From Thomas
Norman Rajkovich, Architect, January, 2001
My Dear Poliphilo,
One cold spring day
twenty years ago, I stood in the gardens of the Villa Lante
in the town of Bagnaia, Italy, an awestruck witness to the
presence of the Muses. I cannot, and do not wish to, escape
the burden imposed by Memory. What a privilege it is to be
motivated in one's every action by such a burden and what a
sustaining joy it is to have Memory as a companion.
We
know the potent and resonant symbolism of the humanist city,
town or garden: Henri IV's Paris or Alexander's Rome, Pienza
under the Piccolomini or Barozzi's Villa Lante. Each of
these, and so many others, engage us with their meaning and
beauty. Yet, where is it to be found in today's endeavors?
Sadly, even the best urban interventions and
new towns of our time are almost invariably mere constructs
in high-density picturesque historicism. While these may be
more beautiful than the architecture of technological
obsession and spaces of vast emptiness, they are
insufficient. The long history of the idea that a city ought
to be composed of public spaces and buildings each
individually rich in symbolic content but richer yet in
combination (together conveying complex meanings) is
overlooked (perhaps owing to naivetè), or worse,
intentionally forsaken.
Eugene J. Johnson of Williams College
illuminates the wisdom of the humanist approach in his
brilliant essay, Jacopo Sansovino,
Giacomo Torelli and the Theatricality of the Piazzetta in
Venice*. He describes how Torelli was able to
stage the opera Bellerofonte employing a view of
the Piazzetta San Marco as a visual metaphor for Venice as a
theater of justice.
In
the opera, Nettuno sings to Astrea:
Time will come, that against Nature
On my unstable back
A stable government will raise majestic
walls.
In this place you will find long lost
esteem.
Here your throne...
Look there, at what rises
Work of my power, beautiful image
Glorious and proud
Astrea, the personification of Justice,
replies:
This then is the beautiful home
Where at last I will again find the Golden
Age.
O dear and faithful abode
Here I am to adore you...
Oh right now I would exchange
The Palace of the Heavens for the Court of
the Sea.
Sansovino's architectural symphony on the
Piazzetta: Zecca, Libreria di San Marco and Loggetta,
responds to and complements the Doge's Palace in a
symbolically charged composition. In this setting of the
opera, Astrea comes to be understood as the personification
of the city of Venice. It is a place described by the very
gods as "majestic", "glorious and proud". It is a place
where the Golden Age is to be found and the gods come to
adore her (Venice).
The "Court of the Sea" projects to the world
a "beautiful image" which may here be understood to mean
beautiful Idea(l). This Idea represents the sum of a larger
body of ideas about the City, its principles, governance,
citizenry and architecture. This Idea is clearly about this
specific city among all cities. Again, we witness the
presence of the Muses, the standard (both a companion and a
burden) set for us and our works.
Poliphilo, Memory induces me to consider the
same questions day after day. On the threshold of the new
millennium, will our contemporary projects for the city be
thought to be majestic, glorious and proud? Can our works be
described as the setting for a new Golden Age and do we
understand what that requires? Are we building places which
are vessels for, and the embodiment of, ideas, aware that
anything less is a form of failure? Is it enough to make
daily life pleasant and accommodating, or will we seek to
comprehend, construct and inhabit Paradise, boldly inviting
the gods to dwell with us in the places of our making? Will
the gods agree?
It
has been said that, in the great cities, the mute stones
speak. Dear Poliphilo, I believe they sing.
A presto,
Thomas Norman Rajkovich
*
Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, Vol. 59, No. 4/December 2000
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