Embodiment | erringarabesque

The Roman theorist Marcus Vitruvius Pollio classified the field of architecture into the systems of order which are painted upon the canvas of today’s European and American cities. As far as we know, he is the first to put plume to paper and write all that stuff down for future generations (God bless the man!). Upon his writings were founded most – if not all – Modern Western architectural doctrines, once re-discovered and re-infused with relevance by Renaissance Men like Leonardo da Vinci (his Vitruvian Man ring a bell? See below!), Leon Battista Alberti (his literary ‘sequel’ to Vitruvius appears in 1452), and others.

In his De Architectura Libri Decem (Ten Books on Architecture) – admittedly itself a written gallery of observations he makes of Greek and Roman traditions (he doesn’t invent the doctrines, but archives them rather) – Vitruvius immortalizes in ink concepts which, after centuries of hiding, will peek out only to become the very seeds of ‘Modern’ cityscape building. In his first book, he introduces the conceptualization that architectural compositions may be broken down into such fundamental organizational principles as follow: Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, Economy.

Then, he speaks of the fourth principle: Symmetry is a proper agreement between the members of the work itself, and relation between the different parts and the whole general scheme, in accordance with a certain part selected as standard. Thus in the human body there is a kind of symmetrical harmony between forearm, foot, palm, finger, and other small parts; and so it is with perfect buildings (Book I).

Now images of the fruits of Leonardo’s labour just beam from those words! That man of steel…the epitome the Humanist body…The Icon of Fitness, Symmetry. Harmony. The Standard of Perfection. It all came about from a pre-Christian thought about…columns and staircases (I will elaborate just how in the future).

This led me to the epiphany (which became the reason for this entire blog shenanigan!): the metropolis, and all existing landscape on this darling little globe for that matter, is a canvas for architecture, a paper which screams for a pen (we narcissistic species like to think), a surface for civilization to mark human ideas, ideology, identity. Even if the canvas did not want to become art, it did. All architecture is communication; all architecture is a creative chef-d’oeuvre (or a doodle – the spectrum is wide). That itself was a first revelation.

But a more beautiful one shortly came. I thought: the aesthetic of the human shape (Vitruvius grounded my assumption!) is tied in a much more intimate knot than daily life dictates to the “bodies” of our urban loci. Both a canvas. Both an instrument for navigation, and a plane of navigation/exploration, at once. We can write our stories on our own bodies – in so many ways!!! – just as we can write out stories upon the surfaces of our surroundings. That’s incredibly beautiful!

This brings me to my point…

With this Vitruvian concept as fertilizer, I will water this here baby-blog that I’d like to raise up. Starting from the theoretical legacies (the ABCs) we have inherited from our very pen-savvy Vitruvius, Leonardo, and Alberti (a heap of others will follow!), and adding on layers not only of theory (bleh, it’s going to get tiring soon!), but creative imagination, I want to collect, unpack, and reconcile a rich and diverse – never aiming for complete, of course – visual kingdom of all kinds of architectural wondrous-ness. (Disclaimer: I will also make up non-existing words an violate some grammar rules as I go, the rebel that I am.) The human married to the city – the amount of wondrous-ness at hand is exhilarating and intimidating! But I have a little backup to bring me comfort. Read on…

The words of dear Roland Barthes concerning the semiology of the city (more talk on this later!), I couldn’t covet more: “[I am] an amateur of signs, he who loves signs; amateur of cities, he who loves the city. For I love both the city and signs. And this double love […] leads me to believe, maybe with a certain presumption, in the possibility of a semiotics of the city” (from “Semiology of the Urban”, Structuralism, p. 166).

And so despite the gigantic task at hand, I’ll take on this “presumptuous” POV, or at least attempt to make sense of it as much as a … (hmm, if Barthes is an amateur, than what does that make a little lost student of literature? Bah!) …an amateur-in-training can manage.

On these lovely cyber-pages, I’m going to journey on to embrace a system of signs that can be observed in the body in which right here I sit typing away (quite self-conscious of my current disembodiment – eep!), and the majestic body out there, in the heart of which I live, walk, the walls of which I breathe in and love for which I radiate – my city (no matter which city).

Here starts a magical love story between a girl and a metropolis.

To begin, I’d like to leave a song, an impeccable poem, poetry – (to me, a complete three minutes of ecstasy!) – a celebration of modern writing, modern building, the Modern Man, and how the city was born as we know it today…

A brilliant little synopsis, from a few superb creative minds of Québec, via the glorious Victor Hugo. Intertextuality at its finest, I think. (: