Thing theory and urban objects in Rome Citation for published version (APA): Wallis De Vries, J. G., & Wuytack, K. (Eds.) (2013). Thing theory and urban objects in Rome. (Seminarch; Vol. 5). Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. Document status and date: Published: 01/01/2013 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.tue.nl/taverne Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 23. Sep. 2021 SEMIN ARCH ARCH THING THEORY & 5 Urban objects in Rome THING THEORY & Urban objects in Rome Gijs Wallis de Vries Karel Wuytack Milan Rikhof Superobjects In The City; Making A Statement Pieter Beer The Eternalness of Roman Things Rob Goetheer Taking a Stroll Dave van Goch Celebrating Things Renée Toirkens The Gaps and Layers of Rome Li Jiyu Antibodies: Rome Wall and its Reverse Niek Loeters The Transformation of Ideas! Ben Kleukers From Thing to Object Rens van Hedel Symbolism of Juxtaposed Elements in the City Huub Bieleman The Unstable Self-Image of Rome Klara Pohlova Dierent Stories of Filling Space Giulia Amoresano The Allegoric Thingness of Rome Frank van Kessel The Piranesi Variations Joost van Gorkom The Dialectic of the City Roland van Deelen Metabolism, the thing as a living organism Emma Lubbers 1 Time Koolhaas, 4 Times Piranesi ISBN: 978-90-386-3413-5 SEMINARCH 5 April ‘13 Colofon Scientific Committee Dr. Ir. J.G. Wallis de Vries Ir. K. Wuytack With contributions of Giulia Amoresano Pieter Beer Huub Bieleman Roland van Deelen Dave van Goch Rob Goetheer Joost van Gorkom Rens van Hedel Li Jiyu Frank van Kessel Ben Kleukers Niek Loeters Emma Lubbers Klára Pohlová Milan Rikhof Renée Toirkens Edited by Emma Lubbers Joost van Gorkom First published in 2013 by Eindhoven University of Technology Cover art STANFORD UNIVERSITY. 2002. Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project. [photo]. ISBN: 2 Table of Contents Editorial Gijs Wallis de Vries 4 Karel Wuytack Quite something Gijs Wallis de Vries 6 (Un)eternal Rome Karel Wuytack 10 Superobjects In The City; Making A Statement Milan Rikhof 26 The Eternalness of Roman Things Pieter Beer 38 Taking a Stroll Rob Goetheer 50 Celebrating Things Dave van Goch 60 The Gaps and Layers of Rome Renée Toirkens 72 Antibodies: Rome Wall and its Reverse Li Jiyu 84 The Transformation of Ideas! Niek Loeters 94 From Thing to Object Ben Kleukers 108 Symbolism of Juxtaposed Elements in the City Rens van Hedel 120 The Unstable Self-Image of Rome Huub Bieleman 132 Different Stories of Filling Space Klara Pohlova 142 The Allegoric Thingness of Rome Giulia Amoresano 156 The Piranesi Variations Frank van Kessel 172 A Field of Diagrams 176 A Field of Walls 188 A Field of Dreams 192 The Dialectic of the City Joost van Gorkom 196 Metabolism, the Thing as a Living Organism Roland van Deelen 208 1 Time Koolhaas, 4 Times Piranesi Emma Lubbers 220 3 Figure 1, Exibition Roma Interrotta, 1978. 4 Editorial who ‘rewrote’ the plan, some subtly, others radically. Michael Graves, guest-editor of the AD profile issue This is the fifth issue of Seminarch, a magazine produced devoted to Roma Interrotta, defended the ‘speculative by students participating in seminars in the Masters Track nature of urban interventions’ as a reflection on the ‘value Architecture of the Faculty for the Built Environment of of the figure made in the voids of the urban landscape.’ In the University of Technology in Eindhoven. The aim of Nolli’s plan this ‘figural void’ is architecturally rendered a seminar is to develop discursive skills in architectural and either public (streets and squares) or semi-public research. (religious and civic buildings with public rooms); the This issue of Seminarch is devoted to the seminar Urban rest is ‘urban poché’ (housing and commercial stock Objects at the Campo Marzio, a Thing Theory for the rendered in black). What matters is the legibility of public urban landscape, supervised by Gijs Wallis de Vries and enclosure. Graves also defended the choice to give each Karel Wuytack. Based on ‘thing theory’ this seminar design team a sector, which, with its arbitrary boundaries, continues an exciting approach developed in a previous runs the risk of fragmentation. Graves believes in seminar devoted to the EXPO 58 in Brussels. We hope ‘mutually adjusted fragments, or adjacencies, modified to the reader will share this pleasure while discovering the fit context’ – in the spirit of Nolli. He distinguished this insights in the character of objects as emotional things, as position from the one taken by Piranesi in his Campo gathering places and as matters of concern. Marzio, a speculative reconstruction of imperial Rome. Thing Theory leads to a novel experience of the city, to There, he saw the mutual adjustment of ‘set pieces’, figures an unusual look at architecture, and to fresh insights in without a common ground. Today, 250 years after Piranesi public space. Beyond an understanding of how user’s drew this map, we will ask whether this is really true, and desires are gratified, the critical question is how design we will look for traces of urban history and everyday life is involved and to what extent architectural thought is in it. Besides, we will use the ‘Piranesi Variations’ of the able to understand and criticize the manipulation of the architecture Biennale in Venice, made by students guided concerns of the citizen. In the actual context of having to by Eisenman, Aureli and Kipnis, as magnifying glasses to reuse the existing city rather than to expand it, a vision that examine the palimpsest of Rome: the repeated rewriting awakens the slumbering potentials of material culture in that interprets existing and hidden traces. general and of architectural objects in particular is more than welcome. Two famous maps of Rome form the central topic of this seminar: that of G.B. Nolli (1748) and that of Piranesi (1763). Rome has been called the orphan of modern architecture and the cradle of post-modernism. In 1978 it was the theoretical venue for the state of the art of the input of context in architectural design. The twelve sectors of Nolli’s map were allotted to twelve famous architects 5 ‘The beauty of Rome exists in its being a messed up city patched up a countless number of times.’ Giulio Carlo Argan 6 Quite Something Things resist theory. If such a thing as Thing Theory Gijs Wallis de Vries exists, it must deal with a paradox: to be abstract about concreteness and concrete about abstraction. The whole thing is tied up with language, grammar (langue) and speech (parole). In the English language there is a conspiracy of things with nothing, everything, something and anything. In German there is, apart from the formidable ‘Kant-connection’ of Das Ding an sich, the logical knot of ‘bedingt’ (relative) and ‘unbedingt’ (absolute). The answer of thing theory is that the relation itself is absolute: because (a word that in European languages predicates both reason (causa), thing (cosa) and speech (causer), because a thing is a gathering, a place to meet and discuss matters of concern. Without a gathering of people and a spatial position there is no such thing as a thing. There would be nothing. Let us leave the domain of language and turn to more tangible regions. A building isn’t just anything, and a city is really quite something. Take Rome! Peruse this journal and you will know... But you’ll have to change your perception. In the name of objectivity science rejects a perception of the world as populated by things. Either they’re objects with a certain size, function, material, and form; or subjects, who handle, touch, perceive, and name them. Science legitimizes us, the subjects, to treat objects at will. However, if objects are useless, if they look at us, if we enter them, or if - and that is more than a figure of speech - they enter us, are existence is made relative (‘bedingt’) by the things that surround us. Their obscure or shiny appearance, their smooth comfort or their intractability, these and other qualities make things both everyday and stunning. Aren’t we all things, you and I, body and soul, entity and environment? Heidegger would agree, the philosopher who thought that thinking Figure 1, Aldo Rossi, La Città analoga ,Trienalle di Milano, 1976, details.