The Material Imagination

Reveries on Architecture and Matter

Matthew Mindrup

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317024453
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Architekturkritik

In recent years architectural discourse has witnessed a renewed interest in materiality under the guise of such familiar tropes as 'material honesty, ' 'form finding, ' or 'digital materiality.' Motivated in part by the development of new materials and an increasing integration of designers in fabricating architecture, a proliferation of recent publications from both practice and academia explore the pragmatics of materiality and its role as a protagonist of architectural form. Yet, as the ethos of material pragmatism gains more popularity, theorizations about the poetic imagination of architecture continue to recede. Compared to an emphasis on the design of visual form in architectural practice, the material imagination is employed when the architect 'thinks matter, dreams in it, lives in it, or, in other words, materializes the imaginary.' As an alternative to a formal approach in architectural design, this book challenges readers to rethink the reverie of materials in architecture through an examination of historical precedent, architectural practice, literary sources, philosophical analyses and everyday experience. Focusing on matter as the premise of an architect's imagination, each chapter identifies and graphically illustrates how material imagination defines the conceptual premises for making architecture.

Part One The Material of Architectural Conceptions

1 Material Intuitions: Tracing Carlo Scarpa’s Nose

Carolina Dayer

DOI: 10.4324/9781315555713-2

Tell me where and when I can see you once more. Or rather, see you for the first time!¹

Italo Calvino

Another late night at Carlo Scarpa’s house and studio. The tired Guido Pietropoli, one of Scarpa’s assistants, is tracing the plan drawing for the reconstruction and extension of the ex-convent of San Sebastiano to convert it for use by the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Venice. Pietropoli is drawing “tremblottant”—making free-hand ink lines with a thin nib by tracing over the constructed lines of the drawing below. The wavy pulse of his hand transfers through the nib into the paper, expounding slightly different qualities each time a line is traced. The entire drawing is made up of these thin lines. At first sight the line seems drawn with a ruler; however, with attention, subtle differences are discerned.² Each line faintly expresses particular movements of the hand, enlivening the drawing. The technique, according to Pietropoli, requires slowness and is a bit annoying; however, thanks to the slight variations, it imparts great character to the drawing.³ While he is slowly and carefully drawing a long line in this way, the cigarette hanging from Pietropoli’s mouth continues to burn until finally an ember of his cigarette falls onto the drawing. Before he can brush it away, the hot ember immediately burns through the tracing paper. Piercing through it, the ember leaves a perfectly round hole where it accidentally hits the paper. Pietropoli curses this loss of the night’s work and is contemplating starting the drawing entirely over again when Scarpa sees it and exclaims, “… We will have a tree here!” and he draws a circle around the unexpected hole.⁴ On the next plan for San Sebastiano, the addition of the tree appears and is thoroughly integrated into the project (Figures 1.1 and 1.2).

1.1 Carlo Scarpa. Reconstruction and extensions of the Convent of San Sebastiano, Faculty of Literature and Philosophy, University of Venice, Venice / Floor Plan 1974–78.

1.2 Carlo Scarpa. Zoom-in detail. Reconstruction and extensions of the Convent of San Sebastiano, Faculty of Literature and Philosophy, University of Venice, Venice/Floor Plan 1974–78.

These kinds of events regularly happen in architectural design, yet are never discussed in writings about architectural drawing. This omission in discussions of drawing, results in the incorrect assumption that architectural design flows from rational determination in the mind that is only afterwards recorded on a drawing. Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that the Saint Sebastian was often painted tied to a tree with numerous arrows piercing his body, though they did not kill him (Figure 1.3).⁵ Similar to the arrows that did not kill the body of Saint Sebastian, so the ember piercing the plan did not end its life. As the personified figure of opportunity—Occasio—one must seize an opportunity when it presents itself. Occasio, who holds a knife, has long hair at the front so one can seize an opportunity as it confronts them, but is bald at the back of the head, because once an opportunity has passed, it usually does not return. Yet, the only way to be able to act quickly when the moment demands is by slow, thorough and careful preparation that proceeds the moment of fast action. Instead of errors that waste time in drawing, Scarpa’s cunning mode of thought uses the opportunity to create something better. The slow making of the drawing and the fast burning of the paper staged a condition that many architects would consider a mistake, yet for the Venetian architect constituted a chance. A chance has an ambiguous meaning—it is an accident and it is an opportunity.⁶ The accident must not be seen as motivated, that is, it cannot be seen as an economic justification to save the drawing. The accident must be seen as a crucial element already making the drawing.

1.3 Paolo Veronese. Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints. San Sebastiano, Venice, 1564–65.

The unexpected mark created by the ember became in Scarpa’s hands not just a tree but a very specific one designated by Scarpa as a fagus rubra. Fagus is the Latin word for beech. Just like the ember consumed the paper, the word fagus was usually associated with edible fruit trees.⁷Rubra means red.⁸ A fag, is also the British colloquialism for cigarette. While it is likely that Scarpa would know this word given his philological interests as well as his knowledge of the English language, we cannot give a precise reason as to why he chose the tree he chose. Perhaps Scarpa indicated red for the drawing’s recreation of the spilling of the blood of Saint Sebastian, or perhaps for honoring the fiery color of the ember that generated the mark. In Scarpa’s imagination the unexpected burn mark on the drawing was translated into a red beech, known for its blazing red foliage during the fall. Additionally, adjacent to the red/copper beech tree, the drawing showing yet one more tree: a tilia. Right next to it, Scarpa leaves a note that says, “… perfume for when students are in exam season.”⁹ The tilia or linden tree not only emits a delicious perfume when in blossoms but also holds in its leaves and flowers a delicious flavor recognized as carrying a calming effect when consumed in the form of tea. From the slow, wiggly construction of lines on a late night at the drawing table to the imagining of a place through olfactory vision, Scarpa’s San Sebastiano plan demonstrates the possibility of chance encounters in the making of drawings.

Intuition Sniffs out Possibility

Beyond rational planning, when designing, the architect must use all aspects of bodily thinking since spaces are for complete inhabitation. This was understood by the renaissance architect Phillibert de l’Orme, who cautioned that, “the bad architect has little nose, for he does not have the intuition of good things.”¹⁰ The story of Scarpa’s interpretation of the ember in his plan for the garden of San Sebastiano reveals an adoration and respect for the magical potential of mistakes and everyday life chances that occur in the work while drawing and thinking.¹¹ Intuition can be considered the architect’s faculty of looking after the potential of every mark, action and accident that enters or surrounds the realm of the drawing. When exceptions are seen as fruitful distractions, the making of the drawing acts as a window that constantly re-frames the work into unknown and novel horizons. The rupture in the linearity of the work by a sudden mistake, like the ember burning the paper, allows the drawing to be concerned with two simultaneous realms: what is happening now, that is, the fire pricking through the sheet, and what will be happening later, the desire to make sense out of a senseless mark, that is, the translation of the hole into a tree.¹² As well, the meditation involved in the use of a technique such as tremblottant becomes a key point in opening up the architect’s intuition to instances of chance encounters, where slowness allows one to rapidly apprehend possible accidents as opportunities for design.

The sense of smell has close associations with the notion of intuition. That intuition is often related with one’s sense of smell, as when a friend advises, “follow your nose!” as a clue to ponder the exterior interiority and internal exteriority qualities of intuition and the potential for its cultivation. The etymology of the word intuition indeed expresses these two opposite actions, one moving inwards, the other moving outwards. While the Latin prefix in means “inside,” the Latin word tuērī means “to look out” as well as “to look after, to watch and to protect.”¹³ Intuition is structured by an interiority and exteriority that simultaneously depend upon each other. Rarely thought as a source for knowledge that can be cultivated, intuition is commonly understood as a gifted internal vision or genius that is either present or not. However, the notion of the nose as a device for grasping the creative genius can be counterbalanced by looking at Scarpa’s practices and the recognition of both common and exceptional everyday life events as potions for cultivating the imagination.

Paul Klee, an artist in whom Scarpa was quite interested, created a painting entitled nach der Zeichnung (“After the Drawing”), which has often been related to the introspection of creative genius (Figure 1.4).¹⁴ Although Klee’s drawing portrays the Swiss artist with an open nose, it has closed eyes, mouth and no ears. In the essay “Exact Experiments in the Realm of Art,” Klee gives a defining role to intuition by noting, “We construct and construct … and yet intuition is still a good thing. A considerable amount can be done without it, but not all.”¹⁵ He considers the works of genius as something that cannot be accomplished without intuition, explaining that genius cannot be taught since it does not operate in the realm of rules. On the contrary, he states, it exists in the world of exceptions.¹⁶ An exception is an action or phenomenon that is taken out or taken up from its regular course of being or behaving, that is, it means both to capture and to remove.¹⁷ An exception discloses a break in the assumed sequence and order of things, and it can exhibit a completely unknown element or re-introduce something too evident that has remained unseen. According to Klee, genius operates in this realm, and for this reason it cannot be educated through a formal process. Towards the end of the essay, however, he notes that it is through a cultivation of exactitude that the foundations for a science of art can be laid.¹⁸ Those foundations include the presence of unknown variables that are dependent on intuition. Yet, while examining his portrait, the completely introverted genius–artist, because he is alive, he is not as internalized as one may think, as his nose is still open, thus suggesting that the outside world and the internal life of the artist are still intertwined. Building on Klee’s apparent invitation to look beyond an introverted notion of genius, this chapter argues that intuition must also be cultivated externally—smelled, perhaps—through an aperture to the world and to the materiality of everyday life.

1.4 Paul Klee, nach der Zeichnung (“After the Drawing”), 19/75, 1919, 113.

1.5 Gianni Berengo Gardin. Venezia, Allestimento Biennale XXXIV: “Linee della ricerca: dall'informale alle nuove strutture,” Padiglione Italia. Primo piano di Carlo Scarpa, 1968/06/25.

If literally following one’s nose is apprehending a new scent and desiring to know its source, metaphorically it is apprehending unexpected or common events of the everyday life in the making of the drawing and allowing the imagination to interact with them. Scarpa, who had a notorious elegant large nose, made sure to emphasize this virtuous feature of his face every time he depicted himself in drawings. (Figure 1.5). While he was a professor at the IUAV students believed that if they smelled Scarpa’s favorite drink they would acquire the professor’s genius.¹⁹ Curiously, the drink, called Underberg, is a particularly scented digestive bitter produced in Germany with a secret recipe that includes aromatic herbs from 43 countries. Underberg is still advertised as a drink “to feel bright.”²⁰ Like a magic potion, the bitter is characterized for being distributed in very small glass...