2 June
books
BIA
record project
databases
Philadelphia model
green enfilade house
contiguous elements
1996.06.02
Hadrian, Plotina, Paulina Domitia
1998.06.02
tsPOWa - neo-legend
1999.06.02
ideas
2000.06.02
Imperials
QA003: in ficticious name only
madnouq
2001.06.02
Re: High, Low, or No Rise?
2002.06.02 14:58
Koolhaas borrowing from Philadelphia
2004.06.02 10:32
2004.06.02 11:02
Re: the Edifice Complex
2005.06.02 12:44
2005.06.02 17:12
2005.06.02 17:59
Cool or Just Ho-Hum?
2005.06.02 13:04
Kubrick, 2001 & 9-11
2005.06.02 13:15
2005.06.02 17:17
2005.06.02 17:36
girl names
2005.06.02 17:24
Archinect Book Club?
2007.06.02 09:51
Archinect @ Postopolis!
2007.06.02 16:10
09060201.db IQ, section 8, Berlin, Wave Lustgarten, model
09060202.db IQ, section 8, Offices for the Neue Packhof, model
09060203.db IQ, section 8, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, model
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Hadrian, Plotina, Paulina Domitia
1998.06.02
According to the biography of Hadrian, he was a favorite of Plotina[, the wife of Trajan]. In fact, there is some cause to believe that it was Plotina that got Hadrian named as successor at Trajan's deathbed. I now wonder why I thought there might have been something between Plotina and Hadrian in the first place. Perhaps it was because I had read about Hadrian, but I'm not sure what it might have been. In any case, there is now even more to write about the symbolism of the axis of life.
Hadrian's birth mother's name was Paulina Domitia, and this fact leads to further speculation as to the meaning of the Sepulcher Familia Domitiorum at the opposite end of the axis of death--the counter point of Hadrian's tomb. Because of the similarity in name, there is now reference to both Hadrian's real mother and to his adoptive mother within the axes of life and death.
All this sheds more light on Piranesi's overall intention of reenacting (not reconstructing) the Campo Marzio. In drawing up the Ichnographia, it is now quite clear that Piranesi was also reenacting the Campus Martius, and a reenactment not at all capricious, but one based on a vast amount of historical facts. In a sense, Piranesi set out to improve the ancient Campus Martius' "urban plan" without changing the region's historic program. Piranesi's actions possibly even reenact those of the Emperor Hadrian whose rebuilding of the Pantheon one assumes was an improvement upon the original Pantheon built by Agrippa.
I am thus reminded of Stirling's notion of evolutionary designing, and his statements about what could or should be considered when designing a house for K.F. Schinkel 200 years after Schinkel's birth. I am also reminded of Tafuri's incorrectness in calling the Ichnographia Campus Martius an "experimental design and the city, therefore, remains an unknown."
Piranesi then operated on a few reenactionary planes when generating the Ichnographia Campus Martius: there is the redesign plane, the Pagan-Christian narrative plane, and the plane of (composite?) temporal palimpsest. Making matters difficult, however, none of these planes complies completely with the other two, nor can any of the planes be viewed completely independent of the other two. Essentially, Piranesi's reenactment methodology emulates the very nature of Rome itself. The Ichnographia is a plan of many layers of meanings and messages which ultimately aptly represents Rome the city of many physical and historical layers.
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