the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) sector is the Building Information Modeling (BIM): “a modeling technology and associated set of processes to produce, communicate and analyze building models” [9]. The BIM methodology represents an important paradigm shift in the construction sector and its process optimization, which has also been reflected from the legislative point of view in many countries. It is currently one of the technologies that, “entering into the project folds of that Lean manufacturing which is nothing more than industrial automation designed to improve working conditions and increase productivity in the sector”, may certainly be able to perfect the entire construction sector [12]. This paradigm’ shift prompts to reflect critically: the drawings representation is evocative, attractive and involving; the model (digital and non-digital) provides information. The drawings representation has a meaning related to the culture and critical capabilities of the reader; the model acts as a container to represent, manage and analyze data, and finally to produce information [22]. Venturi’s topic “Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness in landscape” connects with the objective of this study that is the maintenance representation. Digital models and tools, that are capable of collecting a large amount of information at the time of the survey, lead us to suppose that a complex result in knowledge can be achieved in a simple way, underestimating the need to optimize the synthesis related to the definition of the result itself. Synthesis, in knowledge, in which the nested contradictions in reality have to find a solution through the process of optimization. Synthesis that then helps the survey to feed the project. Survey, design and co-design are the representative issues that intertwine with the Venturi’s topic, “complexity and contradiction vs. simplification or picturesqueness in landscape”, and that invite us to reflect particularly on the project, both general and addressed to maintenance, which is related to reality and feasibility. The complexity of the project and its intrinsic unity urge us to reflect on the Venturi’s topic “The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole”. In this study, maintenance is represented using the assessments of a group of experts, methodologically governed and made comparable, and therefore measurable. The “man centrality” becomes a hinge between digital models and instruments on the one hand and survey and design to the other. So, how is it possible referring to the representation of maintenance? Should it be evocative and creative like a freehand drawing or should it be just to show information? An initial consideration, aimed at framing the concepts of maintenance and representation, can start from and be guided in its development by the consultation of a language dictionary, in which etymology and meaning research are privileged. For

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these insights, the Dictionary of the Italian Language [8] was used. Its preface states: “The dictionary is a source of clarification, of order. This is its charm”. The term maintenance is the “elementary notion of conservation”, which in turn is “the idea of constancy, convenience, advantage, coherence”. Moving from the general meaning to the context of the buildings, from the territory to the constructive element, it is possible to recognize the themes of: the time overcoming -with its action of decay-, the control of the resources use and that, particularly critical, of forms, materials and technologies permanence. Maintenance is “the set of necessary operations to preserve the convenient functionality and efficiency”. Like any adjective, “convenient” also refers to the particular operating context, and convenience is not always just economic. Conservation, in addition to the meaning of “maintenance in a state of efficiency”, opens to the one of “in a condition to be used”, with an explicit concern for the future: conservation is “protection”. To preserve is “to maintain something so that it does not undergo alterations”: it is clear the reference to the theme of permanence introduced above. On this subject, it is also interesting to mention one of the meanings of conservation that is referred to “any cultural phenomenon hostile to new or imported elements". The representation, however, is linked to the broad theme of communication: “expression by means of signs, figures, and images, as it requires commitment or artistic effectiveness, or the need to reduce in concrete and readable signs an abstract or concrete entity”. In mathematics and in particular in geometry, the representation is “any correspondence that is established between two abstract entities, to simplify the study or compare its properties”. In philosophy, “every process for which a content of perceptions, imaginations, concepts is presented to the consciousness”. Moreover, very interesting for its content of activity and action, “to keep the place and act on its behalf”. To communicate is “to make something known”, “to transmit something”, “to link something with proper means”. Perception is “to take consciousness in the sphere of sensitive experience or intuition”, then connected to representation (Fig. 1).

1.1 The Model of the City: Representation of Reality or Information Needs? Powerful new technologies have emerged in recent years that greatly improve ability to collect, store, manage, analyse and utilize information regarding features of the Earth’s surface and to combine these with other types of economic, social and environmental information [3]. The model, from “reference scheme for the purposes of reproduction or imitation” becomes-ever more in the case of representation—a “mathematical expression of a certain phenomenon in relation to the most different sectors, which reproduces its essential characteristics”. It should be noted that, according to Latino vulgare, modellus is the diminutive of modulus, module, “measure on which the compositional characteristics of a work of art are based; for the architecture, the relationship and the

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Fig. 1 Representation of perception at urban scale

proportioning between the various parts”. The reference to the “ideal medium type in the dimensions of the human body and its parts (also called canon)” is interesting for the module, too. And the canon underlines the meaning of “scheme to which one refers as the rule of an art” and, “in philosophy, criterion to be adopted for the conquest of truth” [8]. Representation therefore leads to the research of rules to govern the transmission of knowledge. Information is “what is accepted or communicated in the context of a practical or immediate utility and functionality” and, underlining the root of its lemma, it is, first, the “assignment of a naturally and scientifically valid form”. The measure, that is “the ratio between a quantity and another homogeneous one assumed as a unit”, is functional for the determination of quantity information. Reality is investigated, and measured, in form, material, technology, with different methods and instruments and with precision defined by the discretization chosen for the purpose of the application. The information, with the measurement, is reported in the model, with reference to shape, material and technology, with modes that also use conventional units of measurement and schemes that highlight the laws of form, the behaviour of the material and the use of technology. In the model, information and measurement become documents, and are placed in time by implementing themselves. The model is a complex document of the knowledge obtained through the survey and becomes as a contract document between the parties: the large scale model is a summary of the reality description, and in its parts, on a small scale, it becomes its detailed one.

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So the models are the necessary core for the collection, processing, management and preservation of information coming from the external environment, through human or instrumental interfaces, and destined to return there, finalized according to a declared project, designed and developed. Representation makes these information perceptible, living in a complex plurality of interfaces intended for different senses, human or not, symbolic or iconic, graphic or alphanumeric, static or dynamic, obvious or hidden, always characterized by the possibility of updating to potentially available languages.

1.2 Maintenance Representation: Suggestions from a Literature Review The representation can address a communication problem of the need or opportunity for maintenance of an element, using a symbolic or iconic interface accompanied by legends. Complex analogue models—in the past and now-, and complex digital models as digital twins [13, 29]—now and in the future—are the source of the data to communicate singular aspects using the interfaces as attention filter. In this intentionally general statement, the element must be associated with a dimension class and a working sector. The need for an element’s maintenance in a mechanical or computer system can be associated with probabilistic predictive parameters that foresee its collapse, or directly linked to the element’s collapse. The representation, in these cases, takes place by means of perceptible warnings through different human senses, or directly through the evidence of the ceased functioning of the element or the system. The necessity becomes an opportunity when a dangerous condition is prevented, before the predictive parameters of collapse are reached. The maintenance need of an element in a building or urban or territorial system, on the other hand, cannot be associated, currently in many cases, with probabilistic predictive parameters of collapse, which can be communicated with warnings. However, this need can be associated with scenarios, that are perceptible and assessable by trained people likewise happens in prevention or in risk & safety management sectors, evaluating individual or collective, operational or life situations. Also in the buildings or urban or territorial systems, maintenance becomes an opportunity to implement prevention, in general, and to maintain the safety of people and things. Regarding the activity of representing (or mapping) maintenance (or buildings’ deterioration), the literature provides many case studies, and witnesses many attempts to derive standardized procedures and workflows. Mostly the object of such applied research turns out to be an historically relevant building, while the various methodologies under examination mainly fall onto the concept of ‘integrated survey’, which results in the involvement of different techniques and operational tools for the assessment of buildings’ degradation level. By surveying the main databases of scientific content, we found, for example, evidence of the integration of techniques such as

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traditional-visual based representation, photogrammetric one and material analysis [24]; thematic mapping of materials decay by 3D modelling [19]; geo-referencing methods, such as UAVs implementation [26], risk analysis methodologies as decision making tools [15, 25]. The main limitations, in the development of an integrated survey technique, lies essentially in its ability of resulting flexible, detailed and of sufficient expeditious realization [20]. What the mentioned examples have in common, is mainly the fact that in most cases their focus is the building, aiming at preserve its functionality. This research, instead, wants to shift the attention to the citizen, who, simply by moving in a built environment that also includes the buildings and the infrastructures, becomes its user, and therefore a potential victim in case of sudden collapse of its parts along the public streets. This papers then aims at shifting from the building scale to the urban and territorial one, in the activity of mapping buildings’ and infrastructures’ deterioration, by applying the same techniques but with a lower level of detail, in order to maximize the extent of information mapped and provide a valuable support for targeted public policies’ development. In supporting public intervention policies, there is a need to combine the objectivity of the survey with the subjectivity of the surveyor and the finalization of the survey to the centrality of the project. The hierarchy of urgency of maintenance interventions helps to the choice in the use of public resources. From many parameters, the unity of the project must be achieved, likewise “The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole”, Venturi’s topic. A similar change of perspective replicates in the shift from single building’s maintenance plan [4] to territorial vulnerability index [2]. In accordance with the last mentioned authors, increasing the scale could imply the creation of a priority list to support preventive conservation policies. The paradigm change will be summarized in the present contribution by the transition from ‘mapping buildings deterioration’ to ‘mapping urban maintenance’. This definition does not seem to fit into a strand of existing literature on the topics of building maintenance, and because of this a simplified network representation of the most used and mutually linked keywords is afterwards proposed in order to provide a useful framework to the reader (Fig. 2). The network visualization was developed with the support of the Java based software Gephi, which allowed an efficient data processing and visualization of the results of the enquiries that were developed on Scopus database. In particular, these surveys were intended to find out the mutual existing links, in the published scientific literature, among the most important keywords connected with the subject dealt with here. Therefore, there are two main information we can extract from it: (i) each keyword’s diffusion within the total amount of the considered publications, revealed by the node’s size and (ii) each pair’s level of relation, shown by the thickness of the connecting edge. As it can be deduced from the figure, the keywords ‘territorial’ and ‘deterioration’ turn out to be outsiders in this network, being less diffused than the others and weakly connected with them in the actual state of art. The paper’s

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Fig. 2 Keywords’ state of art—network visualization

aim then is to analyse how, instead, they can be linked with the topic of ‘representation/mapping’, surely by leveraging on the existing literature concerning urban and territorial resilience (the latest strand of the spatial measurement of urban and territorial vulnerability).

2 Materials and Method The perception of the maintenance need in a building (or urban, or territorial) system, when not associated with explicit warnings, occurs through the recognition of signals from the element or elements of the system, recognizable and assessable by an expert. These must be detected (the survey is knowledge) and returned to be processed and to be conserved. The relative techniques, analogical or digital, qualitative or

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quantitative, offer the possibility to select information and results, in order to finalize them to specific objectives. To represent maintenance on an urban scale, moving from a City Model (CM) that contains dimensional information (shape, height, volume, impacts, …) to one that shows the Buildings Conservation (BC), it is necessary to follow the logical path of Fig. 3: from the city to the buildings (from 1 to 2), to return again to the city, representing maintenance information (4) and, at the same time, implementing existing city model (1). The initial model (1) can be two-dimensional, if created—for example—using a GIS software, or three-dimensional, if processed—for example—through a BIM software. In any case, for the final representation on the urban scale (4) it is necessary to analyze (and evaluate) some elements on the building scale (2 and 3). Phases (1) and (4) can be created quite “automatically”: the model can derive from an algorithm able to collect information and to generate objects derived from it through a Visual Programming Language (VPL) and maintenance can refer to the contents of specific sector studies [14]. If the purpose is—as in this case—the safety of the external space, phases (2) and (3) are needed and also difficult to be articulated in a short time, being in fact made up of the phases shown in Fig. 4. The indicators (step 3.1), which allow to move from the urban to the building scale, must be searched in literature and/or through a stakeholder analysis. Since not

Fig. 3 Logical framework of method construction

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Fig. 4 Detail of steps 2 and 3 of the method

all the indicators have the same relevance in relation to the final objective (information collection, security and safety, investment planning, …), the weight of the indicators (step 3.2) will be determined through a hierarchical analysis that involves stakeholders again. Subsequently, an external expert has to test the evaluation method (ease and accuracy of analysis of the indicators) and to apply it (step 3.3) to the chosen urban portion. Indicators and stakeholders are chosen in order to broaden the analysis to the whole city. In the following pages the three phases are described in detail. To analyse a generic portion of the Building Fabric (BF), it’s possible to proceed by steps, from expeditious investigations up to specific surveys: preliminary, starting from the analysis of the databases of censuses that are carried out by the National Statistical Office (NSO: known as “ISTAT” in Italy), in order to have some overall data of the BF, useful for its classification. The Italian NSO draw up these studies almost every ten years, collecting many data related to different parameters (for instance the number of buildings per typologies—residential, productive, commercial, office/tertiary, tourism/reception, services and other; the number of residential buildings in load-bearing masonry; etc.). These ones are picked up for all the Italian Municipality, but they are not always the same for each census because sometimes they are modified or new ones are added. Therefore, it is possible to define the temporal trend only for the recurrent parameters. It will not be possible to derive a historical series for a parameter that is been collected only in a single census but it

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will be useful as a quantitative data of an explicit time. So, it is possible to obtain a preliminary description of the BF by the analysis of parameters census and, in case of shortcomings, it will be possible to create new indicators as implementation. The knowledge of “how much vulnerable is the BF” is extremely important for the prevention of human and economic losses [2], so, indicators that describe and represent the built up are needed. Their function is to define a specific trait of the BF, in order to characterize and make it easy to monitor over time. To get this goal, the analysis starts from the buildings, where many features have to be outlined and represented, for instance: the structural, the energy, the plants, and the maintenance and property management ones [16]. The analysis’ level of detail and the management available resources, as times and costs, depend on the chosen scale of investigation. Therefore, during the construction of the indicators, it is important not to lose sight of it. To give a clear overview of the results of each indicators it is possible to create territorial thematic maps of the BF. However, to draw up them, it is necessary to define the minimum portion of territory (not at building’s scale) under which no more details can be represented. Once is defined the minimum dimensions of the cell, for example 200 × 200 m each, it will be necessary to carry out some tests to verify the goodness of each indicator and, if necessary, to correct the criticalities. As said before, it is necessary first to define the vulnerability of each building in order to estimate the one of the whole BF. Therefore, the indicators coming from the various subjects must be appropriately weighed and condensed into a single synthetic indicator [15]. That one will also represent, parallel to the degree of the vulnerability, the safety degree that is guaranteed by each building to the users. By this analysis will be easy to identify the critical cells that need further investigations. The latter are those ones that have a very high value of the synthetic indicator. That is, those ones that include buildings that are in a very bad state, on which more assessments have to be carried out.

2.1 Indicators Setting The aim of this research is to define indicators able to describe and represent the maintenance state of the buildings, which are elements/components of the BF. Each building, whether public or private, is in a certain state of conservation due to the different management methods carried out by the owners and/or tenants. Each property has got technological elements with different service lives; so it requires constant maintenance [1, 17, 18]. It is possible to notice that the state of conservation of a building mirrors its maintenance state (MS). Indeed, the first one depends on whether the maintenance operations have been carried out or not. Just as for a mechanical element, the knowledge of the condition of its components is useful, since it depends on them the proper functioning of the whole, the same is for the BF and its buildings. Therefore, this global view is useful to identify the most degraded and potentially dangerous areas. Indeed, poorly maintained buildings are

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likely to be potentially more dangerous to the society than other buildings in good condition. On that, it was decided to represent the MS of each building both in a generic way (GMS: General Maintenance State) and according to the safety (SMS: Safety related to Maintenance State) that it is able to provide, at the time of the detection, to its different kind of users. The direct users are those who have access to a building, while the indirect users are those who can stay or pass near a building on public soil. Therefore, two Indicators have been created: the first represents the general maintenance state (I-GMS), while the second represents the maintenance state in relation to the safety that each building is able to provide to the society (I-SMS). So, for each building, it is possible to calculate two synthetic values, between 0 and 100, one for the I-GMS and the other for the I-SMS. In both cases, those synthetic values are then grouped into classes, which describe the state of the building; specifically, seven classes for the I-SMS and four for the I-GMS were defined (Tables 1 and 2). To define the indicators, nine evaluation parameters were identified [31]: they concern different types of damage that can be found on a building (Table 3) and they are the same for both indicators (I-GMS and I-SMS), but—as better explained in the following pages—with different weights in the final value attribution (Tables 4 and 5). The attribution of a specific value to the indicator requires its decomposition into contributions/components/parameters and can take place through multiple techniques with the aim of addressing and evaluating both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The methods (which in most cases belong to the multi-criteria analysis Table 1 Classes and belonging ranges of I-SMS indicator

Table 2 Classes and belonging ranges of I-GMS indicator

I-SMS #

Condition

Value

1

Bad

=100

2

Poor

100 < x < 80

3

Sufficient

80 ≤ x < 60

4

Weak

60 ≤ x < 40

5

Middling

40 ≤ x < 20

6

Good

20 ≤ x < 0

7

Excellent

=0

I-GMS #

Conditions

Value

I

Dangerous

100 ≤ x < 80

II

Possibly dangerous

80 ≤ x < 40

III

Not dangerous

40 ≤ x < 20

IV

Optimal

20 ≤ x < 0

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Table 3 Inspection parameters shared by the two indicators I-GMS and I-SMS #

Parameters

Description

1

Deformation

Shape variation

2

Degradation

Macroscopic discontinuity of the surface material and/or discontinuity of a technological element (e.g. absence of a downpipe portion, absence of an eaves portion)

3

Dilapidated elements

Presence of elements in unstable balance. They can be building elements that make up the original structure of the building (e.g. eaves, banisters, …) or added elements (TV antennas, external curtains, flowerpots, …)

4

Unfinished works

Incomplete installation of technological elements

5

Fracturing or cracking

Continuity solution of the material that involves the displacement of the parts

6

Rising damp

Limit of water migration that declares itself with efflorescence and/or material losses. It is generally matched by variations in colour saturation in the area below

7

Vegetable organisms

Spread presence of micro and/or macro organisms (algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, superior plants) and/or presence of herbaceous, shrubby or arboreal individuals

8

Discolouration

Alteration that shows itself by the variation of one or more parameters, which define the colour: hue, clarity, saturation. It can declares itself with many morphologies depending on the conditions

9

Stain

Localized chromatic variation of the surface

Table 4 I-GMS indicator parameter weights

I-GMS Parameters

Weights (%)

1

11.11

2

11.11

3

11.11

4

11.11

5

11.11

6

11.11

7

11.11

8

11.11

9

11.11

method) can be compensatory, even partially or not compensatory, according to the principle that an extreme positive feature balances out the penalizing ones. To this first group (compensatory) belongs the method used in this paper, the so-called weighted summation. It consists in the attribution of partial scores to the considered parameters, from which the indicator score is obtained by a simple

The Maintenance Representation: Research … Table 5 I-SMS indicator parameter weights

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I-SMS Parameters 1

Weights (%) 0.030660327102

2

0.001842335565

3

99.404677776437

4

0.000000369908

5

0.562784085101

6

0.000000489641

7

0.000000022231

8

0.000006794314

sum. The method that has been widely imposed in many fields for its simplicity, if compared to other theoretical procedures, consists of an additive function of utility in which the elements are conceptually divided into different criteria (parameters) that characterize and represent it. The final score (Si ) represented by the product between the value (Vi ) attributed to the individual parameter (Vi1 , Vi2 , Vi3 , …) and its weight (W1 , W2 , W3 , …), is calculated according to the formula [32]: Si = Vi1 x W1 + Vi2 x W2 + · · · + Vin x Wn =

n 

Vi j x W j

j=1

2.2 Hierarchical Weight Assignment Therefore, only theoretically the decision-maker is unique and can express preferences independently. So, to be more close to the reality, the final parameters weights correspond to the average of the priorities expressed by a panel of experts. They are: a member of a professional association (user#1), a building manager (user#2), a municipality engineer (user#3), a building firm rep (user#4), a user (owner or tenant) of a private property (user#5). Each one was asked to compare in pairs the 9 parameters (Fig. 5) indicating the hierarchical relationship between the individual pairs of the considered criteria. The operation was carried out by filling in, by the interviewed stakeholder, a comparison matrix, assuming that the rule of weight assignment could change according to the purpose for which the indicator was designed (monitoring of maintenance or safety). In the comparison in pairs, the expert has to express himself indicating each time: (1) if the two parameters are EQUALS. (3) if parameter A is MODERATELY MORE important than B. (5) if parameter A is MORE important than B. (7) if parameter A is MUCH MORE important than B.

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Fig. 5 Comparison matrix for weight assignment

(9) if parameter A is ABSOLUTELY MORE important than parameter B. The calculation is carried out by comparing the parameter A (per row) with the B ones (per column), filling the empty cells (comparisons in pairs, Fig. 5) below the main diagonal (which values are always equal to 1, and represent the result of the comparison of two equal criteria). The grey portion of the matrix is automatically completed according to an inverse reciprocity criterion. Let’s compare for example the “deformation” (A) respect to the “degradation” (B); if we can say that for one of the stakeholders A is more important than B attributing to A a score equal to 5, it will be also true that the inverse relationship (B with respect to A) will be represented by the inverse of the value previously attributed (i.e. 1/5). This evaluation logic clearly takes up from Thomas Saaty’s theory of hierarchical analysis, better known as AHP—Analytic Hierarchy Process [27, 28].

2.3 Indicators Evaluation As the chosen survey scale is the urban one, the aim is to get an overall view of the MS of the BF rather than a detailed view of each building. Therefore, for the census of the MS of the buildings, it was decided to evaluate only the elevations of the buildings facing the public road system. Moreover, the value obtained in this way, was considered representative for the whole building.

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On the base of the selected parameters, the evaluator has to define the extension of each damage, as percentage value in relation to the building facade area. For this operation on site surveys are not requested, because the idea is to use photos coming from Google Street View. By applying to the calculated value of each parameter its own weight, it is possible to obtain the two representative synthetic values of every building, one for GMS and the other for the SMS. Finally, these values fall respectively in one of those classes, afore described, of the I-GMS and of the I-SMS. Finally, the results of the previous operations have to be represented on a digital platform, for instance a BIM model, in order to make them easy to be consulted and quarried. The digital model will make it easy to identify the most critical areas of the BF. On these ones, more in-depth analyses are needed. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the scale of the survey aiming at reaching a major degree of detail. For instance, the drones could be used for new and more accurate inspections [5], and secondly, for each building, an analysis on the existing documents could be carried out [6]. Where the I-GMS and I-SMS will be confirmed by the new more deepen evaluations, the scale of investigation should be further increased by carrying out on-thespot survey operations. The latter will cover the architectural, the plant engineering and structural components and will be aimed at defining, with a high degree of accuracy, the level of safety that a given building is able to provide to its users on one hand, and on the other hand its vulnerability to external events of various kinds. This model will also allow institutional bodies, where necessary, to impose maintenance and security operations to the owners. In the end, that model, if constantly updated, will allow the building monitoring through the elimination of the uncertainty degree that currently exists with regard to the maintenance state of buildings that make up our cities.

2.4 Model Implementation Transforming an existing district in a smart district requires to know complex phenomena, which are typical for a city, and the capability to manage large amount of data. In the last years, several researches have been developed towards the smart city concepts, highlighting the value of using digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and business. Moreover, the idea of smart city goes beyond the use of ICTs highlighting the meaning of a more interactive and responsive city administration, safer public spaces and meeting the needs of an ageing population. ICTs are becoming a key factor to connect citizen with public administration, developing digital graphical interfaces able to represent data useful to arise smart city topics [11].

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In this context, the creation of graphical databases such as at urban (GIS) and building (BIM) level allow to fill in and extract data to achieve the expected objectives. Although BIM contains any/all information about the construction, the development of a detailed 3D parametric model requires a considerable effort depending on the established Level of Detail (LOD). On the other hand, a GIS dataset collects information on the urban and district scale useful for the development of analyses of macro systems for the evaluation of several policies such as energy saving, state of maintenance, through a simplified 2D/3D model. Obviously, parametric models created in different data domains have different characteristics because they refer to different kind of information. For example, GIS is adopted at urban scale while BIM at building scale and for both of them it is requested the ability to exploit geometric and alphanumeric information in a different way. In the last years, several researches have investigated the creation of a city model, connecting BIM with GIS domains through interoperability that facilitates data sharing between the two datasets. Currently, Visual Programming Language (VPL) is discovered by researchers to find a process able to automate the creation of BIM model starting from GIS model. The main idea behind this kind of language is based on using graphical artifacts as opposed to the use of a textual programming language. In VPL tools, logic programs are built using graphs rich of elements called nodes [23]. Through the processing of scripts created with VPL language, it is therefore possible to automate the generation of a BIM model from the GIS dataset, developing a Virtual City Model (VCM) [21]. The VCM is characterized by a proper Level of Graphical detail (LOG) and Level of Information (LOI). It is based on principles and techniques of Unified Building Model (UBM) [10] and District Information Model (DIM) [7], defining users’ needs. VCM repository can be used by public and private authorities to create urban policies expressed in actions such as planning scenarios and digital innovation. In particular, the requirements (e.g. energy management, seismic prevention) are defined by the components of urban space and are governed by public administrations.

3 Application and Results 3.1 The Selected Case Study Once the indicators have been defined, a test was carried out on a portion of BF in order to highlight its strengths and its criticalities. The investigated area consists in a 7 blocks district of the city of Turin called “Crocetta” (Fig. 6). These ones stand out both for its number of buildings and for the buildings’ construction features like ages, intended uses and properties. This contribution has selected, as case study, the district analyzed within the District Information Modeling and Management for Energy Reduction (DIMMER)

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Fig. 6 Extract of the Turin city map with identification of the “Crocetta” district (in red) and the case study (in yellow) ( source Google maps)

European Project that aimed at develop an advanced 3D modeling (Fig. 7), as basic element for visualization and interaction technologies able to optimize the use of the data at building and urban level to manage and to promote energy efficient behaviors. The development of a 3D model able to collect several data started from the cadastral Microzone, characterized with economic parameters (Italian Cadastral and Land Registry web site and Italian Revenue Agency web site) [21] and now new parameters describing the BC were added, aiming at validate the logical process of the assessment for the analysis and modeling methods proposed.

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Fig. 7 Case study 3D model

3.2 Parameters Hierarchy for Indicator Creation To define -for both indicators—final weight of parameters, a panel of experts were selected: • user#1, a member of a professional association. Graduated, with more than 10-year experience in design on the existing building; • user#2, a building manager. High school graduate, with 20-year experience in building asset management; • user#3, a municipality engineer. Graduate, with a management function in a city public office and five years’ experience in the projects verification; • user#4, a building firm rep. High school graduate, with over 20-year experience in public and private contracts; • user#5, an owner/tenant. A non-expert, living alone in a city apartment for more than 5 years. As previously explained, each one was asked -during 5 individual interviews- to compare in pairs the defined parameters, aiming at evaluating “the General Maintenance State of a building” and “the Safety related to Maintenance State”. All experts ran into the same problem: expressing preference over the GMS; so it was decided, by mutual agreement, to consider the 9 parameters equally important in the state of maintenance description (and related indicator), thus defining the weights of Table 4.

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However, the final parameters weights for the indicator I-SMS derive as an average (Fig. 13) of the stakeholders’ individual preferences (Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12) and are those contained in Table 5.

Fig. 8 User#1 evaluation matrix

Fig. 9 User#2 evaluation matrix

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Fig. 10 User#3 evaluation matrix

Fig. 11 User#4 evaluation matrix

3.3 Results The work outline, which aims at defining the different state of maintenance of the buildings, is as follows: 1. Assignment of an identification code to each block (Fig. 14)

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Fig. 12 User#5 evaluation matrix

Fig. 13 Final matrix containing average stakeholders’ evaluations

2. 3. 4. 5.

Assignment of an identification code to each building (Fig. 15) Visual analysis by “Street View” tool that is provided by Google Maps Assignment of a score to each parameter for the inspected building Calculation of two synthetic values (I-GMS and I-SMS) for each building and their allocation in the rating classes

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Fig. 14 Blocks identification codes (source authors)

6. Model implementation, to build settings configuration and four new data attributes 7. Specific script creation, useful to generate automatically the digital model starting from the data inserted 8. Data input and results control. The visual analysis that must be done for each building consists in the observation of all the elevations that overlooks the public streets. That operation uses as mean for the inspection the Google’s “Street View” tool. The evaluator has to give scores to the parameters showed before, consisting in a numerical value between 0 and 100 that correspond to the percentage of inspected elevation surface area (m2 ), that is affected by a specific damage included in one of the nine parameters. For each building, only the principal elevations (facing the streets) will be evaluated, since these are the only ones completely available with Street View tool. For every construction, it is possible to have up to four elevations (North, South, East, and West), depending on whether they overlook the road or not. Therefore, you will get four different scores for each parameter, but -aiming at representing a building in a single way- it is necessary to have a unique value for all of them. So the worst must be chosen.

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Fig. 15 Building identification codes ( source authors)

Every building synthetic score will be defined by multiplying parameters value by the corresponding weights and, in the end, adding them up (Tables 6 and 7). The two obtained results, one for each indicator (I-GMS and I-SMS), will fall respectively in one of the classes before explained. To represent this data, dealing with the research goal, the use of a BIM software was needed. In the digital model, the buildings’ scores of the two indicators I-SMS and I-GMS, calculated before, were reported through the creation of two attributes that are respectively “us_score” (urban safety) and “bm_score” (building maintenance). The same operation was done for the representation of the classes in which each building falls. Indeed, for both the indicator I-SMS and I-GMS, other two attributes called respectively us_rating and bm_rating were created. Autodesk Revit was used as a BIM authoring platform to generate the informative model. Each building of the selected district is represented by a schematic volume rich of quantitative and qualitative features and information selected to finalize knowledge

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Table 6 Calculation table of the synthetic score for the I-SMS indicator Block identification code Building identification code Parameters

Weights (%)

Value

1

0.030660327102

• •

2

0.001842335565

• •

3

99.404677776437

• •

4

0.000000369908

• •

5

0.562784085101

• •

6

0.000000489641

• •

7

0.000000022231

• •

8

0.000006794314

• •

9

0.000027799702

• •

“bm_score”

Table 7 Calculation table of the synthetic score for the I-GMS indicator

Final score

Block identification code Building identification code Parameters

Weights (%) Value

1

11.11

• •

2

11.11

• •

3

11.11

• •

4

11.11

• •

5

11.11

• •

6

11.11

• •

7

11.11

• •

8

11.11

• •

9

11.11

“us_score”

• • Final score

of the urban district. Shared parameters are nested in masses with an identified LOD with each building that is part of the cadastral micro zone. This mass is characterized by a choice of graphic and alphanumeric information related to the individuality of each building. Figure 16 highlights relationship between parameters chosen and coded, and characterizing the related views. Through specific nodes available on market—e.g. Color.byParameter node available using Modelical package [30] a range of colours has been set to override each building volume without using specific view filters. Filling in the us_rating and bm_rating parameters, and running the related script, the urban model has the features of a graphical interface through the thematisation applied automatically to

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Fig. 16 First steps in the indicators’ representation

Fig. 17 Final indicators’ representation

the volumes of buildings. This representation can be used by the professionals to manage buildings maintenance in the whole building life cycle.

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4 Discussion and Conclusions The results of the two indicators show (Fig. 17) a uniform framework of the portion of the analysed BF. This is because the blocks inspected are all situated in a central area of Turin, so only through a broaden analysis extended to more portions of the city it will be possible to obtain a different range of results. From an overview on the last census (2011), through an analysis of the collected data, it is possible to see that the results of our research are confirmed, even if the NSO investigates only the residential buildings’ state of maintenance. This comparison has been possible because the district’s blocks of our case study match with the NSO census area (Fig. 18). Undoubtedly, the designed method has got some weaknesses, which are emerged only throughout its application to the case study.

Fig. 18 Representation of the minimum census units established by the NSO

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The first problem is the unavailability of the street view tool for some portion of the city, for instance the suburb’s areas. However, this one could be solved with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for the inspections. Another matter is the flattening of the results of the inspection of each building on a unique plane. Indeed, the visual analysis, through which each parameter is assessed, involve, for every buildings’ facades, both horizontal and vertical elements, so we should have two different scores for each parameter, one for the horizontal and one for the vertical surfaces. However, the final results must be unique for each elevation plane because of the level of detail requested for the representation of the digital model at urban scale. Therefore, the distinction between vertical and horizontal elements is lost. Moreover, the low degree of discrimination between the stakeholder competences is another weakness, but it could be solved involving more professionals during the parameters’ weights evaluation phase. Then, on the BIM model there are two main problem concerning: the data input, as they must be pure numbers and not a fractional one, and the BIM software interoperability, because of the preliminary definition of the script, needed for the automatic representation of the provided data. As mentioned in the introduction, the models are designed to collect and manage a lot of information not only from the external environment; the usability over time of data in digital systems, gradually implemented in quality and quantity, as the systems of elaboration and management change more and more, bring us back to the themes, already presented above in relation to material systems, of the overcoming of time, with its action of decay, and of the permanence of form, material and technology. To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the model over time, two methodological actions are needed: the first one concerns the “process of deconstructing the real physical element in several finalized models with different purposes and users”; the second one concerns the economic feasibility of the model: “even though theoretically it is possible to have a model more and more corresponding to what is to be realized or realized for each operator, the examination of its feasibility is required, above all in monetary terms” [22]. This switchover is both from perception to representation and from the subjectivity to desired objectivity, “expression by means of signs, figures, and images”, or “the need to reduce in concrete and readable signs an abstract or concrete entity". The model feasibility, in which the representation is realized, is the desired connection of the model with reality. Venturi offers the topic of “The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole”, which evokes, in this context, the desire to develop the relationship between survey and project. Despite these limitations, the existing public databases could be used to implement the model with the data in them collected. As well as the NSO before described, as instance, there are: the Cadastre; the Information System for Building Energy Performance; the database of the National agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development; etc. All these databases stand-alone and don’t interact each other; so, depending on the authorizations’ disposability for the consultation of the data, it could be useful to pick up all the information in a unique digital model, in order to provide an effective data management.

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sensing and spatial information sciences, vol XLII-2/W11, GEORES 2019—2nd international conference of geomatics and restoration, 8–10 May 2019, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.5194/ isprs-archives-XLII-2-W11-777-2019 Mirabella Roberti G, Nannei VM, Azzola P, Cardaci A (2019) Preserving the Venetian fortress of Bergamo: quick photogrammetric survey for conservation planning. In: The international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences, vol XLII2/W11, GEORES 2019—2nd international conference of geomatics and restoration, 8–10 May 2019, Milan, Italy.https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W11-873-2019 Moglia G, Del Giudice M, Rebaudengo M (2018) The model of the city: data variety, operability and interfaces. Proceedings of Rappresentazione materiale/immateriale Drawing as (in)tangible representation. 40° Convegno Internazionale dei Docenti delle Discipline della Rappresentazione, Milano, 18–19 Sept 2018. ISBN: 9788849236514 Moglia G, Rebaudengo M, Ruffino PA (2019) L’utopia del Digital Twin?/Digital Twin utopia? Proceedings of L’arte del disegno/il disegno dell’arte The art of drawing/The drawing of art. 41° Convegno Internazionale dei Docenti delle Discipline della Rappresentazione, Perugia, 19–21 Sept 2019 Monteiro A (2016) Visual programming language for creating BIM models with level of development 400. In: Proceedings of 4th BIM international conference, Sao Paulo, 29 and 30 Sept 2016 Nannei VM, Farina PM, Mirabella Roberti G, Sansonetti A (2019) Integrated survey techniques: preliminary studies for the conservation of Villa Galvagnina. In: The international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences, vol XLII-2/W11, GEORES 2019—2nd international conference of geomatics and restoration, 8–10 May 2019 Milan Italy.https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W11-909-2019 Noya M, Seroa T, da Motta AL, Moura M, Carvalho de Souza R, Barzellay B (2016) Risk analysis: a methodology applicable to the building inspection. J Civil Eng Arch 10(2016):1052– 1058. https://doi.org/10.17265/1934-7359/2016.09.008 Russo M, Carnevali L, Russo V, Savastano D, Taddia Y (2019) (2019) Modeling and deterioration mapping of façades in historical urban context by close- range ultra-lightweight UAVs photogrammetry. Int J Arch Heritage 13(4):549–568. https://doi.org/10.1080/15583058.2018. 1440030 Saaty TL (1988) Multicriteria decision making—the analytic hierarchy process. Planning, priority setting, resource allocation, RWS Publishing, Pittsburgh Saaty TL (1990) Decision making for leaders—the analytic hierarchy process for decisions in a complex world. RWS Publishing, Pittsburgh Schleich B, Answer N, Mathieu L, Wartzack S (2017) Shaping the digital twin for design and production engineering. CIRP Annals 66(1):141–144 Tabanera F (2015) Modelical package for dynamo. Modelical. Available at https://www.mod elical.com/en/modelical-package-for-dynamo UNI 11182:2006. Beni culturali—Materiali lapidei naturali ed artificiali—Descrizione della forma di alterazione—Termini e definizioni Von Winterfeldt D, Fischer GW (1975). Multi-attribute utility theory: models and assessment procedures. In: Utility, probability, and human decision making. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 47–85

Drawing a Complex Landscape: “Both-And” and “Inside-Outside” in Val Camonica Emanuela Chiavoni and Ivana Passamani

Abstract The landscape in Val Camonica, one of the biggest in the Alps, is a paradigm for its extensive environmental, natural, and cultural heritage. Shaped by glaciers, it has provided slates of sandstone and schist to communities that for thousands of years have used them as blackboards on which to leave graphic, geometric, and symbolic stories. Aspects of representation such as perception and drawing are therefore crucial when examining a complex landscape extensively marked by Venturi’s Phenomenon of “Both–And”, where elements can be interpreted in many ways at the same time: signs and symbols with similar geometric matrixes were in fact reproposed later by several civilisations; up to the twentieth century they were also used to decorate architectural elements and numerous everyday objects. This study will use drawing and surveying to examine in-depth the “inside and outside” relationships of the rupestrian graffiti on the big, smooth sandstone rocks along either side of the central area of Val Camonica. The study method is based on the gathering of data and examples; it will include bibliographical and photographic research as well as the survey and representation of several significant scenarios that will be analysed and catalogued according to type and based on their geometric genesis. Keywords Landscape · Perception · Observation · Drawing from life · Survey · Rupestrian drawing · Symbol · Geometry · Circle · Knowledge

1 Introduction The landscape in Val Camonica, one of the biggest in the Central Alps, is a very interesting paradigm for its extensive environmental, natural, and cultural heritage. The valley is located in the province of Brescia: shaped by glaciers, it has provided E. Chiavoni (B) “Sapienza” University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] I. Passamani University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_34

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slates of sandstone and schist to communities that for thousands of years have used them as blackboards on which to leave graphic, geometric, and symbolic stories [13]. The sites of the rupestrian drawings extend over 70 km, involving other municipalities including Darfo Boario Terme, Sellero, Sonico, Capo di Ponte, Ceto, Cimbergo, and Paspardo: Val Camonica is the first Italian site1 to be included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The following description is reported in the WHC Nomination Documentation: “Valcamonica in the Lombardy plain, has one of the greatest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs to be found—more than 140,000 signs and figures carved in rock over a period of 8000 years, depicting themes of agriculture, navigation, war and magic”. Further study later ascertained a timeline of over 13,000 years; in fact carving rock faces dates back beyond the Roman period to the Middle Ages and even earlier. Several parks have been created in recent decades: • The National Park of engraved rocks of Naquane (Capo di Ponte municipality), the first park created in the valley in 1955, covering an area of over 14 hectares, with 104 engraved rocks ranging from the Neolithic (V-IV century BCE) to the Iron Age (I century BCE). The extensive iconographic images on Rock 1 is particularly interesting; the images represent animals, armed men, vertical warp-weighted looms, spades, buildings, coppelle (small circular engravings), and a labyrinth. Other figures on the rocks are humans, people in prayer, priests, divinities, horsemen, symbolic figures, and inscriptions [2]. • The Intermunicipal Park of Lake Moro, Luine and Monticolo (municipalities of Darfo Boario Terme and Angolo Terme): this park contains the oldest rupestrian engravings, dating to the Mesolithic period, and the famous Rock 34, considered the most extensive in the valley; the engravings are a real palimpsest of graffiti from different historical eras, including the “Camunian rose”. • The Asinino-Anvòia Archaeological Park (municipality of Ossimo), includes four historiated boulders in a north-south alignment. The boulders are engraved with “U” and “T”-shaped overlapping triangles, necklaces, and spectacle-like pendants [12]. • The Rupestrian Engravings Nature Reserve of Ceto, Cimbergo and Paspardo has over 400 engraved rocks [10]; it is the biggest, protected archaeological area in Valcamonica spreading for more than 300 hectares (municipalities of Nadro di Ceto, Cimbergo and Paspardo). • The National Archaeological Park of Massi di Cemmo: this is a particularly important site for studies on Camunian art. The first extensive historiated rupestrian engravings were discovered here in 1909. Rock 1 has over 150 figures (many animals such as deer, fawns, chamois, ibexes, boars or pigs, canids, bovids, and daggers) and a ploughing scene. Rock 2 has animals, various kinds of weapons, human figures, but above all a cart and plough dating to the III millennium BCE. • The Seradina-Bedolina Municipal Archaeological Park (municipality of Capo di Ponte). Established in 2005, the park is famous for a group of engravings known as 1 Site

94, “Arte Rupestre della Valle Camonica” nominated on 26 October 1979.

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the “Bedolina Map”, carved on a big boulder located on a natural terraced outcrop. From here we can understand the morphology of the surrounding landscape, especially the location of Pizzo Badile and Mount Concarena [16]. • The Municipal Archaeological and Mineral Park of Sellero with 4 different sites and a mining area. It is a very important site documenting mining activity. Rock 2-3 is the most significant, with images of some of the most important figures, and the biggest carved “Camunian Rose” discovered so far. • The “Coren delle Fate” polythematic pathway in the Adamello Park (municipality of Sonico) is located in a very panoramic position and contains geometriciconographic images (circles, lines, coppelle, i.e., small circular engravings). It is important to emphasise the presence of spoked wheels, relative to the “sun disc” type which will be examined more in depth later. The above is proof that conservation and enhancement have been extensively pursued, and many studies and initiatives have been undertaken on this very complex subject [9, 19]. For example, in order to honour the 40th anniversary of the recognition of rupestrian sites in Val Camonica as World Heritage Sites, an extremely inspiring installation of the most recurrent symbols and drawings was included in the “Cidneon 2019”2 exhibition held in the Castle of Brescia. The German artist Daniel Kurniczak used a system of light projections, with an original, captivating musical background, to made the rupestrian engravings in Valcamonica appear and disappear on the barrel vault of the Coltrina Tower tunnel (Fig. 1). The installation, entitled “Time travellers”, is particularly meaningful because it involves us in a timeless dimension, proposing interesting facts and posing the questions man has been asking for centuries: where do we come from, what have we done, where are we going? In particular the installation proposed ideas about the timelessness and transversal nature of certain symbols, especially the ones with circular matrixes which, throughout the history of mankind, assume different meanings and uses, as we will see later on. It’s indicative that the WHC Nomination Documentation mentions, amongst others, the “magic” type which today we instead define as “symbolic”: signs and symbols in fact still had to be understood and attributed to specific typological categories. Aspects of representation such as perception and drawing are therefore crucial when examining a complex landscape extensively marked by Venturi’s Phenomenon of “Both-And”, where elements can be interpreted in many ways at the same time: signs and symbols with similar geometric matrixes were in fact reproposed later by several civilisations [1, 8, 18, 20] and up to the twentieth century were used to decorate architectural elements and numerous everyday objects [15, 21]. 2 “Cidneon, Festival Internazionale delle Luci” is an anuual event that has been held in the Castle of

Brescia since February 2017. The very successful 2019 edition was attended by 340,000 visitors. The event is part of the international ILO network (International Light Festival Organisation) connecting the most important international light festivals. In Italy it is the first and only light art event with these parameters; it is also the only one in the world organised in a castle. The 2019 edition was participated by artists from all over the world.

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Fig. 1 Brescia, Cidneon 2019. Light installation “Time travellers” by Daniel Kurniczak. Photo by Pier Scuri, graphics by Ivana Passamani

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The study will use drawing and surveying to examine in-depth many aspects of this complex system: the landscape, the locations of the different sites compared to their morphological connotation, the different graffiti symbols, the “inside and outside” relationships of the rupestrian graffiti on big, smooth sandstone rocks. The management plans in the nomination submitted on 24 January 1979 very clearly state the importance of Survey: “…Systematic exploration, discovery, survey, study, conservation, safeguarding of the entire rock art complex of Val Camonica and publication of information thereon”.

2 Narration Engraved on the Rocks Human nature is communicative and always feels the need to leave long-lasting traces of its passing, marking the territory with symbolic installations which almost certainly are also functional: just think of all the geoglyphics in the world, either created by removing pieces of rocks (the Nazca lines in Peru) or by moving and arranging lava rocks (for example in the Harrat Ash Shaam desert in Syria). In this particular site it is important to cite, amongst others, the presence of numerous circular drawings, visible only from above: “Referred to by archaeologists as “wheels”, these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside”.3 These structures, dating to the Neolithic period, were discovered in 1927 and studied in 1997 by the archaeologist David Kennedy; a recent study has provided a rather interesting interpretation of the relationship between the presence of the sun and human settlements. It’s worth mentioning that the spoked circular type also appears in the iconography of rupestrian engravings; its matrix, attributable to the “solar disc” type, is reproposed in later applications associated with the iconography of material culture.4 Given the radial structure of Syrian wheels, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna’s research has compared the shape with directions of the sun at sunset, noon, and sunrise, as per their latitude. In Fig. 2 “the yellow lines on the satellite map show the direction and height (altitude) of the sun throughout the day, according to the simulation given by software Sollumis.com. Thicker and shorter lines are representing the sun higher in the sky. Longer and thinner lines are showing that the sun is closer to the horizon. On the left of the figure, it is given the site as it appears in Google Maps. In the middle, the direction of the sun on the summer solstice, choosing the center of the circle for observation. We see that, at sunrise, the sun is passing near the dot. At the sunset the direction is that of a line. In the image on the right, we see 3 Owen Jarus, Visible only from above, http://www.livescience.com/16046-nazca-lines-wheelsgoo gle-earth.html. 4 The iconography of circles with a cross inside is geographically and chronologically widespread; in western Europe it is linked to the cult of the sun ever since the Neolithic age. In the African continent this symbol is used to brand camels, and in Tanzania, in particular, to indicate the fence around cattle, as a way to ingratiate the gods.

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Fig. 2 Analysis of one of the stone structures in the Syrian Desert. Credits Amelia Carolina Sparavigna

the direction of the sun on winter solstice. At sunrise, the lines is passing between dots. The sunset has the direction of a radius”.5 The theory that these installations were old rudimental astronomical observatories (e.g., Stonehenge) is corroborated by the fact that the monoliths are perfectly aligned at certain times of the year (summer and winter solstice). This prompts further reflection on the relationship of ancient civilisations with nature and its manifestations, a reflection substantiated by symbolic geometric forms: it’s no accident that balls of fire were rolled down hills and thin wooden discs were thrown into the air during ancient celebrations of the solstice. The site of the Camunian rupestrian engravings is also situated in a particular geographical area that includes Mount Concarena and Pizzo Badile, facing each other on either side of the valley and underscoring a special relationship with the position of the sun and its trajectories, as we will see later. Apart from the geoglyphics, ancient civilisations have left us an extraordinary heritage of graffiti in Spain, Sweden, and Great Britain. The graffiti and rupestrian engravings present in many parts of the world prove that man felt the need to leave behind a series of artistic, mythological, magical, and religious signs. Engraved signs such as graffiti or paintings can be found on rock surfaces smoothed by the action of glaciers.6 In particular, some of the rocks shaped by the action of glaciers were considered a beguiling blackboard on which to use tools— initially very rudimental and later more appropriate7 —to hammer or engrave abstractions, symbols, patterns, and figures either isolated or in groups. Engravings have also been found on isolated menhirs, for example in the Lunigiana or Alto Adige regions. 5 Sparavigna,

Amelia Carolina, Desert Kites and Stone. Circles of the Syrian Desert in Satellite Images (February 7, 2014). Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies, 2014, 2(1), 1–7. 6 In some sites the graffiti were also coloured. 7 Hammering was performed using quartz stone or other stones harder than sandstone.

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The territories in the Alps closest to the ones in question include Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy as well as the Swiss and Austrian side of the Alps (Fig. 3). The Camunian site is undoubtedly the most important. In the early twentieth century the site had very few visible engraved rocks. They were shown to Walter Laeng who spoke about them for the first time in 1908 at a meeting of geographers. In 1914 Laeng wrote about the two boulders in Cemmo: “In a field before you reach the parish church, [one can come across] two big trovanti8 with sculptures and graffiti similar to the famous graffiti near the Lake of Marvels in the Maritime Alps”.9 He emphasised that these were known engravings and compared them to the graffiti in Liguria and the ones found on Mount Bego, now part of France. Surprisingly enough this information was included in Guida d’Italia, an informative tourist brochure published by the Touring Club. The engravings were immediately considered a tourist attraction (confirmed in later decades and even today), rather than a scientific discovery. In the thirties the enthusiastic studies by several anthropologists and archaeologists10 confirmed the emergence of graffiti on both sides of the valley [5]; at the time these engravings were erroneously attributed only to the Iron Age. The term “emergence” suggests that the landscape had undergone changes which, with the knowledge we have today, we can describe based on Venturi’s interpretation of the “Both-And”: a natural scenario (meadows, fields, woods) and at the same time an extensive text written by several communities of men who for millennium communicated constantly with the gods, their fellow men, and their descendents. The emergence of a few rocks sparked the enthusiastic removal of layers of earth and brought to light thousands of signs. Two dates are particularly meaningful. The first is 1954, the year when the “Exhibition of prehistoric rupestrian engravings” was held in September at the Castle of Brescia. It presented the studies on rupestrian engravings by exhibiting moulds, topographical maps, photographic enlargements, and comparative drawings—a true novelty for that period. Although this material was to be exhibited in May, it was instead displayed during an Exhibition of Weapons11 because the moulds had not yet been collected due to bad weather. Grouping together old models of weapons produced in Brescian valleys (above all Val Trompia) and the first, embryonic images of arms engraved in one of the valleys (Val Camonica) was a successful combination: 80,000 people visited the exhibition and local newspapers dedicated several articles to the event.12 This was the beginning of a trend introducing the public at large to a subject which had so far been the prerogative of elite scholars. Promoting 8 In

geology the Italian term trovante indicates an erratic mass. [6]. 10 Raffaello Battaglia and Giovanni Marro, Franz Altheim and Erika Trautmann. 11 Castle of Brescia: exhibition of ancient and modern weapons: 4 September-31 October 1954, Brescia 1954. 12 Several articles were published in newspapers, including: Anonymous (1954) Armi litiche e incisioni rupestri per la Mostra del Castello, Giornale di Brescia 14/08/1954. Bonafini G (1954) Le incisioni rupestri della Valle Camonica. Un numero di suggestivo richiamo, Giornale di Brescia 31/08/1954. 9 Bertarelli

Fig. 3 Map of North Italy indicating the sites with rupestrian engravings. Image in Priuli [20] pp. 145–146

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Fig. 4 The Naquane Park. Rock 1 with the Labyrinth engraving dating to the iron age. Photo Ivana Passamani

knowledge about old artistic remains was undoubtedly one of the objectives of the organisers who had immediately been concerned about the protection and enhancement of these artefacts. Another important aspect is that it illustrates the scientific research and approach methods where both Drawing and Surveying play crucial roles. The second important date is 1955 when the area of Naquane became the National Park of Engraved Rocks. The 104 rocks engraved between the Neolithic period (V-IV millennium BCE) and the Iron Age (I millennium BCE) are located in a beautiful wood; they portray many figures and symbols (animals, armed men, vertical warp-weighted looms, spades, buildings, coppelle (small circular engravings) and a labyrinth, all easily visible in the surface of grey-purplish sandstone rocks (Fig. 4). These historical periods are particularly meaningful because they not only bear witness to the exceptional ethnographical, anthropological and, more in general, cultural importance of these artefacts, but also confirm the need for systematic studies, beginning with surveying campaigns. Proof comes in the form of the studies by Emmanuel Anati13 who, starting in 1956, was to adopt scientific methods in systematic studies of these incredible finds. Anati’s contribution is crucial. He introduced systematic analysis of the rocks and manually surveyed and photographed them, using an on-site method that is constantly being improved. His method made it possible to establish a stylistic classification of the figures (in essence, four styles have been identified, from the first to the fourth). After the survey several graffiti were superimposed to establish their chronology and thus the evolution of their style. Anati also compared the scratched outlines of 13 In 1959 the French scholar Emmanuel Anati discussed his doctorate thesis about the big historiated boulder of Naquane with Leroi-Gourhan.

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Fig. 5 Timeline. Graphics by Ivana Passamani

ornaments and weapons with archaeological artefacts so as to be able to attribute a given period. He also provided interpretations about symbolic compositions and big descriptive scenes [3]. His methods are still used today. In 1964 Anati founded the Camunian Centre of Prehistoric Studies, helping to disseminate knowledge about the Camunian site in Italy and abroad. After the 1980s there was a demand to include rupestrian art studies in the field of archaeology. The cooperative “Le Orme dell’Uomo”14 was founded and this led to a critical review of the scientific approach to the subject: which study methods, which techniques to analyse and interpret these traces of man? After authorisation from the appropriate Superintendency the cooperative launched studies and research projects in new areas; the cooperative began to be increasingly involved and operational; it also experimented with photogrammetric survey and laser scanners. The stylistic-conceptual groupings are linked to different periods in history spanning over 13,000 years (Fig. 5). • The Paleo-Epipalaeolithic: animals were either drawn by themselves or in goups, or else as protagonists pierced by lances. An animal represents danger, but at the same time is the main resource for survival. • The Neolithic: in the first period there were obvious geometric matrixes in both human figures and symbols: circles and squares are everywhere on the rocks. The sun is a recurrent symbol; man, who had already become a farmer, consciously drew life from the sun. Human figures conveying the religious cult appeared in the second period. • The Copper Age: characterised by the introduction of the roughly anthropomorphic Statue-Pillar, graffiti with well arranged symbols of a nascent society: elements of the astral world, and elements linked to the technology of the animal world. Man discovered copper and began to acquire greater confidence in himself,

14 Angelo

Fossati and Mila Simoes de Abreu were the directors of the cooperative.

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so much so that he began to engrave erratic masses. At the same time new activities linked to metallurgy were emerging, drawing labourers away from agriculture and creating specialisations. • The Bronze Age: this period is characterised by many images of weapons. • The Iron Age: the human figure returns as the protagonist of scenes of hunting, dancing, and combat. The style is reminiscent of the Etruscans who had moved to Val Camonica to teach local inhabitants how to work with iron. • The recent Roman Age: the Romans arrived in Val Camonica in 16 BCE. They brought with them a different version of life and the socio-economic set-up. Rupestrian engravings were at the end of their cycle of life; sporadic activities persisted until the Middle Ages testifying to pagan cults and religions.

3 Territorial Framework The Camunian corpus is represented by over 300,000 petroglyphs many of which have always been outdoors, subject to the whims of the weather. Nevertheless more artefacts will be found because many rocks are still covered by earth and vegetation. Researchers need to carefully explore the surface of outcrops and look either for signs of tapping with a small hammer or the less widespread engraved lines. It’s exciting to think that Venturi’s concept of Inside and Outside can be applied to this area which undoubtedly still preserves in its bowels—under layers of earth and under the roots of tress and plants—sandstone rocks with engravings and other traces of those who went before us (Fig. 6). Geological events in Val Camonica, formed by glaciers and with a classical Ushaped section, have determined an optimal natural scenario: the hard red-purplish sandstones have been smoothed by masses, stones and sand rubbing together as the glacier moves. The river Oglio runs along the valley floor; there is a 1700 m difference in height between the southern end of the valley (+200 m a.s.l.) and the northern end (+1883 m a.s.l.). The rupestrian art sites are located between the middle of the valley (Darfo Boario Terme) and the top of the valley (Sonico). However most of them are found in the central area: the engraved rocks can be seen inside the parks, nestling in vegetation created by differences in altitude and exposure. This is a special place with a propitious concentration of excellent landscapes; the two mountains on either side of the valley—Pizzo Badile Camuno (2435 m. a.s.l.) to the east, and Concarena (2549 m. a.s.l.) to the west—both play a leading role. The obvious concentration of engraved signs proves that this area was very important: according to Anati the two mountains were considered sacred due to the two phenomena linked to the sunlight on the spring equinox (20–21 March) and on the autumn equinox (22–23 September). A special effect of early morning refraction on the day of the spring equinox and on the spring morningsprojects the profile of the summit of Pizzo Badile onto

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Fig. 6 Principal figurative rock-art sites (recorded by GPS) of the Middle Valley (in red) and modern towns (in white): note that rock-art sites often lie along contour lines—natural pathways in a mountainous environment, in Chippindale and Baker [9], p. 51 (Color figure online)

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Fig. 7 The mountains of light and the luminous phenomena during the equinoxes. Concarena at the equinox, photo E. Oeschger; graphics by Ivana Passamani

the sky, generating a sort of halo that increases the mountain’s mass and masculine appearance: this phenomenon is called “the spirit of the mountain” [7]. Instead at sunset on the day of the spring-like and autumnal equinox (period during which it is most enjoyable thanks to the more intense colours), the multifaceted profile of the summit of Mount Concarena is struck by a ray of sunlight that filters through a 150 m cleft, evoking a sort of fertilisation of the mountain by the light (Fig. 7).

3.1 The Both-And Phenomenon The complexity of the archaeologists’ study was apparent from the very first analyses of the engraved stones: not only as concerns their dating and period of execution, but also as regards their meanings. Symbols and individual linear or hatched figures alternate with groups of figures that create stories of agricultural activities, warfare, or hunting. What is most surprising is that these figures float indiscriminately on the plane of representation coinciding with the surface of the rock which, however, does not present a spatial-temporal limitation of the figurative levels, and has no spatial

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delimitation except for the limits of the morphology of the material on which they are reproduced. Without a background, a floor, walls, or a context, these figures move freely; they convey a feeling of freedom and extraordinary spatiality and coexist although they have been made by different artists and in different centuries. The rocks can be considered an extremely unique palimpsest where previous layers have not been eliminated; the characteristic of these engraved figures and signs is their combination and peaceful coexistence. This uniqueness proves that the study of rupestrian art should not focus only on the meaning of the figures’ iconographic recognisability (a hut represents a hut), but on the symbolic meaning of the action of engraving a hut on that rock: why draw a hut in that particular spot and at that moment in time? Can we dare to propose an analogy with the self-portraits painters used to put in their works? The Both-And Phenomenon approach is an excellent representation of the history of the study of rupestrian engravings, underscoring the importance of “both” the circumscribed, focused study of individual signs, “and” a broader study of the surrounding context, bearing in mind that individual signs or narrations belong to a complex system. For thousands of years this was an extraordinary landscape, the site of spiritual and self-referential activities that were turned into lines, figures, symbols and compositions frozen in stone. In this graphic alphabet, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and, more in general, descriptive figures are freely coupled with symbols, revealing themselves to be eternal: the representation of man, animals and objects has evolved constantly, tending towards an increasingly exasperated realism, to such an extent that it exploits the ambiguity between reality and fiction. Instead symbols have maintained their independent vitality, populating decorative patterns and architectural elements, and becoming the protagonists of the objects of our material culture.

4 Graphemes, Icons, Symbols, Underlying Geometries This study is part of a much broader research regarding the knowledge of archaeological cultural heritage and the landscape; the objective is to verify, understand, and appreciate the compositional intentions behind the ideative and compositional nature of every analysed engraved rupestrian artefact. All archaeological finds, be they the fragments of a vase, a tool or a rock engraving, are made by human hands and always refers to specific historical and cultural periods. They are material proof, historical documents containing extensive data; they also testify to the immaterial aspects of social, historical and cultural values that can be understood only by carefully studying not only the objects, but also their context. Every artistic expression is always the result of the intellect; the series of rupestrian engravings in Val Camonica are unique images of a specific cultural cycle simultaneously exhibiting historical, emotional, creative and, perhaps, imaginary needs.

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Careful observation and an analysis of the proportions and identification of the geometries behind the signs can provide extensive and varied quantitative and qualitative data. More extensive knowledge can be gleaned by implementing several different levels of in-depth technical and analytical research. These images express man’s need to present himself to the world, to communicate everyday actions, facts, events and occurrences. The calligraphy can also reveal the sensitivity of the engravers’ hands while they moved the tool over the surface of the rock. The shapes and sizes of the images and scratched surfaces are in turn hidden by the patinas or incrustations that have grown over the years. Their state of conservation depends on the type of rock on which they are engraved, as well as on their exposure to the weather. When planning a survey to not only define the forms, i.e., the shapes of the graphic perimeters, but also theorise the different execution techniques, it is important to programme specific preliminary operations.15 Every graphic symbol is always an element of the communication, expressing contents and ideal significations of which it itself becomes the signifier. In this case, the element, the sign, is able to instil in the mind of onlookers a concept that differs from the physical symbol thanks to a pre-established convention and its characterising image. Comparison with a grapheme is apt and fitting since in linguistics a grapheme represents a sign which is the minimum graphic unit in an ideographic drawn system (Fig. 8).

5 The Role of Drawing and Survey 5.1 Expression of the Inside/Outside Relationships The study will use drawing and surveying to examine in-depth the “inside and the outside” relationships of the rupestrian graffiti on the big, smooth sandstone rocks along either side of the central area of Val Camonica. One of the survey methods will exploit the frottage (rubbing) technique where a piece of thin paper is placed over the detail to be analysed and then rubbed using a soft pencil or crayon in order to faithfully record measurements, proportions and shapes (Fig. 9). Another option would be to use a square frame with a geometric grid made with pieces of string thereby enabling identification of the most characteristic parts of the object in question. These procedures used to survey a detail produce a real life graphic restitution that can be very accurately analysed. The premise for the protection of cultural heritage is always a clear, correct identification of the artefacts. Systematic knowledge and cataloguing is important for their maintenance and protection. In fact, one key factor is to understand their real consistency and analyse their natural context. The systemisation of these memories that man engraved freehand on rocks many centuries ago has to be preceded by a 15 Anati

[4], p. 60.

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Fig. 8 Graphemes photo composition. Credits Pier Scuri, graphics by Emanuela Chiavoni

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Fig. 9 Detail of rupestrian engraving using the frottage technique in Seradina-Bedolina site. Frottage and graphics by Ivana Passamani

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preliminary, on site “inventory” phase, initially performed rapidly so as to obtain preliminary identification of each image. The initial process used to interpret the graffiti exploits several investigative methods and drawing; the latter is always a sophisticated scientific activity and the crucial, preferred research method. The next survey stages are performed using different instruments; planning these stages is based on real life, on site representations and interpretations that exploit graphic analysis to record the proportions and spatial and geometric ratios of each figure, as well as the system to which they sometimes belong. Observation of the surroundings and the relationship established between the observer and the space in question marks the beginning of this process. Observers always inevitably interpret what they see personally when they have to assign a specific meaning to objects. Understanding the data and relationships between the parts, and then assigning a specific value, varies from person to person. Since our brain is able to merge the mental processes of learning/acting/thinking, direct analysis becomes scientifically extremely significant. The critique triggered by on site interpretation uses the concise graphic method of drawing to define what is viewed, based on the tool available, and then to represent it. Several drawings should be made: first, images to understand the bigger picture, and then accurate detailed drawings of each engraving. Intuition based on the experience of the observer obviously plays a key role. As part of these processes, daily drawing exercises and personal skills help to discretise the forms and discover the relationships between the parts and the bigger picture. It is this first on site approach, including tactile investigation, that spontaneously or unconsciously suggests meanings, and leads to positive confirmation of the reality and more or less recognisable relationships behind the images. All the questions triggered by drawing lay the foundations for the necessary survey operations. As always, survey itself is a way to verify forms, structures, ratios, relationships, geometries, etc. The study of rupestrian engravings begins with a drawing from life campaign to produce visual notes and preparatory graphic images in order to create direct involvement between the researcher and the subject/space/territory. Freehand pencil or ink drawings enable the draughtsman to discover the graphic language used in each engraving. Numerous operations have to be performed to achieve deep-rooted knowledge of this cultural heritage; multidisciplinary interpretations provide more than one viewpoint with which to integrate them: survey, photography, frottage, numbering, cataloguing of the figures, study of the execution techniques, study of the chronology, differentiation of group scenes and graphic styles, cataloguing each rock, etc. Everything helps to achieve acknowledgement of this unique heritage. One of the first operations is undoubtedly to establish the technique used to produce these images because this creates and characterises them. Many engravings have been made using a small hammer; a pointed tool is used to strike the surfaces, creating more or less deep areas and lines (Figs. 10 and 11). Obviously the fact the surface has been smoothed by the passing of time also has to be considered. Sometimes it’s hard to interpret these images due to the fact that

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Fig. 10 Person with a feathered headdress portrayed in a running motion. Image in Anati [4] p. 97

Fig. 11 The smithy figure. The enlargement demonstrates that the original hammering operation was later improved using a metal tip. Image in Anati [4] p. 98

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visual interpretation is impossible because some engravings are no longer easy to see. The first problem to be solved before surveying is to make the image visible and interpretable as much as possible. Several engravings, known as scratched engravings, have been drawn using a graffiti method. Graffiti is one of the oldest techniques used by man; these engravings were made using pointed objects to remove the superficial layer and reveal the layer underneath (Fig. 12). The mold is a survey technique no longer used (Fig. 13). As reported by E. Anati in his book, The Camunians at the root of European civilisation, several analytical procedures can be adopted according to the situation at hand. The following can be identified using ‘contact’ surveying: figures easy to visually identify; figures surveyed using frottage; figures photographed after integral washing of the surface; figures surveyed after being treated with traditional colouring;

Fig. 12 Mould of the original. Hunting scene (private collection)

Fig. 13 Interior views of the exhibition of prehistoric rupestrian engravings at the Castle of Brescia, September 1954. Some moulds were exposed. Photo SUSS Archive, graphics by Ivana Passamani

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figures surveyed using a neutral treatment without removing the incrustations; figures surveyed using a neutral treatment after removal of the incrustations. This shows that analytical procedures have to be adapted to the task in question. One method that is always successful, and provides better interpretations of the engravings, is to consider them in the same way they were seen by those who produced them, in other words by trying to intuitively understand their graphic forms and structures (Figs. 14 and 15). Knowledge-gathering activities performed at night with raking light reveal the engravings very clearly. Reports have often recorded the presence of several different colours in rupestrian engravings. In fact, they were often coloured using ochre and natural colours obtained from soil and typical stones found in Valcamonica. Colours include white, yellow, red, brown, green, purple, and black.

Fig. 14 Surveys of Rock 11 in Seradina in Anati [4] p. 276

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Fig. 15 Photograph of Rock 11 in Seradina in Anati [4] p. 277

Modern archaeologists studied a neutral method to treat chromatic contrast; however it is limited to white and black, negative reproduction and positive reproduction. The contrast method has made it possible to survey numerous figures which would otherwise have remained hidden. Other treatment methods can also be used on rocks so that the engravings can be surveyed, some of them are used in very delicate situations, for example when the rocks may fall, or when the site is difficult to access. In this case moulds are made of the individual engravings and then analysed in the laboratory. It is always a painstaking job; an integral life-size survey using optical instruments is performed to understand what tool was used and whether a preliminary sketch was drawn before executing the final figure. Studying these techniques reveals what procedure was used; it’s also interesting to evaluate the degree of artistic freedom and sensitivity intrinsic in its practical implementation.

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6 Circular Matrixes: Permanence, Formal Evolutions, Diffusion History of art recognises that style played a key role. Style is the recurrent characteristics of formal expressions and is related to the temporal development of a civilisation, as illustrated in paragraph 2. Archaeologists and scholars are still searching for reliable interpretations of the various sites; they are trying to establish an order for these big rocky surfaces which, as mentioned earlier, are often palimpsests where a single symbol or figure is positioned next to religious scenes or images of dances, agriculture, and hunting. Classification is at the root of every scientific study; formal analysis and stylistic and typological classification play a key role when research enters the field of art or (as in this case) focuses on prehistoric or protohistoric figurative, geometric, or abstract graphic images. Classification, often presented in interesting synchronic charts, is a well-used interpretative key because it allows the drawings to be defined and compared (symbols, zoomorphic figures, anthropomorphic figures, weapons, tools, and structures). Numerous tables and charts have been produced by research groups to describe the symbols and relative temporal progression of figurative culture in archaeological sites [1, 3, 8, 11]. Out of all the graphemes the study focused on circular figures since they have always existed in the expressive history of mankind insofar as they are the symbol of the birth, revolution, and death of the sun [17]. The timeline of the Camunian rupestrian art starts with an elementary geometric style where this figure is already present; it subsequently evolves into a “protonaturalistic” style still characterised by accentuated schematisation and then, after a descriptive-narrative naturalistic period, returns to concise drawings. In this rotation between figuration and symbolism, circular figures are a constant presence: dotted circles, spoked circles, concentric circles, spades, five-pointed stars, radial suns, the so-called Camunian rose belong to the “solar disc” type. They are continuously used and portrayed in various shapes in architecture (e.g., the rose window of churches), in decorations (the Roman and later Renaissance rosette generally used in classical architecture), in wall decorations, and later in the carved wooden objects used by peasants [15, 21], until they finally became an iconographic heritage of the history of ethnography. The temporal survival of these symbols, which we can consider belong to man’s genetic heritage, underscore the symbolic force, density and significance of the communicated message and at the same time demonstrate man’s need for sacredness. The apotropaic meaning of the sun symbol is clear; its divine meaning has also been confirmed when it has a more anthropomorphic appearance: for example the figure of a man with outstretched arms, a head crowned by a solar circle with closeknit rays, and weapons next to him (Fig. 16). In this case the sun, drawn with a circle surrounded by close-knit rays, symbolises dual sovereignty: cosmic because it is part

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Fig. 16 Graffito depicting a warrior crowned with rays, Ossimo rock 9

of the world, and biological insofar as it relates to earthly sovereignty (the warrior) (Fig. 17). Still later the sun’s image turns into a spoked wheel, a very diffuse symbol all over the world, and a worshipped object. In the last period of the Bronze Age the variations of the circular motif, which remains a matrix and circumscribed image, led to the emergence of the Camunian rose circle.16 Roughly one hundred Camunian rose circles have been found in Val Camonica (Fig. 19); the image returns in the iconographic heritage of Europe, from Sweden to Portugal. Chosen as the symbol of the Lombardy region, it was studied and re-elaborated graphically by a commission of scholars coordinated by Bruno Munari.17 The end result is very effective: “it is strong, easy to memorise, even a child could remember it”.18 It became part of the

16 In August 1974 the Brescian Sandro Fontana, at the time the Regional Councillor for Culture, proposed to the regional council that the “Camunian Rose” become the symbol of the Lombardy Region. 17 Pino Tovaglia, Bob Noorda, and Roberto Sambonet were the commission members. 18 Statement made by Munari at Noorda.

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Fig. 17 Survey of rock Ossimo 9. In Fedele [12] p. 347

visual identity of the Lombardy Region19 that identifies with its dynamic forms, created chiefly by the slight rotation of the vertical axis of the ideogram (Fig. 18). On 29 January 2019 the Regional Council adopted it unanimously as its flag. An analysis of the evolution and transformation of the circle highlights the invariable application of the geometric matrix and, at the same time, the relationship between signifier and significance: “the circle has divine relations: ever since antiquity a simple circle has represented and still represents eternity, since it has no beginning or end”.20 It is therefore correct to define a circle an allegorical figure, i.e., a “rhetorical figure exploiting the very normal fact that any figurative content (…) can in turn become the expression of a narrative or symbolic content”.21

19 The

symbol was adopted after approval of Regional Law 85 of 12/06/1975. [17] p. 5. 21 Gay [14]. 20 Munari

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Fig. 18 The Camunian Rose, graphic transposition (in: https://it.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Rosa_camuna)

Fig. 19 Capo di Ponte, Seradina-Bedolina Municipal Archaeological Park, Camunian Rose (in Poggiani Keller et al. (ed) [19] p. 264

Munari states that “the circle is an essentially instable and dynamic figure: all rotations are based on the circle (…). Although it is the simplest of curves, mathematicians consider it a polygon since it has an infinite number of sides”.22 This statement leads us to the decorative-symbolic carved wood figures embellishing the

22 Munari

[17] p. 5.

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original circular matrixes of the prehistoric world with internal geometric constructions often based on the construction of polygons, thus demonstrating the endless graphic solutions that can be inscribed in a circular figure as the symbol of the eternity of light. The chart in Fig. 20 is a comparative analysis of the circular matrixes referred to the formation type; the chart is used to study the graphic evolution of the circular

Fig. 20 Basic circular matrixes of the rupestrian engravings and their persistence in the iconography of material culture, documented by photographs or rubbings (rubbing and graphics by Ivana Passamani). In columns A and D: matrixes and their chronological sequences in Val Camonica (from “Tavola sincronica delle maggiori concentrazioni alpine di arte rupestre”, in Priuli [20] pp. 143– 144). In column B: matrixes and their chronological sequences (from “Tavola tipologica arte rupestri Alpi Occidentali”, in A.A.V.V. [1] Images of prehistory. Archaeological Superintendence of Piedmont. Cuneo, Museum of Cuneo). In columns C and E: matrixes and their chronological sequences in other valleys and alpine areas (from “Tavola sincronica delle maggiori concentrazioni alpine di arte rupestre”, in Priuli [20] pp. 143–144). The matrixes are arranged according to a diachronic and typological sequence

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figure and its ensuing application. The first type is the “energy formation irradiating from the centre” that generates just a few simple figures, present in the Neolithic period, in the Bronze Age and in the Iron one. They are: • the circle with a dot in the middle, a very simple but extremely interesting figure because the dot suggests an internal division that was to be developed later. It is the first circular symbol to appears; • the simple, ring-shaped circle, sign of distinction and symbolic element; • the concentric circle summarising the concept of the growth of life (the rings in tree trunks). Additional examples of the second type reveal evolutionary modifications of the base matrix. They involve the “radial energy formation—from inside to outside” derived from the materialisation of the dot in the centre of the circumference from where rays fan out in different directions: they range from the one that creates different variants of the cross to the ones that determine diverse segments of the circumference, which later lead to internal constructions based on the pentagon, hexagon, octagon, etc. Solar wheels and several solar discs generating the quadrilobate form of the Camunian rose belong to this formation type. Contaminated by the dynamic formation of the asymmetric and directed spiral, the Camunian rose assumes the dynamic nature of a rotational type and turns into a hooked cross, the swastika: both are symbols of good fortune23 and are extensively present in Val Camonica.

6.1 Circular Matrixes and Material Culture Circular matrixes are found throughout the history of human manifestations in art and architecture; they act as decorative elements which in some cases are used without references to their primary meaning. Instead in everyday objects and in the furnishings of the ethnographic world, a sign is used to communicate and transmit its allegorical meaning. Iron and copper objects (Fig. 21), but above all wood objects, have chiefly circular matrixes, variations of several base forms that are often modified and personalised in order to become a family’s identity symbol: • simple circles, concentric circles, metaphors of eternity, continuity, and the absence of an end and a beginning; • solar signs/roses with 3, 4, 6, 8 or more petals. Carving a sun sign in the wood of the architrave of a door or on the side of a cradle means capturing life, the generating force derived from its allegorical meaning. Its apotropaic meaning is very clear; 23 The

swastika was chosen by anti-Semites in 1910 to symbolise Aryan nature; it later became the metaphorical symbol of all dictatorships.

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Fig. 21 Version of the circular matrix “sun sign/rose” as an iron doorknocker (credits Giancarlo Zerla) and in a brass sieve (photo Ivana Passamani)

• spirals and vortexes. Spirals as the allegory of creation decorate the front of marriage chests where they are intertwined to symbolise the durability of the marriage. Many everyday objects reveal a tendency towards horror vacui: they demonstrate an exasperated search for protection and positive meanings, for the house, the workplace, and people involved. Thanks to the persistent presence of signs called “bearers of ideas” in furnishings and everyday objects, cosmic meaning is disseminated in all activities and throughout the day; it permeates everyday work and life spaces, creating a virtual bridge reaching back to the ancient Camunians who had populated their everyday space with the same signs. The symbol, in the original Greek meaning of “putting together”,24 has achieved its purpose.

7 Conclusion Using drawing to interpret a complex, multifaceted, and deeply meaningful landscape such as the one presented in this contribution was an extremely fascinating but difficult undertaking due to the diverse levels of interpretation and comprehension of the contents as well as the big and small scales that continuously interacted. 24 In ancient Greek, the term symbol (σμβoλoν), ´ derived from the root σν ´ (together) and βαλλω ´

(to throw), means "putting together " two separate parts.

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Graphic representations were used to review the history of man in such a vast natural environment; these representations helped to explain the meanings associated with the perceptive aspects and sensations of the landscape, as well as the meanings behind the terminology of the signs, lines, and small signals, all with a strong intrinsic value. The rock engravings were explored and examined at close range; attempts were also made to establish a connection with the landscape and its cultural references in order to understand the relationship between the small graphic messages which have so extensively characterised such a vast area. Many different methods were adopted to interpret this heritage, and many are still being explored,25 from the narration of the landscape system to convey how the sites were either consciously or unconsciously chosen (certain selected sites in each area), to the meticulous description of the symbolic-artistic importance of the images, including their visibility in natural light at certain times of the day and during certain periods of the year. The study also tried to highlight the time factor since time is currently a very important parameter during graphic elaboration. A lengthy time interval could correspond to part of a man’s day; it was the parameter governing his activities; daylight regulated the creation of the engravings and his multisensorial involvement in those actions such as hammering with his tool on the rock in the midst of the countryside. In order to disseminate awareness of this heritage and transmit not only our history, primitive habits and lifestyles, but also these superlative engravings, we are currently working on establishing an Observatory of the rupestrian engravings in Valcamonica; an online platform with new, updatable sources of information to provide knowledge and documentation about this cultural heritage as well as also guarantee its management and enhancement. In this contribution we have highlighted the role of survey and representation vis-à-vis the increasingly widespread digital cultural resources that are rapidly available due to the merger of new technologies which ultimately lead to the development of new interaction and fruition models. The study inspired several other research ideas, especially regarding recognition of the geometry, dimensions and proportions of each grapheme since these play a very important role in all the compositions of rupestrian engravings. In particular, we focused primarily on the circular matrix, demonstrating the complexity of the geometric interpretations. In fact, Table 20 clearly shows the many possible variants of the geometric figure of the circle alone, together with its numerous applications. These interpretations could be further investigated in a future, type-based study of all the other most significant elements such as man, weapons, tools, utensils, animals, houses, etc. The study would focus not only on individual images, but also on compositions with multiple figures (Fig. 22). Every medium can be used to transmit cultural information, for example the programme Ulisse il piacere della scoperta hosted by Alberto Angela probably on February 2020 will focus, also, on Valle Camonica to mark the 40th anniversary (October 1979) of its inclusion in the list of World Heritage Sites. In fact the valley 25 The

study is ongoing.

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Fig. 22 Drawings from life of several rupestrian engravings in Valcamonica; man, weapons, tools, utensils, animals, houses, etc.…(drawings Emanuela Chiavoni)

of signs was the first site in Italy to become one of the World Heritage of Humanity Sites due to the importance of rupestrian art and the studies hitherto performed. Acknowledgements Despite having shared objectives, methodologies and results of the research, it is highlighted that Ivana Passamani is the author of paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 6. Emanuela Chiavoni of paragraphs 4, 5 and 7. Many thanks to Pier Scuri for the photographic material.

References 1. AAVV (1995) Immagini dalla preistoria. Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte, Comune—Museo di Como. Coop. Le Orme dell’Uomo 2. Anati E (1962) Capo di Ponte. Centro dell’arte rupestre camuna. In Studi Camuni volume primo, Tipografia Camuna, Breno 3. Anati E (1963) La datazione dell’arte preistorica camuna, in Studi Camuni, vol secondo. Tipografia Camuna, Breno 4. Anati E (1982) I Camuni. Alle radici della civiltà europea, Jaca Book Milano 5. Battaglia REMO (1954) Acanfora, “il masso inciso di Borno in Valcamonica, bullettino di paletnologia italiana, 1954, n.s. IX, vol 64, pp 225–255 6. Bertarelli LV (1914) Guida d’Italia del T.C.I., vol. I, Piemonte, Lombardia, Canton Ticino, Milano: 595 7. Bonetti M, Turetti P (2004) Sotto la montagna di luce. Grafo, Brescia 8. Casini S (1994) Le pietre degli dei. Menhir e stele dell’Età del Rame in Valcamonica e Valtellina. Centro Culturale N. Rezzara, Comune di Bergamo, Gorle 9. Chippindale C, Baker F (2012) P I T O T I Digital rock-art from prehistoric Europe: heritage, film, archaeology. Skira, Milano 10. Cittadini Gualeni T (s. d.) La Riserva Naturale delle Incisioni Rupestri di Ceto, Cimbergo e Paspardo. Tipografia Camuna, Breno 11. Fano D (1968) Dall’età del Bronzo all’età del Ferro in Valcamonica. Bollettino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici 2(1966):69–77 12. Fedele F (ed) (1990) L’altopiano di Ossimo-Borno nella preistoria. Ricerche 1988–90. In Studi Camuni volume 10, estratto dal BCSP 25-26, Tipografia Camuna, Breno 13. Frandi A, Cagnoni G (s. d.) Tempo e arte in Valcamonica. Banca di Valle Camonica, Breno, p. 5–35

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14. Gay F (2010) L’emblema del disegno e le sue resurrezioni allegoriche, in Disegno dunque sono. Atti del XXXII convegno internazionale delle discipline della rappresentazione, UID, Genova 15. Jorio P (1992) La montagna dei segni. I mondi simbolici dell’arte alpina. Priuli & Verlucca editori, Torino 16. Marretta A (2018) La roccia 12 di Seradina 1. Documentazione, analisi e interpretazione di un capolavoro dell’arte rupestre alpina. Ed. del Parco di Seradina-Bedolina, Capo di Ponte 17. Munari B (1964) Il cerchio. La scoperta del cerchio, Scheiwiller, Milano 18. Pasotti M (ed) (1957) Le incisioni rupestri di San Vigilio. Ghidini e Fiorini, Verona 19. Poggiani Keller R et al (ed) (2009) La Valle delle Incisioni. 1909–2009 cento anni di scoperte. 1979-2009 trenta anni con l’UNESCO in Valle Camonica. Tipografia Camuna, Breno (Brescia) 20. Priuli A (1996) Le più antiche manifestazioni spirituali. Arte rupestre. Paleoiconografia camuna e delle genti alpine. Priuli & Verlucca editori, Ivrea 21. Raffaelli U (ed) (1990) Legni antichi delle genti del Trentino. Priuli & Verlucca, Torino

Landscape as Strategy for Environmental Multi-functionality Andrea Tartaglia , Benedetta Terenzi , and Giovanni Castaldo

Abstract The urban landscape is the result of both public and private choices stratified over the time, which involve material, immaterial, socio-economic, cultural, functional and aesthetic aspects. The territory is as a complex set of resources, in which elements of the different capitals (economic, social, natural, etc.) coexist. The ecosystems included in the natural capital provide essential goods and services, such as the fertile land, productive seas, drinking water, climate regulation, etc. The environmental question has opened up to new interpretations of the landscape. Innovative ex-ante and ex-post evaluation tools of the ecosystemic dimension of projects offer new ways of designing and representing the space. The article aims at deepening the models of landscape design and representation that contemplate the ecosystem value, overcoming the consolidated sectorial modalities. The landscape is conceived as a synthesis of the ecosystem services. The environmental design is combined with the representation through the introduction of new analytical, cognitive and predictive tools. Keywords Territorial heritage · Ecosystemic approach · Environmental assessment

1 Introduction The city is historically the place of concentration of sociality, trade and cultural exchange. Salzano [35] defines it as “the place that men created when they had to live together to perform a series of functions they could not perform on their own” . The urbs, consisting of the public spaces and the housing, represents the outward manifestation of the civitas [34]. The urban phenomenon, raised during the Fourth Millennium B.C., leads to the creation of the first cities essentially characterized by A. Tartaglia · G. Castaldo ABC—Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering, Politecnico Di Milano, Milan, Italy B. Terenzi (B) DICA—Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_35

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two distinctive features: the spatial organization and the complexity of the social organization. Furthermore, the city model evolved towards the different historical phases: from the Greek polis to the cities of Roman foundation, from the medieval city to the Renaissance ones, up to the Nineteenth-century and then Twentieth-century city during the time of urban planning. These are expressions of different sociocultural, economic and political models occurred in the various geographical areas of the planet [39]. Cities are “time machines”, witnesses of different seasons, of different ideas of city and of projects that have been conceived in relation to social and individual experiences [13]. The theme of the “urban landscape”, with specific reference to its perception and representation, is closely intertwined with the notions of “urban planning” and “architecture”, as well as with their normative, conceptual and theoretical evolutions [9]. The concept of urban planning—which was born within the framework of hygienic-building regulations in the period of the industrial revolution for the identification of new forms of settlement to cope with for the massive urbanization process—is intended as a set of procedures and techniques for the regulation and the control of settlements at the territorial scale [1]. Therefore, the concepts of environment, territory and landscape are strictly interconnected. The environment is defined by the relationships of a subject with a part of the landscape. The environment is a relational entity, dependent on the subject to which it is referred. The landscape, on the other hand, is a real entity, established by a set of elements as well as the relationships that bind them. The European Landscape Convention of 2000 defines the “landscape” as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (art. 1), emphasizing the role of the human action in the construction of the landscape itself. It is specified that are part of the landscape “natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It includes land, inland water and marine areas. It concerns landscapes that might be considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes” (art. 2), with the identification of the notion of “urban landscape” as well as of the so-called minor landscape recognized by local communities. With reference to the aesthetics of the city, it is formed by the aggregation of interventions, artefacts as well as private and collective spaces [33]. In these terms, the pursuit of beauty—romantic meaning of landscape—is not a “merely aesthetic fact, but it is related to our most secret identity and to our imaginative memory” [6]. Therefore, there is also an immaterial and subjective dimension of the landscape, which is reflected in the different perceptive, analytical and representative modes. The recognition of a landscape is also linked to the direct experience, the cognitive elaboration and the stratification of knowledge and history [36]. In this scenario, there are many implications [37]. Precisely this experientia of the landscape is outlined by the European Landscape Convention and recognized as a key-element for the planning and the management of future landscapes. Undoubtedly, the artificiality of the city represents a factor of complexity in the interpretation and the design of the urban landscape. The city, created to guarantee

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safety and comfort, is a built, artefact and synthetic place for the concentration of the human life, in opposition to the organic and vegetal habitat [3]. The attractiveness of the city, in different historical periods, can be referred to multiple factors, such as economic and social advantages, availability of services, sharing of resources, efficiency, culture, creativity, etc. The environmental quality is often secondary, relegated to other places and other functions. In this sense, the invention of the “urban park” in the industrial and post-industrial city, with the different aesthetic and design values, constituted a sort of compensation to the urban population, within a rationalist planning vision, dictated precisely by the absence of the environmental and nature quality [40]. The idea of “urban standard”, developed in Italy in the Sixties, framed the allocation of public green within the logic of a service to the citizenship, with the determination of minimum indexes of per capita surfaces. In the contemporary city, the contradiction of the urban landscape is evident in the coexistence of mineral and green landscapes. The former characterizes the built heritage and the articulated system of paved squares and streets, the latter, artificial as well, consists of parks and gardens (Fig. 1), public and private, which recalls the natural dimension, ontologically contrary to the concept of city. If on the one hand, the city is the most complex and articulated aesthetic manifestation of a society—the place of concentration of the maximum public and private effort, with huge investments of both material and immaterial resources—on the other, it is a place of loss of nature, recurrent environmental degradation, ecological negativity and congestion.

Fig. 1 The composition of the green in the main Italian cities. ISTAT data, reworked by Openpolis

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2 The Ecosystem Approach Recent UN estimates predict that in the next years the urban population will pass from the current 50% of the total to 75%, with consequent huge social and environmental pressures towards the main metropolitan and urban areas of the planet [48]. This urbanization phenomenon can only worsen the conditions of congestion and environmental degradation that are already undeniable in some of the so-called “global cities”. Moreover, there are already many metropolitan areas characterized by the formation of immense peripheral areas and slums, with serious social, health and environmental problems [46]. At the same time, worldwide the issue of climate change appears increasingly relevant [47]. On the one hand, the climate change will cause relevant consequences for cities, including an increase of extreme weather events, such as floods, storms and heat waves. This could entail serious consequences for urban infrastructures such as transport systems, sewage networks, as well as negative impacts on the overall well-being of residents. On the other hand, influencing the exchanges of energy and matter in particular through the envelope, the morphological and structural changes of the urban fabric„ can determine significant changes in the microclimate of the places. The climate-city interaction processes, at the different scales, can be outlined in: surface processes, processes at the urban canopy level, processes in the urban boundary layer and urban effects of exogenous processes [17]. The natural soil is essential for the life of the species present on the planet. It has the function of regulation of the nutritional cycles of the vegetation, it is involved in the water cycle, it provides important raw materials as well as it has a cultural and historical function. Therefore, the soil consumption must be conceived as a phenomenon associated with the loss of a fundamental environmental resource, caused by the anthropic interventions, mostly due to agriculture and urbanization. Between 2008 and 2013, the land consumption in Italy covered an average of 55 hectares per day, with a speed between 6 and 7 square meters per second [18]. The land consumption leads to a loss of “ecosystem services”. The need for an urban transition towards a more sustainable management of natural resources has been widely recognized by the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCRN—http://uccrn.org) which highlights the urgency for cities to understand their vulnerability to climate change and the need to implement adaptive responses. In this context, according to a logic of resilience, a strategic territorial planning aimed at the climate adaptation appears as a priority for cities. The territory consists of a complex set of resources, in which elements of different capitals coexist (economic, social, natural, etc.). The economic prosperity of a Country and the wellbeing of its inhabitants depend on the conditions of the natural capital. The concept of “ecosystem services”, understood as the benefits that natural capital offers to man, has been the subject of a growing interest in its applications both on a global and regional level as well as in recent years on the scale of local planning [12]

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The productive and aesthetic values as well as the impact in terms of wellbeing given by the use of solutions taken from nature are becoming increasingly central, underlining the systemic role of the natural element and the importance of the ecological connectivity. In fact, the ecological devastation due to the industrial production and the increase of extreme weather events are pushing the international community to focus political actions on these issues and to invest resources towards new ways of preserving and enhancing territories and cities. The concept of “natural capital” is the bio-physical basis of ecosystems and their services [24]. Ecosystem services “consist of the flows of matter, energy and information from natural capital stocks, which are combined with the services of anthropogenic artefacts to generate well-being and quality of life” [8]. According to an interpretative scheme, ecosystem services are organized into four main categories: life support services (soil formation, photosynthesis, natural cycles); production services (food, wood and other fibres, chemicals, water); regulation services (of microclimate, water flows, self-purification, pollination, etc.); cultural services (recreational usability, place identity, etc.) [23]. In the urban environment, ecosystem services are becoming increasingly important. In fact, they are recognized as an important element for the territorial and urban planning and for the architectural design [19]. In urban areas the implementation of this approach takes the form of the construction of the so-called “green infrastructures”. They are “networks of natural and semi-natural areas planned at a strategic level with other environmental elements, designed and managed to provide a broad spectrum of ecosystem services” [10]. The enhancement of ecosystem services produced by green infrastructures is an essential tool to increase territorial resilience [11, 30]. Green infrastructures are closely related to the concept of “nature-based solutions”. Nature-based solutions are technical solutions, applicable at different scales, based on a sustainable use of the nature and of the ecosystem services. The systemization of nature-based solutions and natural elements allows the creation of green infrastructures and therefore they allow the production and the enhancement of ecosystem services through an effective interconnection between the rural ecosystem and the urban one. Examples of technical solutions that can be aggregated to constitute green infrastructures are: tree planting, green roofs and green walls, bio-retention and infiltration natural system, water harvesting (natural and semi-natural), permeable pavements. The use of green infrastructures and nature-based solutions has to deal with different issues: in addition to the effectiveness of ecosystem services in terms of increasing adaptability, mitigation and resilience to atmospheric phenomena linked to climate change, the integration of green infrastructures must concern the landscape and the fruition dimension. The multi-functionality of green infrastructures includes aesthetic, cultural, functional, ecological-environmental and socio-economic values: a “dynamic interaction between natural media (air, water, soil), built environment and socio-economic context” [32]. The affirmation of the ecosystem approach and the new consideration of the role of green infrastructures introduce new values that cannot be underestimated in landscape design as well as in its interpretation and representation. Values that can deeply modify the image of our cities.

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3 Environmental Design and Landscape The field of Environmental design takes part in the research for a “compatible” relationship between the environment and the processes of architectural and urban transformation, thanks to the contribution of important figures in the sectors of architectural technology and industrial design, such as Tomás Maldonado, Eduardo Vittoria, Salvatore Dierna, Marco Zanuso. At the base of the scientific approach, there is a systemic vision of the project, for a design intended as the realization of new relationships between man and habitat [22]. Tomàs Maldonado defined the project as the “most solid link between man, reality and history” . Therefore, the design, defined as “concrete projection”, should be considered the base of human society exploiting the results of technical and sociological imagination as well as political courage. He also describes the bipolarisations such as order-disorder and simplicity-complication in a way that they are inseparable. Environmental design brings systems that tend to a disordered complexity to an ordered (uncomplicated) complexity [25]. Zanuso talks about the project as a tool for an active control of the environment that surrounds and involves us. Emphasizing the social role of the project, it defines it as interpretation of individual and collective needs and, at the same time, as a propositive phase of meanings, results and answers that look forward to a future and continuous solution over time. Environmental design explores the relationship between construction technologies, climate and housing traditions, investigating methods and models of governance that, starting from ecology, allow a sustainable transformation of the territory. This framework also includes the bioclimatic design approach, the protection of the environment and of the natural, ecological and energy processes [16]. In recent years, the notion of Environmental design has had a semantic and content extension, in the face of the emergence of environmental problems at different scales [38]. In fact, an alignment between the environmental design and the principles of resilience, at the urban and building scale, is taking place. The “environmental issue”, especially in the urban project, is becoming central, in order to cope with the current climate crisis and new regulatory frameworks. This leads to an increasing attention to the relationship between buildings and the natural environment, starting from the concepts of compatibility and ecosystem integration of the interventions, also through qualitative and cultural innovations of the project [22]. Environmental design extends its disciplinary boundaries, deepening the question of the quality of the landscape, both in terms of fruition and perception. At the same time, this enlargement includes the aspects relating to human health and well-being and those concerning the quality of the environment intended as an ecological but also social, economic and cultural context [14]. Through design hybridization the different contexts lose their autonomy producing new landscapes.

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4 Tools and Methods of Environmental Design With contributions involving, beside Environmental design, Biology, Agriculture and Natural Sciences, recent scientific progresses — concern the evaluation of projects, in terms of performance and function. The evaluations can be both ex-ante and ex-post and they are referred to the life cycle of buildings, components and materials. These cognitive developments find in the discipline of Environmental design the scope of application, with reference to the processes of transformation of the territory and cities. In addition to the Life-Cycle Assessment model, environmental assessments aimed at assessing and predicting the direct and indirect benefits deriving from the use of nature-based solutions are becoming priorities at the scale of the urban and architectural project [29]. Consequently, in a process of planning, of environmental assessment, or of development of Ecosystem and Environmental Services Payment (PSEA Art. 70, LN 221/2015), the evaluation of ecosystem services of “physiological” or biophysical nature (supporting/regulating) becomes necessary to determine the minimum critical dimension of the impact. Thus, the evaluation aims at safeguarding over time the collective function of the good, that is the usefulness and the wellbeing deriving, as well as at keeping or increasing its functions with respect to the direct uses of the resources, including the soil. The available environmental software and tools1 allow articulated predictive and evaluative analyses, through the processing of data collected through increasingly advanced instruments: perceived temperature, surface temperature, albedo, humidity, quantity of pollutants removed from the atmosphere are just some of the information obtainable through their use. At the same time, the quantity and availability of environmental data of the different urban and territorial contexts are also increasing, with databases relating to average temperatures, indicators of well-being (e.g. humidex), speed and direction of winds, quantity and type of air pollutants, precipitation, and incidence of acute atmospheric phenomena. A complex set of information that through simulation tools allows precise analyses about the impacts deriving from the realization of a project and from the use of nature-based solutions aimed at improving specific environmental and wellbeing parameters. To estimate the supply of ecosystem services in a spatial context it is necessary to identify both where the services are generated and where they are used, so that the economic and environmental balance between functions of direct and indirect use tends towards a sustainable and lasting ecosystem and territorial equalization. In this sense, maps are a powerful means to transmit information to users and offer intuitive and simple methods to communicate information among stakeholders (policy makers, resource managers and citizens) on the complex interactions between ecosystem services and the needs of the territory [5]. This approach can

1 For

example, I-Tree for the evaluation of the environmental benefits deriving from the planting of tree species, ENVI-met for the modelling and simulation of the physical and microclimatic behaviour of buildings, green areas and landscapes.

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be extremely important in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), as well as in all territorial assessments on a medium-large scale. It offers the possibility of identifying the possible territorial actors who have a role in the use and management of resources and the consequent ecosystem services. In this way, facilitating the functional identification of the roles that they can assume in the activation of an eventual subsequent process of PSEA for the different ecosystem services. The complex set of analyses supported by the availability of new information and new capacities to model and interpret them, have significant impacts on the urban and architectural project [29]. Moreover, they have implications for the representation of the urban landscape. Traditional representation takes place through the visual element, with a predominance of the aesthetic and spatial dimension with respect to other possible perceptive dimensions [27]. The reference is to the pictorial representations, or to photographs, which have been the main ways to describe landscapes. Undoubtedly, the new scenario offered by the above-mentioned recent developments opens up to the interesting perspective of an increasingly complex representation of the landscape, involving other levels of perception of urban space, different from the visual, linked to the well-being and to the environmental quality (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Different representations of the landscape. Comparison between the aerial photography of Milano and the map of the Land Surface Temperatures (LST). Source Geoportale-Municipality of Milano

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5 Design of Functions and Services for the Natural Capital “Nature” is a very broad concept, that can have different meanings and interpretations [7]. The concept of nature covers a significant part in the history of philosophical culture; it is an idea that is born with human civilization and it is declined in different ways in time and place. The concept of nature, therefore, is not immutable [7]. Throughout a continuous process of attempts and mistakes, nature has evolved and prospered by adapting to changing conditions, using renewable resources that were locally available; all in an efficient and resilient way. As the meanings attributed to nature change, the ways in which man refers to it, experiences it, interprets it change over the time [45]. Although some authors, such as Jean Jacque Rousseau, described archaic age as a paradisiacal age with the “myth of the good savage”, the problem of the conflict between man and environment characterized the whole human history. Historically, the relationship between man and environment has been progressively experienced as a relationship between strangers: natural environment has essentially been a place external to man, from which to draw resources and from which to defend. Industrial revolution radically changed the framework. In a social context characterized by a progressive reduction of the rural working classes due to the increasing urbanization and industrialization, a “disinterested” image of the natural environment raised. The nature, freed from its productive functions and conceived as an idyllic place of rest and contemplation, assumed an intrinsic value. Its safeguarding no longer depended on the exclusive action of the rulers, but it became the object of social claims. With the social contract, Rousseau outlined a model of political coexistence within which the individual, while obeying the law, did not however cease to be free. This is possible since the law, instead of being an expression of the arbitrary power of an absolute sovereign, expresses the general will: by obeying it, each individual obeys himself, because, according to Rousseau, in the general will, which has as its purpose is the over-individual interest of the community: each personal ego is identified with the collective ego. The need to develop an international environmental law rised after the Second World War. The great collective awareness about protection developed where the damages to the community and to their contexts have been higher. In recent years, the growing concern for environmental issues, driven by global warming, air pollution and waste emergency, has led to the birth of the concept of circular economy, a tool designed to efficiently manage the use of natural resources. It is a model that was created to meet the needs of sustainability of the planet, emerged after that the anthropic ecological footprint exceeded its biocapacity for decades, in order to encourage an approach and an economic system that is able to self-regenerate. It is now widely accepted the need to follow new lifestyles and to study alternative uses of natural resources; moving away from the anthropocentric perspective of an environmental heritage management in favour of a more sustainable approach and a resilient transformation of the territory [42]. The environmental question has undermined the traditional economy exacerbating the dilemma of how it is possible to consider, within the framework of economic

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disciplines, questions and aspects that do not directly concern the productive system. Neoclassical economy has always supported the perfect substitutability of resources with man-made capital. The theory predicts that the scarcity of natural resources can be regulated by managing the supply/demand ratio through the change of the price. Furthermore, as the availability of a resource decreases, the innovation process is triggered in order to identify an artificial substitute. Although in some cases this process has occurred, the current situation shows that this approach is no longer sustainable or desirable. Circular economy is inspired by the ability of certain organisms to use nutrients and then recycle them and release them without pollution. This leads the circular economy to be often compared to the notion of “closed or regenerative cycles”. The circular economy is based on different concepts such as the “cradle to cradle”, the biomimetics, the industrial ecology and the blue economy. Therefore, there is a clear interrelation between sustainability, the ecological system and the social design [44]. Since they represent an opportunity for growth and development in terms of competitiveness, innovation, environment and employment, the adoption of models in line with the principles of the circular economy has been included among the strategic priorities of the European Union. In fact, circular economy develops interest on the importance of selling services rather than products and paying attention to the location of economic activity. Precisely for this reason, it is useful to clearly distinguish ecological phenomena and processes (functions), their direct and indirect contribution to the human wellbeing (services) and the gains of wellbeing they generate (benefits). La Notte et al. [21] emphasize the complexity of the system, underlining how an ecosystem service is a process determined by vertical and horizontal hierarchical relationships, in which each level is constrained/conditioned by the upper and lower levels (ecosystem/landscape) as well as by the horizontal reports (between ecosystems or components). In this way, recovering also the concepts proper of the Ecology of the Landscape [15]. This must involve great responsibility and attention in the choices of use of the territory, coherently to strategies that take into account the environmental impacts that the transformations can produce during their life cycle. The Green Public Procurement (GPP), one of the pillars of the European 2020 strategy, is a tool through which supporting a dialogue between public and private sectors for the promotion of sustainable territorial strategies. This approach highlights the interrelation between the concepts of sustainability, the ecological system and Social design, conceived as a design process that contributes to the improvement of human wellbeing and sustenance. The notion of Social design in the field of design is closely referable to the concept of development of human and social capital through new products and profitable processes, where profitability and ownership of processes are the cornerstones of sustainability at the base of the human well-being. Taking advantage of the “ability of the designer to conceive and give shape to tangible and intangible products that can tackle human problems on a large scale and contribute to social wellbeing” [26] virtuous behaviours can be created and implemented at the civic level. The strategic thinking of design, with the vision of Social design, focuses on the design of complex systems

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Fig. 3 Projects of transformation of the urban landscape through the reuse of the public spaces and the application of the principles of the social design

that combine the elements of communication, the development of new products and the environment (Fig. 3). In fact, no single area of the design is in itself sufficient to drive sustainable social development. What is needed is a design system, which includes all the areas of the design, towards an open system with multiple, self-regulating and complementary actors that aim at the vision of a set of defined common objectives. The new hybrid landscape is so built by a composition of layers interconnected in a sort of Borromean knot.2

6 Green Infrastructures in Milan: A Case Study According to the described scenario, in the context of the city of Milan many interventions have been programmed and designed to implement the ecosystem services..There are several recent experiences of application of green infrastructures and nature-based solutions, which demonstrates the growing interest about the possibility of obtaining benefits through the introduction or regeneration of ecosystem 2 The

Borromean knot is constituted by three inseparable rings, such that, having taken any one of the three, the remaining two are unrelated.

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services in urban contexts. These projects involve different scales, from the building to the urban district. In this context, a currently underway research conducted by Politecnico di Milano3 is precisely deepening these issues, focusing on the technical applicability of nature-based solutions and on ex-ante evaluations referred to the south sector of the city. Furthermore, in the occasion of the recent public and scientific debate about the transformation of seven brownfields of considerable territorial extension (the former railway stations of Milan), the “Fiume Verde (Green River)” proposal developed by the architect Stefano Boeri was particularly appreciated [43]. The project involved the conversion to green of the approximately 1.2 million square meters of disused railway areas and the naturalistic enhancement of the railway line to allow an ecological reconnection between the external agricultural areas and the inner parts of the city. On a completely different scale the “Bosco Verticale” project by the same architect represents an example on an architectural scale of a new sensibility towards natural components [4]: an iconic architecture that however presents some limits and contradictions [3]. There are many other examples in Milan that also include interventions on the micro-construction scale on green roofs, green walls, courtyards and public areas. The centrality of the theme is confirmed by the urban planning instrument adopted in June 2019 following a general variant—which sets specific environmental objectives for the urban development (PGT 2019)—as well as by the establishment of a Office of the Municipality of Milan dedicated to the issue of the “resilience”, with the aim of developing projects aimed at increasing the adaptive capacities of the city. In the meantime, the Municipality of Milan has launched a program of urban forestation to plant 3 millions of trees within 2030. In this heterogeneous framework of methods of intervention and achieved results, it is interesting to stress as the new hybrid landscape can have a strong impact on open public spaces (roads, tree-lined boulevards, intersections, gardens and squares). For example, the south-west area of the city is characterized by the presence of a high number of existing parks and gardens only partially connected to each other and with the environmental system of the Agricultural Park in a peri-urban position. Connecting them, as in the project (Fig. 4), it would be possible to realise a new landscape of fruition and ecological-environmental value. This is the aim of the initiative Boeri Cermenate Park garden, conceived by some citizens, and under evaluation by the municipal administration. The objectives of the initiative are: the redevelopment of a sequence of roads, boulevards and green areas also improving the degree of accessibility inspired by the principles of universal design applied to public space; ecological-environmental enhancement of the urban sector through the efficiency and completion of the green infrastructure (Fig. 5); social and cultural regeneration of the sector by the activation of a process of participation and involvement in the design and management aspects of the new system 3 Research

Prin 2015—Adaptive design and technological innovation for the resilient regeneration of urban districts in a climate change regime—Scientific director: Mario Losasso. Local research unit of Politecnico di Milano: Elena Mussinelli (responsible), Roberto Bolici, Giovanni Castaldo, Davide Cerati, Daniele Fanzini, Matteo Gambaro, Raffaella Riva, Andrea Tartaglia.

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Fig. 4 Example of the existing system of green areas in Via Boeri, Milano

Fig. 5 The Boeri Cermenate Park-garden project. Enhancement of the environmental multifunctionality of the natural elements in the urban context

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of green areas. With reference to the fruition requalification, the project foresees interventions on some road intersections for the improvement of safety conditions, the elimination of some road portions in favour of new protected green and paved areas, the preparation of a complex poster system to indicate distances from public transport and services adjacent to the infrastructure. The ecological-environmental enhancement foresees the increase of the green permeable surfaces through the transformation of some road areas, the planting of new tree species, the planting of hedges with acoustic shielding and with antipollution function and the strengthening of the connections between the peri-urban agricultural field, tree-lined axes and urban parks. Finally, with reference to the social and cultural regeneration, it also provides for the direct participation of the local population. On the one hand, with regard to the decisions about some solutions and functions to include in the project, on the other hand for the management aspects, through the possible involvement of the schools and associations located in the surroundings. The project also concerns the enhancement of the local identity of the area through the promotion of cultural and civic activities. A verification phase is currently underway on the possibility of establishing a Cooperation agreement between the Municipality of Milan, citizens, associations and organizations interested to the initiative. This project, although still under development, clearly exemplifies a method of approaching the transformation of the contemporary city and its landscape based on the use of green solutions in a complex ecosystem logic. A first element of undoubted interest concerns the “multi-functionality” that is recognized to the green components in the urban environment: in the project the space of the green infrastructures is recognized as a place and a landscape of sociality, of public fruition articulated for different types of users and ecological-environmental system able to produce and transfer ecosystem services. This, as it has been outlined above, reflects a high complexity both in the definition of the urban landscape and in its representation.

7 Conclusions Urban forestation4 is leading to radical changes in urban landscapes, accentuating complexity, giving new meanings to natural elements and pushing the population to become an active part in the definition of the landscapes. The increased complexity is 4 Due to the climate change issue, many cities and Countries have launched projects of urban foresta-

tion. Within the heterogeneous framework of initiatives, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) undoubtedly plays a fundamental role, supporting the development of actions of urban and peri-urban forestation, projects and strategic planning tools and contributing to the promotion of a sustainable and resilient model of city development. The effort of FAO is exemplified by the promotion of the World Forums on Urban Forests (WFUF) as well as of the Tree Cities of the World programme, intended to provide a vision of how cities around the world could use forests and trees to make cities greener, healthier and happier places to live as well as to foster international cooperation and successful approaches.

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due to incoherent or inhomogeneous, if not contradictory solutions. Most of the work on the complexity of psychology or environmental psychology concerns the number (richness) and/or diversity (disposition) of things to consider [2, 20, 41].Through the analysis of a wide specific literature, Ode et al. [31] summarize the meaning of complexity of the experience linked to the environment, identifying three common factors among the different definitions: • distribution of landscape elements: relative to the richness and diversity of the elements in the landscape; • spatial organization of the models, which describes how the different components are arranged in the space; • variation and form of elements and motives. The environment is complex, as an organic and structured aggregate of interacting components, on which depend properties that do not derive from the simple juxtaposition of parts. Consequently, environmental problems are always composite and hybrid, due to the fact that they refer to a systemic notion of environment. From the strictly design point of view, this means having more chances to come up with an effective solution, since there are a large number of variables and possible combinations. At the same time, this feature stimulates cross-fertilization between different fields, knowledge and skills, fostering innovation patterns. Within the complexity there is a contradiction and, taking up Venturi’s thought, the designer must tend towards the validity of the project in its entirety, pursuing the inclusion or, better, hybridization. Consider for example some typical spaces of the urban aggregate. The “piazza”, a place full of symbolic, civic, commercial and social values, appear easily transformable from an environmental and ecological point of view, but continuous experimentations are carried out in this sense. As well as for the connection elements. The “disappearance of architecture” due to an isotropic and undifferentiated green coating at the urban scale could lead to the “disappearance of the city”. An historical element of synthesis between the stone landscape and the green landscape is the “equipped boulevard”, where the urban and the environmental functionality find their interaction and integration. These processes will lead to a radical transformation of the traditional urban landscape, as well as of the aesthetic values that derive from the environmental qualities of the places and from the perceived wellbeing. The landscape will therefore be increasingly important as a synthesis and hybridization between values and contents that also requires new forms of representation to be communicated and understood. The complexity and the contradiction that specifies the contemporary urban landscape must be interpreted not as limits but as opportunities, a challenge for the definition and the implementation of a systemic design approach. The integration between the different components of the project of the contemporary city can take place through the adoption of the principles of the technological-environmental design. The multi-scalar logic, the processual dimension oriented to the life cycle of the project, the requirement-performance approach [29, 28] represent important factors for a virtuous synthesis.

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24. Malcevschi S, Bisogni L (2016) Green Infrastructures and ecological reconstruction in urban and peri-urban areas. TECHNE—J Tech Archit Environ 11/2016: 33–39. http://dx.doi.org/10. 13128/Techne-18398 25. Maldonado T (1971) La speranza progettuale. Einaudi, Torino 26. Margolin V (2002) The politics of the artificial. University of Chicago press, Chicago 27. Mocchi M (2017) Il progetto multisensoriale. In: Fanzini D (ed) Tecnologie e processi per ilprogetto del paesaggio. Maggioli Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, Reti e modelli distrettuali, pp 71–87 28. Mussinelli E, Tartaglia A, Cerati D, Castaldo G (2018) Qualità e resilienza ambientale nelle proposte di intervento per il sud Milano: un’analisi quanti-qualitativa delle infrastrutture verdi. Le Valutazioni Ambientali n. 2(2018):79–98 29. Mussinelli E, Tartaglia A, Bisogni L, Malcevschi S (2018) The role of nature—based solutions in architectural and urban design. TECHNE—J Technol Archit Environ 15/2018, 116–123. http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/Techne-22112 30. Naumann S, Anzaldua G, Berry P, Burch S, McKenna D, Frelih-Larsen A, Gerdes H, Sandersn M (2011) Assessment of the potential of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation in Europe. Final report to the European Commission. Ecologic institute and Environmental Change Institute. Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford 31. Ode Å, Tveit M, Fry G (2008) Capturing landscape visual character using indicators: touching base with landscape aesthetic theory. Landscape Res 33:89–118 32. Rigillo M (2016) Green infrastructures and ecosystem Services in urban areas: research perspectives in environmental design. TECHNE—J Technol Archit Environ 11/2016. 59–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/Techne-18402 33. Romano M (1993) L’estetica della città europea. Forme e immagini. Einaudi, Torino 34. Romano M (2013) Liberi di costruire. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 35. Salzano E (1998) Fondamenti di Urbanistica. Laterza, Bari 36. Schiaffonati F (2016) Paesaggio italiano. Viaggio nel Paese che dimentica. Lupetti, Milano 37. Schiaffonati F (2019) Paesaggi milanesi. Per una sociologia del paesaggio urbano. Lupetti, Milano 38. Schiaffonati F, Mussinelli E, Gambaro M (2011) Tecnologia dell’architettura per la progettazione ambientale. TECHNE—J Technol Archit Environ 1(2011):48–53 39. Sennet R (2018) Costruire e abitare. Etica per la città. Feltrinelli, Milano 40. Sette MP (2018) Giardini, rovine e città; appunti per un dialogo. In: Belli G, Capano F, Pascariello MI (eds) La città, il viaggio, il turismo: Percezione, produzione e trasformazione. FedOA—Federico II University Press, Napoli 41. Stamps AE (2004) Mystery, complexity, legibility and coherence: A meta-analysis. J Environ Psychol 24:1–16 42. Tartaglia A, Terenzi B (2016) From waste to secondary raw material, towards more sustainable architecture. SMC—Sustainable Mediterranean Construction. Land Culture, Research and Technology n.4/2016 43. Tartaglia A (2018) Progetto e nuovo. Codice dei contratti. Innovazioni nel processo edilizio. Maggioli, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna 44. Terenzi B (2016) Il design e gli animali. Tra zoomorfismo e animalier. Edizioni Didapress, Firenze 45. Terenzi B, Mecca S (2017) Zoomorphism, biomimetics and computational design. AGATHON 2(2017):143–150 46. UN-Habitat (2016) Slum Almanac 2015 2016. https://unhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/ 02-old/Slum%20Almanac%202015-2016_EN.pdf. Last accessed 05 Sep 2019 47. UNEP—United Nations Environmental Program (2010) UNEP 2010 Annual Report. http:// wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/7915/UNEP-AR-2010-FULL-REPORT. pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y. Last accessed 03 Sep 2019 48. United Nations (2018) World Urbanization Prospects. The 2018 Revision. https://population. un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-KeyFacts.pdf. Last accessed 31 Aug 2019

A Removed Landscape—Milan Expressways as the Last Threshold of a Metropolis Matteo Giuseppe Romanato

Abstract Historically, the different stages of urban growth have been marked by walls. Often in the past, such thresholds were both a heavy constraint and an opportunity as many literary accounts help to reconstruct. After railroads the last urban threshold is nowadays the motorway ring road, a traffic infrastructure which is common to almost all developed countries as it is now a necessary route for anyone who uses the city both as commuter and citizen. The representation of this mass transportation system, basically a sort of linear territory, takes on the photographic tool to show in the most direct way a landscape where the juxtaposition, justified by functional and economic needs, of a large road infrastructure alongside existing buildings or natural spaces has given rise to transitional areas such as interstices, enclaves, and marginal places. But many other spatial outcomes of great interest can occur and they can offer visions that would not be available otherwise in the rest of the city. However, this landscape is every day fast and carelessly perceived and so, at the same time, mentally removed from the common idea of the city, thus raising still open questions for representation and design. Keywords Urban history · Contemporary landscape · City highways · Removed borders · Photo-reportage · Urban image

1 Urban Barriers from Constraint to Resource Until early modern times, western cities have been growing through an overlapping of streets, squares, monumental projects and ordinary buildings, which often have formed distinguishing urban fabrics. Different ways of settlements and historical events have interacted with soil conditions, previous country paths, water regimes, and orography but many other factors have played their role too. Robert Musil, in his masterpiece “The man without qualities”, wonderfully described the complex

M. G. Romanato (B) Architect, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_36

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layouts that a man of marked sensitivity could detect in the urban landscape of his time: No special significance should be attached to the name of the city. Like all big cities, it consisted of irregularity, change, sliding forward, not keeping in step, collisions of things and affairs, and fathomless points of silence in between, of paved ways and wilderness, of one great rhythmic throb and the perpetual discord and dislocation of all opposing rhythms, and as a whole resembled a seething, bubbling fluid in a vessel consisting of the solid material of buildings, laws, regulations and historical traditions ([31], 4)

Ultimately, the historical city that Musil described showed a conformation with various and original geometries where “the large, stable, rich buildings that once expressed royal authority, theocracy, and mysticism” could stand out, although the forthcoming “mechanized and democratic city” ([26], in De Maria 1983, 286) would soon consider them useless. Still today cathedrals, royal palaces, noble residences mark the city we have inherited from the past but, in many cases, they have to seek a new destiny to replace their original use no longer corresponding to contemporary society. Among all the works of the ancien régime, however, what had been maintaining its function and effects for the longest time, until demolition in the early twentieth century, was perhaps the system of fortifications. Urban walls, on the one hand, contained all the contradictions of cities implementing in this way the process of overlapping accumulation, and, on the other, had been marking, from the classical era to the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century, their progressive stages of expansion as soon as they annexed suburbs and country. In ancient times the threshold between the city and its countryside always took the form of a sacred, symbolic, legal, and military boundary as an “act of violence against nature” ([15], 126) separating citizenship from the rest of the world. Particularly during the Renaissance technical requirements for defence against firearms gave rise to large bastions that had to be strong and thick enough to withstand the impact of the new artillery. The greatest geniuses of that time gave important contributions to this new kind of military architecture. Leonardo left us about 45 pages of his Codex Atlanticus [27] and Michelangelo made about twenty drawings with defence projects for the Florentine Republic [9]. A new genre of war treaties was so born to design walls, ramparts, bastions, and military works [7, 8, 23, 24]. The new city border had so to meet with functional, practical, and technical needs of resistance and reliability that often exceed the classical education of architects and artists based on composition and symmetry. Maybe it is no coincidence that mathematicians like Tartaglia [46] and scientists like Galileo [17] were interested in the issue of fortifications. Many European cities were so enclosed in a chain of ramparts that could be seen around Paris, Turin, Berlin, Milan, Vienna etc., with specific spatial features that must be briefly outlined. Basically, on the one hand the performance of gun shooting required shapes never seen before, designed to deflect cannonballs, on the other, the need to manoeuvre defence forces inside the walls and to leave the countryside open to the fire against besiegers brought to leave wide free spaces on both sides of the bastions. In this sort of empty arena, the old city looked almost like suspended in a virtual never-ending siege. Milan had its walls between 1548 and 1562 in full compliance with these requirements (Fig. 1) as it was the most important centre of

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Fig. 1 Milan map in 1832 with its bastions. Source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image: Milan_1832.jpg?uselang=it

gravity in Europe to connect the Habsburg domains of Spain, Naples, Austria, and the Netherlands [36]. Although between the nineteenth and the twentieth century urban ramparts progressively became outdated and bulky, the abandonment of these structures was gradual and, for a long time, cities cautiously had maintained their fortifications. In the case of Paris the walls, built by Thiers1 between 1841 and 1844, whose cost was 145 million francs, perhaps the most expensive construction of the reign of Louis Philippe ([32], 63–82), proved to be still crucial on the occasion of the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, one of the first technologically modern wars. Léon Gambetta, minister of the interior of the “Gouvernement de la Défense nationale”, representing the last independent authority after the defeat of Napoleon III, had to abandon Paris in a hot-air balloon flying over the walls, the only defence actually left for the city under siege by the German troops. More generally, the bastions of European cities had been, for a long time, exceptional landmarks as well as place for extraordinary events or unusual practices: war of course but also market and even crime or prostitution. It is so clear that urban ramparts could offer opportunities for uncommon experiences. 1 Today

we can find there the “Boulevard périphérique”.

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As Stendhal noticed, from Milan bastions one could enjoy a vision of extraordinary beauty: From the height of the rampart which stretches from the bastion of the Porta Nuova to the Marengo gate, there is a view of the distant Alps which is nothing short of sublime. In all the days I have spent in Milan, I have scarcely seen anything more magnificent. Among other peaks my guides pointed out the recognition of the Rezegon di Lek (author’s note: Lecco) and the Monte Rosa. Seen thus across the fertile luxuriance of the plan, these peaks offer a pattern of beauty which is overwhelming, yet at the same time reassuring, like Greek architecture ([45], 60).

The juxtaposition of an exceptional defensive structure to the old city therefore created a pleasant place for an amazing sensory experience. In other towns, for example, where the walls have survived demolitions, they have been turned into public monuments or meeting places becoming even source of literary imagery such as in Lucca ([12], 156) and Ferrara [3]. But the history of a city can go further, and bastions could also give, once redesigned, a chance to transform the urban space. That is the famous case of the Vienna Ringstraße where the ramparts enclosing the “innere Stadt” implied the usual empty areas, the “glacis” (Fig. 2). The planning of a 450 m wide zone, which until 1857 could not be built by law, in order not to prevent the visibility for artillery and not to offer shelter to possible besiegers (which worked very well in the siege of 1683), gave Vienna the opportunity to set up an ambitious master plan for re-sewing old and new city with a modern Opera House, the Parliament building, the Town Hall, the Stock Exchange, the Academy of Fine Arts, the University, the Art Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Burgtheater, the Palace of Justice, a Museum for Applied Arts, and a new imperial residence, the Hofburg. All these buildings could reshape the image of the city, and actually create a real icon of an era [51] going beyond their own time so much to become a myth ([28], 46–52). The image of Habsburgs’ Vienna was reflected in a succession of concentric circles of which the Ringstraße was the monumental side, perfectly showing off the model of a wonderfully orchestrated city where: The imperial house still set the tempo. The palace was the centre not only in a spatial sense but also in a cultural sense, of the supernationality of the monarchy. The palaces of the Austrian, the Polish, the Czech, and the Hungarian nobility formed as it were a second enclosure around the imperial palace. Then came the “good society”, consisting of the lesser nobility, the higher officials, industry, and the old families, then the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Each of these social strata lived in its social circle. ([54], 24–25)

If Vienna is a perfect example of a creative transformation for a bulky military structure, the historical background of London must be remembered as a context working against the continental trend. The British empire was actually a thalassocracy and its capital was protected by a sea under total control of the most powerful fleet in the world. Therefore, after the Middle Ages, it did not have wide and complex defensive structures like those of the rest of Europe ([30], 202) that could limit its expansion but neither had it the opportunity to plan anything similar to the imperial Vienna.

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Fig. 2 Vienna City Map showing the location of the city walls and the not-built areas, the “glacis”, in 1858. Source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wien1858.jpg?uselang=it

2 The Efficient and Anonymous City The aristocratic city with its legacy of contradictions, overlaps, spatial values, and historically intertwined events appeared totally unfit as soon as, in the mid-eighteenth century, the bourgeois civilization began to require a proper space in society and a political role. First the Enlightenment and Napoleonic projects, then the early building master plans of the second half of the nineteenth century tried to rule the continuous growth of cities. The new approach to urban development was radically alternative to what had been achieved in the previous centuries. The results of the new planning were residential middle-class districts and workers’ social housing extending outside the old city, which was sometimes also affected by postHausmannian interventions of adaptation. The new city showed a regular, reliable, and clear urban image although it could be perceived rather repetitive and without

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the charm that had distinguished the European landscape until then. Camillo Sitte noted how the urban vision coming out from such new spaces was so different from the old urban icons and, ultimately, unsatisfactory: Vision itself, the nature of perception of space, upon which every architectural effect depends, should be the basis for resolving all of the conflicting factors in city building. The eye is always at the converging point of a pyramid of visual lines extending from the object perceived, and various perceived objects are in a visual circle having the eye as its centre, so that with the respect of the eye, they form a concave line. This is the natural basis of the principle of perspective that was so effectively used by the Baroque masters […] The modern block produces effects that work directly counter to the laws of perspective. ([43], 89)

Trying to draw from the ancient city valid formal principles and morphological rules to make also the nineteenth-century city a work of art Sitte therefore proposed to manage the contradictions of the soil and the variety of space including them into the new planning: Rugged terrain, water courses, and existing roads should not be ruthlessly obliterated for the sake of a stupid rectangularity. On the contrary they should present welcome occasions for deviating streets lines and other informalities. Irregularities of this kind, so often removed at tremendous expense in these days, are absolute necessities. Without them a certain rigidity and a cold affectation descends upon even the finest works. ([43], 87)

Sitte actually pointed out the deep gap that had occurred in the urban space from the industrial revolution onwards. The isotropic and efficient bourgeois city, planned for social control and economic exploitation, enhanced, in other words, what Max Weber defined as the “Entzauberung der Welt” [22, 53], the “disenchantment of the world” that is the dimension of the rational man who does not see any mystery left on earth but can control it with calculation tools and technical resources. The rational planning of the city implied straight roads, rule-based building, hygienic prescriptions to have a regular, orderly, and systematic urban fabric. In this way the nineteenth and twentieth-century city tried to expand by drawing large urban roads, space patterns, regular urban sections, limited green spaces, building curtains, anodyne typologies, and standards of service ruled by homogeneous norms. What old monarchies had considered the core of their interventions such as perspective views, symbolic monuments, scenographic spaces were no longer a key feature of the new districts. The city found itself, like the human being, in what Weber again called the “iron cage” ([52], 1–54, 1–110; 1930, 181) or rather the “steel-hard casing” ([1], 153– 169) of the anonymous and efficient capitalism. In response to this, Sitte suggested varied geometries, visual angles that could break the flatness of the landscape, and bring back a lost spirit. The generous attempt by Sitte, who referred to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, had to clash with the face of a city no longer made of self-built settlements by ordinary people who knew how to use local materials, and to invent new typologies according to their symbolic structures [38]. It was not even the time when sovereigns or aristocracy considered public representation and cultural policy as essential investments ([20], 99–102) through that baroque art which from Rome [13] had conquered Europe. The industrial city was, on the contrary, planned by bureaucracy and built by entrepreneurs who provided comfortable and reliable

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houses for remuneration. In Milan a typical outcome of the capitalist revolution that affected the city was the Beruto Plan [4]. This master plan, conceived between 1884 and 1889, tried to ensure space control and, at the same time, to insert some variety through its so-called broken dish geometries. But it was precisely in those years that Milan began to perceive the old fortified bastions as an obstacle to its future, and planned their gradual demolition, accomplished in the first post-war period. It is no coincidence that the free spaces left, semi-central areas then, have been quickly divided into lots and built up.

3 New Barriers As a matter of fact, for a fast-growing city with its manufacturing and commercial needs, a rampart was not the best way to foster its development. The continuous defensive structure with its sizeable depth made the inner city totally separate from its countryside, hence the demolition. Only a little segment of the bastions was preserved and turned into a public walk and a road ([35], 112–127). In the same way the monumental gates, Porta Venezia, Porta Garibaldi, Porta Nuova, and Porta Ticinese (where the urban customs were), are today the last marks to witness the decorum of the city. Similar imposing architectural works are also common to other major European cities such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Barrières de la Villette, de Chartres, du Trône, and d’Orléans by Ledoux in Paris. But the same demands for efficiency that had required the demolition of the ramparts, paradoxically, led to create a duplicate of the walls, which still encloses the city nowadays. After 1905, in addition to the planned expansion through lots and roads outlined by the Beruto Plan and the following Pavia Masera Plan, Milan could build its railway ring thanks to the nationalization of railways, which were no longer profitable for private stakeholders [33]. The image of European nineteenthcentury cities can be seen indeed at first sight through the importance of railway infrastructures. Haussmann’s plan for Paris would be meaningless without taking into consideration its new stations. The gare de Lyon, for example, connects to the gare de l’Est through the boulevard Richard-Lenoir and the boulevard de Magenta. In the same way citizens can reach the gare Saint-Lazare from the gare du Nord through the rue La Fayette and the boulevard Haussmann. On this trend Italy saw railroads as a crucial tool for bridging the gap with more advanced nations [19] and Milan, following Paris model, slowly built its system of tracks, rail yards, and stations. The impact of rail transport technology was not entirely alien to the imagination of a city looking forward into the future. In 1887 Angelo Morbelli painted the first central station of Milan,2 in the footsteps of Claude Monet who had portrayed Saint Lazare station, but showing the crude realism of a sad nineteenth-century building 2 There are actually two versions of this painting. The first one, painted in 1887, is preserved in Rome

(Ente Autonomo delle Ferrovie dello Stato). The second one, a copy of 1889, is now displayed in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano.

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Fig. 3 Milan railways ring built after nationalization of 1905. Retaining walls behind Central Station (above) and around Lambrate (below)

blackened by smoke. On the contrary, some of Boccioni’s most famous paintings, the two series of “Stati d’animo”,3 made just after the renovation of the Milanese system, depict stations, trains, and passengers as dynamically overlapping elements that overwhelm the viewer. Around the same years of the demolition of the ramparts, the tram and rail transport system was therefore rearranged with the construction of an imposing elevated roadbed, which in the east, north, and south surprisingly built a new urban border. The city is consequently once again marked by barriers (Fig. 3). However, from a broader point of view such a plan was closely related with the administrative annexation of the contiguous municipalities while the removal of the old central station and the creation of the new axis of via Vettor Pisani must be considered according to the typically nineteenth century Italian model, many times repeated in small towns, with the historic city centre linked to the station through a large avenue ([37], 201–204). It is possible to comment with surprise on the project to raise the track layout above the ground level, forcing so strongly the city landscape, but this was also the only way to have a set of passageways for the streets of the Pavia Masera plan through new tunnels and without extremely uncomfortable level crossings. The example of the railway circuit allows to reconsider the urban shape of Milan. The city is said to be easily recognizable as a series of concentric circles, which are similar in some ways to Zweig’s Vienna, yet not so monumental. Starting from the 3 The first version of 1911 is displayed in the Museo del Novecento in Milan, the second one, painted

in 1911 as well, is now in the Museum of Modern Art of New York.

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innermost core proceeding towards the outside it is possible to detect the circuit of the medieval walls, erected in the communal period, the circle of the Spanish bastions, and the just mentioned railway. All the other roads and streets would be adapted to the same ring pattern. The outermost urban threshold, which Milan shares with any major city that had its development during the second half of the 1900s, is finally the system of large urban expressways, the “Tangenziali” (ring roads). In the European context Milan ring roads can be actually considered as the local variant of what in France is the “Paris super-périphérique”, in the United Kingdom the “London Orbital Motorway”, in Berlin the system of urban highways, (Stadtautobahnen), and in Moscow the “MKAD”.

4 The Last Landscape The Milanese Tangenziali system is basically composed of three motorways: the A50 (west ring road), the A51 (east ring road), and the A4 (Turin-Venice motorway). It is an important transportation infrastructure built in different historical stages starting after the pioneering realization in 1924 of what can be considered one of the first motorways (a road destined only to the traffic of motorized vehicles with the exclusion of horse carts, pedestrians or bicycles and with a toll): the Milan-Laghi highway, built by private contractors ([47], 33–37). The commercial success of this early work led to the construction of the first part of a motorway between Milan and Bergamo ([48], 296–302) in 1927, then extended to Turin and Venice (today’s A4). Only in the second post-war period the need to provide the city with a more efficient and smoothly organized access system through a better suburban traffic distribution drove to plan a first car route west of Milan (A50), built between 1965 and 1968. Its purpose was to connect the traffic coming from the Milan-Naples motorway with the Turin-Venice motorway without entering the city ([10], 43–50). After that, also on the basis of international comparisons, it was decided to build a second connection ([41], 714–731) to the east (A51), which would be closer than the previous one to the city, but with the same aim to make the traffic flow better from this side of the metropolis too. The system has been completed with the recent new little stretch in the north formed by the A52 (north ring road) and with the new A58 (external east ring road), a source in the chronicles of many controversies for the waste of money and its under-utilization. However, it is important to focus attention on the historical conditions that allowed to build Italian road infrastructures. In 1938, a decade after the first highways were built, the number of cars running in Italy was only 289,000, while in Germany they were 1,272,000 and in France 1,818,000. The situation changed considerably during the so-called economic boom. If in 1950 cars were still 340,000, in the 60s they increase by about one million units every year until 5.5 million in 1965 ([42], 121, 143). The mass motorization, in Italy perhaps even more than in other countries owing to economic and infrastructural delay, had a disruptive effect on society and on national

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identity. The opportunity for individuals to move in an independent way as never before was a powerful inducement to accept the Western capitalist system of life and its dream of wealth but it also raised fear, resistance, and created a new social and cultural imagery. A movie such as “Il sorpasso”,4 for example, showed a new anthropological subject who was aggressive, tough, and dare-devil at the wheel. At the same time, the epic construction of the national road network, with the “Autostrada del Sole” [29] as its main work (which, not by chance, started from Milan), united the North and South of the country, and put into contact the different areas of Italy. Right in this last case the extreme speed the most important Italian motorway was built can still be noticed now as soon as attention is paid to the various typologies of its bridges, let out to different contractors and designers. Their disparate shapes reveal the need to satisfy technological requirements very quickly and to provide a reliable performance in short time. These are indeed the same pressing needs that dictated the physical consistency of defensive walls (thickness, height, geometry, and resistance) as well as railway tracks (radii of curvature, dead-end tracks, well calculated slopes), the two other urban thresholds seen before. Road junctions particularly show all the complexity of traffic flow management and the technical innovation that had to be used. An overview of some important interchanges around Milan (Fig. 4) can be interesting as seen in a bird’s eye view (Fig. 5). The image of these urban junctions, which are common to many advanced metropolises, is reflected very well in the words that a puzzled Cesare Brandi wrote in front of the much more complex architectures of Tokyo’s traffic: Like the dragons of their legends, but functional dragons, elevated highways cross each other, and seem in some places, where you can have up to three ones over your head, the caricature of some obsessive prisons by Piranesi ([5] in Maraini 2000, 60).

Brandi’s statements are the considerations of a sophisticated theorist and an art historian but nevertheless allow to face the matter of an elusive and complex landscape bringing it back to its basic visual data. The emerging issue is the challenge by an infrastructure juxtaposed to a varied territory in a mixture displaying interesting sights, unexpected views, surprising images, and unsettling visions that Sitte would probably have appreciated, as resulting from a bold superimposition. Moreover, the outcome is a potential common visual heritage for every citizen who, sooner or later, has to meet these expressways. From a purely quantitative point of view, it can be said that there is no landscape more seen and democratically perceived than this one. The A50 alone is daily used by about 250,000 cars.5 To paraphrase Achille Bonito Oliva it is a sort of “obligatory landscape” that a commuter is forced to see more than any other city square or monument. 4 “Il

sorpasso” (English translation: the overtaking, sometimes with English adaptation “The Easy Life”) by Dino Risi, 1962, with Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Catherine Spaak. 5 Data from “Unioncamere”. Available at: http://www.trail.unioncamere.it/scheda_infrastruttura. asp?id=954.

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Fig. 4 Noteworthy urban highway interchanges in Milan

Fig. 5 Bird’s eye views of notable urban highway interchanges in Milan

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Therefore, the question is, What role do these spaces and visions play in those who travel along them? And what kind of approach is necessary to express the predominance of time and of linear dimension in perception?

5 An Eye on the Move The sequence of different built-up objects, empty spaces, and urban sights performs, in a certain way, a contemporary and profane play along such routes. This phenomenon can be read just as a parallel with the space and the sequence of ˙ visual moments that Ejzenštejn found in the Acropolis of Athens: a perfect example of montage ([16], 117–118). On modern road rings, in some way, there is a sort of monumental daily procession for the common man with his mass travels. Italo Calvino proposed some suggestions very fitting to such a complex space from the perceptive point of view like this one. In a lesser-known work, addressing hypothesis of landscape description, he recommended facing the question by going through views and visuals showing everything with multiple looks, or, better, with his original words, acting as an “ego on the move that describes a landscape on the move” ([6], 2963–2964). Intuition suggests that a visual documentary should be the best way to accomplish this aim, but if it is not possible here to reproduce a filmic vision, photography must be regarded nevertheless as a viable alternative. Therefore, a photo-reportage can be helpful for reproducing the visual experience related to Milan expressways. This tool can return a vision that is as similar as possible to common perception (even with all the ambiguities that such definition brings with it), and convey the immediacy of the instant in which real landscape is imprinted upon the observer’s retina. A photographic campaign carried out in some interesting points of the motorway ring can indeed highlight unexpected views and hidden potentialities of such spaces. Right through some of these shots, Brandi’s Piranesian references appear not only in the Japanese capital but also on the edge of Milan (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Road connections of urban expressways around the interchanges of Forlanini (left) and Lambrate (right)

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However, in spite of their high technological standards, expressways often allow the development of interesting green areas and several natural spaces around them look sometimes totally wild, other times carefully designed. Surprisingly picturesque visions can be discovered along with minimal interstices coming out of the juxtaposition of infrastructures and ground, where nature seems to create the third landscape proclaimed by Clément [11] (Fig. 7). Anyway, the most distinctive feature of city highways is perhaps the opportunity they provide to connect distant places quickly without coming into conflict with the urban fabric. This is a system already implemented for urban transport in Chicago with its famous “Loop” or in Germany with the very interesting “Wuppertaler Schwebebahn”. The elevation can so bypass not only local traffic but also bike-pedestrian paths or railways (Fig. 8). But indifference to the urban context can go even further. When the route overlaps with the historical suburbs, which still host old farm buildings coming from a past agricultural use, curious effects of visual displacement are created (Fig. 9). The incongruent juxtaposition of constructions that are almost antithetical for origin, use, scale, and historical background forms some of the most unsettling visions one can find going around the ring road. The great looming infrastructure, rather than

Fig. 7 Picturesque view and natural growth around the interchange of Milano barriera Est (left) and Lambrate (right)

Fig. 8 Bike-pedestrian path in Lambrate (left) and old railway around S. Donato interchange (right) passing under the expressway where the photo was taken

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Fig. 9 Visual superimposition of the highway over an old country cottage around Forlanini (left) and a bike bridge next to Lambrate interchange (right)

composing a spatial frame, takes the symbolic role ([50], 8) of a temporal and spatial marker. It cannot be simply classified through usual planning tools and without the photographic representation it would hardly be possible to grasp its significance. Facing different temporal thresholds, the economic needs force to stretch the limits in setting side by side infrastructures to ordinary building, and give rise to contrasts that are sometimes difficult to notice if attention is not paid (Fig. 10). The effect is often a spatial upheaval or a vivid tension as Venturi pointed out precisely in the case of American expressways ([49], 68), although in the European context, perhaps, the contrast looks more uncanny and, at times, disturbing. It is curious to note that such combinations often generate rather interesting residual enclaves. Even if, from a commercial point of view, these spaces are not attractive (owing to their isolation from the surroundings) they are moments of pause inside the city. In one case, for example, some probably illegal forms of farming exploit the paradoxical security of the separation from the urban fabric to organize an unattended pasture a few kilometers from Piazza Duomo (Fig. 11).

Fig. 10 Dramatic view behind a fence of a juxtaposition of incoherent elements around Milano Est (left) and a factory against retaining walls around Cascina Merlata (right)

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Fig. 11 Pasture hidden inside an enclave around Cascina Merlata interchange. View with railway (left) and the road retaining wall on the opposite side (right)

Fig. 12 Visions getting in (left) and out (right) of an underpass around Cascina Merlata

Other images involving the perception of people driving along these roads compel to rethink the idea of the urban environment and its representation. Several interchanges impose a syncopated succession of views emerging with almost expressionistic glimpses when structural elements frame the urban scene and the perspective of the city (Fig. 12). While getting out of Milan on such routes, the driver perceives the urban threshold no longer as the clear, unique, sacred boundary of the past but, on the contrary, as a sequence of manufactured structures spread on the city-territory. As Anthony Giddens states: The tremendous economic power generated by the harnessing of allocative resources to a generic tendency towards technical improvement is matched by an enormous expansion in the administrative reach of the state […] The old city-countryside relation is replaced by a sprawling expansion of a manufactured or created environment ([18], 183–184)

Nevertheless, citizens can also find here those artificial morphologies that, in a lowland metropolis like Milan, have always been lacking such as slopes, rises, manmade hills pierced by tunnels, and streets: a radically new landscape in the history of the city. The underpass is then the complement of the bridge without which the metropolis could not work (Fig. 13). The fascination for the image that such structures could arouse at the beginning of the last century can be found in countless quotations.

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Fig. 13 Bridges towards Roserio

Fig. 14 “Parco dell’acqua” under the urban expressway in Lambrate district

Perhaps the best one to report is a statement by Marinetti when, right in his “Manifesto of Futurism” (a movement that had its core just in Milan), he envisioned the new future city full of crowds stirred by work, arsenals, construction sites, and “bridges similar to giant gymnasts” [25]. The span structures themselves must take the features of a modern giant order that can embrace, with its dimension, the surrounding landscape as in the case of “Parco dell’acqua” in Lambrate (Fig. 14). Few time citizens focus attention to the role of water and water supply for metropolitan life but, only to remain within the field of illustrious quotations, Marcel Duchamp, defending his own work “Fountain”,6 provocatively stated that the greatest American contribution to modern civilization were bridges and water systems [34]. The space below the deck, however, can create a true microcosm where several functions, can find suitable locations: car depots, workshops, small factories, warehouses or even a water supply facility (Fig. 15). This important and technologically advanced service, a delicate process from a hygienic point of view, finds an unusual site almost fitting into a compressed space under the expressway. Even the surroundings of interchanges offer surprises. The unattractive feature of places, considered to be very unfavourable owing to pollution and noise, creates the 6 The

work was a so called “readymade”, basically a urinal, proposed for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917.

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Fig. 15 Water facility “BrianzAcque” around the interchange of Milano barriera est

Fig. 16 Old residential house around Lambrate interchange (left) and country ruin in Cascina Merlata (right)

conditions for isolation and marginalization of once valuable residential buildings, which now show an abandoned look (Fig. 16), and bring to mind an impoverished middle class or needy farmers, so often narrated in social novels. Nevertheless, available spaces of vast dimensions are not rare, and projects of urban transformation have recently been carried out with residential districts and large green areas. That is the case of Cascina Merlata, among the Cimitero maggiore (Greater Cemetery) of Milan, the railway tracks, and the A4. Also in this case the presence of expressways with their interchanges remains in the background of this part of the city. Even the small and colourful playground of this district, as well as a little football pitch in San Donato, have to deal with their strong presence (Fig. 17). To avoid phenomena of isolation and segregation, some projects try to span the great roads in the trenches that separate the districts by building a series of connections (Fig. 18) currently still under construction. New pedestrian bridges have so the ambition to reconnect once marginal areas involving them in a future urban layout. From the point of view of the people who drive around the ring roads, anyway, the most significant experience is perhaps the perception of another extent of the space. Milan is a city that ceased to be capital with the end of the Italic kingdom in 1814. Therefore, except for piazza Duomo or piazza Repubblica, it is quite rare to find imposing squares or large places that expand the vision, and show a broad

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Fig. 17 Playground in Cascina Merlata (left) and in San Donato (right) just next to road infrastructures

Fig. 18 Pedestrian and bike bridges under construction in Cascina Merlata

horizon embracing wide dimensions. It is only in some sections of the expressways that citizens can have views of the space surrounding the dense city with large portions of the sky and the flat countryside (Fig. 19). Perhaps Stendhal would not recognize now the industrial plain but the great expanse of land is still heir to the nineteenth-century landscape.

Fig. 19 Open views between San Donato and Lambrate

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At the end of this photo-reportage the richness and the variety of spaces marked by expressways should clearly stand out. Their specific conditions can hardly be interpreted through usual tools such as map, plan, and traditional architectural drawings. Even the choice to reduce all of them to the photographic survey is a simplification. There can also be many other ways to portray such elusive spaces. Some interesting film productions, for example, have met with success in recent times. Lives, places, social practices, and human relationships on a great urban road ring can be found in the documentary “Sacro GRA”7 about the big expressway around Rome. The photographic books by Edward Ruscha about gasoline stations [39] or parking lots [40] are other examples of how to report this kind of world. However, there is still on the ground the question about the representation by ring road users themselves. This strange frame of mind can be seen as an ambiguous awareness of a landscape which is at the same time familiar, thanks to the daily visual experience, and far out for its location. Reyner Banham facing the city that perhaps identifies the most in the world with its motorway network, Los Angeles, concludes that: …the freeway system in its totality is now a single comprehensible place, a coherent state of mind, a complete way of life, the fourth ecology of the Angeleno […] The freeway is where the Angelenos live a large part of their lives. Such daily sacrifices on the altar of transportation are the common lot of all metropolitan citizens of course. ([2], 213–214)

In spite of this, the paroxysm of the Californian megalopolis is hardly reached in Europe, and the freeway landscape, as in the case of Milan, remains in some way distant, removed as it is rarely remembered among usual urban visions. Another of the basic ambiguities of this part of the city.

6 A Necessary Landscape? A Removed Landscape? Basically, the space in the fringe areas of contemporary metropolises can have only episodic attention from the social or political point of view following the scandals denounced by the citizenship, but anyway some quite interesting projects can be reported. In Italy a turning point was the economic crisis from 2007 to 2013 that drew the attention of public management on outskirts as places where people are more in need, and social malaise is accompanied by building abandonment; hence an important call for projects on suburbs,8 which saw the participation of many local governments at national level. The metropolitan authority of Milan submitted the plan “Metropolitan welfare and urban regeneration”9 which aimed a strategic recovery of some areas on the outskirts of the main city involving municipalities that would not have been able to finance changes with their own resources. Among the planned interventions, the project to transform the old Cornaggia farmhouse in Cinisello 7 “Sacro

GRA”, a documentary film directed by Gianfranco Rosi in 2013. (prime ministerial decree) of 25th May 2016. 9 Details available at: http://www.cittametropolitana.mi.it/welfare_metropolitano/index.html. 8 DPCM

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Balsamo, strongly segregated by road junctions in the area of Crocetta north-east of the metropolis, must be positively highlighted. In this case an old building, left to decay for years, has been badly affected by a close high-density residential district, inhabited mostly by new immigrants with problems of social integration. In the future, this publicly-owned building should host social housing, a meeting room for citizens, a space for exhibitions, culture events or theatre, and a healthcare accommodation for people with disabilities. Another very interesting intervention is an almost unique process of transformation for an area not long ago occupied by a derelict hotel, built for the World Cup in 1990 and now returned to the natural landscape. In this case the location between Forlanini airport and San Donato should have favoured the commercial success of the project which, on the contrary, came to a standstill, and left for more than twenty years an egregious, unfinished, carelessly abandoned structure at the edges of the expressways. Fortunately, in recent times an agreement between the municipality and the owner company10 provided a compensation for the demolition through a change of use for other buildings in the core of the city. It was so possible to return a free area of almost four hectares to a large suburban park. However, these are notable exceptions for a space not yet part of the urban design although the sequence of photographic images displayed so far can be evidence of how the landscape associated with the great urban highways is not a mere side effect of economic or technical needs. Just as the Renaissance ramparts were not simple defensive tools but complex structures that marked the urban space or, even after some time, strategic opportunities of rethinking the city, in the same way, the large urban expressways have potentials that may not yet have come to light. From the industrial revolution onwards, the theme of railways, bridges, and in general, of the so-called architecture of the engineers, made of iron and glass, fascinated many professionals and theorists. The rhetoric of the shrinking of space ([44], VIII) was one of the issues of Victorian society, and large amounts of railroad representations ([21], 118–147) were produced although few creative architectural solutions involved the new railways. Apart from the gigantic and utopian “Plan Obus” by Le Corbusier for Algiers, only with the second post-war period there was a specific interest in transportation infrastructures, especially in the megastructures of the 50s and 60s, read by de Fusco in parallel with pop-art ([14], 85–103). Few other quality projects such as Michelucci’s church of San Giovanni Battista, by the motorway in Firenze, or Ridolfi’s unrealized Agip motel in Settebagni testify the architects’ engagement in this theme. In more recent times, the Milanese project by Ludovico Magistretti for the subway line 2 depot must be considered with great appreciation as it offers a front of strong impact, which is clearly visible both from the metro line itself and from the urban access road (A7). This leads to the main issue, What strategic role could transportation infrastructures play for the future of the city as, unlike dismissed ramparts and railway yards (whose transformation has just started), they are still necessary, and have to be maintained perfectly efficient? In this regard, we can only raise questions that the photos 10 Resolution

by Milan City Council 10th November 2011.

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collected so far can trigger, Can we imagine a green system integrated with infrastructure as, in some way, it already happens spontaneously? What should be the specific features of nearby transformation projects? What margins for growth (or degrowth) do they have? Is it necessary to leave spaces such as buffer zones, parking lots, etc., only to functionalist design? Moreover, how can we represent, manage, and design a landscape that, in different ways, citizenship, scholars, and architects have substantially removed?

References 1. Baehr P (2001) The “Iron Cage” and the “Shell as Hard as Steel”: Parsons, Weber, and the Stahlhartes Gehäuse metaphor in the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Hist Theory 40(2):153–169 2. Banham R (1971) Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies. Lane, London, pp 213–214 3. Bassani G (1973) Dentro le mura. Il romanzo di Ferrara I. Mondadori, Milano 4. Boriani M, Rossari A, Rozzi R (1992) La Milano del Piano Beruto (1884–1889), Società, urbanistica e architettura nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento. Edizioni Angelo Guerini e Associati, Milano 5. Brandi C (1973) Budda sorride. Einaudi, Torino. In: Maraini F (2000) Ore giapponesi. Corbaccio, Milano, p 60 6. Calvino I (1985) Ipotesi di descrizione di un paesaggio. In: Barenghi M (ed) Saggi 1945–1985. Mondadori, Milano 7. Castriotto G, Maggi G (1564) Della fortificazione delle città. Venezia 8. Cattaneo G (1584) Dell’arte militare libri cinque, ne’ quali si tratta il modo di fortificare, offendere, et diffendere vna fortezza Di Girolamo Cataneo nouarese, appresso Pietro Maria Marchetti, Brescia 9. Cecchi A (ed) (2017) Arte e guerra. Michelangelo e l’assedio di Firenze. Polistampa, Firenze 10. Centolani G (1965) Tangenziale autostradale ovest per la città di Milano. In: Le Strade (Milano, Touring Club Italiano), anno XLV, no 2, pp 43–50 11. Clément G (2004) Manifeste du Tiers-paysage. Éd. Sujet Objet. Italian edition: Clément G (2005) Manifesto del terzo paesaggio. Quodlibet, Macerata. Available (in English) at: http:// www.gillesclement.com/art-454-tit-The-Third-Landscape 12. D’Annunzio G (1918) Lucca. In: Laudi del cielo, del mare, della terra e degli eroi. Libro II, Elettra, Fratelli Treves Editori, Milano, p 156 13. D’Onofrio C (1960) Roma nel seicento. Vallecchi editore, Firenze 14. De Fusco R (2005) Architettura come mass medium. Edizioni Dedalo, Bari, pp 85–103 15. De Sanctis G (2015) La logica del confine. Per un’antropologia dello spazio nel mondo romano. Carocci, Roma, p 126 ˙ 16. Ejzenštejn SM, Bois Y-A (eds) (1989) Montage and architecture (trans: Glenny M). MIT Press, pp 117–118 17. Galileo G (1606) Le operazioni del compasso geometrico et militare. Padova 18. Giddens A (1984) The constitution of society. Outline of the theory of structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge, pp 183–184 19. Guadagno V (1996) Ferrovie ed economia nell’Ottocento postunitario. Collegio amministrativo ferroviario italiano, Roma 20. Guidoni E, Marino A (1979) Storia dell’Urbanistica. Il seicento. Laterza, Roma-Bari, pp 99–102 21. Klingende FD (1972) The Railway age. In: Art and the industrial revolution. Granada Publishing, Frogmore, pp 118–147 22. Lehmann H (2009) Die Entzauberung der Welt. Studien zu Themen von Max Weber. Wallstein, Göttingen

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Projecting the Landscape: “Towards a Difficult Unit” Graziella Guaragno, Elettra Malossi, and Gianluca Paggi

Abstract The widening of the landscape’s perspective to the entire territory and to its dynamic component, rich of interactions between the communities and their environment, have become acquired concepts, even if carried out differently. It cannot be said the same in terms of land planning policies that, besides protection and preservation, should express a project dimension, capable of gather and promote processes to create of new identity values. Landscape valorisation and the establishment of new contemporary landscapes are, in fact, the fields of action with the highest degree of complexity and contradiction and require a change in the approach, from regulatory to proactive, in the way the Administrations responsible for the territory and landscape’s care act. In this perspective, today the main challenge is tied to the strategy of adaptation to climate change. Opportunities to device development and qualification projects by increasing the territory’s resilience, are enormous. For this purpose, it is necessary to work in an interdisciplinary manner to promote actions that can allow the reorganization of the landscape, also by adaptation or by the new construction of linear infrastructure or structural works that can assuage natural hazards. In this meaning, the recognition of an appropriate regional planning is essential but, it can only be reached in an intermunicipal scale, to reflect the contemporary territorial, social and economic dynamics. For years the Emilia Romagna Region has recognised the importance of the intermunicipal relevance by devoting effort and resources on the creation of United Municipalities, also through the establishment of intermunicipal plan offices, essential to acquire appropriate technical expertise to

Faced with the challenges of climate change and a mitigation of the risks on intermunicipal scale, the design dimension of the territory is most interesting and challenging, where the landscape’s ethic and aesthetic can find a restoration. G. Guaragno (B) · E. Malossi · G. Paggi Regione Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] E. Malossi e-mail: [email protected] G. Paggi e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_37

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conduct regenerative processes of the landscape’s qualification and to develop the community’s participation. Keywords Climate change · Unions of municipalities · Restoration · Green and blue infrastructure · Participation · Landscape planning

1 Design of the Territory and Climate Change The European Landscape Convention has placed the emphasis on the landscape dynamic dimension and to its identity value, because it is expression of the communities’ values and memories that dwell together in the territory. The focus has therefore shifted to the landscape as a whole, including the downgraded and critical areas, and to the landscape alive dimension, coming out from the continuous interaction and values exchange among the communities and their environment. Nowadays these concepts are largely absorbed, even if achieved differently, in of landscape planning and studies. On the other hand, it cannot be said the same when the wider territorial planning and policies are considered, since, besides protection and preservation policies, they should promote a project dimension capable of gain and promote the creation of new identity values [1]. The importance of territorial planning and management is noticeable when the landscape’s history is taken in consideration. For instance, wide areas of the EmiliaRomagna countryside are the result of centuries of reclaims, a mammoth and painstaking work that has recovered the land from the marshes over the centuries in order to make them hygienic and favourable for agricultural purposes. This restoring work carried out over the centuries brought us the dense network of waterways and canals that are still the matrix of the rural regional landscape. Therefore the same rural landscapes that now we protect, as an outstanding synthesis among nature and human history, are also the result of an enormous project effort and maintenance work of the territory [2]. Most recent history teaches that, during the Anthropocene, the relationship between man and nature, economy and territory, society and environment, is not free from contrasts and contradictions. More importantly, not all the territory’s transformations can produce new landscapes: not the overexploitation of the nature reserves, not the abuse operated by the technical culture on the environment or its abandonment. Only those processes that are able to integrate nature, man and culture are also able to develop a new landscape, as a new dynamic equilibrium that can last in a long-term period and a formal expression and recognisable expression of shared community values. Landscape valorisation and the establishment of new contemporary landscapes are, the fields of action with the highest degree of complexity and contradiction and require a change in the approach in the way the Administrations responsible for the territorial and landscape care act because a change in method is required: from regulative to proactive. In the main time, the design and project dimension is highly

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stimulating and challenging, and is where the landscape’s ethic and aesthetic can find a synthesis. As Turri1 said, the landscape is the result of the human action to “humanise” the environment, to meet the needs of the economic organisation and the culture of a specific society. The design of new contemporary landscapes must begin from serious questions. Which ones are the contemporary problems and needs in territorial end environment transformation to which our society must answer? With which culture can we answer? Which ones are the common values for which we strive and that we aspire to pass on to future generations? Certainly, climate change is the biggest challenge, both planetary and local, of our times. Mitigation and climate change adaptation policies are the privileged fields for contemporary society’s action that deals with the territorial transformation. The new orientation in the territorial planning culture provides hope that this discipline is developed enough in order to study and express a more substantial criteria of sustainability.

2 The Emilia Romagna Regional Strategy of Mitigation and the Emergency of Territorial Risks Climate change is underway, as it has always been over the ages. Without going into considerations of the human activities’ role in these changes, it is possible to notice that the community has long since initiated a strategic path of adaptation to climate change, on an international level first and then on a European, national and regional one, which is aimed at counteract the effects of the human activities in that process and at make the territory more resilient to these changes and improve citizen’s preparedness and ability to react. In order to give a brief summary of the politics on the fight against climate change, it is necessary to take a step back, to the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992, when 195 countries ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Few years later, more precisely in 1997, some countries, aware that more mandatory rules were necessary to reduce emissions, undersigned the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005 and expires on 2020. The protocol introduced emission reductions’ objectives legally binding for the 38 signatory developed countries, including the EU and its 28 member States. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol has been revised with the Doha Amendment in 2013, in which the participating countries agreed on reduce emissions by 2020 of, at least, the 18% compared to the 1990 levels.

1 Eugenio

Turri, Antropologia del paesaggio, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano 1974; riedizione del 1981, terza edizione per Marsilio 2008.

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In 2015, the 21st Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) illustrated the need and the urgency to conclude a new international agreement that could accurately represent a turn signal compared to the previous agreements. Once the purpose of Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012) is fulfilled and the voluntary programming phase of Doha “Kyoto 2” is passed, the Paris Agreement provides new commitments for the 195 signatory countries: • To keep the average global increase in temperature well below the extra 2 °C compared to the pre-industrial levels and to continue the efforts to limit it at 1.5 °C • To communicate their own contributions every five years to set more ambitious objectives • To communicate—to each other and to the public—the achievement in the mitigation of their respective objectives in order to ensure transparency and control • To continue to provide climate finance from the EU and other developed countries to the developing ones in order to help them to reduce emissions and to become more resilient to the climate change effects, as well. With the 2030 Agenda, the international community has dedicated space to the climate changes, even within the 2015–2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for whom it is intended the 13th objective “Take urgent actions to combat climate change and its impacts”.2 The SDGs set new development goals, in continuity with the work done with the Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015), by involving the international communities in achieving these objectives and by expanding the areas of intervention for the integrated development of the mankind. Moreover, for the SDGs, as well as for the Paris Agreement, the local institutions and, overall, the subnational levels’ role has been significant for the definition of commitments and for the increase of the international communities’ ambitions. The Emilia Romagna Region, along with other Italian regions, has joined the Under 2 Coalition in November 2015 with the signing of the Subnational Global Climate Leadership Memorandum of Understanding (Under2MoU) agreement. The objectives for the Emilia Romagna Region identified in the Memorandum of Understanding establish a 20% reduction of the emission by 2020 and an objective of 80% by 2050, both compared to the emissions’ levels of 1990. At a European level, the European Union (EU) pursued clear and specific policies for both mitigation and adaptation; in this regard, in 2013 the European Union marks a significant stage, by adapting an independent Adaptation Strategy to Climate Change, which states three main objectives: – To promote and support the action by Member States – To promote the adaptation in vulnerable sectors, by increasing the territory’s structural resilience and by including the private sector in support of a joint action

2 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg13.

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– To guarantee well-informed decision-making processes, filling the gaps in knowledge on adaptation and putting more emphasis to the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT, http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/). More recently, in July 2015, with the adoption of the National Strategy to Climate Change Adaptation (NSCCA), by means of the adoption of a Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection decree and with the acceptance of the National Energy Strategy (NES) in 2017, Italy has bridged the gap with the more advanced regions in Europe, which had already approved plans and strategies for adaptation and mitigation for quite a while. The Minister for Environment, Land and Sea Protection is currently working on the Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP).3 It is now common knowledge that the increased frequency of episodes of hydrogeological instability, which have often caused the loss of human life and considerable damage to properties and goods, imposes a forecasting and prevention policy no longer focussed on repairing the damages and provide inputs, but on the identification of unsafe conditions and on risk reduction measures. The changes in intensity and distribution of precipitation, combined with the exponential increase of exposed goods over the past several years, show how the contemporary arranging works on the territory (embankments, reclamation of the swamps, etc.)—built over the centuries and that are a basic element of the landscape as we perceive it—are systematically undermined [3, 4]. Regulatory measures have forced the delimitation of risk areas and, moreover, it has been developed an alert and monitoring system of the event that, together with appropriate municipal planning of civil protection, is a fundamental resource for the risk mitigation, where structural measures are not required. However, the knowledge of those risks is still clearly undervalued from both the residents and the technicians. So much so that within the approval processes connected with the PAI restrictions, it is clear that these matters are perceived as an additional burden and rise of the bureaucratic process and not as a precious occasion to mitigate the risk to whom their goods and often their lives are exposed [5]. In this context and in relation to the hydrogeological risk, it seems evident the need to undertake, in tandem with the major public intervention, a population’s educational process that can follow different strategies. As a matter of fact, it is necessary to sustain the commendable actions focused on communication (see e.g. the campaign “io non rischio” promoted by the Department of Civil Protection) to proposals that can stimulate the private initiative in order to activate self-protection devices; in this category, one may include the installation of watertight window frames, the purchase and installation of watertight bulkhead and/or sandbags, the realisation of barriers to protect the properties and any further initiatives meant to reduce the vulnerability of the exposed goods.

3 Strategia

unitaria di mitigazione e adattamento per i cambiamenti climatici. https://ambiente.reg ione.emilia-romagna.it/it/cambiamenti-climatici/temi/la-regione-per-il-clima/strategia-regionaleper-i-cambiamenti-climatici/strategia-regionale-per-i-cambiamenti-climatici.

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Fig. 1 On the left, a renovated house provided with barriers; on the right, a house not equipped with barriers

Another aspect linked to the risk’s mitigation that does not appear adequately researched and that it is often extemporarily confronted, concerns the mutual influence between mitigation actions, the constructed and the territory; this issue sets points of discussion within the context of cultural and building heritage and the landscape’s conservation. The mitigation of hydraulic risks, here discussed, is a minor issue in relation to the local environment and it generally fits in harmoniously in the setting while explicates a protective effect of absolute importance. The attached figures provide an example located in the plain of the Tiber River. It is shown how the self-protection systems, introduced during the renovation of a building, pursuant to the PAI rules (segment A), can moderate both the compatibility with the rural landscape and the effectiveness of the hydraulic risk’s mitigation (Figs. 1 and 2) [6]. Within the hydraulic and hydrogeological risk framework, the compatibility issues of the intervention with the landscape and the cultural heritage not yet adequately examined, deal with the defence of the historical and cultural heritage and maintenance work. The numerous examples of important works to reduce hydraulic risks have obtained the double benefit in reducing the risks and naturalise again portions of the territory, while reintroducing lost landscape elements. This was obtained by using the territory’s morphology but also by enhancing its modern and industrial history. An interesting example is the River Ronco in Magliano (Forlì-Forlimpopoli), third lot of a general rolling mill project; the opening of the already existent riverbanks are still in progress to connect old settlement tanks of a sugar factory (SFIR), in order to join that territory to the river and improve its naturalistic aspects; moreover, the manmade structures that have been present for several decades, with the possibility of a digression of the riverbed, have been destroyed and the confluence between the River Ronco and Scolo Ausa has been redeveloped (Figs. 3, 4 and 5) [7–13].

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Fig. 2 Same buildings of the previous figure, during an overflow. The benefits of the self-protection devices are evident (Tiber River, November 2012 overflow)

Fig. 3 Ortophotograph of the settlement tanks “SFIR” (first connections between bankings)

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Fig. 4 Connection of the “SFIR” settlement tank on the River Ronco, connection under construction on the River Ronco

Fig. 5 Connection of the “SFIR” settlement tank on the River Ronco, connection under construction on the River Ronco

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3 Designing the Green and Blue Infrastructure in the New General Urbanistic Plans According to the new 2017 regional law n. 47 “Regional framework on the territory’s conservation and protection”,4 the Emilia Romagna Region has initiated a new planning season to deal with the problem of land consumption and to promote a change in development paradigm, from urban expansion to the recovery of the existing urban fabrics. The law aims to the European objective to eliminate land consumption within 2050,5 it lays down the rules and quantitative limitations for those urban transformations that involve new land consumption and, on the other hand, it provides numerous urban, tax and procedural incentives to redirect the economic conveniences towards redevelopment projects of the urban land’s internal areas. In particular, the law establishes the removal of traditional expansion plans from the urban planning and the related speculative processes. The interventions that imply a new land consumption can be achieved only under an operative agreement, to implement at once a concrete business plan, within the limit of 3% of the urbanised territory. From the 1st of January 2018, date of entry into force of the Law, the municipalities have a transitional period of maximum five years to devise new General Urbanistic Plans (GUP), after which the not yet implemented expansion plans expected in the existing urban regulation will lapse. In this new system, the actual state is the focus of the urban development planning. The GUP has to been able to recognise the complexity of a specific situation, its needs, even the emerging ones, and reinvent appropriate instruments to rule it. Thus, the plan’s strategic and design approaches become essential to activate a worthwhile initiative of physical, environmental, social and climatic regeneration of cities and territory with an ad hoc solution and appropriate answers to the specific needs of local realities. The paradigm of reference is resilience, that is the ability of urban and territorial systems to positively answer to shock, firstly those derived from climate change, by striking a new balance to reduce negative impacts (both present and future) and to exploit potential benefits of the situation. As for the urbanised territory, where the major urban transformative tensions and attentions are focused, the rural area needs a regeneration, as well. Through the Urban, Environmental and Ecological Quality Strategy, an essential part of the plan, the GUP has also the task of identify lines of action for the enhancement of both the identitary, cultural and landscape heritage and the improvement of the territory’s environmental components. The strategy is required to ensure the identification of environmental and ecological needs and of the performances required to satisfy the pressure reduction of human impact on the environment, in coordination with the mitigation and adaptation policies to climate change [14].

4 https://territorio.regione.emilia-romagna.it/notizie/2018/la-nuova-legge-urbanistica-regionale. 5 [14].

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The most recent and advanced European experiences show an effective way to order these several aspects in a coherent landscape programme, which is the multifunctional green and blue infrastructural project. Nowadays, the organisation and management of the natural and seminatural areas’ network and of the exterior hydrological system are an imperative to improve the land’s resilience to climate change, to ensure the safety and development of agriculture and suburban activities. The same elements are the environmental and landscaping component of the rural area that, if planned in a multifunctional and interconnected way with the historicalidentitary structure, can originate a new landscape project, that innervate itself until the peri-urban areas and it answers, in its different progression, to several objectives and environmental, functional, ecological and fruitive performances [15]. For these purposes, it is needed a wider, intermunicipal view, capable of understand the territorial context, the structural elements and the fragility of the specific landscape’s areas of which it is part, of the social-economical dynamics that characterise it and that can support its valorisation. It is also needed a programming that can promote the participation and the recognition from local communities. Both these aspects are encouraged by regional laws and by regional policies, even if with varying results.

4 The Union of Municipalities and Intermunicipal Offices For many years, the intermunicipal aspect has been the main focus for the Emilia Romagna Region that has invested commitment and resources to create The Unions of Municipalities, which are institutions of integrated policy planning, for the government of their territory. The Emilia Romagna Region has a long history of intermunicipal collaboration, as a mean of promotion and support of cooperation, long before the legal obligation of national laws. On a national level, the 2010 Decree-Law n. 78 “Urgent measures on the financial stabilisation and economic competition” has introduced the obligation of an associated management among small municipalities and it has imposed to those municipalities with less than 5000 citizens (or less than 3000 citizens if belonging to mountain communities) the obligation to manage the key functions as associates, while the regional law has to identify the ideal area for their accomplishment. With the 2012 Regional Law n. 21 “Measures to ensure the territorial government of administrative tasks according to the principles of subsidiarity, differentiation and adequacy”,6 the Emilia Romagna Region has defined the procedure and substantive criteria to identify the optimal territorial dimension for the purpose of the mandatory associated management and it has extended it to all the municipalities that belong to optimal areas, including those that exceed the threshold given by the state legislature. 6 http://autonomie.regione.emilia-romagna.it/unioni-di-comuni/approfondimenti/norme/legislazi

one-regionale/legge-regionale-n.-21-del-21-dicembre-2012.

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Fig. 6 Map of the Union of Municipalities in Emilia-Romagna

The 2012 Regional Law n. 21 is based on the idea that the best efficiency of the whole administrative system can be obtained through the consolidation of the Union of Municipalities rules and through the fusion of municipalities, in order to overcome the increasing difficulties to achieve scale economies, efficiency of services as well as appropriate technical levels in the face of increasing administrative powers. On a proposal by the municipalities, 46 optimal territorial areas have been identified, that include all municipalities but the 7 main towns. Since 2013, the municipalities have initiated, continued and concluded the processes of adaptation to the law and they have constituted the Union of Municipalities(Fig. 6). So far, because of this process, there are 43 Unions in Emilia-Romagna and they include 280 Municipalities, the 84% of Emilia-Romagna’s municipalities, with a population of 2.5 million of citizens, equal to 58% of that region. This percentage increases to a value of 80% if the population that lives in provincial capitals is not included, which means a significate role in the management of functions and services for families and businesses. Over the years it has been possible to detect an increment in regional associationism with the aim of a higher integration between different parts of Union’s members, to enhance the performances to overcome the flaws.7 Nevertheless, there are remarkable differences among the Unions, which differ in demographic and territorial dimensions, in composition and characteristics of the involved municipalities, in date of establishment but also in efficiency and innovativeness. For this reason, the 2018–208 three-year regional Territory Reorganization Programme (TRP) has 7 http://autonomie.regione.emilia-romagna.it/unioni-di-comuni/approfondimenti/osservatorio-

delle-unioni. 8 http://autonomie.regione.emilia-romagna.it/unioni-di-comuni/approfondimenti/programma-di-

riordino-territoriale.

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established differentiated incentives and rewards and personalised support arrangements, to increase and enforce the Unions system with regards to the heterogeneity of the current situations. More recently, with the regional regulation (2015 Regional Law n. 13) of implementation of the 2015 National Reform Law n. 56, the Emilia Romagna Region confirms and strengthens the Unions of Municipalities’ role as a stable form of coordination of those municipalities belonging to optimal territorial areas, qualifying them not only as service providers but mainly as government bodies of the intermunicipal territorial area. The counties’ weakening caused by the reform has reduced the extensive area’s government’s strength and it has invigorated local requirements, with all the negative externalities connected. In this context, it is clear that the identification of territorial development strategies and the planning of an optimal intermunicipal scale represent the true conditions to enhance the territory. Although the Emilia Romagna’s experience is more advanced compared to the rest of the country, an immature picture emerges from the point of view of landscape and territorial planning on large scale, while only few experiences have been developed by those Unions which are mature and structured. For the time being, the 2017 Regional Law n. 24 “Regional framework on the protection and exploitation of the land” seems to have had no significant and tangible effects, despite it allows the Union of Municipalities the opportunity to introduce new urban planning instruments with the development of intermunicipal entities. In order to achieve the necessary technical skills to support the regenerative and landscape’s qualifying processes and to seriously consider the solid requests of the people, it is essential to invest in the municipalities’ administrative strengthening by establishing intermunicipal plan offices within the Union of Municipalities. According to the new urbanistic Regional Law, the Municipalities are obliged to establish, on an individual or associated form, a structure called “Plan Offices” for the performance of the urbanistic planning duties, and in particular for the organisation and management of the General Urbanistic Plan (GUP), of the operational arrangements and of the implement of public initiative’s plans. In addition to this, the Plan Office has to support the negotiations with private citizens and to perform coordination activities with different territory government agencies. However, to the present day, only few intermunicipal Plan Offices have been established. It is essential to identify a shared view of the territory’s future and of the objective to be pursued in order to qualify the Unions, not only as service’s managing entities, but also as the integrated authorities of policy planning. This is possible by introducing the conception of strategy for sustainable development of the Union of Municipalities, by implementing the 2030 Agenda and the Regional Goals, which is functional in the preparation of this urbanistic plan, somewhat a development pact founded with the stakeholders and the communities. The needed political consensus is not yet formed: the planning—whether landscape, territorial or urban—is still a function that mayors do not agree with and on which they claim autonomy and power. This is a short-term vision, which does not

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take account of the importance of developing values and common objectives, for the improvement of the social, economic and environmental well-being of the present and future citizens.

5 A Participatory Project Planning for the Valorisation of the Identities An essential role goes to the participation of the stakeholders and to the consultation of local inhabitants or the definition of the territory’s development goals. The European Convention on Landscape itself emphasises the participation to the decision-making as the major tool for the landscape’s identification and evaluation. Indeed, in order to promote the creation of new identity values, it is necessary to develop an overall roadmap starting from the landscape knowledge the ways in which it is evaluated, up to an agreed redesign, through inclusive procedures, in which evaluation procedures and selection of criteria act a crucial role. The Emilia Romagna Region has had a law on Participation since 2010 (LR 3/2010) which has been recently repealed and replaced by LR 15/2018.9 The law’s general objective is to develop and enhance the sense of active citizenship to the public policies’ decisions, and in particular to the important and strategic decisions for a territory, creating a network of information, consultation, listening and involvement between the different stakeholders, in accordance with principles of transparency, fairness and a simplification of administrative work. The realisation of participatory processes to support regional policies on landscape qualification and risk reduction has been widely tested and the Emilia Romagna Region took part of numerous case studies. Among those, the strategic planning of the wide Valmarecchia area,10 achieved through the involvement of inhabitants and of the social, economic and cultural organisations’ representatives. The project has envisaged the creation of River Contracts of the river Marecchia, in the frame of a more general process of strategic planning of a wide area, which has involved the Rimini municipality and 10 other municipalities of Valmarecchia Union. The project purpose was able to develop an innovative approach of territory collaboration, that sees the River as the binding element and to implement new strategies and procedures of integrated and shared programming and planning [16]. The “Seinonda”11 process for the implementation of the Floods Directive is another example of a participatory process that involves all the concerned parties. The objective of the Flood Risk Management Plans is to reduce the negative consequences of flood events with respect to human, landscape and territories health, to 9 https://partecipazione.regione.emilia-romagna.it/la-legge-e-il-bando/legge-regionale-partecipa

zione. 10 http://www.fiumemarecchia.it/. 11 https://partecipazione.regione.emilia-romagna.it/iopartecipo-piazze-chiuse/seinonda.

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Fig. 7 Tracce di Valmarecchia: sensorial map

the cultural heritage and to the social and economic activities. This can be done by identifying an integrated system of prevention, protection and management of the emergency [17, 18]. The participative process was finalised to the consultation and active participation on flood risk, by sharing the knowledge and responsibilities and by reinforcing the consciousness in the population and among the involved parties, in order to educate to a proper behaviours and acts and to collect indications on possible risk mitigation actions and landscape improvement (Fig. 7). Another example of participatory process to support the planning of landscape, hydraulic and environmental redevelopment has been realised within the European Project Life Rii.12 The project has developed innovative actions concerning the hydraulic arrangements, the landscape and the environment of some streams in the minor hydrogeographic network of the foot hills in Reggio area, implementing the two related European directives (water directive and flood directive) and activating a participative process, in parallel with the interventions, with the aim of making the problems related to the territorial waters management known to the population and to share with it the adopted innovative solutions. During 2019, the Emilia Romagna Region supports the promotion of landscape local observers, by enhancing the current programmes and the networks already active on the territory, by involving the parties in a logic community of practice and by providing all the necessary education and communication resources. Thus, the 12 https://partecipazione.regione.emilia-romagna.it/iopartecipo-piazze-chiuse/patto-di-rii.

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landscape local observers’ role, nature and objectives are shared in a participatory system. According to the European Landscape Convention «“Landscape” designate a specific part of the territory, as it is perceived by the population, whose character derives from natural and/or human factors and their interrelation»: therefore an act of listening and involvement is necessary to identify the values that ought to be preserved in a particular place. In this respect, the Catalan experience13 is emblematic. The contribution of the experts and those of the population merge in the landscape catalogues which describe and classify the different landscapes in Catalonia and identify the objectives of landscape qualities. This suggests that only their integration can guide a conscious action in accordance with the landscape and its values. In different methods (internet polls, work sessions for inexperienced people), the Observatory tries to understand the meanings that are assigned by the individuals to landscapes where they live and how it is possible to act without having negative effect on them. The landscape is not only considered as a physical and anthropic element, with a manageable evolution, but as a collection of stories, memories and experiences that deeply connects a population with its own environment. Thus, the public participation in the landscape planning, where to bring these “lived landscapes” out, has a crucial importance to avoid the risk of being led to a distortion of the local identity references by the processes abovementioned. However, there is still a lot to be done, so that citizens and administrations take together decisions related to landscape protection, management and planning, also because of a lack of awareness with respect to intermunicipal dimensions that, instead, is suitable to create integrated policies and administrative structures, capable and adequate to support those processes.

References 1. Castiglioni B, De Marchi A (a cura di) (2009) Di chi è il paesaggio? La partecipazione degli attori nella individuazione, valutazione e pianificazione. Cleup, Padova 2. Regione Emilia-Romagna (2012) Linee guida per la riqualificazione ambientale dei canali di bonifica in Emilia-Romagna. Pubblicazione RER 3. Regione Umbria, Servizio Protezione Civile (2014) Piano Regionale Coordinato di prevenzione multirischio 4. ISPRA (2015) (pag 33). Dissesto idrogeologico in Italia: pericolosità e indicatori di rischio. Rapporti 233/2015, Roma 5. Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Dipartimento della Protezione Civile. Disponibile online: http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it 6. Regione Umbria, Servizio Paesaggio, Territorio e geografia. Disponibile online: https://siat. regione.umbria.it/webgis/ 7. Brath A (2006) Valutazione delle possibilità di laminazione delle piene nei corsi d’acqua principali della Romagna. Studio Autorità di Bacino Fiumi Romagnoli 8. CIRF (2006) La riqualificazione fluviale in Italia, linee guida. Strumenti ed esperienze per gestire i corsi d’acqua e il territorio editrice Mazzanti 13 [1].

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9. Sormani D, Pardolesi F (2009) Laminazione delle piene e riqualificazione fluviale in Romagna, rivista “Riqualificazione Fluviale”—n. 2/2009. Speciale Atti, 1° Convegno italiano di Riqualificazione Fluviale, Sarzana 18–20 giugno 2009 10. Sormani D, Pardolesi F (2011) Laminazione delle piene sul reticolo idrografico minore e riqualificazione fluviale. In: Convegno su La gestione del rischio idraulico e del dissesto geomorfologico: le opportunità della riqualificazione fluviale, Roma 11 marzo 2011 11. Sormani D (2012) Il Torrente Bevano: dalla sicurezza idraulica alla riqualificazione fluviale. In: Atti, 2° Convegno italiano di Riqualificazione Fluviale, Bolzano 6–8 novembre 2012 12. Gusmaroli (2012) Dieci anni di Contratti di Fiume in Italia: dai risultati del primo censimento alla proposta di un Osservatorio. Coordinamento Agende 21 Locali Italiane, VII Tavolo Nazionale dei Contratti di Fiume Bologna, 16 novembre 13. Sormani D (2015) “Quanto men curva sarà l’argine dove ripercote il salto del fiume…”, aspetti ed esempi di lavori eseguiti, sull’approccio progettuale nei fiumi romagnoli. In: Atti, 3° Convegno italiano di Riqualificazione Fluviale, Reggio Calabria 27–30 ottobre 2015 14. Commissione Europea (2011) Tabella di marcia verso un’Europa efficiente nell’impiego delle risorse, COM (2011) 571, Bruxelles, 20.9.2011 15. Regione Emilia-Romagna (2013) Paesaggi da ricostruire, a cura di Barbara Marangoni. Pubblicazione RER 16. Bastiani M (2011) Contratti di fiume. Pianificazione strategica e partecipata dei bacini idrografici. Dario Flaccovio Editore, Palermo 17. Unit of Management Bacini Regionali Romagnoli e Marecchia—Conca (2015) distretto dell’Appennino Settentrionale. Progetto di Piano di Gestione del Rischio di Alluvioni 18. Regione Emilia-Romagna, Servizio Difesa del Suolo, della Costa e Bonifica (2015) La Direttiva Alluvioni 2007/60/CE e le attività in corso nel territorio della Regione Emilia-Romagna

The Proportions of the Addizione Erculea Stefano Giannetti

Abstract The Addizione Erculea, Duke Ercole I’s expansion of Ferrara, has been the subject of numerous studies from historical, artistic, and geometrical-compositional standpoints. The reasoning underlying its design has been researched by examining both modern and historic plans and maps and comparing them against the knowledge of the period. Rossetti’s great work of urban design can easily be studied based on the geometry of the axes, the layout of the city walls, and the points they connect. Nonetheless, the grandeur of the work implies an equally impressive capacity to govern the territory through the use of topographical (land surveying) and cadastral (land registry) tools: the geometry of lengths and angles, on the one hand, and the geometry of surface areas, on the other. While the logic behind the linear geometries has been linked in previous studies to cultural paradigms (such as astrological alignments and symbolic references), the geometries of the surface areas were more closely driven by the forces of the administration of justice, the economy, and politics. In light of this model, references to Pellegrino Prisciani’s Proportionabilis et commensurata designatio urbis and comparative studies between his rendering and the present layout of the historic center of Ferrara begin to take on new meanings. The aim of this study is to provide a new key to interpret the work of Biagio Rossetti and Pellegrino Prisciani, highlighting the geometrical and topographical expertise of these intellectual figures to whom Ercole I d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, entrusted the expansion of the city. Together they succeeded in giving concrete form to their urban design in a way that maintained symbolic and cultural values while at the same time satisfying demands of an economic and political nature. Keywords Urban planning · Historical architecture · Architectural drawing

From a survey of the surface areas, a new contribution to the research on Biagio Rossetti’s urban planning project. S. Giannetti (B) University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_38

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1 Introduction This analysis of the design of Ferrara’s walls involves a paradigm shift compared to previous research on the topic. The analysis of the surface areas no longer looks solely at the genesis of the construction’s geometry and measurement, but also, and most importantly, at the cognitive and cultural constants of the time in which the work was designed. The paradigm of complexity means the research, instead of focusing exclusively on the geometry and measurements of places (topography) as single, independent elements, is forced to analyze the intrinsic relationships within these aspects (topology).

2 The Cultural Context 2.1 The Historical Unit of Measure in Ferrara The unit of measure used in Ferrara during the Renaissance, both for construction and land management, was based on the “piede” (Ferrarese foot). In Ferrara, the piede measured 0.40385 m,1 and ten piedi (feet) formed a pertica (Ferrarese perch). For the present study, in addition to linear measurements, it is also necessary to define the units of measure of surface areas in use at that time: a square with sides equal to one pertica (or 10 piedi) is a pertica quadrata (square perch),2 abbreviated in the present text as ptq, also equal to 100 piedi quadrati (100 square feet) abbreviated as pdq. In turn, pertiche quadrate (square perches) could be grouped to form the biolca, equal to 400 ptq or 40,000 pdq. There was an intermediate unit of measure between the square perch and the biolca, called the staio or staro.3 This unit, which also existed in many other locations in central Italy,4 was 1/6 of a biolca, that is 400/6 = 66.67 ptq (6666.67 pdq), equal to 1087 square meters in modern units. Though division by multiples of three might appear to hinder calculations from a mathematical point of view, in terms of geometry this complication does not exist. Compared to our own cultural context, space was measured and interpreted in a considerably different way. During the proto-Renaissance, surface area was not yet conceived in terms of the square, as it is today. Rather, it was measured by “strisce rettangolari” (rectangular strips) or “linee larghe” (wide lines).5 This knowledge makes it easier to understand how the staia was used to articulate and calculate 1 Martini

[1].

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 It is hypothesized that “staio” as the name of a unit of area derives from an indication of the amount

of land that could be sown with one staio (unit of volume) of grain. For an explanation of the units of measure used for surface areas in the late medieval and proto-Renaissance periods, see Bartoli [2]. 5 Høyrup [3].

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Fig. 1 Illustration of the baculo and its function. From the image we can see that, for a given dimension of side FG, sighting from point A the two ends of this distance through points D and C of the baculo, a triangle is created on the instrument that is similar to the real triangle being surveyed (ACD is similar to AGF), and with proportionate dimensions. By sliding the transom of the baculo by an amount proportional to its dimension and proceeding in the direction of the walls (along the median), and then stopping at the point where points F and G can once again be sighted through points D and C, it was possible to deduce the distance traveled

surface areas, which if applied to the square and its root would result in absurdly complicated calculations. As already described in other studies, during the late Middle Ages the most commonly used tool for land surveying was a cross-staff called the baculo6 (Fig. 1). It was discovered in Europe thanks to a description by the Jewish mathematician Levi Ben Gerson (1288–1344). The tool was used to measure distances by progressively sighting two points and constructing a series of similar triangles, of which it was sufficient to know the dimensions of one side to obtain the dimensions of the other sides. The baculo greatly simplified trigonometric calculations, making it possible to rapidly calculate distances. The main staff of the baculo was marked with graduated length markings. A cross-piece or transom, the dimension of which was a submultiple of the main staff, slid up and down its length. The person using the baculo would visually align the two ends of the transom with the two topographical points to be measured, so that the eye became the vertex of a pair of similar triangles. Starting with a known dimension of the base of the “topographical” triangle, the transom would be slid to a distance from the eye equal to a multiple of its length. Then, by sighting the two vertices of the base through the two ends of the transom, the observer could deduce that he was positioned at a distance from the base that was a multiple of the base itself, and then proceed to calculate the distance based on simple proportions. 6 Bartoli

[2, 4].

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2.2 The Historical “Land Surveying” Tools As already described in other studies, during the late Middle Ages the most commonly used tool for land surveying was a cross-staff called the baculo (Fig. 1). It was discovered in Europe thanks to a description by the Jewish mathematician Levi Ben Gerson (1288–1344). The tool was used to measure distances by progressively sighting two points and constructing as series of similar triangles, of which it was sufficient to know the dimensions of one side to obtain the dimensions of the other sides. The baculo greatly simplified trigonometric calculations, making it possible to rapidly calculate distances. The main staff of the baculo was marked with graduated length markings. A cross-piece or transom, the dimension of which was a submultiple of the main staff, slid up and down its length. The person using the baculo would visually align the two ends of the transom with the two topographical points to be measured, so that the eye became the vertex of a pair of similar triangles. Starting with a known dimension of the base of the “topographical” triangle, the transom would be slid to a distance from the eye equal to a multiple of its length. Then, by sighting the two vertices of the base through the two ends of the transom, the observer could deduce that he was positioned at a distance from the base that was a multiple of the base itself, and then proceed to calculate the distance based on simple proportions.

2.3 Prisciani’s Plan The celebrated urban plan of Ferrara drawn up by Pellegrino Prisciani7 has been the subject of numerous historiographical studies, to which this study refers both for its temporal collocation and for the functional definition of the work. This analysis is focused exclusively on the measurements and proportions of the Addizione Erculea, with the aim of uncovering useful models for delineating an epistemological approach to urban planning on the part of the court of Este during that period. The extraordinary quality of Prisciani’s plan lies in its precision, both in terms of geometry, achieved by means of orthogonal projection, and linear dimensions (Fig. 2). The latter are revealed by the graphic scale at the edge of the drawing, which greatly facilitates its transcription and study.8

7 Prisciani

[5].

8 For an analysis of Prisciani’s plan, see Folin [6]; Incerti [7]; For an analysis of the events surrounding

the construction of the Addizione Erculea, see Folin [8].

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Fig. 2 Re-elaboration of Prisciani’s plan, rotated 180° to make it easier to compare with the presentday plan of the city, oriented in the direction of North. Note the graphic scale on the left. See note 9 for a description of the re-elaboration of the base plan

Based on the graphic scale,9 it can be deduced that a distance represented as 100 pertiche on the drawing measured 4.8 cm long in modern units.10 This length corresponds to 12/100 of a piede, and to a graphic scale of 1:8333.11 While at first glance this proportion may seem more complicated, it permits measurements to be 9 The analysis was carried out on a re-elaboration of the original drawing, proportioned according to

the graphic scale. To fill in a missing portion of the drawing due to the fold in the page, a portion of the “transcription” by Borgatti was inserted [9]. In particular it was possible to observe that in Borgatti’s re-elaboration of Prisciani’s plan, the grid was dimensioned so that it forms (where entirely present) squares, and that Piazza Nuova appears in this grid precisely in the portion not present in Prisciani’s original drawing. This was also highlighted by Folin [6], p. 113. The plausibility of Borgatti’s reconstruction can also be deduced from the imperfect alignment, in Prisciani’s plan, of all the lines that cross obliquely from one side of the parchment to the other. This series of discontinuities suggests the presence of an area that was absent from Prisciani’s original version. 10 The author would like to thank the State Archives of Modena, and specifically its director, Dr. Patrizia Cremonini, for the measurement. 11 The graphic scale on the parchment was also previously studied by Folin, who interpreted it as “circa 1:8000” [6].

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divided into three parts, the values of which are decimal numbers. 8/100 of a foot (3.6 cm) on Prisciani’s drawing corresponds to 66.67 pertiche in real life; thus an area on Prisciani’s plan that measures 8/100 piedi by 12/100 piede (96 square hundredths) is actually equal to 66.67 pertiche by 100 pertiche = 100 staia; it follows that a square on the drawing that measures 24/100 piedi by 24/100 piedi (576 square hundredths) in real life is equal to 600 staia, which corresponds to 100 biolche. The nature of the grid which appears on the plan is not entirely clear, as it is not oriented according to the cardinal axes. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that some of the grid lines intersect the city walls at two important points: one point to the east, not as evident in Rossetti’s layout, in a position between Punta della Giovecca and the Torrione di San Giovanni; and an earlier tower, located near the bank of the Po River to the southwest, where the fortification would later be built. Starting from this latter tower, Prisciani drew a rectilinear section of walls that continued in the direction of the historically existing walls and ended at what would later become the Torrione del Barco. From this last point, the direction changes where he draws the northern section of the walls, parallel to the first segment analyzed, describing in fact a trapezoid whose minor base is represented by this last section of walls. The section of walls that remains is composed of a right triangle, the third vertex of which, with respect to the first two already mentioned, corresponds to a point that would later become Punta della Giovecca. It is clearly evident that this is a right triangle.

3 The Addizione Erculea 3.1 The Rocca, Porta Dei Leoni and the Ancient City Walls As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Prisciani’s plan follows the layout of the medieval city walls, pre-existing at the time of the Addizione Erculea, in a sufficiently plausible manner: (1) The city walls to the north of the historic city center proceeded from what would become, after the addition, Porta San Benedetto, until approximately the outer limit of the present-day Corso Giovecca, meandering slightly due to the presence of canals and moats that had been created to protect the city. Some of these walls, to the east of the Castle, were already covered over during the construction of Rossetti’s expansion. In the area of what is now Punta della Giovecca, Prisciani did not depict any new defensive elements. (2) The distance between the present Punta della Giovecca and the San Benedetto defensive structure (now demolished), as measured on the CTR12 (Fig. 3), is approximately 580 pertiche. Careful observation reveals that the Rocca is not exactly at the midpoint between these two structures, and in fact it is more 12 Carta

Tecnica Regionale, Emilia Romagna (scala 1:5000) or regional technical map.

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Fig. 3 Layouts and principal dimensions of the Addizione Erculea, as described above, elaborated based on the 1:5000 regional technical map (CTR) of Emilia Romagna. Enlargements of the 3 main doors can be seen around the circumference: to the west, the intersection of the walls at Porta San Benedetto, superimposed over Borgatti’s reconstruction of the bastion, successive to the Addizione Erculea; to the east and north, the roads in correspondence to Porta di San Giovanni and Porta degli Angeli, superimposed on the 1:5000 regional technical map (CTR)

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plausible that there was an area to the east of it, where the Porta dei Leoni (demolished in the sixteenth century) stood during the period of construction of the Addizione.13

3.2 The Axis of Corso Giovecca and the Right Triangle Along via Dei Prioni Looking at the Addizione Erculea in further detail, the analysis can expand to the new decumanus (Via dei Prioni) which Ercole I d’Este traced between the aforementioned Porta San Benedetto14 to the Torrione di San Giovanni. Even though this artery connecting the west to the east of the new city was not precisely straight, it created an axis that made it possible to see from one end to the other, through the new crossroads. By tracing a circumference through the vertices of the triangle formed by Porta San Benedetto, Torrione di San Giovanni, and Punta della Giovecca, it becomes apparent that the city center coincides with the midpoint of the long side of the triangle: the above-mentioned Porta dei Leoni. From this it can be deduced that the triangle in question is a right triangle, the hypotenuse of which coincides with the northern section of the medieval walls described above. Not only is the figure in question a right triangle, but one of its catheti is twice the size of the other. This makes it possible to precisely calculate their dimensions by means of the Pythagorean theorem, according to which: if the ratio between the catheti is known, their lengths can be calculated based on the length of the hypotenuse.  2 In this case: if K 2 + c2 = i2 and if c = K2 , then K 2 + K2 = i2 , so K 2 45 = i2 . If we  want to determine the major cathetus (K), with a known hypotenuse (i) we have

5802 · 45 = 518.77; and thus we can hypothesize two catheti of approximately 5188 piedi and 2594 piedi. The calculation of the area of a triangle of these proportions is extremely simple, in fact A = kc = 2c·c = c2 , that is, the area coincides with the 2 2 square of the minor cathetus: in this case 259.42 = 67, 288 = 1009 staia. Superimposing this second triangle over the present-day plans and the historical ones, it closely approximates the course of Via dei Prioni, but slightly rotated in the direction of the axis that would have joined Porta San Benedetto with the present-day Punta della Giovecca. This rotation does not affect the calculation of the areas: the right trapezoid that would be formed by drawing the true axis would have exactly the same area as the right triangle described above. The geometric principle of this axiom is that the average of the bases remains unchanged when the “sloping” side of the right trapezoid is rotated around its median point. 13 The

tower is visible in Prisciani’s plan and is represented as an interruption in the historical city walls in Borgatti’s reconstruction [9]. 14 The position of Porta di San Benedetto was reconstructed by superimposing the present-day plan onto the historic one re-eleborated by Borgatti [9]. In the latter it is possible to see the bastion that was incorporated by Rossetti’s defensive structure in the fifteenth century. The west side of the Addizione Erculea was reconstructed in the same way, tracing a line that links the Torrione del Barco, which still exists today, with Porta San Benedetto.

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In the case of the Addizione Erculea, this means that once the area to be occupied and the distance of the new crossroads departing from the Porta dei Leoni were established, an infinite number of trapezoids could be formed, with varying angles on the “sloping” side, all of which would satisfy the problem. For this reason, even without knowing the form and direction of the ancient city walls, it is possible to affirm that the area added by this part of the city to the ancient plan remains equal to approximately 1000 staia.

3.3 The Trapezoid and the Triangle with Vertex Outside the City Walls At this point, what remains to be analyzed of the Addizione Erculea is a portion in the form of a trapezoid, the major base of which coincides with the “new” decumanus and the minor base with the section of the walls located to the north. To understand the nature of the trapezoid, as for the previous case, it is useful to know the triangle of which it is part. If one extends the lines of the sloping sides, consisting of the portions of Rossetti’s original walls, they meet at a point to the north which lies along the present-day Via Gramicia. Starting from this vertex, the median of this triangle coincides exactly with Via degli Angeli and, passing through the portal by the same name, arrives at the midpoint of the base (the decumanus, that is Via dei Prioni), forming the new Quadrivio Erculeo (Erculean crossroads). Moreover, the height of the triangle is exactly equal to the length of Via dei Prioni, and thus the triangle is perfectly inscribed within a square. This greatly simplifies the calculation of the area of the trapezoid. In fact, with a trapezoid of this type, the distance between the bases (that is, the height) is equal to the difference in length of the bases, and thus B − h = b, that is the difference between the major base and the height is always equal to the minor base. One of the variables has therefore been eliminated. In particular, if A = (B + b)/2 · h, when the values of the major base and height are known, the area becomes A = (B + B − h)/2 · h = (B − h/2) · h. In the case of the Addizione Erculea, because the major base coincides with the decumanus and its distance from the north section of the city walls (the height of the trapezoid) is exactly 200 pt, the area is equal to A = (520 − 100) · 200 = 84.000 ptq, which corresponds to exactly 1260 staia. This surface area, added to the one calculated above, brings the total area of the entire Addizione Erculea to 2274 staia. It is important to emphasize that if the height and the base remain constant, the inclination of the median of the triangle has no effect on the calculation of the area of the triangle, and thus no effect on the calculation of the area of the trapezoid. The direct consequence of this observation is to search for the logic behind the inclination of Via degli Angeli. One plausible hypothesis is an attempt to create an alignment between the midpoint of the base of the trapezoid with a particular point on the

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hypotenuse of the triangle, other than Porta dei Leoni; that is the creation of a new connection between the new crossroads and the center of the Castle.15

3.4 The Trapezoid and the Triangle with Vertex Outside the City Walls As described in the first paragraph, the main instrument for conducting land surveys at this scale must have been an optical tool. The description of the triangle inscribed in the square suggests the use of some type of cross-staff, or baculo. When using the baculo, it is useful to construct triangles whose base, viewed with the instrument, is a multiple of the height, so that with each forward movement of the observer it is easy to calculate the amount that the transom needs to be moved along the baculo. The asymmetry of the triangle in question would have required the construction of a special baculo with the same geometry.16 By the property of triangulation, the angle between the transom and the main staff must have been the same as the one formed by the base and the median of the triangle being measured. Using a tool of this type, the surveyors, by placing themselves at the vertex of the triangle located on the present-day Via della Gramicia,17 could have traced the directions of the two sections of converging walls (the inclined sides of the trapezoid) by sighting the two ends of the base: the Torrione di San Giovanni and Porta San Benedetto. By sliding the transom along the main staff for the desired distance, they could have traveled along the median of the triangle in the direction of the base, stopping when they reached a point at which it would have again been possible to see the two ends (see Fig. 1). From that point it would have been simple to calculate the minor base (equal to the major base minus the height) and also, by means of rotation around the median point, to trace, up to the two points of junction with the previously mentioned inclined lines, the northern side of the walls. If the starting triangle had been isosceles, the trapezoid would also have been isosceles, and it would have been possible to calculate the length of the two equal legs of the trapezoid by means of the Pythagorean theorem. The trapezoid as it was actually built does in fact have two legs of the same length, resulting in a small rotation of the walls to the north. This rotation 15 Beyond these geometrical figures, there remains a small section of walls that run from the presentday Punta della Giovecca to the Torrione di San Giovanni. What is visible today is the result of numerous adaptations that have taken place over the centuries and which have cast doubt on their attribution to Rossetti. Today its shape is similar to a triangle, with the base coinciding with the minor cathetus of the right triangle described above, and a height of approximately 30 pt. The area enclosed by this section is approximately 60 staia. 16 There is no such instrument in the treatises on the subject. However, it can be hypothesized that in order to carry out a land surveying operation of this size, an existing instrument was modified for the purpose. 17 The use of a drone made it possible to confirm that at present only trees obstruct the view of the walls from the vertex of the triangle.

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Fig. 4 Superimposition of the 25 by 25 pt grid along Via dei Prioni. Note how Piazza Nuova on one side, and the San Benedetto complex on the other, occupy two squares of the grid. Moreover, it can be observed that the grid explains the distribution of other buildings along Via dei Prioni

only accounts for a very small part of the calculation of the areas (in a measurable estimate of about 45 ptq, just over half a staio). The reason for the rotation may have been a desire to create a perimeter of a known length,18 which would have simplified management and control of the walls during and after construction (Table 1).

3.5 Piazza Nuova and the Complex of San Benedetto As Zevi also pointed out,19 it is certain that Ercole I wanted the two new buildings of the so-called Terra Nuova, one religious and one civic, to be placed on diagonally opposed sides of the new crossroads along the new axis of Via dei Prioni. By overlaying a 25 by 25 pt grid over the plan of the Addizione (Fig. 4), the logic of many of the spaces distributed along the axis of Via dei Prioni becomes apparent. In particular, the distance between the present-day Piazza Ariostea, formerly Piazza Nuova, and the new crossroads is 75 pt, and the space faces onto the new artery 18 A rapid calculation gives a hypothesis of the total length of walls necessary to enclose the Addizione Erculea, minus the already existing portion. Starting with the minor base of the trapezoid, which measures 320 pt, and adding the two legs, 220 pt each, plus the length of the minor cathetus of the first right triangle, which measures 260 pt (in any case equal to the sum of the two bases of the trapezoid), the result is a total of 1020 pt. 19 Zevi [10].

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for a total length of exactly 50 pt. Measuring 25 pt in width, its total area is 1250 ptq. In the same way, it is interesting to note that the complex of the church of San Benedetto is oriented out of alignment with the surrounding context, but in alignment with the above-described grid. It occupies an area similar to that of the piazza, but faces the street for a distance equal to one module of the grid: 25 pt. Continuing along the street, one can observe that a number of other spaces are aligned with the grid, and that these are occupied by buildings that were erected during the period of the Addizione.

Fig. 5 Fixed the algorithm and the final surface measure, starting from basic Fig. (1a, b), by a few morphosis, we can obtain the final citywalls shape. In the same way, through further rotations of the lines, we can imagine other possible shapes (x) that keeping the same surface measure and the same topology

Table 1 Summary table of the dimensions of the Addizione Erculea as built

Length of wall

ptq

staia

Triangle Hypotenuse

581.34

Major cathetus

520

Minor cathetus

260

Area of the triangle

67,600

1014

Trapezoid Major base

520

Height

200

Minor base

320

Area of the trapezoid

84,000

1260

Total area

151,600

2274

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4 Conclusions As already highlighted in other studies, Prisciani’s plan, the so-called “Tipo del Prisciani,” does not correspond with the city walls as they were built, and thus the document cannot have been a survey of the city walls or a transposition of the project as built. Nonetheless, though there are considerable differences in terms of both angles and lengths with respect to the walls as built, the underlying logic of the two versions can be compared. There is a substantial difference in the use of triangles, in particular in the construction of the trapezoid portion of the triangle inscribed within the square, which highlights the distance between the techniques used by Prisciani to create the drawing and the techniques in use at that time for conducting topographical surveys. The presence of a precise sequence of mathematical operations is shown by the fact that one can recreate the entire form of the urban walls by means of an algorithm (Fig. 5). As noted in the introduction, the algorithm itself becomes the formal expression (the design) of the topology of the urban landscape. To depict complexity, including as described by Venturi, one must, at least in part, use the models that generate it. The algorithm identified is therefore nothing other than a part of the model that generated the final form of the Addizione Erculea. It cannot provide a snapshot of the design dreamed up by Rossetti or by any individual designer at a particular moment, but it does offer a possible description of the relationships of growth that the designers and a particular culture gave this object, and this part of the city. For example, this research did not look directly or comprehensively at how the various blocks are divided up, but while their layout is apparently neither clear nor unambiguous, they nevertheless still fit the defined model when seen through the paradigm of surface areas. Therefore, to continue the research, one could identify a precise origin for each block which, while not forming part of the original design, stems from the same topology and would follow the same rules of growth. Because the proportions are determined using the surface measurements, one can find different final forms with the same core. This process therefore allows not only the final form of the city walls, but also the creative process hidden behind this form, to be revealed and “drawn”. Here Venturi’s both-and paradigm takes on a new meaning: going beyond a simplistic and reductive holism, it pushes us to seek a new identity for architectural and urban design, no longer involving solely investigating the intentions of man, of the mind that designs, or projects its identity onto the land, but instead looking at the coexistence of multiple subjects that together build a culture, a fertile ground from which the design takes shape. In particular, to conclude, what emerges, based on the analysis carried out, is a new interpretation of the approach to urban planning on the part of Ercole I d’Este, his court, and Biagio Rossetti. The classical beauty of the rationally distributed spaces of the Addizione Erculea, a work of urban transformation of considerable size and importance, was achieved by means of topographical and geometrical tools that had

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been perfected during the Middle Ages. The final configuration of the expansion helps to trace one intent of its designers: the beauty of proportion lies hidden in its usefulness.

References 1. Martini A (1820) Manuale di metrologia: ossia, Misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli, Torino, Loescher, 1884. Tavole di ragguaglio diretta e inversa fra la misura di Ferrara e la Censuale, Roma 2. Bartoli MT (2007) Musso e non quadro. La strana figura di Palazzo Vecchio dal suo rilievo. Edifir, Florence 3. Høyrup J (1995) Linee larghe, un’ambiguità geometrica dimenticata. Bollettino di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche 15:3–14 4. Stroffolino D (1999) La città misurata. Tecniche e strumenti di rilevamento nei trattati a stampa del Cinquecento. Salerno Editrice, Rome 5. Prisciani P (1494) Proportionabilis et commensurata designatio urbis Ferrariae suburbiorumque et continentium aedificiorum priora etiam tempora respiciens, in IDEM, Historiae Ferrarienses, 1494–1495 circa. Archivio di Stato di Modena, Manoscritti della Biblioteca, 130:20v–21r 6. Folin M (2010) La Proportionabilis et commensurata designatio urbis Ferrariae di Pellegrino Prisciani (1494–1495). In: Folin M (ed) Rappresentare la città. Topografie urbane nell’Italia di antico regime. Reggio Emilia, Diabasis, pp 99–120 7. Incerti M (2015) Orientamenti e riti: le Addizioni Erculee di Ferrara (1492) e Modena (1546). In: Disegno & Città/Drawing & City. 37° Convegno Internazionale dei Docenti della rappresentazione—Dodicesimo Congresso UID, Torino, 17–18–19 Settembre 2015, pp 209–216 8. Folin M (2006) Un ampliamento urbano della prima età moderna: l’addizione erculea di Ferrara. In: Folin M (ed) Sistole/Diastole. Episodi di trasformazione urbana nell’Italia delle città, Venezia, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, pp 51–174 9. Borgatti Filippo (1895) La pianta di Ferrara nel 1597. Tip. Sociale, Ferrara 10. Zevi B (1960) Biagio Rossetti architetto ferrarese. Il primo urbanista moderno europeo. Einaudi

The Social Identity of a Place: The Analysis of the Environment and Its Quality for a Cultural Regeneration. Silvia La Placa and Marco Ricciarini

Abstract The man makes his way through the centuries armed with pencil: any mean capable of leaving a mark on a surface becomes the trace to be followed from generation to generation in order to know and explain the world. From the engraving on the stone to the digital image the line remains the instrument of comprehension par excellence. Graphic representation is the basis for cognitive processes and for social, cultural and sustainable redrawing of the places. The interaction between environmental psychology and architecture is configured in this sense as the best disciplinary framework in which to develop new models of representation of complex and contradictory realities, that put the human dimension at the centre. The integrated survey project “The sports locations in Tuscany”, born following an agreement between the Department of Architecture of Florence and ANCI Tuscany (National Association of Italian Municipalities), opens the way to an examination of sports environments and to an interpretation that starts from the graphic sign. Problems of various nature emerge from the architectural survey, which have to be read together with the typology and the use of these centers. Their inclusive type nature is not in accordance with the current built-up forms in which they are forced: the expected educational, formative and identitarian environment is obscured by architectural inattention and insufficient maintenance [1]. The aim is to investigate the origins of this contradiction in order to retrieve a necessary balance between the contents and the container. Keywords Reuso · Sign · Architectural survey · Environmental psychology · Human dimension

S. La Placa · M. Ricciarini (B) DIDA Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, Florence, Italy e-mail: [email protected] S. La Placa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_39

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Fig. 1 The trahison des images painting by René Magritte, the difference between a physical and concrete object and its representation

1 Introduction The architect is one of the most influential transformers of the natural world: he expresses the concepts of change and evolution in the only concrete form that anyone can read, namely freehand drawing, an essential synthesis for the creative act. The new digital technologies widen the possibilities also bringing significant changes to the representation and therefore to the communication that in fact links design and observer. The current era of image has made the visual element a primary factor for the individual and for society, without hiding the dual character of real or realistic reproduction [2]. Over the years, a world has developed that is parallel to the physical world, a virtual world, yet with an extremely concrete appearance, which holds the individual between what appears and what is physically suspended. This condition of limbo is not new, although the ways in which it is manifested are different: look at the post-Venturian Las Vegas, city of images per excellence, of what dazzles and attracts (and at the same time with greater vehemence it distracts). The image goes beyond the concept of written communication and immediately leaves the impression of truth to the observer, showing its structural complexity: on one hand, the desire to transfer real information makes it always more correct and truthful, on the other it creates a volute confusion between the true and the represented (Fig. 1).1 1 See

the painting This is not a pipe, 1948, by René Magritte. The author paints a pipe and writes in “this is not a pipe” paying attention to the relationship that exists between logical and analogical representations. What you look at is in fact the image of a pipe and not the real object. Thus Magritte gives rise to a reflection on the weak border between reality and representation. Michel Foucault, This is not a pipe, Publisher: SE, Edition year: 1988, EAN: 9788877101044.

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The debate that could arise from this statement is very broad, as Franco Purini argues in his A plural design: “if the representation is a simulacrum it is also, in itself, a reality. As a design, a drawing is a physical object, a body”. That is, the representation has a dual character, being at the same time true and not true, yet we cannot help but use them to understand the space that surrounds us [3].

2 Representation as the Basis of Cognitive Processes Architecture presents itself as a complex set of well-articulated physical elements in a unitary system that we could define as “plot”. The drawing is the instrument capable of transposing the legible plot into reality on canvas, whether it be paper or electronic. It allows to know an artifact both before the work acquires physicality in the real, and after its construction, showing its design and figural sense. Drawing is the founding science of architectural discipline, the means by which it is possible to manage space, in its geometric and formal aspects, and communicate the meaning, the idea of the project [4]. The act of drawing implicitly contains the study of the place and the ways in which the professional compares himself [5]. Among the various and complex disciplines used in architecture, it certainly plays the role of a binder, facilitating memory and design expression. Through representation it is possible to grasp, investigate, solve the problems and complexities of places and territory, whether they pertain to their past, present or future. Also placing itself at the base of the work of many different specialists, from designers to urban planners to restorers, it becomes a necessary condition for communication and therefore a subject of study and approach to knowledge [6]. The American architect and theorist Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (1925–2018) was one of the main inspirers of the postmodern current in architecture, contrasting among the first with the dogmas of the Modern Movement. His theoretical work has had such an influence that today he creates the inputs to always face new cultural debates, at any scale. The two texts published by the architect of Filadeflia, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las Vegas (1972), initially earned him condemnations and criticism both from the United States and from Europe, but soon paved the way for other thinkers [7, 8]. The first essay opposes the geometries of the masters of the Movement, to the point of responding to the philosophy of “less is more”,2 by Mies van der Rohe, with the ideology of the “less is bore” phrase that crowns Venturi father of postmodernism. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, published by Philip Johnson’s MoMA, shows the connections between ancient and modern architecture: the American architect recovers and uses the story with ease, making reference to it for his theoretical and architectural works, but never showing it explicitly [9]. At the same 2 Less

is more. The definition, by Mies Van Der Rohe, invited to a design for functional and linear elements, free from “disorders”, while Venturi with irony claims the opposite favoring the complex to the simple, the hybrid to the pure.

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Fig. 2 Drawing by R. Venturi

time, Venturi’s theory looks at and absorbs the incipit of English and American pop art: mass commercial products are exalted and symbols of national culture are massproduced [10]. While references to historical architecture are continuous, on the other hand the forms of tradition do not remain identical to themselves, but instead undergo a transformation: they lose their structural function and acquire a new, purely decorative and emphasizing feature (Fig. 2). The “gentle manifesto”, so defined by the same author, addresses a direct criticism of the last modern architecture, according to him as tired and now deprived of the first revolutionary ideas, inviting architects to look to the past and draw inspiration from the great European and American works in the different historical contexts. The strength of the book/manifesto lies in sanctioning imperfection, contradiction, architectural and urban complexity as resources, and no longer difficulties to be solved. Venturi opposes the simplification imposed in architecture by the masters of the Second World War, criticizing the modern movement for not having considered the plurality of architectural language, stopping at a neutral compositional typology. On the other hand, it is difficult to succeed in a unitary composition that embraces complexity: in his Venturi works he affixes symbols and decorations, restores their meaning to buildings, renewing the relationship of tension between the element and the context, enhancing the role of the structure starting from the its shape. The second book, written together with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, proposes an absolutely innovative urban analysis, capturing the rapid and contemporary transformations brought about by the advent of the automobile. The architects documented and analyzed the city to give definition to the emerging urban form, with the aim of understanding it, managing it and adapting to it. Learning from Las Vegas overturns the typical dogmatisms of architectural history: the classic example loses exclusivity and every city becomes a fertile learning ground. In the text, Rome and Las Vegas are compared, not without creating scandal, because in both ways the good

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architect must know how to learn in different ways. For the first time the focus is on the change of scale, the essential symbolism in all environments, the places of mass, the everyday object: the city takes shape from nothing in a completely innovative way and the construction process deserves to this to be analyzed. The monuments of the past are replaced by advertising posters: what attracts visual attention are neon signs and large road signs. Signage information is the undisputed protagonist of the city of tomorrow, architecture becomes solely physical support, a means of information. The text allows us to recognize and include popular American culture and especially its communication strategies. For example, the inclusion of objects registered in architectural works is not abolishing or criticizing, as was done until then, because we accept it because they are elements that respond to human needs and that communicate to man in regards to spaces and spaces. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown mark the passage from the architecture of function to that of communication: in the last texts Iconography and electronics on generic architecture [11] and Architecture as signs and systems: For a Mannerist Time (2004) emerges disinterest for architectural space and it is possible to grasp that one for communication and for a completely different type of architecture, a digital architecture (Fig. 3). If the concepts of complexity and contradiction are linked to the landscape, it is possible to see how representation is sometimes not sufficient to capture the relational dimension that actually exists between man and context. This elusive complexity then requires a metamorphosis and a development of representative processes, which

Fig. 3 Venturi with a research group studied various aspects of the city of Las Vegas, including commercial language, lighting, styles, and symbolism in architecture

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remain the main tools for understanding the environment and making its redesign possible. Contemporary culture lives the contradiction as a natural condition3 every aspect of reality always appears not perfectly irreducible precisely because of its complexity. The study of representation is the road that leads to the documentation and enhancement of the built, in the same way that the study of environmental psychology necessarily directs towards the recovery of the human dimension, an element to be placed again at the center of the current urban models. The joint experience of these two disciplines would allow a renewed approach to the concepts of urban accessibility and inclusive design, transforming architecture into an active expression of understanding and availability. In the digital context, in which the contemporary individual is formed and acts, the representation assumes renewed importance according to the technologies that have significantly increased its declinations. Today the digital experience appears to be so immersive that it can be experienced as real: the systems identifiable in unison as Artificial Reality4 have redefined spaces and times of learning, offering increasingly rapid, effective communication models designed for a highly diversified audience [13]. In the same way in which in the passage from the oral tradition to the written one the recipient acquired greater possibilities of understanding and new capacities of interpretation, in the flow from the non-digital to the digital the final user enjoys enhanced faculties, arriving to interact directly with the representation. Contemporary society constantly uses the image: the individual is wisely pushed towards one or another interpretation of reality, starting from descriptive contents specifically selected. Visual messages appear as the most appropriate type of communication to meet the needs and speed of everyday life. Images, more than words, facilitate understanding, simplify complexity, summarize concepts and at the same time measure themselves with growing scientific progress.

3 Perceiving the Architectural Space Environment and Architecture permeate personal identity in an absolutely significant way and the topic is abundantly debated by psychological literature and yet it is unknown to most. On the contrary, it is clear to anyone that man is the being who more than any other has been able to change the environment, adapting it to his needs and transforming it through architecture. Today, and increasingly in the future, 3 See

Robert [12] Complexity and contradictions in architecture.

4 As stated by the neuroscientist Stefano Baldassi (https://www.panorama.it/panoramaditalia-2017/

milano-2017/realta-aumentata-la-rivoluzione-e-piuvicina) the three-dimensionality of the objects arouses in individuals an emotional impulse: to reach a better understanding what they see they automatically tend to use the sense of touch. The representation of a good or a work of art through Augmented Reality systems allows the individual to sensorially implement the perception of that particular asset. The declinations for the AR (augmented reality) systems are many, among these also the possibility of making goods that no longer exist through the digital world or allowing the knowledge of works of art to categories with visual or hearing disabilities.

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attention must be paid to this concept, not only from an ecological point of view, an aspect not discussed here, but also from the point of view of daily well-being. It is therefore essential to rely on environmental psychology, a discipline based on human-environment dualism, to better understand and deal with the management of personal space as well as territorial behaviors. Often in architecture we speak of “human dimension” of spaces “on a human scale”; these concepts, already studied in antiquity (think of the representation of the Vitruvian man by Leonardo da Vinci), have been taken up and deepened by the Modern Movement, which sees in Le Corbusier’ Modulor their maximum expression. Today it seems necessary, in the light of the acquired knowledge, a reasoned design and that takes into consideration even some trivial mental situations in which people find themselves daily. In the study of light, for example, the architect will have to consider that this “increases the awareness of the presence of others (…) therefore in conditions of full light our interpersonal distances tend to be wider compared to conditions of darkness or semi-darkness”, we must therefore bear this effect in mind depending on the purpose and the cut we want to give to the project. We must consider now the concept of appreciability connected to height: in general this is associated with the status of dominance, therefore we tend to consider prestigious what is placed at the top. This psychological implication is commonly found in architecture and the building that develops vertically is, in fact, usually considered more pleasing to the eye, which is why it is often placed as a symbol of the city in which it is located (the towers of Bologna, the Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel tower in Paris etc.). Similarly, however, the elevated construction, imposing itself on the territory, can be highly disturbing if not aesthetically pleasing (telephone poles, antennas, etc.). In addition to light and height, it also deserves to focus on opening and closing spaces. Today open space is very much appreciated, both in homes and in workplaces (here it is called open office), because it gives the room more airiness and brightness, characteristics that are completely positive for the human mind. But a careful design should first of all be based on the needs of the people who will live in that particular environment:: here it becomes important for a large family to have a living area divided into several rooms, to allow each member to carry out their activities without being disturbed or disturbing for the others. Even more so in the workplace, keep in mind that, on the one hand, proximity to the colleague stimulates interaction between employees and production, on the other hand, in the long run the open office can be chaotic and a source of stress for those who live it daily. Usually the right answer can be found in the function for which a specific environment is designed. A further consideration is that one concerning the different psychological influences that urban environments have compared to rural areas: heat and noise, in addition to the aforementioned lighting, are also influential aspects of human behavior [14]. Deepening the relationship between the psyche and the architectural environment or the perception that one has of it therefore becomes a requirement in the context of a correct and careful planning. In recent years, psychology has assessed that the environment has a decisive influence on phenotypic and behavioral growth and development. Mario Costa, in his book Environmental and architectural psychology, brings as an example of the functioning of the human mind, compared to the change

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suffered by a given environment, that of the construction of buildings: “(… we tend to consider as attractive those (buildings) that are develop in height, rather than horizontally. The buildings that people visit the most in cities are in fact made up of cathedrals, skyscrapers, towers or in any case tall buildings. This derives directly from the fact that verticality, in our perceptive system, is “privileged” compared to horizontality. Even at the neuroatomic level there are more neurons in the sensory areas that selectively “discharge” in correspondence with vertically oriented stimuli compared to oblique or horizontal stimuli. “To simplify the concept, try to consider how the changes made to a certain environment indicate a certain psychology: the architecture of totalitarian regimes, for example, is characterized by rigid lines and solemn forms, because this kind of construction arouses in man a sense of oppression and at the same time of admiration. In Italy the association between spatiality and power took on great prominence in the years of fascism, because the great communicative capacity of architecture was captured, as had already been done in several previous periods/occasions. When we talk about the link between architecture and psyche, however, we do not mean only those processes that are implemented starting from a situation of constructive concreteness, as in the case just mentioned. Often, even in an unconscious way, a series of behaviors is activated starting not from the place itself, but from the conception that one has of it. One can think trivially about the difference, in terms of time, that can be found in remedying the damage inherent in a public good and in a private good. In the first case the sense of responsibility is strongly attenuated, since this construction is conceived as “also of others” rather than as “of all” and therefore necessarily also ours. This is the reason why community management’ architectures often involve far worse states than private ones. Here is how a knowledge of environmental and architectural psychology is able to open eyes to some issues, and allows to work in this direction. In the perception of architectural space the aesthetics of the landscape play a key role: in relation to this Steven Kaplan and Rachel Kaplan have studied a complete psychological model, divided into four categories according to which the human being is led to evaluate the attractiveness of a environment. Consistency, Readability, Complexity and Mystery, these are the four most cherished features in a place, whether built or not, and therefore these are the ones that should be recreated by the architect. A shared experience is also the positive consideration of architectural and urbanistic disorder, compared to the order. Man is pleasantly struck by curved and hilly roads, rather than by straight roads; from stone facades and not from plastered, from a pattern in the pavement and not from the asphalt. Even these precautions contribute, where possible, to a better and more pleasant stay of the person in a given context. A more specific concept, always linked to functionality and therefore to design linked to the purpose, is that of affordance. The term was introduced by J. Gibson in 1966, to indicate the ability that an object, especially a piece of furniture, has to immediately transmit its function to the viewer. A classic example is the anti-panic handle: the person in front of you has the impression of having to push it to open the door and not having to pull it, so that the handle has (necessarily, for safety reasons) a excellent affordance. It is therefore of

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Fig. 4 An affordance is a relationship between an object or an environment and an organism, that affords the opportunity for that organism to perform an action

significant importance for the architect to consider these aspects in the design phase, if you do not want to incur the risk of seeing your furniture, urban or not, used in alternative ways to the expected ones (Fig. 4). If we now consider the question of architectural perception from a broader point of view, we could cite many literature that deals with aspects of urban living in a more or less scientific and psychological way. Particular attention is paid to space studies and functional architecture, or rather to the planning guided by architectural psychology, we find it exhaustively in projects concerning these three main public environments: hospitals and facilities for the elderly, scientific institutions (libraries and schools but also museums and science parks) and religious places. Some buildings of public importance are therefore designed so that their use is optimized and consequently a greater user satisfaction is achieved. Moreover, public institutions often play a multidisciplinary role, so it is very important that their design makes them adaptable and flexible in spaces and functions. As regards hospitals, it is worth mentioning briefly the work of the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto for the Paimio sanatorium. Particular attention to the perceptive aspect of the user of the work, earned the architect’s style the title of “psychological functionalism”. In the sanatorium project, being aware of the beneficial effects of solar radiation on patients, Aalto directed and related the various buildings in such a way as to maximize the benefits for therapeutic purposes. The hospital rooms were located to the South, the rooms intended for afternoon activities to the West, following the astral path of the sun and exploiting the advantages of heliotherapy. At the center of the Aaltian architectural survey, in fact, there has always been the need to make men feel good. Take, for example, the individual hospital rooms: each room could accommodate two patients, had special windows and radiant panels to ensure proper lighting of the room and preserve its healthiness and was surrounded by perimeter walls that were effective both in terms of color and sound absorption. The furnishings of the rooms were also oriented to the real needs of the patients, such as the sinuous chairs, able to adhere easily to the human body and, above all, a special sink that was carefully inclined so that the noise of the water was almost

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completely absorbed. On the sanatorium he himself said: “The primary purpose of the building is to function as a medical instrument … One of the basic requirements to heal is to offer complete peace …. The design of the rooms is defined according to limited strenght of the patient, lying in bed. The color of the ceiling is chosen to give tranquility, the light sources are outside the patient’s visual field, the heating is directed towards his feet and the water comes out of the taps without making noise, so that no one can disturb the room mate”. The situation is different in the design of libraries, whose primary purpose is the dissemination of culture. To encourage their attendance it is necessary that they become a place of stasis and no longer a passage. If one enters the library only to take and report volumes, there are no social interactions and one is not encouraged to return. It is therefore necessary to design the environment to make it comfortable and suitable for permanence, with some rooms designed for to study, with specific lighting and sound insulation specifications, others for conferences, with different solutions regarding the diffusion of sound and others still used to socializing spaces. It is important, as the library is a place of culture, to equip it with modern electronic systems, as well as areas suitable for computer processing. A good example in this sense, although not canonical, is Toyo Ito’s media library in Japan. The importance of psychological planning is clearly manifested in the creation of new religious places. In fact, in the construction of contemporary churches or synagogues, the majesty of ancient examples is no longer sought, but rather the sacred themes that each of the faithful carries within him are to be re-proposed through architecture. Imagine then an enveloping architecture, with studied lights, which gives a sense of sacredness but remains of human dimensions. In this case, architectural psychology invites the creation of a family environment. Particular attention must be paid to the aspect of acoustics, since it is necessary that all the faithful clearly hear the preacher, but that there is also silence in moments of recollection. Excluding the three cases mentioned above, buildings are generally considered objects in their own right, rather the concrete elements of which our bodies and our neurological systems are strongly connected. The neuroscientist Mallgrave in his writings broadly explains how architecture is not a conceptual abstraction but an embodied practice, even believing that in architectural space it is constituted primarily through emotional and multisensory experiences. If we consider that current scientific discoveries ensure benefits also in the biological or psychological field, it can be considered possible that these same discoveries are able to improve the built environment. Mallgrave intends to direct the attention of architects and engineers towards those for whom it is designed: at the base of the design must be the future users. Theory that is supported by his study on the implications of neuroscience in architectural design [15]. “We shape our buildings, which in turn form us.” These are the words of Winston Churchill, at the dawn of the reconstruction carried out after the Nazi bombings, and in these we find the importance of the way we feel and perceive, for the anthropic function, in its urbanization process. It is necessary then, also here, to reiterate the importance of doing good architecture, understanding the decisive influence that the built environment has on emotional states.

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Both architecture and psychology deal with the notion of “space”, but the first does so by analyzing the external physical environment, the second by studying the inner psychic environment and also the interpersonal one. However, the boundary between outer and inner spaces is very weak and so these two disciplines end up getting closer. “There are no only material constructions; there are no only abstract thoughts”, the cities tell historical and therefore human events, they are marked by aspirations and fears and equally mark their inhabitants. Thus, architecture ends up being immersed in places that are not only material, but also emotional, and for having to question what human needs are and what is the best way to satisfy them [16]. Different theoretical approaches connect, in the psychological sphere, the physical space to the psychic and psychosocial dimensions. The importance, in the formation of an individual, of his relationship with the surrounding environment is widely theorized. This, if favorable and stimulating, facilitates the psychic growth of the person and the development of maturity. The built space, as an environment, carries out more “mental functions”: the containing one, performed by the familiar environments that make the individual feel protected; the sustaining one, to support the subjectivity and personalization that everyone implements in the places where he spends time; and the integrative one, which allows the encounter with the senior citizens. If the theories on the link between psychology and architecture are numerous, the discipline that regulates them has not yet become established on a large scale, although it has been officially institutionalized since the late 1950s. Psychologists and architects, moved by the interest in the study of the anthropic component of physical environments, have in fact started in those years an autonomous disciplinary sector to analyze the relationship between man and the built environment, and consequently produce applicative indications and architectural psychology was born. A fundamental figure is that of Kevin Lynch, who already pioneered in the 1960s the need for psychology research to be carried out before the design of any building. In particular, his research highlighted the importance of way finding in living an urban fabric. According to Lynch, the ability to orient is in fact the ability of the inhabitant not only to know a territory, but also to have established mental connections that make it unique. This and other studies have contributed over time to ensure that the architectural environment was no longer considered a mere social living scenario, but an active and constitutive component of the human experience. The built space must then necessarily respond to human needs, otherwise we will face a situation of environmental stress, a concept that indicates a real discomfort but at the same time perceived. It includes physical elements such as noise, pollution or temperature, objectively measurable, but also relational factors such as the perception of too much crowding or insecurity. It incurs environmental stress when there is a low quality of the man-environment relationship. Dedicating attention to the psychological variables in the design of the built space means understanding the psychic, symbolic, emotional, relational and needssatisfying functions that particular architecture will have on future users [17].

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4 From the Graphic Sign to the Psychological Interpretation: An Integrated Relief Project for Sports Facilities The greatest attention given to sport in recent years is triggering social change in the community. The interconnections linked to this area are today a positive tool for the training and long-term success of young people. The places assigned to physical activity and the growth of the individual, through the fascination generated by sports action, act as catalysts for community change. In Italy, more than elsewhere, it becomes necessary to face some challenges and overcome the structural, distributional and fruition problems that, despite the positive propulsion of the last few years, remain in sports facilities.5 Architectural research is the tool through which to make valid contributions to the achievement of this aim. The DIDA Department of Architecture of the University of Florence has, for some years, been promoting the testing of a methodology of analysis and study that can redevelop the plant and generate social change in the sports field. In order to reach a qualitative level of the amateur centers in line with the major European directives,6 an awareness-raising process was undertaken aimed at operators in the sports world, to make the critical points known and systematically addressed. A first synergy with Federciclismo Toscana and Federcalcio Toscana saw the DIDA engaged in the research project “Kick Away Spaces of Tomorrow”7 : the documentation collected (from the three-dimensional survey, to the management files) made it possible to assess the actual state of the art of 20 amateur centers present on the Tuscan territory and to have a consolidated work base to carry out redevelopment projects (some already undertaken by sports clubs involved) (Figs. 5 and 6). The project, born from the conviction that places of growth should make an important contribution to the definition of quality, starts from the assumption that great weight in relationships and in the symbiosis of the user with the environment is to be attributed to the perceptive evaluation that the latter has of the sports facility. As positive actions, at the educational and personal interchange level, they generate enrichment in the individual, in the same way an inhospitable environment leads to non-educational behavior. It therefore appears necessary to approach a place from the structural, aesthetic and material, but also psychological point of view. The design methodology foresees this double attention, addressed both to the environment and to

5 See THE SPORTS NUMBERS 2017 drawn up by the CONI Services Center for Statistical Studies

and Observatories for Sport, in December 2018 and the FGCI Football Report 2018 drawn up by the FGCI and PwC Study Center for financial aspects. 6 See EUROPEAN COMMISSION White Paper on Sport and International Charter for Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport edited by UNESCO since 1978. 7 See Stefano Bertocci, Silvia La Placa, Marco Ricciarini, The recovery and enhancement of sports facilities in the urban redevelopment process. Conference Proceedings Colloquia.AT.e 2019. Engineering and Construction in the Age of Complexity Turin, 25-28 September 2019.

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Fig. 5 Introducing the research project Kick Away Spazi del Domani

the relation modalities that exist among its users. The aim is to understand the prerequisites for achieving a person-environment relational balance in the sports field: to be able to design places that positively stimulate the performance of the professional athlete and the psychophysical development of the growing young person. For this reason, DIDA has promoted the study of the Coverciano sports center of excellence, which comes very close to the aforementioned equilibrium condition. The analysis of the Luigi Ridolfi Federal Technical Center8 followed the same operational methods applied for the “Kick Away Spaces of Tomorrow” project, but coming to a level of detail, for Coverciano, much more in-depth, since it is a single complex and an example to follow for the redevelopment of sports facilities. The first phase saw the study and distribution analysis of the spaces: a management database was created that allows, through filing made with a filemaker program, to know every part of the complex at different levels (dimensional, material, management, functional, distributional, energetical etc.). Subsequently, on-site analysis was carried out, using laser scanner equipment and photographic equipment, and this made it possible to carry out a third computerized post-production phase (cyclone, 3Dflow, AutoCAD). Research has shown the connection between valid architectural design for sports facilities and the social relationships that take place within it. The dissemination of the results achieved through both projects leads to an awareness on the subject by amateur centers that today do not reach high quality levels but intend to pursue them (Fig. 7). 8 See

the Thesis in Survey of Architecture entitled “The Federal Technical Center of Coverciano an architecture for sports education”, La Placa S., Martini B. Relator Professor S. Bertocci, Coordinator Arch. M. Ricciarini.

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Fig. 6 Regional sports facilities analysed during the research period

Fig. 7 Comparison of the original project graphs and the representation of the current state of fact of the gym of the Federal Technical Center of Coverciano

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Fig. 8 General plan of the Federal Technical Center obtained from the processing of the point cloud

Research into sports venues also allows for a broader analysis to be initiated, as many of the amateur sports facilities arise marginally from the city, in peripheral urban fabrics, becoming new unexpected aggregation nuclei. If considered in the complexity of urban and suburban macro-areas, they are among the most significant social infrastructures: they are today the substitutes for the public park, the square and the oratory. These are meeting places that incur, due to their position and architectural inattention, in the risk of becoming non-places9 in a short time, in which young people become accustomed to withering rather than growing. Such considerations, on an architectural, urban and social scale, arise from a careful analysis of the territory and are possible starting from the interpretation of the legible graphic sign in such complexes [18]. Here, drawing and architectural survey are of fundamental importance, disciplines necessary to be able to initiate interventions of transformation of structural and perceptive quality (Fig. 8). The Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, together with the Regional Social Sport Observatory of the Tuscany Region and ANCI of Tuscany, is currently engaged in a research project that leads from architectural analysis based on design and survey to a perceptive improvement of the user of all the Tuscan amateur sports centers. The Relevant Laboratory of the DIDA Department of Architecture of the University of Florence intends to learn about and analyze regional amateur 9 See

Mello Patrizia, Metamorphosis of space. Annotations on the metropolitan becoming.

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sports facilities. The study of the architectural state of affairs, an essential basis for implementing maintenance and improvement programs for the centers, allows to evaluate not only the structures themselves, but also the different ways in which the materiality of these generates specific relationships in the community. The project highlighted the multiple and complex interactions between static and dynamic components of the city system (school, sports, cultural activities, commercial activities, etc.) highlighting the massive presence of containers and spaces with functions directly or indirectly related to sports activities, in need of intervention. This is due to the fact that the Italian architectural sporting heritage can be dated almost without exception to a period of time that goes from the post-war period to the 1990s. The realization of the structures in this limited time range is the result of the corporate change imposed on the great industrial transformations produced by history [19]. Two events in particular have marked the national territory in this sense: the Rome Olympics in the 60s and the awarding of the World Cup for football, officially announced in 1984.10 “The World Cup will be the most opportune occasion to demonstrate not only our organizational skills, but also the high technological level reached in all sectors of national life”11 : this is how Franco Carraro, president of the Organizing Committee of Italia 90 expressed himself. In Italy, therefore, we witnessed a modernization of the plants, most of which dated from the 1930s, soon degenerated into a long procession of public sports infrastructures lacking precise planning within the urban fabric, as well as of little architectural value. Administrations today find themselves having to manage structures that are often left unfinished and the one who pays the costs of this condition is the citizen [20]. “The places of sport for Tuscany” is a multi-hand work which involves the research and development of analysis, requalification and support projects for the design of sports facilities, to be held for the Municipalities of the Tuscany Region starting from January 2019 [21]. The aim of the project is to translate the dimension of research into development opportunities for the entire regional territory: the sharing, by the entities involved in the project, of diversified strategies for each type of plant allows identifying concrete actions to favor the process of redevelopment of each, whether relating to school, recreational or amateur motor activities. Collaboration with sports associations, aided by the dissemination of research activity, is enabling a constructive dialogue with Public Administrations and offering a better service to the community (Fig. 9). The “Places of sport for Tuscany” project promotes innovative study guidelines for sports facilities, embracing the current issues of energy saving (the use of new materials for construction and the implementation of greater efficiency is 10 See

Nicola Adduci, Francesco Bonini, Annabella Gioia, Italo Insolera, Francesca Mazzarini, Roberta Sibbio, Bruno Tobia, Leopoldo Tondelli “The Olympics of the” miracle “fifty years later” the 1960 Rome Olympics, a significant appointment, only fifteen years from the end of the Second World War, which showed a growing, regenerated and in full economic miracle. An event that is re-read in the light of an intertwining of sports history, political-institutional history and urban history. 11 See https://storiedicalcio.altervista.org/blog/mondiali-1990-germania.html.

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Fig. 9 Environmental section of the ultra-centenary sports facility of the Park of the Cascine in Florence

proposed energy efficiency of the plants), safety and the elimination of architectural barriers, respecting the right of all to sport.12 A path of support has been prepared—for the energy, technical-economic and administrative areas—in favor of local Administrations who will enjoy the support of the Department of Architecture.

5 From Urban to Social Analysis Robert Venturi’s studies invite an analysis that goes from urban to social and vice versa, showing how these two aspects are inextricably linked. “Tending towards difficult unity”13 calls for a consideration of the global landscape, which also covers socio-cultural aspects and embraces contemporary issues and challenges [22]. The different urban realities are synonyms of identity of each specific social situation, which is consequently perceived (and at the same time derives) from its inhabitants. In the case study presented, along with the type and use of sports centers, various problems have emerged from the architectural survey. The inclusive nature of these places is difficult to reconcile with the current built-up forms in which they find themselves forced: the expected educational, training and identity environment is obscured by architectural neglect and insufficient maintenance. The research experience, innovative from the point of view of the subject addressed, aims to focus on the contradiction expressed by sports architecture and does so through the increasingly immediate tool: drawing. The representation allows to explain in a clear and synthetic way a given reality showing, starting from the graphic restitution of the architecture, also all the immaterial connections that are its foundation. The images therefore rise (and have always been) to a fundamental role: today more than ever they are requirements for understanding, both because digital is the filter through which the world is looked at, and for the speed with which more and more we are accustomed to confront. Impact is what is easy and immediate at the same time, the image more than text, digital more than paper [23].

12 See the EUROPEAN SPORT CHARTER of the COUNCIL OF EUROPE CDDS—Committee for the Development of Sport 7th Conference of European Ministers responsible for Sport Rhodes, 13–15 May 1992. 13 See Robert [12] Complexity and contradictions in architecture.

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However, it is not just an aesthetic issue that defines the direction towards the architectural survey for sports facilities: the analysis, the study and the measurements allow to make a real improvement to these structures, from the structural, economic, managerial and perceptive point of view [24]. The development of a suitable integrated survey methodology makes it possible to obtain—through multiple tools and computerized post-production—a quantity of diversified and comprehensible data at multiple levels, from final users, administrations and sector operators. The digital reconstructions, which are obtained starting from the mixture of the laser scanner and the photogrammetric survey, make it possible to have 3D models at a high level of precision. Each model can then be developed according to the final use: for visualization/documentation only, for material management, plant engineering, for the identification of internal paths, etc. Digitally re-proposing the built finds its greatest value primarily in the ability to communicate (and therefore making it accessible and known) a specific architectural typology14 and this becomes in some way tangible even at distance. The declinations and the possibilities that open up starting from the image are many and always to be compared to the scale of representation on which one is operating: an urban scale modeling certainly has different purposes than one in detail; starting from the first, for example, it is not possible to imagine a structural restoration. Despite the complexity—defined starting from the specificity of each architectural or urban typology—the image is in any case the most appropriate interpretative act for each spatial form, from the concrete to the designed [25]. Processing a representation therefore requires a prudent procedure, in which it is first of all defined an ordered sequence of operations which, from the acquisition phase, leads to the most effective product to be published. The potential of digital representation technologies (such as those based on photographs) allow the punctual reproduction of the object under study, conferring the consequent advantage of a documentation that is as precise as it is declinable [26]. The cognitive survey qualitatively investigates the heritage built in three successive phases, which can in turn be divided into subsets: the acquisition, processing and publishing of the data obtained. These operations require specific technical skills as well as continuously updated and consequently require a preliminary study, which knows how to direct the operator to the most appropriate image processing.

6 Conclusions The design of concrete architecture has been integrated over the years with a different design, which almost never considers the territory, rather it erases the traces, attracted by the spaces without limits offered by information technology. A finished place to relate disappears, in favor of a virtual world that seduces by imaginative freedom. 14 Gaiani, M., Architectorum delineamenta instrumenta or the architect’s work interfaces, in Unali, M., (edited by), “Virtual living means to represent”, Kappa, Rome 2008.

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The consumption of images in the architectural field is due to the too wide gap that exists between the simplicity and immediacy of a slogan (see Learning from Las Vegas) and the complexity of constructing a technical design that is at the same time aesthetically valid. Nevertheless, complexity is today enhanced, resulting in a vibrant aspect of the contemporary, precisely because of the many roads still unexplored and the great expectations in the field of computer technology [27]. Perhaps a renewed balance for our architecture and city should be sought in the mix of technique and aesthetics typical of digital design?

References 1. Luigini A (2018) Ambienti digitali per l’educazione all’arte e al patrimonio. Franco Angeli editore, Milano 2. Jenkins H (2009) Culture partecipative e competenze digitali. Media education per il XXI secolo. Guerini, Milano 3. Foucault M (1988) Questo non è una pipa. SE, Milano 4. Paris L (2011) La rappresentazione originale. In: Artefatti, Idee per la rappresentazione, a cura di AA.VV. Atti del seminario di studi tenutosi a Perugia il 20.11.2009. Artegrafica, Roma 5. Purini F (2003) Un disegno plurale. In: “Firenze architettura”, periodico semestrale del Dipartimento di Progettazione dell’Architettura, numero doppio (maggio 2003), pp 53–67 6. Norman D (2010) Living with complexity. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Stati Uniti 7. De Vivo EA (21 settembre 2018) In memoria di Robert Venturi. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.artribune.com/static-index.html 8. Orazi M (21 Settembre 2018) Cosa possiamo imparare da Robert Venturi. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.rivistastudio.com/robert-venturi/ 9. Redazione Youmanist (19 Novembre 2018) Robert Venturi: il bello della complessità. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://youmanist.it/categories/architettura-design/modernismo-robertventuri 10. Venturi R, Scott Brown D (2004) Architecture as signs and systems: for a mannerist time. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 11. Venturi R (1996) Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room. MIT Press, Cambridge 12. Venturi R (1980) Complessità e contraddizioni nell’architettura. Dedalo, Bari 13. Krueger M (1983) Artificial reality. Addison-Wesley, Boston 14. Grecchi M (2008) Il recupero delle periferie urbane. Da emergenza a risorsa strategica per la rivitalizzazione delle metropoli. Maggioli Editore, Rimini 15. Rivoltella PC (2014) La previsione. Neuroscienze, apprendimento, didattica. Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 16. Balzani M (2017) Spazio intersecato: Percorsi di confine e tematismi di aggregazione per il rilievo, la rappresentazione e il progetto. Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN). Maggioli editore, Italy 17. Lanier J (1992) Virtual reality: the promise of the future. Interactive Learning International 8(4):275–279 18. Ardita VM (2008) Nuovi Scenari di Progetto/nuovi luoghi per la città contemporanea. Università degli Studi di Catania 19. Arnaboldi MA (1982) Atlante degli impianti sportivi. Hoepli Editore, Milano 20. Gottfried A (2004) L’edilizia per lo sport e lo spettacolo. Quaderni del manuale di progettazione edilizia. Hoepli Editore, Milano 21. Culley P, Pascoe J (2009) Sports facilities and technologies. Routledge, London

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22. Bortolotti A, Calidoni M, Mascheroni S, Mattozzi I (2008) Per l’educazione al patrimonio culturale: 22 tesi. FrancoAngeli, Milano 23. Brilliant R (1987) Narrare per immagini. Giunti, Firenze 24. Gratton C, Henry I (eds) (2002) Sport in the city: the role of sport in economic and social regeneration. Routledge, London 25. Purini F (2007) Una strategia possibile. In Idee per la rappresentazione, atti del seminario di studi, Roma 14 settembre 2007, a cura di Fabio Quici. Form.Act editore, di Fabio Quici 26. Balzola A, Monteverdi AM (2004) Le arti multimediali digitali. Storia, tecniche, linguaggi, etiche ed estetiche delle arti del nuovo millennio. Garzanti, Milano 27. Carpenzano O (2012) Idea immagine architettura: Tecniche d’invenzione architettonica e composizione. Gangemi Editore, Roma

Zero Emission Burg: Energy Requalification Strategies Within the Folds of the Picturesque Michela Meschini and Giulia Pelliccia

Abstract The present research deals with the complex and contradictory relation between the sustainability of architecture and the search for quality of the landscape, taking as a case study the theme of the energy requalification of the historic Burg of Lizori, a settlement located along the olive grove that connects Assisi and Spoleto. The burg, abandoned until the mid-seventies, underwent a recovery process that led it to be an example of applying good practices. The current energy saving policies have given the input to a research aimed at making autonomous not a single home, but the whole burg, maintaining what are the peculiar characteristics typical of the historicized realities. Keywords nZeb · Energy requalification · Burg · Energy retrofits · Heritage buildings

1 Introduction “Less is more” tried to stigmatize the Modern. “Less is bore,” Robert Venturi subversively countered [1, p. 18]. “Less is impossible”, we can pronounce today in light of the evolution that has taken place over the last few decades. The interpretation of the American master who projects architecture in the concept of the inclusion of “both-and” rather than in the exclusion of the “either-or” is increasingly illuminating [1, p. 23]. In this complex and contradictory relation extending from architecture to landscape, it triggers a growing number of meanings connected to the growing functions and performances required to architecture [2–5]. In particular, it is possible to identify how two fundamental themes are the image, the center of our culture of global communication [6] that Robert Venturi himself, with Denise Scott Brown,

M. Meschini (B) · G. Pelliccia Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] G. Pelliccia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_40

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contributed to making an architectural theme [7], and sustainability, with the building being assessed for its “class” and efficiency. Architecture, called to be more and more efficient [8, 9], also, in a sustainable vision in environmental terms, is complexed with facilities and infrastructures. These likewise, must relate to the landscape and the image perceived, because “Contradictory levels of meaning and use in architecture involve the paradoxical contrast implied by the conjunctive yet” [1, p. 23]. This creates clear contradictions that open an architectural debate in questions not only functional but also aesthetics, in “The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole” [1, p. 88] which appears today as one of the great themes that stigmatizes the architectural debate [10–19]. In the Italian cultural context, characterized by a landscape and historical settlements, this question is proposed as an exemplary paradigm for a theme that has a wider validity. This validity can also be extended to “the everyday landscape, vulgar and disdained, that we can draw the complex and contradictory order that is valid and vital for our architecture as an urbanistic whole” [1, p. 104]. The high number of historic burgs that characterize Italy, from north to south, strongly contributes to defining the country from a landscape, historical, cultural, artistic and community point of view [20], signs of man in history that find their relation and balance with the qualities of the place and the environment. These values mark the reasons for protection, conservation and enhancement that are decisive in this context [21], qualifying the emerging landscape as a world heritage site, a social and cultural resource to be opened also to the economic sector in a genuinely sustainable development [22]. It is no coincidence that Italy holds the record as a country with the largest number of UNESCO sites, of which at least half are historic burgs [23]. This connotation is particularly reflected in the economy, firmly based on tourism with more than 400 million visitors every year [24]. The importance of the correct maintenance of the architectural heritage is therefore evident, especially if of historical and artistic relevance. The innovation that has always characterized the evolution of urban settlements [25] implies a functional renewal and reconversion-regeneration of the existing building heritage with a mending [26] capable of considering the high testimonial value they bring within themselves strongly interdisciplinary elements, for which the various scientific disciplinary sectors still tend to express themselves too autonomously [4]. At a first analysis, in fact, energy requalification and historical tradition seem to be in opposition to each other, especially if you think of modern construction technologies aimed at saving energy. A photovoltaic panel or a wind turbine, for example, immediately show how these solutions do not generally appear to be easily contextualized in centers characterized by the quality of historicized signs and a natural environment [27]. Our era, in this sense, seems to have almost encouraged the emergence of “new problems”, highlighted even more in historical contexts; here it is necessary to enter the intrinsic complexity and contradiction that the reality poses with greater attention and with a multidisciplinary approach. Today it is always and perhaps even more valid to read Robert Venturi’s “kind manifesto” whereby “program, structure, mechanical equipment, and expression, even in single buildings in simple contexts, are diverse and conflicting in ways previously unimaginable” [1,

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p. 16], noting how problems must be accepted and exploited as opportunities: “the growing complexities of our functional problems must be acknowledged. I refer, of course, to those programs, unique in our time, which are complex because of their scope, such as research laboratories, hospitals, and particularly the enormous projects at the scale of city and regional planning. However, even the house, simple in scope, is complex in purpose if the ambiguities of contemporary experience are expressed. This contrast between the means and the goals of a program is significant. Although the means involved in the program of a rocket to get to the moon, for instance, are almost infinitely complex, the goal is simple and contains few contradictions; although the means involved in the program and structure of buildings MlcheluccI Church of the Autostrada near Florence are far simpler and less sophisticated technologically than almost any engineering project, the purpose is more complex and often inherently ambiguous” [1, p. 19]. He had expressed this concept in the 1960s, and today it appears as modern as it is applicable to the theme of redevelopment linked to energy saving. Italy ranks at the top in this sector, for its ability to act as a privileged place of investigation and by virtue of the cultural environment of excellence, which has always been able to elaborate the main theories of restoration [28, 29]. The proposed research aims to demonstrate how it is possible to integrate the different disciplinary aspects without losing the tradition, which is inherent in our territory and it denotes the landscape [30]. Lizori Burg, a settlement located on the hill between Foligno and Spoleto in the city of Campello sul Clitunno (PG) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, represents the case study. The very first inhabitants of the area were the Umbrian, an Italic people from Central and Eastern Europe who came to the peninsula around 1000 BC. Subsequently, the place will take the name of the castle of Pissignano, derived from the ancient Pissinianum, or swimming pool of Giano. The first nucleus developed in Roman times along the Flaminia, while later the hilly one was formed, where a small Benedictine community was established, presumably around the eleventh century. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the monks erected a wall around the inhabited center, which therefore took the name of San Benedetto Burg. Over the centuries, the burg was often disputed due to its privileged strategic position (Fig. 1). The recovery of the Burg, which took place from the mid-seventies, on the one hand gave new life to a place that was abandoned, on the other it was an opportunity for the application of good practices: the local materials were recovered, put in place with traditional construction techniques, so much so that they were shown at the IUA World Congress in 2005. Its triangular shape has the summit upstream, with towers originally arranged at the corners and on the two sides inclined in an intermediate position. The urban layout is quite characteristic: it has a compact terraced layout of buildings with parallel lots and a trend that sets itself on contour lines, rapidly degrading along the slope. The village is in a perfect state of conservation and presents architectural forms in relation to nature, as well as purely artistic decorative elements [31] (Fig. 2). “Learning from the existing landscape is, for an architect, a way to be revolutionary. Not in the usual way, that is by demolishing Paris and starting all over, as

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Fig. 1 A global view of Lizori Burg

Fig. 2 Lizori Burg and the installations of Antonio Meneghetti

Le Corbusier suggested in the 1920s, but in a different, more tolerant way: which means asking yourself how you look at things” [7]. This is what Venturi stated in his “Learning from Las Vegas”, referring to the commercial strip of the city, remarking how in modern architecture the architects preferred to change the environment rather

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than enhance what was already there. This concept, moreover affirmed in the same years in which the Burg was recovered, can be re-proposed in such a historical context, which must certainly be preserved, managing to confirm, even if unconsciously, the meanings that are inherent in the good practices, adopted and pursued in the burg itself. All the infrastructures necessary for energy efficiency are added to what we can define as the existing scenario. When the context is enriched with a series of new elements that denote and characterize it, the risk is to go in contradiction with the landscape itself. As an example, in Lizori Burg itself, there is an electricity supply pylon, clearly visible if you go along the highway: the landscape is therefore “cut” by light. Should we therefore compromise? Venturi reminds us how ambiguity and tension are typical of complex architecture, and each element must be analyzed for the internal characteristics and for the context in which it is placed as well. The various complex and contradictory relations that are created according to the point of view generate ambiguity, and this increases the richness of meaning at the expense of clarity. On the other hand, the landscape is linked to observation, and it corresponds to the human scale, who is always in the center, with his needs. This requires a next step, which also includes a reflection on sustainability. To support the thesis, the European Landscape Convention helps us by defining “Landscape” a certain part of territory, as perceived by populations, and its character derives from the action of natural and/or human factors and from their interrelationships [32]. Venturi himself defines “difficult unity” the architecture based on the complexity and contradiction that includes in itself the multiplicity and diversity of the elements that are in an inconsistent or perceptually weaker relation with each other [1, p. 88]. The unity achieved by multiplicity makes the work complex as a whole: extreme multiplicity becomes unity thanks to the tendency of the individual parts to make a leap in scale and be perceived globally [1, pp. 88–104]. It therefore becomes essential to include the new themes that today take on considerable importance already at the design level; however, it is necessary that they do not distort the landscape itself. In fact, this research has as its objective the implementation of new technologies in the energy sector at the service of good practices. This is not a simple mitigation, but an application of retrofit systems that allow adapting to energy standards without sacrificing the peculiar characteristics of the place.

2 The Energetic Requalification In recent years, we have witnessed a greater interest in issues and techniques aimed at reducing the consumption of energy necessary for carrying out human activities, also due to climate changes. The European Parliament manifested a particular attention by issuing specific guidelines that revolutionize the concept of energy sustainability;

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in the same way, Italy adopted these regulations by implementing them with specific laws and decrees. In dealing with the issue of the redevelopment of historic burgs, it is essential to identify a common, albeit indicative, methodology to address the interventions correctly, respecting the innumerable differences that characterize each of them. Specifically, these interventions must have a diversified approach compared to that adopted for the most recent buildings, thus giving absolute priority to the conservative aspect of the restoration [4]. The construction of new building interventions in compliance with the most recent energy saving regulations must necessarily proceed in parallel with the redevelopment of the existing buildings to obtain significant results. In order to obtain a decarbonized and energy efficient real estate park by 2050, with intermediate objectives set in 2030 and 2040, the European Directive 2018/844/EU, updating Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD) [33] on energy performance in the and the 2012/27/EU (DEE) [34] directive on energy efficiency, establishes that European states must adopt measures for the renovation of buildings, residential and non-residential, public and private. The conversion of buildings into nZEB nearly Zero Energy Buildings [35, 36] is therefore a central and current issue on the international scene, as well as a goal to be pursued strictly in the coming decades. The redevelopment intervention method to be applied is strictly dependent on the type of building; if we consider that, according to European data, around 30% of European real estate is made up of historic buildings [5], we understand the extent of these interventions. It is necessary to find a good compromise between the energy requalification of historic buildings, aimed at improving consumption, and the conservation of this heritage and its characteristics [37]. In Italy there are many ancient buildings which, renovated with respect to their original characters, today have new uses; this is possible keeping in mind the peculiarities of the property and the fact that even the simple installation of HVAC systems requires a careful assessment of the spaces. To be considered historic, a building must be of sufficient age (over seventy years of age, as established by Law 124/2017 of the Code of cultural and landscape heritage), a good level of physical integrity and a certain historical relevance [38]. The increase in the energy performance of these buildings, as well as those without any historical value, is possible through retrofit, defined as the modification of components, systems or buildings to improve performance. However, the ancient building differs from the contemporary one in multiple physical characteristics and the conservation principles that must be applied to it; these aspects mean that the retrofit used for contemporary buildings are often not suitable for historical ones [19]. The methodology adopted saw the photogrammetric survey of the entire burg as a first step, carried out by means of a drone; through dedicated software, a digital model was obtained, which was subsequently imported into the BIM environment. The use of this platform has allowed the model to add a series of details relating to the structure of the individual buildings, ranging from the stratigraphy of the wall facings to that of the roofs, passing through the types of heating system. This implementation of data has made it possible to carry out a series of analyzes on the current state of

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affairs from an energy point of view, allowing the development of a series of design strategies for the redevelopment of the individual element and, consequently, of the entire burg.

3 The Proposed Interventions The first step towards the energy efficiency of the burg was the study of the building envelope, in particular both the external walls and the roof were studied. For the former, it was necessary to define the current stratigraphy, consisting of the typical ‘cravity wall’ which well represents the historic burgs and summarize it in a series of types based on the thickness of the perimeter wall. In the following table are reported the results relating to trasmittance (Table 1). Once defined the state of affairs, it was the time of the energy requalification, with the aim of balancing the aspects of preservation with those of historical-artistic and economic enhancement, and with the renewed needs for well-being and sustainability. For this, as a design solution, instead of the classic thermal coat affixed to the outside of the wall thickness, the propose is to insert a retrofit to hide in the characteristic stone faces of the burg. For a greater completeness, a set of 10 insulators was chosen, which were affixed to each of the types of wall. As an example, the summary of the transmittance values calculated for type 1 is shown (Table 2). Type 1 As regards the roofs, the construction method adopted in the years in which Lizori was rebuilt was profoundly different from the current construction techniques; in particular, we note the total lack of thermal insulation systems. For the redevelopment, it is possible to act in two ways: on the intrados or on the extrados, depending on how the insulating layer is arranged. In the first case (Fig. 3) the existing structure is not modified, but the action is on its inside, that is, at the intrados of the floor the insulating layer is then interposed between one beam and another (Fig. 3). Table 1 Results relating to transmittance of the walls

Type

Thickness (m)

Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Type 1

0.27

2.738

Type 2

0.37

2.315

Type 3

0.47

2.006

Type 4

0.67

1.340

Type 5

0.72

1.223

Type 6

0.87

1.046

868 Table 2 Transmittance relating to type 1

M. Meschini and G. Pelliccia Insulator

Thickness (m) Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Perlite

0.16

0.278

Calcium silicate

0.24

0.280

Rock wool

0.12

0.260

Glass wool

0.10

0.275

Cellular glass

0.20

0.267

Mineral wood fiber

0.20

0.280

Flexible wood fiber 0.12

0.280

Cork

0.14

0.257

XPS

0.12

0.268

EPS

0.12

0.268

Fig. 3 Stratigraphy of the intrados redevelopment

Here the report the relative transmittance after the application of the insulating layer (Table 3). The redevelopment at the extrados (Fig. 4) provides, however, for the reconstruction of the roof above the load-bearing structure, therefore at the extrados of the attic. Here are reported the values of the transmittances obtained, according to the type of insulator used, with the relative thickness (Table 4).

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Table 3 Results relating to transmittance in relation to the type of insulator chosen Insulator

Case A: tiling

Case B: wooden plank

Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Thickess (m)

Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Thickness (m)

Rock wool

0.233

0.14

0.226

0.14

Glass wool

0.240

0.12

0.233

0.12

Flexible wood fiber

0.222

0.16

0.216

0.16

Cork

0.233

0.16

0.226

0.16

XPS

0.222

0.16

0.216

0.16

EPS

0.239

0.14

0.232

0.14

Fig. 4 Stratigraphy of the redevelopment at the extrados

Home automation represented the second step of the study, and it was applied to an apartment in the Burg; it consists of lounge, dining room with kitchenette, two double bedrooms, one with an independent entrance and two bathrooms, for a gross area of approximately 123 m2 . In facing a home automation project, the first step is to identify the characteristics of the electrical and thermal system of the premises where the interventions will be provided. In this case, the heating is autonomous, implemented by means of four convectors, which also serve for summer cooling. These elements are set in the living

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Table 4 Results relating to transmittance in relation to the type of insulator chosen Insulation

Case A: tiling

Case B: wooden plank

Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Thickness (m)

Transmittance (W/m2 K)

Thickness (m)

Rock wool

0.240

0.14

0.232

0.14

Glass wool

0.213

0.14

0.239

0.12

Flexible wood fiber

0.233

0.16

0.227

0.16

Cork

0.239

0.16

0.232

0.16

XPS

0.228

0.16

0.221

0.16

EPS

0.216

0.16

0.238

0.14

room, kitchen and bedrooms. The electrical system is also autonomous, centralized through an electrical panel located in the living room. The next step includes choosing the functions to insert. We thought of a lighting management system, with digital controls that function like normal buttons and are absolutely silent; a multi-zone thermoregulation management system, based on the detection of the temperature in every room through local probes which, through the control unit, give consent and activate heating/cooling only where and when needed. By differentiating the temperature according to the type of room (living room, bedroom, etc.) and to the time of the day in which it is occupied (day, night), it is possible to achieve energy savings of up to 30% compared to traditional solutions. The control loads obtains the correct management of the maximum power used with automatic disconnection, in case of overload, of the appliances with lower priority. The installer through simple configuration can change the operating priorities established at the time of installation of the system. The sound diffusion allows choosing and controlling the sound by spreading it simultaneously in multiple rooms. Amplifiers and speakers, variously distributed in the house, allow listening to both the integrated FM radio and external sources such as mp3 or CD players. It is possible to set scenarios in full autonomy to manage the home automation functions in the house, as you prefer. In fact, it is possible to create the scenarios that you prefer by generating, as preferred, switching on and off, to recreate the most pleasant atmosphere at any time. The following figure summarizes the functions inserted in each room of the apartment, networked through Bus technology (Fig. 5). The apartment just described for the study of home automation was also representative for the study of internal lighting. As in the previous case, the current state was first defined, which foresees the use of suspension lamps for most rooms for general lighting and, in addition, specific elements such as in the case of the headboards. The lighting project, with a view to saving energy, envisaged the insertion of elements that use LED lamps; at the same time, finding ourselves in front of a historic apartment, we thought about the enhancement of the elements that constitute it, and which overall make the environment feel warm and welcoming. For this reason, in

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Fig. 5 Conceptual scheme of the inserted functions

all the rooms except for the toilets and the hallway, led strips have been inserted on the ceiling, to be affixed in correspondence with the wooden beams. The color temperature chosen was of 3000 K, which is a warm light. In the toilets, a suspension lamp has been inserted for general lighting, and a punctual one near the sink, at the height of the mirror. Finally, in the hallway, three light points have been inserted which emit luminous flux both at the bottom and at the top, creating a warm and suggestive atmosphere. Below is a global view of the apartment with the simulation of the lights on (Fig. 6). Below is the report of the annual consumption of the lamps inserted (Table 5). Considering a current energy price of about 0.062 e/KWh, the annual cost varies between 40 and 54 e per year, which could further decrease using dimmable lamps. The second case study involved the lighting study in the open field, and it is represented by one of the alleys of Lizori Burg, highlighted in the following image (Fig. 7). For the lighting study of the streets, reference is made to the UNI 11248:2016 standard, in particular to prospect 1, which explains the classification of the roads according to the current legislation and associates, to each of them, an entrance lighting category to risk analysis. The case in question falls into category F “Local urban roads: pedestrian areas, historic centers (main users: pedestrians, other users allowed)”, with a speed limit of 5 km/h and the entrance lighting category C4/P2. The parameter on which to refer for the checks is the horizontal illuminance, definable based on Table 2 of the aforementioned standard, which provides for a minimum horizontal illuminance maintained of 10 lx. The first step for the lighting study is to have a three-dimensional model of the Burg; in this case, from the Bim model it was possible to obtain the .3ds format,

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Fig. 6 View of the apartment after the lights are inserted

Table 5 Consumption per every local and total

Consumption (KWh/a) LOCAL 2 (bedroom)

350–440

LOCAL 3 (living room)

84–130

LOCAL 4 (kitchen/dining room)

37–61

LOCAL 5 (bathroom)

59–74

LOCAL 6 (bedroom)

71–100

LOCAL 8 (bathroom)

11–18

LOCAL 10 (hallway)

41

Total

653–864

supported by the DIALux EVO program. The latter allows, in fact, the lighting simulation of both indoor and outdoor environments. The lights were added to this model; in this case, it was decided to insert punctual elements in correspondence with the entrances of the houses. In accordance with the Burg style, the choice fell on a traditional type model, with inside a 10-watt LED lamp and a color temperature of 3000 K, which corresponds to a warm white light. In total 10 lighting points have been inserted.

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Fig. 7 Lizori Burg, localization of the chosen alley for the lighting simulation

The simulations and the results show that the average horizontal illuminance value is respectively 11.9 and 10.5 lx, higher than the minimum required value of 10 lx (Fig. 8). As far as costs are concerned, it is possible to make a rough calculation, considering that for each 10 W bulb inserted, it corresponds 0.01 kWh. If an average daily ignition of 10 h is assumed, an annual consumption of 36.5 kWh is obtained, which, multiplied by the cost of e 0.062/kWh, gives an annual cost of e 2.26 per lit lamp. This cost could see a reduction with some precautions, such as the insertion of a twilight switch, which would allow switching on and off only when necessary.

4 Conclusion The theme of energy requalification in the built context represents a highly topical issue; just think that Italy holds the record as a country with the largest number of UNESCO sites of which at least half is represented by historic burgs. The multidisciplinary approach that derives from it, presents both complexities and contradictions, as it is essential to preserve the integrity of our territory and the villages that distinguish our landscape and at the same time think about energy efficiency. The case study chosen in this sense is paradigmatic: it is a settlement immersed in the olive

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Fig. 8 Lizori Burg, view of the model from the DIALux Evo software with illuminance maps

grove that connects Assisi and Spoleto, and it presents the typical features of the Umbrian landscape. Lizori Burg, which until the mid-seventies was in a state of neglect, underwent a transformation aimed at recovery through the application of traditional construction techniques combined with the use of local materials. The energy requalification strategies envisaged by this research had the main objective of preserving the characteristics of the building, providing retrofit in total agreement with tradition. In detail, suitable solutions have been studied that allow the building envelope to be within the limits imposed in terms of transmittance, both at the level of the external walls and in the roof. For the former, once the state of affairs was defined, a set of insulators was chosen to be placed inside and the appropriate thicknesses calculated using the generative algorithms. For coverage, instead, two solutions have been thought of, namely the intrados and extrados, always in compliance with the limits imposed by legislation. Subsequently, we moved on to the study of home automation applied to a typical house in the burg: through Bus technology, using the existing system, it is possible to introduce a series of services, such as the regulation of lights and internal temperature, the control of loads, sound diffusion and scenario creation. In the same type of home, the lighting system has also been redesigned, rethinking the arrangement of the light points and preferring the use of LED lamps that allow significant energy savings.

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The lighting has also been revised in the typological case of an alley in the burg, checking the minimum horizontal lighting values required and always inserting low energy consumption lamps. From the studies carried out it can be deduced that the sensitive and scientifically effective energy efficiency of the historical heritage does not imply a purely technicalperformance overpowering action of the ancient factory and its delicate “ecosystems” and testimonial values. Rather, it represents a principle of more effective and conscious conservation of the property, since more stable and adequate conditions of the environments and of the envelope lead to less degradation phenomena. The contradiction therefore proved to be only apparent and, on the contrary, the inclusion of elements aimed at saving energy with the existing historical heritage can only constitute a benefit: “more is no less”. The centrality of the project remains, which projects itself towards the drafting of a model capable of understanding, analyzing and simulating the relations that signs have with the place and for man, capable of entering into the challenges of seeking new balances of contemporaneity.

References 1. Venturi RC (1967) Complexity and contradiction in architecture (The Museum of modern art, edn.). The Museum of modern art, New York 2. Asdrubali F, Belardi P, Bianconi F, Bodesmo M, Monsignori A, Trinei M (2014) Catalogo di buone pratiche per il miglioramento dell’efficienza energetica degli edifici. Del Gallo Editori, Spoleto 3. Bianconi F, Filippucci M, Seccaroni M (2018) Rappresentazione e variazione della forma architettonica per l’ottimizzazione emergetica ed energetica. In: 18th CIRIAF National Congress Sustainable Development, Human Health and Environmental Protection, Cod_018. Perugia 4. Calzolari M (2016) Prestazione energetica delle architetture storiche: sfide e soluzioni: analisi dei metodi di calcolo per la definizione del comportamento energetico. FrancoAngeli, Milano 5. Pracchi V, Lucchi E (2013) Efficienza energetica e patrimonio costruito. Maggioli Editore, Roma 6. Appadurai A (1996) Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 7. Venturi RC, Scott Brown D, Izenour S (1977) Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form 8. Hensel M (2010) Performance-oriented architecture: towards a biological paradigm for architectural design and the built environment. FORMakademisk 3(1):36–56. https://doi.org/10. 7577/formakademisk.138 9. Hensel M, Menges A (2008) Inclusive performance: efficiency versus effectiveness towards a morpho-ecological approach for design. Architec Des 78(2):54–63. https://doi.org/10.1002/ ad.642 10. Bianconi F, Filippucci M, Buffi A (2019) Automated design and modeling for mass-customized housing. A web-based design space catalog for timber structures. Autom Constr 103. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2019.03.002 11. Chantrelle FP, Lahmidi H, Keilholz W, El Mankibi M, Michel P (2011) Development of a multicriteria tool for optimizing the renovation of buildings. Appl Energy 88(4):1386–1394. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.10.002

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12. Eastman C, Lee J, Jeong Y, Lee J (2009) Automatic rule-based checking of building designs. Autom Constr 18(8):1011–1033. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AUTCON.2009.07.002 13. Hensel M, Menges A, Weinstock M (2010) Emergent technologies and design. Routledge, New York 14. Holstov A, Farmer G, Bridgens B (2017) Sustainable materialisation of responsive architecture. Sustainability 9(3):435. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030435 15. Kicinger R, Arciszewski T, Jong K De (2005) Evolutionary computation and structural design: a survey of the state-of-the-art. Comput Struct 83(23–24):1943–1978. https://doi.org/10.1016/ J.COMPSTRUC.2005.03.002 16. Popov V, Juocevicius V, Migilinskas D, Ustinovichius L, Mikalauskas S (2010) The use of a virtual building design and construction model for developing an effective project concept in 5D environment. Autom Constr 19(3):357–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AUTCON.2009. 12.005 17. Renner G, Ekárt A (2003) Genetic algorithms in computer aided design. Comput Aided Des 35(8):709–726. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-4485(03)00003-4 18. Self M, Vercruysse E (2017) Infinite Variations, radical strategies. In: Menges A, Sheil B, Glynn R, Skavara M (eds) Fabricate 2017 conference proceedings. UCL Press, London, pp 30–35 19. Webb AL (2017) Energy retrofits in historic and traditional buildings: A review of problems and methods. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 77:748–759. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.RSER.2017. 01.145 20. Volpe G (2016) Un patrimonio italiano: beni culturali, paesaggio e cittadini. UTET, Milano 21. Argan GC (1965) Progetto e destino. In: La cultura. Il saggiatore, Milano 22. Coletta T (2008) Il paesaggio dei centri abbandonati. Territorio Della Ric Su Insediamenti e Ambiente 2:117–126 23. Burattini C, Nardecchia F, Bisegna F, Cellucci L, Gugliermetti F, Vollaro A, Salata F, Golasi I (2015) Methodological approach to the energy analysis of unconstrained historical buildings. Sustainability 7(8):10428–10444. https://doi.org/10.3390/su70810428 24. Cicerchia A (2009) Risorse culturali e turismo sostenibile. Elementi di pianificazione strategica. E-book di Annalisa Cicerchia. FrancoAngeli Editore, Milano 25. Mumford L (1961) The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 26. Piano R (2015, February) Renzo Piano: rammendo e rigenerazione urbana per il nuovo rinascimento. Ingenio 27. Jakob M (2017) Landscape architecture. In Time frames: conservation policies for twentiethcentury architectural heritage. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315269863 28. Carbonara G (1996) Trattato di restauro architettonico. UTET, Milano 29. Carbonara G (2011) Architettura d’oggi e restauro: un confronto antico-nuovo. UTET scienze tecniche, Torino 30. Bianconi F, Filippucci M (2019) Landscape lab. Drawing, perception and design for the next landscape models, vol 20. Springer, Heidelberg 31. Bianconi F, Filippucci M, Amoruso G, Bertinelli M (2019) From the integrated survey of historic settlements to the pattern book within the BIM. In: ISPRS—International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, vol XLII-2/W9, pp 135–142. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-xlii-2-w9-135-2019 32. Trattato Europeo n° 176. Convenzione europea sul Paesaggio. Firenze, 20 ottobre 2000 33. Direttiva 2010/31/UE del Parlamento Europeo e del Consiglio, del 19 maggio 2010, sulla prestazione energetica nell’edilizia 34. Direttiva 2012/27/UE del Parlamento europeo e del Consiglio, del 25 ottobre 2012, sull’efficienza energetica 35. Kurnitski J, Saari A, Kalamees T, Vuolle M, Niemelä J, Tark T (2011) Cost optimal and nearly zero (nZEB) energy performance calculations for residential buildings with REHVA definition for nZEB national implementation. Energy Build 43(11):3279–3288. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.enbuild.2011.08.033

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Beyond the Last Known Visual State: Ideas and Suggestions for the Reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia Diego Zurli

Abstract The long seismic sequence of 2016 and 2017, which affected a large area of the Apennines of central Italy, caused 299 deaths and produced widespread significant damage to the building heritage. The Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia, almost entirely destroyed, has taken on a symbolic value for the debate that has opened on the methods to be used for its reconstruction: it presents some peculiar analogies with the one about the reconstruction of the roof and the spire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris caused by the fire that completely destroyed it. The meaning of the slogan “where it was and how it was” that the public opinion agrees about the solution to be adopted for the basilica that housed the birthplace of the twin saints Benedict and Scolastica, largely coincides with the concept of “the last known visual state” expressed by the deliberation of the French Senate to be adocted as the only guiding criterion for the reconstruction of the monument closing the doors to different solutions able to reconcile memory and modernity. This route, however, presents some profiles of considerable theoretical and technical complexity: among these, the need to preserve the value and the identifying meaning of the monument, is interlaced with the inalienable objective of improving its seismic response using a new generation materials and construction technologies that preserve it from future collapses. The re-reading of the famous essay “Complexity and Contradictions in the Architecture” of Robert Venturi, many years after its publication, still offers a key to interpreting the architecture of the past which, delivered from the excesses and sterile formalisms that have characterized much of the experience of post-modernism, can be considered as a real toolbox to be used in contemporary design contexts offering some ideas that can also be used for the reconstruction of a heavily damaged monumental asset. Keywords Earthquake · Safety · Preservation · St. Benedict in Norcia · Reconstruction · Restoration · Complexity · Contradiction

D. Zurli (B) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti 93, 06125 Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_41

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Fig. 1 St. Benedict in Norcia square

1 Foreword With the inevitable differences in scale and substance, the story of the reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia, destroyed by the earthquake of 2016 (Fig. 1), presents some apparents similarities with the one of the church of Notre Dame in Paris seriously damaged by a fire. In both cases, the initial decision to entrust an international design competition as method of reconstruction of the two precious monuments, was initially bogged down in a rather insidious debate due to the strong hostility shown by movements of opinion, civic committees or, in the case of the most famous Parisian monument, due to institutional pronouncements—such as that of the French Senate—aimed at preventing an “inventive reconstruction” of the roof of the historic cathedral that imposed an intervention line in the name of its “last state known visual” (Fig. 2). These are events that cause worry, not for the final outcomes that, without shouting to sacrilege may lead, in a certain way, to a reconstruction inspired by the principle summarized in the rough expression “where it was and how it was”, but to what constitutes its presupposition. Indeed, there are eloquent examples of how the reconstruction, following calamitous events, took place through the substantial reconstruction of what existed before the event itself. This is the case, among others, of the reconstruction of the La Fenice theater in Venice—often improperly carried as example—where the so called philological restoration concerned only the exterior appearance of the monument because, were also added new spaces for services, some testes rooms, as well as the scenic machine with new concept technologies and systems completely redone. Therefore, on a closer inspection, the restoration did not coincide, if not in appearance, with the criterion of “as it was” having the project achieved the realization of an organism largely different from the original one.

2 The Precedent Hearthquakes and the Reconstruction After the seismic events of 2016 that destroyed or severely damaged all the churches in the so-called “crater area”, the inevitable controversy over the construction methods that had characterized the consolidation and restoration works carried out

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Fig. 2 Rendering of one of the hypothesis of reconstruction of the church of Notre Dame

during previous earthquakes, have focused the attention of the public opinion of the institutions and of the scientific community itself, on these methods that have demonstrated to be manifestly inadequate and ineffective. The seismic history of the entire area, tells about buildings and monuments, that constitute precious testimonies of art and local and national culture, struck by events of considerable intensity that have repeatedly required their partial or total reconstruction. But never, as in this circumstance, the violence of the earthquake has seriously compromised or even razed to the ground all of them, and this has fed an understandable and after all more than justified controversy that does not seem to calm yet (Fig. 3a–d). The object of this controversy is attributable to only two concepts summarized in the words “protection” and “safety”. A binomial accepted and considered inseparable by everyone has to face the difficult task of rebuilding an heritage estimated in several hundred assets damaged. Acceptance, unfortunately, only in words, because, in fact, the practice commonly adopted by the authorities responsible of the conservation

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Fig. 3 a View of the ruins from above.b Ruins of the bell tower.c Interiors of the collapsed church.d The abside of the church

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Fig. 3 (continued)

of such goods, as the unfortunate circumstances of past events have amply demonstrated, has neglected and putted in the background the seismic safety in comparison to the needs of the protection of the monument considered, right or wrong, much more important. Today, it is quite right to recognize it, a different and more responsible awareness appears to emerge on the part of the apparatus of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage responsible of this difficult job that, perhaps for the first time, shows

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a greater will to face the delicate question in different terms from the past moving the focus of the problem towards a more convinced attention to secsurity issues. In such a context, the remake of what immediately appeared as the building symbol of the 2016 earthquake reconstruction (like the church of San Francesco in Assisi was on the 1997 one), has therefore become the first important and decisive test to concretely experiment on the field a different and more advanced balance between the needs of protection and safety one which, only a short-sighted and irresponsible attitude, can consider in antithesis (Fig. 4). I have been member of the commission composed of authoritative figures from the world of architecture and heritage protection charged with drawing up the criteria for the design competition (Figs. 5 and 6). Following the courageous decision taken by the Minister of Cultural Heritage Franceschini to launch the design competition, many of the points of view summarized in the slogan “as it was, where it was” (which, in the this case, it should be reformulated simply in “as it was” because, in relation to the “where it was”, there is no matter of discussion because no one would ever dream of moving the church from the place where it has always been), it was improperly carried for example the most famous precedent of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi struck by the earthquake of 1997. As Antonio Paolucci, the distinguished scientist called to be at the head of the board charged to trace the guidelines of the competition was able to clarify, the similarities with the reconstruction of the Papal Basilica of Assisi are very few. More similarity exists with the other important Papal Basilica in Assisi of S. Maria degli Angeli, conceived with the aim of containing the chapels of the Porziuncola

Fig. 4 The statue of St. Benedict: on the background the bell tower

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Fig. 5 Survey of the current status—plan

Fig. 6 Survey of the current state—elevations

and of the Transit, the St. Benedict one was originally built with the intent to preserve the place that, according to tradition, is considered the birthplace of the twin saints Benedetto and Scolastica. The church, as everyone knows, is a construction rebuilt several times due to the numerous earthquakes that struck it throughout its history. Recently, before the events of 2016, it was in fact damaged in 1979 and subsequently severely damaged in 1997 before be reopened, after its reconstruction, on the occasion of the 2000 jubilee. In the less recent past, it was seriously affected by the earthquake that destroyed the city in 1859: some very rare photos, show the remains of the facade noticeably different from the actual. Others pictures highlights the differences in height of the central nave and its subsequent reconstruction that completely distorted

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it with the lowering of over a meter of the crown, provisionally arranged in steps until the final restoration to the previous perspective configuration (Figs. 7 and 8). In that tragic circumstance, the very damaged Portico delle Misure was initially entirety demolished and then rebuilt from scratch. We could continue with the transformations suffered by other parts of the monument, such as the bell tower rather then the arrangement of the access area to the crypt which was originally accessed from a large staircase that cut through the central nave of the church, built in 1913 to replace the two side stairs (1880) which had replaced the central access created in 1654 sobstitution of the pre-existing small staircase on the right side of the nave. With the 1958 restorations the central opening was eliminated, and replaced with two lateral staircases, but with the subsequent reconstruction (2000) only the left one remained. All this can be considered sufficient to affirm, without running the risk to be contradicted, that the building has undergone heavy alterations throughout its entire troubled history, starting from the original fourteenth-century nucleus of which very few elements are preserved, as the crypt we have told about and some fragments of the Gothic nave. Such a description, however, must not be misleading about the importance and the identity and cultural value of the church which, despite all, still expresses and retains all its symbolic and evocative strenght. St. Benedict square itself, one of the most beautiful and evocative of Umbria, is the result of continuous alterations, largely due to the destruction caused by seismic events, which have changed the geometric layout and the buildings too that have been

Fig. 7 Facade of the basilica partially rebuilt after the 1859 earthquake

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Fig. 8 The nave of the Basilica reconstructed in two volumes

destroyed, modified or replaced several times. Using the encyclopedic memory of a passionate connoisseur and lover of the city of Norcia as Luciano Giacché, I tried to list some of the main transformations that affected the square and its monuments: the upper loggia of the town hall with six arches aligned with the lower one, destroyed by the earthquake of 1859, it has not been rebuilt and Domenico Mollaioli has arranged it as a loggia the inner wall by opening 4 large windows (1876). The Castellina by Vignola (1554), took the place of the Palazzo del Podestà and the

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early medieval parish church of S. Maria, the oldest one in Norcia. Only the Gothic portal that was inserted in the side of the new church of S. Maria Argentea (1560– 1574) has remained of the original church, which has taken the place of some private residences. The monument of St. Benedict was erected in the center of the square in 1880. In the Portico delle Misure, leaning against the church of St. Benedict in 1570 were are housed the stone containers for cereals coming from the Palazzo del Podestà, was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1859. The transformation of the interior of 1913, commissioned by the bishop of Norcia Ercolano Marini, was designed by the Belgian Benedictine Adalberto Gresnicht, of the Beuron school in Germany, who also sculpted the two gray granite lions placed at the base of the stairway originally guarded the entrance of the crypt of St. Benedict, and today situated on the sides of the entrance to the Castellina. If we were to adopt the unique criterion of “how it was and where it was” in a such case, one’s would almost go crazy. Much better to admit, without no worries of mind, that cities have always been in continuous transformation, representing “moving ensemble”, according to the brilliant definition coined by Mark Augé, as well as their own communities: both live when changing and die when they don’t change anymore. Accepting responsibly changes, trying as much as possible to guide their processes, is the only way to face the challenge of complexity that the contemporary ontological condition continually reproposes in every field of knowledge. There is also a second aspect, equally important, that I picked in the numerous opinions taken by citizens and civic committees that emerged during the lively debate that arose at the news of the decision to launch the design competition: the fear of seeing a church returned no longer perceived as their own at the end of the reconstruction. This worry is undoubtedly legitimate but, sincerely, we must say that the Basilica of St. Benedict will never be exactly the same as it was one time. Anyone who supports a different thesis deceives people because he knows well that no process of reconstruction for anastylosis, however faithful, accurate and wise, will be able to bring the church back to its original consistency (which none is able to establish with certainty) without incurring a historical false. However, no one cannot fail to observ with disapproval how, according the opinion of some commentators mostly belonging to the category of “keyboard architects”, they are feeding a bewildered and worried public opinion with apocalyptic messages and disturbing presages about the presumable result of the European competition for the reconstruction of what probably will become the building symbol of the earthquake of 2016 how it happened for the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi for 1997 earthquake. Among these, in perfect “fake news” style directed to inexperienced internet users, some unpleasant photomontages appeared on the social networks that simulated an improbable remaking of the church in hi-tech style using elements borrowed from famous contemporary architectural examples, provoking disdained and disoriented reactions (Fig. 9). It is necessary, therefore, to underline that the final outcome of the reconstruction, in the substantial respect of the traditional typology of the church, will largely lead to a realization with constructive characteristics substantially different from the original ones. Therefore, there are no more appropriate words than those pronounced with ferocious irony by the great intellectual of the last century Karl

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Fig. 9 Photomontages in Guggenheim-style basilica circulated online

Kraus, to comment some singular opinions expressed by nostalgics of the old Vienna: “I must give the Viennese a feral news: the old Vienna one day it was new “; even the Basilica of St. Benedict of Norcia, inevitably, one day, will be new! Unfortunately, anxieties and uncertitude constitute moods that accompany the existential condition of our time. The crisis that has struck our country and the entire western countries, accompanied by social desease and the disorientation of large strata of society, sometimes leads people to a real reversal of values: the “new”, the modern, the contemporary, ends to become a negative value and leave space to the “old”, the ancient, the traditional, the vernacular. On one side, we hope for the new because, writes Anna Maria Testa in the “Definitions of the Author” of the Zingarelli dictionary, «new is an seductive adjective: it makes every noun attractive. New is fresh, young, modern, intact, vital and full of promise. Appears … beautiful and better». On the other hand, the change scares us: the new one can in fact involve some risks and be accompanied by unexpected and unpredictable effects, including the loss of something old that reassures us and therefore we consider positive. For this reason, in dealing with situations, people, processes, in developing thoughts or in the creative act inherent designing objects, projects, etc., proper to artistic and creative professions such as architecture, we often fall back mostly on comforting and safe answers and solutions. “Kainophobia” or “neophobia” are neologisms that indicate in fact the fear of change and of everything that is not familiar and that can dangerously undermine the foundations of the idea of modernity itself. And this is the biggest danger, writes Rebekah Higgitt in the Guardian: «there is nothing so old

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as warnings about modernity», after all we have always been modern and this has always scared us. And yet, coming to the disciplinary domain that belongs to us, we must always remember that if in the great architects of the past and even more in their enlightened commissions had prevailed the fear of the new, today we would not enjoy some of the most beautiful works and significant of architecture of all times, of which we proudly boast: the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore would never have been built without the modern genius of Filippo Brunelleschi, the church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, in the absence of Borromini’s visionary inspiration or in more recent times, the Casa del Fascio by Terragni or the Bauhaus building, to bring just a few examples. Extraordinary works of human genius and art of all times, authentic architectural masterpieces, were also initially branded as real building havoc (the neologism “eco-monster”, fortunately had not yet been coined): today, unfortunately, it is necessary to admit it, no one would have the determination and courage to commission them, approve them or, even though we have more efficient means and technologies, the same capacity to build them. In this regard, we sometimes tend to underestimate the fundamental importance of the commission, placing all responsibility, for a good or bad success of a work, over the figure of the architect. The history of architecture teaches how the presence of enlightened personalities capable of expressing with clarity a vision and a program while accompanying their architect, respecting their work, in the various phases of designing the project and its realization, is almost always a decisive factor. This condition, unlike in the past where the Prince’s will could be carried out with absolute freedom of decision, does not find equal correspondence in the case of public commissions trapped within much more complicated and less efficient rules and mechanisms. Loss of consensus, lack of vision and courage, “defensive bureaucracy” and muck more, feeds fear of the new: therefore, “kainophobia” heavily affects the present time and this, unfortunately, must be taken into serious account: also related to the case we are dealing with, inculcated in massive doses through a manifestly misleading information proper to the nefarious function of social networks that, as everyone now recognizes, induce irrational instincts and emotional behavior into the people, can compromise a challenge—the one of the reconstruction of the Basilica of the Saint Patron of Europe—which requires courage, knowledge and absolute serenity of judgment. Furthermore, recalling an unforgettable book written by George Perec, the existential condition of our time pushes us to put in the foreground everything that is considered exceptional, extraordinary; thus, sometimes we end up to forget the habitual, the ordinary and the “Infra-ordinary”. It is true for everyday life, and it’s true as well into the practice of creative professions such as architecture that is often too focused on the search for the spectacular, surprising gesture of exuberant solution. Nevertheless, as we will later try to argue, architecture can surprise and express qualities and meanings even without using sensational or striking gestures. Explore the complex network of relationships between signs and meanings as the reconstruction of a building like a church including a high symbolic content full of stratifications and memories, starting from few surviving fragments and within the stringent limits imposed by a predetermined plano-volumetric arrangement, in the

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case of St. Benedict represents a much more difficult and fascinating exercise rather then building it from scratch elsewhere. This approach is much more challenging than the one that would result from the design translation of the banal precept of “where it was and how it was” and which, in our opinion, amply justified the choice to use the instrument of the international competition of design wich was suggested, if even not imposed, by the European Commission itself which contributed almost entirely to the financing of the opera.

3 About the Renovation Project It should also be noted that, in similar contexts, one of the most insidious risks inherent the reconstruction of the monument, is the one that takes over what Eric J. Hobsbawm in a famous investigation curated by himself, called “the invention of tradition”, that is a deportment that assumes a line of continuity with a past chosen in a more or less arbitrary way able to guide the design choices. In the preface to the book bearing the same name, the great historian brings, for example, the choice to use the Gothic style for the reconstruction of the British parliament destroyed by a fire in 1834. He emphasize how the contrast between the continuous changes imposed by the transformations of the society and the need felt by society itself to have certain reference points and stable structures, generate this singular phenomenon wich is interesting on a sociological level but, at the same time, rather insidious, in other respects. The rapid changes—observes Hobsbawm—weaken or destroy preexisting social and cultural models by encouraging the use of new models based on some completely invented traditions. The two terms treason and tradition come from the same etymological latin origin: Jesus, as is sadly known, was betrayed by Judas, and was translated, or rather delivered, to the Sanhedrin with the well-known consequences. As the psychoanalyst and sociologist Ada Cortese wrote, tradition nevertheless assumes the meaning of betrayal understood as the passage towards a new order and a new system, representing the eternal drama of the evolutionary process. And then the term tradition, which derives from the latin “tradere”, which means to deliver, in architecture, undoubtedly assumes the meaning of delivering to the posterity a compendium of rules and an order; but in the consciousness that this operation implies a moment of transition from the old to the new order, a moment of detachment, of “betrayal” of what has been towards what will be. Therefore, Walter Benjamin’s warning that wrote that «in every age we must fight to struggle to avoid that the tradition is overcomed by the conformism that seeks to suffocate it», maintains all its relevance. This interesting question, on a theoretical level, has revelead very different scenarios for a discipline like architecture and has feeded controversial points of view such as the one contained in a famous interview with Denise Scott Brown reproposed by a recent essay by Riccardo Salviabout religious buildings. The famous architect, mate of life and work of an undisputed master like Robert Venturi, underlines how the revival of models of the past has played a leading role in formulating a new

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aesthetic to invent or, even better, to re-invent a nation like America: a language and a real style, commonly known as post-modern, of which the Venturi consortes were considered among the main initiators. A style more free and less restrictive than the one commonly defined as modern, now degraded in the “international style” capable of staying in tune into the social and creative needs of a nation like the United States. But such a theoretical approach could perhaps work, as it has in fact happened, in a country formed in relatively recent age composed of a society of immigrants of very diversified origin (the so called “melting pot “ very difficult to export) that has not detected a better solution than “clinging to the skirts” of the respective mother cultures, reinterpreting them in a more or less original and uninhibited way. A mechanism, the one of a casual and superficial use of models borrowed from tradition, that has characterized the brief and disappointing season of post-modernism in architecture that cannot be automatically replicated in contexts strongly historicized as those exsisting in old continent and Italy in particular. It is evident to many influential observers, that the operating space considered acceptable in the future definition of the reconstruction, is the one typical of a project attributable to the category of restoration. However, at a theoretical level, one’s has observed that to put the “Aesthetic Instance” before the “Historical Instance”, according with the usual principles of Cesare Brandi’s Theory of Restoration which does not exclude the possibility that each era consciously leaves the sign of its passage, can be potentially prejudicial and misleading for the purposes of a correct interpretative analysis of the monument and the subsequent design. This last instance, as the great art historian has made clear, “does not stop at the first historicity inherent the original cretion of the artwork” but continues over time until the moment in which the work of art is recognized as such. Maintaining an appropriate dosage of the two ingredients, preserving its unity without committing an artistic fake or a historical false, has always been one of the main inspiring criteria for any good restoration project. And then, if we ask ourselves the question of “how it was”, we must agree on the fact that, over time, the Basilica of St. Benedict has been something different time after time because, each reconstruction based on the changing fluctuations taste, the church has undergone changes of considerable importance that have significantly transformed its characteristics and consistency until the one existing at the time of the devastation produced by the 2016 earthquake. Therefore, as opposed to what some commentators continues improperly to affirm, in our opinion, the project does not seem to be able to be considered, if not in small parts, as a conservative restoration work commonly understood. There are some elements of the building that impose and require a conservative approach that may make necessary the reintegration of large portions of the building and what was possible to recover of the original decorative apparatuses. Furthermore, there is no fixed and immutable rule that can guide the design choice inspired by a case-by-case evaluation. There is no lack of examples, in the field of religious buildings, where the choice has been to not reintegrate the missing parts or, however, to reintegrate them by adopting different languages and, in extreme cases, to leave in a state of ruins as precious testimonies of religious architecture (emblematic in this sense is the case of the Cistercian abbey of San Galgano (Fig. 10), in the Siena neighborood).

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Fig. 10 Ruins of the church of San Galgano

However, in the case of S. Benedict church, should be avoided the temptation to carry out philological restoration operations in the absence of a graphic or photographic documentation of the original structure that allows the reconstruction the original forms and materials because, a great part of the state of consistency previous to the seismic event, is fruit of reconstructions carried out in more or less recent times which, as repeatedly mentioned, have completely upset the original monument. The poetry of the fragment emanates from wounded beauty, similarly to the obstinacy which, in some cases, pursued the completeness at all costs, constitute aesthetic conceptions to be handled with great care because can determine very damaging effects on the object of intervention. At the theoretical level, the distinction introduced between restoration and conservation hypothesized by authoritative expert such as Giovanni Carbonara—also a member of the ministerial commission—is absolutely illuminating when, the second one, must be understood as a set of activity of a preventive nature with the aim of safeguarding with continuity the monument to avoid the recourse to restoration interventions that are susceptible to induce, in any case, elements of disturbance on the delicate balance of a monument. Therefore, as Giovanni Carbonara observes among others, what must qualify the activity put in act on a monument, have not to be pure conservation neither mere restoration, because is always admitted its possible modification, on the basis of historical-critical analysis. These considerations certainly seem to be pertinent and clarifying and offers useful sustenance to those who wish to compete with the difficult challenge of reconstructing the church we are dealing with.

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However, we always distrust those who, in this and in other cases, pretend to offer simple solutions to very complex problems; above all, where one’s try to make believe, for example, that the use of massive doses of digital technology (in the era of the maximum “technical reproducibility of the work of art”, according to the extraordinary intuition of Walter Benjamin) (Fig. 11), can solve the very delicate theoretical and practical questions that a reconstruction-restoration operation of a monument of great symbolic and identity value implies and on which, inevitably, the eyes of the world will be concentrated. The nostalgia of the past, the refusal of any intervention or action that is not the proposition of banal or reassuring solutions, however, is not the correct approach: the ambitious goal to aim for that must inspire the reconstruction of the monument would be not simply to get the church back “as it was” but to obtein finally a appreciably better one and, above all, fully respectful of cultural values and identity of the monument itself. However, we must admit how, the new religious buildings, have lost much of their fascination. An attentive observer and art istorian of great value, like Antonio Paolucci who, as mentioned above, presided the commission charged with drawing up the criteria for the design competition, underlined in many circumstances how this loss is probably attributable to the process of adapting the religious architecture to the inspiring principles of the Second Vatican Council. In the extraordinary effort of renewal and re-alignment the ecclesiastical magisterium to the demands of modernity, initiated with the well-known Papal Encyclical, also the churches have been affected by significant transformations over the years with the aim to encourage

Fig. 11 Rendering of the Basilica “as it was”

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a greater participation of the believers in the performance of liturgical actions. The same liturgical actions subjected significant modifications under the influence of the same conciliar principles like, among others, the overcoming of latin as the official language for celebrations. A similar programmatic assumption has consequently been transposed into some documents of the Italian Episcopal Conference with the aim of providing useful guidelines for the design. It must be admitted that, looking at the wide repertoire of churches derived from the new post-conciliar orientations, the results do not always appear convincing, above all in comparison with the extraordinary examples of the past. The new liturgical spaces—as Paolucci claims—do not invite to meditation, missing of the sense of the sacred and without any mysticalreligious inspiration. And it is just the tendency to de-sacralization, the connotation that immediately distinguishes most of the religious architecture, including those signed by brilliant architect, that is no less insidious than their de-functionalization. Looking at the extraordinary heritage of churches of every dimension and importance inherited from the past, this last risk appears not less worrying and problematic in consideration of the fact that, a very significant number of these buildings, has lost its function primary that was precisely the exercise of the cult with the consequence of its improper use when not even the abandonment. About this matter, the reflections of another influentian art historian such as Jean Clair who, regarding churches and museums, remark that from the “cult”, that is the veneration of the sacred things typical of religion into the spaces devoted to the worship, one’s have moved on to the “culture” tipical of institutions such as museums. In few words, the adoration and contemplation of the sacred that happened into the churches, has in a certain way been replaced with the rite of the cult of art: objects and artworks to be admired in the spaces of those institutions which, according to the journalist Angelo Crespi that, for intents and purposes, symbolize the new cathedrals of contemporaneity. The “cult” celebrated in the churches— observes Jean Claire—had in fact established a vertical relationship between man and God; the “culture” that has taken its place has established, by means of museum institutions, a new type of relationship of a horizontal nature among men, replacing the vertical characteristic of the sacred. With a subsequent further passage, from the “culture” to the “cultural”, typical of modern times, a dangerous drift and a different mission of the museum institutions would finally be affirmed: this mission, would be characterized mainly in a material and quantitative sense where goods, activities, industries and everything that belong to the cultural sphere, in a certain way might be assimilated to the rank of merchandize in the progressive and perhaps irreversible passage from sacred to profane. These reflections, according our opinion, offers indirectly a plausible explanation for the reason why the recently made churches, extraordinary iconic buildings, conceived by the creative genius of some brilliant archi-star, become mainly places dedicated to carrying out activities of any kind, first of all showing and celebrating itselves, progressively losing the deepness of the sacred. Undoubtedly seductive objects where, however, the container, which includes the most disparate functions, sometimes ends up prevailing over the content. In the musical field, it is allowed to add a page to an incomplete score, or rearrange an adaptation for orchestra, guaranteeing substantial respect for the original one, is

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not considered an impediment to the artist in the expression of his own creative vein. There are very significant examples of scores written by several hands or carried out by other musicians when came to us incomplete or fragmentary. Intervening on a music piece already written, as in the case of the famous “Pictures from an exhibition” originally composed by the great Russian musician Modest Musorgskij (later modified by Rimsky-Korsakov and finally re-arranged in an orchestral version by Maurice Ravel), presupposes a particular attention and even a greater sensitivity than that is required of a musician who is about to compose, starting from a blank sheet, a new score. This simple example and the parallelism with a discipline like architecture, should not arouse surprise or sarcasm because the relationships between the arts, particularly between music and architecture, have been widely explored: rhythm, proportion, harmony, are concepts that are commonly applied both in the architectural field and in musical composition. Therefore, reintegrating an important architectural opera within its original context, starting from the remaining fragments, is a difficult but possible operation: without losing sight the main palimpsest consisting on what came to us, it is acceptable to add a new page, as has happened times after time, without renounce to express the values and meanings of the present as could happen proposing sloppy but reassuring solutions. And then, what could be a correct methodological approach that could inspire an operation of undoubted delicacy and complexity like the reconstruction of a church like St. Benedict? A first, but partial, response came from the work of the Commission charged to dictate the guidelines that should inspire the international design competition, through a difficult synthesis between different conceptions and sensibilities embodied by the personality of the various members; they have scrupulousy avoided to widen the gap, seemingly incurable, between the two main criteria mentioned above that must inspire the reconstruction of the church: “Preservation” and (seismic) “Safety”. The document (one’s would say in perfect “but also” style) provides some simple but necessary technical and operational indications: it imposes, for example, the use of masonry for the main structure but, at the same time, allows the inclusion of other structural elements in order to obtain a drastic reduction of the seismic vulnerability; requires the reconstruction of the lateral portico, but also allowes different structural solutions; for the rebuilding of the roof provides to maintain the same eaves height but does not exclude the possibility of using structural solutions different by the original ones; allows a certain possibility of re-interpreting the interior space, but, as far as possible, dispose the relocation of furnishings and fragments of old ornaments if its can be recovered; for the reconstruction of the bell tower does not exclude the possibility of adopting partially different architectural and structural solutions. We could still continue with further examples to highlight the skillful balance exercise that characterizes the entire document and which, however, strictly maintains an essential point of the reconstructive program: not altering the pre-existing plano-volumetric relations with the square and the historicized urban landscape context. The final document—dued to the wise balance of Paolo Iannelli who is the material estensor of the paper—establishes a more than acceptable point of compromise between different needs and sensitivities which, nevertheless, offers sufficiently wide margins of operation; at the same time, it requires an appropriate

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exercise of moderation of language at the service of the antique, in comparison with the historical pre-existences, where it clearly indicates the degrees of freedom and constraint that must inspire the design. Above all, through the necessary relationship to be established with the specific place and with the strongly historicized context, activate the design process will preliminarily require a very accurate analysis of the historical sedimentation that has characterized the rather troubled life of the monument and the technicals used for the construction. An operation, as a whole, which—it must be admitted—not all architects are able to dominate on a theoretical and practical level, and this justifies the chosen competition procedure, as far as is known, through a selection of well-known architects articulated in two different phases. Anyone was expecting from the competition the opportunity for another Ronchamp, is destined to remain quite disappointed.

4 Connections and Relationships with the Venturi Approach 4.1 Complexity Architectures As previously mentioned, the contrast between potential conflicting requirements such guaranteeing an effective response to the stresses induced by earthquakes, as opposed to preserving the formal integrity of the monument to be protected, is in substance only apparent. “Preservation” and “Safety”, constitute the ends of different positions that have animated, for a long time, the debate between the advocates of conservation—”with no if and no but”—and the proponents of the unavoidable need to prevent other collapses in case of future seismic events. A similar comparison demonstrates the extremely complex nature of a restoration project that shall accept the challenge of compromising between apparently irreconcilable instances that, however, needs to be summarized to a difficult but possible unity. «Complexity and contradictions in architecture», is the title of a very important book written over forty years ago by Robert Venturi. Considered, rightly or wrongly, as one of the pioneers of the post-modern season of the discipline, Venturi was one of the architectural theorists who most influenced the evolution of the language of entire generations of designers. Unlike his architectural production, difficult to export from the “American” context where it was conceived for, his theories have taken on a general meaning and became a source of inspiration and critical elaboration for their capacity to overcome the rigid schematisms that had characterized the final season of the modern movement interessed by its progressive involution toward the “international style”. In fact, Venturi offered a stimulating key to understanding the architecture of the past which, released from the excesses and sterile formalisms that characterized much of the experience of post-modernism, can be considered as a real toolbox to be used in contemporary design contexts, including—this is the rather dared thesis that we will try to argue by the suggestions advanced by the curators of

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the research—the reconstruction of a monument. The conjunction with these theories wouldn’t provoke scandal or prejudice since the historical-critical foundation of a very rigorous discipline such as architectural restoration, by explicit admission of most of the most authoritative experts such as Giovanni Carbonara, always admits limited but significant margins of “creative” intervention that can take on a greater or lesser extent and consistency in relation to the greater or lesser degrees of freedom and constraint imposed by the matter of the restoration itself; in particular, as has been emphasized by the curators of the research, in consideration of the close dialectic link that unites signs and meanings proper to a very particular object such as landscape in its specific configuration dense of memory and historical and cultural accumulation that characterizes the urban landscape. The relationship between narration and ideation, in a particularly delicate and difficult context represented by the almost total reconstruction of a monument of high symbolic value and identity, can therefore find very interesting ideas and motivations in the analytical and critical approach proposed by Robert Venturi; this approach requires an accurate comparison with history by updating his teachings and, in the meantime, with the unconditioned acceptance of the contradictory character of architecture and the challenge of complexity that monuments so rich in signs and stratifications require. A first significant criterion of analysis that can inspire the design, is what Robert Venturi defines through the paradigm of the contrast between complexity and simplification. The actual dominant trend, in restoration operations that require the reintegration of missing elements of monuments largely compromised that can no longer be recovered, is the one that has suggested the choice of an extremely simplified language (such as the one that is characterized by a massive use of bleached surfaces eliminating any decoration). This was a choice widely used by restoration designers who had the merit of avoiding, in many cases, worse damages than those caused by the injury of time, by the fury of events or by the neglect of men. Neverthless, the history of those same monuments proves that, in the past, things have almost never gone this way. Each era has left its mark on its passage; different styles and languages were superimposed on the original ones in the attempt, sometimes not well done, to shortly break with tradition. Among the well known and most original and successful exemples, is included the case represented by the construction of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza (Fig. 12) where the late reinassance rectangular building with a rectangular plan enclosing a Brunelleschi court, was completed in the mid-seventeenth century, by the creative genius of Borromini, with the singular and disruptive insertion of a splendid baroque church. In some cases, such a way of operating in contexts so dense of history and memory, has given rise to authentic masterpieces but, without driving the attention on extraordinary examples of the past, it can certainly be argued that most of the monumental heritage of our cities it has known progressive transformations that have settled different styles and languages at the changing taste of the time. It was above all one of the main legacies of the modern movement, the one that imposed the simplification of languages by concentrating much attention to the form and function of the building, which led to the elimination of every ornament (according to the well known motto coined by Adolf Loos who considered it as a crime). Such tendency has led architects to adopt a strongly reductive approach

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Fig. 12 Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome

to design directed to exclusion, rather than to the enrichment that had characterized much of the architecture of the past. And then, avoiding falling into the banal, the redundant or the picturesque, there are sufficiently large margins of operation to experiment a linguistic approach that, starting from the surviving fragments and preserving an “introverted character” of the project without necessarily revealing out any “new” signal from the outside, reproposes in original terms the richness and complexity that buildings so dense of memory have always expressed throughout their history. Rejecting the shortcut of simplification or trivialization of language, can indicate the way to exalt a less apparent complexity that puts into continuity the “new” with the “old”. Relatively recently examples of this nature, are not lacking: among these, the one represented by the refined work of Carlo Scarpa who, through the taste for detail, the wise use of materials, the re-proposal of some formal characteristics typical of the technical local culture, etc. introduces in the architectural text certain “tensional states” that give meaning and value to the complexity opposed to the banalization of the language typical of a reductionist attitude. Other brilliant italian architects, such as Francesco Venezia, Massimo Carmassi, Vincenzo Latina, just to offer a few examples, have explored roads that are partly different but equally characterized by common attention to respect for the pre-existing buildings, the landscape and urban context, the historical memory and the identity of places.

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4.2 Ambiguous Architetture Venturi writes that, in the process of signification in art, complexity and contradiction arise from the overlap between what it is and what it seems. Josef Albers, the famous painter of the Bauhaus, echoes this by affirming that, at the origin of art, is placed the divergence between the physical aspect and the psychic effect. Contradiction and ambiguity are commonly the basis of the artistic experience of every kind and species. The architectural discipline is certainly not an exception: contradictory and ambiguous aspects and elements, used with wisdom, may become qualities of architecture and space. Therefore, the analysis of an architectural text, like any other work of art, always may be interpreted to different readings and meanings, sometimes clearly in contrast each other. Nevertheless, the coexistence of multiple layers and levels of perception and meaning enrich the work and multiply its value. The architecture of the past, in consequence of the long sedimentation process that has enriched them through the years, offers particularly illuminating examples. Complexity and contradiction in architecture can manifest themselves in a very different way: buildings with an apparent symmetrical envelope show functional asymmetries, revealing a considerable complexity in the distribution of interior spaces; spatially-oriented buildings, such as those with a basilical layout, hide centralities that contradicts appearances; structural elements linguistically coherent with the architectural body, according to a more careful analysis, hide completely different constructive solutions indispensable to ensure their static functioning, etc. Memorable in this last case is, among many others, the example of the splendid dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence which, due to stylistic and compositional requirements dictated by the octagonal base, was conceived by raising the sail elements starting by each side and closed at the top by the cover lantern. This geometrical configuration, as demonstrated by the extraordinary intuitions of Antonio Di Pasquale, hides a structural apparatus pivoted on a sort of rotating dome where each sail is organized like an arc that turns around its own axis. Even the architecture of the modern movement, despite the adoption of a strongly simplified language, does not constitute an exception being sometimes characterized by the presence of distinctive features that reveal singular elements of ambiguity: the same purity of the forms resulting from the compositional rules summarized in the famous motto of rationalism, “form follows function”, is mostly contradicted by a highly articulated and highly complex spatial and distributive arrangement. Ambiguity and contradiction multiply and differentiate the levels of meaning that enrich and qualify the architectural space and, therefore, by the considerations mentioned above, they may be able to offer design ideas of great interest. To give an example referring to the case of the Basilica of St. Benedict we are dealing with, the inevitable addition of structural elements of reinforcement of the walls connected to the primary needs of seismic safety (accepted by the same guiding criteria fot the competition), far from determining a factor of impoverishment of the quality of the monument, on the contrary, can represent the opportunity to enrich the language of

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architecture with new values and formal meanings. Examples of this nature, mainly originated for static reasons, are also very frequent in religious buildings of all sizes and importance. Among these, I point out the church built in the second half of the XVI century following a original design by Galeazzo Alessi and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Reggia in Umbertide (Fig. 13) whose interior, for special

Fig. 13 Columns of Tuscan order added in St. Maria of the Reggia in Umbertide

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needs presumably connected to the static nature of the dome no longer existing today, is enriched by addition of 16 twin columns of Tuscan order in the following century, enhancing the quality of the interior space.

4.3 Between Exterior and Interior Space A further aspect of a certain interest dealed with by Robert Venturi to theorize complexity and contradiction in architecture, is the existing contrast between exterior and interior that can sometimes be found in the buildings of the past. The great architect, in his famous essay, observes that the need to create a sort of spatial continuity between interior and exterior spaces, has represented one of the fundamental milestones of the architectural language of the modern movement. A similar way of conceiving space, contrasts and conflicts quite clearly with the one inherited from tradition which, in certain contexts, has mostly generated an architecture designed for separate the interior from the outer spaces, with the specific intent to protect rather then to estabilish horizontal spatial relationships between inside and outside. This concept, has its maximum expression in religious buildings by their same nature dedicated to meditation and isolation toward the necessary search for the relationship with the sacred. Without deepen this very delicate topic, we can point out a very stimulating aspect useful to put to fire the complex question we are dealing with. The Basilica of St. Benedict, as one’s knows, was created with the aim of preserving and protecting the vestiges of what, according to tradition, is believed to be the birthplace of the twin saints, Benedict and Scolastica. And just the question of the organization of space that contains these discoveries, with the arrangement of access to the crypt, is one of the most important topic likely to offer food for thought of a certain interest to the future project. The vast and complex theme of architecture conceived as a building into what’s already built or, like in our case, which incorporates the built and propose to enhance it, presents theoretical aspects of a certain interest that, during the years, have inspired the opera and writings of great masters of the architecture. The two very important essays that stimulated a great part of the theoretical debate on the city and on architecture in the 70’s and 80’s—the just mentioned «Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture», written by Robert Venturi and «The Architecture of the City» by Aldo Rossi—represented autentical manifestoes. Many contemporary architects, like Oswald Mathias Ungers for example, took part of their inspiration from these theoretical conceptions. The theme of the architecture inside an another, building envelopes that contain others buildings, spaces into other spaces that was inspired by the vast repertoire of the collective memory of some of the most important monuments placed in our historic cities, can represent a precious opportunity to characterize and emphasize the protection, mystery and sacred sense that should always distinguish religious buildings. With regard to the theme of the architecture housed into others where the external envelope can contribute to enhancing the relationships between objects and

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Fig. 14 Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome

spaces, we highlight, among others, the example of the Tempietto by Bramante of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome (Fig. 14). The monument, enclosed within the cloister of the homonymous church, represented a source of design inspiration for many well-known architects. A conception of architectural space that contraddicts one of the compositional principles of the modern movement that suggests the articulation of volumes and spatial development in a “centrifugal” sense, progressing from the inside to the outside. In the Basilica of St. Benedict, as can be unequivocally seen from some historical photographic images taken before the reconstructions carried out after the numerous seismic events, the idea of emphasizing through the differentiation of languages the coexistence of two distinct spatial articulations, was already previously implemented through the introduction of elements of stylistic and formal discontinuity in the creation of access to the crypt (Fig. 15). The use of differentiated languages that underline some elements of contradiction and contrast, when used with wisdom and moderation, can help to avoid the risk of a sloppy and banal architecture by enriching a remarkable religious building with new formal values and meanings cultural and identity interest. This example, among many others, can certainly represent one of the most stimulating themes that the design of the reconstruction and restoration of the basilica could take into account by favoring the search for a new balance between different languages avoiding, in the mean time, excessively dissonant alteration of the “last known visual state” to be considered, right or wrong, the line of demarcation that should characterize the final result.

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Fig. 15 St. Benedict, arrangement of access to the crypt, before and after the 1979 earthquake

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5 Conclusions I listened with great interest at the passionate speech pronounced by a citizen of Norcia, in the occasion of the public consultation held in Piazza St. Benedict in the same day of the inaugural working session of the Commission charged with drawing up the guidelines for the competition. Her words, raised three important questions: the first, to avoid every form of spectacularization as the international competition should not to be the occasion for few archi-stars to show themselves at the eyes of the world. The architectural renovation of the church (which essentially consists of a real reconstruction), must represent a step to give back to the city citizen a piece of their own identity in which, the whole community (and, I think the whole Europe too), can continue to identify itself. The heavvy alteration of the monument, however already occurred due to the earthquake, is a risk which I consider very unlikely because the criteria proposed clearly indicate the perimeter within to move in. At the same time, the importance of the monument and its media relevance, suggests avoiding the equally insidious risk of falling back on a mediocre project emptied of meaning but, on the contrary, able to go beyond a althought necessary conservative approach. Therefore, as I have tried to argue in the light of some examples, there are margins that allows sufficient space for design creativity, respecting the preexisting order and the identity of a place so dense with memory, without falling into the banal or in the picturesque. The second question, is the worry to get back a church much more safe against earthquakes which, predictably, will hit again. The volition and the determination that the representatives of the public institutions, the world of research in the field of structural engineering and professions too, have reiterated the need to change finally course facing the reconstruction of the church and of the entire monumental heritage in the name of maximum reduction of seismic vulnerability, can be a quite comforting signal. In the meantime, must be admitted and recognize that it will never be possible to achieve a risk equal to zero, in an area of very high seismic dangerousness such as the apennine one. None of those will be called, with different roles and responsibilities, to show their face on a such difficult challenge, will never want to be discredited at the eyes of the world in the case that the churches of the area, periodically afflicted by the earthquake, would finish again in a thousand pieces: the new technologies, the more efficient building materials and the structural calculation methods we can now utilize, are indeed able to make much more performing, regarding the seismic behavior, buildings which are by their nature typologically very vulnerable (Fig. 16). The third issue—in our opinion the most important—is to get back a building that does not upset the historically consolidated spatial balance of St. Benedict’s Square, because—as someone has peremptorily affirmed—”the square of Norcia is this one and not a another square”. A building that should compromise, by altering the actual order, the plano-volumetric relationship of the square, would be difficult to be accepted. Regarding to this worry, I would consider highly unlikely that could occur such a condition as well because of the very stringent limits estabilished by the guiding criteria.

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Fig. 16 Actual view of the ruins

And finally, sharing widely the three questions mentioned above, what I do not consider justifiable about the too many words and some very bizarre opinions too that I have often heard, is the refusal and fear of the new from which can derive the renunciation of witness our contemporaneity through architecture. In no way, architecture can afford to fall back on banal and reassuring solutions by denying itself and its own disciplinary foundations, being a work of art resulting from human intelligence. Originality at all costs—it must be admitted—has always represented a strong attraction for the practice of the profession of architect. Resisting the sirens of ostentation, of the exuberance of the gesture deprived by every rule or constraint suggested by the context is one of the rarest and most appreciable virtues for those who operate in places so dense of history and memory. At the same time, an architecture that renounces at complexity, that denies its autonomy as a discipline, that falls back to the banality of a gesture deprived of any creative tension, is no longer worthy of being considered true architecture. The re-reading of Robert Venturi’s book, many years after its publication, retains all its freshness and still provides hints of great interest to those who, despite the undoubted difficulties, still want to face up to this extraordinary craft. A famous aphorism attributed to the great composer Gustav Mahler says that “Tradition is not the cult of the ashes but the custody of the fire”. Respect for tradition is not simply cultivating the ashes of memory by jealously preserving the vestiges of a distant time: what one’s needs is to affirm a new approach to our extraordinary cultural heritage, including architecture, which has the strength and courage to go beyond the necessary action of protection, keeping alive and feeding

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the flame that made its genesis possible. Keeping the fire requires to be able to look at the past without indulging in nostalgia but, at the same time, requires not to give up the contemporaneity because this is the only way to feed the flame capable of delivering to future generations the extraordinary legacy represented by memory of our past. However, in more or less remote ages, as underlined by the most well-advised components of the scientific and environmental comunity, limits and constraints of different nature and consistency have never constituted an effective impediment to the expression of creativity but, otherwise, have always represented food to generate new opportunity. In fact, even in the presence of considerable limitations in terms of technical capabilities, means and knowledge—especially if compared with those in our possession today—the communities have realized extraordinary intellectual work, cities and cultural heritages that all the world envies us. Constraints and conditionings dictated by the preexistence, exist and can contribute to qualify the architectural gesture where, similarly to the Leopardian hedge that “ cuts off the view of so much of the last horizon” (whether the juxtaposition with the famous lyric of the supreme poet does not appear outrageous), the border that prevents or limits the view, at the same time, forces us to imagine a new horizon by means of an extraordinary creative effort generating other beauty. This, in conclusion, is our personal point of view enriched and stimulated by the suggestions of Robert Venturi’s book. It is difficult to predict what will be the final results of the path that has been just started because, as unfortunately often happens in Italy, it may not require short times. However, putting aside the debate on architecture, I finally want to share the hope that I heard in the words of Father Benedict Nivakoff, the prior of the monastery: he has repeatedly expressed the expectation that, also by means of architectural solutions that would be able to express and actualize the value of the sacred and of the transcendence, the reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Benedict must occurr by ensuring that, the attention and interest of the community and the world, would be addressed first of all on what must continue to happen inside its sacred walls. He doesn’t care too much—Benedetto added—how much time will be necessary to “cut the ribbon”, hoping that time could be as short as possible: what interests and at the same time worries him much more, is the risk to get back in a couple of years an empty and soulless building. And finally, only thanks to the tireless activity of its current residents and to the constant attention that a special place like this requires, hopefully not only in the moment of difficulties like this, will it be possible to perpetuate the message of the founder of the “Sancta Regula” in order that, the people of every corner of the earth, could continue to find and recognize themselves in the spiritual and temporal values that have given the birth of our civilization and the one of the European and western identity too.

References 1. Perec G (1994) L’infra-ordinario. Bollati Boringhieri 2. Hobsbawn EJ, Terence R (1983) L’invenzione della tradizione. Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi

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Salvi R (2014) Identity matters. Architettura tra individualismo e omologazione. Franco Angeli Clair J (2018) la crisi dei musei, la globalizzazione della cultura. Skira Crespi A (2017) Costruito da Dio. Johan & Levi editore Venturi R (1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Museum of Modern Art Loos A (1992) Parole nel vuoto. Gli Adelphi Di Pasquale S, Bandini PL, Tempesta G (1977) Rappresentazione analitica e grafica della cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore. Edizioni CLUSF 9. Rossi A (1984) L’Architettura della Città. Edizioni Clup

Digitization and Design of Archaeological Heritage: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach to Flaminia Cultural District Maddalena Ferretti and Ramona Quattrini

Abstract Archaeological heritage needs new paradigms and methods to become a stimulus to territorial enhancement and development. Besides, digitization strategies in Cultural Heritage (CH) are proving to be useful tools for heritage democratization and the promotion of tourism, even if protocols for the use of digital cultural assets within design practices are still lacking. The chapter explores an innovative approach for the combination of digitization and design processes to foster archaeological heritage. The case study is the Cultural Evolved District (CED) along the Flaminia road in the Marche Region. New applications are being developed from already available digital data (Nextone project) to simulate a tourist experience through Virtual Reality (VR). The wider audience—reached through the VR experience—is interviewed to draw perception maps and to enable new visual paradigms and (co-)design practices taking advantage of immersive experiences. Similar approaches allow to open the intangible digital heritage to several goals. This ultimately leads to more effective decision-making processes, as well as to shared integrated territorial visions, in line with a trans-disciplinary approach to heritage and territories. Keywords Digital archaeological heritage · Virtual reality · Design strategies · Immersive experiences · Perception maps

1 Introduction Archaeological heritage needs new paradigms and methods to become a stimulus to communities’ enhancement and territorial development. Besides, digitization strategies in CH are proving to be useful tools for heritage democratization and the promotion of tourism. Yet, the potentials connected to the use of Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) are underestimated, especially if referred to design practices, where M. Ferretti · R. Quattrini (B) DICEA, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. Ferretti e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_42

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these technologies could become an effective tool for analysing, interpreting and addressing spatial transformations in layered contexts. Therefore, this chapter moves from the lack of assessed protocols for the use of digital cultural assets in design practices and aims to fill a gap in methodological and experimental approaches of interdisciplinary teams. Starting from the reading of Robert Venturi’s “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” [43] and the topics emerged from its interpretation (Fig. 1), the chapter aims to construct a bridge between two disciplines: architectural and urban design and digital drawing for cultural heritage. The interdisciplinary collaboration has shown innovative possibilities in defining identities and potentials of complex territorial systems such as the Flaminia road in the Marche Region, case study of this work. The core of this approach regards the utilization of digital technologies—particularly VR—for the analysis of multi-faceted areas characterized by the simultaneous presence of ambivalent conditions and contrasting interests. An example can be recorded

Fig. 1 Methodological structure of the proposed approach. Correlation between representation topics and Venturi topics derived from the book “Complexity and contradictions in architecture”, 1977 (see also paragraph 3.4.)

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in heritage conservation issues next to productive and development instances, a situation that can be easily described through the «both-and phenomenon» explained by Venturi. The application of digital technologies should help in the elaboration of perception maps, which would be the outcome of the survey conducted on a selected group of users of the area. The use of VR (instead of the real experiential journey in the area) would significantly broaden the potential target audience, therefore providing a statistically larger sample and guaranteeing a more precise set of data/information to be transferred in the maps. The perception maps, as an outcome of this digitally-supported analysis phase, would constitute the primary tool for the development of the design projects in the area. The proposed innovative approach for the combination of digitization and design processes has the final goal to point out new methods for the enhancement and promotion of archaeological heritage. Beside its relevance, and in line with EU principles, the case-study—the CED along the Flaminia road in the Marche Region— has been selected also for the possibility to re-use already available digital cultural heritage materials—a data-set with touristic purposes ad hoc collected in the Flaminia Nextone project [5, 8]. Moreover, the Polytechnic University of Marche is already active in this territory, being able to rely on existing connections with local actors. The Flaminia district is a very dynamic territory where several initiatives are already taking place. For example, it is partially involved in the pilot area of the Marche Region for the National Strategy of Inner Areas [12], with programmed actions such as the Asili d’Appennino (artistic residencies in the Appennines). These initiatives might create new networks and open up new possibilities for the communities. In combination with other existing programmes such as the Distretto della Lentezza (Slow District) and the Progetto Borghi (Small Villages Project), and complementary to the strategic assets proposed by the Flaminia Nextone project, the CED area might become an even stronger catalyst in the region, representing thereby a perfect case-study where to test the interdisciplinary approach suggested in the chapter.

2 Background Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH), in particular archaeological heritage, took advantages from massive and interoperable reality-based 3D data: the EU commission pushes towards high-quality digital contents, far from text and images, and their online accessibility in order to boost growth in Europe’s creative industries [14]. Looking at good practices in European projects, the EU Work Plan for Culture (2015– 2018) also raises the issue of digitization for cultural contents and notes that digital services can foster the expansion of trans-European tourism networks [22]. The archaeological landscape datasets and their 3D dissemination were focused by the European project ARIADNE, aimed at setting up a infrastructure for archaeological datasets. The use of GIS to reach 3D simulations of present and past landscape is not new at all in archaeology, it dates back to the introduction of spatial modelling in the

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1970s. Nowadays, similar works show very robust workflows for 3D landscape analysis, interpretation, simulation and reconstruction via web [16]. The cloud computing diffusion supported the Linked Open Data (LOD) paradigm (PELAGIOS, LINKED HERITAGE, RICHES) [23] allowing a shared management by single cultural institutions with a view to increasingly accessible microservices (LO-CLOUD, Flaminia Nextone, TAG CLOUD etc.). In addition, the gaming involves archaeological heritage digitization practices. Serious games are growing rapidly in many fields [25]. VR is often used in serious games for CH [40], although there is still an underdeveloped use for museums and archaeology. Recently the users engagement is also searched by narrative-driven digital educational games [24], whereas the sustainability of VR applications is explored thanks to the LOD [1]. Design—intended as the tool that gives physical shape to human habitats— needs to be repositioned as a core discipline in urban and territorial development [37]. This is an increasingly crucial topic in recent scientific and academic debate [38]. It is a fact that complex territorial systems, peripheral areas, and fragile contexts where city and countryside overlap are gaining deeper consideration in research and practice all over Europe [44]. Despite this interest, demonstrated by numerous programmes addressing regeneration and transformation at national and European level, a lack of holistic sustainable approach is often noticeable. Far from being conceived as intrinsically connected and intertwined areas, increasing territorial separation, as well as missing cross-scale and cross-sectorial approaches risk to transform these contexts into frozen fragments of misfunctioning urbanity, with scarce possibilities of integration and with consequent evident environmental, social, and economic problems [30, 41]. Moreover, an increasing distance of professionals, politicians and citizens to the real dimension of space is observable. The fast technological changes of the last two decades shifted the focus from physical space towards the digital and the global dimension [33]. Also, the demand for an active participation of people in the transformation of territories—often embedded into urban planning systems [4]—, especially related to a growing attention to environmental issues, contributed to a gradual loss of interest towards the quality of inhabited space. As a response, in many regions—and in the scientific discussion—a return to the ground is observable, shifting once again the attention on local identities and strengths, on traditional crafts and products, on new forms of material and immaterial production, on concrete place-making. This rising crucial phenomenon focuses on the enhancement of intangible cultural heritage and of local communities and it is an important shift that is strongly affecting the modes, the tools and even the objectives of quality and the basic principles of the design disciplines. Therefore, a cross-scalar, process-driven and design-based strategy is necessary to promote the enhancement of fragile hybrid contexts, such as the one analysed in this chapter. Virtual Reality (VR) supports design mainly in the fields of real estate and architectural promotional activities. This utilization is currently the most widespread. First studies of architectural design exploiting digital experiences and big data are on-going in KTH Live-In Lab with the main goal to respond to sustainability issues [20] and assess testbeds for increased innovation in the construction and real estate sector. VR and big data are also studied in relationship with architectural design in

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order to comprehend the architectural pedagogy [31] as well as the human behaviour [28]. Others investigated the impact of architectural space in the human brain [2], proposing a neuro-scientific slant undoubtedly influent also in application such as the one proposed in this chapter. The innovative approach here described aims to use VR for heritage analysis and perception by different users in remote mode. Authors believe that the more efficient way to exploit similar technology is the fully immersion of user or the mixed reality [3, 7], as they ensure an immersive experience.

3 A New Approach to Heritage Design Through Virtual Drawings The approach presented in the following paragraphs intends to begin a path of hybridization between established methods of digitization of heritage and design practices applied to archaeological sites. As shortly outlined before, the case study is an area of the Marche Region located along the Flaminia road in the section that connects Fano to Cantiano. The area embeds several archaeological sites and a diversified and rich cultural landscape that offers the opportunity to explore a new interdisciplinary work methodology. The idea is to use VR, digitization, and practices for CH experiencing to possibly produce innovative tools for design and decision-making processes. These might be ultimately utilized with communities and stakeholders to discuss future visions for their territories and to promote new entrepreneurships in creative industries.

3.1 The Context The territorial context around the ancient Via Flaminia included in the CED Flaminia Nextone embeds the following municipalities: Fano, Cartoceto, Saltara, Serrungarina, Montefelcino, Fossombrone, Fermignano, Acqualagna, Cagli, Cantiano. The area’s territorial features are similar to other provinces in the region: a mountainous backcountry exploited as a rural area and with migration phenomena towards the coastal area; an intermediate hilly area characterised by an ancient labouring organization with some small centres; the most densely populated coastal area, commonly called the “Adriatic corridor”. The main characterising identity of the area is related to its archaeological heritage. Indeed, the legacy of the construction of the ancient consular route, that connected Rome to the Adriatic Sea, is very clear. The area is extraordinary, offering a significantly layered landscape (i.e. archaeological remains, historical monuments and natural scenery, ancient and modern infrastructures). The natural topographic system of perpendicular valleys running from the Apennines to the coastline is a characteristic identity of the region. The valleys show

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homogeneous features and similar social and environmental structures, so as to give rise to a distinctive “comb” configuration. From a demographic point of view, the Flaminia area is affected by growing ageing population and abandonment, even if in the last ten years this demographic trend is slower if compared to the past. The economic context seems lively, although the major driving catalysts are the coastal municipalities. There are different types of productive activities: manufacturing, tertiary sector, agriculture and cultural services, with very different weights and distributed in the various municipalities. A SWOT analysis carried out for the CED proposal1 highlights the following considerations. The strengths of the area are: strong and capillary network of relationships between different actors, consolidated by partnerships and agreements; high-quality cultural offer widespread in the whole area and related to different forms of art; possibility of direct relationships with different stakeholders due to the area’s limited dimension; private actors and companies that could act as sponsors; strong cultural traditions in all the area. The weaknesses are: economic and organizational difficulties of small municipalities to support actions of CH planning and management and cultural programmes, also due to their scarce relevance in regional decision-making processes and configurations; limited capacity to activate connections between culture and innovation; difficulty in resource optimization and use, resulting into discontinuous cultural proposals; problems in coordinating and managing complex processes and networks. The opportunities are: underused public heritage; active participation and/or availability of numerous stakeholders; growing habit of young generations to use advanced media and technologies; widespread aptitude to participation and sharing; possibility of territorial promotion and strategic communication with innovative tools and limited costs; already existing regional programmes that might support systemic interventions on the area; in force regional plan for CH; active European programmes (Local Action Groups and Fair Trade Groups); presence of educational institutions and qualified human resources. The threats are: complexity of coordinating a diverse and articulated cultural offer with a systemic approach; reduced financial resources for the implementation of interventions; consistent costs for conservation of cultural heritage; difficulties to programme and manage a high-quality cultural offer in small centres; difficulties to involve the technical departments of the participating institutions; local rivalry among municipalities. Besides these aspects, the observation of the case-study area highlighted the critical presence of contrasting interests, pointing out further complexities and contradictions. As already mentioned, needs of heritage conservation coexist with demands for industrial, productive, and residential development, requests made both by the local communities and the business sector. The Nextone project, which proposed the

1 The

proposal was wrote by Fano Municipality (EU project and Culture divisions), Marchingegno (Lab of Architecture and Engineering) and Univpm (Distori Heritage and LIO).

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creation of the Flaminia CED, aimed at mend the different aspects of this heterogeneous territory, responding to threats and at the same time tying up strengths and opportunities with a unique strategy.

3.2 The Cultural Evolved District and the Data Set from Nextone Project Based on several previous EU and Italian experiences as well as on theoretical assumptions [34], in the period 2010-2017 Marche Region opened a funding programme on the concept of Cultural Evolved District (CED). By CED Sacco, author of the expression, means an emergent, self-organized model of cultural supply that displays significant strategic complementarities with other production chains with a typical post-industrial characterization, e.g. in terms of high added value generated by the accumulation of intangible assets such as human, social and cultural/symbolic capital. The call for proposal in the Marche region looked for projects aiming to support networks of local authorities for socio-economic development through the promotion both of the territorial cultural heritage and the local craft or manufacturing industry. In literature, four types of clustering cultural districts have been investigated: (a) the industrial cultural district; (b) the institutional cultural district; (c) the museums cultural district; (d) the metropolitan cultural district [35]. The approach proposed in the Flaminia Nextone project mixed the different types: it aimed to create a network among small and medium towns, major tourist attractions and archaeological sites along the Via Flaminia, including productive areas. A virtual twin of the network was enabled by a cloud infrastructure that should strengthen the partnership among the different actors and facilitate sustainable actions. The project area presents similar features to other extra-urban cultural districts in the Mediterranean region. It is a rural-urban territory, sparsely settled, with significant assets in terms of tangible and intangible heritage (archaeology, historical buildings and settlements, traditions). This countryside presents valuable landscapes and hosts traditional agricultural productions (food and wine). Furthermore, in recent years the area became a cultural tourist destination with an important offer in entertainment, culture, relax and also fine cuisine. For this reason, local enterprises have been focusing on the supply and organisation of tourism and cultural services. The public-private partnership involved in project was the following: Fano Municipality (lead partner), nine municipalities along the Flaminia road (Acqualagna, Cagli, Fossombrone, Cantiano, Saltara, Montefelcino, Serrungarina, Cartoceto, Fermignano), the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, two universities with three departments (Università Politecnica Marche—Dicea and Dii; Università degli studi di Urbino—Disc), together with the Regional Department for Cultural heritage and the Vitruvian Studies Centre (CSV), and five SMEs (Si2G, Smartspace, EB World, Jef, Grottini Lab).

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The main focus of the Flaminia Nextone project was to strengthen the relationship between the local communities’ identity and the territory. In addition, the project stressed the potential of digital cultural heritage stimulating a new-born cultural industry, fostering economic growth and occupation in this area of Marche Region and undertaking the guidelines of European agenda for culture, by integrating the cultural and creative sectors into regional and local development strategies. The goal was also to demonstrate how it is possible to increase this identity and promote cultural tourism in the region, thanks to survey, investigation and representation of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage (AAH). Considering that digitization is very important at every stage of heritage’s life, digital data should be easily managed and ICT has become an almost universal feature of the tourism industry. To this end, several methods and best practices were tested and developed on the real context of the Flaminia District. First of all, a complex infrastructure was built up, based on a cloud-based architecture for the management of multiple kinds of data with a multi-purpose vision. All these data (consisting of archaeological surveys, 3D reconstructions, historical information, 360° spherical images and so on) have been organized to be available at different scales. In particular, a web-portal allows the visitor to browse among the Points of Interest (POI), geolocalized and enriched with multimedia contents; during the navigation, the user can choose his own personalized path (Fig. 2). Moreover, a mobile application (available for iOS and Android) provides information when the user gets in a certain area (Fig. 3). Additionally, thanks to the geo-localization services, an Augmented Reality (AR) browser allows to search for the nearest POI in a more efficient and interactive way. A further application is a vision-based AR app, which enables the user to see a 3D reconstruction in real scale. Besides to the digital infrastructure, some pilot actions have been performed: the so called “smart-places”. Among these piloting actions it is worth to mention the Virtual Museum of Via Flaminia in Fano (Fig. 4): it currently constitutes the gate to the CED Flaminia and it attracts the largest number of visitors. Hence, after the end of the four-years project, it can be said that the CED project represented a huge opportunity to provide the territory with digital tools. They were developed to create a clear and uniform system, favourable both for locals and tourists. The proposed system, which is integrated and modular, allows to manage multiple information ensuring an interoperable and multi-channel approach. Every kind of data can be conveniently displayed in different ways: web portals, fixed installations (indoor), mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), warranting in this way the right flexibility of the system which can be exploited at different levels of detail. As foreseen in the main expected impacts from the project, the CED acted as a flywheel for R&D in/for the cultural heritage sector, stimulating public-private partnership with some SMEs engaged in technology, cultural industry and heritage exploitation. The project is still promoting local development, starting from tangible and intangible cultural complex and ICT tools, increasing competitiveness and attractiveness of suburban areas. Particularly promising for the research approach presented in this chapter are all the data that can become a starting point for the modelling of the VR experience.

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Fig. 2 The web-portal Flaminia Nextone with geo-localized Points of Interest (POI) enriched with multimedia content

Indeed, previous data and surveys might be used to develop diverse VR environments with different levels of perception and immersion. VR with a human point of view could be based on full dome images or virtual tours, as well as on 360° video (Fig. 5) from terrestrial standpoints. More oneiric or less realistic VR environments could be tested with a bird eye perspective, using the tour or videos acquired with drones (Fig. 6) or helicopters.2 Other VR outputs will be possible also from 3D reality-based models (Fig. 7). Other data come from the seminar “Landscape and Archaeology” held on the Flaminia District on June 2016. “Landscape and Archaeology” was part of the En-Route international seminars series promoted by the Uniscape Association to disseminate the European Landscape Convention. All scholars depicted the area during the En-Route day [6].

2 http://www.flaminianextone.eu/it/scheda-punto-di-interesse/poi/in-volo-sulla-flaminia-137/.

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Fig. 3 The app Flaminia Nextone: screen shoots of geo-localized Points of Interest (POI) and related multimedia contents available during mobile browsing

Fig. 4 The Virtual Museum of Via Flaminia in Fano

Fig. 5 A 360° video showing the Furlo Gorge and the roman tunnel

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Fig. 6 A 360° video showing the Fossombrone archaeological site, captured from drone

Fig. 7 3D reality based models: a the roman theatre at Fano, b the external part of the Furlo’s tunnels and the roman supports, c the internal part of the Furlo’s older little tunnel

3.3 Perception Maps Perception analysis is often utilized in the field of marketing to understand consumers’ attitudes, trends, and feelings towards a specific product and to develop consequent branding strategies to increase its value and sales opportunities. This can be partially applied to the field of place-branding, even if an understanding of branding related to places and habitats as a mere marketing operation reflects a quite limited view on a potentially much broader and complex topic [18]. Architecture is strictly linked to perception [21], as the built environment is something that people constantly experience [19]. We inhabit the space and therefore we

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experience and perceive it. As Norberg-Schulz put it, the definition of existential space is strictly related to the perception of space and in particular to the complementarity space-orientation and character-identification: man dwells, inhabits a place, when he can feel he can move around this place, when he has a feeling of belonging because of the meaning of this place. His book, “Genius Loci. Towards a phenomenology of architecture” [32], published in 1979, pointed out a very crucial aspect related to architecture, city, and landscape, namely the indissoluble relation between a given context and the experiential perception of it, which in turn connects with the idea of place. Phenomenology is defined as an ordered recognition of phenomena, a description of how a specific reality is manifested (Treccani). But description can’t avoid subjectivity [9]. When describing a urban space, be it through words (e.g. with urban metaphors; see Wirth-Nesher [46] or through drawings (e.g. with mapping; see [11], the process entails at the same time the “reading” and the “writing” of that particular context, conveying the idea of a subjective and constructive interpretation of the city. Also, when inhabitants and users describe their city, they somehow customise their space, recomposing on a daily basis their urban fragments in different trajectories and stories [46]. At the same time it is relevant to notice that different forms of descriptions, and thus representation of the real world, can impact and direct our perception of space [48]. Perception analysis is used in spatial disciplines as a qualitative method that complements the information collected with quantitative data analysis (statistical and cartographic data, specialized literature) in order to portray a significant picture of a specific context. This methodology is derived by Lynch’s mental maps on the city of Boston [26], which, despite some later criticisms and concerns expressed by Lynch himself [27], has proofed to be consistent [45]. In the Boston experiment Lynch traced cognitive maps starting from an interview-based survey on a sample of citizens, who were asked to describe the distictive elements of their city. Lynch proposed to use five main perceptive elements of the city plan: the paths (the channels along which the observer moves), the edges (natural or artificial barriers creating obstacles to the movement), the districts (big portions of the city structure), the nodes (the crossing points), and the landmarks (external points of reference, typically seen from many angles and distances). This qualitative approach pursues the goal to highlight main urban elements, but also to clarify the diverse identities of the urban environment, to stress potentials, and to underline risks or threats. The Lynch example on Boston was referred to a urban structure. Yet, when it comes to hybrid and complex territorial systems, such as the one analysed in this chapter, the perception maps have to adjust to a different vocabulary and to another scale. Lynch’s elements should be adapted to this new territorial dimension: paths become infrastructural connections, edges become barriers separating distinct geographical areas, districts are well-defined regions, nodes are central places or crossing points of major networks, and landmarks define orientation points in the landscape. This approach have been already tested by one of the author in a previous research experience, the 5-years trans-disciplinary project Regiobranding [17], focused on the Metropolitan Region of Hamburg. The project, led by the Leibniz Universität Hannover in collaboration with the Universität Hamburg and other regional and

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provicial institutions, was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 2014 to 2019. Main aim was to unveil the analysed contexts’ hidden potentials in relation to cultural landscape characteristics, in order to achieve a new regional branding strategy. The specific background of the project implied a different intepretation of the concept of ‘branding’. Branding is normally intended as the development of unique selling points, where the special qualities of the product must be highlighted to attract possible buyers. As a marketing strategy, branding is often used to sell places to a potential turistic audience, not often taking into consideration local communities’ perspective. Regiobranding proposed that this strategy should be more deeply rooted into local identities to better represent and reflect citizens’ perception of their habitats. Also, it should be addressed to intensify people’s link to their territory and becoming a tool to foster action and development of fragile territories involving communities and strengthening circular local economies. Branding “also amplifies the visibility [of the regions] from outside: as places of living and working, places of economic and social innovation, leisure and tourism, and recognisable cultural and natural spaces” [36]. The focus regions of the Regiobranding project featured significant spatial qualities related to buildings and settlements, natural spaces, waterscapes, which might have a more proactive role in increasing attractiveness for potential new incomers, in order to overcome renown problems of inner areas, such as economic stagnation and depopulation phenomena and to foster possible re-settlement processes in “new urban-rural constellations” [36]. The exceptional hidden contextual potentials offered by these areas and, at the same time, their inability to build upon these characteristics was at the basis of the choice of using perception maps to sketch a more comprehensive and exhaustive territorial portray of the regions. In Regiobranding perception maps have been used in an innovative way in combination with expert interviews and to point out “interrelated spatial, functional and semantic processes of transformation” [36] in the structure of the analysed regions (Fig. 8). These analyses have been very significant for the “relational pattern analysis” and the “explorative scenario-building”, further methodological steps of the project. The descriptions through percetion maps have used a phenomenological understanding of the space (through field research and photographic surveys) as well as a quantitative approach studying literature, existing data-sets, and cartography to provide the necessary background information. Differently from Lynch’s mental maps, the perception maps produced in Regiobranding are the synthesis of an expert view on the territory. Through these maps possible transformation choices could be addressed and tested with “explorative design projects” [18]. Also, they have been helpful tools to outline scenarios as development paths that link spatial processes— and spatial visioning—with social, economic, ecological, and cultural perspectives. These steps have been verified with the participation and support of regional actors and stakeholders. All together they describe a quite distinctive image of the territory conceptualizing it as a relational system. Indeed, the perception analysis of spatial and building features significantly helped tracing the relational structure of buildings and settlements (‘patterns’) in the territory and their potential transformative futures

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Fig. 8 Example of perception map in the area of Dömitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Produced within the framework of the project Regiobranding. ©Julia M¨uller, Joanna Tegtmeier for Regionales Bauen und Siedlungsplanung LUH 2016

(‘scenarios’), promoting the introduction of new operative tools for urban disciplines [18] (Fig. 9). The perception maps produced for Regiobranding represent a valuable transferable tool for the analysis of the Flaminia CED, with the aim to detect potential qualities and development opportunities for this cultural district. Together with the application of VR technologies, they might result in an effective innovative approach, as it is described in the following paragraph.

3.4 A First Attempt: Immersive VR for Analysis, Interpretation and Design of Archaeological Heritage Starting point and reference for the tentative interdisciplinary approach conveyed in this chapter is the reading of Venturi’s book that provided an interpretation key for the analyzed case-study and suggested an adaptation of the methodological structure of the work. In the following paragraph these methodological steps, and their linkage with Venturi’s ideas relating to “Complexity and contradiction in architecture”, are more thoroughly explained.

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Fig. 9 Example of perception map in the area of Bresegard, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Produced within the framework of the project Regiobranding. ©Amelie Bimberg for Regionales Bauen und Siedlungsplanung LUH 2016

The reference to Venturi is made explicit from the very first phase of the experimental approach: the data acquisition. Indeed, the acquisition highlights the complexities and contradictions of a diffused archaeological landscape where very well preserved and interesting archaeological artefacts are dispersed in a productive territory embedding also dismissed or neglected areas. This duality of the landscape—a feature that makes it an interesting area to investigate—has guided the choice of the case study. This is a hybrid territory in which the proposed approach aims to eschew the picturesqueness and the simplification of the landscape, to embrace the principles of the EU Landscape Convention [13]. As Venturi claimed: «I like elements which are hybrid rather than ‘pure’, compromising rather than ‘clean’, distorted rather than ‘straightforward’, ambiguous rather than ‘articulated’ …» [43]. In the second phase of the work—the modelling and the creation of VR environments—the parallelism with Venturi lies in the will to create a unitary perception of the landscape, despite its apparent dualism. For the purpose of this approach, the modelling and the connected data enrichment will focus on the stimulation of all senses (eyesight, but also hearing and sense of smell). Moreover, the repetition of articulated time-space experiences will be integrated considering the duration factor

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usually linked to the travel of a territory. This will facilitate the understanding of the context as a unity. Thanks to the VR experience and the subsequent users’ interviews, perception maps will be drawn in the third phase with the aim of rendering the complexity of the analysed area where «both-and phenomena» can be observed. Yet, the goal of the maps is also linked to the special task of design stressed by Venturi: «..a special obligation toward the whole: its truth must be in its totality or its implications of totality. It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion» . Therefore, the perceptive maps will try to provide a unique key to the reading for this territory, addressing a comprehensive strategic approach that highlights this landscape as a whole. A shared co-design process with communities and local actors will be facilitated by the above-mentioned tools (VR and perceptive maps). The goal is to discuss opportunities and risks related to the coexistence of two natures in this landscape. On the one hand stands the demand for conservation of the archaeological heritage, on the other hand the normal needs of a productive and tourist district. The approach outlined in the above-described steps could help formulating a viable transformation strategy for the Flaminia district. This would result in a richer and multi-faceted image of the area, a dynamic and continuously-transforming landscape where the challenge is to fully link all its parts in a unique hyper-connected system. The selection and organization of data already available since previous campaigns of 3D survey, in particular the data collection carried out during the Flaminia Nextone project, constitute a first attempt to instantiate immersive VR tools for analysis, interpretation and design of archaeological heritage. The proposed approach shows strong as well as weak points: the last ones, in particular, are relevant to orient future possible research addresses in digital drawing and design. The main advantage derives from the use of virtual simulation for the representation of archaeological areas and landscapes. This provides the chance to exploit a huge amount of data in order to simulate, remotely and simultaneously, several different environments. The VR immersive experience is surely less time consuming and expensive than the on-site experience, because the latter requires to visit a large area often switching between different means of transportation. Moreover, thanks to VR, it might be possible to allow a larger set of people to visit the areas and to reply questionnaires in order to draw perception maps. A further advantage thus derives from the availability of a more significant statistical sample that enables a more reliable and scientifically solid expert analysis and interpretation. Furthermore, VR could be experienced both by tourists and/or external users and by the inhabitants, in order to deepen the perceived values and reveal the feelings of the communities, often distorted by everyday life. This last aspect also opens up to fruitful co-creation activities, fostered by the public administration but designed and realized by citizens (associations, schools, etc.). By citizens involvement, through the appeal of a VR experience, i.e., a 3D virtual world where the data collected are presented or enriched, an innovative reuse of available data is outlined. At the

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same time this approach would foster people engagement and ease processes of participated design. Considering the purposes of the presented approach, we may observe that the representation of landscape fragments is sufficiently robust from the visual point of view, allowing perception and visit of the area at various levels and scales and enabling in-depth analysis of archaeological evidences. Some deficiencies might arise from a too passive observation and from the lack of stimulation of other senses: indeed, in the VR experience the user is often an onlooker and the virtualization of fragrance/smell or sound/noise is currently difficult to reproduce. Besides, in most VR equipment, the user is alone, sharpening the differences with the real experience. Another element of detachment from the real perception of the landscape could be caused by the time factor. Indeed, in remote experiences, the sense of travel may be lacking, there may be a teleport effect and the loss of continuity of the territories. The spectator observation, with the risk of an idyllic and contemplative representation, embodies the major weaknesses of the so-far-developed approach. Indeed, this way of living and representing the landscape is quite far from current interpretations proposing landscape as a system characterized by a common cultural and environmental identity and shaped by its inhabitants, their activities and traditions (European Landscape Convention). The landscape, intended as a changing and evolving entity, where the endless individual actions define and modify places [47], is far from being a decorative element and a pleasing background and could be conceptually synthesized as a process-based contemporary infrastructure, where different flows, activities, and narratives find room [10]. Therefore, the challenge of the interdisciplinary approach proposed in the chapter is to convey a more engaging experience of landscape, with all its contradictory and complex elements. Despite the shortcomings, some corrections can be addressed, such as balancing the use of picturesque and “clean” images with views of productive, transformed and lived areas. The aim is to tell contradictions (traffic, neglect, commercial uses, recent or poor-quality urbanization, productive areas etc.), integrating the pre-existing digital data—oriented mainly to tourism purposes—with additional materials and with a new photographic survey.

4 Conclusion As displayed in the graphical abstract (Fig. 10), the chapter aims at outlining an interdisciplinary approach using VR technologies to define perception maps, basic tool for the following design application. The proposed approach highlights thus the need of introducing new tools to better frame the complexity of hybrid territorial systems and heterogeneous archaeological heritage contexts and to reduce their composite and multi-faceted character in order to ease decision-making and transformation processes. The new tools are not substituting but complementing the old ones. The approach evidences, indeed, some weak points that might arise during application. Therefore, non-virtual techniques such as expert interviews, residents’

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Fig. 10 Different data set from Cultural Evolved District Flaminia Nextone: their use in VR experiences enables the perception maps implementation for new design approaches

interviews, photographic surveys should integrate the digital materials to provide a useful and comprehensive data-set for the design phase. During analysis and data interpretation, and in line with interdisciplinarity, other scientific figures could be involved, e.g. neurologists for perceptive analysis and psychologists for behavioural interpretation. These experts might be key-figures especially in the formulation of questionnaires for the post-VR phase, and in their outputs’ reading, as well as to gather general feedbacks from users after the immersive experience. Also, in the creative phase the involvement of artists could be useful to disseminate results and to raise public awareness of spatial qualities and archaeological heritage, for example through light and minimal interventions in sensitive areas detected during the analysis phase. These additional “traditional” tools would contribute to provide all the required elements for an adequate and effective design proposal on the case study area. Provided that the chapter instantiates a viable interdisciplinary methodological approach, its robustness and validity should be assessed thanks to new funding opportunities. As above mentioned, the Marche Polytechnic University can count on already existing relationships within the case study area, coming from previous collaborations and research projects. The new proposal could focus on the research of innovative solutions to support systemic functioning of the Flaminia district. The important centre of Fano could strengthen its identity as gateway of the Cultural Evolved District. The strategy could focus on repairing and reinforcing cultural and natural connections along the Flaminia and the Metauro river, enhancing dispersed cultural resources and waterscapes. The objective would be the creation of a hyperconnected network of resources: museums, archaeological sites, crafts and creative

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centres, as well as productive areas. A major challenge is represented by infrastructures. To facilitate tourists flows and area’s usability innovative and sustainable mobility solutions should be envisaged. Existing cultural heritage resources should be enhanced and strengthened also by the reuse of digital assets to favour the development of new centres of creative production. Our research mainly arose from the statement «Culture is a transformative force for community regeneration»[15]. The approach proposed in the chapter deals with decision making and design strategies focused on the space quality re-design as well as on the improvement of people’s quality of life, based on recognizably and evident heritage values. Moreover, our effort is framed in actions able to foster favourable ecosystems for cultural and creative industries and innovation capacity, as well as in young researcher and students’ involvement, to investigate new skills needed by cultural and creative sectors, including digital, entrepreneurial and specialized skills. Despite the positive trend that the cultural sector is experiencing in Italy in recent years, a consolidated ecosystem to support the DCH supply chain is still lacking. The above considerations are also supported by economic data. Indeed, the 2019 Symbola report [42] shows that culture produces effects on surrounding environments thanks to a multiplier that is estimated to be equal to 1.8. Furthermore, the cultural and creative production system employs more than 1.55 million people (6.1%), showing an increase of +1.5% and expressing a more dynamic growth if compared with the general growth of the economic sector as a whole (+0.9%). Thanks to the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, which was «a laboratory for heritage-based innovation» [39] and showed significant steps forward in public participation and in the dialogue between experts and non-experts on cultural heritage futures [29], the need to re-organize cultural heritage policies and principles in Europe has been widely recognized. The interdisciplinary approach presented in this chapter is well inserted in practices oriented by principles of holistic, integrated and participatory methodologies of cultural heritage care and governance. The possible further development of this approach and its implementation in the region would benefit of the renewed EU policy framework on cultural heritage and, at the same time, would facilitate the cross-fertilization of EU actions in peripheral inner areas and fragile contexts. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the scientific responsible of the UNIVPM Research Unit, Prof. Paolo Clini, and the Municipality of Fano, as lead partner of the CED Flaminia Nextone, for allowing the use and repurposing of previous 3D survey and images. The researches here presented are also partially framed in the Strategic University Project CIVITAS (ChaIn for excellence of reflectiVe Societies to exploit dIgital culTural heritAge and museumS). Moreover, the authors would like to thank the holders of the picture rights for Figs. 8 and 9, as well as the Chair of Regional Building and Urban Planning of the Leibniz Universität Hannover, and to acknowledge that the images have been previously published in: Schröder J., Ferretti M. (eds., 2018), Regiobranding: Bauen und Siedlungsentwicklung. Schwerpunkt Bauen und Siedlungsentwicklung im Forschungsprojekt Regiobranding, Leibniz Universität Hannover Regionales Bauen und Siedlungsplanung, Hannover, ISBN 9783946296218.

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From Nature to City: Complexity and Coexistence of Signs in Archival Drawings Pasquale Tunzi

Abstract The relationship between man and nature has forever been mediated by human rationality. Regardless of the place or condition in which he has found himself, man has imposed his own criteria to obtain benefits. He has observed, described, measured and configured largely in order to govern. Any representation thus demonstrates an act of strength toward the territory. Silent testimonials can be found in interesting documents created for the broadest range of objectives, often accompanied by drawings conserved in archives. These documents include judicial examinations carried out in extra-urban locations to confirm particular physical and environmental situations of service to law courts. Other examinations were completed to resolve controversies between neighbours or force certain State bodies to adopt opportune measures in relation to particular conditions in a territory. The landscape was thus presented in a twofold depiction, horizontal and vertical, in plan and elevation, and with specific characteristics determined by specific needs. However, this dual form of visualisation gradually gave way to a single vision that eliminated the vertical plane. More precisely, an attempt was made to insert it in plan by means of unique expedients offered by three-dimensional representation. Keywords Drawing · Landscape · Perception · Ambiguity · City · History · Super adjacency · Contradiction · Archival documents · Abruzzo

1 Introduction Diverse landscapes are described in archival documents. They testify to events that have occurred over time and to the most varied and specific situations. Depictions of territories and specific sites are not uncommon in judicial documents, measures, programmes and reports documenting the evolving relationship between man and institutions. Some offer true portraits of natural environments and small landscapes, in certain cases emphasised in part or with particularly marked elements. In other P. Tunzi (B) University “G. D’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_43

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cases, instead, we are presented with landscapes supported by the imagination, stimulated by elemental maps or by plans so detailed they permit the mind to visualise the spaces described. Any archive, whether public or private, conserves unique and valuable documents, organised according to the specific logics of the institution that conserves them. Italy’s Archivi di Stato (State Archives), for example, founded in the 1800s, are located in the country’s provincial capitals. They conserve documents related to both ancient and more recent jurisdictions of the country’s various governments. In Abruzzo, the Archivio di Stato in Chieti, since 1927 extended to most of the territory of Pescara, conserves diverse collections (Revenue, Legal, State Land Registry, cadastral plans, notarised acts, etc.), drawings, maps and plans. This text will look at acts from the Corte d’Assise (Court of Assizes) drawn up in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many featuring drawings describing sites of accidents or controversies. An important number of these documents are attached to appraisals produced for Law Courts of First Instance and Civil Courts, making them an valuable source for studies of the Abruzzo region [2]. Beyond their specific documentary function, these drawings are of interest for their representation of the environment. They often describe urban and extra moenia areas. In figurative terms, some are of optimum quality and not without a certain technical character. They are also useful for comprehending sites often mentioned in other acts, for example notarised or cadastral documents. Some, while originally created for technical purposes, are truly unique enough to be considered works of art in their own right. The text will then look at the acts of the Regia Udienza, the ancient judiciary responsible, from 1582 to 1808, for civil and penal justice in Chieti and its province. This state body passed down judgment at first instance and heard disputes at the supreme court level for cases already discussed in first, second and third instance. Another useful archive for our study is that of the Istituto Storico e di Cultura dell’Arma del Genio (I.S.C.A.G.) in Rome. This collection conserves a series of nineteenth century military maps documenting Pescara’s Piazzaforte (Defensive Fortification). In the 1930s, the Institute opened a museum dedicated to the engineering and architectural activities of Italy’s Military Engineering Corps and now boasts a notable thematic library and documentary section. Of a total of eight maps found here, this text will examine one representing the fortress in its territorial context. This document will support the development of a broader analysis that is not limited exclusively to the Piazzaforte, demolished in the late 1800s. Among the case studies examined, some reveal an intuitive representation entrusted to observation and the skills of the draftsman; others are closer to geometric or scientific representation. This singular dualism exposes a sort of transformation, in other words, the passage from the visible to the imaginable, from an aesthetic to a technical model. However, both conserve and affirm a sense of identity, as each landscape depicted represents an expression of life at a particular moment. For this reason, these visual documents present evidence of two parallel languages of representation: one directly related to the subject depicted in a recognisable manner, the

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other bound to existence more than appearance; both are linked to anyone who dedicated attention to them for a specific purpose. This duality can be considered a sort of ambiguity that consents a variable interpretation of the subject.

2 Looks Matter The landscape is linked to observation, to the perception of what is visible. A scene is created behind the pupil, and light makes it possible to acquire generally fascinating, pleasing and marvellous images of the world. In his Dizionario delle belle arti del disegno, Milizia [8] recognises three types of landscapes: the portrait of the real, embellished scenes and ideal depictions. In all three cases, any image is founded on the direct observation of reality. However, in legal arenas, the scene is one of an altercation, in the majority of cases, or an exceptional event such as an accident followed by an investigation. The study of place is “focused”. The technician who acts as a specialist appraiser, in other words, a professional accredited with the law courts as an expert in visual and geometric surveying, the so-called legal topographer, is expected to meticulously study a specific place. This technician scrutinises a site, taking in its topography, viability and character; all that is observed is transferred into a detailed and reliable drawing, supported by geometry and excluding any element of distraction. These depictions are beyond photography; they are an attentive selection of all that can be found in the site, selected to assist the activities of the magistrate. We are presented multiple levels of interpretation, or consideration, which must not contradict one another.

2.1 The Judicial Landscape In official documents created to document a real condition or respond to requests from state organisms, the depiction of the landscape assumes its own specific connotation. The primary objective of a judicial investigation is to ascertain facts. Graphic assessments assist, and in some cases are necessary, for precisely determining the contexts and dynamics of events. Through a balanced use of plan surveys and sketch views, drawings serve to fix information that has been gathered and support the correlation between verbal and visual information. In addition, the twofold graphic representation of places in sketch views and plan creates a visual re-evocation that aids those involved in an event in recalling and providing details relative to facts, places and times of occurrence. Obviously, drawing is limited by its inability to provide certainties. As a consequence, it can never become factual evidence, but remains a means for integrating any verbal interview. By adopting conventions, drawing thus operates in the realm of plurivocity. To advance a few considerations on the representation of the landscape in judicial documents, we selected a drawing of an extra urban site near the borders of the city

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Fig. 1 Eng. A. Liberi, judicial examination in the “Tenimento di Ripa Teatina”, 1909. State Archives in Chieti

of Pescara. The area is situated at the edge of Ripa Teatina, between the Alento River and the old Torrente Foro provincial road connecting Ripa with Francavilla al Mare. The drawing was developed in summary form by the engineer Antonio Liberi of Pescara in November 1909 (Fig. 1). It consists of two small views sketched in India ink on trace paper, alongside a map drawn at the unusual scale of 1:12,500 and with the North arrow in the upper right corner. This means that the Alento and its effluents run horizontally, parallel to the bottom of the page. Liberi visited the site on 9 October, accompanied by a foreman and a surveyor’s assistant. Together they spent a total of 13 h attentively studying the area and taking the necessary measurements. Approximately 1 month later, on 13 November, a new site visit was made together with a surveyor and his assistant, to complete an accurate verification of what had been previously measured and drawn. On the other side of the watercourses, the map shows diverse roads dotted by sparse farmhouses in an apparently flat landscape. Texts provide the drawing with the necessary references, while a written report explains the characteristics of the site. The report describes a vast hilly area, with mule tracks rising up the slopes and penetrating into the surrounding territories. The written text helps the observer to better understand what has been drawn. This drawing was verified against the relative map drawn up by the I.G.M. (Istituto Geografico Militare, Military Geographic Institute) to clarify the precision of what was represented.

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With relative approximation, this comparison revealed a simplification of the road from the intersection at Miglianico as far as Ripa in the engineer’s drawing. The existing road is much more tortuous than represented, and at diverse points its edges drop away sharply. The toponyms, still in use in many areas, are all correct. The same map also contains a larger plan of the area, at 1:1000. It focuses specifically on the point where the roads to the Vergilia well links up with the provincial road. In addition, as mentioned, there are also two small views, one of a mule path with ramps rising up toward the well, the other of the gorge near the provincial road. Both make it possible to visualise the site, connoted by young acacia trees and a steep wall of earth rising above the intersection (Fig. 2). Moreover, the very attentive drawing of the road, “a comfortable mule path”, makes it possible to understand to what degree the north side rises up at intersection with the provincial road. On the opposite side is a ravine whose depth is accentuated the closer it gets to the well. In the attached report Liberi writes: “The entire area is a gorge that drops down to continue in a ravine”, adding information about the conditions of the existing roads. The two ink sketches are small parts of an important visual tool that aids anyone unfamiliar with the area in recreating this specific site and its variegated morphology. Liberi clearly felt the need to insert two images as opposed to just one to heighten the clarity of the particular nature and conditions of this ravine. The natural environment, examined from “inside”, is here presented in a view from the outside, creating a form of separation and a loss of spatial continuity. This drawing clearly lacks the aesthetic character typical of representations of the landscape and estranges any understanding of its figural qualities. Above all, the judicial topographer’s analytical conscience triggers an exclusively technical approach. His drawing is a work of visual removal. In an almost surgical manner, he extracts a clearly circumscribed portion of a particular landscape from the environment. More importantly, parts of this depiction are charged with a specific objectuality that permits their recognition as a support to inquiry. These fragments of a rural environment contain the minute and significant traces of passage and action that the topographer transposes into symbols. Thus it is neither easy nor opportune to express an appreciation of the visual result, to consider its fascinating qualities, as this is not the term of evaluation, despite a certain undeniable charm. Thus it would appear that in judicial documents the landscape is no longer an object of contemplation or operable material for architecture. We are not dealing with the idea of nature caressed by design, but a dialectic element necessary to the formation of attestations. These drawings are a sort of tomography, of appropriate and limited progressive sections that bring a number of details in a fixed and amorphous background into focus. Yet, while the portion of the landscape described in this drawing appears to have lost any recognition of the value of the “genius loci”, of a singular and characteristic place in the picturesque sense of the term, on the contrary it acquires argumentative and scientific depth. The drawing avoids any effects of chiaroscuro and suggestion that could stimulate emotions of pleasure, curiosity and extravagance, or alterations in perception. It offers a marginal recognition of the nature of the site, to focus on the details of an exceptional scene, the theatre of an event. In this way, this

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Fig. 2 Eng. A. Liberi, views in the judicial report of Ripa Teatina, 1909. State Archives in Chieti

portion of the landscape acquires the character of a structure, a platform, a system for appreciating an artificial phenomenon comprised of these different pieces. The fundamental aspect of these drawings is that they are not landscapes in the proper sense of the term, owing to the lack of any artistic intent or aesthetic objectives. Instead, they assume an eminently specialistic character. The site visit, the crossing of a limited environment in which sight cannot be substituted by any of the other senses, suggested only geometric strategies combined with scientific measurement. This sort of deviation, caused by a diverse point of observation and encouraged by a particularly specific structure of observation, produces a form of metamorphosis

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in the visible aspect of objects. This is transferred into the generation of an image reduced to essential lines, to the symbols and signs of a reality that is diminished and in any case re-evaluated. To the field of jurisprudence, to those issuing judgment according to the laws of the state, the landscape was presented free of any trappings or useless truths, in order to acquire, contrary to its statute, a different legal identity. Each tiny detail and singularity must be registered, such that it can be combined with all that the magistrate has observed with the “surety of first glance” and already acquired via other systems to avoid any ambiguity [10]. At this moment, the landscape is merely an extraordinary envelope, a container of elements arranged in one physical and anthropic conformation. Its documentation, obtained via a singular mechanism regulated by a penetrating gaze, will become an assertive document and, over time, historical evidence that reveals contradictions. We must remember that the method of judicial examination accompanied by drawings, dating back to the 1600s, has become a fundamental tool in the field of criminology. Gross [4] affirms its value, “as all things complex and important require a delicate and accurate technique, and presuppose an attentive and provident preparation”.

2.2 Design as a Guarantee of Municipal Boundaries Images have their own inherent soul and life, though are without voice, as William J.T. Mitchell claims. They do not exist for passive observation, but are a source of stimulus: they goad the viewer to enter into the scene they depict, to walk the paths of knowledge, beyond appearances, to penetrate the illustrated surface. This impulse can also be sensed in historic images, those drawn by hand on paper. In truth, they perhaps stimulate a greater desire to comprehend all that is not visible. A landscape, like that produced at the end of the 1700s and attached to a document issues by the Regia Udienza of Chieti, is impossible to ignore for it is a particular public document in which the parties involved (city government and private citizens) officially recognise its value. In addition, its appearance and content are anything but secondary. Thus we are driven to look closer, to understand the sense of its realisation. The intention here is not to focus on retracing the events recorded in the document to which the drawing is attached, but instead to observe it in relation to real information. Rather than seeking to identify affinities and differences, the objective is to comprehend the method of depicting an existing situation based on pre-established aims. The illustration of the small settlement of Crecchio, examined here, offers a singular frontal view of the two elevations facing Corso Umberto I. The main street of this village is framed by linear and amorphous elements structuring the plan of a boundless territory. This document from 1768 was drawn up by the agrimensori (land surveyors) Stefano Teramo and Pietro Antonio Granata and endorsed by the magistrate Arcangelo de Chiara of the Regia Udienza of Chieti. We know that royal surveyors acquired their position only after passing an exam and receiving a licence

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Fig. 3 Appraisals of the territory of Crecchio, 1768. State Archives in Chieti

to measure lands, a practice known as “compassatura”. This earned them a position as experts with the Law Court responsible for examinations required for fiscal purposes or the resolution of private disputes (Fig. 3). In this image in ink on paper, the eye is immediately drawn to a few capital letters present in the legend. They offer clarifications about the territory and nothing about the town itself. The document was drawn up in the wake of a problem identified by the camerlengo: the discovery of illegal cultivations in areas that were to have been left free to defend homes perched high in the hills. The legend at the side of the drawing helps understand the position of these free areas and is useful for comprehending the morphology of the terrain, whose depiction differs greatly from reality. The town is presented as an obvious reference, with emphasis on the mother church of SS. Salvatore and its bell tower at the centre, a few small buildings and, at one end, the town’s castle. The elongated and narrow settlement of Crecchio stands on a hilltop at 209 m a.s.l. It is delimited by two deep river valleys: the Arielli to the north-west and the Rifago to the south-east. This singularity, resulting from the steepness of the hillsides, is impossible to perceived in the document in question, in which everything is represented on a single plane. The authors of this document were clearly aware of this and felt the need to add text describing a situation otherwise impossible to understand. This unreliability of depiction persists in current cadastral maps for their lack of contour lines. Thus we learn that the ridge drawn with strongly undulating and symbolically dense lines represents the Rifago Valley, situated to the west of the town. It is preceded by another ridge whose greater thickness indicates the ravines adjacent to the settlement. Between these latter and the valley, a blank space represents the sloping terrain that, as the texts tell us, was to remain uncultivated to provide for the defense of the town’s homes. To the left of the town is an access road (no longer existing) and below, beyond the ravines and uncultivated lands, is the rather large

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Arielli River. Two other roads are shown on the opposite side of the town, one from the north-west, the other from the north-east. They converge in front of the ducal castle in a slightly raised position. The entire town is covered by a dense pattern of squares, designed to make it stand out against the light backdrop of the page and the public spaces shaded with dots. The difficulty in understanding the complex topography evidently lies in the strange depiction of the Rifago Valley to the left of the river. What is more, the bifid road that leads into the valley on one side and on the other crosses the river is shown without a bridge. On the opposite side of the village, the valley and gorges come together to the north-west, where the access road features a sort of underpass. Certainly it was no easy feat for the two topographers to transfer such an impervious situation onto paper, distinguishing between rises and dips, roads and watercourses, to offer a clear and comprehensible graphic representation. More than the graphic sign, in this drawing the geometric model shows its limits in the impossibility of registering important level changes and ravines submerged by lush vegetation. It is likely that the magistrate was familiar with the site and thus accepted its representation, considered significantly exhaustive in its specific depiction of the improper use of different parts of the municipal territory. Similarly for residents, this scarce adherence to reality, were it an element to be considered, was not taken into account, given their familiarity with the real situation. However, the topographers did create a document that was sufficiently exhaustive, also for someone with no idea about the confirmation of the site and its environmental qualities (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Detail of the map of Crecchio, 1768. State Archives in Chieti

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For the purposes of this text, this figurative depiction cannot be considered sufficiently complete given the considerable gap between reality and representation. This is not because the latter should slavishly resemble the subject, whose image could also slip into the realm of cartographic abstraction. The image of the village—its territory and constructions—is notably altered. One has the perception that Corso Umberto I is a broad avenue, when in reality it is no wider than 4 m; this dilation of space is triggered by the need to avoid overlapping the building façades in order to show each part. Also important is the position of the main church, situated on the opposite slope to that atop which it actually stands, to ensure it was visible alongside Palazzo Monaco and the small church of Santa Maria da Piedi that, however, has been rotated 90° and does not terminate the Corso. We could consider this depiction an oblique aerial view, yet the buildings lack any depth or volume. There is also a rather broad horizon, similar to landscapes; in fact, it is so far in the distance that it is almost entirely lost, and the result is more akin to a map. Yet it is difficult to consider it as such, less for the presence of elevation drawings and more because there appears to be no metric or geometric scale, substituted here by a visual approach, in vogue at the time. The absence of any scale or other symbolic element, for example a graphometer, compass or even a surveyor’s ruler, attesting to the topographic survey, creates an uncertainty that tends to lead us to consider the drawing a picturesque image. A term used here in reference to the definition given by Louis de Jaucourt in the Encyclopédie by Diderot and d’Alembert: “all that one observes makes a great impression”. In any case, this historic image, as contrived as it may appear, simultaneously contains temporal periodicity and spatial linearity, perfectly intersecting and cloaked in oblivion. Time as a measurable order of movement is time marked by man in relation to the cyclicity of nature, while space is the exteriority of the environment still viewed in the presence of its elements, in other words, in a quantifiable reality. Both consent knowledge and are thus subject to a graphic entity that makes it possible to compare, determine and govern a physical entity. The landscape as it is depicted expresses this recognition and thus evinces the biunivocal and inseparable relation between space and time, attesting to what is still present, in some cases transformed with respect to the past. Very often there is a rediscovery of what is around us, a renewed consciousness of how a similar image is a record of a territory’s social dynamics. Even the means of attesting to a particular event—in whose absence no document would have been produced—is a product of cultural processes we now appreciate as heritage assets to be conserved and valorised. Certainly, in this type of depiction, already deemed unreliable at the time by a number of Neapolitan Enlightenment thinkers, does not match the scientific transcription of the territory occurring in other parts of the Italian Kingdom, despite the various challenges encountered. In any case, it remains evidence of a change underway and the shroud of ignorance under which some surveyors continued to be operate.

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2.3 A Digression Reading drawings produced at a given moment in time, after many years owing to their having been set aside and stored, consents the viewer to observe ignored, modified or lost elements of a physical and social reality. It is the small details, in some cases fragments, evidence of the past, that consent a broader understanding and recognition. This also presents specific aspects that, similar to an immense mosaic, can be used in an attempt to reconstruct a more general understanding of human history. The merit of this critical recomposition lies in the substantiation of an eventual project focused on the historic landscape of Abruzzo with the objective of its possible valorisation. Moving in this direction, we will now look at a drawing from the late 1700s, commissioned by the ancient judiciary of Chieti to deal with a problem of municipal boundaries. This singular topographic map is conserved at the State Archives in Chieti as part of the dossier on the “Controversy between the Universities of Altino and Roccascalegna” and features a pseudo-panorama. Drawn up by the royal surveyors Cherubino Brasco, Cesare Falcone, Domenico Zocchi and Luigi Feccia, the map is surmounted by the view of a grouping of hills. To the right is the centre of Casoli, facing the valley of San Reparata along the Rio. On the opposite side of the watercourse and at the extreme ends are the towns of Roccascalegna and a small view of Altino, both shown upside-down. The depiction is thus made from the south-east, considering the plains of Monte Calvario that, to this day, afford a view of the Rio River valley, an affluent of the Aventino (Fig. 5). The singularity of this watercolour, a source of vital information when it was created, is its presentation of the plan of the territory perfectly inserted between the inverted elevations at its edges. Its principal elements, presented as objects contained in a limited space are hills, roads, cultivations, watercourses, canals, toponyms and orientation. The morphology represented in the horizontal plane welcomes frontal views of rural homes, trees and urban nuclei in a single image. Hypothetically, it is as if the observer were at the centre of the site and, turning on a fixed spot, could observe the entire panorama around him in an uninterrupted visual continuum. The vertical and horizontal planes are fused into a unique representation obtained by the survey, which re-presents the geometries of the site in ichnography. The elevations, clearly visible to anyone visiting the area, are frozen in a sequence of scenographic orthographic depictions. Captured by the eye, though from different vantage points, the two views were created to support the reasoning put forward by judicial authorities. Recourse to orthogonal, vertical and horizontal projections set directly alongside one another to graphically depict the site is a satisfying method for intimately approaching the subject represented in an ideal connubium linking vedutisti and surveyors in the act of recording distinctive characteristics. These two contrasting levels, of a diverse nature, are visible simultaneously and at the same time distinctly in polysemic terms. What is striking in this map, for its bright and variegated colours, is the ridge of hills represented in overlapping and grouped “mole hills”. The roads and places on

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Fig. 5 “Pianta Tipografica per la Controversia delle Università di Altino e Roccascalegna”, 1795. State Archives in Chieti

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Fig. 6 Detail of the “Pianta Tipografica”, 1795. State Archives in Chieti

the hills are indicated as long white strips, as a partial list of names, completed in a specific manner for the rest of the territory in a long legend. It is not easy to define where the map ends, and the elevation begins. The town of Casoli, with its compact ordered and layered construction, stands on the slopes of a tree-covered hill. At is summit is the crenelated and battered tower of the fortified ducal palace, confined between the rooftops of buildings. Not far from this spot is another smaller bell tower, symbolising the presence of the mother church beside the palace. The drawing of the dense settlement of the town, delimited below by a wide road, reveals no specific characteristics about its construction, all of which appears the same, nor anything about its internal spaces. The town loses any volumetric representation and is flattened into a cardboard cut-out set against a white backdrop. The extreme graphic synthesis of this urban image inserted in a rural landscape, entirely similar to the others on the same sheet, can be ascribed to a reference useful to its environmental collocation, almost as if it served as a sort of visual marker in the territory. The hillsides and watercourses are not sufficient on their own, as undifferentiated elements typical of nature, making it necessary to add the work of human hands. Its description is in fact wholly ideal, comparable to a sort of graphic icon, whose singular visual lineaments desumed from its imprint, refer in any case to the town of Casoli and its clearly recognisable physiognomy (Fig. 6). Just where does the boundary drawing and symbol lie?

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Slightly lower down, beyond the river, is a small plateau, shown upside-down, from which rises the modest urban nucleus of Altino. Symmetrically, in the left margin of the page, is the town of Roccascalegna, also depicted on a rise, but with an expansion of homes spreading toward the plateau. It is these three depictions of the towns that define the identity of this document. It is as if they emerge from the entire image to occupy a place in the foreground. The backdrop is one of cultivated fields whose homogeneity is defined by identical trees in an orderly repetition that is almost an annulment. We are presented with a view from below of the hills and a view from above of the planted territory. This natural context is represented in all of its grandeur and beauty. “Now there is in sense representation something which may be called the matter, namely, the sensation— Kant wrote [5]—and in addition to this something which may be called the form, namely, the appearance of the sensible things.” The control of territorial boundaries realised through topographic drawing, which precisely records the dimensions of rural holdings, the work of farmers—the original landscape architects—was frequently used by important landowners during the 1700s, above all in the event of controversies. The horizontal representation of topography, paths and any other element of local morphology, is overlapped by something akin to a layer of trace paper presenting all the rises above the ground in the vertical plane. Similar to a text, it is a figurative list of all those specific elements that visually connote the sites represented: spontaneous plantings and cultivated fields, gravel roads, watercourses of varying dimensions, wells, farmhouses, towers and anything else able to offer a sufficiently objective depiction of a particular place. All the same, what is represented is attentively selected, as a direct function of its attributed value. The result is a simultaneous reading of two depictions, as necessary as they are marginal in the event of shifts in scale or disproportions between the parts. This super adjacency of elements, some in visual contrast owing to the lack of reciprocal proportions, is nonetheless a wealth of information, as superficial as it may be and soon to be disproven by successive maps. This co-presence of views and depictions would be definitively abandoned following Italian unification, marking the end of comminglings between optical and geometric visions. Subjective and instantaneous representation was annulled in favour of an objective and a-temporal approach composed of icons and symbols. In any case, as we shall see, a fascination with the interpretation of this phenomenon and the difficulty in separating topographic from artistic drawing remains.

3 The Metamorphosis of the Landscape The landscape, Roger [12] claimed, is a cultural invention that can never be reduced to a purely physical dimension but, to become what it is to man’s life and his observation of the world, forever requires a metamorphosis. Depiction brings about a first transformation, as we have seen. It consists of a different consideration of the landscape and the consequent way of observing it in order to reproduce it.

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What has been presented so far clearly reveals a strong attempt at a figurative passage toward the world of technique that moves from subjective to objective representation, from visual to certain data. The traditional approach to the depiction of the territory during the 1800s would be interrupted by the military. In the wake of lengthy reflections, new conventions were introduced that set aside evidence of what the eye observed. Both Dépôte de la Guerre with his Mémorial topographique et militaire, and the Ufficio del Corpo di Stato Maggiore with the constitution of the Istituto Topografico Militare (Military Topographic Institute, later the I.G.M.), confronted the way of intending and describing the landscape by classifying the territory as something to be managed and defended. There was a movement toward ichnographic representation through a hypothetical and rigorously overhead view of the landscape that flattens any object onto a horizontal plane. Everything was given a symbolic connotation and an exclusive image belonging to the world of cartography. One of the primary elements of this depiction remained the city, an integral part of the territory and privileged subject of vedutisti, among others, and the seat of collective life and power. During the 1800s, as Quatremère de Quincy [11] confirmed, “this complex of homes is [either] enclosed by a wall or bastions that oppose it in grandeur, or it occupies an unlimited terrain”. It is thus a question of identification, an act ascertaining a physiognomy, deemed of fundamental importance to the process of depiction. The image of reality as it was experienced maintained a certain interest, after centuries of illustration, it was now affirming its representation of the truth. As pre-announced, from the archives of the I.S.C.A.G. in Rome we obtained a territorial map of the Piazzaforte in Pescara. Drawn up by the military during the first half of the 1800s, it presents a clear understanding of the area in question. This drawing can be considered a sort of expert examination requested by the Chief of Staff of the Army to plan possible improvements to the defensive bastion. The plan we will examine here, though in relation to the natural landscape, is the “Piano della Piazza di Pescara” (Plan of the [Military] Square in Pescara), rigorously drawn up by Lieutenant of the Artillery Antonio Castellano at the scale of 100 toise. The fortress occupies the centre of a landscape format page, crossed by the homonymous river draining into the Adriatic to the right; to the left is an alphabetic legend containing specific indications regarding the position of the main buildings. The real condition of the site, even if only partially depicted with respect to other maps, is exhaustive and well-represented in watercolour and ink. Depicted prior to the Austrian offensive of 1815, the fortress sits in a flat and partially barren coastal context. The surrounding territory, extending over an approximately 1.5 km radius, is divided into numerous lots subordinated by local roads—accurately named—that for three quarters are grafted in a wheel-like pattern onto a narrow ring road circling the fortification (Fig. 7). To this day, the natural setting is formed to the south-west and north-west by two groups of hills separated by the vast plain crossed by the Pescara River. These hills are not represented in the I.S.C.A.G. map, though they are clearly depicted in the Piano Direttore della Piazza di Pescara from 1821, conserved at the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA) in Vienna. This map frames a very broad portion of the territory

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Fig. 7 “Piano della Piazza di Pescara”, undated. I.S.C.A.G. Rome

extending from the hills of San Silvestro to the south to the grouping of hills toward Montesilvano to the north. These two visually imposing masses are impossible to ignore. Their colouring lends itself to imagining a high and intricate topography, most likely difficult to travel through. The landscape exists in these folds of the ground, in the shadows and illuminated areas offering views that are either interrupted or extend as far as the eye can see (Fig. 8). There is no doubt that the defensive system of the Piazzaforte was linked to natural frontiers. In the Prince, Machiavelli had already highlighted the use of the territory in bellicose operations, information of notable importance that gradually acquired greater relevance. Thus, it was the in-depth knowledge of sites and their specific conformation by the military that would no longer be bent solely to visual transcription, but also and above all to numbers laid down on paper. The physicality of sites crossed and perceived in physiological atmospheres, through the act of graphic transposition, would become a strategic instrument, a sort of prostheses for interfacing with reality. Translated into numbers, directions, information and routes, the landscape reveals its mysteries and lends itself to design-related intentions through representation. What lies in this finalised translation is a distinct way of observing sites, similar to that adopted in judicial examinations. The map conserved in Vienna is a perfect example of a way of observing and graphically representing the complexity of hilly landscapes. The great care applied to their depiction demonstrates their importance to the development of opportune defensive strategies. The southern hills, extending like a barrier, are graphically depicted as a sort of narrow and elongated cloud with small rises interspersed by a capillary network of watercourses. Respecting graphic norms employed at the time to depict orography, the diverse slopes are represented under oblique natural light

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Fig. 8 “Piano Direttore della Piazza di Pescara”, 1821. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv Wien

from the south-west, with more or less intense shadows on the opposite slope. The graduation of thin and repetitive signs makes for an easy perception of a succession of hillsides dipping down into the valley bottom veined by a network of canals and a few roads. The distance from the natural wall of the Piazzaforte is approximately 2 km, and to the east is an approximation of the sandy coast. The other group of hills, much more extensive than the first, emerges to the north of the river and occupies much of the municipal territory until it reaches the sea; the entire coastline is covered by extensive and dense vegetation comprised of maritime pines. We now return to the I.S.C.A.G. map, as that conserved in Vienna, dedicated to new constructions, lacks any depiction of the cultivated lands located for the most part to the west and present instead in the earlier document. A narrow ring road rigorously touches the points of the bastions. Other streets radiate out from it to serve regular, accurately laid and subdivided lots. They are highlighted in a very intense green, probably representing mixed cultivations. There are also enclosed lands, subdivided by rows of trees in the manner of the French bocage, different from the two large zones facing the sea, for the most part uncultivated and covered by spontaneous Mediterranean scrub. All of these elements, depicted in both maps, express the grandeur and variety of nature, compared to the work of man, who seeks to understand nature and take joy in its manifestations through focused actions. The eye is still granted a sense of the plasticity of the natural and artificial elements depicted. Mimesis is employed with moderation, in just the right amount required to avoid altering the technical character of the map. Thus it pays homage first to science and secondly to art, in “activities that transform pictorial material into meaningful practice” [1].

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The two maps described depict the Piazzaforte in its environmental context. They offer a clear vision of the organisation of the territory, though for questions of scale it remains approximate. There is an evident presentation of the relationship between building and countryside, between vertical and horizontal. Successive maps would not offer this connubium, but only an image of the Piazzaforte strictly limited to its military works, as a defensive machine dissociated from the particularities of the site and yet efficient precisely for this specific context. Drawing adopted chiaroscuro to provide the illusion of the verticality of walls, while the barely perceivable volume of constructions inside the walls is found in the more robust representation at the two sides of the urban blocks. Delicate, parsimonious and unusual shadows stimulate an imagination of volumes rising up from the ground, with their own physiognomy and function. This necessary imagination leads us to consider how the fortress must have been perceived from extra moenia roads. In 1838, the year of publication of his Excursions in the Abruzzi and Northern Provinces of Naples [6], Richard Keppel Craven tells us, “Except the steeple of its church, no part of Pescara is visible from the exterior of the fortifications, which inclose it in a perfect square, parallel to the river on one side, and to the sea on the other. These are as strong as the situation and the rules of art could make them in the time of Charles V, the date of their completion”. These few words attest to a limited view, to the point that the English traveller refers to a fortress with a square rather than pentagonal plan. Additionally, the surrounding plains would not have offered an optimal view, as they lie far from the walls of the bastions, and are not actually that high. The perfect physiognomy of the fortress is represented horizontally, in a depiction destined exclusively to military organisms and those involved in the management of this defensive structure. An image limited exclusively to those in the employ of the state. Nonetheless, the plan makes it possible to externalise what was not immediately perceivable. It expresses the concept of Platonic form as truth, the essence of things, related during the 1800s with all things material and a sense of order and coordination. The transcription of real forms in this particular cultural context did not constitute exclusively what was perceived, that which the eye could not see unaided by a hot air balloon, yet it is the fruit of positivist thinking. There was a change in figurative though not geometric models, and the landscape was rendered in the two dimensions of the page on which it was depicted. The city viewed frontally is now represented in a specialised manner and without any suggestion on a plane respectively set at 90°, supported by a good imagination. In cartography, as in the past, there is a continuing affirmation of political power through a vision of the territory from on high.

4 The Affirmation of the City Through the Map Viewed from the sea today, the city of Pescara is a linear agglomeration, protected in the distance by the imposing mass of the Gran Sasso. Little can be glimpsed of the gentle hills concealed by intense edification that tends to negate the natural landscape. A few rare points along its endless waterfront, for example to the south,

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Fig. 9 Aerial view north of Pescara, 2010. Private archive

offer glimpses of the hillside vegetation of San Silvestro, a panoramic point 134 m a.s.l. that offers broad views (Fig. 9). The demolition of Pescara’s defensive bastion to permit the expansion of the city began at the end of 1870 and took little more than twenty years. Until this moment, the city, as historic maps tell us, was formed by three long roads running along the south banks of the river and converging near the fortress to the east. The narrow blocks of homes facing the roads enjoyed no public spaces and the amount of private areas was also rather limited. The southern area featured a rare strip of land between these constructions and the walls of the fortress occupied by gardens as “Piano della Piazza di Pescara” clearly shows. There was no sense of density as homes rarely reached three storeys in height and were proportionate to the width of the road, something almost wholly ignored today. With the elimination of the fortress walls, partially recorded in the first cadastral map from 1886, the city was free to expand and abandon its original nucleus. The new streets negated the old urban structure and were oriented parallel to the sea, in other words, rotated by 90°. No consideration was given to the historic centre, gradually isolated from life in the new city and relegated to a sort of ghetto. The positive side of this contradiction is represented by the reappropriation of the sea by the city’s inhabitants. What I consider a sort of rediscovery is clearly evident in photographs. Conversely, the river was always considered an element of interruption in the territory, a separation and disturbance that generated indifference among the city’s inhabitants who were unable to appreciate its value. From archival documents we learn that it often created great difficulties, only marginally dealt with through the proposal to create a port, an idea that remained on paper. We can say that it is a negated river, despite its important flow and spatial characteristics that define an important part of the urban landscape (Fig. 10). The opening of the Porta Nuova (New Gate) was the first act in the city’s southward expansion. The fortress walls to the south of the town included a church

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Fig. 10 Cadastral map of Pescara, 1886. State Archives in Pescara

whose construction was interrupted in 1799 for political-social reasons, and never completed. This circular plan church was situated exactly on axis with Via del Commercio, a rather busy street for its position at the edge of Piazza del Mercato. In the 1886 map, the street terminates in front of a portal whose height rose up to that of the attic cornice, as we know from historic images. The new plan for the city called for the extension of Via del Commercio southward. This meant breaching the apse of the abandoned church to allow for the passage of vehicles. This extension in turn permitted the allotment of terrains no longer required for defensive purposes and the consequent orthogonal grid of streets. This new road network, and its ex novo design, gave a diverse image to the city that, in any case, grew slowly even on maps. Documents from this period often transmit the idea of what the city’s administrators imagined for its future: unlimited spaces, a diverse relationship between existing constructions and open terrains, public spaces, the conquest of the coast. Unfortunately, in figurative terms there is little evidence of what was desired, not even in master plans of which, unfortunately, there are no copies of early examples. Only a few projects for new buildings, both public and private, opportunely archived, make it possible to imagine, even only partially, images of new sites. There are many depictions of old Pescara by local artists, without considering the innumerable photographs. There is the sensitive landscape viewed through the eyes of Michele Cascella, for example, his view of the arch of Portanuova framed between the old bell tower and the more recent clock tower from the early 1900s.

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Fig. 11 Michele Cascella, Porta Nuova. Private archive

The artist does not record what he saw, nor does he consider urban space, but instead depicts his experience of place, as he wished we would feel it. Signified and signifier are indistinguishable, because there is no real difference between the essence and appearance of objects (Fig. 11). The name Porta Nuova, inserted in the 1886 map, still identifies the first part of the southward expansion, though there never existed a city gate, either in the ancient walls or as a new construction marking this limit. Beyond this gate, entirely fictitious though symbolic of a new era, the allotments of the early 1900s led to the removal of the remains of the incomplete church and consented, as much as possible, the redefinition of the old lots at the margins of this area. We can consider their situation an atypical case of functional transformation, well-visible in the aforementioned plan conserved by the State Archives in Pescara. Other than this graphic document, there are no other images describing the new urban landscape. It is necessary to use the imagination. Photographs would soon arrive to reveal the changes taking place. The northward extension of the old Via del Commercio was commissioned in 1959 by city government, with a bridge. To reach the western suburb of Castellamare Adriatico, a portion of the long Renaissance construction of the Caserma di Fanteria (Infantry Barracks) was demolished a bridge constructed to cross the river. This work was yet another heavy blow to the historic centre, now further marginalised by the elevation of the street to meet the bridge, which truncated regular access to the Barracks, now located several metres below the new street level. If we truly wish to find some small issue in favour of this intervention, beyond its opportune function, Via delle Caserme can now be viewed in its entirety from above. However, this condition, with its pros and cons, is not visible in plan, nor is it possible to imagine.

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Only a site visit allows for an experience of this strange situation. Pescara, the “city without wrinkles”, is full of strange situations, though no more or no less than any other city. In fact, Pescara conserves its contradictions and mystifies them through depictions in plan. The urban landscape was now presented in the technical characteristics of the aforementioned map, in its essential geometries, specific symbols and transcribed toponyms. This important document from the late 1800s is the first to attest to individual building lots, form, extension and the presence of internal courtyards. It is the first to dimension, at the small scale, all of the parts within the city walls. The imagination can explore every corner of the coloured plan and recreate countless mental images, if the observer already possesses some that can be of assistance. Memory plays an important role, as it asserts past experience or a simple event that permits us to mentally reconnect with the space in which it was lived. Through visual thinking we can once again observe what was understood through perception, the atmosphere of places, light and colours, the beauty or singularity of forms, perfumes, sounds and private sensations. For the clarity of its structure, the map of the city conceals the complexity of reality, of often imposing volumes, of paths not always easy or even inaccessible, of spaces impossible to qualify, without mentioning the often emotional impressions stimulated by places. The design of the road network, together with what has been built, does not respond to the effective state of the elements that can be perceived during a site visit. Image and reality cannot be perfectly overlapped. All the same, beyond the dimensions of the page on which it is reproduced, the map does not establish limits, or at least it permits glimpses of a boundless territory where, however, our attention is circumscribed within a frame inside which everything is represented at the same scale. From urban studies, whose principal tool is cartography, we have learned that the map, by documenting in the majority of cases the state-of-the-art, can be read on different levels and as a complement to perceptions experienced while visiting a site. A map is the atrophy of the perceived landscape, the synthesis of visible terrestrial forms, the reduction of all of its primary characteristics into signs, symbols and conventions. We can refer to this form of a fictitious landscape as topographic, linked in any case linked to objective reality. To certain degrees, the map is the negation of reality, an abstraction accessible only through knowledge of codes of illustration and the imagination. It is thus an interface between man and physical reality, the extra contrast between cultural cognition and nature. In short, it is a cumulation of precise and specific data situated in each part of a representation without any alteration, from which to draw information that leads toward premeditation, and thus possible action. Yet it lacks the capacity to evoke the suggestions and atmospheres of the landscape captured by the eyes. Similar to the veduta, it is characterised by the fixity of the image.

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5 Conclusion Certainly the question of the landscape, both perceived and recreated in the mind, is inherent to the relationship between nature and culture. More precisely, according to Latour [7], it lies between politics and nature, in the gap between what we observe and what is represented, which is the expression of the desire “to limit, reform and found”. The image can objectively express the existing, and we know not to what degree. Yet, at the same time, it can be reduced to mere abstraction, as Pickles [9] has proposed in a number of interesting drawings of territories and cities of a hypothetical future. In the drawings accompanying judicial examinations we have understood the essential nature of obtaining certainties. As documents they are not repeatable and evidence of something that occurred only once. They are an attempt at a rarefied reproduction of the visible, to halt possible contradictions captured by the eye. That said, they are not suitable for slavishly illustrating a subject as their nerve centre is in the details and not in the whole. Indeed, experts were given no choice of the subject to be represented, induced by precise requests deriving from legal questions. The landscape, while limited in these documents from Abruzzo, assumes a sense of dissimilarity, of scarce similarity. It tends to alienate the illusory effects typical of perspective and, in its similarly to the map, establishes a clear separation between the subject observed and the subject experienced. This latter has its maximum expression, according to what we have seen, in the plan in which the imagination is charged with a strong power to evoke forms and spaces substantiated by the presence of inconsistent shadows. Toward the end of the 1700s, Fichte [3] stated, “although imagination produces realty, it is only when it is understood by the intellect that the product turns into something real”. Hence, for the German philosopher, representation is triggered by knowledge, and in the case of graphic expertise, it is a crucible of ideas, a collection of reflections produced by technicians that creates reality. Ichnographic representation stimulates the imagination by asking the mind to perceive objects in three dimensions. This differs from the landscape veduta, in which the imagination is aligned with memories. They are two distinct planes of the imagination; one reproductive, the other evocative. In the passage from the perception of structuring and persistent data, supported by reality, unlike cartography where reality is no longer present, except in its dimensional or areal essence suggested by symbols and graphic conventions. In the second case, more than the first, it is possible to retrace the representative nature of power; indeed, while the focus of the camerlengo of Crecchio on illegal activity that could have resulted in damages to the town’s homes is a sign of prudence, it is more suggestive of a form of control over the territory exercised by someone who manages a town. In other words, it attests to power during the Middle Ages. An anything but secondary aspect in this sense is the composition of a drawing. The document linked to the controversy between Altino and Roccascalegna contains a creative logic in the page layout focused on the creation of an emblematic map. There is a comingling of information, a wealth of content and significant depictions,

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two complementary languages useful for affirming the duality nature-power. The naturalistic and geometric connotation is exalted by the use of colour that, beyond the choice of the specific hues, optically draws attention toward different parts of the document, and as a consequence the territory. Not by chance, the area most saturated by colour is located at the top, directly perceivable in the rectangular field of the page. All that falls outside the image, outside the frame, is as if it did not exist; vice versa, all that is outside the frame reinforces the components of the image and centres the gaze on the subject modelled by political power. The absent valorises the decision to depict, even in forms not perfectly aligned with reality, all that is worthy of observation for useful purposes. We could refer to this as a sort of external autoscopy, a comprehensive vision of all elements on a limited rectangle of paper. The diverse components of the landscape are placed in a field in a direct relationship of subsistence that does not deal in analogy, but instead in the substance of reciprocity. They are “hybrid rather than ‘pure’”, Venturi would write [13], compromising rather than extraneous. This attention officially initiated by the military can be attributed to ownership of land, no longer intended as a subject, but now as a “productive” object. On the other hand, the Piazzaforte was often defined using the term “war machine”, an organism that could be modified to meet specific needs of defense and land revenue. Thus it was necessary to represent it within its environmental context, with its walls as imposing as any offered by nature and elevations that spoke of order and deference. The topographic maps of Pescara’s Piazzaforte examined here guarantee the rigour of geometric and scientific information. They offer a good level of recognition and wealth of information about the landscape, which could be analysed for other types of studies. These levels of reading are multiple and in some cases contradictory, yet coexistent. For example, the system of rainfall canals represented, organised at the beginning of the 1700s by the military engineer Pierre Bardet de Villeneuve, was a highly useful apparatus for avoiding the generation of stagnant areas inside and outside the fortress’ walls. Unfortunately, the progressive abandonment of this system, now largely eliminated, produces serious consequences in the wake of torrential rains. Regrettably, these historic maps were not considered a record of a series of real visual and physical conditions useful for resolving difficulties encountered today. In this case, we can say that the absence of a new graphic memorisation, a map or other form, indisputably manifests the failed management and loss of control over the territory. Perhaps this latter is to be imputed to a representation no longer considered exhaustive, given the complexity of the phenomena involved, or ambiguous and indeterminate in forecasting possible solutions? The representations found in historic archival documents evidently and clearly affirm just how impossible it is to describe the landscape-veduta or ichnographic landscape in a single image, in a depiction that ignores the imperceptible and fails to consider the observer or the user. By bowing to symbolism and the skills of the mapmaker, maps remain tools of knowledge and attestation. We observe the traces of human activity and at the same time what we cannot see, in other words, mental structures and those of social and state institutions. The passage from the period of

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the image to that of materialism is thus marked by the transformation of the visual landscape into the technical map and, successively, increasingly more schematic and rarefied conceptual representations. Was it perhaps the spread of photography during the second half of the 1800s that, according to Roland Barthes, marked the awareness of a clear difference between the presence of things in a given place, conventionally registered by the map, and the presence of the observer in a given place, proven by the veduta? In the future, to what degree will presence be fundamental to successive attestations if all that counts is mere information? Certainly, photography, while freezing only an instant, made its relevant entry into procedures of data acquisition used to draw up maps and, as we all know, is now its true support. On the other hand, the mechanical eye continued to make its own contribution to the perpetuation of images of the perceived landscape spread by the postcard. Appearances continue to fascinate by maintaining their own uniqueness, as there is truly little difference between appearance and essence.

References 1. Bryson N (1983) Vision and painting. Macmillan, London 2. Ciarma M (1997) Tribunale di Prima Istanza e Tribunale Civile in Abruzzo Citeriore. In: Tinari G (ed) Cartografia, Disegni e Perizie. Tinari, Bucchianico p 7 3. Fichte JG (1794) Transzendentale Logik II. In: Bertinetto A (ed) (2004) Logica trascendentale Seconda parte. Guerini, Milano 4. Gross H (1906) La polizia giudiziaria. Fratelli Bocca, Torino, p 60 5. Kant I (1770) De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principii, IV. In: Ciafardone R (ed) (2002) Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 6. Keppel Craven R (1979) Viaggio attraverso l’Abruzzo. Di Cioccio, Sulmona, p 78 7. Latour B (2000) Politiche della natura. Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 8. Milizia F (1797) Dizionario delle belle arti del disegno estratto in parte dalla Enciclopedia metodica, t.2°, Bassano p 92 9. Pickles J (2004) A history of spaces. Routledge, London 10. Porret M (2007) Sul luogo del delitto. Casagrande, Bellinzona 11. Quatremère de Quincy AC (1844) Dizionario storico di architettura. Fratelli Nagretti, Mantova 12. Roger A (2009) Breve trattato sul paesaggio. Sellerio, Palermo 13. Venturi R (1980) Complessità e contraddizioni nell’architettura. Dedalo, Bari

The Historical–Critical Reconstruction for Urban Landscape Understanding: The Restoration of Teramo Cathedral (1926–1935) Simona Angelone, Tania Valentina Ferro, Pamela Maiezza, Mario Centofanti, and Stefano Brusaporci Abstract Aim of the chapter is the study of the historic urban landscape of Teramo, characterized by its Cathedral and by the surrounding squares, outcome of important processes of modification and transformation that took place over time. The current configuration of the Cathedral, characterized by a medieval architectural language and in an isolated position with respect to the urban fabric, is the result of the restoration works carried out in the ‘20 s and the ‘30 s, aimed at bringing the Cathedral back to its presumed medieval facies, and by the demolition of the buildings that placed against it. Based on the architectural survey of the historic artifact and of its context and on the archival-documental analysis, the work proposes a critical re-reading of the building and of its transformations, aimed at the understanding of the historical, architectural and cultural processes that have brought to the current landscape image. Keywords Urban landscape · History · Documentation · Survey · Cathedral of Teramo

1 Introduction The geographer Carl Sauer in his work “Morphology of Landscape” (1925), first proposed the modern idea of Cultural Landscape, as correlation of physical and S. Angelone (B) · T. V. Ferro · P. Maiezza · M. Centofanti · S. Brusaporci Department of Civil Engineering, Construction-Architecture, Environmental—University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy e-mail: [email protected] T. V. Ferro e-mail: [email protected] P. Maiezza e-mail: [email protected] M. Centofanti e-mail: [email protected] S. Brusaporci e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_44

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cultural phenomena. Interesting is the definition presented by the “European Landscape Convention” [1]: the landscape is “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (p. 9). And the cultural aspect is pivotal, as the wording “as perceived by people” highlights. Afterwards UNESCO “World Heritage Cultural Landscapes” [2] and the “Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention” [3] focuses on landscape importance and complexity. The melting of natural and anthropic components, and of tangible and intangible values, comes to a solution in the notion of “Urban Landscape” [4] where the current built perceivable aspects mirror—and make tangible—a layered intangible historical system of events and cultures. In fact, historical centers are characterized by deep processes of modification and stratification occurred during centuries,not less modern and recent interventions take part in defining the current image of the historical cities. Therefore the study of the urban landscape of an historic center roots on the historical–critical study and on the architectural survey of the current architectural artifacts, intended as the epiphany of past and today cultures. This is the line of this chapter, aiming at the understanding of the core of Teramo, characterized by its Cathedral and by the system of squares that surround it, all of them outcome of ancient and recent transformations. Simona Angelone and Tania Valentina Ferro wrote the paragraph: “The Image of Teramo Historic Centre”; Pamela Maiezza: “Survey and documentation”; Simona Angelone and Tania Valentina Ferro: “The Cathedral and its contest” and “The Restoration of the Cathedral”; Stefano Brusaporci: “Introduction”; Mario Centofanti and Brusaporci: “Conclusion”.

2 The Image of Teramo Historic Center The historical center of Teramo is characterized by the Cathedral. It rises between two squares: Orsini and Martiri della Libertà, and represents an architectural emergency resulting from the processes of isolation conducted in the early years of the twentieth century (Fig. 1). Between 1925 and 1933, the Cathedral itself was the subject of restoration work aimed at giving the church a supposed medieval facies. The Cathedral is divided into three naves, marked by a sequence of columns and pillars, of different geometry (Fig. 2). The presbytery, raised by a few steps, divides the rooms of the entrance aisles from the final area of the altar and choir (Fig. 2); the transept is covered by a high octagonal base dome (Fig. 3), and below the pavement there is the crypt of San Berardo. Along the church there are lateral rooms, such as the bell tower and the twentieth century chapel of the SS. Sacramento in the North, the baroque Chapel of San Berardo (Fig. 3), the twentieth-century Sacristy and the offices on the southern side. The main façade, the east one, has a flat termination, surmounted by battlements (Fig. 4). The rear elevation is designed as a false access (Fig. 4). Because of the pivotal role of the church within the urban fabric, a two-way relationship has always been established between the transformations of the city and

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Fig.1 Cathedral and architectural emergencies of Teramo

Fig. 2 Internal view of the entrance portal and of the dome

those of the Cathedral. The first implant of the Cathedral dates back to the twelfth century, when the original church of Teramo Diocese was destroyed by fire. It was decided to erect the new headquarters of the Cathedral on a site far away “hundred steps”, from the remains of the old church, near the western city walls, where the Roman Theatre and Amphitheatre stood, most of the building materials was drawn

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Fig. 3 Internal view towards the altar, and of the Chapel of San Berardo

Fig. 4 East front and west front with the Bell Tower

from these sites [5], pp. 11–12). In the fourteenth century the Cathedral underwent a series of transformations, both internal and external. In 1307 some houses were built for the canons, leaning directly on the northern front [6], p. 14). Then, work was carried out on enlarging the church, extending it westward, while the work of occlusion of its fronts continued, through the building of houses-workshops and the realization on the southern front of the rectory with its cemetery [5], pp. 68–73), later

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replaced with other buildings.1 This century witnessed new and profound changes for the Cathedral and its context, following the installation in the city of Bishop De Rossi, who significantly modified the internal “facies” of the church, giving it a baroque character (Figs. 5 and 6). Since 1925, thanks to the work of Savini2 as well as of Bishop Micozzi and Superintendent Riccoboni,3 the restoration of the internal facies of the church and its isolation from the context was promoted and completed, problem framed in the wider reorganization of the urban fabric defined in the Recovery Plan of Santa Maria a Bitetto. Most of these interventions were conducted between the 1920s and 1930s. These restorations erased most of the church’s baroque configuration, giving rise to its current image [7–17].

3 Survey and Documentation The survey of the Cathedral of Teramo (Fig. 7) was performed using the Leica HDS6200 phase-shift laser scanner [18]. Given the extent and complexity of the object of study, it was necessary to divide the survey campaign into two distinct days. The first day was dedicated to the survey of the external facades of the Duomo and the second to the inner areas. It was payed attention to have overlapping areas between the two different clouds to record the two surveys [19, 20]. Surveying points was decided before starting the relief. The purpose of this preliminary study was to minimize shadow areas due to geometrical and external interference factors. Another aim was to minimize the number of scans not to increase the data acquisition and processing time and complexity of the point cloud. Eighteen scan points have been located within the Duomo (one of which was in the underground part) and twenty-one have been located outside.

1 General

register of the buildings of the Kingdom of Italy, Plan of the historical centre of Teram, 1875, sheet 4. 2 Francesco Savini (Teramo, 1846—Selva dei Colli di Mosciano Sant’Angelo, 1940) was a leading figure in the city of Teramo. He was first of all a historian, then president of various institutions, and finally began to publish articles in various newspapers. In 1888 he was appointed as Commissioner of Antiquities, in which he was appointed Inspector of Monuments and Excavations of Antiquities and in 1908 he became president of the Provincial Commission for the Conservation of Monuments. He took care of the restoration works of the church of the Grazie and then of the church of S. Domenico. He was one of the leading figures in the debates on the Cathedral of Teramo and its restoration. He was also active in the city’s political life. He was the author of many publications, many of which on Teramo on various topics, including the Cathedral. 3 Alberto Riccoboni (Trieste, 1874—Rome, 1973) was an architect, artist, collector and publisher. He was a very important figure in the Trieste environment. In the four-year period between 1931 and 1935, he was appointed Regional Superintendent for Abruzzo. He worked in all the provinces carrying out operations that often changed the facies and the spatiality of some portions of the city.

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Fig. 5 Historical documents: survey of the Cathedral made in 1888 by Ing. E. Narcisi (V. Bindi, Monumenti storici ed artistici negli Abruzzi 1889); Photografs of the interior of the Cathedral before the restoration

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Fig. 6 Synchronic section XVIII–XIX centuries, representing the transformations overlapping the historical section and plant (red colored) to the current ones

All registrations between individual scans took place automatically using targets. There was only a case in with there was necessary to carry out a manual registration. This happened for the union between external and internal clouds, carried out matching homologous pints on the Duomo facades.

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Fig. 7 The survey: cloud views of textured external and internal points

The RGB values obtained from the spherical panoramas realized for each scan were added to the spatial coordinates and to the reflectance of the points of the cloud. This was not possible for the crypt thus the low light conditions that did not allow the photographic shooting. Once the post-processing phase was completed, the data was analyzed and returned. Sliced the overall point cloud with appropriated cutting plans, the generators and guidelines of the architectural shapes have been identified. Thus, the architectural shapes have been drawn in the traditional form of plan, elevations and sections (Figs. 8, 9, 10 and 11). This restitution model, that is the results of a digital survey, was integrated with data coming from the direct survey of the sacristy and adjacent offices. The creation of photomap, overlapped on the facade’s drawings, allowed the critical analysis of the wall texture and the mapping of the various vestments, this has made easier walls analysis (Fig. 12) [21]. Duomo studies and analysis have continued with archival research and analysis of historical documents. Specifically at the Photographic Archive of the Soprintendenza Archeologica, Belle Arti e Paesaggio dell’Abruzzo con l’esclusione della città dell’Aquila e dei comuni del cratere, it is currently possible to view the photographic documentation related to the Baroque configuration of the church and the restoration works to bring the Cathedral back to its presumed medieval facies, carried out in the ‘20 s and the ‘30 s. Instead, at the Historical Archive of the same Soprintendenza drawings of never realised hypothesis were found. These projects tried to find a way to relate the part of the Cathedral brought back to its medieval facies, thank to works performed from 1925 to 1926, to the rest of the church, that still had baroque shapes. The historical documentations regarding the isolation of the building respect to the historical fabric in which it was incorporated is deposited at Archivio di Stato di Teramo.

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Fig. 8 The plant of the Cathedral

Fig. 9 Longitudinal section AA

Documents analysis plus monument knowledge in its present configuration, investigated through the survey [22], allowed the realization of synchronic and diachronic historical sections, thus favoring the understanding of historical values and architectural details of the Cathedral of Teramo.

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Fig. 10 Cross section BB

Fig. 11 Survey of the elevations

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Fig. 12 Study of elevation’s modifications

4 The Cathedral and Its Context Once the restoration work was completed in 1933, as Riccoboni wished, the Cathedral was brought back to its presumed medieval facies. Instead, the church was incorporated within the historical buildings, placed against its facades (Fig. 13). The main facade is the east one. Thanks to the photographic documentation of that time (Fig. 14) it is possible to claim the consistency of the buildings that surrounded the Cathedral. Almost all these building were on two levels with shops on the ground floor and houses above. Buildings on the southern side had the planimetric peculiarity of following Ancient Roman Amphitheater perimeter. This perimeter is the same on which a part of the church was set. The church with its surrounding buildings divided two important public squares. Thesesquaresnow are named Piazza Orsini and Piazza Martiri della Libertà. The

Fig. 13 Plant of the city of Teramo with the relief of the surrounding Hills (1860), pen and watercolor on paper

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Fig. 14 Diacronic section of the demolitions for the isolation of the Cathedral

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only possible connection between these was the archway below the so-called “Arco di Monsignore”, an air passage that connected the church to the episcopal building. The only emerging elements of the Cathedral, besides the façade, were the bell tower, the central dome with its octagonal lantern, the lantern and the concluding part of the dome of the Chapel of San Berardo, and the top portion of the west front. At the end of the 1933 discussions about the necessity of providing Teramo with a master plan took new forces and became realty. The master plan, on the other things, was focused on the isolation of the Cathedral and other valuable monuments. The beginnings of these debates dated back to the early years of the twentieth century when the Honorable Vincenzo Savini had begun to talk about the possibility of isolating the Duomo. The proposed master plan planned the demolition all buildings placed against the church. Thus, studies about this new public space had been made, focusing on squares and the front of the buildings overlooking these squares. For these constructions the realization of a system of porticos had been foreseen. Commercial activities, the same that were places at the ground floor of the to be demolished buildings, had to be hosted in these porticos [23]. Another problem faced with the master plan was the road traffic system. Therefore, the construction of a new road on the southern front of the Cathedral (named via San Berardo) and the opening of other archways under the Arco di Monsignorewere planned. Using the master plan as a start point several proposals were made, all focused on the isolation of the Cathedral and the “reconquest” of the neighboring spaces [23]. Some of these also proposed the complete insulation of the tower from the church and the demolition of the “Arco di Monsignore”. In 1935 the preliminary project was carried out. This did not provide the complete implementation of all the master plan, also for economic reasons.4 The project followed the firm will of opening a new road on the southern front, this means the demolition of the buildings on this front. Furthermore, it was foreseen the demolition of the buildings placed on the northern side, the ones that were placed between the east facade and the bell tower. This would also have allowed the reopening of an access portal that was known on this front. In 1935 the liberation works of the Cathedral began, starting from the northern side. Following these works, the travertine curtain and the door reappeared. In 1936 demolitions began on the southern side to carry out the planned road [24]. The opening of these new road gave the opportunity to highlight the remains of the Roman Amphitheater. Not all the planned works were completed, in fact on the southern side only part of the buildings was demolished. However, the idea of a complete isolation of the Cathedral was never completely abandoned, in fact in 1937 other design hypotheses were drafted. These too followed the false line of the first hypotheses made [24]. Until now, works had been conducted without an organic base of reference. They were systematized under the recovery plan named “Piano di Risanamento di Santa Maria a Bitetto". It was approved in 1939. In particular as regards the Cathedral area, the plan provided for the complete demolition of the leaning placed against the church, and the construction of some room, placed between the west front and 4 Teramo,

ACS, Fondo Comune di Teramo, Cat. IX, classe 10, b. 103, fasc. 2.

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the Chapel of San Berardo. These rooms had to be used as sacristy and offices. These were the same that starting from 1940 were demolished and rebuilt with a variation of altimetry and volumes. In fact, in place of two buildings of similar height, two volumes of different height were realized. The taller one was destined to accommodate the Sacristy, and the lower one the offices.5 Works started in the Thirties lasted for several decades. In fact, the complete isolation of the Cathedral came only in 1969, when the spatial configuration, that it still has today, were defined. Implementing the demolitions foreseen by the plan, the problem of giving an organic finish and architectural value to the facades, that for centuries had been occluded by the shop houses, was found. On the northern and southern fronts work of “scuci-cuci” was carried out. The most important interventions, also from an architectural point of view, were those conducted on the western facade. Here an access stairway was built, the central portal was reopened, and the eighteenth-century later side portal was closed; finally, two windows were opened on the sides of the door. The material consistency of the lower portion rediscovered is different from the upper one not affected by occlusion. The detachment between the two finishes can be read through a string course frame that shows the upper level of the houses that were previously placed against the church. It can be assumed that this choice was dictated by the desire to leave memory of the previous occlusion. The salient dates of this process of urban transformation were 1948 which marked the end of the demolition of the buildings placed against the Cathedral 1947– 1957 years in which the geometry and volume of the Chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento was modified; and finally, the period between 1968–1969 [25] years in which the Arco di Monsignore was also demolished, so as to reach the complete and final isolation of the Cathedral of Teramo (Fig. 15).

5 The Restoration of the Cathedral At the beginning of the twentieth century many scholars paid attention to the Cathedral, first of all Francesco Savini, who was one of the main supporters and promoters of the restoration of the internal facies of the Cathedral [26]. To support the thesis that some pre-existing positions might be inserted and hidden in the church structures, he organized a campaign of investigations, which brought to light traces of columns embedded in the structures [5]. This discovery fueled an increasingly debate, according to two opposing factions: one in support of the restorations “ad ripristinum”, the opposite one in favour of leaving the situation unchanged [27, 28]. An element that led to the first solution, was the recognition of problems of a static nature in the conclusive part of the church, beyond the dome, as also reported by sources of the age [29–31]. Consequently in 1925 [27] the first works of removal and 5 Teramo,

ACS, Fondo Comune di Teramo, Cat. IX, classe 10, b. 107, fasc. 52; L’Aquila, Archaeological Superintendence, Fine Arts and Landscape of Abruzzo with the exclusion of the city of L’Aquila and the communes of the crater, Historical Archive, Teramo_Cattedrale.

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Fig. 15 Views of the northern front before and after demolitions

demolition of the plasters and the vaults on this terminal portion started,besides that, the internal partitions between the apse partitions were demolished. As a result of these operations, two columns which were included in the aforementioned internal partitions emerged, of which Savini had already announced through his campaign of investigations [29–31]. Once the necessary work to bring to light the structure was completed, it was decided to leave the preexisting in sight, as alleged testimony of the original fourteenth-century plant.6 A new debate followed this first phase of the work, about the need for dialogue between the two distinct portions of the church: the one still with a baroque facies and the one restored to a medieval language [27, 29–32]. Thus, many different design hypotheses began to develop,7 and among them, the final one approved by the Superintendence, involved the creation, in the restored portion of the Cathedral, of a new volume inside the choir area. This volume should have presented an eighteenth-century internally design, in order to marry the image of the baroque church, while on the outside it should have been based on a medieval language, to dialogue with the other portion of the church (Fig. 16). This project proposal, as well as others, was never realized, but it’s part of the theoretical and methodological problems that the restoration works put in place. In fact, after the first demolitions, the works were interrupted, and then resumed in 1932, on the initiative 6 Anonymous

(1932, 28 may) p. 4.

7 L’Aquila, Archaeological Superintendence, Fine Arts and Landscape of Abruzzo with the exclusion

of the city of L’Aquila and the communes of the crater, Historical Archive, Teramo_Cattedrale.

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Fig. 16 Project hypothesis by Francesco Savini and Pio Ferretti. Plant and sections

of Superintendent Riccoboni. Riccoboni was in favour of the restoration of the entire Cathedral, so as to bring it back to its supposed medieval appearance. The work began and lasted until the following year. It intervened only inside the aisles of the Cathedral, without intervening on the chapels and annexed rooms. On these it was decided not to operate as a modern plant; an example of this is the chapel of San Berardo, built in the eighteenth century in a Baroque style and for which it was not possible to propose a medieval design. Not having hypothesized the demolition could refer to a theoreticalmethodological reflection by the Superintendent. Another reason can be seen in the devotional importance of the chapel, which may have prevented its demolition. Overall, the restoration work involved the removal and demolition of plasters and vaulted systems “in camorcanna” which covered the five spans of the aisles. Also, the altars leaning against the side walls of the initial portion of the Cathedral were demolished [29–31]. As already happened with the terminal part of the church, following the first works, columns and pillars were found, incorporated in the pillars of the eighteenth-century church, made with brick structures externally stuccoed. In addition to the discovery of the columns, the shutters of some arches were rediscovered which presumably had to connect the columns and pillars rediscovered (Fig. 17). Studying the geometry of these arches, it was noticed the absence of two pairs of columns in an intermediate position compared to the eighteenth-century pillars. Wanting therefore to give back the church its supposed medieval aspect, it was decided to rebuild the arches and with them the missing columns. The new additions to be included in the church had to be recognizable and differentiated from what

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Fig. 17 Photos of the interior works of demolition and discovery of the pillars incorporated in the eighteenth-century structures

already existed inside it. As for the two columns of the terminal portion of the church, those found during the works of 1926, then were replaced with new columns identical by geometry and shape, because of problems of static nature [29–31]. The roofing system was also affected by the restoration work. A basilical imprint system replaced the previous two-pitched system This choice was dictated by the new internal spatial configuration which, as a result of the reinsertion of the new columns, provided the possibility for the side aisles to have a lower height than the central one [29–31]. This was not possible with the system of pillars existing until then, as the greater light between the pillars prevented the differentiation of heights between the three aisles of the church. The choice to modify the geometry of the roofs was again dictated by the desire to restore the alleged medieval plant. It was assumed that the roof was originally basilical. These so far described were the main interventions that interested and modified the internal appearance of the church, but were not the only ones. In fact, work was done to consolidate the cathedral as a whole, mending the masonry structures and closing the open passages in the walls, underpinning the pillars, replacing damaged parts and remaking the floor. Finally the Cave or Crypt of San Berardo, buried during the eighteenth century, was rediscovered and brought to light [29–31]. From the description of the works carried out it is possible to find a correspondence with those that Riccoboni defined as principles at the base of the restoration. According to him in fact, the restorations and the necessary completion of ruined or missing parts had to be carried out according to the indications given by the monument itself. For Riccoboni in fact the monument became the testimonial of its own origin, and as such it had to be rediscovered and brought to light through restoration. So where there were architectural portions missing, and always only if recognized indispensable, these had to be reconstructed with simple and schematic forms, to avoid making fakes. Furthermore, the architectural elements which had to be replaced, as deficient from the static point of view, were replaced with faithful copies, both for geometry and for materials. Also for what concerns the new decorative apparatus and the new elements necessary for cult functions, the choice fell on

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elements inspired by the surrounding environment in which they were inserted. As far as consolidation works were concerned, these should not have appeared visible. Finally, Riccoboni affirmed that he was not averse to any element other than medieval language, if a specific aesthetic and historical value was found [29–31].

6 Conclusion In the historical center’s urban landscape, the fusion between the “natural” and “anthropic” aspects suggests how the concept of “natural”/ “anthropic” blurs with the “historical” one, in a complex interrelation of cultural mutual influences. The idea of “Urban Landscape” relates with the one of “Place”. In this way, the Burra Charter [33] on the “Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance”, puts together tangible characteristics (a place is “a geographically defined area” that “may include elements, objects, spaces and views”) with intangible ones (a place “may have tangible and intangible dimensions)” (p. 2). Therefore, the study of Teramo historical center moves from the transformations of its buildings and spaces, where the historical reconstruction of modifications—and of their cultural reasons—are essential. To understand the history and therefore the values and characteristics of Teramo urban landscape, we have to consider that in the first systematic study of the historic architecture of Abruzzo, Gavini interrupted his history [34] at the turn of the seventeenth century. This gives an account of a cultural inclination that will lead to significant consequences in the context of numerous interventions [35], and it is strongly related with a specific interest in medieval architecture. The phenomenon is made explicit by the comment given by Gavini for the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Assergi: “The church preserves all its most ancient structure under the Baroque additions. Let us imagine removing the fifteenth-century façade in tanning stone, that hides the body of the naves, demolishing the interior vaults, bringing the roof back to the ancient level indicated by the wall structures visible from the rear elevation, and removing stuccos by the pylons and by the arched in this way, the church of the twelfth century will appear again.” [34]. It is an approach that, as is known, will be applied recently in the restoration ad ripristinum of the church of Collemaggio [15]. This work is based on the integrated architectural survey of the Cathedral of Teramo and its context. The survey, combined with the study of historical documents, makes possible to systematize the knowledge, referring the material reading of the artefact to the documentary data [36], in order to retrace a page of history and reflect on a cultural expression that has profoundly marked numerous monuments in Abruzzo. Unpublished graphic drawings—in particular the diachronic sections of the church and its context—favor the critical re-reading of the monument, highlighting its transformations and supporting the deepening of the historical and architectural values of the Cathedral, and the understanding of the current urban landscape.

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References 1. Council of Europe (2000) European landscape convention 2. UNESCO (2009) World heritage cultural landscape 3. UNESCO (2015) Operational guidelines for the implementation of the world heritage convention 4. UNESCO (2011) Recommendation on the historic urban landscape 5. Savini F (1900) Storia e descirzione, corredate di documenti e di diciannove tavole fototipiche. Forzani e C Tipografi del Senato, Roma 6. Muzii M (ed) (1993) Storia della città di Teramo. Biblioteca Provinciale “M. Delfico”, Teramo 7. Adorante MA (1999) La Cattedrale di Teramo: i restauri dal ‘500 ai giorni nostri. Opus 6:378– 380 8. Bindi V (1889) Monumenti storici ed artistici negli Abruzzi. R Tip Comm F Gannini & figli, Napoli 9. Cingoli G, Cingoli A (1978) Da Interamnia a Teramo. Edigrafital, Teramo 10. Fucinese DV (1978) Arte e archeologia in Abruzzo: bibliografia. Officina edizioni, Roma 11. Fucinese DV (1991) Storiografia e restauro in Abruzzo. Multigrafia, Roma 12. Gavini I C (1915) I terremoti d’Abruzzo e i suoi Monumenti. La rivista abruzzese di scienze, lettere e arti 235 13. Miarelli Mariani G (1979) Monumenti nel tempo per la storia del restauro in Abruzzo e Molise. Carucci editore, Roma 14. Moretti M (1971) Architettura Medioevale in Abruzzo. De Luca, Roma 15. Moretti M (1972) Restauri d’Abruzzo:1966/1972. De Luca, Roma 16. Pezzi AG (2005) Tutela e Restauro in Abruzzo, dall’Unità alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale (1860–1940). Gangemi Editore, Roma 17. Angelone S, Ferro TV (2018) Rilievo, restauro e mitigazione della vulnerabilità sismica del Duomo di Teramo (sec. XII–XX). Thesis in Construction-Architecture Engineering, University of L’Aquila, supervisor Centofanti M, co-supervisors Brusaporci S, Salvatori A, Ciranna S 18. Docci M, Maestri D (2009) Manuale di rilevamento architettonico e urbano. Laterza 19. Gaiani M (2012) Per una revisione critica della teoria del rilievo dopo l’avvento dei mezzi digitali. In: Carlevaris L, Filippa M (Eds) Elogio della teoria. Identità delle discipline del disegno e del rilievo. Gangemi Editore, Roma 20. Bianchini C (2014) Survey, Modeling, Interpretation as multidisciplinary components of a knowledge system. Scires It, 4(1):15–24 21. Brusaporci S (2007) Le murature nell’architettura del versante meridionale del Gran Sasso (secc. XI–XIV). Gangemi, Roma 22. Centofanti M, Paris L, Brusaporci S, MAIEZZA P, Rossi ML (2015) Il rilievo della chiesa di Sant’Antonio Abate a Rieti del Vignola: Regola, ordini, proporzioni. DISEGNARE IDEE IMMAGINI, vol 51, pp 22–33 23. Savorini L (1934) Introduzione storico artistica agli studi del piano regolatore della città di Teramo. Casa editrice Tipografica Teramana, Teramo 24. Savorini L (1937) Il Foro della Nuova Interamnia: risanamento e sistemazione del centro urbano di Teramo. Tipografia Teramana, Teramo 25. Saverioni G (1968) Non c’è più il cavalcavia tra l’Episcopio e il Duomo. L’Araldo Abruzzese Nov: 4 26. Vv. Aa (1998) Il Duomo di Teramo nel ‘900 tra forma urbana e società civile. Deltagrafica, Teramo 27. Savini F (1925) Per i restauri del Duomo di Teramo. Il popolo abruzzese May: 2 28. Adorante MA (1987) Restauri di Francesco Savini e Guido Cirilli in Abruzzo. Storia Architettura 1–2:127–152 29. Riccoboni A (1933a) I grandiosi restauri del Duomo di Teramo. L’illustrazione vaticana Dec 30. Riccoboni A (1933b) Vicende e fasti del Duomo di Teramo. Bollettino mensile del comune di Teramo Sept-Oct: 46–64

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Riccoboni A (1933c) Vicende e fasti del Duomo di Teramo. Il Solco Oct: 3–4 Cicioni G (1926) Sui restauri del Duomo di Teramo. Il Popolo Abruzzese July 28:1 ICOMOS (2013) Charter for places of cultural significance (The Burra Charter) Gavini IC (1927–28; 1980), Storia dell’Architettura in Abruzzo. Costantini Editore, Pescara Torlontano R (ed) (2010) Abruzzo Il barocco negato Aspetti dell’arte del Seicento e Settecento. De Luca, Roma Carbonara G, Centofanti M, Mingucci R (eds) (2015) Design for restoration: beyond the survey. Disegnarecon 8(14) Anonimous (1933) La riapertura della Cattedrale. Il Solco 10 Sept:2 Anonimous (1932) L’opera di S E Mons. Micozzi nei quattro anni. L’Araldo Abruzzese, May 28: 4 Campana C (1911) Un periodo di storia a Teramo e delle Scienze e Lettere in Teramo sullo scorcio del secolo decimottavo. Giovanni Fabbri, Teramo Cerulli R (1967) Storia illustrata di Teramo. Abruzzo Oggi, Teramo Eugeni F (2008) Atlante della città di Teramo. Ricerche & Redazioni, Pescara Fagiani A (1957) Il Duomo di Teramo e il suo isolamento. Corriere Abruzzese May 5 Franchi F (1947) Concorso nazionale per la definitiva sistemazione della Cattedrale di Teramo. L’Araldo Abruzzese Sept 2 Lucchi P, Rastelli I, Romani R, Ronci, M, Taraschi B (1998) In mostra: idee di architettura per Piazza Martiri della Libertà e Piazza E. V. Orsini: mostra di architettura al museo archeologico. EditriceGopura, Teramo Muzj G (1937) L’Anfiteatro romano e l’isolamento del Duomo. Il Solco Dec Muzj G. (1938) Il Duomo di Teramo risorge. Il Solco Novo Palma N (1832) Storia ecclesiastica e civile della regione più a settentrionale del Regno di Napoli. Ubaldo Angeletti stampatore dell’Intendenza, Teramo Palma N (ed) (1978) Storia della città e diocesi di Teramo II. Cassa di risparmio della provincia di Teramo, Teramo Pio B, Santengelo E, Sgattoni M (2014) Duomo di Teramo. Ricerche & Redazioni, Pescara Rossi MG (2003) Il Duomo di Teramo e le cattedrali medievali abruzzesi. L’Abruzzo nel medioevo, pp 391–414 Rossi MG (2004) Le vicende del Duomo di Teramo tra età liberale e fascismo: interventi, uomini e istituzioni. Abruzzo contemporaneo. Rivista dell’istituto abruzzese per la storia d’Italia dal fascismo alla resistenza, pp 67–85 Rossi MG (2007) Alcune osservazioni sull’analisi dimensionale metrologica, geometrica e proporzionale della cattedrale di S. Maria Assunta e S. Berardo a Teramo. Opus: quaderno di storia architettura e restauro, pp 17–26 Sauer C (1925) Morphology of Landscape Savini F (1895) Il comune teramano nella sua vita intima e pubblica dai più antichi tempi ai moderni: racconto e studi seguiti da documenti e da tavole. Forzani e C Tipografi del Senato, Roma Savini F (1907) Gli edifizi teramani nel Medio Evo. Forzani e C tipografi del Senato, Roma Savini F (1926) Il restauro del Duomo di Teramo. Tip B Cioschi, Teramo

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Hypogean Architecture: Apparent Simplicity and Effective Complexity Antonia Valeria Dilauro and Remo Pavone

Abstract The theme of hypogean architecture refers in itself to instances relegated both to simplicity and to complexity, unraveling in that complex relationship between inside and outside that becomes the characterizing expression of the typical articulation of the composition in negative, a composition that expresses the close link between architecture and landscape, between man and ground. The contribution intends to investigate, through the tools of survey and representation, the dichotomy between an apparent simplicity and an effective complexity of the hypogean architectural forms. A formal and linguistic heterogeneity that often reveals itself in overlapping and contrasting languages and forms typical of the sub divo architecture imitated by the hypogean architecture. With reference to the themes offered by Venturi’s essay, through an analysis of the works, we want to investigate the dichotomy of the relationship between inside and outside, focusing on the contradictions juxtaposed and the different contradictory levels, relating to the two different ways of composing, that of subtracting and that of adding, highlighting affinities and divergences. Keywords Hypogean · Subtraction architecture · Survey · Drawing · Composition · Landscape · Iconographic atlas

A. V. Dilauro (B) · R. Pavone Dicar—Politecnico Di Bari, Bari, Italy e-mail: [email protected] R. Pavone e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_45

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1 Introduction1 et con il porre, et con il levare Leon Battista Alberti, Della pittura e della statua

The contribution intends to investigate—even if without any aspiration to the complete exhaustiveness of the subject—the forms of hypogean architecture, with reference to the symbolic aspects that lie behind this architectural-settlement typology and to the dichotomous relationship between simplicity of construction techniques (sometimes only apparent) and the actual complexity of forms (too often imitation of the forms of sub divo architecture). It is therefore a relationship of tension and balance between two opposites, a sort of hybridization between different stylistic-formal codes that demonstrate once again the ability of architecture (whether it be hypogeal or sub divan) to assume different identities. In this specific instance, what we intend to remark, taking inspiration from what was theorized and set out in Robert Venturi’s essay Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, is the vocation of hypogean architecture, an architecture of excavation, to be half characterized by the reciprocal relationship of essentiality between formfunction-technology, half expression of a formation of meaning which is followed by technical choices. Semper, theorizing the four elements that found and characterize the architecture2 (the hearth, the fence, the roof , the mound), refers to forms that correspond to actions (the production of heat and hot food, the defense from the outside and the 1 The

text is the result of a close collaboration between the authors, however it is considered useful to define the following allocation of chapters: 1. Introduction; 2. Hypogean architecture: subtractive action and symbolic meanings; 5. Internal and external: the dicotomic and contraditory report between the external simple equipment and the complex effective of internal architectonic forms; 6. Works: survey. Catalogue and valuation of the hypogeous patrimony, for the study and confront of the different realities: A. V. Dilauro 3. Complessity and contradition: the eterogenity of forms and the hybridation of very stylistic-formal codes; 4. Contradictory levels: contradictions highlighted. Simplicity of construction techniques—expressive laconicity— camouflage with the territory vs. complexity of architectural forms—excess of form—organization of the territory; 7. Conclusion: R. Pavone. 2 Please refer to the text The Aesthetic Vision of Semper. The Four Elements of Architecture by Heinz Quitzsch and Gottfried Semper. Influenced by the methodological approach based on the system of classification that is organized on the functioning of organs and other vital processes of plants, which resulted in a taxonomy of a few and original elements that are reread in all species proposed by Georges-Leopold Cuvier (biologist and his teacher of genetic biology), Semper condenses his aesthetic vision by theorizing the four original elements of architecture: the hearth, the fence, the roof, the mound; these are the ultimate summary of his studies of social history and the history of architecture, thus identifying the original elements necessary for each architecture, whose development is the basis of architecture of all time. In formulating its principles, Semper proceeds in a similar way to the studies of biologist Cuvier and therefore his approach does not start from the analysis of forms but from the analysis of the functions that make certain forms necessary, identifying the social functions and fundamental activities common to the life of all peoples: for example, the production of heat and hot food—and therefore the element of the hearth—of defense from the outside—and therefore the element of the fence—from the weather—and therefore the roof; so

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weather), alluding, in some way, to the secondary importance of “technical problems” compared to formal issues, therefore prerogative of the composition. In almost contrast to this, the unity and reciprocity of form-function-technique, the expression of well-defined relationships that react and determine the phases of composition, from the heuristic to the realization, are the expression of an architecture whose “a priori” resides in the technique, in the structure and then in the creative act. The aim of this essay is to shed light on this aspect of hypogean architecture that is simultaneously, almost paradoxically, an expression of both these attitudes in the composition. With reference to the themes offered by the essay by Venturi, the intention is to articulate the survey according to the organization of the same essay (thus following in some way the articulation of the chapters), in particular by analysing the formal and linguistic heterogeneity of the architecture of subtraction—with particular reference to hypogean architecture in Puglia—through the comparison between the two different ways of composing (the subtractive—hypogeal architecture—and the additive—sub divo architecture), bringing out the possible contradictions and the different possible contradictory levels, investigating the dichotomous relationship between inside and outside, also through the survey and drawing of an example of Apulian hypogeal architecture. In the last instance, the contribution aims to bring out the centrality of the role assumed today by the drawing and survey in the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage: the study, developed through the analysis of some works—of which we offer here only one example considered among the most significant—is, in fact, part of a broader willingness to catalog the material, providing the scientific ecumenical also an important tool for research and knowledge, as well as a guiding tool, able to stable the state of the places, documenting any transformations or any interventions, also aimed at the protection of the artifact itself.

2 Hypogean Architecture: Subtractive Action and Symbolic Meanings Once upon a time living underground was not an object of shame and, on the contrary, marked the terms of a correct relationship with Mother Earth. It meant protection, water, the possibility of preserving food and honouring the dead, avoiding clashes, but also attending to the mystery. If we want to be honest, the connection between the civilizations that preceded us and ours always winds in the subsoil, where there is still much more. In the belly of the earth lurks every kind of secret and the suggestions become immediately palpable: underground

from these elements responding to actions all other elements develop with scientific necessity. It is an evolutionary theory of architecture starting from its function, and sought after by the origins of man. (see also the theory of the “Bekleidung”—namely the principle of cladding in architecture—of Semper, a theory to be considered a fundamental part of his thought, with particular reference to the volume Der Stil).

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there are witches and fairies, monstrous animals and gods of the Underworld, energy and resources. And our ancestors were perfectly aware of it. Mario Tozzi, Italia segreta. Viaggio nel sottosuolo da Torino a Palermo

The hypogean architecture refers to instances that bring back to simplicity and complexity: in fact, the technique of excavation in opposition but also in complementarity with the technique of accumulation, calls to a theoretical attitude, to a figurative technique, rather than a mere construction technique. In fact, the introverted spatiality and the celebratory nature of the void, typical of the architecture of subtraction, refer to pure forms of composition, but also to clear compositional principles, alluding to "an architectural solution already existing within a general envelope, which takes shape and is right,’removing’, digging into that initial and theoretical simple volume, until the complex relationships between the paths, the component elements, the interior and the exterior become evident and practicable.3 The subtractive action4 in its continuous reference to an archetype of space in the strictly archaic sense, and in its being the founding act of an architecture that could be defined as the result of a parthenogenesis, as produced by and of the same material of which it is composed, is the expression of a fundamental and significant search for a hollow spatiality5 rich in phenomenological meanings. In a broad sense, the word architecture, in its founding essence, reveals a close correlation with the underground world, revealing itself to be the expression of that human search for a place of shelter. From this point of view, the dichotomous relationship homo-humus (man-earth) is fundamental: leaving aside without underestimating or leaving aside the obvious linguistic root of the two terms, it is the same primordial history of architecture that reminds us that the initial manifestations are essentially made of passive activities, which have seen man exploit environmental resources to protect himself from the unfavourable environmental conditions. For these reasons, the primitive relationship between man (homo) and the surrounding environment (humus) is close, made of reverence and respect, a relationship that recognizes the “capacity” of protection, security and stability of the earth. The idea of underground, or cave, has long preserved many and sometimes opposing meanings in history, and only with the industrial revolution and the resulting upheavals produced in the economic and social spheres, or even in the architecturalurban, the idea of the subsoil has made its meaning in a negative sense: it is undeniable the charm that has exercised the space of the cave rock, so as to inspire throughout the course of history feelings of devotion and faith, prompting man to seek contact with the gods through the subsoil through the contact with the gods also through the underground. 3 The

text contains what Carlo Aymonino claimed and is reported in the monographic number of “d’Architettura” n.27 (May—September 2005), in Laboratorio Italia 2005 di V. Longheu, E. Pitzalis. 4 To subtract, from the latin subtrah˘ ere, “to draw below”. 5 To dig, from the latin ex-cavare, etymologically “to make cable”.

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In architectural practice, however, it is essential to recognize an important moment, namely the transition from passive to reasoned activities, mirroring the acquisition of new technical skills on the one hand and the awareness of new social needs on the other. Therefore, it will be the progressive need for aggregation and awareness of the possibilities of exploiting the land in areas more fertile than others to define with increasing vehemence the predilection for shelters built entirely over natural ones, assuming new characteristics more structured. Over the centuries, building by addition rather than by subtraction has involved a series of transformations, at a constructive and social-aggregative level: the passage from nomadism to sedentary status, from individual instinct to social rules, a preference for new sources of sustenance, a preference for the solidity of the shelter— initially natural—to the fragility of the hut for reasons of flexibility, as a guarantee of one’s own decision-making power. The passage of making architecture from digging to building, from subtraction to addition, has also marked in parallel with this a change in the relationship between man and earth (homo-humus): a change that primarily concerned the perception of one towards the other, with the overturning of the dichotomous relationship lightdarkness but, more generally, with a progressive loss of reverence and the consequent consideration of the earth as a mere resource to be exploited. But this attitude and the consequent inversion of course in the reciprocal relationship homo-humus, has meant a progressive and irreversible impoverishment that has consequently led to contemporary reflections on issues of protection, saving, ecology, sustainability, these are reflections that increasingly pour into the choice of building hypogean, not underestimating or forgetting the irreversibility of the subtractive action in the transition from natural to anthropized space. This would seem to be a new phase of “making architecture” which, through the investigation and rediscovery of underground spaces, studies new design solutions in an attempt to update and improve the techniques and practices typical of the “troglodytic” use of the land, providing new opportunities for the development of what was first the archetype of the cave and later the hut. Building underground represents—today—a need linked to the density of the city and the lack of space, but also an opportunity for the preservation of the territory and the landscape in peri-urban or dispersed contexts. In parallel to this, awareness of ecological issues allows us to imagine low-impact spaces, energy and landscape, in which architecture becomes the medium of this cultural transformation. [3].

And in fact, there are many examples of architecture that could be taken as an example and demonstration of this new phase of making architecture, but first of all could be the example offered by Le Corbusier, who almost precursor ante litteram of this need, first with the chapel of Rochamp6 and then, in more detail, with the 6 The

plasticity of the volumes obtained with the use of reinforced concrete hides an important subtractive action of referring to instances of subtraction architecture: in fact, one of the perimeter walls is, in its composition in brick and reinforced concrete, excavated by a series of tunnels of different sizes, thus altering the tectonic nature of that “wall”. It is then possible to interpret the Rochamp wall as a monolithic block within which subtractive excavations have been carried out,

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underground Basilica de la Paux du Pardon at the foot of the Sainte-Baume, investigates the possibilities offered by the concave spaces, aspiring to a new and different concept of architecture.

3 Complessity and Contradition: The Eterogenity of Forms and the Hybridation of Very Stylistic-Formal Codes The complexities and contradictions inherent in hypogean architecture that are intended to be investigated and highlighted are to be referred to the undeniable link between the forms of composition produced through the technique of excavation and that of composition by addition. In this regard, it is necessary to point out that the “tendency” of hypogean forms to the forms of sub divo architecture is to be referred to the hypogean architectures built, excavated, the result of anthropic action, rather than to the natural configurations, therefore spontaneous. The search for expressive laconicity is gradually being lost, in favour of a sort of “imitation” of the forms of built architecture. By its very nature, hypogean architecture, as it originates from the same material of which it is composed, is an expression of a stereotonic and self-supporting constructive dimension, therefore far from the figurative connotations deriving from the tectonic logics of the composition; despite this, it is easy to see and demonstrate how in many cases the typical forms of the figurative connotations deriving from tectonic declensions are themselves the expression of architectural solutions dug into a general envelope such as the ground. Therefore, hypogean architecture is a theme that refers in itself to instances relegated both to simplicity (of construction techniques) and complexity (of forms of composition), becoming the expression of a sort of hybridisation of different stylistic-formal codes, guaranteeing a certain degree of ambiguity and duality of the architectural organism, establishing a tension and balance between opposites.

confirming in some way that certain degree of ambiguity inherent in the architectural organism itself.

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4 Contradictory Levels: Contradictions Highlighted. Simplicity of Construction Techniques—Expressive Laconicity—Camouflage with the Territory Versus Complexity of Architectural Forms—Excess of Form—Organization of the Territory Negative architecture, whether hypogean or semi-hypogean, differs from additionally constructed architecture in its own physical condition. Other aspects not to be underestimated are the intrinsic characteristics of the territory, therefore extrinsic with respect to the architecture, which constitute the discriminating element for the purposes of the location of the underground cavities, preferring, for example, geographical areas “favorable” to water supply, or even areas whose soil composition is more compact, also for the purposes of exploiting the thermal mass of the soil for the natural thermoregulation of the internal microclimate of the environments. The possible contradictions highlighted within the proposed study compare the simplicity of construction techniques—also linked to morphological and landscape variables and in relation to the ground—with the complexity of forms, which too often refers to the forms of built architecture: this denies the stereotypical nature and self-supporting nature of hypogean architecture (this is the case, for example, of the presence of walls, columns, pillars, barrel vaults, cross vaults, but still the representation of recourses of unlikely ashlars—this is the case of the example shown in the Fig. 1 and comparable with what is shown in Fig. 2).7 It is clear that the expressive laconicity typical of the architecture of subtraction— usually of a spontaneous and natural matrix—leaves the possibility of an excess of forms and elements—typical of tectonic research—in the perspective of a real organization and articulation of spaces according to different compositional methods, following a logic of organization even of the territory, almost in contrast with the vocation to camouflage with the territory of the most archaic forms of hypogeal architecture.

7 It

is important to note that what has been said about possible contradictions can be found in various examples of hypogean architecture, not only scattered throughout Italy; see for example the Troglodyte Barrio in Gaudix in Andalusia, the district of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia (Turkey), or even the sacred city of Lalibela in Ethiopia. The two figures (Figs. 1 and 2) make a comparison between the church of Santa Barbara in Göreme, Turkey (XI century) and the church of San Michele in Frengesto in Fasano, Italy (XII century approx.), and underline how the language of the architecture of subtraction is a theoretical attitude rather than a mere mode of construction.

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Fig. 1 Representation of the recourses of improbable ashlars. Chapel of Santa Barbara, Göreme, Turkey (XI century)

5 Internal and External: The Dicotomic and Contraditory Report Between the External Simple Equipment and the Complex Effective of Internal Architectonic Forms The houses were underground, at the entrance narrow as the opening of a well, widening proceeding downwards. The entrances to the cattle had been dug out and the people descended down stairs. In the houses there were goats, sheep, steers and birds with their offspring. Senofonte, Anabasi, libro IV, 5.25

The hypogean architecture, in its continuous reference to instances so relegated to simplicity and complexity, also unravels through that articulated relationship between inside and outside, which becomes, not least, a characteristic expression of the articulation typical of the composition in negative, a composition that extrinsic, in its most intimate being, the close link between architecture and landscape, between man and earth.

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Fig. 2 Dome. Church of San Michele in Frengesto, Fasano, Italy (XII century ca.)

The dichotomous and antithetical relationship between the apparent simplicity and the real complexity of forms, is explicit by referring to the dual relationship between inside and outside: the austere external appearance, often characterized by few and small openings to the outside, contrasts, in the examples of hypogean architecture excavated, the result of subtractive action anthropogenic (so not in the case of natural configurations) to an internal spatial articulation that in forms, but in general in the composition, refers to “complex” instances. For example, it is the case of the hypogean churches, whose articulation of the celebratory space and internal assembly is exactly inspired by examples of religious spaces built: the presence of aisles divided by columns surmounted by arches, the presence of an apse in axis with the central space, or the re-proposal of seats to accommodate the faithful, also dug into the rock. But also examples of architecture for residential use have proposed forms of sub divo architecture, sometimes with the realization of furnishings “dug”. In both cases, the theme of light was given priority, in contrast to the association between subsoil and darkness, which the same literature has repeatedly proposed for years.

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6 Works: Survey. Catalogue and Valuation of the Hypogeous Patrimony, for the Study and Confront of the Different Realities Having examined and investigated the subject of the study in a purely theoretical manner, in this phase it is important to review a possible range of examples of works or elements that make explicit and confirm what has been theorized up to this point. Venturi himself, in the final chapter of his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture collects a series of projects through which to explain the reasons behind his reflections. Moreover, with particular reference to the phase of cataloguing of works related to the field of underground architecture in Puglia, the intent of this study aims to define a possible tool for the enhancement of the heritage scattered throughout the region, a mirror of a culture and a method of settlement that characterized some cities in Puglia until not too many years ago. Finally, the contribution aims to confirm the support offered by the disciplines of drawing and survey in the field of conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage: what is intended to be exhibited, through the tools offered by the representation, is an ongoing work of identification, cataloguing and networking of data of hypogean architecture in Puglia, with reference to worship buildings; the attempt is to make explicit a possibility of investigation of the territory which, also thanks to the presence of new surveying tools and modelling software, can allow the creation of an iconographic atlas fundamental to the dissemination and monitoring of the assets, together with their state of preservation, in order to ensure their maintenance and safety in cases of state of degradation. The example proposed here is offered by a building of worship, an example of rock architecture of worship in Puglia, from which began the study and investigation that is being conducted. A territory, a city, an architecture or even a single artifact are something very complex, albeit in their apparent simplicity, so the qualities to be referred to in the investigation phase can be multiple and conditioned by different factors; for example, it is possible to decide to investigate the compositional form, regardless of the dimensional data, or it is possible to investigate the material or structural data, or the factors linked to the perception of the space used, or information regarding temporal events that have affected the object; in this sense, the survey becomes an instrument for the selection of the qualities to be investigated, establishing those that are considered useful and significant for the purposes of the investigation and whose synthesis can flow into a graphic model, of which the drawing becomes the ultimate expression. The techniques of survey cannot be traced back to a mechanics of doing, but imply formal and cultural determinations; moreover, currently the instruments and methods of survey have assumed a greater scientificity than in the past, both thanks to the metric unification, and also thanks to the presence of increasingly refined instruments and the greater sharing of operational methodologies and graphic techniques.

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In the first instance, the main purpose of the investigation that is being conducted is to shed light on the Apulian hypogean architecture, with the hope of making available the various assets scattered throughout the territory—often not accessible—thereby promoting a sustainable tourism of heritage, both natural and cultural. The networking referred to and concerning the collected data, first of all consists in a census resulting from the survey of the assets, whose data—a synthesis of an integrated approach of techniques and methodologies—would converge in a database accessible and searchable online through telematic tools and appropriate applications designed ad hoc, promoting not only the enhancement of the heritage, but also the use of new digital techniques of communication and fruition. Therefore, the accessibility to which it is hoped concerns not only the physical possibility of access to the artifacts, but refers to a project of digitization of the historical-artistic information of the asset itself: the possibility of detecting the assets and the possible archival-documentary research that can be carried out, would allow the creation of a “profile of the asset” that, through the technologies of virtual reconstruction, augmented reality, immersive and interactive fruition, would make the asset ‘visitable and accessible’ regardless of the real possibility of physical access within the same, exploiting in this way the most recent digital 3D methodologies, which would allow to obtain simultaneously a visual, metrical and spatial overview of the asset itself. In addition, the proposal includes the possibility of making the assets accessible to people with reduced or impaired motor or sensory capacity, through the design and implementation of physical three-dimensional models of the most significant elements of each artifact, using the technology of 3D printing, with cognitive and investigative function. To this end, those proposed here are some surveys (Figs. 3, 4 and 5) of one of the hypogean churches in the Apulian territory; in particular, it is the church of Lama d’Antico, located in the centre of the village in the territory of Fasano. Inside the church there are suggestive architectural decorations that make it a real cathedral carved into the rock; moreover, worthy of note are the remains of the

Fig. 3 Plan. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico (survey by A. V. Dilauro, R. Pavone)

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Fig. 4 Section A-A’. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy (survey by A. V. Dilauro, R. Pavone)

Fig. 5 Section B-B’. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy (survey by A.V. Dilauro, R. Pavone)

pictorial apparatus8 that reveal the coexistence of elements typical of the eastern tradition with elements of the Latin-medieval tradition. The example we have chosen to propose, perfectly embodies what has been pointed out several times before: in fact, inside the rock are excavated the rooms 8 The “virtual restoration” of the pictorial apparatus inside the rock church has recently been carried

out: the intervention—Virtual “Restoration Experience”, the first Italian example of virtual restoration—promoted by the San Domenico Foundation, which has been managing the site for six years, ensuring its knowledge and enhancement, was curated by Giuseppe Donvito, creator of the project, art historian and head of the park, by the expert in virtual restoration Maria Potenza and by Massimo Limoncelli, digital archaeologist and professor at the University of Palermo. The “restoration” consists of a laborious operation of videomapping through which it is possible to admire the wall paintings in their ancient splendor, without the need to work on the paintings with anachronistic or even harmful interventions. (see http://www.lamadantico.it/it/attivita/virtual-restoration-experi ence-118.html).

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Fig. 6 Elements of sub divo architecture: series of pillars. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

intended for religious services, taking up the typical forms of the built architecture: then, the church follows the classic east-west orientation, with lateral access to the south-east and marked by two lunettes carved and superimposed; inside two naves covered by barrel vaults and divided by a series of pillars surmounted by a round arch (Fig. 6); a semicircular apse with the remains of an altar block at the end of the main nave (Fig. 7) and a smaller apse, characterized by the presence of an altar against the rock wall at the end of the nave to the north (Fig. 8). At the entrance, the largest nave is interrupted by a square opening on which, according to some scholars, there must have been a dome with a characteristic cover in embrices (terracotta tiles), of Byzantine origin, whose fragments were found on the floor during the first inspections carried out in the cave. The dome was to protrude from the outside of the rocky bank signalling the presence of the building (Fig. 9). It is important to note the type of plant chosen for the construction of the church: the reference model is the contracted greek cross plant of archaic type, a type that was very successful between the ninth and eleventh centuries in southern and insular Greece. These are small churches usually formed by a single room vaulted barrel (as in the case proposed), and characterized by the contraction of the side arms—which are reduced to arches—and the presence of the dome at the intersection of transepts. There are many examples of sub divo churches scattered in Puglia and Basilicata with a Greek cross plan contracted and dated between the middle of the eleventh century and the end of the twelfth century: among these, the church of San Felice in the house of Balsignano—in the countryside of Modugno -, Santa Margherita a Bisceglie, San Vito a Corato and Sant’Angelo al Raparo in Basilicata. The church of Lama d’Antico, being excavated and therefore not built, lends itself as the only case in Apulia to presenting this typology, even though it makes some variations dictated by requirements linked to the technique of the excavation. An example of

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Fig. 7 Elements of sub divo architecture: semicircular apse. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

a broader scope can be found in the contracted cross plan of the eleventh-twelfth century church of St Nicholas in Split on the Mirjan hill. Considering the fact that the cross type contracted with a central dome or pyramidal roof is very common in the Byzantine context, it is appropriate to emphasize some differences between the two buildings: for example, in the case of Split there are no pastophoria (prothesis and diaconicon) on either side of the bema (apse); while in the case of Lama d’Antico there is no iconostasis unlike the case offered by St. Nicholas in Split, although it is certain that originally it was also provided in the hypogean church of Fasano.9 Moreover, it is interesting to compare it with the square space above the central span, which is strongly similar in both examples (Figs. 10 and 11). 9 The

bema—an area reserved for the clergy, the place where the liturgy is celebrated—is located on a higher level than that of the two naves. Currently the bema is separated from the rest of the church by a trace of a wall that certainly replaced the iconostasis.

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Fig. 8 Elements of sub divo architecture: lateral nave—smaller apse. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

Another element of comparison with sub divo architecture in Puglia can be provided by the twenty-three blind arches—painted with figures of saints and bishops—along the walls that go from the entrance to the smaller nave. All the arches were to be painted, but today only three fragmentary figures remain along the wall in front of the entrance (Fig. 12); in addiction, in correspondence to the arches there is a seat, which runs along the entire perimeter of the room, the sintrono, intended for the faithful, while in the direction of the last arch, at the end of the nave, on a higher level of footsteps, there is a small apse with an altar attached to the wall and a seat with arms—the chair of the chorepiscopo—separated from the other seats by a stone wall.

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Fig. 9 Elements of sub divo architecture: dome. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

Although making the necessary distinctions, a direct example of comparison for the aforementioned niches on the walls of the ambit can be offered by the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Siponto (Fig. 13), once again confirming the resumption of forms characteristic of sub divo architecture, as an essential model for the construction of buildings dug into the rock. The example taken into consideration, but also the comparisons made, are inherent to specialist architecture, but, as in countless other cases, within the same park of the village of Lama d’Antico also the architecture for residential use takes the forms of sub divo architecture, as in the case of the repetition of round arches or barrel vaults well defined for the roofs. This is a possible confirmation of what has been said, thus proving the hybridization between different stylistic-formal codes, a complete expression of the capacity of architecture to assume different identities, even if they are antithetical or in a condition of reciprocal tension.

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Fig. 10 Square space. Church of St Nicholas in Split on the Mirjan hill, Croatia (eleventh-twelfth century)

7 Conclusion Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock’s calcareous sky. (…) Isaura, a city that moves entirely upwards. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

The surveys conducted and proposed, as well as the examples that are being studied for the realization of a possible iconographic atlas, have provided for the integration of direct survey techniques and indirect techniques, involving the processing of metric and photographic data collected through digital modeling and drawing software. The results presented are to be considered only partial, as they explain only one example and reflect a research still in progress: the aspects to be investigated are many and the new key to interpreting hypogean architecture will be effective only with a wide range of comparable examples, preferring a comparison on a large scale (even geographically) that can also allow a cataloguing of the assets under study.

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Fig. 11 Square space. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

Certainly the categories offered by Venturi have lent themselves effectively to the interpretation of the architecture of subtraction from this new point of view, allowing us to highlight, through the capitulation of the “works”, the importance and the fundamental contribution offered by the tools of survey and drawing, along with the different methods and techniques. It is also important to point out how the comparison between hypogean and sub divo architectures is supported by examples that are not only an expression of an Apulian “trend”, but more generally of typologies and forms that are widespread throughout the architectural panorama.

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Fig. 12 Perimeter arches with painted figures. Hypogean church Lama d’Antico, Fasano, Italy

In this sense, the contribution has intended and still intends to investigate— through further surveys and catalogs—the dichotomous relationship between the apparent simplicity and the effective complexity of architectural forms hypogeum, but also the heterogeneity of forms and languages that are often found in overlap and contrast, in that often present concatenation of languages typical of sub divo architecture with those of architecture in negative, hypogeal.

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Fig. 13 Perimeter arches. Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Siponto (first century)

References 1. Alberti LB (1804) Della pittura e della statua. Società Tipografica dei Classici Italiani, Milano 2. Avanza F (1991) Progettare il sottosuolo: elementi di cultura tecnica per l’architettura sotterranea. Franco Angeli, Milano 3. Bugatti A (2010) Progettare il sottosuolo nella città densa e nel paesaggio. Maggioli Editore, Santarcangelo di Romagna 4. Calvino I (2016) Le città invisibili, Mondadori 5. Chionna A (1973) Il villaggio rupestre di Lama d’Antico, Ed. Grafischena, Fasano 6. Dell’Aquila C, Carofiglio F (1985) Bari extra moenia, insediamenti rupestri ed ipogei, Quaderni monografici del Comune di Bari n. 2–3, Bari 7. Dell’Aquila F (1977) Ipogei e insediamenti rupestri. Nuove Edizioni Italiane, Bari 8. Dell’aquila F F, Messina A (1998) Le chiese rupestri di Puglia e Basilicata. Mario Adda Editore, Bari 9. Dostoevskij F (2005) Memorie del sottosuolo. Einaudi, Torino 10. Fonseca CD (1975) La civiltà rupestre medievale nel mezzogiorno d’Italia: ricerche e problemi, Atti del I Convegno Internazionale di studi. Istituto grafico S, Basile, Genova 11. Fonseca CD (cur.) (1978) Habitat Strutture Territorio, Atti del terzo Convegno Internazionale di studi sulla Civiltà Rupestre Medioevale d’Italia, Congedo Editore, Galatina 12. Fonseca CD (1970) Civiltà rupestre in terra jonica. Carlo Bestetti Edizioni D’arte, Milano-Roma

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Fonseca CD (1980) La Puglia fra Bisanzio e l’Occidente. Electa, Milano Gregotti V (maggio 1982) Elogio della tecnica, Casabella n. 480 La Creta R, Truppi C (1994) L’ architetto tra tecnologia e progetto. Franco Angeli, Milano Laureano P (1993) Giardini di Pietra, i Sassi di Matera e la civiltà mediterranea. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino Lavermicocca N (2001) I sentieri delle grotte dipinte. Laterza, Bari Mongiello L (1996) Chiese di Puglia. Il fenomeno delle chiese a cupola. Adda, Bari Polano S (settembre 1998) L’architettura della sottrazione, Casabella n. 659 Quitzsch H, Semper G (1991) La Visione Estetica di Semper. I Quattro Elementi dell’Architettura. Jaca Book, Milano Senofonte (2016) Anabasi. Rusconi Libri, Santarcangelo di Romagna Tommaselli M (1988) Guida alla chiese rupestri del materano. BMG Editrice, Matera Tozzi M (2008) Italia segreta. Viaggio nel sottosuolo da Torino a Palermo. Rizzoli, Roma

Architecture and Popular Devotion: The Double-Code for the Enhancement of the Salento Calvaries Valentina Castagnolo, Francesca Sisci, and Gabriele Rossi

Abstract The urban paths the religious communities made to celebrate the viacrucis rite led to the “calvaries”, minor architectures that are the cultural expression of the community devotion. Several different architectural solutions corresponds to this typology. The best known are in northern Italy and in central-eastern Europe. The present paper investigates that architectures diffused in episodic form in Southern Italy, with a specific concentration in the Apulian Salento, where they are present in almost all the built-up areas. In this region the calvaries are built between the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century by private citizens. Originally they assumed an important role because sometimes they are the scenic backdrop of an extra-citizen road, or they are placed at centre of important crossroads or at the side of churches. The interest in these minor buildings arises not only for their particular architectural value, but because they are an expression of the community religious roots. The urban processional path of the viacrucis and the architectures that served as a scenographic backdrop to the rite could be considered both as “intangible cultural heritage” to be safeguarded and as a memory of an urban scene connected to it, which today is difficult to recognize. The aim of the research through graphic transposition is to understand on a territorial scale the reasons for the concentration of the phenomenon in a specific and restricted geographical area and to try to define the network of topological relations between types. The representation space is the experimentation place on the urban scale also. Through the study of the calvary position in relation to the ancient urban centre or to the other religious buildings and through the reconstruction of the perceptive links between the places, it is desired to read the connection between the rite and the urban structure. It, still today, considers the calvaries as nodal points despite the settlement transformations. V. Castagnolo · G. Rossi (B) Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy e-mail: [email protected] V. Castagnolo e-mail: [email protected] F. Sisci Bari, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_46

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Keywords Calvaries · Terra d’otranto · Architectural survey · Minor architectures · Perception

1 Introduction 1 I Calvari segnavano la fine dell’abitato, erano costruiti al termine del paese, una posizione significativa perché così i calvari si pongono tra l’esterno e l’interno, e rappresentano il ricordo della passione e morte di Cristo [14]

In such a synthetic way the strong anthropological and religious value of the artefacts, called calvaries, of popular origin can be summarized.2 These can be considered examples of minor sacred architecture and their greater diffusion is found in the north-western areas of France, Brittany, and Belgium. Made between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Breton calvaries are very well known for their suggestive sculptural apparatuses. In Italy the first example of Sacro Monte-Calvario is that of Varallo Sesia, in the Lombard-Piedmont area, dating back to 1486, commissioned by Beatrice d’Este and Ludovico il Moro. In the same area, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, eight other Sacred Mountains were built. But the Italian geographical area where the calvaries are most widespread is the Salento, in particular the provinces of Lecce, Brindisi and Taranto. Radically different from the previous ones, the calvaries of Salento owe their capillary presence to the secular and consolidated activity of the mendicant orders, of the Jesuits and the Passionists, in Puglia. It can be said that they were a support to the pedagogy through which the religious brotherhoods consolidated their pastoral action between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. These architectural artefacts testify the community belonging to the Christian world and find their raison d’être in replicating the suggestions of pilgrimages to the Holy Land in loco. They were born after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and represent paradigmatic episodes of popular devotion which, through a process of abstraction, allow to live the devotional paths of an ideal journey towards Jerusalem. The Council reforming will led to a revisitation of the Passio Christi by recreating the itinerarium fidei so as to guarantee to all devotees the same spiritual gifts as medieval pilgrims. The strong will to transpose the religious experience is evidenced by the name that these minor architectural assets assumed: the word calvary derives from the Latin calvarium, translation of the Aramaic word gulgulta (=skull), name given to the hill outside the walls of Jerusalem on which Jesus Christ was crucified. In this way they built a singular religious experience in which the processional path, 1 F.

Sisci paragraphs “Introduction” and “Graphical analysis for the identification of relationships between localization, context and form” are by Francesca Sisci, the paragraph “The relationship between calvaries and cities. The case studies of Andrano, Melpignano and Ruffano” is by Gabriele Rossi and the paragraph “Conclusion. Simple architectures and complex system: religious tradition and scientific research” is by Valentina Castagnolo.

2 The

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called viacrucis, simulates pilgrimage through urban areas and the achievement of Mount Calvary.

2 Graphical Analysis for the Identification of Relationships Between Localization, Context and Form 3 The significant number of calvaries present in the Salento area, as well as their architectural eclecticism, have led to a systematic analysis that could be able to read and interpret their value within the urban landscape. The main aim of this research is to discover if there have been any relations between the construction of these artefacts and the development of the urban fabric over time. The experiential approach desired for this study was necessary since calvaries are born with the intention to offer an experience and therefore the perceptive spatial aspect is perhaps the main design discriminator. To understand and eventually verify the correspondences and the transformations induced by the existing relationship between location, context and form, a census was made according to urban location and type. For the 68 examined case studies, it was decided to carry out an in depth urban analysis in a first phase, considering it as the best starting point for the realization of a survey on the landscape transformation phenomena, both urban and extra-urban. All the calvaries were analyzed with the same criterion with the aims to highlight how the growth, if any, of the urban fabric has brought some changes or, on the contrary, has been modified to be adapted to the artefact presence. Each calvary has been located in its original and current position with respect to the built-up area extension. The three possible original positions are: outside the fabric, at the limit or already inside the historical fabric. Currently their original position can be unchanged or they can be incorporated in the urban fabric due to the city expansion that modified the nineteenth-century urban layout. Each of these possibilities will henceforth be summarized as in Fig. 1. Then, the calvaries orientation with respect to the inhabited center was identified and the position of their main front was deduced. From this analysis it emerged that the main front is not always faced the inhabited center, and therefore presumably

Fig. 1 Calvary position with respect to the urban center: out of the fabric (a), at the limit (b), in the historical fabric (c), incorporated (d) 3 F.

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Fig. 2 Position of the calvary main front with respect to the urban center: facing the center (a), opposite the center (b)

towards the church from which the Via Crucis started, but 23 out of 68 calvaries looked towards the outside of the inhabited. In a similar way as the previous schemes, the symbology from now will be implemented as in Fig. 2. Through a process of synthesis and graphic abstraction, it became possible to represent simultaneously the qualities investigated up to now for each calvary, obtaining a territorial map that at the same time shows the original state and the current one (Fig. 3). Another significant fact made evident by the analysis is the arrangement within the urban context of the calvary. Together with the internal or external position at the edges the fabric has assumed over time, the urban layout is able to give back to

Fig. 3 Map of the provinces of Lecce, Taranto and Brindisi, showing the location, orientation and position of the 68 calvaries studied

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a good extent both the events linked to the road transformations and the importance these artefacts have continued to preserve. The case studies found are subdivided into eight categories of the calvary placement: on the crossroads (21), along the path and with aligned (20) or rotated front (15), isolated (5), in angular position (2), near the cemetery (3), next to the church (4), in the Villa Comunale (1) or in the historical fabric (4). Each of these calvaries has been subject to relocations over time. This last aspect is the discriminating factor for the selection of exemplary case studies.

3 The Relationship Between Calvaries and Cities. The Case Studies of Andrano, Melpignano and Ruffano 4 All the villages chosen as case studies arise in the Lecce province. Their calvaries were built in the second half of the nineteenth century, located on the edge of the city or outside it. The Andrano calvary, built in 1913, is currently located at the junction of the provincial road that leads to the nearby Castiglione d’Otranto. It follows that its orientation is south-west of the inhabited center, towards which the calvary front is facing. It is incorporated into the urban fabric, albeit in the peripheral area. However, from the analysis it was found that the position of the small architectural building has varied over time. In fact the cadastral sheet (Fig. 4) shows its original position, on the crossroads and at the edge of the urban fabric, but the orientation was north-east with the front facing the urban fabric, on Calvario (today Vittorio Emanuele) street. The urban layout at the junction, although unchanged, is now configured differently. The original Calvario street led to the homonymous object without allowing a long distance visual perception: it was possible to access the vision of the calvary only after having passed a building block beyond which a small widening allowed the assembly of the faithful. Currently the provincial road runs perfectly straight, allowing a better view. The reasons for this displacement may be of a different nature, the more plausible one could be linked to a desire to return to the soil possession on which the calvary was erected. Spatially the two urban conditions, although similar, are radically different. In fact, if at first the calvary was the foreground of a bucolic background, today it appears to be incorporated among other buildings. In a way partially analogous to the case of Andrano, the Melpignano calvary has undergone transformations over time. From the original isolated position, next to the town along Dante street (Fig. 5), it is today placed at the edge of the city, maintaining the condition of isolation and along the continuation of the same road, now called Vittorio Veneto street. It follows that its urban position has remained unchanged as well as its south-east orientation with respect to the inhabited center towards which the front still looks at. Its displacement along the same urban axis has reconstructed over time the same original conditions of isolation and location on the urban margin that the religious functions required. 4 G.

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Fig. 4 Andrano. Planimetric and visual comparison between the original condition (a) and the current state (b)

A special case is the Ruffano calvary. In the plant sheet of the first decade of the ‘900 (Fig. 6) its position was outside the urban fabric and in an isolated position, at its east. The front was faced towards the inhabited center, exactly as today. The calvary is currently completely incorporated in the urban fabric expansion. The will to protect its value is underlined by the choice to preserve its original position. The successive provincial road 362, in fact, has a position not corresponding to that of the calvary: this is the only artifact not aligned with the road. In this way it preserves the perceptive/visual relationship with the original Dante Alighieri street. From the analyzes conducted on the 68 calvaries and in a more evident form on the three case studies, in most cases the perceptive/visual role of the calvary within the fabric is evident. Originally their position was at the limit or outside—except those already in the center or near the cemetery—and today their position is mostly

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Fig. 5 Melpignano. Planimetric and visual comparison between the original condition (a) and the current state (b)

incorporated or at the limit of the fabric. The cases analyzed lead to a reflection: in the cases in which the calvaries have been moved the limiting position seems to be an intention linked to the needs of the ritual. That is, as the fabric grows, the artifact was moved further into the distance, regaining the same initial urban condition. In analytical terms, the safeguarding religious symbolic value of the Calvaries can be traced back to the typical iconology of popular symbols in art. Robert Venturi speaks about it as an expressive modality of contents strengthened by form [13]. Instead, starting from an urban point of view, the american author’s reading methods on the Las Vegas Strip are applied. Between the luminous signs (graphic signs in the space) and the calvaries some conceptual analogies can be found. The calvaries become similar to the “roadside” eclecticism of the first ones. In fact, they play the role of attraction elements towards a message, a religious one, turning into “symbol

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Fig. 6 Ruffano. Planimetric and visual comparison between the original condition (a) and the current state (b)

in space before it forms in space”. As Venturi said: “This architecture of styles and signs is antispatial,it is an architecture of communication over space; communication dominates space as an element in the architecture and in the landscape” (1977). Thus, we find in the urban arrangement of calvaries a precise design intent aimed to attract the gaze of passers-by, as to constitute a sort of theatrical setting. This intention justifies the apparently disproportionate arrangement of the calvaries with respect to the urban fronts, for example with a rotation of 90° in favor of the route, as would be done for a commercial sign. Furthermore, the dimension of calvaries is not based on the space in which they are inserted, but on the intensity of the persuasive intent.

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4 Conclusion. Simple Architectures and Complex System: Religious Tradition and Scientific Research 5 The research analyzes the calvaries architecture at the topological level through the tools of drawing in two reading scales, namely the territorial one, with reference to the diffusion area of in the regional context (Fig. 3), and the urban area, in relation to the city structures. In southern Italy these minor architectures are present in an episodic form, but they have a specific concentration in the Apulian Salento, where they are built in the same period, the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, in almost all the built-areas. Therefore, the punctual and almost synchronic presence in each of them allows to read the whole phenomenon starting from single urban experiences and to consider it as a coherent system. Through the research of interpretative graphic models, their relationships and characteristics are highlighted with the aim of understanding the overall value determined by the coexistence of many examples in the same investigation area and, at the same time, the individual architectures qualities. These small eclectic constructions, having a strong figurative value and constituting the end of the viacrucis path, are considered as constructed and symbolic “representation” of an “intangible heritage”, that is the viacrucis procession. It could be said that the devotional feeling defines the procession path, so that the drawing of the route between stages is established by the community itself. “Il rito collettivo ricollega infatti tutti gli elementi significativi della città, del quartiere, del piccolo centro rurale: le strade e in particolare gli assi più antichi e più essenziali, le chiese, le sedi delle confraternite, il calvario, il palazzo e la piazza baronale o religiosa” [5]. This drawing, which each community attributed a different value to, could have had also some role in the urban spaces structuring, even if the path that the processions originally made is not known: some are placed at the end of an extra-city road and take on the function of scenic backdrop architecture, others are located at an important crossroads or at the side of church buildings. They still constitute an important moment in different communities religious calendar, but they follow paths that have changed over time. “Per comprendere meglio l’uso collettivo dell’insediamento urbano è importante conoscere e ricostruire gli itinerari processionali religiosi, ma anche quelli delle feste civili, per individuare i percorsi preferenziali all’interno delle città storiche” [12]. Through graphic and taxonomic synthesis is possible to identify the solutions continuity and dissonances between the various examples. To define the spatial relationships between the architecture and the city, the perceptive connections between the places were taken into consideration and a diachronic evaluation was made starting from the reading of the current and historical cartography. As already mentioned, the proposed analysis looks also at the whole phenomenon, considering it as an “inflected composition”, according to the Venturi definition. Each calvary has its own typological and topological characteristics. If placed within a system of reading and coding, the complex and multiform set of the Salento calvaries 5 V.

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can be evaluated as unitary and it can take on a further value which lays the foundations for its protection and enhancement. In 1977, Charles Jencks published “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture” in which he states, according to Maglio, that “architecture is capable of being both popular and elitist at the same time, because it can be appreciated by both the discipline specialists and a wider public” (2016). Although Jencks refers to post-modern architecture, authors of the present paper see the same “popular and elitist” quality in the calvary architectures. That is, the double-coding narrative technique, adopted by Venturi which referred, by its own admission, to the technique used by Umberto Eco in “Il nome della Rosa” [7], is the support for the interpretation of the whole system. The calvaries are architectures that play a central role in the community popular tradition, but, at the same time, on a geographical scale, they compose a set which is to be considered a regional architectural heritage and an intangible cultural heritage, because it is the expression of the religious and identity roots of a territory.

References 1. Arnheim R (1962) Arte e percezione visiva. Feltrinelli Editore, Milano 2. Caselli P (1995) La Città come luogo di scena, in Il disegno dell’illusione. La Rosa editore, Palermo 3. Cazzato V (1985) Architettura ed effimero nel barocco leccese. In: Fagiolo M, Madonna ML (eds) Barocco romano e barocco italiano. Il teatro, l’effimero, l’allegoria. Gangemi Editore, Roma 4. De Rubertis R (1971) Progetto e percezione. Officina Edizioni, Roma 5. Faeta F (1978) Territorio, angoscia, rito nel mondo popolare calabrese. La processione di Caulonia. Storia della città 8: 24 6. Lynch K (1960) The image of the city. MIT Press, Cambridge 7. Maglio A (2016) Robert Venturi e il tema del doppio in architettura. In: Mozzoni L, Santini S (eds) Architettura dell’Eclettismo. Esiste un eclettismo contemporaneo? Moderno e postmoderno. Liguori, Napoli, pp 251–273 8. Mellone L (2009) I Calvari della provincia di Lecce: architettura e devozione. Tesi di Laurea in Storia dell’architettura Moderna e Contemporanea, relatore prof. Vincenzo Cazzato, Università del Salento 9. Norberg-Schultz C (1979) Genius Loci, Paesaggio, ambiente, architettura. Electa, Milano 10. Palmisano F (2010) Dai sacri monti ai Calvari: architettura e devozione nelle provincie di Taranto e Brindisi. Tesi di Laurea in Storia dell’architettura Moderna e Contemporanea, relatore prof. Vincenzo Cazzato, Università del Salento 11. Perretti B (2011) Calvari. Architettura della pietà popolare nell’area Ionico-Salentina, Manduria, pp 7–15 12. Rossi G, Leserri M (2012) Unicità visuale o visualità unica? Riflessioni sulla visualità urbana di Martina Franca. In: Brunetti O (ed) Martina Franca nel Settecento. Strutture architettoniche e immagine urbana. Edifir, Firenze 13. Venturi R, Scott Brown D, Izenour S (1977) Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form. MIT Press, Cambridge 14. Madonne, pellegrini e santi. Itinerari antropologico-religiosi nella Calabria di fine millennio, Booklet Milano, 2000

Stratigraphy of the Gaze: Ruins of Invention. The Dynamic Experience of the “Contemporary Picturesque” Patanè Claudio

Abstract The stratigraphys of the gaze are “optical dissections” that “reveal” the landscape through drawing, and narrate in graphic form, what is near (from the detail of an artifact) and in the afar (to the horizon line) at the same time. A reinvention of “direct ancient survey”, which uses analogical techniques and instruments, in which the body touches, approximates, dimension, proportionate, measures carefully. A slow and engaging analysis that by hand drawing, pen, water, frottage, etc. it becomes an experience of the “world time”. Putting together in a single graphic restitution: emotion, material of the artifact, atmosphere, morphology, tectonics, topology. It is the experience of the gaze that becomes body, in which reality crossing the retina, passes from the mind to the hand, decant down to the paper, generating “new interpretative and inventive codes” for a project relationship between layers, an interstitial project (Bocchi, 2006) (Fig. 1). The “contemporary picturesque” thus becomes an active dynamic experience, no longer static as in the past, in which the project is a process of forms in continuous evolution rather than finite forms (Bocchi 2006). The possibility in the future of translating analogue data into “mobile and immovable” digital devices, using advanced visualization technologies, will allow to program and then build interaion virtual space and real spaces for “sensitive immersion” of the user, which will be involved in a way that is no longer passive but interactive, playful, constructive. He participates with the body of a landscape that “builds and listens to us” (Abalos, in Atlas pintoresco. G.Gili, Barcelona, 2005, [1]). The ruins of invention arise from this need to correct, shape, mark the terraqueous landscape, The project is part of the PON program for XXXIV cycle doctorates, lasting three years 20192021. Styled and coordinated by the agreement between: (dArTe) Department of Architecture and Territory of the Reggio Calabria Mediterranean University, the LFA Laboratory of Fotogrametría Arquitectónica of the ETS Arquitectura of the Universidad de Valladolid (Spain) and the Company NAOS Consulting s.r.l. of Salerno. With the program’s scientific manager: Prof. Francesca Fatta, tutor and coordinator of the foreign program: Prof. Juan José Fernandez Martin, tutor and coordinator of the program in the company: Ing. Giuseppe Riccio and the PhD student: Claudio Patanè ([email protected]). P. Claudio (B) Department of Architecture and Territory (dArTe), “Mediterranea” University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_47

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in particular that of the Calabrian coast, for “to dissect it in his mind’s eye and put it together again” (Berger, in Sul disegnare. Libri Scheiwiller, Milano, 2008, [4]). Territory from which the meaning of border (Zanini, in Significati del confine. I limiti naturali, storici, mentali. ed. Mondadori, Milano, 1997, [13]) is always uncertain and unstable. The gaze interprets, drawing, digs and invents, remaining on witing, as a “waterline”, as a tower, a suspended city, a fortress poised between sky, earth and sea (Fig. 2). Keywords Picturesque · Drawing · Invention · Analogic · Landscape · Ruins · Design · Tower · Calabria · Terraqueus

1 Introduction “Descriptions of descriptions” on the landscape Possible convergence: the landscape as a silent contact with things, as a sphere of daily practice. Arturo Lanzani

The term “picturesque” today refers to some interesting reflections as a relationship that links the existence of a subject to its exteriorization and its interiorisation of the landscape that surrounds it. Arturo Lanzani writes: “In the contemporary geography there is no lack of interpretations very different from that of the landscapepostcard, in the wake of the theses of Marleau-Ponty and with reference to the eastern landscape civilizations at the center of the landscape or rather a proto-country concept we can find a very different process of ‘trajection’ that binds the subject to space. This process tells us that the things around us are not simply objects of use, horizons of the gaze, collections of paintings, but links with our very existence, constitutive elements of our living, with which we have not only emotional ties but which assume a constructive role in our experience. In this perspective the landscape is at the centre of a double dynamic: that of cosmisation (exteriorization of the functions of the human body) and someisation (interiorisation of the world in the body) (Figs. 1, 2, and 3). A double dynamic through which our experience manifests itself in the world and the world comes to us […] the landscape of Berque and Dematteis, but even earlier as a ‘lived moment’, ‘horizon’, ‘movement’, ‘momentum’ of Dardel and the landscape/place of Tuan, highlights how our relationship with things, with the natural and built environment of man has as its starting point our body […]. This, moving away from a reading and history of individual buildings and designers, opens more and more to a more general field of reading of the transformations of space, see in the landscape/environmental system the concrete way in which man experiences in the dimension of space/time his relationship with the world in the act of living.

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Fig. 1 Claudio Patanè, “ruin of invention_stratigraphys of the gaze”, pencil and watercolor, 2019

Consequently, landscape policy is understood as a policy of “caring for the world” rather than “preserving heritage” [8]. The various landscape definitions, on the other hand, coined over time by jurists and theorists, has undergone continuous changes and is still unable to grasp their aspects in their entirety and complexity, perhaps because of its vagueness and ambiguity. Lanzani again: “According to a consolidated interpretative line, the ‘modern’ notion of landscape in western culture is affirmed in the Renaissance with the imposition of the point of view of an external subject and through it of a visual control over an environment, a scene (a subject that remains distant, almost opposed by an insider who lives in that territory and who does not operate any definitiva separation of the self from the scene). New relations of proto-capitalist production, affirmation of the autonomy of the individual, ‘discovery’ of perspective and modern construction of a new theatrical set are coherent elements of a revolution that invests the very ways of looking at and operating on the territory and takes the form of an idea of landscape as a vision from the outside, as a panoramic and scenographic representation of a territory by an outsider, a representation that over time will sway between the search for objectivity according to the rules of perspective and recovery of the viewer’s subjectivity [9]. It was only at the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the search for uniformity and regularity and the claim for visual control took on a ‘totalitarian’

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Fig. 2 Claudio Patanè, “errant_island_spirit of the horizon”, pencil and watercolor, 2019

value: “This happens when we develop that particular overview of the city and the territory that is the landscape and when in European urbanism will impose that search for regularity and uniformity in the repeated elements that marks a definitiva made to the reasons of the paper, in what will be shown to be a ‘brief’ attempt to govern the incipient fragmentation of urban space and the same visions of the city and the territory […]. In short, the built landscape, urban and rural, that Cattaneo was the first to teach us to read, cannot be understood without also remembering how the idea of a “perspective landscape” of a defined and external vision formed in the Italian Renaissance has conditioned, together with other technical, economic and social factors, the same transformative practices of the territory, the countryside and the city […]. A strong link with this idea of landscape emerges, however, also in the policy of protection of the inherited landscape, which proceeds by identifying an enlarged set of objects, of land registry assets that are identifiable as high artistic

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Fig. 3 Claudio Patanè, “terracqueo fish. Lo Stretto and a turreted City”, pencil, ink and watercolor, 2019

and cultural expression, as national heritage to be preserved through a system of constraints and public authorizations […]” [9]. This policy is expressed through laws that are expressed in terms of “aesthetic value”, of “uncommon beauty”, and in particular referring to the landscape adopts the notion of “scenic beauty considered as natural paintings”. Even today, this vision of the landscape as an external object continues to be present. In this respect, Zancan reflects on the concept of landscape, landscape and country: “For Lorzing, although there are many definitions, together they communicate the fact that there is a landscape that we can measure, and a landscape that we can only feel. In other words, it is not only matter, substance, object, “the result of the combined efforts of nature and man”, but also mind, “what you think”, mental object, and therefore “the man who perceives the face of the earth and interprets scenarios. In Italian, the equivalent of the term Anglo-Saxon landscape, landscape presents many families of meanings, but among all, we want to focus attention on what refers to the fact that the term has as its root “country”. This is the meaning that while it says “landscape”, it means precisely “country”, understood as “great extension of inhabited and cultivated territory”. From the mists of our history, it emerges that the landscape for the fact of being the result of the combined efforts of nature and man and also being what you think, is one of the places where you play, and often you build the civil profile of a country”. [12]

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2 A Case Study: The “Ruins of Invention” in the Calabrian Fortified Landscape A ruin presents itself today to our eyes mute, enigmatic, invisible. But it is not so. The ruin is an ancient, sedimented trace, an open wound on the ground, which “speaks” and structures its morphology, which marks its orography, dimensions the course of the ground, which marks the pace and distances. The ruins of invention (Fig. 4) reinterpret an abandoned artifact, as an unfinished stage “skeleton” of contemplation on the landscape, to urge the traveler, visitor and inhabitant of a place to be part of it with the body, emotion and perception. Mostly remains of ruins of watchtowers, existing, scattered on the coast of Calabria Ulterior, abandoned ruins [2], to make the landscape an observatory to live in, to read, narrate and cross it with the aim of transforming the artifact into “device of the gaze” on the territory and the Mediterranean landscape. Platforms to be “re-housed” [3] temporarily by visitors, inhabitants, passing wayfarers. These artefacts, whose dating and functionality are to be referred to in a period of time ranging from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, when the Kingdom of Naples was part of a vast geographical area where “the sun never set”: the Spanish. As a basis, map and pretext of study, we will follow the route traced by the valuable work, “diary of wonders” of the late ’500, called

Fig. 4 Claudio Patanè, “ruin of invention_stratigraphys of the gaze”, pencil and watercolor, 2019

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“Codice Romano Carratelli”. The typology of the fortified system included cylindrical towers, mixed with a truncated cone base and a cylindrical post, and the latest generation quadrangular towers. The wall face was made up of shapeless stones, extracted from local quarries, arranged mainly with the building technique of the time: “uncertain work” (opus incertum). In the walls facing east and west there are cavities, as long as the thickness of the wall, whose function was due to sighting and control of the territory. The interior is accessed through an opening raised above the ground floor, to avoid direct assault by the enemy from the outside (Fig. 5). The strategic programme foresees the design and the “light” modelling of the soil of the fortified system and of its context on a local and territorial scale with the insertion of “material grafts, platforms, emergencies” through which it is possible to cross and read the landscape with one’s gaze, the definition of paths through the emergence of existing tracks and the insertion of “information and interactive totems”, using micro-devices (IP67 beacons or IP68 for outdoor use) with integrated circuits for immersive reality (QR codes, operating systems for Android and iOS), which facilitate accessibility and reading (Fig. 6). The dissemination of other steel or wood “totems”, scattered among the villages of the coastal fortified system, will make it possible to contain, protect and identify geolocalized beacon sensors. These are transmitting devices, detectable and processed

Fig. 5 Claudio Patanè, “ruins of invention_stratigraphies of the look”. Analog survey mode. Indian ink and watercolour on travel notebook, 2019

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Fig. 6 Claudio Patanè, drawings for the Project Fortin—La Calzada de Béjar (Spain) imaginary hypothesis: an observatory for the landscape. Map of La Calzada de Béjar, illustrative drawing of a tablet with interactive totem containing the beacon sensor and beacon system diagram and interactive media. May 2019

by the visitor’s mobile app, to which it will be possible to transmit small amounts of information and narrative data concerning: • the history of the artefact and of the surrounding territory; • the three-dimensional reconstruction of the artefacts from their origins to the present day; • historical maps and cartographies; • interactive models for the tourist-cultural accessibility of people with disabilities; • the localization of georeferenced routes and paths (environmental routes, taste routes, accommodation facilities, etc.); • orientation and visual storytelling games for children; • celestial maps for night-time visualization; and other interactive data that make the Tower, the village and the surrounding territory “talking”.

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2.1 For an Erotic Landscape A light “soft” approach, therefore, to “degree zero” [14] where the walker walking gives shape and builds the space of the void making conscious experience and knowledge, “aesthetic practice” [5] and work of art. The abandoned architecture, the ruins, the trace, the furrow, the ancient village, will act as an “invisible infrastructure of visual connection” in which the place itself becomes a tangible itinerary for the wayfarer, guided by the “stresses of the ground” [6] and by precise information devices. He himself will be the creator, in his passage, of a narrative that consciously unites the architecture of places, the landscape and the environment [11]. It is on the concept of porosity that attention is focused towards a vision that unites inhabitant, space and landscape in which from “sign to meaning it is possible to pass from the particular to the universal” [7]) not only space and the observer are not two separate entities but united. Space seems to understand the observer crossing it. It follows that the concept of porosity of an architectural device grafted onto the coastal landscape, the tower, means identifying the key that merges inside and outside by identifying a horizon (equatorial or terrestrial) as far as the eye can capture it. Porosity means opening of the gaze and implies the intersection between the horizon elsewhere and what is in the vicinity, a close detail captured by the passage of the observer. The vast system of the Calabrian fortified landscape makes it possible to make these individual “keys”, towers, into a vast device of the gaze on a large scale that allow you to actively perceive distance and closeness in a single instant. “The horizon is not only an optical condition, but also a rotating moment in space-time” (Fig. 7).

3 Conclusion the present of the past is memory, the present of the present is the vision, the present of the future is expectation. Agostino d’Ippona

In Melancholia, a film directed by Lars Von Trier in 2011, Justine the protagonist, after a contrasting dialogue with her sister Claire, held in her art library. She removes from the shelves with anger and delirium the art books with images of works of the avant-garde and pure abstractionism of the early ’900, Kazimir Malevich mainly. It replaces them with images of figurative works of art of a naturalistic, landscape and realistic type. In the compulsive camera movements of the director and Justine one can see: the hunters in the snow of Bruegel il Vecchio (“icon” of the cinema that has conditioned various directors such as Tarkovsky), the Ophelia of Millais, Caravaggio, etc. It will be the beginning of a delirious strong depressive crisis for Justine, which will lead her to identify herself and immerse herself until she merges with nature, until she grants herself with her body to an intercourse with the “double

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Fig. 7 Claudio Patanè, “Ruins of invention. A device of the landscape”. Pencil and watercolour, 2019

moon”, planet Melancholia, ascetic symbol of an ecstatic cosmic union between man and universe. Justine frees herself from the pervasive, redundant and rhetorical constructions of the abstract invisibility of the “suprematist”, the superstructure of a world transferred to the contemporary world in which she feels uncomfortable to give into the sublime clear and clear image of the art of the past, from which to bring out that erotic, penetrating, confused belonging that a panorama, a painted view, a glimpse, suggests. Lars Von Trier loads his film with depth, mystery, double shadows, equitable images, nocturnal, gothic reinterpretation of northern Europe without contrasts of Mediterranean chiaroscuro. From this detachment from the past, we fall back to the present as an immense present, an extension of expectation, in which ruin as a landscape and landscape as ruin becomes a living thing, compared to a universal totality. The living image is the penetrating and dynamic one of the hunters in the snow of Bruegel the Elder, in which the observer’s gaze crosses and seeks the movement of the figures wrapped in the distance on a clear expanse of ice. It is the expectation of wanting to dare in Victor Hugo’s “dreamlike picturesque inventions”, when writing is no longer enough and yields to the schizophrenic force of the sign. The ruins of invention is part of a series of watercolors, visions of “designed ruins”, with the intention of reflecting on the concept of “unfinished construction”,

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as a graphic paradox that remains suspended in time, on the “horizon line”, as a towered city, a floating fortress between sky, earth and sea. The rock of the island has been shaped by the blends and rubbings with natural elements and from the active excavation of the human being in a future/remote. The design of the ruin refers to another dimension, which is that of waiting for what is unfinished and imperfect, generating “new interpretative codes” for a landscape design project that puts in a single dimension: past, present and future (Fig. 8). Make Your Topic:

Fig. 8 Claudio Patanè, “Ruins of invention. The night of a tower”, pencil and watercolour, 2019

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References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Abalos I (2005) Atlas pintoresco, vol 1, el observatorio, G.Gili, Barcelona Augé M (2012) Rovine e macerie. Il senso del tempo, ed. Bollati Boringheri, Torino Arista FB (2012) Abitare le Rovine, dalla ABITARE, Milano Berger J (2008) Sul disegnare. Libri Scheiwiller, Milano Careri F (2006) Walkscapes. Camminare come pratica estetica, ed. Einaudi, Milano Debord G (1956) Théorie de la dérive, in Les Lèvres nues, n. 9, Bruxelles Holl S (2004) Parallax, Postmedia, Milano Lanzani A (2003) I paesaggi italiani. Meltemi, Roma Lanzani A (2005) Differenze: il paesaggio dell’outsider come progetto prospettico, tutela del paesaggio ereditato e costruzione del paesaggio cartolina Marini S (2006) Dessiner sur l’herbe. atti del convegno internazionale, ed. Poligrafo, Padova Walser R (1976) La Passeggiata. ed. Piccola Biblioteca Adelphi, Milano Zancan R (2005) Corrispondenze. Teorie e storie dal landscape. ed. Gangemi, Roma Zanini P (1997) Significati del confine. I limiti naturali, storici, mentali. ed. Mondadori, Milano Zevi B (1997) Paesaggistica e grado zero della scrittura architettonica, Modena, 1997 L’architettura. Cronache e storia, Paesaggistica e linguaggio grado zero dell’architettura, anno XLIII, n. 503/6, p 382

Urban Landscape and Multi-functioning Elements: Repositioning of Monumental Fountains in Messina After the 1908 Earthquake Daniele Colistra

Abstract The monumental Baroque fountains placed in the public spaces of the city of Messina, before the earthquake of 1908, represented a typical multi-functioning element. Their main function was to supply water to the population. Furthermore, they constituted the visual focus of the square in which they were located, served as a place of rest, meeting and socialization, represented the economic, political and religious power of those who had built them, were a real object of urban design (to be appreciated both from a great distance and in terms of detail). The relocation of the fountains following the nineteenth-century plan for the reconstruction of the city gave them an even more ambiguous role, sometimes exalting their value, at other times reducing them to a useless element of street furniture. This essay aims to analyze the role of the urban landscape project in relation to pre-existing monuments, which were characterized by a multiple function from the outset and were further enriched with new values. Keywords Urban landscape · Messina earthquake · Monumental fountains · Urban scenography · Multi-Functioning element · Reconstruction project

1 Introduction This work is focused on the theme of the transformation of the urban landscape, following the radical change caused by a destructive event. The theme is applied to a specific context: the city of Messina, completely destroyed by the earthquake of December 28, 1908, and rebuilt in subsequent years according to an urban model that only partially follows the previous design (Fig. 1). More specifically, we studied the numerous monumental fountains that characterized many squares in the historic center. After the earthquake, almost all the Messina fountains were relocated in a different context; but even before 1908, many of them had been moved, following the numerous urban transformation interventions that, at the end of the nineteenth D. Colistra (B) “Mediterranea” University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_48

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Fig. 1 Plan of Messina before and after the earthquake of 1908

century, applied Italian regulations for the improvement of sanitary conditions. After 1908, the urban landscape of Messina was entirely redesigned and the ancient monumental fountains, in some cases, were placed in the most representative public spaces: the squares of the historic center, the point of convergence of the great urban avenues and space of representation, identity and meeting for citizenship [1]. A monumental fountain is always a multiple-functioning element: in addition to supplying water to the population, it usually occupies a focal point in the public space in which it is inserted, it becomes a place of pause and socialization, it constitutes an element of urban furniture, it represents the power (political, economic, religious) of the authority that built it. This sometimes ambiguous role has been further enhanced by the new urban design of Messina, which has often enriched the fountain with additional qualities and meanings, initially not foreseen.

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2 The Critical Contribution of Robert Venturi In the essay that underlies this reflection [2], the author considers contradictions and complexities as an element of vitality and identity for architecture and the urban landscape. The Messina fountains, in relation to the planning of the city after 1908, express contradictions and complexity in an exemplary way. After more than a century, we can no longer imagine them in a different context than the one in which they are located. If today we removed and exhibited them in a museum, they would lose the meaning they have in relation to the urban landscape and would become like a sculpture with an independent value, self-contained and self-referential. Italian cities, and all historical cities in general, express their complexity, contradiction and multi-functionality through continuous changes, transformations and adaptations to the new demands that the passage of time and the ever new demands impose. These transformations occur constantly, usually slowly, but sometimes have sudden accelerations. Exactly this happened in Messina which, in a few years, saw its structure and the image of its urban landscape completely change. We observe the image of a city mainly through static representations: a drawing, a photograph, a planimetry. In these representations, the urban landscape appears as frozen, but it is only a single image extracted from a stream in continuous transformation. The city is a palimpsest [3] composed of overlapping writings; each of its representations constitutes the testimony of a precise instant of its existence, seen from an absolutely personal point of view and therefore not objective: the point of view of the author. Analyzing the urban landscape means first of all dividing the elements that constitute it. Then put them back together and analyze their role in the general context. From this point of view, the analysis of the physical elements that make up a fountain does not change if it is at the center of a square, if it is moved to the open space of a boulevard or if it is dismantled and rebuilt in a museum room. But the most important thing is to consider its value as an element of the urban landscape, which is very distinct from the primitive function of the fountain: supplying water to the population. This function has now become marginal. Any change in the urban landscape should keep the past and the present in mind, imagine future transformations but in no case can it have the arrogance to consider itself unmodifiable, out of history and indifferent to any new needs that the city—an organism in continuous transformation—can express. Designers must always have the courage to intervene in the historical memory, take the consequent risks and any errors. Let’s take a concrete example. The sixteenth-century Fontana di Nettuno was designed by Montorsoli with his back to the sea, facing the city (Fig. 2). His original visual relationship was with the port and with the profile of Calabrian mountains; it was also aligned with two other monuments already built by Montorsoli in Messina: the Fontana di Orione in Piazza Duomo and the Lanterna on the sickle of the port [4, 5]. After the earthquake, the fountain was moved and rotated 180°, with its back to the city and the hand forward towards the water, as if the god wanted to keep the waves quiet and prevent a new catastrophe. Today his visual relationship with the urban landscape is linked to the Government Palace, which he overlaps with a

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Fig. 2 Fontana del Nettuno (Giovannangelo Montorsoli, 1557) in its original position, in front of the Palazzata on the port quay

short distance and prevents us from perceiving its profile in a clear way (Fig. 3). This promotes a different perception of the monument, invites to turn around it, watching him more carefully. In the old position, instead, he had a unique privileged point of view; his vision was more static and, therefore, more iconic. No one can say whether the repositioning and rotation would have been accepted or unwelcome to its author; however we must claim the right, as designers and as inhabitants of today’s city, to intervene on what the past has left us. This has always happened in the history of architecture, and the judgment on the choices made is never pronounced by those who preceded us and today is no longer there; the judgment on the design choices is entrusted to those who are present and to those who will come after us. As for the double-functioning element, Venturi emphasizes that it is related to both use and structure [2, p. 34]. Normally, multiple functioning elements are typical of buildings and public spaces where the functions are not clearly separated. Venturi highlights the fact that even a single element can have a dual function: for example, a gallery in a building is both a corridor and a room; an open space in an urban street has both the directionality of a path and the static nature of a square enclosed by architectural walls. If modernist architecture has worked to define and separate functions, historical architecture has always focused on both linguistic and functional flexibility, which inevitably translates into ambiguity and contradiction. The doublefunctioning element, according to Venturi, is often a detail; and the fountain, inserted in the urban context, is an element of detail in relation to the square or the urban

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Fig. 3 Fontana del Nettuno in its current position

landscape in which it is placed (Figs. 4, 5, and 6). Now let’s see how Venturi’s intuitions and the meaning he wanted to give to the double-functioning element in relation to the urban landscape can be applied to the case of Messina.

3 The Monumental Fountain and Its Role in Urban Landscape Before the earthquake of 1908, there were numerous public fountains in Messina. Their purpose was not only to supply water to the population: many of these had a real monumental function, in the sense that they warned and remembered (moneo = I warn you) the existence of a political or economic power, or commemorated

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Fig. 4 Fontana Falconieri (Carlo Falconieri, 1842). The repositioning after the earthquake at the center of the elliptical Basicò square makes the fountain the focal point of all the streets that flow into it. In particular, the staircase leading down from the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Montalto allows visual alignment with the dome of Santuario di Cristo Re. The construction of the surrounding high buildings attenuates the visual strength of this design idea

Fig. 5 Fontana Falconieri, starting from the circular Piazza Antonello along via Sant’Agostino towards the elliptical Piazza Basicò, still serves as a visual target, despite the building chaos and transport means

a character or a significant event for the city. More generally, the symbolic value of a fountain is particularly evident in warm Mediterranean countries that are often lacking in water. A fountain is a sign of wealth, demonstrating the power and good governance of public affairs [6]. We do not know precisely the number of monumental and commemorative fountains present in Messina before the earthquake. Historical sources allow us to reconstruct a rich but certainly incomplete situation: many fountains have been destroyed by the earthquake, many others are (dismembered or more or less completely rebuilt) inside private villas and courtyards; others are kept, waiting to be repositioned and others have been stolen and no trace remains of them. Given the nature of our work, we have only considered the fountains built before the earthquake and currently present in the public spaces of the city. Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Messina faced the construction of new aqueducts and pipelines. The monumental fountains, located in strategic points of the city, are destined to have an important role in celebrating political power. As already mentioned, the possession and control of water supply and distribution represented—in the cities and in the Sicilian countryside—an element of exercise of

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Fig. 6 Fontana Falconieri seen from the top of Piazza Basicò. His role as an obelisk between Piazza Antonello and the harbor front is evident

the political authority and economic control [7]. Between 1530 and 1548 pipelines were built to bring the Peloritani water (more precisely the water from the Camaro stream) to the center of Messina. The arrival of water in the city was celebrated with a temporary fountain in Piazza Duomo, but soon the city Senate commissioned Giovannangelo Montorsoli, friar of Servite Order and pupil of Michelangelo, to build a monumental fountain dedicated to Orion, the mythical founder of Messina [8]. Montorsoli did not limit himself to designing the fountain: his work extended to the redesign of the entire square1 (Figs. 7, 8). In fact “the fountain had to be 1 “The

site where to place the new fountain thus became for the friar the objective of a path of perception and assimilation of urban morphology which, although distancing it from sculptural

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Fig. 7 Above: reconstruction of Piazza del Duomo in 1547: in yellow the demolitions carried out by Montorsoli, in red the small source and the new monumental fountain. Below: reconstruction of the hypothetical project of redesigning the square proposed by Montorsoli [9]

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Fig. 8 Fontana di Orione (Giovannangelo Montorsoli, 1553) seen from the top of the bell tower of the Duomo

considered as a parameter to measure the hierarchy of the built-up space, leading to interpretation” [9, p. 13]. A few years later, Montorsoli was commissioned to build the fountain of Neptune, at the center of the port quay. It represented the god of the sea who tames the monsters of Scylla and Charybdis; because of its position—in the point of greatest economic and commercial vivacity of Messina—it was also the selfcelebration of a city that in those years was contending in Palermo the role of capital of Sicily [10]. The two fountains designed by Montorsoli in Messina immediately became an example to refer to not only in Sicily, but also internationally: they were the model for similar monuments that, in the following years, were placed in the center of squares in many capitals such as Florence and Bologna, as well as Palermo.

4 In Situ Stays and Displacement. Index of Monuments Considering the 12 monumental fountains built in Messina before the earthquake of 1908 and currently still present in the public spaces of the city, we have identified three groups: specialism, led it to design considerations of scale and architectural culture. (…) The eyes of Giovannangelo certainly did not see a square, but not even those of the people of Messina saw it, who opportunely continued to call that slargo chianu o plano, that is to say as a shapeless expanse, devoid of architectural dignity and / or waiting to receive it”. [9, p. 7].

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• fountains that maintain their position after the earthquake in an almost unchanged context (Fontana dell’Abbondanza); • fountains that maintain their position, but in a transformed context (Fontana del Lauro, Fontana di Orione); • fountains that have been relocated to a different place (Fontana di Nettuno, Fontana dell’Acquario, Fontana Senatoria, Quattro Fontane, Fontana Ruffo, Fontana Cavallucci, Fontana Pigna, Fontana Falconieri, Fontana in ghisa). Fontana dell’Abbondanza was sculpted by Ignazio Buceti in 1741 and placed inside the staircase of the Monte di Pietà, a monumental complex built in the same year to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Confraternity. The fountain is still in its original position, although the building was badly damaged by the earthquake of 1908 and the church of Nostra Donna della Pietà has almost completely collapsed (Fig. 9). The multiple function of this element is evident: it represents the place of visual convergence of the eyes of whoever is inside the complex scenographic

Fig. 9 Fontana dell’Abbondanza (Ignazio Buceti, 1741). Above, in the center: view of the complex before the earthquake of 1908. Above, at the sides: views of the marble group from the right staircase and from the left staircase. Below: today’s view of the Monte di Pietà court

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space, typically baroque, and flexes with his presence the powerful retaining wall of the church square. The concave-convex façade is a typical element of the Baroque language; in this case, the Fontana dell’Abbondanza has the role of accompanying and accentuating this inflection. The fountain is located in the center of the perspective, but its small size does not allow it to be appreciated from the entrance, and requires the approach towards the true main element of the space: the church of Nostra Donna della Pietà. Once in front of the fountain, two flights of stairs lead to the church level; the marble group surmounting the fountain is designed in such a way as to offer two main views, both highly dramatic, whether you take the ramp on the right or the ramp on the left. Fontana del Lauro, the oldest in the city, is located on a spring, now dry, near the Cala della Sanità, opposite the church of S. Francesco da Paola. The existence of the fountain has been documented since 1348. At that time, it consisted of a rectangular basin with four points for water intake, covered by a parallel-edged building with a pozzolan and stone vault [11, p. 17]. Later, in the sixteenth century, a monumental fountain was built, modified in 1884 with the addition of four marble sculptures (small horses), coming from another eighteenth-century fountain. The image of the late nineteenth century fountain is visible in the photos of the years immediately preceding the earthquake: a large circular basin, inside which four little angels were placed on the back of as many horses; at the center of the tank, an obelisk with an additional basin surmounted by a spherical element. After the construction of the piers for the ferry-boats, the space in front of the fountain was distorted and the monument was destroyed. What remains today is a fragment of the central obelisk and the perimeter of the external pool, in a degraded site, full of weeds and interlocked between the ferry embarkation yard and the busy Viale della Libertà (Fig. 10). Because of this, it is impossible to identify a function and value of the fountain in relation to the current urban landscape. Fontana di Orione, identifies by legends as the mythical founder of the city, was designed in 1553 by Giovannangelo Montorsoli (Figs. 11, 12). The fountain is defined by Bernard Berenson as “the most beautiful fountain of the sixteenth century in Europe”; it was commissioned by the city Senate to celebrate the construction of the first Messina aqueduct [12]. As mentioned above, the construction of the fountain is linked to the redesign of the entire Piazza Duomo: the medieval church of S. Lorenzo was demolished and rebuilt in a slightly different position. But also the new church of San Lorenzo was destroyed by the earthquake of 1783; on its conformation we can only make conjectures (Fig. 7). Some words of Vincent Scully [13, p. 91], written for the Introduction to the book of Venturi, seem to refer to Piazza del Duomo in Messina.2 Going beyond the complex Neoplatonic symbolism of the characters that animate the fountain, a fact that already gives it an obvious multi-functional value, it is interesting to note how the monument, articulated on a circular system, has infinite axes of symmetry and does not exist a privileged observation point. The only 2 “The

urban façades of Italy, with their endless adjustments to the counter-requirements of inside and outside and their inflection with all the business of everyday life: not primarily sculptural actors in vast landscapes but complex spatial containers and definers of streets and squares”.

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Fig. 10 Fontana del Lauro. Above, an image from the late nineteenth century. Below, what remains today of the monument

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Fig. 11 Fontana di Orione (Giovannangelo Montorsoli, 1553) seen from the Piazza del Duomo. The fountain has been waterless for some years due to some structural injuries

directional element is precisely the statue of Orion, on top of the monument, which however has the dog behind it, and not at his side (as usual). The fountain is not in the center of the square, but in a secluded position: nevertheless it represents a microcosm linked to the universality of the water element, personified by the Nile, Tiber and Ebro rivers and by the Camaro stream. The Orion fountain is also a visual goal for the square; from any position, it stands in the foreground against the background of the palaces that surround it. In this context, we can find Venturi’s concept of superadjacency in relation to the urban landscape, introduced in Chapter VIII of his essay. The superadjacency can be considered a variation of the idea of simultaneity expressed by cubism, or by the transparency of a surface; it can originate wealth and tension. The superadjacency varies if an observer moves into space, and precisely this effect occurs when moving inside the square of the Cathedral of Messina, where the Fontana di Orione, which lacks a privileged observation point, overlaps with several architectural scenes. The overlap (superadjacency) of an ancient monument to a new space must be considered more historic than the freezing of the monument itself in a situation out of time and, therefore, out of history. Fontana del Nettuno, also designed by Giovannangelo Montorsoli and completed in 1557, was mentioned in the previous paragraph (Figs. 2, 3). Originally it was located on the quay of the port, in front of the Palazzata, with the god’s shoulders facing the sea. In 1757 a bronze statue (Charles III of Bourbon) was placed alongside it, and in 1832 a second bronze statue (Francesco I), both removed and merged in

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Fig. 12 Fontana di Orione after the earthquake and nowadays, seen from the same point of view

1848 to make bullets. During the uprisings of 1848 the fountain suffered serious damage: the statue of Neptune was replaced with a copy in 1856, the statue of Scilla in 1858 (both originals are in the Regional Museum of Messina). The earthquake of 1908 did not damage the monument, however in 1934 it was transferred to the current site (Piazza Unità d’Italia, opposite the Palazzo della Prefettura) and rotated 180° from its original position. Following this shift, the alignment strongly desired by Montorsoli with the Fontana di Orione and the San Raineri lantern was lost (Figs. 13, 14). A characteristic of this monument is the contemporary presence of strong directionality (underlined by the posture of the god, from the blatant gestures of Scilla and Cariddi placed at his feet, from the rectangular basement of the base) which contrasts with the circular shape of the basin; the circularity is not directional, but suggests a homogeneous view from any position. Unfortunately today the two roads that pass next to the monument are crossed by trucks and cars at high speed; it is almost impossible to approach the monument, and its typical image in the urban landscape is from inside the passenger compartment of a car.

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Fig. 13 Fontana del Nettuno (Giovannangelo Montorsoli, 1557). Top view and panoramic view of the front and back of the monument. Photographs by Giuseppe Mattia Alberto and Pierluigi Gerace

Fontana dell’Acquario (Fig. 15) was commissioned by the Messina Senate and installed in 1602, probably by the sculptor Rinaldo Bonanno. Originally located between Via Monasteri and the current Corso Cavour, it was damaged by the earthquake and kept for a few years in the Messina museum; in 1932 it was placed in its current position, in a small triangular square between corso Cavour and via XXIV maggio. The monument is rich in astrological symbolisms, and also mythological symbolisms related to Ganymede, a male figure who is the protagonist of the fountain. The symbolisms overlap with the structural, formal and functional value of the monument. But the role of this monument in the urban landscape has been completely altered following the repositioning. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the fountain is described as follows [14]: “Nell’entrare dalla Porta Imperiale, dove la via maestra viene à partirsi in dua, si vede il nuovo et bel fonte con la statua d’Aquario sedente sopra il Zodiaco”.3 Today the value of the fountain in the urban landscape is very low; the monument is located in a narrow space between buildings. In the current arrangement project, the fountain has an exclusively ornamental role, in the worst meaning that this word can assume. Fontana Senatoria fountain was built in 1619 by the will of the city Senate (Fig. 16). The exact original location is not known. Most likely it was one of the fountains that 3 “Entering from the Imperial Gate, where the main street splits in two, you see the new and beautiful

fountain, with the statue of the Aquarius sitting above the Zodiac”.

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Fig. 14 Fontana del Nettuno (Giovannangelo Montorsoli, 1557). Photogrammetric survey: elevations and axonometry. Drawings by Giuseppe Mattia Alberto and Pierluigi Gerace

decorated the Teatro Marittimo, built in the seventeenth century near the edge of the port and designed by Giacomo Maffei. Until 1935 the fountain was located in front of the sea side façade of the Royal Palace; in 1937 it was moved to its current location, at the left end of the main front of Palazzo Zanca (Town Hall). It consists of a cup in marble with a conical top and a tapered pedestal, inserted in a large tub of modern construction. The repositioning of the fountain in the center of a square adjacent to the Town Hall is a good example of the relationship between element and context. In this portion of urban space (a smaller square next to a big palace) there is the overlap of an element endowed with its own rule (the fountain) with another element endowed with a different rule (the small square and the lateral facade of Palazzo Zanca). It is a typical example of superadjacency obtained through conventional elements; “by modifying or adding conventional elements to still other conventional elements they can, by a twist of context, gain a maximum of effect through a minimum of means” [2, p. 44]. Quattro Fontane were designed in the seventeenth century by Pietro Calcagni, according to a typical model of baroque scenography (Quattro Canti in Catania and in Palermo, Quattro Fontane in Rome). Inspired by marine iconography, they were

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Fig. 15 Fontana dell’Acquario (Rinaldo Bonanno, before 1602). Elevations of the model from the photogrammetric survey (top) and photos of the fountain in the current location. Drawings by Lorenzo Musolino

made at different times: the first in 1666 (sculptor Innocenzo Mangani), the second in 1714 (sculptor Ignazio Buceti), the last two in 1742 (sculptor Antonino Amato). Originally located in the crossroads generated by via Austria and via Cardines, after the earthquake they were dismantled and kept for years in the church of Santa Maria Alemanna. Currently, two of them are in the Regional Museum of Messina, two others have been repositioned approximately in the same site (corner buildings between via I settembre and via Cardines) but in a completely different context from the original (Fig. 17). With this new arrangement, the role of the two monuments has radically changed. Previously they were on the corners of a quadrilateral space: a space with a central plant. Today they follow the directionality of the road axis that connects Piazza Duomo with Piazza del Palazzo Reale, an axis that the post-earthquake Borzì plan wanted to keep unchanged, and therefore overlaps with the regularity of the twentieth century chessboard. In this arrangement there is an obvious out-of-scale: the fountains are placed at the corners of the Cardines street, which is too narrow to allow pedestrians to perceive the monuments in their mutual relationship. Furthermore, the fountains are excessively large compared to the buildings on which they are placed. This is a contradictory out of scale, which in itself is not a negative element, as long as it is perceptible and appreciable, but not in this case. Venturi underlines how the

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Fig. 16 Fontana Senatoria (anonymous,1619). Front view, section, volumetric view and photos in the current context. Drawings by Natale Filice

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Fig. 17 Quattro Fontane (project by Carlo Buceti, seventeenth century. Installed between 1666 and 1742). Plan and front view on Via I September; angular view; detail. Below: photos of the two fountains reconstructed on the street I September and view of the two fountains reassembled at the Regional Museum of Messina. Drawings by Federico Barbagallo and Sidorela Furxhiu

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phenomenon of a sudden change of scale inside a building or in the urban landscape often happens casually, and not due to design intent. In this case it was probably a thought change, even if not perfectly controlled. However, this is a vital use of the monument, which now belongs to the image of the city, unlike what we can perceive in the reconstruction of the other two fountains preserved in the Regional Museum. Fontana Ruffo, built by Ignazio Brugnani in 1738, was originally located in the cloister of the monastery of the church of S. Gregorio. In 1897 it was transported to the Umberto I Sea Garden and in 1938 placed in its current position, inside the Messina Fair. It was damaged in the aftermath of the bombing of the Second World War and was restored in 1980. The fountain is currently decontextualized and therefore it is not significant to compare the situation today with the one before the earthquake, nor to evaluate its relationship with the urban landscape. In a similar situation is Fontana in Ghisa, built at the end of the nineteenth century for a chalet present in the Umberto I Sea Garden and today located without relation to the context between the pavillons of Messina Fair (Fig. 18). It is impossible to evaluate the relationship with the current urban context also for the Cavallucci fountains, sculpted by Giovan Battista Marino between 1742 and 1752 from a design made in 1729 by Gaetano Ungaro. Originally they were located in Piazza S. Maria La Porta (now Largo Seguenza). Destroyed by the earthquake, there remain two large oval cups that were placed behind the Cathedral (precisely in Largo S. Giacomo) in 1970, but the comparison with the original fountain is absolutely not feasible since the original monument was completely dismembered. Fontana della Pigna, of eighteenth-century style, has origin and unknown author (Fig. 19). Before the earthquake it was located in the courtyard of the archiepiscopal seminary. Later it was placed on Viale Boccetta, in the wide sidewalk that separates the two carriageways. With the increase in vehicular traffic and the construction of the motorway junction, Viale Boccetta has become a fast-flowing artery, and the fountain has become difficult to use. In 1988 it was moved a few meters, in Piazza Seguenza, to a residual space between the car parks, and is in a state of decay. Initially conceived as a fulcrum element of a central space (the courtyard of the seminary), it has now become an element of embellishment of a margin space. “It is the role of design to adjust to the circumstantial” says Louis Kahn. A concept taken up by Venturi in chapter VII of his essay, in which he states “from such false consistency real cities will never grow. Cities, like architecture, are complex and contradictory” [2, p. 54]. However, the repositioning of Fontana della Pigna seems more like a justification for the brutality in which this portion of the urban center was treated, a timid attempt at compensation through the awkward insertion of a quality element within a space that is free. We must admit that the landscape of the contemporary city offers much more complex variables than that of the historic city. The speed of the rhythms of life, as well as the displacements, the fact that we no longer dwell on the details, the presence of other elements of visual distraction (illuminated signs, shop windows, etc.), imposes an overcoming of the way of conceiving spaces and the urban landscape. Fontana Falconieri (Fig. 20) was designed in 1842 by Carlo Falconieri specifically for Piazza Ottagona (now renamed Piazza Juvarra) and takes its form from it. After the

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Fig. 18 Above: Fontana Ruffo (Ignazio Brugnani, 1738). Below: Fontana in Ghisa (anonymous, nineteenth century)

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Fig. 19 Fontana della Pigna (anonymous, eighteenth century) in a twentieth century postcard, before moving a few meters into piazza Seguenza, and in a recent image

Fig. 20 Fontana Falconieri (Carlo Falconieri, 1842) immediately after the earthquake of 1908, in the original site of Piazza Ottagona, and in a modern image (Piazza Basicò)

earthquake it was dismantled and kept in the city museum; in 1957 it was transferred to Piazza Basicò, and is currently located in it. The complex visual system of Piazza Basicò excellently solves the problem of repositioning the monument in a different site from the original and offers a wide variety of scenically effective views (Figs. 4, 5, and 21). The simultaneous perception of different levels requires a certain effort of the observer but makes its perception more incisive. There is no doubt that the current position of the Fontana Falconieri is compromised by the degradation of the square and the numerous cars that travel along it. It represents a compromise, but the choice of valid compromises is one of the main tasks of an architect; the fountain is strongly included in the new square and responds to one of the main principles expressed by Venturi, when he states that architecture “must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion” [2, p. 16]. And later, in the next chapter,

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Fig. 21 Fontana Falconieri (Carlo Falconieri, 1842). From top to bottom: sequential view along via Dina and Clarenza (convex director); unveiling of the fountain from the portico linking via Santa Pelagia and Piazza Basicò; sequential view along via delle Carceri (concave director)

Venturi criticizes modern architecture: because it clarifies, simplifies and discredits the different and the sophisticated in favor of the primitive and elementary; favors the separation and exclusion of elements and limits inclusions and overlaps. Piazza Basicò, like many other squares in Messina, thanks to the fountain in it, becomes a palimpsest [3], in which the writings overlap one another without completely erasing the traces of the previous ones.

5 Repositioning of Monuments in Historic Cities. Site Analysis and Relations with the Urban Landscape The repositioning of a monument in a space different from that for which it was conceived represents a delicate operation, destined to betray the original intentions of the author. If the monument is exhibited in a decontextualized space, such as a museum room, the object of the fruition will be the monument itself, its constructive and formal characteristics, its intrinsic qualities. If, instead, the monument is placed in a wider context (in our case: the public space of a city), the main difficulty will

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be to insert it coherently into the new space and at the same time trying to interpret and respect as much as possible the spirit and the visual function for which it was originally conceived. This requires, first of all, a careful analysis of the urban space, variable according to the cases but which we can summarize in the following phases: • collection of all data (texts and graphics) relating to the monument. This phase is to be considered constantly open, as the data itself can be continuously implemented and integrated. For the purposes of the study in question, historical plans, ancient photos, engravings and descriptions, surveys and all the references relating to the state prior to the earthquake are particularly interesting; • survey of the fountain with a direct and photogrammetric method, in some cases integrated with laser scanning techniques (Fig. 22); • survey of the urban space by laser scanner (in some cases to be integrated with a photogrammetric method); • graphic restitution in 2d (horizontal and vertical sections, elevations) and in 3d of the survey, scale 1:50, 1:20, 1:10, 1:5 (Fig. 23); • graphic restitution in 2d (plan, profiles) and in 3d of the urban space survey (1:200, 1:100); • graphic analysis of the morphological characteristics of the monument (scale 1:20, 1:10); • graphic analysis of the relationship between the monument and the context (scale 1:50); • perspective views from all the main stopping points in the public space; • perspective views from all points of physical accessibility to the monument; • drawing—if possible—in 2d and 3d of the pre-existing earthquake urban context (scale 1:500, 1:200); • graphic comparison between the situation before and after the earthquake, with particular attention to the visual and perceptive relationship of the monument in relation to the urban space and the road network. It will include a variable number

Fig. 22 An example of the photogrammetric survey phases applied to one of the Quattro Fontane. From the left: alignment of the photos, construction of the dense cloud, modeling of the mesh and application of the textures. Elaboration by Federico Barbagallo and Sidorela Furxhiu

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Fig. 23 Fontana Falconieri: table with graphic elaborations derived from the photogrammetric survey. Drawings by Emanuele Manguso

of documents, depending on the characteristics of the urban space before and after the earthquake and based on the amount of information available. Among these: – relationship between the public space in which the fountain is inserted and the urban context, before and after the earthquake (scale 1:500–1:1000); – planimetric comparison of the space in which the fountain is located, before and after the earthquake (scale 1:200, 1:100); – comparison between at least two profiles, if possible drawn along orthogonal planes (situation before and after the earthquake, scale 1:200, 1:100); – comparison between at least two perspective views, taken from two points useful to describe the relationship between the fountain and the context (before and after the earthquake).

6 Conclusions The study of historic fountains and urban landscape transformations following the 1908 earthquake shows some successful projects. In other cases, the design was not as effective. The result depends on many factors; merits and demerits cannot all be traced back to the architect’s abilities. We have tried to define the phases of knowledge of the problem, the study of the actual state. This knowledge activity has been schematically illustrated in the previous paragraph, and it is fundamental: “the strength and value of our contact with art will depend upon the quality of our historical knowledge” [15, p. 12], and not from our emotions.

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The continuation of the work, i.e. the design phase, cannot be summarized in a formula or in a sequence of operations. The critical contribution of Robert Venturi is certainly a reference and an important guide, precisely because he considers the city in a complete dimension, not schematic and not even diagrammatic. He has a profoundly humanistic approach: he evaluates the actions of man and the influence that the physical forms of space have on his spirit. The architect’s task is to solve problems, not to choose those that allow him to express himself in the best way. The architect must also allow improvisation, let the inhabitants decide how to adapt the space of the city to their needs. The preliminary analysis of the urban landscape requires an attitude halfway between that of the poet and that of the scientist. The scientist simplifies, separates, distinguishes; the poet overlaps, creates illusions, highlights the paradoxes, avoiding to match the form and the content. “Poets and playrights acknowledge dilemmas without solutions. […] A building “can be more or less incomplete in the expression of its program and its form” [2, 102]. The study of the urban landscape is often conducted in a scientific and therefore mechanical way; we must preserve the unity of the perceptive experience and the imprecision of expressiveness, typical of poetry, renouncing to solve all the contradictory relations that exist in the urban landscape (and in architecture): they derive from the innumerable dualisms (form/matter, abstraction/concreteness, etc.) that characterize all artistic expressions. The urban landscape of the contemporary city, therefore, can never be perfect: it will have to live with banality and disorder, and the architecture that will arise in it will have to take this into account. The architect’s task is to act in this scenario, try to give unity to contradictory and conventional elements through the introduction of new elements. The unconventional use of an absolutely conventional element, the use of old stereotypes in new configurations, is characteristic of the great architects of all ages; it can be a key to solving the project of placing historic fountains in the urban spaces of Messina.

References 1. Ioli Gigante A (1980) Messina. Laterza, Roma-Bari 2. Venturi R (1966, 1977) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 3. Corboz A (1983) Il territorio come palinsesto. Casabella 516/1985 4. Boscarino S (1957) L’opera di Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli a Messina, 1547–57. Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura, pp XX–XXI 5. Aricò N (1999) Illimite Peloro. Interpretazioni del confine terracqueo, Mesogea, Messina 6. Migliorato A (2010) Una maniera molto graziosa. Ricerche sulla scultura del Cinquecento nella Sicilia orientale e in Calabria, Magika, Messina 7. Nobile MR (2014) Fontane e acquedotti nella Sicilia tra XV e XVII secolo. In: Patrimonio cultural vinculado con el agua paisaje, urbanismo, arte, ingenieria y turismo, Caceres, Universidad de Extremadura, 17–19 ottobre 2013 8. Russo A (2001) La fontana del Sirio d’Orione, o delle metamorfosi. Città e territorio 2/2001 9. Aricò N (2013) Architettura del tardo Rinascimento in Sicilia. Giovannangelo Montorsoli a Messina (1547–57). Leo S. Olschki, Firenze

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10. Aricò N (1993) L’idea di piazza a Messina fra Rinascimento e Maniera. In: Marino A (ed) Le piazze. Lo spazio pubblico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, Milano, Electa, pp 63–78 11. Aricò N (1982) Mestieri e spazio urbano a Messina nell’epoca di Ferdinando il Cattolico. Storia della città 22. Electa, Milano 12. La Barbera S (1983) Il restauro dell’antico in Montorsoli e la Fontana di Orione. Argomenti di storia dell’arte 1/1983 13. Scully V (1966) Introduction. In: Venturi R (1966, 1977) (ed) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 14. Buonfiglio G (1606) Messina Città Nobilissima. Gio. Antonio et Giacomo de’ Franceschi, Venezia 15. Scully V (1977) Note to the second edition. In: Venturi R (1966, 1977) (ed) Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Irrelevant Cities: Immaterial Surveys Marinella Arena

Abstract The act of surveying makes you think about the “Positive Spirit” by Auguste Comte. In fact the survey, through a few codified steps, is able to distinguish the “real from the chimeric, useful from useless, certainty from indecision, precise from vague” is, overall, the contrary of negative: it tends to describe, with a critical and metaphysical spirit, the description of reality. The city, morphologically complex and multiform, is chimerical, indefinite and vague; in one word: unfathomable. For this reason the association between the survey and the knowledge of the city could be an oxymoron, set against the immanence of the positive spirit to the transcendence of the unfathomable. In this study the instrumental survey of some little cities of the Sicilian Ionic Coast, singularly irrelevant for dimension and consistency, is set against the description of inconsistent, temporary and trifling phenomenon which, after all, give identity to these places. The challenge, through the “survey of immaterial elements”, is to show the hidden side of the urban space with representations which connect matter and spirit (soul). The research analyses three centres, Itala, Casalvecchio and Fiumedinisi, with the “Both _And” strategy, placing side by side the architectonical surveys to the perceptive, dynamic and vital ones. Keywords Survey · Cities · Perception · Immaterial · Dynamic · Fiumedinisi · Casalvecchio itala

1 Introduction Las Vegas is analysed here only as a phenomenon of architectural communication. Just as an analysis of the structure of a Gothic cathedral need not include a debate on the morality of medieval religion, so Las Vegas’s values are not questioned here. 1 R.

Venturi, D. Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, 1972.

M. Arena (B) “Mediterranea” University of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_49

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(…) The analysis of a drive-in church in this context would match that of a drive-in restaurant, because this is a study of method, not content. Robert Venturi1

Kevin Lynch in the text The image of the city links the analysis of the city to individual perceptive phenomena and scientifically explains the processes performed. In fact, Lynch divides the urban structure and its complexity into simpler elements, easy to analyse and perceive: paths, margins, neighbourhoods, nodes and references. Despite the pragmatic approach that pervades the text the most suggestive reflection, in my opinion, concerns the uniqueness of human perception and how this, reiterated thousands of times, while remaining personal and unique, approaches a shared reality without ever adhering to it perfectly2 . This theme has been addressed several times in theory and often applied to the interpretation of architecture or of the anthropised landscape. Before Lynch, Bruno Zevi3 had analytically tackled the theme of perception for the knowledge of architecture, focusing his reflections on space, the absolute protagonist of architecture. Zevi’s revolutionary approach emphasizes how the fourth temporal dimension plays a central role in understanding architecture. By freeing the user from an obligatory point of view he admits that the architectural space is indefinable, made up of infinite perceptions. Even Robert Venturi, in Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture, uses an analytical approach, this time dual, to describe the contradictions of architecture. Duality and the contrast between antithetical terms simplify critical thinking; develop a solid structure on which to construct the most subtle reflections. Venturi’s analysis, linked to the understanding of architecture, can be successfully applied to reading the urban landscape. In this essay the chosen and compared themes are the Survey (II) and the Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon of “Both-And” in landscape (3). The essay, through numerous graphic experiments, connects the urban survey to the “Both-And” phenomenon. The contradictory levels refer not to the morphology of the centre itself but to the ambiguity of some aspects that we can define, in a dual way, with qualifying adjectives: static/dynamic (movement); objective/subjective (perception); explicit/implicit (abstraction). The first adjective of the couple is always referred to the results of the urban survey while the second regards from time to time: the movement recorded inside the centre; the perception of urban space and finally the visualization of abstract data. The centres analysed, for example, are semi-uninhabited, apparently immobile, yet they are invested by a flow of movement that can be recorded using integrated survey techniques and unusual descriptive approaches. The contradictory levels 2 There seems to be a public image of any given city which is the overlap of many individual images.

Or perhaps there is a series of public images, each held by some significant number of citizens. (…) Each individual picture is unique. With some content that is rarely or never communicated…, p. 65. K. Lynch, L’immagine della città, 1977. 3 Bruno Zevi, Saper vedere l’architettura, 1953.

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present in the urban representation are on the one hand the survey of the inhabited centre with its houses, streets, monuments and territory, and from the other the movement that is recorded inside, linked, as we will see, with elements both minimal and macroscopic.

2 City The essential physical means of a city’s existence are the fixed site, the durable shelter, the permanent facilities for assembly, interchange, and storage; the essential social means are the social division of labour, which serves not merely the economic life but the cultural process. The city in its complete sense, then, is a geographic plexus, an economic organization, an institutional process, a theatre of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity. The city fosters art and is art; the city creates the theatre and is the theatre. It is in the city, the city as theatre, that man’s (sic) more purposive activities are focused, and work out, through conflicting and co-operating personalities, events, groups into more significant culminations. Lewis Mumford4

The city offers shelter from the elements, protection from external aggression, cultural sharing, economic production and many other functions. Obviously a city is much more. It is the place of permanence, of memory, of continuity and sociality. In these terms, even the smallest aggregates can be considered real cities. Those that are part of this research share several factors: the extension, the geographical location, the architectural language, the continuity with the landscape and the historical roots.

2.1 Three Little Cities: A Case Study The site on which the cities of this research arise, the Sicilian Ionian Coast, is homogeneous despite the discontinuity. It is in fact composed of streams that descend towards the sea through winding and steep paths. The changeable orography is marked by the alternation of peaks, ridges and ravines. The whole area is marked by the steep slope towards the coast line. The cities direct their gaze towards the Ionian Sea, Calabria and the horizon. 4 Lewis

Mumford, “What Is a City?” 1937, pp. 58–62.

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The cities of the Ionian Coast are true and proper icons of the territory, they thicken the gaze, preserve fragments of history and recurring styles. Their structure can be defined hypotactic, simply organized around the main church and perfectly integrated with the morphology of the soil. The research that involved these centres began several years ago and is still ongoing. There are six analysed centres: Mandanici, Alì, Forza D’Agrò, Itala, Casalvecchio and Fiumedinisi. The last three are the subject of the reflections present in this study. Itala. The centre consists of five main fractions Itala, Borgo, Mannello, Croce and the Marina. The morphological structure of the village is marked by the presence of the Itala torrent which divides the centre into three small nuclei, each of which develops around a church. Itala has the Cathedral which is located near the stream; Manello is dominated by the S. Venera Church and Borgo is highlighted by the presence of the Church Madonna della Catena. The urban fabric, composed of minute particles and simple buildings, appears as a unicum clinging to the steep rocks. Casalvecchio. The city stands on steep terrain with a total height difference of 63 meters. The first nucleus, gathered around the church of SS. Annunziata to the west, in the upper part of the town, is characterized by a steep slope. The road system is very simple: only one street crosses the centre and another defines it in the upper part. The road network follows the contour lines in an east-west direction while in the north-south direction; the roads converge towards the Cathedral. There are few public spaces: the churchyards and the Piazza Vecchia. Fiumedinisi.5 The village can boast very ancient origins and its present structure dates back to a period of expansion and richness: the middle of the sixteenth century. The centre is little but the Cathedral and the S. Pietro Church are very impressive and characterize the image of the entire centre. The houses are arranged on the level contours and go from the lower point, near the river bed, to the highest. The roads are steep and tortuous and there are many steps. There are many underpasses created by the small dimension of the streets and by the specific social structure of the site. The squares, which are an urban void of small dimension, are strictly linked to the nearest church.

5 Fiumedinisi,

date back to VII Century B.C., when some settlers, who came from ancient Calcide, a Greek territory, founded Nisa, the name indicated the veneration of Dionysus. During the Norman period the centre took the name of "Flumen Dionisyi”, and in 1197 Enrico VI Hohenstaufen, the father of Federico II, died here. Then Fiumedinisi become a feud of the Romano Colonna family and had a rich positive period. During 1743 Fiumedinisi had a tremendous plague epidemic and, in 1855, was partially destroyed by a massive flood. The centre is at an altitude of between 190 MSL and 300 MSL. The Cathedral, dedicated to the cult of SS. Maria, was built in 1308 and we can find traces of it in the transept of the cathedral today.

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3 Survey 3.1 Surveying the Material Surveying the material it is possible to use three different approaches: the deferred survey, the instrumental survey, the direct survey. The first approach indicates the distance between the data collection and their elaboration. This kind of survey re-processes the previous data: cartographies, cadastral papers, and aerial photographs. The instrumental survey is organised with the help of a laser scanner and aerial photos achieved with the use of a drone. It is the heavy structure of the whole survey and allows the future implement of information. The direct one allows the surveyor to have physical contact with the architecture which is to be analysed. It is a simply way to obtain information connected to the shape and the material of the architecture or to some little detail which reveal the inner sense of a place.

3.2 Surveying the Immaterial How it is possible to survey the immaterial? And overall what is the immaterial that is important to survey? Inside the city there are some elements that are always changing and that, at the same time, remain always identical. They are the minimal temporary changing of the elements that animate the city, the little clues of what change every day to leave everything in the same status of apparent stillness. Those elements show us how the inhabitants use the urban space, mark the most frequented paths, report the resting places and the meeting sites, underlining every element that means life. Other elements are immaterial because of their subjectivity, like perception; in others cases the absence of matter is given by the abstraction of the information.

4 The Method of Study The centres examined were fully surveyed and the protocol adopted permitted an indepth knowledge of the site. In fact, the succession of instrumental and direct survey, added to the examination of the existing documents, has created a homogeneous and objective basis for the intangible survey. The latter made use of a few tools: photo shoots, direct documentation and above all introduced the notion of time within the cognitive process.

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Fig. 1 Fiumedinisi. From left to right: March 2015, May 2019. The vehicle occupies the same position years later

The centres have been investigated and surveyed several times, at different times of the day and in different seasons (Fig. 1). The photographic sequences, the aerial photos, the details were added to the more technical knowledge. The strategies to combine the material and the immaterial survey have been different in the three analysed centres and have followed the dual scheme suggested by Venturi. The first approach puts in comparison the static and dynamic survey, the second one, tries to represent the space through a perceptive survey that combines the objective survey with the subjective one. Finally, the overlapping of data, which merge tangible and intangible survey, aims at synthesis in communication. A single case study was used to describe the static/dynamic contradiction: Fiumedinisi. Here we have identified six different types of movement linked to as many categories of elements. Oscillatory movement. It refers to flexible elements anchored in one or more points: clothes hanging in the sun, vegetation that oscillates under the effect of the wind. Rotating movement. The shadows cast, projected on the facades exposed to the sun, rotate changing shape and intensity while remaining anchored to their point of origin. Casual movement. People in urban space move with a random movement. In fact they do not draw clear lines, attracted as they are by elements that the survey usually neglects: the shadow, the presence of a friend, the announcement on the walls of a house.

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Straight motion. Vehicles, on the other hand, have a straight line even for short distances. Cars, ape-cars, scooters and bicycles. Each vehicle has a track, almost a footprint, which reaffirms the form and mode of movement of the vehicle. Turbulent motion. The smoke emitted by the chimneys represents a turbulent movement that is always different and yet always the same. It underlines the presence of the inhabitants and, with its thin and evanescent volutes, ideally links the fixity of the architecture with the mutability of life. Viscous motion. The intrinsic shadows that cover the roofs facing north and that move slowly on the ground during the day have a viscous movement. They are so close and so slowly covering the ground and the architecture of the city that you can feel the strength of their viscous adherence. Each movement has been reported in the general plan (Fig. 8) (obtained with an instrumental and direct survey) through a specific symbol. The visual data of the survey has been eliminated in the final image to underline the scope of the dynamic survey. The approach that compares objective/subjective has been applied to Casalvecchio and Itala. While the implicit/explicit theme has been experimented on Fiumedinisi data.

4.1 Static/Dynamic Fiumedinisi is almost uninhabited. Its houses, clinging to the hill, suddenly stop to make room for monumental churches. Going through it, on a hot May day, it seems to be immersed in a deafening silence. In the steep streets the light-shadow contrast is violent. The sky is a blue stripe interrupted by the complex interweaving of balconies, parapets, drying racks and electric cables. Inside the city the labyrinth of houses and winding streets offer closed perspectives: rarely does the eye go beyond the boundary of the village to lick the sea and the coast. Walking sets in motion the gaze, which wanders in ever-changing perspectives, on the contrary hearing is muffled by the wheezing and by the flow of our blood. The steps on the pavement are perceived as sudden and deafening bursts. We move faster than the city. Of this city. We must be patient and stand still, waiting for a clue. The popping of clothes hanging in the wind shows shadows in movement. Among the stones of the pavement the small thistle bushes, by now dry, roar as they flex in the warm breath of the wind. In the distance the untidy crown of the eucalyptus trees and the canes, that adorn the bed of the stream, oscillate in unison (Fig. 2). Still halt. We observe. The facade of an uninhabited house, naked, with no trace of the life it contained. It is immobile and yet changeable. The shadows cast dance on the peeling plaster. They slowly rotate like sundials of a time slowed down and draw new decorations with each passing minute (Fig. 3). An old woman emerges from around the corner, walks, slowly and uncertainly, near the shadowy walls of the houses. She stops completely before facing the two

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Fig. 2 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Flexible elements, oscillating movement

steps that separate her from the entrance of the house. Children instead fill the urban space with an explosion of dynamism. They chase each other armed with toy guns and energy. They move fast, unpredictable (Fig. 4). The road is far away, but the raucous sound of the ape-car reaches the top of the village. The accelerator gives gas at regular intervals and the vehicle faces steep inclines in short straight shots (Fig. 5). The vehicles of Fiumedinisi are numerous but few, only the ape-car, the bikes and some motorcycles, penetrate the thick mesh of the urban routes. Each enlargement of the narrow streets is a coded parking lot where the same vehicle finds its place day after day in the exact same position: the only one that the very small size of the space allows. Still motionless. A passing cloud veils the sky, the gaze rises to follow the swirling smoke that comes from the metal chimney, inclined by the wind and the weather. The skyline of the city is scratched by dark, thin, irregular and uncertain signs that puff smoke and signs of life at the same time (Fig. 6). Finally the sun hides gradually behind the hill. The shadow moves slowly but inexorably, advancing like a spilled viscous liquid on concave and convex surfaces. It is fast on the slopes and slow on the plains (Fig. 7). The survey of the immaterial has registered, as a very sensitive seismograph, the imperceptible movements of people, things, shadows, smoke. The mutability that every day defines this city is different and, at the same time, equal: it is one

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Fig. 3 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Cast shadows, rotary movement

of the contradictory levels that the combination of material and immaterial survey can provide. The representation interprets the individual movements, exemplifies and combines them in a completely abstract representation that places the city in a different light. An uninhabited city, immutably and contradictorily defined solely by its own movement (Fig. 8).

4.2 Objective/Subjective Bruno Zevi argues that architecture acts with a “three-dimensional vocabulary that includes man”. The use of architecture, and therefore of urban space, takes place mainly through human perception. In the 50s the concept was revolutionary. In recent years, 3D modelling, virtual reality, survey techniques and photo-modelling seem to refute this thesis. It is no longer the space that has the exclusive on the dialogue with human perception but its dual: the digital and virtual space that can replace the real one (Figs. 9, 10 and 11). Perception is therefore twofold: that addressed to the real, is direct, and that mediated by virtuality, is indirect. The city, a complex organism by definition, if

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Fig. 4 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. People, random movement

subjected to the filter of perception amplifies its spatial dimensions indefinitely: it is unknowable. Direct perception is substantially fluid, the gaze moves on, it is unstable, focuses on irrelevant details or embraces the landscape as a whole. In Casalvecchio the comparison between two views of the same place taken at different heights emphasizes the potential of perception. The perceptive analysis dedicated to Itala relates the instrumental survey, the objective restitution of the data and the perception emphasizing how the individual elements change as the point of view rotates. The images show a glimpse of the hamlet of Mannello, dominated by the church of Santa Venera. The latter is the focal point of perception, directs the gaze and allows the dimensioning of the subjective representation. In fact, keeping the gaze fixed on the church, the facades of the adjacent buildings seem to expand, changing position, size and weight within the composition.

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Fig. 5 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Vehicles, rectilinear movement

4.3 Implicit/Explicit The cadastral plan is a document full of information. With a binary code it identifies a building by locating and recognizing its belonging. It is also a self-referential tool; it does not allow the immediate cross-checking of data. In this section it has tried to implement the data of an implicit survey, structured by abstract and numerical codes, in an explicit survey open to direct knowledge and interpretation. Data from other surveys have been condensed into a single image including information on consistency, architectural quality, and use.

5 Conclusion The cities of this research are certainly small, decadent and uninhabited, yet they are still full of ideas. They are the ideal field of action to experiment the potential of very different cognitive tools, through a real analytical “device”. The contradictions inherent in the centres reverberate in the approach that the research has chosen to

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Fig. 6 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Smoke, turbulent movement

describe them. The duality between the static, objective and implicit survey superimposed on the dynamic, subjective and explicit ones show the centres by subtraction, obscuring the usual data and emphasizing what usually remains unexpressed, implicitly subtended to shapes, colours, proportions. Michel Foucault defines the term device as “a set of strategies and relationships of force that condition certain types of knowledge and are conditioned by them”.6 The device put in place by this research is certainly the result of different and unusual significant strategies that work together to achieve that survey of the immaterial that is configured as a new image of the city.

6 Michel

Foucault, Dits et écrits, voIl I, pp. 299–300.

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Fig. 7 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Intrinsic shadows, viscous movement

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Fig. 8 Fiumedinisi. Static survey/dynamic survey. Map of the movement

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Fig. 9 Casalvecchio. Objective survey/subjective relief. Alterations in perception

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Fig. 10 Itala Church of Santa Venera. Objective survey/subjective relief. Alterations in perception. From top to bottom: perception, instrumental survey, 3D restitution, indirect representation of movement

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Fig. 11 Fiumedinisi. Implicit survey/explicit survey

References 1. Crampton JW (2001) Maps as social constructions. Power, communication and visualization. In: Progress of human geography. SAGE, London 2. Defert D, Ewald F (eds) (1999) Dits et écrits, 1954–1988. Gallimard, Paris 3. Elia M (1978) Il problema dei centri storici minori nel mezzogiorno “interno”. In: Ciardini F, Falini P (eds) i centri storici. Mazzotta, Milano 4. Facchetti A (2010) The city as a narrative dispositive. In: Krisis Magazine. Observatory on politics of representation (online). http://www.unitadicrisi.org/the-city-as-a-narrativedispositive/# more-567 5. Kessels E, Schmid J, Chéroux C, Parr M, Fontcuberta J (2013) From Here On. RM Arts, Santa Monica, Barcelona 6. Lynch K (1960) The image of the city, MIT Press Cambridge, Italian edition: Lynch K (1977) L’immagine della città (trans: Guarda GC). Marsilio Editori, Venezia 7. Metahaven (2008) White Night Before A Manifesto. Onomatopee, Amsterdam 8. Mumford L (1937) “What Is a City?”. In: Architectural Record, LXXXII (Nov 1937), pp 58–62 9. Taylor F (1997) Maps and mapping in the information era. In: Proceedings of international cartographic conference, 1° vol. L. Ottoson, Stockholm 10. Venturi R, Scott Brown D, Izenour S (1972) Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press, Cambridge

Re-Build Landscape: Design for the Reuse of Abandoned Quarries Serena Del Puglia

Abstract Looking at the history of our geological and mining heritage, we can see the evolution of the role played by underground mining sites over the centuries. However, if the activity of quarrying stones is as old as the presence of humans on earth, the issue of the territorial regeneration, based on the recovery and refunctionalization of abandoned quarries, is one of the central arguments of the contemporary debate. The extractive activity that on one hand constitutes an important economic resource for numerous territories, on the other hand requires particular attention to the environmental impact it causes. The theme is that of the socalled drosscapes, soils and residual spaces, once marginal and peripheral in relation to the cities, which today occupy interstitial positions and often central locations within the urban and peri-urban tissues, covering a decisive role in the activation of processes aimed at the overall rebalancing of the affected contexts [1, 2]. The considerable number and extent of the formerly extractive cunicular systems, underneath our urbanized grounds, makes the issue of their protection, recovery and reuse extremely urgent (together with their consolidation in the cases in which it is necessary). Today, the need for a balanced development of the territory compares with the theme of planning which involves many figures coming from different disciplines: geologists, botanists, architects, landscapers, designers and artists. The figure of the designer moves in this interconnected multidisciplinary context, describing new operational practices, in which the now stable involvement of the citizen gives rise to new inclusive and fruitful practices of participatory planning. Emphasizing the relational vocation of design, as a discipline, questions are asked about what role design can play in the dialogue with the various subjects involved. One wonders what it means for the designer to create the devices of relationship and involvement of the actors at the various scales of the landscape; to translate the desires and requests of the inhabitants into space, but also the public and private interests of the other stakeholders present, working towards the definition of a shared language; to encourage the communities to look after their daily landscape. The article, through the support of some emblematic case studies, describes some procedural lines of intervention that outline new strategies for the re-use and recovery of quarry landscapes. These, S. Del Puglia (B) Department of Archtecture, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_50

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no longer perceived as “wounds” and “places of refusal”, are stabilized as territorial resources, common goods to be valued through the recognition of the underlying value and a deep comprehension of these resources. The article identifies, through the projects examined, processes constituted by minimal but significant intervention. These processes respond to the desire for simplicity, that reads (and responds to) complexity and contradictions [3, 4] present in these landscapes, which are events rich of high anthropological, architectural, urban, historical and cultural value. Keywords Landscape · Quarry · Reuse · Design · Participated project

1 Introduction The disused quarries are always the result of an intense extractive activity that, after having determined a profound alteration in the physiognomy and structure of the territory, often resolves - as Vincenzo Pavan states—in a removal of resources from the landscape without implementing a conscientious return of assets in neither economic nor cultural terms [5]. To look at the entirety of the quarry’s life cycle is a fundamental and essential aspect, already underlined in the general definitions on the extraction and cultivation activities of the sites. In the manual “Le cave. Recupero e pianificazione ambientale. Manuale per la gestione sostenibile delle attività estrattive”, Gisotti provides the definition of new use of the site, through the following expression: «the excavation should never be considered as the final phase but as the intermediate phase of the global production process which the territory is subjected to. Since it is a middle stage, a transitory use of the territory—linked to all that precedes (nature, history, landscape) and what will follow (new territorial, economic and ecosystem balance to be guaranteed). […] The choices—on the possible re-use—must be based both on the technical aspects (relative to the biotic and abiotic conditions of the territory) and the economic-social aspects carried out by the local communities—in the name of which the decision maker must choose to feel the people as a preferential and essential way» [6]. The introduction of the concept of landscape, as a transitory element, in movement, consisting of a series of continuously changing layers, is crucial. Qualified as a common heritage, a sign of the more or less intense anthropization of an area, the built landscape reflects the set of practices and knowledge that modify the landscape and implicitly evoked by it. The landscape, as sedimentation of historical and cultural processes, expresses the community’s ability to adapt to the environment and to enhance the space in which it lives. In this sense, the landscape is a cultural heritage but also an ecological heritage with the impressed transformations of living, working, organizing activities from which derives the perception of landscape as a common good, in which a community recognizes and identifies itself. In recent years, the theme of the reuse of quarries has seen an increase in interest both by specialists and by the community, «in virtue of the affirmation of a new and shared system of

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values that has extended the concept of environmental sustainability from the mere recovery of abandoned quarries to the definition of sustainable criteria inherent to the entire process of managing the extraction activity. […] The quarry environments and landscapes, in their perennial transformative state, are in a condition of ‘interpretative limbo’, both from the point of view of the modalities of planning and management (territorial government), and in perception and in the collective cultural imaginary (public opinion)» . [7]. In a certain sense, the quarries represent objects characterized by an intrinsic duplicity: landscapes of the primary economy (it is not a case that the term “cultivation” is common to describe the mining activity in progress) and places of the secondary economy (quarries as productive and transformation infrastructures). Furthermore, once the extraction cycle is exhausted, they remain as strong elements of reinterpretation of the territory and the landscape they belong to. The interest of the intellectual panorama towards the recovery of these sites has thus gradually abandoned the aspiration to carry out a landscape surgery and to produce healing operations for “anastylosis”, which in any case would have returned a landscape completely altered with respect to the original one. The perception of these places as wounds in the territory, spaces of abandonment and rejection was replaced by the perception as resources. Many valuable redevelopment projects have thus recovered the mining voids, searching for a re-signification of these spaces, preserving their anthropological and cultural value, and enhancing their architectural and spatial value.

2 The Cable Spaces The sites that derive from the mining activity reveal remarkable qualities and spatial values. The dimensions and spatial connotations are significantly different, depending on the geo-structural and geo-mechanical characteristics of the extracted material,1 but also on the extraction technique used. The methods of cultivation of stone (both calcarenitic, marble, gypsum…) have evolved over time, determined by the introduction of new technological instruments and ecological-environmental considerations. For example, quarries developed underground to safeguard the agricultural vocation of the territory have determined the development of a dense network of tunnels and underground halls, which can still be partially inspected today. This method, abandoned due to the high cost and the enormous volume of waste material that it came to determine, gave way to

1 Thus,

if the limited compressive strength of tufi and pozzolane of some quarries (to mention the Italian ones: Orvieto, Rome and Salento) has led to the formation of hypogeal voids developed in length and of medium size, suggesting a minimum usability, based on the sole mileage, the high mechanical resistance of Vicenza stone extracted in Arcari, has generated extremely large and extremely high-quality caveale environments.

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open-air cultivation.2 The extraction took place through the use of simple tools which divided the bench into steps perpendicular to the fracture line and parallel to the cava front,3 and generally determined spaces characterized by a pit morphology with walls of about 30–40 m high, leaving in place vertical walls that make the quarry acquire a single-sided pit configuration. The so-called “a pozzo” extraction technique, probably of medieval origin, is instead the origin of the very particular “inverted funnel” shapes that qualify some underground cavities (for example those in Matera). The envelope of the pickaxe, proceeding from the top to the bottom, generated an extraction compartment much wider as it descended deeper. The maximum height possibly reached was around 20 m, a measure corresponding to the cable length of the pulley used to raise the segments. The surprising plurality and unpredictability of the spatial qualities that await the designer in the subsoil solicit the opening of the project towards a fertile multiplicity of possible readings. It is the organic arrogance of the cave to suggest that the design process is tuned to a liquid and changing dimension [8–10]. The concept of excavated space, intended as a place of memory and as a fundamental dimension of architecture, is a theme persistently present in the literature on the subject4 . Isabella Santarelli, in “Riscritture per il sottosolo extra-estrattivo. Strategie di recupero tra memoria, tutela ambientale e nuovi usi per la città contemporanea”, dedicates an entire chapter to the concepts of emptiness, hollow space, making it appear as «an emotional and phenomenal space, and where the emptiness produced by the subtraction of matter acts as an activator of sensitivity, linked to the concept of transit, of phenomenon, of passage» [8–10]. The founding role of the excavation act defines an act of construction of the site, a rooting of the building, an expression of the action of time on architecture. Francesco Venezia5 describes the underground world as «the one that better than any 2 For a description of the extractive technique of “open pit quarries: in the pit, in the trench, in steps”

see in [6], Le cave. Recupero e pianificazione ambientale. Manuale per la gestione sostenibile delle attività estrattive, Dario Flaccovio Editore, Palermo, 270. 3 Made at a mutual distance equal to the desired width for the segments; the steps were secondarily cut at a distance equal to the length of the stone that was to be made. The prisms thus delimited were then detached with the use of wedges and hoes. The cultivation works proceed by descending horizontal slices 25 cm thick. Each slice is divided into trances intersected by a double order of cuts, made with machines with vertical cuts at 50 cm intervals. The secondary cuts are performed with a horizontal single-axis machine with a vertical axis that allows the separation of a variable length depending on the intended use. 4 Specifically, on the subject of the stone quarry, the interventions of some contemporary artists have assumed a paradigmatic role for the conceptual and formal contents that they transmit, and for the contribution they give to the interdisciplinary contribution of the intervention approach. The American James Turrel and the Spaniard Eduardo Chillida chose the excavation inside the rocky mountain body to react to the light and the matter of the hypogean spaces (Roden Crater, a project in the Arizona desert volcano and Tindaya Mountain in the void excavated in the island Fuerteventura of the Canary Islands). 5 Among the projects of Francesco Venezia particularly significant on this theme: the proposal for access to the Temple of Segesta (1980), where the passage takes place between the dark bowels of

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other expresses a fundamental condition of reference for man [as] it is, in memory, an original perception of building» [11]. For Peter Zumthor, in the theme of excavated emptiness it rests the profound sense of construction as the creation of a space made up of masses of shadow, a space that becomes architectural thanks to its limits. Zumthor, regarding the Terme di Vals, describing the geometric system of caves, narrow corridors in contact with the mountain, evokes «the interior space, […], chiseled in the compact mountain rock» [12]. The reassuring vision of a welcoming and safe underground space embraces a positivist and progressive vision for a new interpretation of reality, for a new entrenchment of man’s works to his own soil. The quarry sites alone are spatial events of extraordinary architectural strength, as Francesco Venezia will say, «they look good the way they are» [13]. On this line of thought, this is how many quarries have become a privileged place of those that Mario Bellini calls as “soft initiatives”,6 alluding to the Vattimo concept of “pensiero debole”7 as an interpretative means for the crisis of the modern project and which is possible way to build valid life scenarios. In the architectural field, the Spanish architect Ignasi de Solà Morales investigated the notion of weakness in the 1980s. Ignasi de Solà Morales wonders about what role architecture is granted in the aesthetic system of weak contemporary thought. In “Arquitectura débil”, he states that the architectural experience no longer allows to be read in a linear way but, on the contrary, it presents itself to us as a complex, pluralistic and multifaceted experience in which it is legitimate to trace cognitive and interpretative trajectories without any kind of fixed and predetermined reference values [8–10]. However, the path of minimal and flexible intervention to the uses does not constitute a simplification of meaning, but, on the contrary, coincides with the taking in charge of the enormous polysemic complexity of these places. The 1990s marked the spread of the idea for Europe and the United States that the recovery of places degraded by the exploitation of soil resources and subsequent the earth dug towards the light, the “light well” of the exhibition of the exhibition “The Etruscans” inside Palazzo Grassi in Venice (2000) and the Museum of Historical Stratigraphy in Toledo (2006– 2007), built at the same time as the excavation, as a “tacit alliance” between the ground, excavation and the underworld. 6 Mario Bellini during his participation to the conferences held in Pusiano in September 1991, in Mendini A., Mesacem. Appunti per un progetto culturale, Arti grafiche Meroni, Lissone, 1994, 36. 7 The concept of “weak thought”, theorized by the philosopher Gianni Vattimo in the early eighties, seems to be the interpreter and bearer of a new system of valid assumptions for a new society. The new values of fragmentation, of detachment from the closed and completed form once and for all, of the eventuality and of the basic “becoming” of all things, seem to lead to the de-legitimization of the great speculative systems of the past—in particular of the Hegelian system and of the Marxist one - embracing an interrogative, plural, uncertain and therefore “weak” dimension of being: a nonperemptory, almost never peremptory and imposing dimension, a dimension capable of accommodating amendment and variation, a “loose”, soft dimension, available from the provisional provision in which the project takes place.

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Fig. 1 S’Hostal Quarries, Ciutadella, Minorca, Baleari Islands (Spain). Axonometric view. Image from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 59

abandonment is not only a problem of land reclamation techniques or morphological reconstitution but requires high quality interventions in terms of design reinvention of the territory. These processes have given rise to particularly emblematic formal outcomes. These are projects that, leaving unchanged the spatial landscape definition determined by the quarry sites, have reinvented new uses, without the addition or the subtraction of constructed elements, but using the formal wealth of elements determined by the extraction activity. They are all initiatives that have outlined the birth of a culture of recovery designed to achieve a conscious interaction between the morphology of the quarry, new functions and the shape of the landscape. In the Marés Stone Quarries of S’Hostal in Menorca (Figs. 1 and 2), the Lithica cultural association (founded in 1994 by the architect, sculptor Laetitia Sauleau Lara, in conjunction with the closure of the quarrying activities) after having subtracted them from the dump condition, it has differentiated places only through vegetation. In these spaces, as often happens, two different extraction techniques coexist which have determined two different morphologies (pit and pit quarries): hand-worked quarries characterized by small and very fragmented spaces that form a stone labyrinth with stepped surfaces and those, produced by the processing by saw machines characterized by a very vast and dilated landscape. The recovery project stems from this typological differentiation: for which, for the first, botanical gardens and paths through the vegetation were designed (the Laberint dels Vergers). For the second type, a destination for large-scale events, shows and artistic events has been foreseen. The recovery of the abandoned quarry, through the transformation into “space for art” and into elective place of application of artistic research interventions (also linked to the concept of open-air museum) is a recurring theme. The project by Atelier Mendini for the Cementeria di Merone8 —area of the abandoned quarry of Pusiano and Eupilio (1993) starts from this assumption: «the quarry is not only a place of extraction of natural material, but it should be designed as a scenario, as a 8 The

preliminary project for the whole surrounding area interested the mining area was entrusted to Enzo Mari.

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Fig. 2 S’Hostal Quarries, Ciutadella, Minorca, Baleari Islands (Spain). Image from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 63

territorial sculpture» [27]. The project of a belvedere that looks to the quarry, without penetrating it, foresees the introduction of some corten steel sculptures in the quarry spaces, facing an outdoor walk among works of art, small scenes in succession to determine fluid scenographies (Fig. 3). Plates, amphitheaters, stepped seats, stages, large halls and galleries are all architectural elements present and determined in these sites by the mining activity and are on their own capable of constituting the exhibition apparatus to host concerts, projections, performances of various types, through minimal interventions of re-appropriation of the places. In this scenario, a well-known significant project, that has reread and used the architectural-morphological characteristics of some mining sites, transforming them into preferential sites for artistic action, consists of the former stone quarries of Le Baux9 (Fig. 4). 9 The

stone extracted in the south takes the local name from the municipality where it is exploited (Baux stone, Fontvieille…). Also known as “pierre du midi”, the stone of Les Baux is a limestone slightly shelled, with fine grain and white and blond colour. It derives from the aggregation of

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Fig. 3 Atelier Mendini, Project for the Pusiano’s Quarry (Lombardy_Italy). Image from the book [27] Mendini (1994), Mesacem. Appunti per un progetto culturale. Arti grafiche Meroni, Lissone, p. 35

In the aftermath of the First World War, the introduction of new building materials (steel, cement, etc.) led to the decline of building stone. The quarry ceased its activity and found a new function thanks to the visionary genius of Jean Cocteau in the 1960s who, amazed by the beauty of the place and its environment, decided to turn over “Il testamento di Orfeo” (1959). In 1975, the photographer Albert Plécy used the scenario of the same, to experiment with his research “Total Image”. Based on an interactive set-up (Fig. 5), a combination of images and sounds capable of integrating the viewer into the vision, also through the sound basis of the representation, the Total Image animated and enlivened the gallery (named precisely “Salle Albert Plécy”). This, in fact, being characterized by enormous pillars left by the quarrymen to hold the overlying soil, has immense surfaces that allow to generate an immersive projection environment.10

calcium carbonate on the calcareous sand. Many marine fossil remains attest to the presence of the sea. Industrial development also involves the construction of many buildings (factories, warehouses, stations…) 10 The first exhibition design with the placement of 40 projectors made use of the work of Hans Walter Müller. La Salle Albert Plécy is the third space after the “Entrée Jean Cocteau” which

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Fig. 4 Quarries of Les Baux de Provence before decomissioning (France). Image from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 89

The transformation of the quarries is confirmed with the creation of a new project inspired by the research of Czech scenographer Joseph Svoboda. The immense rocky walls are again used for a sound and light show he designed (1977). In 2011, the city of Baux-de-Provence entrusted Culturespaces with the management of the quarry, as part of a public service delegation. Called “Carrières de Lumières”, it is now the preferred place for setting up digital exhibitions11 (Fig. 6), based on the concept developed AMIEX (Art & Music Immersive Experience). A particularly paradigmatic Italian example is the Cava Arcari. For more than three hundred years, up to the 50 s of the last century, on the hills around Vicenza, tons of green stone were dug by hand and used as building material for the traditional neo-classical Palladian villas and for many statues that decorate the gardens of the rich residences in the Venetian countryside. The quarry is the result of many years of includes the entrance, the rest area, and a majestic stage 20 m high carved into the mountain and used for film projections, and the “Salle Abel Gance” used for exhibitions. 11 The first exhibition is “Gauguin, Van Gogh, i pittori del colore”, produced by Culturespaces and directed by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto and Massimiliano Siccardi, which is followed by many others.

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Fig. 5 H.W.Müller project for the Quarries of Les Baux de Provence (France). Plan of the positions of the 40 projectors in the tunnels. Grates projected on the walls. Collage of images from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 90

manual extraction, which produced underground spaces supported by imposing irregular pillars. A great lake inside the quarry makes this extraordinary hypogean architecture very suggestive (Fig. 7). The lake, produced by the penetration of aquifers that extends for much of the surface of the quarry, has not prevented the extension of the excavation on a vast surface, thanks to the help of water pumps. The project by the David Chipperfield Architects studio in Milan, commissioned by the Morseletto laboratory, reintroduces the white Vicenza stone with a series of platforms arranged on different levels and connected by steps and ramps to allow maximum flexibility of use: concerts, conferences, screenings and theatrical performances. The surrounding spaces, mostly filled with water, are illuminated from below, by the Viabizzuno light project, offering an extraordinary visual spectacle, supported by a singular soundscape. A real auditorium for outdoor concerts in the Rättvik forest in Sweden was built inside a huge pit determined by the fall of a meteorite 360 million years ago, after transformed in the overlap Draggängarna limestone quarry. The mining activity has created a stepped shape, an amphitheater with excellent acoustic qualities (characterized by the presence of a little lake). The “transformation” project of the quarry

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Fig. 6 Carrières de Lumières—Quarries of Les Baux de Provence (France). Exhibition “Gauguin, Van Gogh, i pittori del colore”, produced by Culturespaces and directed by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto e Massimiliano Siccardi. Image from the website www.carrieres-lumieres.com

in an open-air theater, which once again reads its natural morphological vocation, was entrusted to the architect Erik Ahngorg. The auditorium capable of accommodating 4000 seats, the stage placed halfway between the body of water and the rock, covered by a suspended white curtain and finally the restaurant and the services for the spectators fit into the natural cavea, determining a built landscape of extraordinary grandeur (Figs. 8 and 9).

3 Project and Processes Although a correct strategic vision based on the triad reuse/reduce/recycle manages to place itself critically both upstream and downstream of the extraction process, managing to identify the best conditions to reinsert the quarry territories into the living system of the metropolitan landscape, the recovery action can be offered

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Fig. 7 Arcari Quarry. The flooded quarry. General plan and photo of the interior. Vicenza (Veneto_Italy). Collage of images from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, pp. 96–97

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Fig. 8 Erik Ahnborg, Plan of the Auditorium, Dalhalla, Rättvik, (Sweden). Image from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 105

not necessarily as a solution to a post-operam state of disposal, but as a natural evolution of the formerly extractive site itself that continues to develop in a new life cycle. In this context, it is useful to recall for example that the current legislation provides that the authorization for cultivation is subject to the presentation, by the company, to the Region and the Municipality in which the quarry area falls, of an accommodation project and environmental recovery of the area, to be carried out when the cultivation will be completed. On one hand this action on the process, rather than on the configuration, can facilitate the management of the transformation processes of these sensitive and fragile places of the territory, on the other hand it can allow a greater possibility of integration with the other systems of the landscape, from the urban to the one natural, from the tourist-receptive to the infrastructural one [14]. In this context, the theme of the recovery of underground quarries could be constituted for example to rethink the concept of re-cycle the available resources, detaching and freeing oneself from the mere notions of recovery, re-use and redevelopment, to open up to welcome renewed design strategies. «The underground quarries, with their multidisciplinary complexity to take care of, tell us that it is not enough to stop consuming, that it is not enough to re-cycle, but that there is a need for a creative impulse to re-interpret and re-configure of identities and resources» [8–10]. In this sense, a very recent project is very significant: a unique case, in the panorama of the recovery of underground caves, is the “Cava Sostenibile di Murisengo” project, launched in 2012 by the Società Estrazione Gesso, in a gypsum quarry located in the province of Alessandria. The birth of the museum coexists with

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Fig. 9 Auditorium, Dalhalla, Rättvik, (Sweden). Aerial view of the site. Image from the book [5] Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p. 106

the progressive “emptying” from the mining activity. An experimental project aimed at the museum display of part of the exhausted mining chambers, located at a depth of −90 m from the ground level, through their transformation into places of aggregation and culture, to be enjoyed in parallel with the production and revenue activities, while the quarry is still fully in operation.12 “The project concept is that the critical time “T”, during which the excavation activity determines the most aggressive forms 12 The difficult balance between the two destinations of use, cultural and productive, requires the respect of a single unavoidable rule: there must be no interference between the two activities. Therefore, it is necessary to have an appropriate temporal distribution, which allows the entrance

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of territorial impoverishment, is based on operational continuity with the “T + n” time, in which the damage is compensated, so that the site is recovered and re-entered into the socio-collective use circuit”13 [1, 2]. The events of Sustainable Quarry, as a place dedicated to arts and culture, are very recent. During 2013, three underground pilot events were held, during which the natural quarry architecture was set up with colored “stage” lights14 (Fig. 10). The events, born as experimental and temporary, have generated such an important feedback in the citizenship that this project has given way to the possibility of a permanent museum structure.

4 Territory/Landscape/Identity Therefore the themes that, little by little, are beginning to take shape are, among others: on the one hand the representation of a landscape society, on the other hand the concept of landscape no longer as a starting point, but as a result of interaction, care and cohabitation between man and the environment. The construction of a “conscious landscape” implies the recognition of the opportunities offered by the quarry but also the limits that impose the balance of the territory and the value of its resources. This planning must not be understood as the result of a single specialist competence, but requires the contribution of numerous contributions related to territorial planning, ecology, architecture, botany and others. «Because if the deconstruction of the existing landscape involves a series of conscious and responsible choices, its reconstruction requires a complexity of competences and even greater responsibilities» [5].

to the museum, to the area where the public leisure, play and educational activities are to be visited and performed, only on days when the quarry is inactive. 13 The field is divided into five levels of cultivation, which can be accessed via two large helical ramps which, from the height of the square, reach a depth of −90 m. At the −5° level, the museum area is set up with a gross area of approximately 5000 m2 . The cultivation plan provides, in 6 years (2012–2017 authorization period), the extraction of about 400,000 m3 of plaster, of which 80% will take place right from the 5th underground level. This means that the museum area was located right in the area most affected by the present and future mining activity, in the “beating heart” of the quarry. The choice can be attributed to three reasons: 1. Structural safety: the monitoring of the geo-structural, tensional and deformation structures have identified, in the exhausted mining chambers of the 5th level, an area of “block center”. Musealizzare here means to fit into the safest and most solid area of the quarry, minimizing intervention costs for safety; 2. Usability: the −5° level has a greater potential for use thanks to its regularity; 3. Perceptive values: entering the quarry and penetrating to the last extractive level means living and knowing the productive reality live. Mining in itinere, present at the 5th level, is an essential documentary factor. 14 The distribution to visitors of a brief handbook of the descent, the dressing procedure with jacket and helmet and the informed consent to be signed before accessing the hypogeum, contributed to creating an underground safety education. Subsequently, the visitors were transferred below ground level with two shuttles in small groups, to ensure the presence in the quarry of no more than 80 people at a time.

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Fig. 10 Cava Sostenibile di Murisengo—Performance of lights, (Piedmont_Italy). Image from the website www.collinedelmonferrato.eu

Historically, «the landscape is the product of processes of transformation and civilization of nature that have occurred over time and have made it a social event and cultural heritage [15]; Mininni in Donadieu 2006)» [16, 17]. To conceive the landscape and the territory as stratified entities composed of environmental, cultural, social, architectural and anthropological elements; therefore as phenomena in progress, it means asking the community to articulate reflections on the relationships between past and present and capacity for projection to the future. According to Frederick Steiner, the landscape is a complex ecological entity where social equity and the balance between exploitation and conservation of resources are fundamental to its vitality [18]. It is the product of processes of transformation of nature and of the relationship between anthropic settlements and the environment that follow one another over time and transform a territory into a cultural event [15]. These processes refer to the dynamism and transformative richness that characterize such landscapes, being bearers of social and cultural identity; but also of functional conflicts and environmental heterogeneity that can be recomposed in a complex relational system. The “relational” aspect of the landscape project and the centrality of the time factor confer a particular specificity to this field of design research. As we have seen, it is not enough to remedy the degradation produced by transformations through mitigation

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works but it is necessary to identify design tools to govern the transformations with the construction of new landscapes. The European Landscape Convention (2000) requires new tools and methods of protection and management and innovative interventions in landscape design. The primary objective is to develop some methodological guidelines and new design methods, by scope, theme, scale, administrative competence. define methodological categories based on the analysis of the dynamics of change, on the knowledge of the physical characteristics of fragmented, degraded and unstable spaces, on the investigation of new forms of sociality and ways of contemporary living. It’s necessary to grasp the relationships between elements of various nature, materials and immaterial, in a geographical sense and in a historical-cultural sense, focusing on the identification of connections and spatial relationships between different places and objects, on the construction of open spaces for recreational use of ecological paths and corridors that positively influence functioning and on the visual aspects of the landscape. All global protest movements have in common a demand for renegotiation of urban space and landscape in the broad sense. Specifically, it is being redefined in terms of local action, bottom-up practices and processes, networks between citizens, urban micro-policies, common goods, reclaim space, social co-production, care, guerrilla gardening, community, daily uses and practices, and empowerment, local democracy, real participation, urban tactics, resilience, utopia, temporary and reversible occupations, shared landscapes [16, 17]. In the book Common Landscape,15 the author has investigated the collective and democratic dimension of the work on the landscape, the relationship between nature and man, through the project. The analysis starts from the experiences gained in the 50 s by Lawrence Halprin and his wife Anna. They realize workshops, scenographies, public and semi-public spaces, redefining at the same time the role of the «artist/designer: no longer a solitary hero, but rather a figure who builds a choreography of landscape,16 with the people themselves who participate with their lives. The landscape project is transformed into a process open to the temporal dimension but also to the people who want to take part in it» [16, 17], to define the landscape as an art of collective creativity and as an art of relationships.17 The workshops are a way of revealing people’s needs, desires and aspirations, rather than solving problems or proposing a single solution, through the realization of shared experiences. The interaction between subjects—involving inhabitants and many disciplines— in the process of transformation of the contemporary territory, traces a line of 15 Sara

Gangemi, Common Landscape. Processi di educazione, partecipazione e empowerment in paesaggi ordinari, Quodlibet, Roma, 2019. 16 The term choreography is used by the authors because the dance together with the music is the discipline that most contributes in Halprin to the maturation of a dynamic and procedural gaze on the landscape. 17 Another fundamental text is Halprin, Lawrence, The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment, New York, George Braziller, 1970. RSVP is the acronym of Resources, Score, Valuaction, Performance.

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intervention that describes the evolution of participatory processes constituted by collective practices that start from the bottom. For the author Sara Gangemi, the meaning of talking about Halprin’s experiences lies in those experiences that were able to involve man, interpreting ways of living and the relationship with nature, making us imagine new landscapes, through a deep research on language and listening. Bringing attention back to the need for the project, «a shared and multi-sectorial project, capable of imagining alternative futures starting from the discussion with the subjects and from the investigation of the daily issues» [16, 17]. Secondly, the landscape project is considered a place making tool [19] that is able to strengthen, reactivate, build the link between places and people. Bringing civil society to reflect on the possible future of some places is the intent of some projects that operate within the complexity of design strategies that know how to develop new ways of exploiting and using cultural heritage and traditional products rooted in the territories, exploring them the multiple aspects (narrative, communicative, interactive, multimedia), also through open and collaborative design methods. In this sense, design can in fact, under certain conditions, play the role of an effective activator of virtuous processes of requalification and re-definition of environments, practices and knowledge, through forms of interaction with the reference community and with the various territorial actors, to activate the specific contribution of social innovation services design in the project. In addition, the designer can become a qualified actor who works within territorial development actions based on goods and processes that produce culture, social cohesion and that reinforce the identity values of the community.

5 CO-Design and Participatory Design: Two Case Studies in Sicily The Regional Law n. 127 of December 9, 1980 establishes the limestone of the Trapani locality in Sicily as valuable material, along with the ornamental stones. They are identified in a pleistocene organogenic deposit, with a characteristic yellowish color, of considerable thickness (even 50/60 mt) that emerges with some continuity in the western sector of Sicily, in the island of Favignana and in the area between Marsala, Mazara del Vallo and Castelvetrano. This material has been used in construction since classical antiquity; some important examples are the ancient Punic settlements of Mothia and Marsala (Lilibeo), the historic center of Trapani and several expressions of remarkable architectural merit, widespread in the minor centers of the Province of Trapani. The historical sites of extraction of the calcarenite are located in the island of Favignana, today no longer exploited for mining purposes due to the existence of a

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Fig. 11 Fig. 2: Hotel in a quarry. Favignana (Sicily). Credits Serena Del Puglia

dense network of constraints applied to protect the landscape aspects. From the quarries of Favignana (Figs. 11, 12) it used to be extracted the so-called “tufo”, a coarse white-yellowish pale biocalcarenite to elements made up of equidimensional remains of calcareous algae, bryozoans, foraminifera, echinids, corals and molluscs; it was used in monumental facades in association with other polychrome marbles, up until the eighteenth century. This diffusion has determined the presence of other important historical sites in the easternmost part of Sicily between Sciacca and Castelvetrano, the quarries of Cusa (Fig. 13) have provided the material for the construction of the temples of Selinunte in the seventh century BC and later in the medieval and baroque architecture of the same centers of Castelvetrano and Sciacca. The area that currently appears to be the most representative, for the extraction of the Pleistocene calcarenite, is the area of Marsala-Mazara del Vallo, where the largest number of quarries in activity is concentrated. The lithotype in the outcrop is represented by an organogenic calcarenite. The “Marsala calcarenite” consists mainly of calcareous monometric elements; the lower portions, varying in color from white to yellow to reddish, are more poorly cemented and have slow intercalations of sandyclayey lenses; the most superficial part, of light color, appears more homogeneous, compact and well cemented, and still today it is extracted for the production of tuff blocks used as a building material.

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Fig. 12 Gardens in a quarry. Favignana (Sicily). Credits Serena Del Puglia

5.1 Periferica_Urban Regeneration In Mazara del Vallo, in the district “Il Macello”, a 2500 m2 disused quarry—which includes a former nursery school of the 1980s (Fig. 14)—became the headquarters of Periferica. Periferica is an urban regeneration project that since 2013 has started the construction of a network of skills and relationships to implement participatory planning and construction processes on abandoned resources and spaces, systemizing universities, associations and businesses, and placing the citizen in a position to positively intervene on his own territory. The headquarters hosts spaces for co-working, a social kitchen, a performative area and a food area open to the proposal of initiatives by citizens. With a multidisciplinary and inclusive perspective, the experiments with new processes for the design of places redefine the role of architecture and urban planning through the power of collaboration. Over the years, workshops, laboratories (Fig. 15), and redevelopment interventions have been activated in some forgotten spaces, and the quarry has become a fulcrum of a festival of projects elaborated by the network of collaborations. “Evocava” is one of the latest projects designed by Periferica. It establishes the creation of a museum as a device for the protection, enhancement and incremental promotion

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Fig. 13 Parco archeologico di Selinunte e Cave di Cusa. (Sicily_Italy). Credits Serena Del Puglia

Fig. 14 Periferica headquarters. Mazara del Vallo (Sicily_Italy). Image from the website www.per ifericaproject.org

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Fig. 15 Micro Village for Macro Visions - Periferica Festival 4th—28 July → 06 August 2017— Mazara del Vallo (Sicily_Italy). Collage with images from the website www.perifericaproject.org

of the historical and natural heritage of the Mazara quarries. The project has won the fourth edition of the national contest “Culturability”, which aims to promote innovative initiatives in the field of high-impact urban regeneration. The production of projects by the group and the generated cooperation network is in constant development and transformation, but firmly rooted as a reference point, not only a local one.

5.2 EAC 2011_the Fruitful Contribution of the Arts The EAC—“Ephemeral Arts Connection_International Workshop in Sicily”,18 held in Marsala in four consecutive editions (from 2010 to 2012), has worked, from time to time, on many architectural/landscape contexts of particular importance and a great identity value, chosen in the city of Marsala. The workshop, joined from time to time by the municipal administration and many international institutions, was attended by professors, architects, designers, artists, photographers and students, coming from 18 The Ephemeral Arts Connection (EAC) has worked on the value of the ephemeral, as a connecting

element between contemporary arts and at the same time as a new paradigm for sustainable development. The EAC is an international workshop organized by Stardust *, a contemporary architecture and arts studio (Spain, Italy, Brazil, USA, Syria) and Elisava, International University of Design and Engineering of Barcelona (Spain). The event was supported by many international institutions of enormous prestige including: the Watermill Center in New York, founded by Bob Wilson, the AIU Arab International University of Damascus (Syria) and the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo (Sicily).

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various countries with the aim of re-configuring these spaces as contemporary art laboratories, proposing art as an element of interpretation and enhancement of the territory. With the aim of opening these hidden and abandoned places to the citizens, often unaware of the existence of these resources, the workshop result has been a free performance open to the public and the realization of a work of art for the city. In this way, the citizens were responsible in maintaining and projecting the art work and the linked resource. The use of new digital tools and techniques in the realization of the performance and the final work of art (video mapping, multimedia installations, light design works) has also experimented with another design field, which allows efficient processes of involvement and interaction with citizens. It is a field in continuous experimental evolution that incorporates other specific features of the discipline (exhibit design, multimedia design, graphic design). In the EAC 2011 edition, Parco delle Cave of Marsala (Sicily) (Fig. 16) was the protagonist of the workshop and of the final performance. Parco delle Cave has been completely recovered and maintained by private local individuals. By promoting cooperation between local subjects and an international network, the various editions of the workshop have become territorial interpretation laboratories (Fig. 17), in view of a commitment to cooperation and collaboration, aimed at

Fig. 16 Parco delle Cave. Marsala (Sicily_Italy). Credits Serena Del Puglia

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Fig. 17 Ephemeral Arts Connection International Workshop in Sicily—2nd edition—07 September → 18 September 2011 organized by Stardust* and Elisava. Collage with photos by Serena Del Puglia

enhancing territorial resources through elements of construction of the Sicilian identity, producing and encouraging social and economic development of the territory, and promoting cultural growth. Such projects represent the strength and urgency of a demand for planning that acts on the territorial systems. The fundamental tools have been the appeal of international talent and the value of attraction that this can have on the territory; the awareness and appeal of local creativity; the subjects’ awareness of their own territory. This awareness translates into a model of cultural experience that generates an active participation in the collective ritual of narration (Fig. 18).

6 The Role of Design. Towards Robert Venturi’s Heritage. Complexity and Contradictions Resolved in New Landscapes In this context of design processes and lines of action, the role of the designer could be to help «the emergence of planning, the construction of possibilities for dialogue and new cognitive frameworks, the approach of instances and social and institutional

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Fig. 18 Ephemeral Arts Connection Performance—17 September 2011. Athayde/Stardust*

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languages» [20]. It could also take the communities to practices of affection and care of their everyday landscapes, social practices that extend the notion of public good to that of common good. On the other hand, spontaneous practices can become a reference from which to learn and invent new spatial strategies and devices, which can transform even marginal, ordinary and degraded landscapes into strategic resources for the life and well-being of the inhabitants indicated by the European Landscape Convention (Florence 2000). These are in fact urban and/or territorial actions that have the capacity to call into question the existing structures: the public/private dichotomy and state sovereignty in the control and management of collective spaces. Such actions allow us to rethink the role of civil society in the production of space and disclose a capacity and planning awareness by the inhabitants. It is a matter of building intermediate landscapes, capable of adapting to future changes, such as weak programming strategies capable of accepting new healing practices even after the planning action in the strict sense.

7 Conclusions The attempt, which has no pretense of completeness, is to encourage the project towards transversal cognitive environments, enriching its interpretative tools, in the search for its own figures within a much wider repertoire than the landscape architecture. Making this change of perspective stable, prefiguring projects that are versatile to change generated by architects, artists and organized groups of people, is the challenge to imagine new ways of using the city and its spaces, in a sort of “situational and polycentric strategy” [21].

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«We can talk about the urban project as a work in progress and about the city»— and the landscape—«as an inclusive phenomenon»—(ee)—«in continuous movement, made up by human beings, by actions and things, but also by images, by experiences, by communication systems. Consequently, made up of things and actions, of space and time. Following this logic, the search for the shape of the spaces of the city»—and of the landscape—«moves towards the search for the possibilities of use of the spaces of the city. These spaces, never actually completed, do not express a finite form, but on the contrary, accept indeterminacy and reversibility as founding conditions» [21]. These words echo Rovert Venturi’s message that architecture (the landscape) becomes «inclusive rather than exclusive, where there is space for the fragment, contradiction, improvisation, and the tensions that all of this produces» [3, 4]. The true legacy of Venturi’s thought is that of learning how to read complexity in architecture, phenomena and processes. The extensive discussion proposed by the quarry landscape, as an expedient for dealing with very vast times on the landscape and its various implications, defines a flexible and inclusive approach. The «space between what has been and what still needs to be defined » marks the act of building a «landscape that should be thought as a configuration of clearly defined intermediate places […] as a transition articulated by means of defined places in between, which immediately lead to awareness of what is significant on the other side. In this sense, a space in between represents the common field in which opposite polarities can become again binary phenomena» [3, 4] in a «complex program, which is a process constantly growing and changing over time, even in each stage somehow connected to the whole, it should be recognized as essential to the scale of urban planning» [3, 4].

References 1. Santarelli I (2015) Il recupero delle cavità ipogee tra produzione e cultura. In: Dell’Aira PV, Grimaldi A, Guarini P, Lambertucci F (eds) Sottosuoli urbani. La progettazione della città che scende, Quodlibet, Macerata, p 113 2. Santarelli I (2015) cit., p 117 3. Venturi R (1980) Complessità e contraddizioni nell’architettura. Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 4. Venturi R (1980) cit., p 20 5. Pavan V (2010) Architetture di cava. Motta Architettura, Faenza, p 16 6. Gisotti G (2008) Le cave. Recupero e pianificazione ambientale. Manuale per la gestione sostenibile delle attività estrattive, Dario Flaccovio Editore, Palermo, p 15 7. Bagnato VP, Paris S (2013) Riciclare le cave di Puglia: tra paesaggio primario e infrastruttura produttiva. Techne n. 5, University Press, Firenze, pp 123–128 8. Santarelli I (2014) Tesi di dottorato—Riscritture per il sottosuolo ex-estrattivo. Strategie di recupero tra memoria, tutela ambientale e nuovi usi per la città contemporanea, Sapienza Università di Roma DiAP—Dipartimento di Architetturta e Progetto. Tutor: prof. Dell’Aira PV 9. Santarelli I (2014), cit., pp 80–81 10. Santarelli I (2014), cit., pp 61 11. Venezia F (2006) Francesco Venezia. Le idee e le occasioni, Electa, Milano, p 104

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12. Zumthor P (1997) Le terme di Vals: pietra e acqua. Casabella n. 648:56 13. Venezia F (2011) Che cosa è l’architettura. Electa, Firenze, p 53 14. Annese M, Bagnato VP, Loi M, Pagnelli TP, Reina A (2015) Il sistema delle cave dell’area metropolitana di Bari. Problematiche e prospettive di riciclo. Working papers. Rivista online di Urban@it 1, pp 8–9 15. Magnaghi A (2012) Il territorio come bene comune. Firenze University Press, Firenze 16. Gangemi S (2019) Common Landscape. Processi di educazione, partecipazione e empowerment in paesaggi ordinari, Quodlibet, Roma, p 37 17. Gangemi S (2019) cit 18. Steiner F, Treu MC, Palazzo D (2004) Costruire il paesaggio. Un approccio ecologico alla pianificazione del territorio, McGrawHill, Italia 19. Berger A (2006) Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America. Princeton Architectural Press, New York 20. Cognetti F (2011) Praticare l’interazione in una prospettiva progettuale, paper presentato Seminario di ricerca interdisciplinare, Ferrara 27–28 giugno 21. Salvadeo P (2015) Le drammaturgie architettoniche dello spazio urbano. In: Basso Peressut L, Bosoni G, Salvadeo P (eds) Mettere in scena Mettere in mostra, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa, p 24 22. Ibidem, 60 23. Ibidem, 89 24. Ibidem 25. Ibidem, 99 26. Ibidem, 122,123 27. Mendini A (1994), Mesacem. Appunti per un progetto culturale. Arti grafiche Meroni, Lissone, p. 13

Human Spaces: “The Dialogue Between Space, Time and Architecture” Concetta Masseria and Andrea Fancelli

Abstract This paper deals with a chapter of the ancient world to emphasize how the identity processes influenced the forms of Greek colonization in the West. The founding “project” takes also into account monumental structures, which, without an adequate study, may generate wrong interpretations about the intended use. Only through a comparative analysis, on different media, and above all a historical analysis of events and settlement strategies can be used to respond to the axioms underlying Robert Venturi’s theoretical analysis. Keywords Anthropized landscape · Ambiguity vs disambiguity · Identity · Genius loci · Selinunte · Fountain (Greek Krene) The environment suggests distinctions and relationships, the observer with great adaptability and for specific purposes selects and organizes, attributing specific meanings to what he sees. (Kevin Lynch)

1 Introduction “…space, time and architecture” involve, in Robert Venturi’s opinion, a multiplicity of focal points. Is it possible for the ancient world too to make use of the principles set out in Venturi’s book “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” [1]? Can the same principle of “complexity” linked to that of “contradiction” be declined and applied, rather than in “Architecture”, to visible areas, that can be detected as characterizing Landscape and Environment? C. Masseria · A. Fancelli (B) University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] C. Masseria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_51

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And furthermore “complexity” necessarily implies contradictory forms or explicitly excludes them? Complexity of interpretation finds apparently contradictory solutions, a fact that necessarily implies an observation based on multiplicity of “focal points”, which facilitate speculative pathways, converging towards the need for clarification. In this line of research, pointing to a specific reference to the ancient world, the greatest difficulties derive from the almost total lack of written sources and therefore the analysis must be conducted almost exclusively on monumental remains and, for sake of comparison, on possibly coeval iconographic documents. In the following pages, we suggest two reconstructive hypotheses of a ancient “landscape”, in which the architectures immediately emerge and become determinant “signs”, that interact with it. An ancient landscape, as it is has been transformed by man and has been handed down to us through ages, can be read as the narration of the phenomena that originate and determine the intervention and human activity on a space and on an environmental reality, thus modifying its most important primary aspects [2, 3].

2 Landscape as Identity Let’s talk about Selinus, the most faraway of Greek colonies in the West. Ancient sources tell us about those men who came from the sea and about their chief, specially appointed for that mission in the mainland. Pammilos—this was his name—has the difficult and exalting task of leading a group of men from Megara Nysaea towards the foundation of a new city, a real and at the same time utopian aim. In unknown lands—but perhaps already “described” by those who had preceded them in exploration of distant lands, towards other seas, where the sun dips at sunset and the darkness of the night rises, to the extreme limits of the known world beyond which only heroes go; these explorer are called by modern scholars prospectors—a term borrowed from anthropology to signify those who “go ahead” to observe places, to verify natural resources and to study the customs and habits of those who already live there, towards a promised land, dream of a life in wealth and richness. All that must have started from the reasons expressed by Theognis (Elegies 1, 179–180), citizen of Megara Nysaea, a poet who lived between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century BC: “we must seek […] on land as on the wide back of the sea, to loosen the painful bonds of need”. The reason for every departure was then and still remains today that of “loosening the painful bonds of the need”, the dream of a better life (Fig. 1). Leaving your home, you leave the affections, well-known places for other places, other landscapes, other encounters, hopefully towards a new and better life. Ancient Greek sources, Thucydides (VI, 4) in primis, witness the dynamics of such an “adventure” and tells us about a group of citizens from Megara, who arrived from Megara Nysaea, led by a certain Lamis up to the eastern coasts of Sicily, where they joined other men from Chalcis, founders of Leontinoi in 729 BC, and lived together

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Fig. 1 Metopa with Europa on the bull, from the Acropolis of Selinus (ph. C.M.)

with them for a short period of time. After having founded Thapsos, Lamis died and the Megarians were driven out of Leontinoi. Allegedly, they found reception from a Sicilian king of Hybla, named Hyblon, who gave them the permission to found in his territory a city, that they called “Megara”, name of their homeland, and “Hyblaea” in honour of king Hyblon. This happened in 728 BC. “After inhabiting it for 245 years”—Thucydides continues—“these Megarians were expelled from Megara Hyblaea by Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse. Before that, however, one hundred years after the foundation [i.e. in 628 BC], they had sent Pammilos to found Selinus, indicated as oikistes by their Greek motherland Megara”. (…) “Both Thucydides and Diodorus—although this last historian registers the event about twenty years earlier (650 BC)—say that the foundation of the city happened in a date, exactly one hundred years after that of Megara Hyblaea, date that seems to reflect a precise project: the foundation of the new city seems to find reflections, that “we can recover exclusively through traces left in the monumental testimonies and in the fragments of the literary evidence” [4]. We have the chance to perfectly reconstruct the project through the jagged and imaginative narrative that tradition entrusts to the words of myth: they are stories, that generate stories and give certainties. Antiquity assures its value.

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In Strabo’s words (2, 6) Selinus was a “promised land”: Strabo attributes to Ephorus the story of the origin of that journey to the far West and that it is worth rereading to fully understand the dynamics of this immense undertaken: “Ephorus says that these cities [Naxos and Megara] were the first colonies founded by the Greeks in Sicily ten generations after Troy. They previously feared so much tyrrhenian piracy and the savage nature of the barbarians of the place not to sail there even for trade. But the Athenian Theocles, driven in Sicily by the winds, was able to see both the small number of the inhabitants and the extraordinary quality of that land: however, having failed, on his return, to persuade the Athenians, he took as mates of the adventure some Chalcidians from Euboea and some Ionians, and also some Dorians mostly from Megara, and he resumed the navigation: the Chalcidians therefore founded Naxos, the Dorians instead Megara, previously referred Hybla”. The “discovery” of what soon appeared to be a real Eldorado is due to accident, to that shipwreck, in the epic narrative almost a “seal” of the peril of the seafaring. Just think of the return of Odysseus and, in particular, “the encounter“with inhospitable creatures like Polyphemus; the same myth tells however that wealth and richness can beachieved, thanks to an unexpected reversal of fate. Knowledge represents the mediation between the two opposing predictions, success or catastrophe. That is why different visions not only of a natural landscape, but also of the cognitive dynamics of history and anthropology may originate. Selinus occupies the core of such narration thanks to the story of the direct appointment by Megara Nysaea of Pammilos as tho oikistes of the new colony by Megara Nisea. This is the sole detail concerning the “choice” of an oikistes by the Megarians, we do know nothing about this man and about the reason for this decision. The silence of the all sources seems to respond to a sort of a tacit custom, since everybody knew. The same does not apply to modern scholars, who, however, consider this a singular behavior compared to other foundations; this singularity is recorded by a few words that say:”It was up to Megara, their Greek homeland, to indicate him as the oikistes”. And that is all. But landscapes are somehow vocal and fill such a silence. Places, buildings, fences and altars with their sacredness guarantee the encounter, the communal place, where the indispensable guarantees of mutual respect are expressed and realized. In the shadow of what was considered “sacred”. At the time of the founding of Selinus, Pammilos, the oikistes, had a precise model, that of Megara of Greece, with its two acropolis, each showing the cults like in the Mother City. The predetermination of such a design has been conjectured “on the sequence of the names of the deities present as holders of the main patrician cults in the famous monumental inscription of victory dedicated in temple G, the «Grande tavola selinuntina» , containing a sort of catalogue of divinities worshipped in Selinus. According to this hypothesis, all the main sanctuaries of the new colony were created by Pammilos with the aim to make a faithful reproduction of the placement of the cults in the homeland: the acropolis of the new colony offered a copy of the acropolis of Alkatoos in Megara, while the great extraurban sanctuary of the Eastern Hill followed the example of the acropolis of Kares: temples were even arranged on both

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hills in the same order of the corresponding cults to Megara Nisea, as documented by the description of Pausanias (I, 42, 4–6). In the new colony we find in fact two large areas occupied by as many groups of colossal sacred buildings, the acropolis of the city with the temples of Apollo (temple C), of Athena (temple D), of Demeter (the so-called mègaron) and perhaps Poseidon (temple A) and of the Dioscuri (temple O), while the Eastern Hill had three temples dedicated to Olympian Zeus (temple G), Dionysus Nyktelios (temple F), Aphrodite (temple E, with two phases, E1 and E2). Due to its strength, the model included in the project even a third area, smaller than the previous ones, in the port area of the river Modione (not by fortuitousness close to the great necropolis of Manicalunga), to which the Pammilos attributed the same function as Nysa, the port of the Megara in Greece, duplicating there the prestigious sanctuary of Demeter Malophòros (“fruit-bearer”). This accurate reconstruction of the appurtenance of each building to single gods takes into account the epigraphic and archaeological data found in the excavations of Selinus, starting with the long sequence of divinities present in the “Grande tavola selinuntina” and, at the same time, makes continuous reference to the cults present in the distant homeland and testified essentially by Pausanias’ text. Although we must consider this experiment as an extreme case, in which, to implant the cults of a sub-colony, the oikistes maybe have deliberately resorted to the faraway model of the motherland, already from a very archaic phase the strength of the models of the city of origin could push those in charge with the foundation of a sub-colony to a very careful search of those transfers of cults, considered at that time “unavoidable, guarantors of pax deorum and social cohesion” [5]. “The history of the foundation of Selinunte contains all the paradigms of what can be defined as an identity process between the colonizing enterprise and the choice of the place where the roots of the future community lie” [4]. Since the journey to the new land had almost certainly taken place by sea, the landing took place with all likelihood at the mouth of the river Selinus, whose name follows that of the Greek polis with the known derivation from the name of a plant, apium (wild celery) or fennel, growing up spontaneously on its shores [4], loc.cit). “The presence of water is a fundamental requirement for every fundamental choice. Safe landing at the mouth of rivers and then drinking water, therefore sources. In Selinus water means riches, being a territory irrigated by water courses of considerable capacity, real and proper navigable way towards the interior. To the west of the city the Selinus, the ancient name of the river Modione, flows between the dunes of the district Gàggera and the plateau of the central Acropolis; between the Acropolis and the western the slopes of the plateau of the Eastern Hill housing the three great extra-urban temples, “the course of a second river, now called Cottone, the ancient Ypsas, in proximity of the mouth assumes a lagoon aspect with shallow waters and therefore subject to impalement” (Figs. 2 and 3) [4]. Selinus is really the city, where environment and landscape both of the city and of the country are marked by a presence of water in all its aspects: from sea to rivers, to springs and finally to those swamps that have narrated its history in the expressions impressed in the coinage, artistically unique (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 2 J. Hulot e G. Fougères. Ideal reconstruction of Selinunte [2]

Fig. 3 J. Hulot e G. Fougères. Ideal reconstruction of the Selinunte floor plan [2]

From an urban standpoint, the faithful reproduction of the urban form of Megara Nysaea proposes the main port at the mouth of the most important river Modione. The river course, penetrating into the heart of the territory, washed the great sacred enclosure dedicated to the Goddess of the harvest, a “hinge”—from the point of view

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Fig. 4 Silver didrachma of Selinus (455–440 BC) with the river god Hypsas that sacrificing in a marshy environment

of settlement dynamics—absolutely essential as a place of encounter and exchange— “religiously guaranteed”—between different ethnic groups. Between those who arrive and those who already live there by birth, both aware that, in the sign of that “guarantor”, they recognize common and shared values. It does not seem by chance, in this perspective, that the very first approach of the colonists has received a real imprimatur with the construction of that sacred place, a fence cut out in the virgin soil, where buildings and structures for collective rituals rise1 (Fig. 5). Furthermore, there is a spring of drinking and crystalline water, an essential resource for the inhabitants but also for those who, preparing to travel, fill the holds of the precious liquid. In the sequence of buildings that are raised on the slopes of the short Gàggera hill, immediately after the foundation of the city, there are two monumental structures of great architectural and religious importance: for practical purposes, they were given two conventional names, the first, identified with the name of the owner of the land on which it stands, passed to literature as “Triolo temple” (Fig. 6); the second, however, identified and excavated in the mid-fifties, was attributed the letter M, the initial name of the superintendent Iole Marconi. Both buildings have a simple oikos structure, made of local limestone blocks in dry masonry, according to the architectural forms already used in the two cult buildings2 erected inside the most monumental sanctuary of Demetera (Fig. 7). Both in the ancient project and in the present monumental perspective, these three structures form a symbolic architectural sign of a landscape which chosen for historical and geographical reason, as an indivisible part of a story that starts from the foundation of one of the most powerful and rich cities of the Greek west to reach

1 The

two buildings, superimposed one another, correspond to two different construction phases of what is the main temple of the sanctuary. The most plan of the building of the more recent phase follows the previous one with absolute precision although with larger dimensions (Fig. 8). 2 The exceptional character of the finds consists in the recovery of rear wall in a perfect fall position.

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Fig. 5 Sanctuary of the Malophoros

our times with the essential baggage that is built according to the principles of the Paideia that have imbued the foundation of Greek philosophical thought. Knowledge is the only tool to nourish the correct respect for a Past that presents itself as a model in the awareness of forms, functions and use of resources, of the natural resources in the first place, so that environment, territory and landscape can continue to dialogue with the Present and the Future with the ancient words of a consideration free of ambiguity and rich in perspectives [3].

3 I Am a “Krene” Is it possible to understand at a glance the function of architectures? Mies van der Rohe’s motto “Less is more” has greatly influenced the architects of the last century, with numerous intellectual and political implications; the

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Fig. 6 The temple called Triolo

Fig. 7 J. Hulot, G. Fougères. Ideal reconstruction of Malophoros hill with addition of the M complex

basic concept is simplification, intended as a reduction of intrinsic complexity and problems in the art of construction. Talking about minimalism would therefore be reductive, since van der Rohe’s works have nothing modest, but possess, on the contrary, an idea of nobility and order comparable to the ancient architectures.

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Fig. 8 R. Koldeway, relief of the Malophoros sanctuary with hecate’s enclosure

And while he explains that “God is in the details”, his ideas are trivialized with the very questionable result of realizing works less and less singularly recognizable and more and more similar, at least in their appearance, to each other. When subtraction becomes excessive, so much so as not to distinguish, for example, a museum from an office building, Venturi replies provocatively with his “less is a bore!”, to emphasize his concept the positioning, on the building designed as a very simple cube punctuated by fixtures, of a placard specifying the function of the “monument”. One more example: let’s think of some works by Frank O. Gehry, extraordinary buildings in their complexity, an experimentation of imaginative and unconventional architecture. The shapes are disassembled, almost deconstructed on purpose, but then assembled in a free and unpredictable way. I’m thinking for example of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles or the Hotel Marqués de Riscal Vineyard in Elciego (Spain). Paradoxically, if the Guggenheim in Bilbao were not so famous, the interpretation of its intended use would not be taken for granted. A similar need of “disambiguation” comes to us from an unpredictable archaeological monument, a crater to volutes, a Greek import, an important element of a princely Etruscan tomb in the territory of ancient Clusium, now Chiusi. This vase brings us back about 2000 years, when Kleitias, a great Athenian vase-painter of the early sixth century BC, feels the need, the same expressed by Venturi, to write inside the reproduction of the facade of a temple-like building the function of that architecture (Fig. 9). In the central band of the pictorial decoration that covers the body of the famous François vase, the painter wanted to specify with a sort of “caption” the function of krene (fountain) possessed by a building that, in the pictorial form, was presented in the architectural form of a Doric temple. The scene portrays one of the crucial episodes of the Troy War, and, in particular, the ambush that the great Greek hero Achilles tends to a group of young Trojans who go to draw water from a fountain located outside the famous city walls. Predestined

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Fig. 9 Detail of the François vase ([6], 106)

victim of this sortie is the youngest of the sons of King Priamus, named Troilus. This episode, embodying, in the cruelty of the deception towards the helpless young man, the tragic fate awaiting the Greek hero, takes place, as I have just said, near a monumental fountain built in the form of a temple showing all the classic elements belonging to temple architecture such as columns, metopes, triglyphs, fictile decoration of the roof. But it is not a temple, and even in the absence of the “caption” mentioned above, it is the details of the reproduced scene that guide the observer to a correct reading. Let’s look at the scene carefully: the protagonist, Troilus, holds in his hand a hydria, a container for the water, inclined enough to place the opening below and in perfect correspondence with the lion’s head spout from which the water comes out. In the painting the young Trojan is presented just when he draws the water from the fountain: there would be no misunderstanding, the scene is clear, the episode is known, but Kleitias wanted to add, in the space between the columns, the name of that building, written well in evidence with brown paint on the red background of the vase. There is therefore no doubt, no possibility of being mistaken. Let’s now consider a building, as previously mentioned, that entered the scientific literature with the name of a simple letter M [3]. The structure was identified following the fortuitous discovery of two blocks pertaining to a carved frieze in a very high relief with scenes of the battle between Greeks and Amazons. The excavation, carried out

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for two seasons, has brought to light an important oikos—shaped building, apparently bipartite, preceded by a large staircase that connects it to a paved piazza. The presence of a Doric frieze,3 with smooth metopes, and, in part also of the two reliefs with the Fig. 10 a Diagram of the current state of the complex. b Reconstruction scheme: raising of the collapsed wall and positioning of the ridge beam. c Reconstruction scheme: the tripartition is functional as a point of support of the ridge beam. d Reconstruction diagram: the tripartition is functional for hydraulic operation. e Rebuilding scheme: the building is perfectly suited to the hillside. f Rebuilding scheme: the M complex. g Scheme of operation: the rectangular building was functional for the collection, conservation and distribution of the water coming from the spring behind it

3 The exceptionality of the finding consists in the recovery of the bottom wall which is in perfect fall

position collapse due to an oscillatory earthquake. It is still visible in situ the Doric frieze of which we recognize four smooth metopes and four triglyphs, the interlocking elements of the geison and the terminal element of the pediment, on which we note the recess for the ridge beam of the roof.

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Fig. 10 (continued)

battle against the amazons,4 suggested immediately an identification of the building with a temple.

4 The

plates belong to a continuous frieze and therefore cannot belong to the frieze, doric, of the building.

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However, the complex construction has some peculiarities that make it “exceptional”: the three architectural elements that compose it5 have been designed and realized with a specific purpose of use. As can be seen also from a simple autopsy, starting from the oikos, the whole structure has been built taking advantage of the height difference of a low hilltop, at the top of which the presence of a thick bush of reeds signals the presence, still today, of a spring. For the construction of this great apparatus, therefore, it was chosen the place that needed to meet the functional needs of the structure but, at the same time, that the entire building respected the construction models of the other two complexes harmoniously aligned along the Gaggera hill. The structural anomaly of M certainly calls into question its identification as a temple6 ; on the contrary, just those features that have been considered as “anomalies” make this imposing architectural complex the witness of a real architectural-engineering challenge not only for the constructive engagement experienced in it, which, to date, represents an unicum, but, above all, for the design strategy adopted in buildings a work that in adapting to natural resources— spring and slope—delivered to the most likely commissioner, the tyrant Pythagoras, a work useful for the function but, at the same time, a handheld representation of the power and wealth of the polis of Selinus at the apex of its existence. Not a temple, therefore, but a monumental fountain that looks like a sacred building, in perfect architectural and stylistic coherence with the two previous buildings inserted in a natural environment evocative of the cultural forms of a past lived as tradition to be respected and characterized by monumental prospects of great formal elegance. The landscape language, in suggesting the mutual relationship between forms and functions, respected the aesthetic canons of a rigorous and essential architecture that exploits natural resources, but at the same time modifies its texture by bending it to the functional needs of each of the buildings aligned as in a theatrical

5 The

M complex consists of three structural elements: a rectangular building apparently bipartite (actually tripartite), oriented, measuring 25.80 x 10.85 m; of a paved area of 23,90 x 3.10 m, which precedes the rectangular building from which departs a large staircase of four steps; the third element consists of a large square, paved with slabs, which develops for about 22.70 x 9.50 m at the base of the staircase. The whole system, built with large blocks of yellow tuff, is preserved at the foundation level except for a paved portion preserved inside the larger and rear compartment of the building, witness to the interior treading plan. Some construction details of fundamental importance are added for completeness: on (at least) two sides of the building, at a distance of less than 1 m, there are large blocks that have a trapezoidal section recess on the upper surface, definitely used as a channel for water. That the building had been built as a structure intended for the collection, conservation and supply of the spring water that is born behind it is, if possible, even more evident by the presence of technical devices applied to the entire construction of the large complex and which also makes use of small, but determining, details such as the insertion in the ground of the square of a manhole for disposal of the excess water cut into a square plate of 1 m of side with four central holes in the form of amygdala [3]. 6 As can be seen from the drawings (Fig. 10a–g) the important difference in altitude between the floor of the so-called “cell” and the square measures 6.95 m, a huge difference in level, functional to a structure other than reading as a templar building that was given at the time of discovery and then, unfortunately, also in the publications that followed [7].

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scenography on the sand dunes that look at the slow flow of the river Selinous that gives the name to the city. Like the painter Kleitias, the construction details and engineering strategies used in M, put the label “KRENE” on that great work and thus give it back the lost identity of a hasty and superficial reading [2].

References 1. 2. 3. 4.

Venturi R (1980) Complessità e contraddizioni nell’ architettura. Dedalo, Bari Fresina A, Bonanno GL (2013) Selinunte: insieme a Hulot e Fougères. CRicd, Palermo Masseria C (1978) Ipotesi sul “tempio M” di Selinunte, “AnnPerugia” XVI, 1978–1979 Bianconi F, Filippucci M (2018) Il prossimo paesaggio. Realtà, rappresentazione, progetto. In: Bianconi F, Filippucci M (ed), Roma, Gangemi 5. Torelli M (2011) Dei e artigiani: archeologie delle colonie greche d’Occidente. Laterza, Bari 6. Torelli M (2007) Le strategie di Kleitias: composizione e programma figurativo del vaso François. Electa, Milano 7. Pompeo L (1999) Il complesso architettonico del Tempio M di Selinunte: analisi tecnica e storia del monumento. Casa editrice Le lettere, Firenze

Urban Atmospheres: Representation of Intangible Relations Marco Seccaroni, Costanza Maria Aquinardi, and Elisa Bettollini

Abstract The proposed strategies analyse the landscape through the study of visual perception using digital tools. The analyses are based on studies of environmental psychology that in recent years, thanks to Neuroscience, have allowed to investigate in depth the cognitive processes and neuronal mechanisms that bind our senses to cognitive and emotional states. Acquire familiarity with an environment, study the function, meaning and objectives of a project and realize spaces, are all phases of a process that does not follow a simple and linear line. Multisensoriality represents the most important component of external stimuli that influence the cognitive process, therefore, the atmosphere created by things, by people and the surrounding environment, compared to man, become “invisible medium” of the environment. The present study aims to provide new strategies and tools for the analysis and representation of the landscape, for the understanding of emotional states in relation to the atmosphere of an environment. It wants to combine in a dynamic context the research of economic literature, starting from the circomplex model of emotions, with the most recent tools of neuroscientific research and visual perception of the elements. The proposed study is based on the synergetic use of innovative tools such as eye-track, EEG and parametric algorithms. Keywords Perception · Eeg · Eye-tracking · Algoritms (max 10)

1 Introduction The landscape in its picturesque simplification and therefore in its decomposition into simple elements leads to neglect many aspects, thus creating a “perfect” landscape M. Seccaroni (B) · C. M. Aquinardi · E. Bettollini University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] C. M. Aquinardi e-mail: [email protected] E. Bettollini e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Draw Connections, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 107, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_52

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in its disorder, neglecting all its problems. Its interpretative evolution leads it to transcend the real and consider it as if it was something above man, in a parallel dimension not tangible, something sublime [1]. Man is the central element in the territory, in the environment and in the landscape; if for the first two, man is aware of his actions and his changes, he is instead unaware of the dynamics of generation, modification and interpretation of the landscape. The term perception in the European Landscape Convention defines the concept of landscape: “Landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors”. Therefore, the landscape and everything that composes it, such as spaces, architecture and nature, is directly linked to perception. In addition, it is crucial to understand and analyse the psychological state of the person who is experiencing that particular space, object or form, that in turns send certain inputs. The cognitive aspect is closely linked to the way the individual lives that landscape and how he or she perceives the received information [2]. The relationship that the individual establishes with the environment, and therefore its reinterpretation of what surrounds him, defines the well-being in the landscape, or on the contrary, the feeling of discomfort, of repulsion for a place. This relationship depends on how the brain interprets, selects and re-elaborates significant information from the outside world. Architecture, as landscape, can be complex and contradictory, analysed as an expression of a cultural process that in its complexity represents the synthesis of the evolution of the social identity of a place and therefore by its nature is an anthropic transformation. In architecture, the “contradictions” in the building, which often necessity or adverse conditions dictate, can occur between plan and volume, between interior and façade, or in other forms. The designer manages to resolve these contradictions whit a “complex” result, i.e. not clean, not elegant and not ideal. The majority of modern and contemporary architects often do not accept this kind of result, while ordinary people, who have to deal with a city full of discontinuous and contradictory elements all day long are very familiar to it and they appreciate it as well [3]. On a large scale, these contradictions and discontinuities affect urban space and consequently define the image of the city. This methodological and conceptual approach of Venturi was strongly inspired and conditioned by Jean Labatut, the tutor who followed the developments of his university work as well as his personal research and some projects. This influence can also be seen in his perception and descriptions of new places during his first trip to Europe in 1948: the young Venturi’s references to the movement of his body in urban and architectural spaces are continuous, and the descriptions of new contexts are inspired by the visual and phenomenological approach of the Princeton master. Developing his professor’s phenomenological theses, Venturi places perception through the senses of the human body in architectural space at the centre of the question. In architecture, a sequence of spaces gives rise to a rhythm, which derives from the relations between form, pattern, texture, colour, space and light. Elements of architecture fundamental for the orientation of

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movement are the axis (open or closed axis, architectural and urban), the staircase, the entrance (porch, atrium, atrium with staircase) and the entrance staircase [4]. The forma mentis developed in a twenty-year research path was not common only to Venturi’s vision. In fact, Lynch defined the shape of the city according to how it is configured in the image that users have of it, from which he derives a structural model where the perception of urban space is generated by a scheme of paths, margins, neighbourhoods, nodes and references. In design, the relation between the parts is fundamental, because each object is more than the sum of its components. What matters is not the single element, but how the single element relates to its surroundings, and how the observer perceives the totality of the elements. Designers now face the problem of configuring the total scene in such a way that it is easy for the observer to identify the parts and structure the whole. Among the means giving structure and identity to the environment, are the visual sensations of colour, shape, movement, or polarization of light, and other senses such as smell, hearing, touch, and kinesthesia [5]. In this regard, Turri himself argues that, for the traveller, to perceive consists in fixing many perceptions, images or icons, because the journey is primarily a visual experience. The iconema, he specifies, is an image relative to a place but it is not the place itself; the latter is in fact a point in space where many events may have taken place. Therefore, the waterfall iconema expresses a place with a waterfall, while the place where a hero died, which cannot be traced back to an iconema, will be expressed by the tomb built for that hero. In the territory, in fact, the iconema, whether harmoniously arranged or not in the context, are what we perceive as essential and figurative elements of the landscape; therefore man does not invent the landscape, but he is “acted in the landscape by nature”, according to its availability, to its dictates in relation to his needs [6]. Therefore, it is necessary to create “emotional territories”, another necessary basis for the growth of urban communication, as they allow integration with the built environment through the identification of people. What emerges is the desire on the part of individuals for emotional experiences in “emotional territories” [7]. Perception is a complex process, strongly conditioned by cultural factors, personal experience, learning processes, imagination, memory [8]; it involves all the human senses, but most of the information that the human brain takes in analysis to orient itself in space and process its cognitive functions, are visual. With a glance, we are able to get a more or less positive impression of an urban context, we can catch elements of degradation, which increase the feeling of insecurity and discomfort; or we can evaluate an attractive and pleasant place. We orient ourselves in cities that we do not know, decoding through the sense of sight, the architectural signs, recognizing the landmarks, the margins, the connection nodes between the paths [5], we also evaluate within the urban scene the small furnishing elements, such as those that characterize the urban landscape in Gordon Cullen’s drawings [9]. The ability of places to evoke emotions and to cover specific emotional connotations has always received a strong attention in the field of environmental psychology research.

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Places have the extraordinary ability to arouse in people an emotional reaction: a room, a building, a square, an entire city, are continuous sources of stimulation and processing of information, but also of emotions to people who live there. The psychologist David Canter defined the place as a unit of “environmental experience”, where actions, physical attributes and affectively oriented cognitions of the people who use the place, merge. This helps to understand what could be defined as the psychological face of places and the built places [10]. The experience of the place that people have is a complex phenomenon, and not a simple response to a series of primordial needs. To these it is in fact necessary to consider people’s beliefs, emotions, preferences and attitudes. The complexity of the processes and of the related constructs at stake requires the support of valid measuring instruments from psychological research, in order to facilitate the designer in bringing to light the characteristics of these aspects and their implications for design. A place is “readable” if it responds with satisfaction to the cognitive efforts of the person in knowing it and moving within it; therefore, a “coherent” place will contain forms and characteristics to facilitate its understanding, only when the information will be immediately available. In a “readable” place, a person will find it easy to orient himself and infer the characteristics of the place as it becomes more complex. A place difficult to categorize, that goes against the person’s cognitive patterns, will arouse a series of negative feelings such as frustration and stress. What is important for environmental psychologists is also to investigate the aspects most related to the emotional evaluation of places. The use of reliable tools for the detection of perceptions, emotions and preferences of users is even more interesting if you think that there is a tendency for people to have difficulty in reporting their environmental experiences. This configures a sort of “unconsciousness” towards everyday life environments, especially from a perceptive-sensitive point of view. At the same time, the research in this field shows that these same places, when properly investigated through appropriate tools, are not indifferent at the level of emotions, feelings and affections from people who live them, or cognitive evaluations of the aspects that make them up. For this reason, environmental psychology has focused on the development of methodologies that are increasingly suitable for systematically observing this type of human experience, which tends to remain unconscious. In recent years, it has also dedicated itself to measuring both the automatic and implicit processes involved in the relationship between people and places [11]. Both physiological responses (such as hormonal responses) of people to specific site experiences [12]. According to Cartesian’s dualism, through our senses we receive information from the environment, after having collected a stimulus, we perceive it and then we process it forming a preliminary judgment that runs in our internal database. Thus, a preliminary interpretation of the initial stimulus takes place. Only now, the highest step of the cognitive process begins, so that we consciously hear logic, reason and abstraction to evaluate the importance of the stimulus and make decisions on how to act. The perception of the stimulus does not involve an exact reproduction of it but a reconstruction of it. The mind uses perceptual data and reworks them, interpreting

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them through cognitive schemes and internal representations. Perception is connected with higher processes in a continuous dialogue so that it is constantly influenced also in the final processes. This leads to a continuous exploration of the stimulus guided by internal processes as well as external elements [13]. As for example, in Kanizsa’s optical illusion, we see triangles, even if they are not actually defined but completed by ourselves [14]. The unconscious knowledge continuously flowing through our minds, as we navigate through our built world, comes in two types of responses: direct and indirect. The first are physiological, unlearned. A certain characteristic of the environment itself causes a rapid and automatic response in us. The amygdala of the brain orchestrates the most obvious direct responses, seat of fear, of discomfort. The second ones do not originate in human physiology, but in the cognitive patterns that we build throughout our lives. “Visual perception is the awareness we make of the outside world through observation and knowledge of the objects that stop the environment that has stimulated our senses” [15]. Perception, therefore, is the cognitive elaboration of sensory information; it is the process used by the sense organs to collect the information, to organize them into objects, events or situations, by giving meaning to the subject. It is the result of a series of complex processes, which take place automatically and implicitly. The first elaboration processes are responsibility of the physiological systems proper to each sensory modality. The signals coming from the periphery of the sense organs, once they reach the cerebral cortex they activate neurons that are sensitive both to physical characteristics and to the cognitive properties of the stimuli, thus, the process of perception takes place. These considerations were deepened by Venturi and he tried to put new analytical tools to understand new spaces and new forms, but he had to give up in their representation, due to the fact that he did not have adequate tools to explain the relation between image and perception in Las Vegas [16, 17]. The limit he encountered was the lack of digital, he could only represent with photographic and planimetric elaborations, whose scale conditioned the data to be represented. Las Vegas changes its appearance according to the speed with which we cross it, and in fact the three communication systems: heraldic (the signs), physiognomic (facades), and that of the locator cannot be represented simultaneously at the same scale. This would have led to a simplification of urban space due to its decomposition. The research project tries to respond to these needs with the support of new tools (EEG and eye-track) and with the help of new techniques of representation. Thus creating a new representative model of reality.

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2 Survey of Emotions The objective of this experimentation is to introduce the mobile EEG and eye tracker for spatial emotional analysis in relation to architecture, urban design, planning, environmental psychology and spatial analysis. Navigation studies in real environments give the possibility to replicate the cognitive processes of natural behaviour. Mobile EEG is a methodology research that requires tightly controlled experiments and complicated analytical tools; still clinical or research context are increasingly using it to monitor the brain and cognition in the real world. In combination with laboratory neuroimaging studies, it contributes to our understanding of the neural processes that enable spatial perception and cognition. In addition, mobile EEG is used to reveal psychological transactions between people and the environment, to measure the effects of urban and natural environments. These approaches seek to understand how the urban environment influences our well-being and how better urban design could mitigate negative emotional experiences, or even evoke positive experiences. In this context, mobile EEG could be integrated into city research as a tool to understand or assess the impact of environments on individuals and targeted interventions. This allows for analytical and scientific analysis of the essential elements affecting image and memory. It becomes essential and innovative, because the data linked to the results of Neuro-headsets, which guarantee to understand what part of the cerebral cortex is affected by certain signals and in certain environments, it provides analysis that can innovate the design criteria. These signals are transformed into six real-time cognitive states through an algorithm [18]: valence, excitement, stress, meditation, concentration, engagement [19–21]. This is functional to the analysis of behaviour [22–25]. The shift from cognitive states to emotions was possible using the circomplex model [26], or an interpretative model updated over the years [27, 28] which allows to trace emotions using only the cognitive states of valence and arousal [29]. By setting the value of valence as the first polar coordinate, and the value of arousal as the second polar coordinate, it is possible to obtain a point within the circomplex model representing the observer’s emotion. These points are associated to a single vector of different colour for each combination, transcribed in the RGB colour space (Fig. 1). In addition to the EEG helmet, an eye-track and GPS have been integrated into the studio. The eye-track is an instrument composed of two cameras, one IR camera framing the eye of the observer, while the other records the surrounding environment. Through an algorithm it is possible to associate the movements of the pupil to where the observer looks. In this way it is possible to objectively identify which elements are the most perceived in a given environment and that consequently characterize it [30–36].

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Fig. 1 Circumplex diagram

The direct measurement of psychological indicators, combined with the monitoring of movements in the various environments offers the possibility to assess the psychological implications of different environments. The analysis of the movement of people in the city can offer different insights for traditional transport, planning and design issues. Navigation studies in real environments give the possibility to replicate the cognitive processes of natural behaviour. Participants were asked to walk to a destination leaving them free to decide, change and refine their route. This approach allows researchers to examine the influence of different environmental variables with the advantage of replicating environmental conditions and navigational demands among participants to compare responses. Along with appropriate measures of performance and experience, the approach draws on emotional experiences and cognitive processes during real-world experiments. The direct measurement of psychological indicators, combined with the monitoring of movements offer the possibility to assess the psychological implications of different environments. The experimentation moves in two phases: field data acquisition and processing of the data obtained through the research algorithm. The surveying tools used for the navigation experiment were a watch with GPS, the eye tracker and EEG data tracking on site, followed by data processing, using the developed algorithm. The ongoing experimental work includes studies on the emotional

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experience of different groups of pedestrians influenced by environmental and mental factors. For the experimentation, participants equipped with eye tracker and EEG equipment were asked to walk along a designated path. The path surveyed involved places of the heart of the historical centre of Perugia, such as Piazza IV Novembre, Corso Pietro Vannucci, passing through Piazza Italia reaching the Carducci Gardens. The subjects were asked to walk along Via dei Priori towards the intersection with the Corso, where the data acquisition began. The recordings are stored inside the connected hardware (Figs. 2 and 3). Participants have to act naturally and they are allowed to use their prior knowledge of the area. Each registration lasted about 20–25 min each, the indicated route was to proceed towards the Gardens and then return to Piazza IV Novembre then going back to the starting point of registration. Once acquired the data, the algorithm processed them and an analytical model graphically represented them by a coloured mesh, directly using the elaborations of a photorealistic and georeferenced 3D model. The mesh obtained associated in a bi-univocal way to each vertex a colour, which in turn is associated to an emotion in

Fig. 2 Data acquisition

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Fig. 3 The path of experimentation

relation to Russell’s circomplex model based on an average of the acquired values. The 3D model was obtained starting from the processing of 100 jpg images with resolution 4000 × 2250 pixels, exported from Google Earth Studio. These were used to set the path of the camera that recorded the views as if it were a flight plan for a drone. Each image is georeferenced (Latitude, Longitude and Altitude). The photo modelling process was done through Agisoft Metashape software, using the highest precision parameter. From this process, we obtain a representation of the direct measurement of the emotional activity of individuals that can support an inclusive and user-centred approach to understanding life in cities. It can be integrated into city research as a tool for understanding the cognitive foundations of urban movement, assessing the psychological impact of environments on individuals, or interventions aimed at improving the quality of the urban environment. The data that emerge, processed by the algorithm, are an average in the results of the individual recordings and summarized through graphical representations. It is therefore possible to analyse some of the most significant areas/elements, also thanks to the recordings made using eye trackers. At the beginning of the recording, a state of stress was detected. To a first analysis it could be caused by the initial impact of the subject with the experimentation, in fact, the arrival in Corso Vannucci occurred after having walked along Via dei Priori for the duration of about 10 min, a road of considerable slope. This situation of fatigue, added to the entrance in an open and more frequented space, may have caused this emotional state. Continuing along Corso Vannucci, there is a change of emotion with colours associated with states of relaxation, calm and contentment as the participants walked through a protected place, full of tables and chairs to rest and recreate. Arriving in

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Piazza Italia, the state returns to be characterized by the purple colour, which, as seen before, represents, in its nuances, a state of stress and tension. You can see that this square is more a roundabout, with spaces for parking and passage of cars. In fact, despite the presence of trees and benches, is not experienced as an area for parking pedestrians but rather as a passage area characterized by the noise of cars and more pedestrian crossings. On arrival at the Carducci Gardens, near trees and benches with spaces dedicated exclusively to parking and near the walls overlooking on Viale Indipendenza, there is once again a state of calm, relaxation and contentment, probably also due to the view of a panorama of a considerable extension. On the way back, the situations are almost similar with a decrease of stress areas at the intersection with Via dei Priori, for the reasons explained earlier, with a new increase in tension and stress near Via Calderini, another road dedicated to the circulation of cars (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Mesh with the colour attribute derived from the circumplex diagram

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3 Simulation of Perceptions The objective of this experimentation is the creation of new strategies of analysis and representation of the landscape through the algorithms. An algorithm can be defined as a useful procedure to find a solution to a given problem, through a sequence of defined and unequivocal elementary instructions. The decomposition of a complex problem, in a logical sequence of elementary operations, is a mechanism close to our way of thinking; it is therefore possible to say that algorithmic modelling is a natural transposition of a reasoning into a digital scheme. Rather than acting on the design of a single object, this approach gives the user the possibility to define a logical process valid for the same family of problems. Every algorithm needs a finite number of input data, called input or parameters, of geometric-mathematical or textual type; the result of the elaboration is a univocal output. The algorithm, intended as a system of relations and connections, guarantees the coherence between the parts and the respect of an overall logic: the modification of the inputs or parameters propagates in the whole system taking into account the relations that exist within it. Starting point was to define the 3D model as input: being a three-dimensional space, the coordinates (x, y, z) of each point present and each element (line or surface) are univocally described through mathematical formulas. The developed analysis is for a dynamic context that simulates the perception during the movement. The reasoning behind the algorithm is to divide the path into n parts and to create a visual cone at each point, then compare the values between the n cones. It is possible to import the path and divide it into n parts and, by choosing the travel speed, to define the zenithal and azimuthal amplitude. The cone was created from revolution around the axis of the profile: therefore, you can create as many cones as the chosen points. For the attribution of the values in the dynamic analysis the assumption was that the gaze was fixed along the trajectory; therefore, it was possible to apply the studies on the perimetry. The Perimetry Update 2002/2003 study [37] defines that the importance of visual areas is defined by the function of the angle; taking this as a reference point, the area between 0 and 30° (coinciding with the width of central view) is assessed as more important and it is assigned 64% of the total field of vision score. Moreover, vertically the values distribution is not symmetrical, because the lower area has a higher score. Starting from this score and its distribution, a function has been created to approximate it and its volume is between 0 and 30° 65% of the total. The function varies between 0 (not visible) and 1 (maximum visibility). The maximum value is assumed to be between 0° and 4°, i.e. coinciding with the fovea. After this area, the degrowth is rapid up to 9° (limit of the macula) with a lesser inclination but always linearly decreasing up to 30°, then once it reaches 60° it goes to zero, in a parabolic way. It should be noted that the function thus described does not take into account the behaviour of the eye with respect to speed. In dynamic conditions (driver’s cone of

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vision) the width of the field of vision must be correlated with the speed of travel: since the possibility of focusing an object is not instantaneous (in a normal subject it takes about 0.9 s), as the speed increases the driver tends to shift his attention towards the most distant objects. In this way, these objects can be considered fixed, they represent a stationary reference point or, in any case, points with a relative low speed compared to the vehicle’s. This allows the driver to neglect the vision of objects placed on the side of the passenger compartment, for they have a high relative speed, focusing his attention on more useful points as a reference for driving. In fact, as the speed increases, the user, when driving, fixes his gaze on points that are gradually further away because, due to the effect of speed the field of vision is reduced. The driver’s vision, from a car proceeding at 60 km/h, focuses on the first 300 m and has a visual cone of 38° of opening; if the car proceeds at 80 km/h, the driver would investigate the space up to 400 m ahead and the optical cone would narrow to 29° of opening. If the car then reaches 100 km/h, the investigated space would be up to 600 m ahead and the cone of vision would be further narrowed to 20° opening and so on as increasing the speed [38]. The function described above has been modified as a result of the plurality of considerations examined: therefore, depending on the speed, there is a variable field of view. The values were assigned consistently with the first function, while for the fovea and macula they remained unchanged. The limit due to speed was assigned 0.6, at the end of the central view 0.3 and at the end of the area. The area under analysis is the track of the Minimetrò between the stations of Madonna Alta and Fontivegge in Terminal Pincetto direction. The route of the Minimetrò was chosen because it is one of the most important accesses to the city centre and, in the selected section, the historical centre is its background. Another important feature is the repeatability of the experiments through Eye Tracker: the constrained route tracks) and the minimal external interferences (there are no intersections or speed variations) make every experience comparable (Fig. 5). The input data was created through photo modelling, the source of the images is Google Earth Pro and they were processed through ReCap to obtain a mesh base. The mesh and the curve with the track were imported into Grasshopper, where the speed was set to 25 km/h and the algorithm was run. The processing of the algorithm was also experimented with Eye-Trackers. This allowed to have real and comparable values and to evaluate the truthfulness of the algorithm. The Minimetrò lends itself very well to experimentation. Each shot through eyetrackers has the same characteristics: constant speed and comparable travel time, same route (rails), uniform field of view (the view from the side is limited by the uprights), there are no crossings and empty wagons were used in order to limit external factors that would alter the experimentation. These properties have made every experimentation comparable. In order to have as many tests as possible, a Go Pro camera fixed near the glass recorded the route (Fig. 6). For the purpose of this case study, it is more relevant to identify precisely the portion of the visual field on which the gaze lingers for the longest time, i.e. which

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Fig. 5 Visual cones generated by the algorithm

Fig. 6 Some frames of the recordings with eye-track

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are the elements that most attract the gaze and that, therefore, are most perceived. This is possible thanks to Fixation Detector - Dispersion Duration, another Pupil Player plug-in in which is set the dispersion angle, i.e. a range within which the gaze is considered fixed (tolerance), and the minimum time in which the gaze remains within that range. During the video, the program detects and signals these fixations through purple circles that vary in size according to the time in which the gaze remains fixed. The data is interesting, although they are passengers and should not pay attention to the route; they are still attracted to it. This same concept can be extended to a car passenger, due to similar conditions: the route is constrained and the front glass is the field of view. As far as the fixing elements are concerned, the result is comparable: rails are still the main element. Renders have been made, based on the result obtained through the algorithm in a chromatic scale that allows to identify which are the most perceived elements. The two images described can be compared because they refer to the same stretch of Minimetrò. As it can be seen, the data obtained through eye tracker and those through algorithm are comparable, in fact, the areas of maximum perception are similar (Figs. 7 and 8). The strategy thus developed and validated was applied in an emblematic case: the Las Vegas Strip, which Venturi, Brown and Izenour thoroughly investigated. In these analyses, the authors study in a direct way, i.e. by carrying out a photographic survey and then developing various elaborations of how Las Vegas is perceived by the users. In fact, it emerges that the urban space has been designed according to the speed, there is a “hierarchy” of perception that changes as the speed of movement in the city changes, thus defining multiple images of the city, complex and contradictory but consistent with each other. At low speed, the landscape is perceived in a uniform way, where there is no prevailing system of communication. If instead we move at a speed of 35 mp/h, the

Fig. 7 Mesh of a portion of Perugia with the attribute of colour. In Red, the most perceived elements

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Fig. 8 Comparison of heat maps generated by eye-track and algorithm

heraldic and symbolic communication takes the upper hand over the communication through the buildings [16, 17]. For the indirect simulation, i.e. through the algorithm, a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) has been created through photo modelling. Two simulations were performed, one at 40 km/h and one at 70 km/h. This approach has shown many similarities in the results obtained by Venturi, also considering the transformations that Las Vegas had, compared to 1968. In fact, some places, brought by the architect as an example, have been demolished, or some iconic signs have been moved. What emerges from the analysis through the algorithm is that as the speed increases, the communication through the facades of the buildings loses importance, making the central area of the roadway, where the signs are placed upside down; at low speeds, the perception is homogeneous (Figs. 9 and 10).

Fig. 9 Comparison of perception in a portion of Las Vegas with the colour attribute. On the left the perception at 40 km/h on the right 70 km/h

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Fig. 10 Comparison of perception in a portion of Las Vegas with the colour attribute. On the left the perception at 40 km/h on the right 70 km/h

4 Conclusion The results of these analyses underline the importance of visual perception on landscape design in a mobile perspective and give a new research horizon to the phenomenological analyses intuited by Labatut and partly developed by Venturi. Therefore, an experimentation was proposed, to investigate in depth the value of the image of the city using the direct recording of the sensations of those who move between urban places and non-places as part of an interpretative process, aimed at an analysis project through emotional data. An attentive approach to the visual characters of the context that, at different scales, adds something to the recording of configurations for the investigation of the relationship between those who perceive and concretely use the space, and the forms of the space itself. As previously specified, during the navigation experiments participants are invited to move from an origin to a destination, simulating natural conditions. The route of the experiment is designed to pass through different environments and places of interest, such as landmarks, intersections, areas with vegetation and panoramic viewpoints and all participants pass through the same environments. This approach allows researchers to examine the heuristics of the route and the influence of different environmental variables. These tools open a new scenario on the study of the landscape: until now, the evaluation analyses related only to its diachronic dimension, due to the examination of the dynamics related to its transformation over time, which were more investigated. Therefore, both for its genesis process and for its multiple and heterogeneous use, the algorithm is a completely innovative tool compared to those used so far. This study, which implies the most faithful possible reproduction of people’s perceptions and evaluations with reference to places, should represent the starting point for a greater contact between designer and user. In fact, the models, tools and methods presented here represent possible points of contact where the different approaches that characterize the psychological and design disciplines, can find new ways of representation to help future analyses. Research on cities can integrate it as a tool to understand the cognitive foundations of urban movement, to assess the psychological impact of environments on individuals, or interventions aimed at improving the quality of the urban environment.

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Faced also with these results, designers can develop design alternatives that primarily aim at transforming the negative connotation in a positive sense. These strategies of analysis and representation are able to fill those technological gaps that Venturi complained about in the Las Vegas study. In fact, new scalable threedimensional models, in addition to geometric information, can store perceptual data and communicate it in an easy way, for designers to use it, as an aid to the design of urban space.

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