Etymologically speaking, r e s i s t a n c e derives from the late Latin r e s i s t e n t i a,
derivative of r e s i s t e r e, "resisting", to indicate the action and the fact of
opposing something or someone, but also the ways and means themselves
with which such actions occur. It has various semantic nuances, for
example in the military field (defense action against the enemy or the
adversary), but also legal (the right to oppose, even by force, any attack or
threat affecting the fundamental and inviolable rights of man by the
established power). But also its mechanical meaning is interesting, where
the verb 'resist' alludes to any force that opposes the motion of a body
to which it is applied: this definition therefore seems to fit perfectly—in its
double articulation—to the conventional domains of the architect, that of
the representation and of building. The first involves a process of
objectification of the real, through the aid of a mechanism external to the
observer, which in the specific case consists of a projection. Projection, in
the cultural status of an architect, is a transformative action that allows
objects belonging to domains characterized by three dimensions to be
brought back to their flat representation with the inevitable loss of one of
them: a process therefore of r e d u c t i o and t r a n s l a t i o that makes clear a
strong mechanical action de-anthropomorphizing resistance.
AR / Architecture Research is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
published yearly by the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture.
AR is a critical platform for research and explorative writing at the
highest level of creative scholarship. The journal’s integrative format
presents diverse correspondences between some of the most creative
contemporary voices in architecture, art and associated fields.
2022
2022
Architecture Research
/ Arhitektura, raziskave
Form of Resistance
/ Oblika upora

2022
Architecture Research
/ Arhitektura, raziskave
Form of Resistance
/ Oblika upora


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CONTENTS / KAZALO 5
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion
Editor's Foreword
Agostino De Rosa
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem
Uvodnik
Agostino De Rosa
Porch Notes
Charlie Hailey
Stretched Out
Spatializing the Pregnant Body
Elizabeth Cronin
Space, Body, Architecture
Towards a Diﬀicult Balance
Renato Bocchi
Aesthetics of Resistance
Fabio Quici
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of
Engineering
Tullia Iori
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7
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces
A Form of Resistance to Canonical Shapes, from
Reims Cathedral to Le Corbusier
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz
The Resilience of Small Numbers
From Self-Construction to Symbol
Aldo Aymonino
Forests of Resistance
Memorial Strategies in Forested Landscapes of
Socialist Yugoslavia
Vida Rucli
House in Tateshina
Kazuo Shinohara's Transformational Space
Giorgia Cesaro
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture
Petra Čeferin
Against All Homologation
Prefatory Artworks by Claudio Patanè
Claudio Patanè
Biographies

9
Agostino De Rosa
To Resist: Between Hubris
and Compassion
Editor's Foreword
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
1 Cfr. François Ozon, Sous le sable (Paris:
 L'Arche, 2011). More gen er al ly, on Ozon's cin e ‐
mato graph ic work see: Loïc Bour deau, ed.,
The Films of François Ozon (Edin burgh: Edin ‐
burgh Uni ver si ty Press, 2021).
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion 11
Maybe some of you will remem ber Sous le sable (France 2000), a beau ti ‐
ful and poignant film by direc tor François Ozon (1967) from sev er al years
ago. For those who haven't seen it, the film tells the sto ry of Marie (played
by Char lotte Ram pling, 1946) and Jean Drillon (Bruno Cre mer, 1929–2010),
a mid dle-aged cou ple who have been mar ried for many years. He is
French and she is Eng lish; they live in Paris and have no chil dren. One day,
dur ing a sum mer vaca tion, Marie falls asleep on the beach while Jean goes
swim ming. The man, how ev er, dis ap pears into thin air, per haps drowned.
Hav ing com plet ed the for mal i ties with the local author i ties, Marie,
returned to Paris, tries to start liv ing again, while the police con tin ue the
inves ti ga tion into the dis ap pear ance of her hus band. How ev er, her life
devel ops dai ly as if Jean had nev er dis ap peared: in fact, she talks to him,
makes love with him and aston ish ing ly refers to him, with her friends, if he
were present, there with her. And in the film he real ly  ‘is’ with her: we see
him undress ing Marie, eat ing with her … But the truth, evi dent to all, is
opaque only in her eyes, even when the police of sea side vil lage recov er
her husband's body drowned. In the movie’s final scene, Marie returns to
the beach that has seen them hap py togeth er, for the last time, and sud ‐
den ly she sees, in the dis tance, the sil hou ette of Jean on the shore, walk ‐
ing away. Marie starts run ning to reach him: the scene, on which the cred ‐
its fade with the beau ti ful score of Philippe Rom bi (1968), is des tined to
nev er end. In fact, Marie's race towards Jean's ghost is not con clud ed, nor
could it ever be. It seems that she approach es him, but in real i ty he
remains unreach able: the image thus con tin ues ad infini tum in a mov ‐
ing loop.
I believe that this scene explains per fect ly, bet ter than a thou sand
arid pro jec tive and math e mat i cal demon stra tions, in a poet ic way, what a  
'van ish ing point' is: a fake image of some thing so far away (infi nite ly dis ‐
tant) that is nev er reached. The same phan tas mic essence of Jean in the
back ground, nev er reached by Marie, seals the fail ure of the human vision
in trap ping (and reach ing) what is no longer among us and which, per ‐
haps, nev er was. After all, the per spec tive, and the rep re sen ta tion in gen ‐
er al, is in some ways pre cise ly this: the death of the object, its hypo sta ti ‐
za tion. Yet this dead ly scene from Ozon's movie also visu al ly explains to us
what the term  'resis tance' means: oppos ing the inevitabil i ty of nature, des ‐
tiny, the known and unknown forces that sur round and con di tion us, of our
ego and oppose our desire to it, our will and also our unrea son able ness.
The scene there fore seems to allude to a form of resis tance to the impos ‐
si bil i ty of rep re sent ing the infi nite, in this spe cif ic case, from a mere ly
human posi tion and there fore eter nal ly con demned to fail ure. The ety mol ‐
o gy in this case comes to our aid: the term derives from the late Latin
1
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion 13
resisten tia, deriv a tive of resistere,  "resist ing", to indi cate the action and the
fact of oppos ing some thing or some one, but also the way and the means
them selves with which such actions take place. It has var i ous seman tic
nuances, for exam ple in the mil i tary field (defense action against the ene ‐
my or the adver sary), but also legal (the right to oppose, even by force,
any attack or threat affect ing the fun da men tal and invi o lable rights of man
by the estab lished pow er). But I would like to dwell on its mechan i cal
mean ing where the verb  'resist' alludes to any force that oppos es the
motion of the body to which it is applied: this def i n i tion there fore seems to
fit per fect ly, in its dou ble artic u la tion, to the con ven tion al domains of the
archi tect, that of the rep re sen ta tion and of build ing. The first involves
a process of objec ti fi ca tion of the real, through the aid of a mech a nism
exter nal to the observ er, which in the spe cif ic case con sists of a pro jec ‐
tion. Pro jec tion, in the cul tur al sta tus of an archi tect, is a trans for ma tive
action that allows objects belong ing to domains char ac ter ized by three
dimen sions to be brought back to their flat rep re sen ta tion with the
inevitable loss of one of them: a process there fore of reduc tio and trans la ‐
tio that makes clear a strong mechan i cal action de-anthro po mor phiz ‐
ing resistance. 
Any archi tec tur al pro jec tion con sti tutes a form of pro found abstrac ‐
tion with respect to real i ty and there fore implies a form of log i cal-rhetor i ‐
cal con struc tion that elim i nates the object and which, through the pro jec ‐
tive vehi cle, trans forms it into an arche type, or a mod el. Descrip tive Geom ‐
e try— like all oth er forms of rep re sen ta tion, even ethno graph i cal ly dis tant
from that which dwell in West ern culture—therefore aris es from con struc ‐
tions of thought and from an observ er-inde pen dent pro jec tive process,
even in its most opti cal appli ca tion, that of the monoc u lar per spec tive.
How ev er, today the con text in which the archi tect works has vio lent ly
changed. With the advent of the dig i tal, rep re sen ta tion seems to have lost
mem o ry of its pro jec tive ori gin: entire uni vers es that, in the past, have
been nar rat ed to us as born from the pro jec tive act of bib li cal fiat lux or of
primeval Om whose acoustic echo reached every where to orga nize mat ter
and spir it, today in the hori zon of the eido mat ics seem to lose more and
more sense. On the oth er hand, the architect's resis tance is expressed in
his or her desire to con trast the laws of grav i ty that dom i nate the phe nom ‐
e nal world; resis tances that seem to me to be his tor i cal ly well-sum ma rized
in the stereotom ic con fig u ra tion pro ce dures that today have a nat ur al anal ‐
o gon in the tools of some dig i tal mod el ing soft ware, to the point of
appear ing to be cre at ed specif i cal ly for this purpose—impression cor rob o ‐
rat ed by the close ties that can be estab lished, at that place ment, with
rapid pro to typ ing, imag in able as a sort of a dig i tal Maitre Maçon.
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
2 Cfr. Charles Howard Hin ton, Rac con ti sci en tifi ‐
ci (Par ma: Fran co Maria Ric ci Edi tore, 1978).
3 Cfr. Jean-Vic tor Pon celet, Traité des pro priétés
pro jec tives des fig ures (Paris: Gau ti er-Vil ‐
lars, 1822).
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion 15
The geo met ric con struc tion thus man ages to trans late into the con struc ‐
tion of phys i cal ele ments through a process of phy lo ge n e sis total ly con ‐
trolled by the archi tect. Stereoto my tes ti fies how the knowl edge of geom e ‐
try, even before Gas pard Mon ge (1746–1818), could devel op all its imag i na ‐
tive pow er by intro ject ing in its prac tices of pro jec tions and deter mi na ‐
tions of the true forms (or sizes), tec ton ic cri te ria hand ed down in the
secret of the stone ma sons’ guilds, at least up to the act of rup ture with the
silence made in the trea tis es, by Philib ert de L'Orme (c. 1514–1570).
From a his tor i cal point of view, stereoto my con sti tutes a cha rade that
has been baf fling schol ars for decades: in fact, when only the prac tices of
man u al rough ing of the stone pre vailed, the stone cut ter already exer cised
in his mind the con trol of the form through the wise iden ti fi ca tion of the
plans of cut ting and con tact between the blocks, mod el ing sur faces with
dou ble cur va ture with a nat u ral ness dis guised by years of prac tice, but
nev er explic it ly resort ing to aux il iary graph ics. Again, one might say,
a form of inter nal resis tance. The space of rep re sen ta tion was there fore
entire ly entop tic,  'inter nal', car ried out in the mind of the oper a tor, which,
as Charles Howard Hin ton not ed in his stud ies on the fourth dimen sion ,
became a place of vir tu al pre fig u ra tion where the mod el ing action was
car ried out through com plete ly abstract sculp tur al pro ce dures, yet with
con crete effects in the act of mak ing the work. The six teenth-cen tu ry
graph ics elab o rat ed by de L'Orme, in the illus tra tive appa ra tus of his trea ‐
tise Le pre mier tome de l'Architecture (1567), didac ti cal ly show these pas ‐
sages, pre vi ous ly con fined to the opaque space of the mind, but still did
not lin guis ti cal ly solve the gap that sep a rat ed them from the under stand ‐
ing shared by the com mu ni ty of oper a tors: cryp tic in form, exact in
method olog i cal approach, they need ed, for their unan i mous under stand ‐
ing, a  'Roset ta stone' which, in the 18 cen tu ry will prove to be clas si cal
Descrip tive Geom e try. Thanks to it, the meth ods of siz ing, mea sure ment
and the equiv a lence of the pro jec tion-sec tion oper a tions assumed a dis ‐
played dig ni ty and a com mon Esperan to that would elim i nate the dis tance
between schol ar and con struc tion work site prac tice. Above all, the
equivalence—postulated by Jean Vic tor Pon celet —between the oper a tion
of pro jec tion and that of sec tion, here also assumed in a phys i cal sense,
appeared to be the key stone in the under stand ing of the com mon pro ce ‐
dures for con fig ur ing the form between men tal imag i na tion and the space
of the phe nom e no log i cal expe ri ence: the idea that the hype r u ra ne ous and
ethe re al lines, which pile up the tables of the trea tis es on descrip tive and
pro jec tive geom e try, can become the anal o gon of phys i cal instru ments
that oper ate in cor pore vivi on the stone, unrav els a series of infi nite pos si ‐
bil i ties and equiv a lences between the world of the o ry and the world of
2
th
3
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion 17
prac tice that per haps Girard Desar gues (1591–1661) had already guessed
when he used botan i cal terms or nau ti cal jar gon to define the ele ments of
his geom e try. These obser va tions appear even more mean ing ful when
refer ring to con tem po rary archi tec tur al pro duc tion, oscil lat ing between
two behav ioral extremes: on the one hand, the increas ing ly accel er at ed
push towards the use of com plex forms which, in an attempt to accom mo ‐
date the designer's ideas, require the devel op ment of the o ret i cal and
oper a tional approach es for its engi neer ing, often unre lat ed to the archi ‐
tect and del e gat ed to oth er tech ni cal-sci en tif ic skills; on the oth er hand,
the cor rec tive triv i al iza tion of the pro fes sion that adopts pre-pack aged
solu tions from indus try in an uncrit i cal man ner, help ing to debase the
hori zon of the con tem po rary urban land scape. Today the new forms of
artis tic expres sion can give new life to the con fig u ra tive imag i na tion of the
archi tect, show ing how even the most com plex con struc tions can be
trans lat ed into forms that can be expe ri enced in the phe nom e nal space of
an instal la tion, mak ing the space of geom e try no longer an else where, but
a  'here and now.'
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
To Resist: Between Hubris and Compassion 19
Bibliography
Bourdeau, Loic (ed.). The Films of François Ozonedited. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
Hinton, Charles Howard. Racconti scientifici. Parma: Franco Maria Ricci Editore, 1978.
Ozon, François, Sous le sable. Paris:  L'Arche, 2011.
Poncelet, Jean-Victor, Traité des propriétés projectives des figures. Paris: Gautier-Villars, 1822.

21
Agostino De Rosa
Upornost, med napuhom in
sočutjem
Uvodnik
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
1 Prim. François Ozon, Sous le sable (Pariz:
 L'Arche, 2011). Za Ozono va film s ka dela na
splošno glej Loïc Bour deau, ur., The Films of
François Ozon (Edin burg: Edin burgh Uni ver si ‐
ty Press, 2021).
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem 23
Morda se nekateri spominjate filma Sous le sable (Francija, 2000),
čudovitega, ganljivega dela režiserja Françoisa Ozona (1967) izpred nekaj
let. Za tiste, ki ga niste videli: film pripoveduje o Marie (igra jo Charlotte
Rampling, 1946) in Jeanu Drillonu (Bruno Cremer, 1929–2010), že dolgo
poročenem paru srednjih let. On je Francoz, ona Angležinja, živita v Parizu
in nimata otrok. Nekega dne, ko počitnikujeta na morju, se Jean odloči za
plavanje, Marie pa zaspi na plaži. Moški izgine, morda utone. Potem ko
opravi formalnosti z lokalnimi oblastmi, se Marie vrne v mesto in poskuša
ponovno zaživeti, policija pa medtem nadaljuje s preiskavo izginotja.
Vendar pa Mariejin vsakdan poteka tako, kot da Jean sploh ne bi izginil: z
njim se pogovarja, se z njim ljubi, osuplim prijateljem govori o njem, kot bi
bil še vedno ob njej. V filmu tudi je ob njej: vidimo, kako ji slači oblačila,
kako z njo obeduje … Resnica, ki je vsem očitna, je skrita le Mariejinim
očem; ne prepozna je niti takrat, ko policija v letoviškem kraju najde truplo
utopljenega Jeana. V sklepnem prizoru filma se Marie še zadnjič vrne na
plažo, kjer sta z možem preživljala srečne trenutke, in nenadoma se ji v
daljavi prikaže njegov obris, ki se oddaljuje vzdolž obale. Steče za njim in
prizor, čez katerega se ob čudoviti glasbi Philippa Rombija (1968) odvrti
odjavna špica, se ne bo mogel nikoli zaključiti. Marie ne more dohiteti
prikazni. Zdi se, da se Jeanu približuje, a v resnici ostaja ta nedosegljiv;
podobe na filmskem platnu so ujete v presunljivo neskončno ponavljanje.
Mislim, da ta prizor odlično pojasni – bolje kot tisoči suhoparnih
projekcijskih in matematičnih prikazov, poleg tega pa še na poetičen način
– kaj je ›točka izginotja‹: lažna podoba nečesa, kar je tako zelo oddaljeno
(neskončno daleč), da je nedosegljivo. Jeanova fantazmična esenca v
ozadju, ki je Marie nikoli ne doseže, zapečati poraz človeškega vida, ki ni
sposoben zgrabiti (in doseči) tega, česar ni več med nami in česar morda
nikoli ni bilo. Perspektiva in reprezentacija nasploh sta navsezadnje na
neki način prav to: smrt objekta, njegova hipostatizacija. Ta pogubni prizor
iz Ozonovega filma pa nam pojasni in prikaže tudi, kaj pomeni beseda
›upor‹: kljubovati neizbežnosti narave, usode, znanim in neznanim silam,
ki nas obdajajo in pogojujejo, lastnemu jazu ter se temu zoperstaviti s
svojim hrepenenjem, voljo in tudi s svojo nerazumnostjo. Upreti se
nemožnosti reprezentacije neskončnosti – v tem primeru zgolj iz človeške
pozicije, ki je za vedno obsojena na neuspeh.
Poznolatinska beseda resistentia, ki izhaja iz glagola resistere, pomeni
‘upor’ ali ‘odpor’ proti nečemu ali nekomu, pa tudi način upora in sredstva,
s katerimi se to dejanje vrši. Beseda ima več pomenskih odtenkov: kot
vojaški izraz pomeni obrambo pred sovražnikom ali nasprotnikom, v pravu
pa pravico upiranja – tudi s silo – vsakršnemu kršenju ali ogrožanju
osnovnih in neodtujljivih človekovih pravic s strani oblasti. Rad pa bi se
1
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem 25
ustavil pri mehanskem pomenu besede: glagol resistere se tu nanaša na
vsako silo, ki se upira gibanju telesa, na katerega deluje. Ta definicija se
torej v svoji dvojni artikulaciji odlično vklaplja v obe konvencionalni
domeni arhitekta, namreč reprezentacijo in gradnjo. Prva vključuje proces
objektivizacije realnega s pomočjo mehanizma, ki je zunaj opazovalca; v
konkretnem primeru je to projekcija. V arhitektovem kulturnem kodeksu je
projekcija dejanje preoblikovanja, s katerim lahko predmete, ki pripadajo
polju tridimenzionalnosti, zvedemo na sploščeno reprezentacijo, pri čemer
se ne moremo izogniti izgubi ene od dimenzij. Bistvo procesa sta torej
reductio in translatio, njegova manifestacija pa jasno prikaže, kako
samodejni posegi uporu odvzamejo antropomorfne lastnosti.
Vsaka arhitekturna projekcija predstavlja obliko radikalne abstrakcije
resničnega in je tako oblika logično-retorične konstrukcije, ki predmet
izniči in ga preko projekcijskega sredstva spremeni v arhetip ali model.
Opisna geometrija torej – tako kot vse druge oblike reprezentacije, tudi
tiste, ki so etnografsko oddaljene od zahodne kulture – izhaja iz miselnih
konstrukcij in iz procesa projiciranja, ki je neodvisen od opazovalca; to
velja tudi za njeno najbolj optično izvedbo, monokularno perspektivo.
Vendar pa je kontekst, v katerem arhitekt deluje, s prihodom digitalnih
tehnologij doživel nasilno spremembo in zdi se, da se v reprezentaciji ne
ohranja več spomin na njen izvor v projekciji: celi univerzumi, ki so nekoč
veljali za porojene iz nekega proto-projekcijskega dejanja – biblijskega fiat
lux ali prvobitnega oma, katerega odmev je segel vsepovsod in uredil
materijo in duha –, sedaj v prostoru, ki ga je zasedla računalniška grafika,
vedno bolj izgubljajo pomen. Po drugi strani se arhitektov upor kaže v želji,
da bi kljuboval zakonom težnosti, ki vladajo pojavnemu svetu. Zdi se mi, da
se je ta upor skozi zgodovino izrazil v postopkih stereotomske
konfiguracije, ki so tako njegov povzetek in katerih naravni sodobni
analogon so orodja nekaterih programov za digitalno modeliranje. Ta se
zdijo izdelana prav v ta namen, ta vtis pa potrjujejo tudi tesne povezave, ki
lahko nastanejo s hitrim prototipiranjem; slednje si lahko predstavljamo
kot nekakšnega digitalnega Maitre Maçona. Geometrična konstrukcija se
tako skozi proces filogeneze, ki ga povsem nadzira arhitekt, lahko prevede
v konstrukcijo fizičnih elementov. Stereotomija dokazuje, kako je lahko
poznavanje geometrije, tudi v času pred Gaspardom Mongeom (1746–
1818), razvilo vso svojo moč zamišljanja, in sicer tako, da je v svoje prakse
projiciranja, preobračanja in opisovanja resničnih oblik (ali velikosti)
introjiciralo tektonske kriterije, ki so se znotraj kamnoseških cehov v
tajnosti prenašali iz generacije v generacijo, vsaj dokler zaobljube
molčečnosti v svojih spisih ni prelomil Philibert de L’Orme (cca 1514–1570).
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
2 Prim. Charles Howard Hin ton, Rac con ti sci en ‐
tifi ci (Par ma: Fran co Maria Ric ci Edi ‐
tore, 1978).
3 Prim. Jean Vic tor Pon celet, Traité des pro ‐
priétés pro jec tives des fig ures (Pariz, 1822).
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem 27
V zgodovinskem pogledu je stereotomija šarada, ki jo učenjaki poskušajo
razrešiti že desetletja: ko je groba obdelava kamnitega bloka še potekala
predvsem ročno, je obdelovalec v svojem umu namreč že nadzoroval
obliko, tako da je modro razbiral načrte rezov in stikov med bloki ter z
naravno lahkotnostjo, skrito za leti izkušenj, oblikoval dvojno ukrivljene
površine, ne da bi si pri tem pomagal s pomožnimi izrisi. Lahko bi rekli, da
je šlo tudi tu za obliko notranjega upora. Reprezentacija je bila povsem
entoptična, ›notranja‹, dogajala se je v umu izvajalca, ki je – kot je v svojih
raziskavah četrte dimenzije ugotavljal Charles Howard Hinton – postal
mesto virtualne prefiguracije, kjer se je oblikovanje vršilo preko
popolnoma abstraktnih postopkov obdelave, a je imelo konkretne učinke
na realizacijo dela. Ilustracije, ki spremljajo de L'Ormovo razpravo Le
premier tome de l’Architecture (1567), didaskalično prikazujejo te
geometrijske prehode, ki so bili poprej zaprti v očem nedostopne prostore
uma. Kljub temu avtor še vedno ni odpravil vrzeli na ravni jezika, ki je delo
ločevala od razumevanja v posesti skupnosti praktikov: za poenoteno
razumevanje teh geometrijskih konstrukcij, ki so izdelane po natančni
metodologiji in za katere so značilne enigmatične oblike, je bil potreben
ključ, za kar se je v osemnajstem stoletju izkazala klasična opisna
geometrija. Z njo so načini dimenzioniranja in merjenja ter enakovrednost
projekcije in prereza pridobili dostojanstvo in skupni esperanto, ki je izničil
razdaljo med znanstvenim udejstvovanjem in praktičnim delom na
gradbišču. Predvsem ekvivalentnost operacij projekcije in prereza, ki jo je
postuliral Jean Victor Poncelet in je tu mišljena tudi v fizičnem pomenu,
je bila ključna pri razumevanju običajnih postopkov konfiguracije oblike
med miselnimi predstavami in prostorom pojavnega izkustva: ideja, da
lahko nadnebeške in eterične črte, nakopičene v ilustracijah k razpravam o
opisni in projektivni geometriji, postanejo analogon fizičnih orodij, ki
delujejo na kamen in corpore vivi, je sprostila neskončne možnosti in
ekvivalence med svetom teorije in svetom prakse; te je morda že slutil
Girard Desargues (1591–1661), ko je elemente svoje geometrije opisoval z
izrazi iz botanike in pomorskega žargona. Ta opažanja se zdijo še bolj
pomenljiva, ko govorimo o sodobni arhitekturni produkciji, ki niha med
dvema vedenjskima skrajnostma: na eni strani je vedno močnejša težnja
po uporabi kompleksnih oblik, katerih realizacija zahteva razvoj teoretskih
in operativnih pristopov, ki so arhitektu pogosto tuji in se tako prepustijo
strokovnjakom z drugačnimi tehnično-znanstvenimi kompetencami; po
drugi strani smo priča lahkotni banalizaciji discipline, ki od industrije
nekritično sprejema instantne rešitve ter tako prispeva k razvrednotenju
obzorja sodobne urbane krajine. Danes lahko nove oblike umetniškega
izražanja poživijo konfigurativno domišljijo arhitekta in tudi najbolj
2
3
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem 29
kompleksne konstrukcije postanejo prevedljive v oblike, ki jih je mogoče
doživeti v pojavnem prostoru instalacije. Prostor geometrije tako ni več
nekje drugje, ampak je ›tukaj in zdaj‹.
Agostino De Rosa Form of Resistance
Upornost, med napuhom in sočutjem 31
Bibliography
Bourdeau, Loic (ed.). The Films of François Ozonedited. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
Hinton, Charles Howard. Racconti scientifici. Parma: Franco Maria Ricci Editore, 1978.
Ozon, François, Sous le sable. Paris:  L'Arche, 2011.
Poncelet, Jean-Victor, Traité des propriétés projectives des figures. Paris: Gautier-Villars, 1822.

33
Charlie Hailey
Porch Notes
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
1 The Smith sons wrote:  “The porch can be read
as an exem plar of a method by which a small
phys i cal change – a lay er ing-over of air
adhered to an exist ing fab ric – can bring about
a del i cate tun ing of per sons with place.” The
Charged Void: Archi tec ture (New York: Mona ‐
cel li Press, 2001), 552.
2 See Jay Fel lows,  “Janu sian Thresh olds,” Per ‐
spec ta 19 (1982): 43–57. Through Fel lows’
work, I am also bor row ing from Mikhail
Bakhtin’s The Dia log ic Imag i na tion, trans.
Caryl Emer son and Michael Holquist (Austin:
Uni ver si ty of Texas Press, 1981). Fel lows
writes how Bakhtin  “per ceives oppo si tions
that might be held simul ta ne ous ly with out the
com fort of dialec ti cal medi a tion” (44).
Porch Notes 35
Fevered respite: I have been think ing a lot about porch es late ly. Too much
per haps, so that I am immersed in my own inquiry. So that I am less con -
vinced of a nec es sary dis tance. I imag ine con ver sa tions here on the porch
where I often work and where I have invit ed dia logues with strangers,
ghosts, col leagues, and friends. Among this crowd of guests, I lis ten to
artists and sci en tists, writ ers and pho tog ra phers, pres i dents and nat u ral ists.
Here on a porch in Flori da, their voic es mix with the chirp of cicadas, wind
in the cedars, and the river’s mur mur as it runs back and forth with tides and
rain. Wrapped in the same anx ious calm and fevered respite where Goethe
slept fit ful ly but pro duc tive ly on his Garten haus ter race and where Calvin
Stowe hal lu ci nat ed and recount ed those heady dreams to Har ri et Beech er
(both dressed in wool, crino line, and humid i ty), this crowd ed porch respects
nei ther time nor loca tion but does hew toward those who them selves have
lingered—whether as porch-sit ters or porch-thinkers (or both)—on porch es,
bal conies, ter races, and oth er plein air archi tec tures: James Agee, Athena,
Wen dell Berry, John Bur roughs, John Cage, Rachel Car son, bell hooks, Paul
Cézanne, Zora Neale Hurston, Luce Iri garay, Louis Kahn, Sig urd Lew er entz,
Mar garet Mead, Gre go ry Bate son, Claude Mon et, John Muir, John Prine,
Ted dy Roo sevelt, John Ruskin, Socrates, Paul Strand. 
Work ing def i n i tion: Two oth ers helped me define the porch, ear ly in the
research, now more than a decade ago. In their work with Axel Bruch haüs er,
archi tects Ali son and Peter Smith son defined porch as method. For them,
this pro ce dure was not mere ly the o ret i cal; it was an active nego ti a tion of site
and con text, of the  “charged void” between Axel’s hex en haus and the wood -
ed slopes along the Weser Riv er. In one my favorite pho tographs of archi -
tects at work, here is Ali son Smith son on her hands and knees mea sur ing,
lay ing out edges, and talk ing with Axel. They crouch and bend and stretch
on sheets of ply wood, no more than fifty square meters, in a small, intro -
spec tive space with all the reach and pub lic import of urban projects like
Gold en Lane. They are mock ing up, in real time, a pri vate porch space for
a man and his cat. A porch is an inde ter mi nate space that elides finite def i n i -
tions and nego ti ates fields of resis tance as it also tunes per son and place. 
An invi ta tion: On this teem ing porch, two stood out more recent ly. Jay
Fel lows taught me that a porch, like the  “framed thresh old,” moves away
from dialec tics toward the dia log ic. Put anoth er way, porch es hold oppo si -
tions with out dialec ti cal medi a tion. Just as porch es make room for con ver -
sa tion on the cusp of nature and along the fron tiers of built form, the dia -
logues they house always have two sides. Think of the dou ble-sid ed ness of
a porch screen, where its veil ing reflec tion makes for a play between hid ing
and reveal ing based on light. Porch es are much more com pli cat ed than
a sim ple blend of open and closed or of pub lic and pri vate. And John Dewey
1
2
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
3 Dewey had already iden ti fied the prob lems
when resis tance is mis un der stood and mis ‐
used:  “Resis tance is treat ed as an obstruc tion
to be beat en down, not as an invi ta tion to
reflec tion…. That which dis tin guish es an
expe ri ence as aes thet ic is con ver sion of resis ‐
tance and ten sions….” Expe ri ence, in Dewey’s
telling, is like breath ing and its  “rhythm of
intak ings and out giv ings.” Dewey writes:  
“Expe ri ence is lim it ed by all the caus es which
inter fere with per cep tion of the rela tions
between under go ing and doing. There may be
inter fer ence because of excess on the side of
doing or of excess on the side of recep tiv i ty,
of under go ing. Unbal ance on either side blurs
the per cep tion of rela tions and leaves the
expe ri ence par tial and dis tort ed, with scant or
false mean ing.” See Art as Expe ri ence (New
York, Capri corn Books, 1939), 35–57.
4 None of these pair ings are dialec tics to be
resolved by medi a tion. Instead, a porch is
a Janu sian thresh old in the spir it of Jay Fel ‐
lows’ posit ed spaces that hold con tra dic tions
and oppo si tions, rather than resolve them.
A porch’s double-sidedness—its ele ments that
 ‘face’ both ways, like Janus—help in
this matter.
5 Gior gio Agam ben writes of this dia logue in
terms of fash ion. See  "What Is the Con tem po ‐
rary?” in  ‘What Is an Appa ra tus?’ and Oth er
Essays (Red wood City: Stan ford Uni ver si ty
Press, 2009), 47–49.
6 Like wise, this lexicon/diary may be mete o ro ‐
log i cal, and in fact weath er diaries were some
of the ear li est ver sions of the form. Fel lows
adds the fol low ing, lodged in brack ets: “[Fur ‐
ther, it would seem only fit ting for the key
intro duc to ry word of a text deal ing with
insides-out sides, the inten sive-exten sive, to
be whether—a dia crit i cal word of options, of
the dou ble-faced Janus that will include rever ‐
sals and inver sions which change like a mete ‐
o ro log i cal weath er that can not be pre dict ed.]”
(45)
Porch Notes 37
helped me under stand how a porch embraces such para dox. An advo cate of
the sta ble and the pre car i ous, Dewey couldn’t’ resist talk ing about resis tance
and its active role in expe ri ence. Resis tance binds togeth er atti tude and
skilled method in his dis cus sion of inquiry, here in this oft-quot ed apho rism:  
“The path of least resis tance and least trou ble is a men tal rut already made.
It requires trou ble some work to under take the alter na tion of old beliefs.”
Aes thet ic expe ri ence needs resis tance, just like a porch needs sun, rain,
wind, strangers, neigh bors, and fiber glass mesh. It is a place that hosts what
Dewey called  “under go ing,” with its idea of receiv ing, and doing, which
offers a del i cate balance—a del i cate tun ing, the Smith sons would say. In
this sense, a porch is an invi ta tion to active, even rad i cal, reflection. 
Dia logue of pair ings: Anoth er favorite pho to graph depicts the shirt less
philoso pher serene ly typ ing at a tiny fold ing table. His san daled feet set
firm ly on the open porch’s floor boards, Dewey leans over the Under wood.
Sun warms his back, and a small boat glides on Lake Sawler in the dis tance.
The chair’s birch logs are thick as arms. A book rests on the table’s cor ner,
pre car i ous ly, as if it might fall onto the dog at his feet. Here is Dewey, vul -
ner a ble and intent, com fort able and aged, out side in deep en ing thought, writ -
ing. I have no such image of Fel lows but what if the two had met on
a porch? Maybe in Mia mi or Key West, where Dewey win tered? What sto -
ries would be told? 
Lex i con / diary: I am con vinced such dia logues can inhab it a lex i con,
which has its roots in pub lic speak ing and dic tion. As a nascent vocab u lary
of the porch, these pair ings hinge on sto ries that oscil late between the didac -
tic and the diaris tic. If the for mer guides prac tice with in a dis ci pline, then
the lat ter reg is ters pri vate rumi na tions some times made pub lic. Sim i lar ly,
a porch frames as it also folds space and time, it holds secrets and opens out
onto streets, it doc u ments and day dreams. These pair ings offer pre lim i nary
notes for con tem po rary prac tices because porch es are meant to be lived,
exper i ment ed with, repaired and con stant ly rede fined. So often we hear
how won der ful porch es are for their com bi na tion of inside and out side,
which sug gests an all too easy res o lu tion of archi tec ture and nature and of
the domes tic inte ri or with what is  “out there,” in an activ i ty of build ing that
inher ent ly, and unavoid ably, dis rupts its con text. Amid cli mate crises, post-
pan dem ic life, and social change, no such res o lu tion exists, and the dif fi cult
work of under go ing and doing must con tin ue and persist.
Already / not yet: Porch es antic i pate the future as they also look back.
In cas es of the for mer, a porch fore shad ows immi nent change because of its
uncon di tioned link to cli mate. Which is to say that a porch is baro met ric.
3
4
5 6
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
7 Svet lana Boym, The Future of Nos tal gia (New
York: Basic, 2002), xvi ii. Boym notes that  
“nos tal gic time is that time-out-of-time-of
day dream ing and long ing that jeop ar dizes
one’s timeta bles and work eth ic….” (xxi), and
I have also won dered how porch es engage
chronos and kairos.
8 John Dewey expand ed on this lat ter pair ing as
the very foun da tion of phi los o phy:  “it is the
intri cate mix ture of the sta ble and the pre car i ‐
ous, the fixed and the unpre dictably nov el, the
assured and the uncer tain, in exis tence which
sets mankind upon that love of wis dom which
forms phi los o phy.” Expe ri ence and Nature, in
The Lat er Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1, ed. Jo Ann
Boyd ston (Car bon dale: South ern Illi nois Uni ‐
ver si ty Press, 1981), 55.
Porch Notes 39
It is an ear ly indication—an advance warning—of climate’s changes, both
short- and long-term. 
Con di tioned / uncon di tioned: The uncon di tioned porch moves, while its
house—conditioned by heat ing and cool ing, glaz ing and walls—stays put. 
Here / there: The porch where I have been writ ing for this past decade
rides this change like an open-air ves sel. Each year I notice the increased
num ber of man groves grow ing up around the lagoon out side the porch. Each
king tide ris es that much clos er to the porch’s tilt ed floor. Each sea son,
anoth er cedar, anoth er palm, and anoth er live oak dies from salt wa ter intru -
sion. Their sil ver trunks shim mer in the heat. Cli mat i cal ly speak ing, in terms
of ris ing tem per a tures, the porch where I write has moved south ward near ly
one hun dred miles to Tam pa, but the snook that seek warmer water already
know that. I am still here, but cli mat i cal ly I am there. A witness.
Restora tive / reflec tive: Some look back with nos tal gia and the already
becomes a no more to be lament ed. Porch es cut across the  “restora tive” and
the  “reflec tive” that Svet lana Boym found in nos tal gia. The for mer  “stress es
nos tos and attempts a tran shis tor i cal recon struc tion of the lost home” and the
lat ter  “thrives in algia, the long ing itself” and  “explores ways of inhab it ing
many places at once.” Porch es are anachro nis tic and exceed ing ly
contemporary.
Absence / pres ence: Last year, dur ing my res i den cy at a near by arts
cen ter, I set out to build a porch with out a house—a porch that would rely on
its itself for sup port but would recall its con nec tions to house and home. Out
for a walk in the neigh bor hood next to the cen ter, I encoun tered a vacant lot
where a house had recent ly been demol ished. Patch es of bright green grass
remained, amid upturned sand and dirt, around a con crete slab swept clean
of walls, plumb ing, and tiles. Only the porch remained. Its side walls cant ed
out ward, its thin roof sagged, and its cate nary form was rem i nis cent of Paul
Rudolph’s Cocoon House, which still stands across the penin su la on the oth -
er coast. In the house’s absence, after noon sun fills the porch. The roof’s
shad ow drapes down across the screen, evap o rates the mesh, and fur ther
dema te ri al izes the porch. Its crys talline lens also brings the back yard clos er,
in sharp er focus. Here is a porch to nature in the house’s absence.
Sta ble / pre car i ous: A porch hov ers between com fort and dis com fort,
secu ri ty and vul ner a bil i ty, sta bil i ty and pre car i ous ness. How a porch resists
a storm is that it lets the storm inside. Rain moves in and out, and wind
moves through. The slope of a porch’s floor sheds rain fall, whether through
scup pers or between floor boards. Porch es assume inun da tion. They also
meet air on its own terms; and screens offer a degree of resis tance, but most
are only designed to with stand one-hun dred-mile-per-hour wind speeds.
Porch es may rely on their hous es for struc tur al sup port, but they also depend
7
8
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
9 In fact, many porch es are not reg u lat ed by
hur ri cane codes.
10 Sci en tists at Vir ginia Tech ran tests on the
same brand of anemome ter and deter mined
its fail ure thresh old to be 79.4 (177mph). See
Mark D. Pow ell et al,  "Hur ri cane Andrew's
Land fall in South Flori da. Part I: Stan dard iz ing
Mea sure ments for Doc u men ta tion of Sur face
Wind Fields," Weath er and Fore cast ing 11, 3
(1996): 304–328, accessed Sep 6, 2022, https:
//doi.org/10.1175/1520–0434.
11 Jack Lon don,  “When the World Was Young,”
The Night-Born (New York: Cen tu ry, 1913), 65–
98.
12 Muir writes:  “Not like my tak ing the veil—no
solemn abju ra tion of the world. I only went
out for a walk, and final ly con clud ed to stay
out till sun down, for going out, I found, was
real ly going in.” See John Muir, John of the
Moun tains: The Unpub lished Jour nals of John
Muir, ed. Lin nie Marsh Wolfe (Madi son: Uni ‐
ver si ty of Wis con sin Press, 1938/1979), 439.
Porch Notes 41
on their own pre car i ty, out there on the house’s edge, for sur vival in hur ri -
canes and oth er extreme weath er events. In 1992, I moved to south Flori da
to repair a house dam aged by Hur ri cane Andrew. I mar veled at the dura bil i ty
of two porch es can tilevered off the sec ond floor of the house. They had lost
only their screens and a few inch es of their can tilever when the hurricane’s
cen ter tracked right over the house. No one knows for sure how fast the
winds blew because all of the offi cial, pub licly-fund ed wind gauges failed
before the storm reached its peak. But one pri vate ly-owned device a few
miles north of the porch reg is tered what is now accept ed as the max i mum
speed, a 79.4 meters-per-sec ond (177-mile-per-hour) gust that last ed one
minute. Before his anemome ter blew away and before sci en tif ic tests lat er
down grad ed the wind speed, the ama teur mete o rol o gist claimed a read ing of
95 meters per sec ond (212 mph). I imag ine him out there on his own
porch, squint ing through squalls, the roar of wind in his ears.
Unknown / known: A stranger at home, Odysseus sleeps in his own
echo ing por ti co. He sleeps where suit ors and, lat er in ear ly Chris t ian church -
es, the unbap tized await, on a porch along the edges of hos pi tal i ty, under the
roof but out side the inte ri or cham bers of house, palace or church. Here, on
this palace’s porch, Odysseus eaves drops on the suit ors who pur sue his wife
Pene lope inside, and a goatherd teas es the dis guised hero, where ani mals
des tined for the feast are teth ered. And lat er, Odysseus over hears Pene lope
cry ing in her bed room as he lies awake and plots his return.
Com pro mise: On Novem ber 22, 1916, writer Jack Lon don died on the
sleep ing porch of his Beau ty Ranch cot tage. Three years ear li er, he com -
posed  “When the World Was Young,” the sto ry of James Ward, a suc cess ful
but afflict ed busi ness man. Aware of his atavis tic ten den cies, Ward builds
him self a porch for sleep ing on the sec ond sto ry of his house. Not one but
two lay ers of screen thwart his night ly escapes to the woods:  “Here he at
least breathed the blessed night air.” Each night his cook locks him up in
the porch, and lets him out in the morning.
In / out: John Muir famous ly sug gest ed that to go out is real ly going
in. On a porch, inte ri or i ty just might be housed out of doors. The nat u ral ist
Muir was not one to wor ry about dis crete bound aries. He slept on Yosemite’s
pine nee dle as read i ly as a bed. The shel ter he can tilevered off the Yosemite
sawmill where he worked was shot through with win dows, sky lights, and
gaps between boards and bat tens. The hen lad der that sloped up to what he
called his  “hang-nest” host ed farm ani mals and humans. 
Near / peras: A ques tion that set this porch research in motion was what
hap pens when camp ing returns home. I think that’s why his to ri an Fred er ick
Jack son Turn er pitched a tent on the back porch of his Cam bridge house.
9
10
11
12
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
13 Alfred Stiegelitz,  “Our Illus tra tions,” Cam era
Work, nos. 49/50 (June 1917): 36.
14 For an expand ed dis cus sion of Lewerentz’s
projects, see the chap ter  “Blue” in my book
The Porch (Chica go: Uni ver si ty of Chica go
Press, 2021).
15 In  “Janu sian Thresh olds,” Fel lows sand wich es
the pair ing of imma nence and tran scen dence
between  ‘insides and out sides’ and  ‘begin ‐
nings and end ings’ as he intro duces the nego ‐
ti a tions of framed thresholds.
16 Luce Iri garay, The For get ting of Air, trans.
Mary Beth Mad er (Austin: Uni ver si ty of Texas
Press, 1999), 62.
Porch Notes 43
Teach ing Har vard stu dents about a nation’s reced ing fron tiers, he sought new
fringes clos er to home.
Imma nence / tran scen dence: Paul Strand steps out onto his porch to
make pic tures. He watch es sun light carve shad ows in the floor boards, and
the pho tog ra ph er tips a round table on its side to find light on paint ed wood.
Lat er in the day, he steps off the porch, lays down in the yard’s sun-warmed
grass, and watch es clouds clip the oblique cor ner of his porch. Alfred
Stieglitz called Strand’s porch pho tographs  “direct expression[s] of today”
and said that the pho tog ra ph er had  “actu al ly done some thing from with in,”
and some believe that abstrac tion was born here on this worka day porch in
rur al Con necti cut. Across the Atlantic, Sig urd Lew er entz was design ing
the Wood land Ceme tery in Stock holm. The archi tect matched arbo re al
form with spir i tu al pres ence in the Res ur rec tion Chapel’s porch, where the
slight est skew—inches between chapel and porch—opens a sliv er of blue
sky, mark ing tran si tions between liv ing and dying.
Veil ing / reflect ing: Lit from inside at night, the porch opens as a pri vate
stage. Dur ing the day, sun light shrouds a pub lic inte ri or. The screen ing mate -
r i al itself con tributes to this veil ing phe nom e non. Most screen, whether met -
al or cheap er fiber glass, has a reflec tive fin ish while the poros i ty of its
weave lets light through.
Mate r i al / imma te r i al: On the porch, there are also times of the day
when the screens evap o rate. They become translu cent, and I remem ber air.
They remind me how Luce Iri garay con nects breath ing and being; she says
that Hei deg ger for got air and that  “what is for got ten is always recalled.” It
is hard er to for get air in a place like Flori da, where air feels like water and
the slight est breeze cools the skin. 
Breeze / breath: Read ing Iri garay and liv ing on the porch, I became fas -
ci nat ed with the breath ing body, as well as the breath ing porch. A few years
ago, I decid ed to paint the porch ceil ing robin’s egg blue, and I hung
visqueen—painter’s plas tic sheeting—from the inside edge of the porch.
Half a mil lime ter thick, the plas tic soon bil lowed in the air of what I had
only per ceived as a wind less day. The bot tom of the sheet lift ed slow ly as if
reach ing for the porch’s back wall. Its sev en feet fell short of the porch’s ten-
foot depth, but its per for mance charged the porch’s full breadth as it furled
and float ed on freshets of air. Here were the most sub tle move ments of air,
bare ly per cep ti ble on my skin and only inter mit tent ly vis i ble in leaves and
grass es out side. I lat er hung a heav ier scrim from the porch ceil ing to study
how air molds fab ric and how light and shad ow play across the screened
wall. The scrim’s top edge glowed with the ceiling’s blue sheen; detail pho -
tographs of this joint have the uncan ny effect of a Rothko paint ings. The
open ings of the porch screen—a stan dard six teen-by-six teen weave—
13
14
15
16
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
17 S. S. Block,  “Insect Tests of Wire Screen ing
Effec tive ness,” Amer i can Jour nal of Pub lic
Health 36 (Novem ber 1946): 1279–86.
18 Rawl ings, Cross Creek (New York: Simon and
Schus ter, 1996), 280.
19 Dewey, Expe ri ence and Nature, 43–44.
Porch Notes 45
provided just enough open ness to the air, and the screen’s stretch afford ed
just enough ten sion at this thinnest of thresh olds. A porch’s resis tance suf -
fices; it is just enough.
Porous / bound ary: If light treads care ful ly on either side of mesh,
sound trav els eas i ly through a porch screen. And so do some bugs. Despite
its  “insect screen” moniker, mesh requires spe cif ic den si ties of weave—and
close tol er ances of production—to resist the intru sion of insects. Based on
research into the behavior—and trans gres sive abilities—of Aedes mos qui -
toes, a grid of six teen by six teen wires per inch became the indus try stan dard
around the mid dle of the twen ti eth cen tu ry. Post war pro duc tion econ o mized
the weave to eigh teen warp wires and four teen weft wires; and research here
at the Uni ver si ty of Flori da, in a region sat u rat ed by wet lands and mos qui -
toes, found that twen ty-by-twen ty screen ing marks the thresh old of bal anc -
ing open ness and clo sure. Researchers warned that high er wire den si ties
notice ably reduced vis i bil i ty and air cir cu la tion. Mean while, the tiny bit ing
gnats—known as no-see’ums—crawled on through the one-mil lime -
ter openings. 
Invis i ble / vis i ble: Birds and dig i tal scan ners have a hard er time fath om -
ing the ambi gu i ties of porch screens. Mar jorie Kin nan Rawl ings tells this
sto ry:  “One day I self ish ly picked all the hibis cus blos soms and put them in
a bowl on the veran da table. A hum ming bird tried to dart through the screen
to come at them. His nee dle-bill caught in the wire and I loos ened it gen tly.
He flew away and perched on the fence and shook him self and tried to adjust
him self to invis i ble bar ri ers.” A while ago, I made a three-dimen sion al
dig i tal scan of Rawl ings’ porch in Cross Creek. The scan ner did not know
what to make of the mesh screens, the reflec tions in the French doors along
the porch’s back wall, the flick er of morn ing through the pine trees, the
zigzag of chick ens in the front yard, and the gen er al inde ter mi na cy of the
porch’s space. Which is to say that a porch resists doc u men ta tion because it
is made from both the vis i ble and the invis i ble. For Dewey, this is a ques tion
of what is known and unknown and the two sides of exis tence:  “The vis i ble
is set in the invis i ble; and in the end what is unseen decides what hap pens in
the seen; the tan gi ble rests pre car i ous ly upon the untouched and
ungrasped.”
Air / water: Philip Lovell advo cat ed the health ful ben e fits of fresh air in
his  “Care of the Body” columns for the LA Times. He sought this same fresh
air on the sleep ing porch es of the beach house Rudolph Schindler designed
for him. But less than a year after its com ple tion, Lovell asked the archi tect
to enclose this ele vat ed tray of space that opened out toward the Pacif ic.
Much lat er, in a 1978 inter view, Dione Neu tra attrib uted the change to the
porch es fill ing with water. The new ly glazed spaces still har bored sun light,
17
18
19
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
20 Dione Neu tra, inter viewed by Lawrence
Weschler, Los Ange les, Cal i for nia, Oral His to ‐
ry Pro gram, Uni ver si ty of Cal i for nia, Los
Ange les, 1978. https://static.library.ucla.edu/o
ralhistory/pdf/masters/21198-zz0008zcnb-5-
master.pdf. Dione Neu tra said:  “Orig i nal ly, the
bed rooms were con ceived as dress ing areas,
with beds locat ed out side on sleep ing porch ‐
es, but not long after the house was built,
despite Lovell’s belief in the virtues of sleep ‐
ing out side, the Lovells request ed that the
sleep ing porch es be enclosed due to the
evening fog. Schindler moved the win dows of
the dress ing areas out to enclose the sleep ing
porch es.” Oth ers have claimed it was fog that
vexed the Lovells. See Judith Scheine,  “Lovell
Beach House,” SAH Archipedia, accessed 21
Sep tem ber 2022, https://sah-archipedia.org/
buildings/CA-01–059-0108.
21 Inter view with Dione Neu tra by Weschler, 1.6.
TAPE NUMBER: III, Side One (July 14, 1978);
library of UCLA. Dione fur ther described the
pub lic and pri vate nature of the sleep ing bas ‐
kets at Kings Road:  “The pri va cy was some ‐
thing which we were not used to, this open
liv ing. And lat er on, when we moved into the
larg er apart ment, our bed room was an open
sleep ing porch out side, which you reached by
a lit tle stairway….”
22 bell hooks, Belong ing: A Cul ture of Place (New
York: Rout ledge, 2009), 121.
23 See Char lie Hai ley,  “Porch Prac tice,” forth ‐
com ing in The Pan dem ic Effect (New York:
Prince ton Archi tec tur al Press, 2023).
24 Theodore Roo sevelt, August 31, 1910, speech
in Osawatomie, Kansas.
Porch Notes 47
though at the expense of fresh air and fog’s del i cate mois ture. Dione also
expe ri enced anoth er of the architect’s porch projects when she and archi tect
Richard Neu tra lived coop er a tive ly with the Schindlers. She recalled how
every one car ried umbrel las when they climbed up to the sleep ing bas kets at
the Kings Road House.
Com ing / going: When Frank Lloyd Wright stepped inside the Glass
House, he asked Philip John son whether he should take his hat off or leave
it on. 
Athena / Posei don: John son based the plan of the Glass House on the
North Porch of the Erechtheum, where Zeus’s thun der bolt pierced the roof
and Poseidon’s tri dent made three deep scratch es in the mar ble floor dur ing
the con test for Athens. The temple’s west ern porch housed Athena’s
olive tree.
Porch / prac tice: Tun ing per son and place also means that porch es are
spaces for rad i cal prac tice. bell hooks iden ti fies the porch, in con trast to the
patri ar chal house hold, as  “a demo c ra t ic meet ing place, capa ble of con tain ing
folks from var i ous walks of life, with diverse per spec tives.” For her, this  
“free-float ing space” is  “a small every day place of antiracist resis tance”
where she and her sis ters and moth er could  “prac tice the eti quette of civil i -
ty.” Porch es anchor prac tices amid social reck on ing, envi ron men tal cri sis,
and the pandemic’s many dis place ments of body and com mu ni ty.
Social / dis tance: Piano teach ers gave lessons from their porch es dur ing
the pan dem ic, jazz musi cians regaled small social ly dis tanced audi ences
from their Brook lyn porch es, home-bound Insta gram mers snapped #porch -
traits on their front porch es, and neigh bors talked through screens from side -
walk to porch in scenes that might have seemed anti quat ed and sen ti men tal
if they weren’t so bril liant ly and imme di ate ly resilient. Porch es are ready -
made spaces for social distancing. 
Sur veilled / sur veilling: His tor i cal ly, porch es have been spaces to watch
peo ple and watch out for neigh bors. Now, all eyes are on porch pirates, and
many porch es house sur veil lance equip ment like Ring cam eras that watch
over pack ages deliv ered from Ama zon, the video doorbell’s par ent com pa ny.
Porch piracy’s allit er a tion sput ters with indig na tion and fear as it alludes to
law less ness born on a porch’s inde ter mi nate space float ing on seas of anx i -
ety and capitalism.
Mon u men tal / per son al: Pres i dents have long sought escape along the
White House’s edges. William Taft paced the South Portico’s roof, Dwight
Eisen how er grilled hot dogs behind the roof’s para pet, and Ted dy Roo sevelt
viewed the “hardy life of the open” from a makeshift out post atop the
nation al sym bol. On May 22, 1918, Colonel C. S. Rid ley draft ed plans for
a sleep ing shel ter that would soon be teth ered atop the White House. Rid ley
20
21
22
23
24
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
25 John Dewey, Essays and How We Think in The
Lat er Works of John Dewey, vol. 8 (Car bon ‐
dale: South ern Illi nois Uni ver si ty Press,
2008), 136.
Porch Notes 49
had includ ed a small stair in the design so that Woodrow Wil son, exhaust ed
by war and ill ness, could step out the third-floor bed room win dow into the
screened room tucked behind the South Portico’s heavy balustrade. Here was
a pres i dent lay ing prone, vul ner a ble under the stars, atop a domes tic mon u -
ment, his raspy breath drift ing out over the Potomac.
Open / closed: On a porch, imag i na tion runs wild. It is a place where
open-mind ed ness is not sim ply being open, but resist ing clo sure:  “The mind
that is open mere ly in the sense that it pas sive ly per mits things to trick le in
and through will not be able to resist the fac tors that make for men tal clo -
sure.” To illus trate the work of active ly main tain ing open ness, Dewey
notes that this is a par tic u lar kind of hos pi tal i ty:  “an active desire to lis ten to
more sides than one; to give heed to facts from what ev er source they come;
to give full atten tion to alter na tive pos si bil i ties; to rec og nize the pos si bil i ty
of error even in the beliefs that are dear est to us.” On a porch, we can think;
we can also write, talk, watch, sweat, sketch, read, sleep, and paint.
Per haps Cézanne joins Dewey and Fel lows on the porch, set ting down
his easel just inside the porch’s screen door. I won der if either ever saw
Kerr-Xavier Roussel’s pho to graph of the painter there in Mont Sainte-
Victoire’s shad ow, lean ing into his can vas, his brush poised, sus pend ed
between vision and the next stroke.
25
Charlie Hailey Form of Resistance
Porch Notes 51
Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio. ‘What Is an Apparatus?’ and Other Essays. Redwood City: Stanford University Press,
2009.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1981.
Block, S. S. “Insect Tests of Wire Screening Eﬀectiveness. ” American Journal of Public Health 36
(November 1946): 1279–86.
Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic, 2002.
Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York, Capricorn Books, 1939.
Dewey, John. Experience and Nature, in The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981.
Dewey, John. Essays and How We Think in The Later Works of John Dewey, vol. 8. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 2008.
Fellows, Jay. “Janusian Thresholds. ” Perspecta 19 (1982): 43-57.
Hailey, Charlie. The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2021.
hooks, bell. Belonging: A Culture of Place. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Irigaray, Luce. The Forgetting of Air. Trans. Mary Beth Mader. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.
London, Jack. “When the World Was Young. ” The Night-Born. New York: Century, 1913.
Muir, John. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. Ed. Linnie Marsh Wolfe.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1938/1979.
Powell, Mark D., Samuel H. Houston, and Timothy A. Reinhold. "Hurricane Andrew's Landfall in South
Florida. Part I: Standardizing Measurements for Documentation of Surface Wind Fields." Weather and
Forecasting 11, 3 (1996): 304-328.
Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. Cross Creek. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Smithson, Alison and Peter. The Charged Void: Architecture. New York: Monacelli Press, 2001.
Stiegelitz, Alfred. “Our Illustrations. ” Camera Work, nos. 49/50 (June 1917): 36.

53
Elizabeth Cronin
Stretched Out
Spatializing the Pregnant Body
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
1
1 Stretch exposes the form it envelopes with no
means for resistance.
1 “They became totems of the anti-abor tion
move ment; Life had not dis closed that all but
one had been tak en of abort ed fetus es, and
that Nils son had lit and posed their bod ies to
give the impres sion that they were alive.” Jia
Tolenti no,  “Is Abor tion Sacred?” The New
York er, July 16, 2022.
Stretched Out 55
Introduction
Ultrasound imaging, invented in the nineteen-fifties, completed the
transformation of pregnancy into a story that, by default, was narrated
to women by other people—doctors, politicians, activists. In 1965, Life
magazine published a photo essay by Lennart Nilsson called “Drama of
Life Before Birth,” and put the image of a fetus at eighteen weeks on its
cover. The photos produced an indelible, deceptive image of the fetus as
an isolated being—a “spaceman,” as Nilsson wrote, floating in a void,
entirely independent from the person whose body creates it.
I have reached the phase where every twinge, sharp move ment, run of a lit tle
foot puts my body on full alert. Is today the day? They say,  “You’ll know,”
but until that time comes, mys ter ies of the inter nal work ings of a preg nant
body remain unex plained, ter ri to ries unexplored.
Con verse ly, the exter nal preg nant body, the female object, has been ide -
o log i cal fod der for cen turies. From mythol o gy to por traits and lit er a ture,
adver tise ments to fash ion and dress, the preg nant body has been con tained
and con trolled through the media and images we con sume, the com modi ties
we buy, the clothes we wear. Nowhere is this clear er than in the mater ni -
ty jean. 
As mon strous as Jekyll and Hyde, mater ni ty jeans serve as a bea con of
the preg nant body’s sup pres sion and expo sure. They tell a sto ry of the
female form. From the hips down, they are  ‘nor mal’ pants, a  ‘reg u lar’ pair of
jeans—hiding a new defor ma tion of body—but between breast and hip a dif -
fer ent ter ri to ry is formed. In a sol id line stitched inch es below the bel ly but -
ton, a span dex band wraps around the waist to stretch over a preg nant bel ly.
While the band may cov er the bump, it simul ta ne ous ly repli cates its form.
Thus, it is no won der the dou ble-bind has become a key stone of fem i nist the -
o ry: women are always resist ing some thing. She is too exposed, too cov ered;
too skimpy, too mod est; too thin, too fat; too young, too old; too loose, too
uptight. The female body is always in ten sion, its form objec ti fied and
shaped through phys i cal (and ide o log i cal) means, and the preg nant body is
no exception. 
The fol low ing essay and set of draw ings explore the ten sioned preg nant
body as a form of resis tance through three meth ods of loose-fit: to stretch, to
swell, to dilate. Root ed in sub jec tiv i ty, mobil i ty, and open-end ed ness, loose-
fit estab lish es a frame for anchor ing and delam i nat ing an exte ri or skin from
an inte ri or struc ture. It resists objec ti fy ing prac tices of form and space mak -
ing, while expand ing fem i nist the o ries and his to ries to archi tec ture prac tice.
1
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
2
2 placenta; to stretch: liberation/containment |
loose/tight | matrix/vessel
From Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy
Pregnancy: “The skin across your abdomen may
be dry and itchy from all of the stretching and
tightening….You may also notice pink, reddish or
purplish indented streaks on the skin covering
your breasts, abdomen or perhaps even upper
arms, buttocks or thighs. These are stretch
marks….They seem to be caused, quite literally, by
a stretching of the skin, coupled with a hormone-
related decrease in your skin’s elasticity.…With
time, they should fade to light pink or grayish
stripes, but it’s unlikely that they’ll completely
disappear. ”
– Myra J. Wick, Mayo Clinic Guide to a
Healthy Pregnancy (Rochester, MN: Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and Research,
2018), 169.
2 Cather ine McCormack’s book Women in the
Pic ture: What Cul ture Does With Female Bod ‐
ies has been instru men tal to this research.
From Venus’s to moth ers to mon strous
women, her work has been cru cial in defin ing
ways that art and images shape how women
see and are seen. She has encour aged me to
look. Cather ine McCor ma ck, Women in the
Pic ture: What Cul ture Does with Female Bod ‐
ies (New York, NY: W. W. Nor ton & Com pa ‐
ny, 2021).
3 Chioma Nna di,  “Oh, Baby! Rihanna’s Plus
One,” Vogue, April 12, 2022.
4 “‘When I found out I was preg nant, I thought
to myself, There’s no way I’m going to go
shop ping in no mater ni ty Aisle. I’m sorry—it’s
too much fun to get dressed up. I’m not going
to let that part dis ap pear because my body is
chang ing.’ When I bring up the sub ject of
mater ni ty jeans, she rolls her eyes: If it’s not
some thing she would have worn before she
was preg nant, then it’s not some thing she’s
going to wear now.” Nna di,  “Oh, Baby!
Rihanna’s Plus One.” .
5 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 85.
6 Ibid, 83.
Stretched Out 57
Caught between Vir gin Mary and mon stros i ty, each loose-fit method ques -
tions jux ta po si tions of ide olo gies that bind the preg nant body
(liberation/containment, pleasure/shame, beauty/monstrosity); each method
moves beyond the exter nal preg nant body as rigid object to explore pre na tal
organs and inter nal work ings as ten sioned archi tec tur al spaces
(matrix/vessel, layer/mask, threshold/trap). Here, I am par tic u lar ly inter est ed
in how flex i ble lay ers of preg nant bod ies can stretch to resist hard-shelled
depic tions of mater ni ty that are nei ther sup pressed in move ment nor exposed
in form.
to stretch: liberation/containment | loose/tight | matrix/vessel
Stretched over every preg nant curve, Rihan na turned heads in a red lace
Alaïa body suit and match ing long gloves on the cov er of April’s Vogue mag -
a zine. Her preg nant bump shaped the gar ment, its form an exact repli ca of
the body under neath. She was labeled (by some) as  ‘inde cent’ —an amus ing
descrip tion giv en she is cov ered from shoul der to toe—but hailed (by many)
for her fear less ness and beau ty. As a preg nant woman myself, I was thrilled
to see a pre na tal body drip ping with con fi dence and sex appeal, lib er at ed
from mater ni ty wear (she also hates mater ni ty jeans ), coun ter ing the nar ra -
tives and images that con tin ue to con fine preg nant women. Why did Rihan na
cause such a stir? She (and oth ers who have dared to express their preg nant
bod ies) stands in stark con trast to arguably  “the most defin i tive and pro lif ic
arche type of [preg nant] wom an hood to be found in pic tures” : the Vir -
gin Mary.
The  ‘per fect’ woman, Mary embod ies a dou ble-bind, nev er touched or  
‘spoiled’ and yet, a mother—pregnant through immac u late con cep tion. As an
alle go ry, she ful fills her duty as a woman with out expe ri enc ing the plea sure
or shame of sex. She is noth ing but a con tained ves sel. As Cather ine McCor -
ma ck writes,  “The more we con sid er this metaphor of the Vir gin Mary, the
more it starts to feel like sheer horror….Beneath the starched sur face of
Mary is a body that has been sealed shut, from which only breast milk and
tears escape.” While this paints a bleak pic ture, the ide olo gies entan gled
with Mary have a con tin u ous effect on our soci ety and cul ture. Even Rihan -
na, a rev o lu tion ary bea con of body pos i tiv i ty and preg nant con fi dence, is
shown in her per fect ide al ized form. She has no stretch marks, appears to
gain lit tle weight oth er than in her baby bump or (pos si bly) her breasts, her
body is pulled tight, starched, gor geous, and sen su al. In an image labeled  
“GRAND TOUR” she con jures the per sona of Mary. Cov ered from head to
2
3
4
5
6
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
7 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 84.
8 Karen A. Franck,  “A Fem i nist Approach to
Archi tec ture,” in Archi tec ture: A Place for
Women, eds. Ellen Berke ley and Matil da
McQuaid (Wash ing ton, D.C.: Smith son ian
Insti tu tion Press, 1989), 212.
9 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 84.
10 Myra J. Wick, Mayo Clin ic Guide to a Healthy
Preg nan cy (Rochester, MN: Mayo Foun da tion
for Med ical Edu ca tion and Research,
2018), 126.
11 Ibid, 102.
12 Ibid, 92.
Stretched Out 59
toe in a black veil, she evokes a deity float ing across the room, a gor geous
ves sel of life. 
McCor ma ck traces the lin eage of Mary to Artemis and Diana of Greek
and Roman mythol o gy, god dess es of chasti ty and fer til i ty (two oppos ing
fem i nine qual i ties that have bound women for cen turies). For tu nate ly, she
also looks fur ther back in his to ry, to a moth er deity from ear ly Mesopotamia
—Ninhursag:
Her [Ninhursag’s] sym bol is the one now known as omega in the Greek
alphabet—a sym bol that now sig ni fies end ings but once sym bol ised the open
uterus, the flow ing in and out of life and death. She is Tia mat, the ancient
pri mor dial god dess of cre ation, the slip pery and ger mi na tive salt water from
ancient Baby lon ian reli gion. She is the abyss at the begin ning of time,
known as the  ‘for mer of all things’, or  ‘Ummu-Hubur’. Before it was
a sealed spring and enclosed gar den, the mater nal body was a bound less and
incom pre hen si ble force not made in the ser vice of God—it was God.
The body of Nin hur sag presents a swelling, an open ing, a surg ing forth.
She expands, not as a starched object but an infi nite field, a matrix of life. To
cre ate a matrix is to expand through a series of sys tems and rela tion ships, to
con struct some thing from nothing—its  “orig i nal mean ing was uterus or
womb, com ing from the Latin word  ‘mater’ or moth er” —and this presents
a very dif fer ent pic ture than the sealed ves sel of the Vir gin Mary that has
come to be  “embed ded in our col lec tive con scious ness.” As Madon na and
Child have estab lished a set of iconolo gies and ide olo gies that shape our
soci eties’ per cep tions of not only preg nan cy and moth er hood but tight ly
bound ideas of wom an hood, Nin hur sag invites us to explore preg nan cy
beyond its exter nal shell, to ven ture into the inter nal unknown.
To step inside the preg nant body, to exam ine it as a matrix of infi nite
space, is to move beyond dis cus sions that revolve around the bulge of child,
the object of a woman’s body, how she appears to wan der ing eyes of the
world. When viewed from with in, the ever chang ing space of the preg nant
body not only stretch es to accom mo date new life, it pulls tight around
organs and mus cles that grow, shift, loosen, become crushed. Dur ing preg -
nan cy, a woman’s rib cage expands 2 to 3 inch es in cir cum fer ence, her
womb swells to a vol ume about 500 times its orig i nal size, her blood vol -
ume increas es by 30 to 50 per cent, her diaphragm is pushed upwards, her
blad der pres sured by the fetus. Every day brings new changes as her body is
reshaped to grow more than just a child. 
Specif i cal ly, she also grows the pla cen ta. A baby forms when a sperm
suc cess ful ly fer til izes an egg, when two exist ing struc tures join to form
some thing new. Once the egg has been fer til ized, the matrix of the preg nant
body expands. With in a few days of fer til iza tion, the cells of the devel op ing
7
8
9
10
11
12
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
3
3 uterus (womb); to swell: pleasure/shame |
expand/contract | layer/mask
From Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy
Pregnancy: “Swelling (edema) is common during
pregnancy when your body tissues accumulate
more fluid due to dilated blood vessels and
increased blood volume…During the last three
months of pregnancy, about half of pregnant
women notice their eyelids and face becoming
puﬀy, mostly in the morning….In the last few
weeks of pregnancy, nearly all women have some
swelling in their ankles, legs, fingers or face. By
itself, swelling is annoying but not a serious
complication. ”
– Myra J. Wick, Mayo Clinic Guide to a
Healthy Pregnancy (Rochester, MN: Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and Research,
2018), 421.
13 Ibid, 87.
14 Ibid.
15 “Human Pla cen ta Project: How Does the Pla ‐
cen ta Form?” NIH, Decem ber 30, 2017.
16 Wick, Mayo Clin ic Guide to a Healthy Preg nan ‐
cy, 498.
17 Nna di,  “Oh, Baby! Rihanna’s Plus One.”
18 Nao mi Fry,  “Is Rihanna’s Preg nan cy All Bump
and No Grind?” The New York er, April
30, 2022.
Stretched Out 61
baby form into a blas to cyst (“a group of cells arranged around a flu id-filled
cav i ty”). The inner cells of the blas to cyst become the fetus, but the out er
cells, the tro phoblast, serve a dif fer ent pur pose. As the blas to cyst becomes
embed ded in the uter ine wall, the uter ine blood ves sels are  “remod eled” to
pump mater nal blood to the baby and grow a new organ from noth ing: the
pla cen ta[ 1 ]. The pla cen ta is a  “cir cu lar, flat organ that’s respon si ble for
oxy gen and nutri ent exchange and the elim i na tion of wastes between moth er
and fetus.” It is the joint between moth er and new body, the reg u la tor of
life. While the pla cen ta grips the uterus (or womb), the baby is free to move,
to float in the amni ot ic flu id, anchored to the pla cen ta by the umbil i cal cord.
This is a con nec tion forged until after birth, when, for a moment, the pla cen -
ta teth ers a fleet ing, loose-fit con nec tion between moth er and child, inside
and out side, matrix and world. 
to swell: pleasure/shame | expand/contract | layer/mask
To be clear, I find images like preg nant Rihan na to be empow er ing, to
have ide o log i cal impact on the loos en ing and lib er a tion of preg nant bod ies.
In her Vogue inter view Rihan na says, “  ‘I’m hop ing that we were able to
rede fine what’s con sid ered  ‘decent’ for preg nant women…My body is doing
incred i ble things right now, and I’m not going to be ashamed of that. This
time should feel cel e bra to ry. Because why should you be hid ing your preg -
nan cy?” Make up per fect, cloth ing immac u late, I find her to be every thing
I want to be as a preg nant woman—why hide my bump? Mask or feel shame
about the mir a cle my body is work ing? There in lies the pow er of images—
Rihanna has made preg nan cy look glam orous, has made my preg nant body
feel glamorous—and such pow er is not lim it ed to Rihan na. In her New York -
er arti cle  “Is Rihanna’s Preg nan cy All Bump and No Grind?” Nao mi Fry
writes:  “I recalled how, dur ing my own preg nan cy, a lit tle more than
a decade ago, for the first time since I was a small child, I wasn’t embar -
rassed to accen tu ate my own abdomen. I was unlike ly to wear a bel ly chain,
but I also wasn’t going to great lengths to cov er up the real i ty of my chang -
ing body.”
But such is the chal lenge of the dou ble-bind. While images con jured by
Rihan na or Fry speak of the lib er at ed preg nant body, such bod ies are also
con tained. While I rev el in my  ‘preg nan cy glow,’ I can’t help but ask: what
hap pens when the body no longer holds a child, when it ceas es to be pulled
tight in sen su al glo ry, stretched over a nest ed body with in, when it deflates,
sags, soft ens, and wrin kles? Will it still be deemed beau ti ful? Empow ered?
13
14
15
16
17
18
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
19 Fry notes,  “If some one can show us oth er ‐
wise, it’s Rihan na.” Fry,  “Is Rihanna’s Preg nan ‐
cy All Bump and No Grind?”
20 Arlene Eisen berg et al., What to Expect When
You’re Expect ing (New York: Work man Pub ‐
lish ing, 1996), 160.
21 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 84.
22 Ibid, 106.
Stretched Out 63
Lib er at ed? Will its loose form be cel e brat ed? If we con tin ue to focus sole ly
on the preg nant ves sel, are we all just Mary’s? Smooth exteriors—pure and
unblem ished, stiff and unyielding—fulfilling mater nal des tinies? Fry con -
cludes her arti cle by say ing,  “But that men tal i ty didn’t last long, and, once
my daugh ter was born my inse cu ri ties returned. In the pub lic imag i na tion,
there’s noth ing par tic u lar ly glam orous about the post par tum body—the body
that remains after the mir a cle of cre ation is done with.”
To this point, while we have been reas sured that our stretched, preg nant
bod ies are  “the most lovely—and sensuous—of fem i nine shapes,” that our
chang ing bod ies are the most nat ur al thing in the world, the exo dus of child
her alds dif fer ent expec ta tions. Post par tum bod ies are expect ed to  ‘bounce-
back.’ After birth, we are assured both uterus and cervix will shrink and
become firm, encour aged to begin a reg i ment of Kegel exer cis es to strength -
en our pelvic floors, sold any num ber of creams and reme dies for dimin ish -
ing stretch marks and melas mas. Bounce, shrink, firm, strength en, dimin ish:
each has a tight ness, a ten sion, a return to a nor ma tive fit. All imply a con -
trac tion to the hard Venus of pre-birth, the starched Vir gin Mary, the ide al -
ized object of female form. For “[h]er womb hav ing per formed its ser vice,
becomes obsolete….Mary is beau ti ful and benev o lent, but, like the fig ure of
Venus, she is more a man-made sym bol than she is human. She is, as the
philoso pher Julia Kris te va has sug gest ed,  ‘a woman whose entire body is an
empti ness through which the patri ar chal world is con veyed.’” And this is
no won der, giv en the promi nence of plea sure and shame that bind moth er -
hood and the preg nant body.
In the Unit ed States, polit i cal actions have made clear that a woman’s
body is not her own. She is a ves sel to be con tained, her child a method of
restraint. Women have inequitable access to health care, mater nal leave,
child care. Con tra cep tive pills require a pre scrip tion, Plan B pills and vibra -
tors are locked in drug store box es amongst hun dreds of eas i ly accessed con -
doms (male con tra cep tives), and through recent, chill ing actions, abor tions
are high ly reg u lat ed or banned. The mes sage: women are meant to be moth -
ers, they should not have sex for their own plea sure, and when they do have
sex—even in the course of cre at ing a child—that sex is shame ful. As
McCor ma ck points out, it would seem the only plea sure woman are allowed
is that of moth er hood. For,  “when we do see images of moth ers expe ri enc ing
plea sure, it tends to be focused on and ful filled by the baby and is locat ed
any where but in the body of the moth er.” And what if we do look into the
preg nant body, the swollen uterus, the phys i cal man i fes ta tion of sex u al
exchange? What if we stopped and made the world look? We might find our -
selves ask ing, as Eli na Reenko la:  “is a woman’s fer til i ty, her abil i ty to give
19
20
21
22
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
4
4 cervix; to dilate: beauty/monstrosity | open/close |
threshold/trap
From Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy
Pregnancy: “One sign that labor is starting is that
your cervix begins to thin (eﬀace) and soften
(ripen) in preparation for delivery. As labor
progresses, the cervix eventually will go from an
inch or more in thickness to paper-thin.…Your care
provider may also tell you that your cervix is
beginning to open (dilate). Dilation is measured in
centimeters, with the cervix opening from 0 to 10
centimeters (4 inches) during the course of
labor….Thinning, softening and dilation of the
cervix often precede other signs of labor. ”
– Myra J. Wick, Mayo Clinic Guide to a
Healthy Pregnancy (Rochester, MN: Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and Research,
2018), 202-203.
23 Eli na M. Reenko la, The Veiled Female Core
(New York: Oth er Press, 2002), xi.
24 “uterus (womb). The female organ inside of
which the unborn baby devel ops.” Wick, Mayo
Clin ic Guide to a Healthy Preg nan cy, 499.
25 “Uterus,” Cleve land Clin ic, accessed Sep tem ‐
ber 17, 2022.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 See McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 106.
29 “cervix. Neck like low er part of the uterus.”
Wick, Mayo Clin ic Guide to a Healthy Preg nan ‐
cy, 495.
30 “epi sioto my. Sur gi cal inci sion in the per ineum
to enlarge the vagi nal open ing, per form ing to
facil i tate deliv ery as the baby is crown ing.”
Ibid, 496.
31 “for ceps. Obstet ri cal instru ment that fits
around the baby’s head to guid the baby
through the birth canal in an oper a tive vagi nal
deliv ery.” Ibid.
Stretched Out 65
birth, so pow er ful that men—and women—must inval i date and deny it, or
women must guard it as their secret in order to pre vent its destruc tion?”
And noth ing would seem more expan sive or pow er ful than the uterus,
or womb [ 2 ]. The uterus is cen tral to the female repro duc tive sys tem and
plays a role in both men stru al cycle and preg nan cy. It con sists of three lay -
ers: the perimetri um (a soft out er shell), the myometri um (a mus cu lar cen -
ter), and the endometri um (an inner lin ing). Dur ing preg nan cy, all three
lay ers swell to house an expand ing fetus and pla cen ta. As the baby devel ops,
so does the uterus—it cre ates a loose shell around baby, amni ot ic flu id, and
amni ot ic sac. Through the cervix, it con nects to the birth canal and vagina—
although the cervix will stay closed, plugged with mucus, until the
myometri um lay er of the uterus begins to con tract in prepa ra tion for labor.
Ulti mate ly, when the time is right, the uterus con tracts to push the baby
out.
Most aston ish ing ly, the uterus is a liv ing organ that expands to not only
con nect a moth er with this baby but all future babies. Unlike the pla cen ta,
the uterus is a flex i ble, infi nite space that will con tract back to its orig i nal
size once the baby is deliv ered and pre pare itself to swell and grow again.
Blood, mucus, amni ot ic fluid—to stray from the hard-shelled exte ri or of the
preg nant moth er to inte ri or realms is to veer into mon strous territories.
to dilate: beauty/monstrosity | open/close | threshold/trap
In prepa ra tion for birth, the cervix [ 3 ] grows in three-dimen sions. In
sec tion, it stretch es dur ing a process called efface ment. It spreads from about
4 cen time ters in thick ness to paper thin, length en ing as it morphs and
changes to wrap the baby’s head. In plan, the cervix dilates, open ing from
ful ly closed to 10 cen time ters in diam e ter. A mother’s cervix must be both
100% effaced and 10 cen time ters dilat ed to give birth, and even then, it does
not pro vide a per fect fit. The baby still needs to twist and rotate, loosen and
align to make a new space for her self in the birth canal. The cervix either
pro vides a thresh old for the baby into the world or traps her inside, call ing
for alter na tive mea sures: epi siotomies, birth by for ceps, or cesare an sec -
tions. Luck i ly, the preg nant body is flex i ble. It dilates and con tracts, opens
and clos es to impro vise and con struct what ev er space is nec es sary. Here in
lies its resilien cy, beau ty, and uncon trol lable power.
Before becom ing preg nant, I had often heard,  “It’s called labor for
a rea son.” Birth is not easy. It is tes ta ment to the strength of women. Whole
chap ters in preg nan cy books are ded i cat ed to pain man age ment, but I can not
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 31
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
32 Ibid.
33 Mayo Clin ic Press Edi tors,  “Prepar ing for
Deliv ery: Hav ing a plan, but keep ing it flex i ‐
ble,” Mayo Clin ic, April 5, 2022.
34 Ibid.
35 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 103.
36 Ibid.
37 The Holy Bible, autho rized King James Ver sion
(Nashville, Ten nessee: Hol man Bible Pub lish ‐
ers, 2010), 4.
38 “The idea of female mon stros i ty is almost
always relat ed to women’s repro duc tive bod ‐
ies; their vagi nas and wombs have been
mythol o gised into lethal traps that emas cu late
and cas trate men, the inside of their bod ies
imag ined as a seething mys tery that draws on
our pri mal fears of the archa ic moth er and the
unknow able place of our ori gins.” McCor ma ck,
Women in the Pic ture, 172.
39 Reenko la, The Veiled Female Core, xii.
40 McCor ma ck, Women in the Pic ture, 103.
Stretched Out 67
tell you how many times (usu al ly by strangers) I have been asked,  “Are you
plan ning on hav ing a  ‘nat ur al’ birth?”—as if any assis tance (med i c i nal or
oth er wise) is  ‘unnat ur al,’ ren ders me less of a woman, expos es some weak -
ness, dimin ish es the feat of push ing a new life into the world. Inter est ing ly,
Doc tors Myra Wick and Angela Mat tke, dis cussing empow er ment dur ing
birth, speak about the use of an epidur al (a method of anes the sia used dur ing
labor and deliv ery ). They say,  “It seemed like the deliv ery was more con -
trolled with an epidural…even though most deliv er ies are a lit tle bit chaos…
there seems to be more a lev el of calm…especially if there has to be an
inter ven tion, like vac u um deliv ery or for ceps.” Pos ing low risk for moth er
and baby, inter ven tions like an epidur al allow a woman to retain some con -
trol over her body dur ing birth. Why then the stig ma, the empha sis on a  ‘nat -
ur al’ birth, the encour age ment to  ‘expe ri ence’ the pain often depict ed of
child birth instead of embrac ing the pos si bil i ty that some moments of labor
may be  “bliss ful” ? Per haps, as McCor ma ck notes,  “birth has been made to
seem too hor ren dous, taboo and obscene to con tem plate”; “the birthing
body might call to mind a two-head ed mon ster, some thing to fear.” More
like ly, it about con tain ment of that birthing body (“Unto the woman [Eve] he
said, I will great ly mul ti ply they sor row and thy con cep tion; in sor row thou
shalt bring forth chil dren; and thy desire shall be to thy hus band, and he
shall rule over thee.” ). For there is noth ing more shock ing than a woman
who con trols her plea sure and repro duc tive body; noth ing more ter ri fy ing
than a woman who knows her pow er.
Conclusions
How then, do we engage this power? 
To aban don the female body as a ves sel for anoth er and instead explore
her preg nant body as a matrix (see [ 1 ] ), a spa tial field, is to con sid er the
com plex posi tion she occu pies. She is nei ther a hard object nor sta t ic. Like
the pla cen ta she is a grow ing space of in-between—betwixt loose and fit,
lib er a tion and con tain ment, inside and outside—a con stant ly chang ing body
that expands and con tracts to con struct new space and new life. 
To make vis i ble that which is often invisible—“the woman’s body and
inner life as the source of her plea sure” —is to stretch open the dou ble-
bind and ask: what hap pens in this space? We occu py the swelling uterus
(see [ 2 ]) and view into the cervix (see [ 3 ]) to tap into the pow er of birth,
that which  “has been made to seem too hor ren dous, taboo and obscene to
con tem plate,” as gen er a tive of archi tec tur al space. As a form itself, the
preg nant body acts in resis tance. It is a flex i ble mate r i al pulled in ten sion,
stretch ing and swelling, envelop ing and nest ing, dilat ing and shrink ing. The
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
Stretched Out 69
preg nant body is a ten sile struc ture that con structs its own space (seem ing ly)
from noth ing. A lay ered matrix, it resists the dis play of most stretch mate ri -
als, hous ing a space with in that nei ther objec ti fies the form of its nest ed
body nor hides its bulge. The preg nant body cre ates a loose-fit between
inter nal space and exter nal form. Body with in body, it is a sea of infi nite
possibilities.
To write about and draw the inte ri or preg nant body is a method of
activism that resists a cul ture posit ed between beau ty and mon stros i ty. For,
as Cather ine McCor ma ck has point ed out again and again, images mat ter. To
resist depic tions of the objec ti fied and ide al ized preg nant body is to unmask
its pow er. To delam i nate the lay ers that con struct its swelling mate r i al and
polit i cal forms, to explore its infi nite space as stem ming from inside-out, to
engage its stretch ing, grow ing, and loose ly-fit struc tures (vagi na, cervix,
uterus, amni ot ic sac, amni ot ic flu id, pla cen ta): these are forms of resistance.
Elizabeth Cronin Form of Resistance
Stretched Out 71
Bibliography
Eisenberg, Arlene, Murkoﬀ, Heidi Eisenberg, Hathaway, Sandee Eisenberg. What to Expect When You’re
Expecting. New York: Workman Publishing, 1996.
Franck, Karen A. “A Feminist Approach to Architecture. ” In Architecture: A Place for Women, eds. Ellen
Berkeley and Matilda McQuaid, 201–218. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
Fry, Naomi. “Is Rihanna’s Pregnancy All Bump and No Grind?” The New Yorker. April 30, 2022. https://w
ww.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/is-rihannas-pregnancy-all-bump-and-no-grind.
“Human Placenta Project: How Does the Placenta Form?” NIH. December 30, 2017. https://www.nichd.
nih.gov/research/supported/HPP/research_funding/human-placenta#.
Mayo Clinic Press Editors. “Preparing for Delivery: Having a plan, but keeping it flexible. ” Mayo Clinic.
April 5, 2022. https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/parenting/preparing-for-delivery-having-a-plan-but-keep
ing-it-flexible/.
McCormack, Catherine. Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies. New York, NY: W.
W. Norton & Company, 2021.
Nnadi, Chioma. “Oh, Baby! Rihanna’s Plus One. ” Vogue. April 12, 2022. https://www.vogue.com/article/r
ihanna-cover-may-2022.
Reenkola, Elina M. The Veiled Female Core. New York: Other Press, 2002.
The Holy Bible, authorized King James Version. Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Bible Publishers, 2010.
Tolentino, Jia. “Always Be Optimizing. ” In Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion, 63-94. New York:
Random House, 2019.
Tolentino, Jia . “Is Abortion Sacred?” The New Yorker. July 16, 2022. https://www.newyorker.com/culture
/essay/is-abortion-sacred.
Wick, Myra J. Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy. Rochester, MN: Mayo Foundation for Medical
Education and Research, 2018.
“Uterus. ” Cleveland Clinic. Accessed September 17, 2022. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/2
2467-uterus.

73
Renato Bocchi
Space, Body, Architecture
Towards a Difficult Balance
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
1 Eri ca F. Batlle,  “Bruce Nau man: bod ies at
work,” in Bruce Nau man. Con trap pos to Stud ‐
ies, ed. Car los Basu al do (Venice: Mar silio,
2021), 135.
2 Ibid.
Space, Body, Architecture 75
1. Contrapposto
It is well known that in clas si cal art, lat er tak en up by Renais sance and neo -
clas si cal art—and espe cial ly in sculp ture, from Polyk leitos and Lysip pus to
Donatel lo and Michelan ge lo and lat er on Rodin—the reflec tion on the so-
called con trap pos to or chi as mus had a large impor tance in out lin ing the pos -
ture of the human body and the pro por tion al rules of its representation.
That reflec tion arose from the desire to over come the sta t ic and hier at ic
vision of the pre vi ous Greek sculp ture (that of the koùroi), deci sive ly intro -
duc ing the sen sa tion of move ment and action in the human body’s rep re sen -
ta tion, thus deter min ing an evi dent empath ic flow on the part of the observ er
in contemplating—or rather experiencing—the work.
In the con tem po rary world the same reflec tion is revived in a sur pris ing
and inno v a tive way by the research of an artist-per former like
Bruce Nauman.
In the cat a logue of the recent exhi bi tion Con trap pos to Stud ies, orga -
nized by the Pin ault Foun da tion at Pun ta del la Dogana in Venice, curat ed by
Car los Basu al do, Eri ca Batlle explains: 
“Con trap pos to exem pli fied a new found nat u ral ism. Sin u ous, sen su ous
bronze fig ures of the high clas si cal peri od stood with one foot plant ed firm ly
bear ing weight, the oth er slight ly lift ed and relaxed. This coun ter bal anc ing
stance, giv en its Ital ian name con trap pos to (or coun ter pose) cen turies lat er,
was exem pli fied most famous ly by the sculp tor Polykleitos’s bronze
Doryphoros (or spear bear er), cast around 450–440 BCE. The sculp ture was
remark able not only for its exem plary contrapposto—the fig ure stands on the
right leg with the left leg relaxed, while the left arm is flexed and the right
arm at his side—but also for the sophis ti cat ed math e mat ics Polyk leitos
employed to arrive at an ide al rep re sen ta tion of the body ".
Polyk leitos elab o rat ed his pro por tion al cal cu la tions on the mea sure -
ments of the human body in a text known as Canon, in which he doc u ment ed
his  "dis cov er ies", accord ing to which the height of the ide al fig ure should
have cor re spond ed to sev en times that of the head. These ideas and ideals
were then tak en up, as is well known, in the human is tic prin ci ples explored
by artists, sci en tists and philoso phers in the Renaissance.
"Their renditions—emphasizes Batlle—mark the his toric moment with
which Nau man most read i ly aligns his numer i cal ref er ents in the Con trap -
pos to Stud ies, which con sist of sev en pro jec tions and, at their most com plex,
par ti tion Nauman's body into sev en parts".
In the video Walk with Con trap pos to, dat ing back to 1968, the artist is
seen walk ing back and forth along a nar row cor ri dor, which he him self built
1
2
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
3 Damon Krukows ki,  “Fol low ing the Sound” , in
Bruce Nau man. Con trap pos to Stud ies, ed. Car ‐
los Basu al do (Venice: Mar silio, 2021), 105.
4 See: Con trap pos to Stud ies I through VII, 2015–
2016; Con trap pos to Split, 2017; Walk ing a Line,
2019; Nature Morte, 2020.
5 Car los Basu al do,  “Volver sobre sus pas sos” , in
Bruce Nau man. Con trap pos to Stud ies, ed. Car ‐
los Basu al do (Venice: Mar silio, 2021), 96.
6 Ibid.
7 See: Ros alind Krauss,  “Sculp ture in the
Expand ed Field” , Octo ber 8 (1979), 30–44.
Space, Body, Architecture 77
in his stu dio, with his hands crossed behind his head and his body sway ing
as he tries to walk straight in line while main tain ing a pose in con trap pos to.
Damon Krukows ki com ments:  "Nauman's painstak ing (and prob a bly
painful) walk down a cor ri dor defined by the swing of his hips from con trap -
pos to to con trap pos to is high ly awk ward, to the point of near immo bil i ty.
[…] That ten sion is what Nau man is enact ing for us, step by excru ci at ing
step […] The one we feel with our ears. The sound of Nauman’s delib er ate
awk ward steps in this nar row cor ri dor is preter nat u ral ly loud […]. Once
again, Nau man has dis ori ent ed us by skew ing sound and image".
This work is revis it ed years lat er by Nau man in his most recent Con -
trap pos to Stud ies. 
The log ic of the new works is based on three steps: rep e ti tion, divi sion
and over turn ing of the image.  “These oper a tions take place in the con text of
a gen er al rever sal of the rela tion ship between fig ure and ground, as the
adjust ed focus of the video cam era cre ates a par al lax effect. […] The over all
effect is that of being con front ed with the appar ent dis in te gra tion and com -
ing togeth er of the artist's body".
By invert ing the dynam ics between the body and the sur round ing space
in his Walk with Con trap pos to, 1968, Nauman's walk now seems to make the
space around him move.
These new works have an evi dent mon u men tal i ty, pro ject ed as they are
in large dimen sions in the vast halls of the Dogana, that fur ther under line the
clas sic ref er ences of the afore men tioned works.
"Nau man intends to rein state and to mind the con cep tu al scaf fold ing
that sup ports the very def i n i tion of sculp ture and pos si bly, by exten sion, of
art itself".
Already in the clas si cal expe ri ence, the con trap pos to intro duced the
sense of dynam ic action in an artis tic expres sion such as that of sculp ture —
born of neces si ty as a sta t ic, objec tu al, stat u ary rep re sen ta tion. This fact
involved the space around it and aroused an emo tion al and empath ic reac tion
in the observer.
The per cep tion of the work already tends to immerse the observ er in
a phe nom e no log i cal  "flow" of inter ac tions among his own body, the body of
the work and the sur round ing space.
This process is enor mous ly ampli fied when the  "sculp ture in the
expand ed field" of con tem po rary art—as Ros alind Krauss defined it—
merges with the spa tial i ty of archi tec ture and the per for ma tiv i ty of dance or
the atre, rec i p ro cal and estab lish es intense rela tion ship with all those enti ties,
i.e. either the bod ies of the work and the view er or the space that sur rounds
them, intro duc ing force ful ly also the time fac tor and there fore the process of
the artis tic action. The work is no longer an object but an event. 
3
4
5
6
7
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
1
2
3
1 Bruce Nauman, Walk with Contrapposto, 1968
2 Bruce Nauman, Contrapposto Studies I through VII,
2015-2016
3 Bruce Nauman, Diagonal Sound Wall (Acoustic
Wall), 1970
8 "Reflex ive action is very dif fer ent from reflex ‐
ive thought […]. To quote Nau man,  "an aware ‐
ness of your self comes from a cer tain amount
of activ i ty and you can’t get it from just think ‐
ing about your self "[…] Nau man thus exper i ‐
ments with the way in which a pure ly men tal
act can affect the cor po re al expe ri ence. […]
This mobi liza tion of con cep tu al iza tion in rela ‐
tion to expe ri ence revers es the usu al hier ar ‐
chy between thought and expe ri ence, which is
no longer addressed as a way of under stand ‐
ing, but as a way of feel ing, at the ser vice of
a per son al expe ri ence. The hier ar chy that tra ‐
di tion al ly places thought above sen so ry expe ‐
ri ence is reversed, and the process is ori ent ed
towards the sen so ry and affec tive expe ri ence
of the sit u a tion " . See: Noè Souli er,  “Action as
a work” , in Bruce Nau man. Con trap pos to Stud ‐
ies, ed. Car los Basu al do (Venice: Mar silio,
2021), 109–114.
9 See Nature Morte, 2020.
Space, Body, Architecture 79
Nauman's work thus trans lates the clas si cal con trap pos to into a com plex
reflec tion on knowl edge and art, but also nec es sar i ly ques tions the spa tial
dimen sion of the scene or archi tec ture in which the event takes place.
The nar row cor ri dor in which Nau man forced him self to walk in 1968
was already part of the work, as well as his sway ing body. And the stu dio
where he cre at ed and still car ries out his per for mances (and which in the lat -
est expe ri ences lit er al ly becomes the the atre of a  "3D vir tu al vis it") is an
inte gral part of the work. Just as impor tant is the aur al dimen sion that
accom pa nies the action and in some way reads the space of the work.
There fore, in his work there is a close involve ment of the archi tec tur al
space in the artis tic event: an archi tec tur al space, lit er al ly mea sured and
shaped by the artist's body movements.
2. Tadao Ando’s Museum Spaces
I ven ture here—beyond the spe cif ic inten tions of the artist and of the curator
—a pos si ble role of affin i ty and sup port, with in this process, of the muse um
archi tec ture itself that hous es the works’ instal la tion, fur ther empha sized
through the exhi bi tion design project.
In the case of the Venet ian exhi bi tion, it seems inter est ing to me to
inves ti gate the rela tion ship that implic it ly is estab lished between Nauman's
works and the spaces of the Dogana, restored and revis it ed some years ago
by Tadao Ando.
In fact, Ando's spa tial con cep tion of archi tec ture has var i ous points of
con tact with the reflec tion on the dialec tic between tra di tion and inno va tion
that we have seen in a cer tain way as the sub ject of Nauman's work and with
the phenomenological/perceptive out comes that sub stan ti ate his
own research.
This seems to be true both in the devices Ando adopt ed to com bine the
restora tion of the pre-exist ing build ing with his own archi tec tur al-spa tial
inven tion (see in par tic u lar the incor po ra tion of the cen tral  "cube" in
exposed con crete into the brick body of the ancient ser i al  "ware hous es") and
above all in the con ju ga tion of abstrac tion and fig u ra tion, of West ern tra di -
tion and ori en tal sen si bil i ty, which is the basis of all his archi tec tur al work,
reflect ed in a rar efied spa tial i ty of absolute sobri ety and intense emo tion -
al empathy. 
In many of Ando's works, in fact, the abstract/geometric ele ments of
archi tec ture rein ter pret the forms of nature, delim it them, enclose them, con -
tain them, to the point of extract ing a ratio nal order, in a tight dialec tic
between abstrac tion and corporeality.
8
9
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
10 Tadao Ando, “ Une super po si tion de couch es
abstraites et con crétes” , in Tadao Ando, Pen ‐
sées sur l’architecture et le paysage, ed. Yann
Nus saume (Paris: Arlea, 1999), 93–95.
11 I like to imag ine — remarks Tadao Andō,  
“Lumière, ombre et forme” in Tadao Ando,
Pen sées sur l’architecture et le paysage, ed.
Yann Nus saume (Paris: Arlea, 1999), 132 —
puri fied spaces, delim it ed by attics, walls and
ceil ings (often of a sin gle mate r i al) […]. When
man comes into con tact with this type of
space, the lat ter — an impris oned sol id vol ‐
ume — is enhanced under the effect of the
rays of light and nat ur al ele ments such as the
wind, trans form ing into a liv ing, more flu id
space which it forms a body with man him ‐
self” . See: Tadao Andō,  “D'une archi tec ture
mod erne …” , in Tadao Ando, Pen sées sur
l’architecture et le paysage, ed. Yann Nus ‐
saume (Paris: Arlea, 1999), 52.
12 Ibid, 163.
Space, Body, Architecture 81
The recov ery of forms and pro ce dures typ i cal of abstract art, and of Josef
Albers in par tic u lar, is strong ly present in his design imagery and gives
shape to an orig i nal way of design ing architecture.
Andō writes:  "The result is the tran si tion from an abstract archi tec ture,
devel oped accord ing to strict geo met ric rules, to anoth er con crete one, which
cov ers the appear ance of the human body. I think the key to this trans for ma -
tion is the labyrinthine nature of my work. Artic u lat ing sim ple geo met ric
shapes in a labyrinth is equiv a lent to merg ing an imag i nary Pirane sian
labyrinth with in an Albers-style paint ing. My main goal is thus to make pos -
si ble the joint expres sion of the con crete and the abstract in archi tec ture".
Mind ful of the art of Japan ese gar dens, but not far from Mies van der
Rohe’s mod ern mas tery, the artic u la tion of space by means of walls cre at ed
by Andō allows to trace guid ed paths for the visitor's gaze, to design
sequences of spaces and inter vals (almost sound-silences), thus offer ing the
vis i tor the pos si bil i ty of pro gres sive ly expe ri enc ing the landscape.
The avant-garde abstract geome tries of art and archi tec ture can thus be
com bined with an atten tion, which again we could say is  "phe nom e no log i -
cal", to the forms of archi tec ture and land scape. The  "spa tial" tra di tion of
Japan ese archi tec ture inter venes to  "human ize" the abstract and ratio nal con -
tri bu tion of mod ern West ern architecture.
Fur ther more, in all Tadao Andō’s works, the wall—with an unusu al
thick ness and body—has a fun da men tal and in some respects autonomous
pres ence: it not only has an envelop ing, delim it ing func tion, but it is often
a free ele ment with its own auton o my and becomes a screen upon which
light and shad ows are pro ject ed: a vibrant and vital sur face.
Geom e try is then re-eval u at ed, but no longer as an instru ment of cold,
abstract ratio nal iza tion of forms, rather as a tool capa ble of mak ing peo ple to
react pos i tive ly and enhance the expres sive poten tial of nat ur al spaces and
shapes, includ ing the human bod ies inter act ing with those spaces.
“Geom e try, despite its non-ran dom char ac ter, con cen trates mul ti ple
mean ings […] — explains Andō  — iso lates land scapes, struc tures them,
high lights them, induces people's move ments, makes them walk, stop, go up
or down. It also manip u lates the inten si ty of light and, by iso lat ing and col -
lect ing the shad ows in the back ground, cre ates light waves in space. The
geom e try applied to the archi tec ture high lights the speci fici ty of the site and,
by sub ject ing it to a vio lent dia logue, sub li mates it and gives it a new
existence”.
If this is the spir it with which Ando designs his spaces, in direct rela -
tion ship with the per cep tions aroused in the peo ple who live there and tak ing
into account the needs of the move ment of such peo ple the sounds of their
steps, the lights and shad ows that are drawn on the sur faces, the tem per a ture
10
11
12
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
4
4 Tadao Ando, Museum of Punta della Dogana,
Venice
13 See Diag o nal Sound Wall, 1970, installed into
one of the halls at Pun ta del la Dogana.
14 "The con cept of Kias ma , explains Holl,
involves the building’s mass inter twin ing with
the geom e try of the city and land scape, which
are reflect ed in the shape of the build ing. An
implic it cul tur al line curves to link the build ‐
ing to Fin lan dia Hall while it also engages a  
"nat ur al line" con nect ing to the back land ‐
scape in the back ground and to Too lo Bay" .
See: Steven Holl, Kias ma, (Muse um of Con ‐
tem po rary Art: Helsin ki, 1998), 16.
Space, Body, Architecture 83
with which they can touch or lean against the walls …), we under stand how
a per for ma tive art based on body move ments such that of Nau man can find
inter est ing cor re spon dences with the spa tial i ty of Ando's muse um. This is
true either in sit u a tions in which he him self adds spa tial and tac tile devices
to the rooms or in the sit u a tions in which he orga nizes real phys i cal per for -
mances or where he orga nizes pure ly sound events, as well as where the
walls become mon u men tal pro jec tion screens of  "vir tu al" performances. 
The emo tion al ly charged  "geome tries" of Ando's archi tec ture can thus
pos i tive ly host Nauman's provo ca tions; the manip u la tion of the clas si cal
prin ci ples of geom e try, pro por tion, con trap pos to, in a con tem po rary mode,
seems to find a cer tain cor re spon dence in the work of Ando as in that of
Nau man, albeit act ing with obvi ous ly dif fer ing tools and techniques.
3. Kiasma
An inter est ing rela tion ship with Nauman's reflec tions on the sub ject of  "con -
trap pos to" can also be estab lished inci sive ly with anoth er par a dig mat ic work
of con tem po rary archi tec ture: Steven Holl's Kias ma Muse um in Helsinki.
The con cept of con trap pos to in clas si cal and Renais sance art is
compared–as pre vi ous ly mentioned—to the anal o gous con cept of  "chi as -
mus", a rhetor i cal fig ure which takes its name from the Greek let ter  "chi"
(X) and which arranges the words in a cross accord ing to ABBA scheme.
This con cept is explic it ly used by Holl to set up the project of the muse -
um; it is even sug gest ed by its epony mous name.
This approach of  "inter twin ing dif fer ent lines of rela tion ship with the
con text", which decides the over all shape of the build ing by giv ing it a tor -
sion that can actu al ly cor re spond to the coun ter bal anced pose of the stat ues
in con trap pos to, is equal ly and more deci sive in shap ing the inte ri or spaces
of the hall and the exhi bi tion rooms accord ing to a sort of con trolled defor -
ma tion such to give a dynam ic sense to museum’s expe ri en tial itin er ary.
Thus, vis i tors are offered a great vari ety of spa tial and per cep tive expe ri -
ences, albeit accord ing to a some what con trolled posture.
Holl explains that  "The gen er al char ac ter of the rooms, which are
almost rec tan gu lar with one wall curved allows for a silent yet dra mat ic
back drop for the exhi bi tion of con tem po rary art exhi bi tion. The slight vari a -
tion in room shape and size is due to the gen tly curved sec tion of the build -
ing which allows the hor i zon tal nat ur al light to enter in sev er al dif fer ent
ways. These rooms are meant to be silent, but not sta t ic; they are dif fer en ti -
at ed through their irreg u lar i ty. […] The con tin u ous unfold ing of chang ing
per spec tives con nects the inter nal expe ri ence to the over all con cept of inter -
twin ing or Kias ma. […] The geom e try has an inte ri or mys tery and an
13
14
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
5
5 Steven Holl, Kiasma Museum, Helsinki; photo Jani-
Matti Salo
15 Holl, Kias ma, 16–19.
16 The project con sist ed of five actions — Ori gin,
Rit u al, Announce ment, Grav i ty and Nudi ty —
which, in the inten tion of Vir gilio Sieni,  
"always gen er ate new res o nances between
the tables of the Atlas, where the study of the
frag ment and the details of the body unfolds
an archae o log i cal inves ti ga tion that faces the
present. At the heart of Ori gin, there is the
ges ture that unites a moth er to her child in
a spe cif ic form of inti ma cy, emo tion and beau ‐
ty. In Rit u al the bod ies cre at ed an unfold ed
chore og ra phy accord ing to the pas sage and
trans mis sion of ges tures and dynam ics in
con tin u ous vari a tion. Announce ment pre sent ‐
ed a hor i zon tal chore og ra phy in which very
slow migra tions of  "angels" com bined imper ‐
fec tion and sus pen sion through the ges tures
of non-pro fes sion al per form ers and dancers.
At the cen ter of Grav i ty was the body act ed
upon by oth er bod ies and which in turn infus ‐
es move ment in the oth er bod ies. Dance
embod ies the bal ance between forces, devel ‐
op ing a dic tio nary of exer cis es on grav i ty. In
Nudi ty com mon pos tures and ges tures, such
as kneel ing, sit ting or stand ing up, made up
an archive of the sim plest move ments, of the
infi nite chore o gra phies inscribed in the
shapes and artic u la tions of naked bodies” .
17 Enri co Pitozzi  “Anato mia del gesto. Con ver ‐
sazione con Vir gilio Sieni” , in Mate ria cor po.
Anatomie, scon fi na men ti, visioni, ed. Malv ina
Borgheri ni, (Mac er a ta: Quodli bet, 2019), 19.
Space, Body, Architecture 85
exte ri or hori zon which, like two hands clasp ing each oth er, form the archi -
tec tur al equiv a lent of a pub lic invi ta tion".
Hence, even Holl's Kias ma can be described with some prop er ties as
a con trap pos to archi tec ture, capa ble of introducing—akin to clas si cal
systems—those con trolled vari a tions that make it an inno v a tive episode in
the field of muse um archi tec ture and, above all, pre dis posed to a free and
vari able use and per cep tion both in rela tion to the visitor’s sen so ry expe ri -
ence and to the flex i bil i ty in wel com ing the very dif fer ent, and often inter ac -
tive, forms of art found in con tem po rary artist production.
4. Atlas of Gesture
Explor ing again the rela tion ship between archi tec ture and per form ing arts in
the  "tac tile" or  "cor po re al" def i n i tion of spaces (in par tic u lar those relat ed to
the world of chore og ra phy), I think it is equal ly inter est ing to ana lyze an
expe ri ence con duct ed in 2015 by Vir gilio Sieni at the Pra da Foun da tion in
Milan in direct con nec tion with the open ing exhi bi tion of that cul tur al cen -
ter, enti tled Ser i al Clas sic, curat ed by Sal va tore Set tis, once again focus ing
on clas si cal statuary. 
In this case, too, I am intrigued by the pos si bil i ty of inves ti gat ing how
these per for ma tive artis tic expe ri ences have dia logued, more or less explic it -
ly, with archi tec tur al spaces, designed in this case by a guru of con tem po rary
archi tec ture such as Rem Koolhaas.
In the two lev els of the so-called Podi um designed by Kool haas, where
the Ser i al Classic ancient art exhi bi tion had just end ed, Vir gilio Sieni's
project titled Atlante del gesto (Atlas of Ges ture) explic it ly dia logued with
the traces of that exhi bi tion and with the instal la tion cre at ed by OMA stu dio.
The chore o graph ic project was pro gram mat i cal ly planned to  “replace the sta -
t ic nature of clas si cal works with the dynamism and vital i ty of the bod ies of
the per sons involved in the chore o graph ic actions, trans form ing the exhi bi -
tion space into a land scape of ges tures”. Fur ther more, the door in the cen ter
of one of the glass walls of the Podi um and an inclined plat form, also
designed by OMA, allowed the numer ous dancers (pro fes sion als and non-
pro fes sion als) and even the pub lic to move freely between the inter nal and
exter nal spaces.
In his research enti tled Atlas of Ges turelySieni works pre cise ly on bod i -
ly expres sion look ing for a fusion of body and space, or — in his own words
— estab lish es a  "rela tion ship of anato my with the sur round ing envi ron -
ment". Pre cise ly Sieni declares that  "start ing from this con di tion it is pos si -
ble to define a space".
15
16
17
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
6
7
8
6 Serial Classic exhibition, Prada Foundation, Milan,
2015
7 Virgilio Sieni, Atlante del gesto, Prada Foundation,
Milan, 2015
8 Virgilio Sieni, Atlante del gesto, Annuncio, Prada
Foundation, Milan, 2015
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 28. Sieni then adds:  "The start ing point
— he notes, explain ing his exper i men ta tion —
is gen er al ly linked to the knowl edge of some
tech ni cal-com po si tion al aspects: it is nec es ‐
sary to bring the body to mar gin al ize thanks
to a knowl edge linked to the exer cise and its
qual i ty of exe cu tion. All that is sought-after
move ment, sequence, chore o graph ic phrase,
is mate r i al that it becomes essen tial to know
for pro fes sion al and non-pro fes sion al
dancers" (Ibid., 32).
20 Ibid., 34.
21 Ibid., 38–39.
Space, Body, Architecture 87
This space  “mea sure ment” through pos ture and body move ments seems to
me to be a very inter est ing tool for the ana lyt ic per cep tion, and there fore for
the design, of an archi tec tur al space. And it is inter est ing to note that even
Sieni—as pre vi ous ly not ed for Nauman—considers bod i ly expres sions in
a way—although based on  "slowed" and some times  "frozen" dynamics—that
ques tions clas si cal statuary’s sta tic i ty by pur su ing a phe nom e no log i cal
dimen sion of space which can be assim i lat ed to the themes raised by the
prob lem at ic of con trap pos to: it is not a coin ci dence that Sieni speaks of the
con cept of  “arche ol o gy of gesture”.
"Com pos ing is the act of orga niz ing a space by relat ing a series of ele -
ments to be bro ken up and then mod eled, in order to inhab it  "dif fi cult" exis -
ten tial regions and thus define an envi ron ment of mean ing. … (Look ing for)
a place that is not sym met ri cal, where the chore o graph ic design actu al ly
enhances the asym me tries, lead ing the dancers towards the edge of space,
[…] the move ment of the bod ies pro duces a mass, chan nels ener gies, (estab -
lish es) vol umes that inhab it bod ies ".
Sieni explains that  "The work of the acad e my on the art of ges ture aims
to pos i tive ly inter vene on the liv abil i ty of places and cities, help ing to define
a sense of belong ing: a field of action on which to graft a renew al of the
rela tion ship between the body of indi vid ual cit i zens and the con for ma tion of
their ter ri to ries to which they belong, the cul tur al prac tices in which they
ori ent their lives. […] Through the cre ation of vir tu ous cir cles between prac -
tices, visions and the redis cov ery of places, the var i ous projects, which have
grad u al ly been cre at ed, have led to the devel op ment of maps and paths capa -
ble of express ing a new vision of art and the city".
"I always say: the shape must be the con se quence of a whole inter nal
dynam ics, the way in which the organ press es on the spine and acti vates the
joint sys tem, thus allow ing the pro duc tion of a vis i ble shape out side. Con -
verse ly, the form is also under stood in the oppo site sense, that is to say
some thing that comes from out side and is ori ent ed with respect to the body
".
This research path is often linked to the abil i ty to subtract—to  "make
emptiness"—rather than to the accu mu la tion of ele ments.  “Each archi tec ture
of the body is a rede f i n i tion of what is left in space, as a form that man i fests
itself by degrees, planes and lev els. […] The body thus becomes a dia gram,
an ele ment that con nects all things togeth er, so con tem po rary that it becomes
an inter me di ary with the past”.
As was said for Nau man, the exer cise that repeats and trans mits ges -
tures inspired by works of ancient art becomes revealing.
18
19
20
21
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
9
9 Virgilio Sieni, Atlante del gesto, Rituale, Prada
Foundation, Milan, 2015
22 Kool haas does not seek a uni tary image for
his project but prefers to think about the idea
of a piece of city com posed of dif fer ent units
and aggre gat ed pre cise ly by inter sti tial space.
 "The new, the old, the hor i zon tal, the ver ti cal,
the wide, the nar row, the white, the black, the
open, the enclosed — all these con trasts
estab lish the range of oppo sites that define
the project" (Rem Kool haas, OMA Office Work
Search, Sep tem ber 21, 2022).
Space, Body, Architecture 89
5. The Podium
It is not easy to estab lish an imme di ate rela tion ship of these per for mances
with Kool haas' spa tial work as design er of the Pra da Foun da tion. What is
cer tain is that the spe cif ic build ing involved (the Podi um) is a sort of glass
case—a flu id space of evi dent Miesian tra di tion, pro ject ed towards the
vision of the out side yet char ac ter ized by move ments of the deck that
enhance its func tion as a podi um and atten u ates its pos si ble sta t ic nature,
instead encour ag ing flu id dynam ics, which are absolute ly not sym met ri cal. It
there fore lends itself to being defined as a plat form-stage or an open log gia
that pre pares itself to accom mo date the stat ue-objects as well as the mov ing
bod ies and that 
induces and favors direct rela tion ships with the exter nal space. Japan -
ese lan guage would define in this regard of a space ma or an engawa, that is,
in fact, an emp ty space of tran si tion between inside and outside.
In these types of flu id spaces, as well as in urban open spaces, the
space-body rela tion ship is nec es sar i ly defined by a dimen sion al flow with in
which it is the very move ment of the bod ies. Those move ments direct ly gov -
ern spa tial i ty, much more than the envelop ing walls, and almost as in a the -
atre stage, the parterre—the deck ing sur face and its modulations—as well as
the wings, the free walls that divide the space into dif fer ent but not com plet -
ed fields, play a fun da men tal role. Again, in this sense, the mas tery of Mies
van der Rohe appears to be the piv otal point of reference. 
More over, the whole work by Kool haas at the Pra da Foun da tion large ly
focus es on the preva lence of urban open space as the main ele ment in the
com po si tion of a series of sep a rate and dif fer ent build ing frag ments, some
pre-exist ing and some new.
This will ing ness to cre ate a col lec tive open space, not strict ly for mal -
ized, like an ancient ago ra, obvi ous ly favors the pro tag o nism of the move -
ment of bod ies in space and there fore the appro pri a tion of space by users, in
a per for ma tive dimension.
For this rea son, the com po si tion al phi los o phy adopt ed by Kool haas
finds a cer tain affin i ty with the ways of mea sur ing and dom i nat ing the space
typ i cal of chore o graph ic or the atre per for mances rep re sent ed, in this case, by
the expe ri ence of Vir gilio Sieni.
6. Forms of Resistance
In con clu sion, these two exam ples of the rela tion ship between artis tic per for -
mance and the con for ma tion of archi tec tur al space con vinc ing ly illus trate
the con tri bu tion that an interaction/ inter fer ence between the art of the body
22
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
23 See the sem i nar curat ed by Janko Roz ic,
Insight in Site. Glob al iza tion, cri sis and crit i cal
region al ism, Ljubl jana, May 26 2022, with
the par tic i pa tion of Juhani Pallasmaa. 
th
Space, Body, Architecture 91
and the art of space can pro vide to an archi tec tur al design approach in the
con fig u ra tion of hap tic space. This also pro vides mate r i al for a phe nom e no -
log i cal ly per cep tive and immer sive evo lu tion of design process es, capa ble of
estab lish ing an impor tant empath ic rela tion ship between the user and the
archi tec tur al space itself.
How ev er, I find it sig nif i cant that this type of sen si tiv i ty can be traced
back to an inno v a tive reflec tion on artis tic prin ci ples root ed in the clas si cal
artis tic tra di tion such as chi as mus or con trap pos to, in the con text of an
intense rela tion ship between tra di tion and innovation.
I won der, then, how such research can be placed in the con text of those  
"forms of resis tance" to what this issue of AR is con cerned, also recall ing
the famous appeal that Ken neth Framp ton addressed to archi tects in 1983 by
trac ing his Six Points for an Archi tec ture of Resis tance, recent ly cel e brat ed
and com ment ed on in Ljubl jana, forty years lat er.
23
Renato Bocchi Form of Resistance
Space, Body, Architecture 93
Bibliography
Andō, Tadao, “  Une superposition de couches abstraites et concrétes” . In Tadao Ando, Pensées sur
l’architecture et le paysage, ed. Yann Nussaume, 93-96. Paris: Arlea, 1999.
Andō, Tadao, “D'une architecture moderne fermée sur elle-même à l’universalité” . In Tadao Ando,
Pensées sur l’architecture et le paysage, ed. Yann Nussaume, 52-66. Paris: Arlea, 1999.
Basualdo, Carlos, “Volver sobre sus passos” . In Bruce Nauman. Contrapposto Studies, ed. Carlos
Basualdo, 95-99. Venice: Marsilio, 2021.
Batlle, Erica F., “Bruce Nauman: bodies at work” . In Bruce Nauman. Contrapposto Studies, ed. Carlos
Basualdo, 132-142. Venice: Marsilio, 2021.
Holl, Steven, Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art: Helsinki, 1998.
Krauss, Rosalind, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” , October 8 (1979): 30-44.
Krukowski, Damon, “Following the Sound” . In Bruce Nauman. Contrapposto Studies, ed. Carlos
Basualdo, 101-106. Venice: Marsilio, 2021.
OMA Oﬀice Work Search, September 21, 2022. https://www.oma.com/projects/f...
Pitozzi, Enrico, “Anatomia del gesto. Conversazione con Virgilio Sieni” . In Materia corpo. Anatomie,
sconfinamenti, visioni, ed. Malvina Borgherini, 19-39. Macerata: Quodlibet, 2019.
Soulier, Noè, “Action as a work” . In Bruce Nauman. Contrapposto Studies, ed. Carlos Basualdo, 107-116.
Venice: Marsilio, 2021.

95
Fabio Quici
Aesthetics of Resistance
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
1
2
1 Trisha Brown. Man Walking Down the Side of a
Building, SoHo, 1970 (from Trisha Brown: so that
the audience does not know whether I have
stopped dancing, Peter Eleey ed, catalogue of the
exhibition at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis,
2008)
2 Antony Gormley. Edge II (2000) at the Astrup
Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway.
© Fabio Quici
Aesthetics of Resistance 97
Fatal Attractions
In April of 1970, at 80 Woost er Street in Man hat tan, a man began walk -
ing on the side of a build ing, per fect ly erect and per fect ly per pen dic u lar to
its sur face [ 1 ]. His appar ent ly non cha lant walk ren dered near ly nat ur al
a move ment that in actu al i ty rad i cal ly altered his body’s rela tion ship with
grav i ty. The nat u ral ness of a move ment oth er wise tak en for grant ed under
nor mal con di tions was exalt ed in the para dox i cal sit u a tion enact ed before the
eyes of a group of spec ta tors involved in spite of them selves in a desta bi liz -
ing performance.
In con ceiv ing the per for mance of Man Walk ing Down the Side of
a Build ing (1970), Trisha Brown aimed to inter pret a nat ur al force like grav i -
ty, usu al ly tak en for grant ed in its man i fes ta tions, via a medi at ic chal lenge
through the human body and its move ment. How ev er, it was not a cus tom ary
chal lenge like climb ing, but a move ment that simul ta ne ous ly indulged and
coun tered the inescapable ver ti cal direc tion of a body that would nor mal ly
have been in free fall under those con di tions. The dis sim u la tion of the effort
of resis tance by Brown’s dancer became desta bi liz ing from the observers’
equal ly unnat ur al per spec tive with respect to the action tak ing place over
their heads. The con ven tion al and func tion al ori en ta tion of their bod ies in
the world was cast into doubt, open ing up unusu al forms of expe ri ence that
required rethink ing cer tain dynam ics of move ment, like those typ i cal of
a ges ture as nat ur al as that of walk ing. The per cep tion of the performer’s
mus cu lar effort in rela tion to grav i ty, fear-induced ten sion, the poten tial of
phys i cal strength and the force of resis tance enact ed through that sit u a tion
ampli fied the spec ta tors’ under stand ing of the mechan ics – and there fore the
lim i ta tions – of their own bodies.
Thir ty years after the Woost er Street per for mance, British artist Antony
Gorm ley appeared to have wished to pay her homage with the sculp ture
series Edge II (2000), in which his  ‘Gorm lems’ — as W.J. T. Mitchell liked
to call them — look down upon us from atop the walls of Oslo’s Astrup
Fearn ley Muse um [ 2 ] and Eton College’s Com mon Lane House. This time
deprived of move ment, the human fig ure behaves like an  ‘archi tec tur al
body’ and, chal leng ing the laws of grav i ty, appears to invite observers to
look at the world from a dif fer ent perspective.
Resis tance to grav i ty has shaped our bod ies just as we, as a func tion of
its action, have giv en shape to the built environment. 
The forms of archi tec ture are by their very nature the result of an act of
resis tance – a resis tance dis sim u lat ed at one time and exalt ed at another. 
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
3
4
5
3 The Ficus macrophylla in Piazza della Marina,
Palermo.
© Fabio Quici
4 Adalberto Libera. Palazzo della Regione, Trento,
1958-1965.
© Fabio Quici
5 Matthew Barney. Drawing Restraint 6, 1989-2004.
(from Matthew Barney: drawing restraint,
catalogue of the traveling exhibition Kanazawa -
Seoul - San Francisco, s.l., s.n.).
1 John Dewey, Art as Expe ri ence [1934] (New
York: Wideview/Perige Books, G.P. Putman’s
Sons, 1980), 160.
2 Cf Wal ter Ben jamin, Das Kunst werk im Zeital ‐
ter sein er tech nis chen Repro duzier barkeit,
from W. Ben jamin, Schriften (Frank furt am
Main: Suhrkamp Ver lag, 1955).
3 John Dewey, cit., 41.
4 Neville Wake field,  “Matthew Bar ney. Prayer
Sheet with the Wound and the Nail” , in
Matthew Bar ney. Prayer Sheet with the Wound
and the Nail, cat a logue of the exhi bi tion at the
Schaulager Foun da tion, Lau renz Foun da tion
ed. (Basel: Schwabe AG Ver lag, 2010), 10.
Aesthetics of Resistance 99
“Resis tance, ten sion and excite ment” are at the ori gin of artis tic pro duc tion,
along with the  “com po sure that cor re sponds to design and com po si tion in the
object,” as Dewey point ed out. But art and archi tec ture share these
assumptions.
Unlike the forms we find in nature, which are the result of a use ful
adap ta tion to their very sur vival [ 3 ], those of archi tec ture have nev er been
lim it ed to the mere sur vival of their inhab i tants. This is why con struc tions
built by peo ple embrace such cat e gories as arbi trari ness, dec o ra tion, and for -
mal exu ber ance [ 4 ]. Resis tance in this case often becomes a per for mance,
a chal lenge against grav i ty and more. As takes place in Brown’s per for mance
and in Gormley’s stat ues, the forms of archi tects are con ceived to elic it just
as many actions and reac tions from an oth er wise  “dis tract ed” soci ety at
large, as Wal ter Ben jamin was already point ing out at the start of the last
cen tu ry . It is a soci ety that archi tec ture address es by pro vid ing not only
shel ter — spaces for liv ing— but also a set of stim uli that ques tion the very
con cept of  ‘being in the world’. To these stim uli — visu al, tac tile, and
synaes thet ic — soci ety in turn can respond with forms of resis tance that are
for the most part emo tion al rather than ratio nal in nature. But when accept ed
and trans formed into expe ri ences, these resis tances become oppor tu ni ties for
eman ci pa tion, because  “strug gle and con flict may be them selves enjoyed,
although they are painful, when they are expe ri enced as means of devel op ing
an expe ri ence.”
The Unit ed States artist Matthew Bar ney, bring ing with him from his
past as an ath lete the idea that the mus cle tis sue of the human body is
strength ened when it encoun ters resis tance, devel oped the notion of  ‘resis -
tance as a cat a lyst for growth’, see ing in it a nec es sary pre req ui site for cre -
ativ i ty. This led to the per for mance series Draw ing Restraint 1–18 (from
1987), which pro duced mate ri als in the form of draw ings, pho tographs,
videos, and sculp tures. Using inclined plat forms, wires, and tram po lines,
Bar ney jumped towards the walls of a room, then towards the ceil ing, and
then remained sus pend ed in the void, thus gen er at ing designs on the sur faces
that bore wit ness to the effort of each indi vid ual ges ture. In Draw ing
Restraint 6 (1989÷2004), Bar ney, jump ing for an entire day on a mini-tram -
po line set at a 15° angle and leav ing a sin gle mark on the ceil ing with each
leap [ 5 ], man aged to pro duce a draw ing that allud ed to a self-por trait, but
also to some thing more. As Neville Wake field point ed out:  “Reach ing
against the resis tance of grav i ty and restraint, each mark rep re sent ed the
phys i cal effort of its mak ing along with the cir cles of exer tion, exhaus tion,
and recov ery that char ac ter ize our very exis tence as sen sate beings.”
The image of Matthew Bar ney strug gling against grav i ty in his ver ti cal
jumps and trac ing vari able tra jec to ries in the air can seem ing ly be glimpsed
1
2
3
4
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
6 7
8
6 Anish Kapoor with Cecil Balmond. Arcelormittal
Orbit (2012), Queen Elizabeth II OlympicPark,
London, 2014.
© Fabio Quici
7 Arcelormittal Orbit and the visitors, 2014.
© Fabio Quici
8 Raimund Abraham. Sphere Project, Museum für
angewandte Kunst, Wien, 1991. Photo of the
model: Gerhard Zugmann
5 Cf Oliv er Wain wright,  “Lon don has unveiled
its bom bas tic Olympic icon, but what does it
say about the city’s image for the 2012
Games?” , Domusweb 9 (2011).
6 Rober to Masiero, Estet i ca dell’architettura
(Bologna: Il Muli no, 1999), 225.
7 John Dewey, cit., 6.
8 Lebbeus Woods,  “Raimund Abraham’s Urwelt” ,
in Raimund Abra ham. [Un]built, ed. Brigitte
Groi hofer (Wien, New York: Springer-Ver lag,
2011), 224.
Aesthetics of Resistance 101
in the non-lin ear geom e try of Arcelor Mit tal Orbit (2010−2012), the 115-
metre tow er designed by Anish Kapoor for Queen Eliz a beth Olympic Park in
Lon don [ 6 ]. Here, the artist’s vision goes beyond the typ i cal par a digms of
tow ers, resort ing to the image of a frozen move ment that becomes dynam ic
again in the eyes of the pub lic invit ed to walk around and through the struc -
ture. The hyper trophic struc ture designed by Cecil Bal mond to give con crete
form to Kapoor’s artis tic ges ture coun ters grav i ta tion al forces with out dis -
sim u lat ing the ten sions that are gen er at ed. The ten sions are instead enact ed
with the pur pose of giv ing life to a dis man tled, inten tion al ly unsta ble image,
a shape that looms over vis i tors [ 7 ]. Whether defined as a  “con tort ed tan gle
of loops,” as an “implod ed roller coast er,” or as a  “tor tured scrunch of
entrails, stretched and knot ted into obliv ion,” the tow er con ceived by
Kapoor has become the late-com ing mon u ment to the aes thet ics of decon -
struc tion: an aes thet ics that has seen the forms of archi tec ture pre pared for
the event and  “placed into the inter stices between order and dis or der, weight
and light ness, sta bil i ty and insta bil i ty, inti ma cy and inhos pi tal i ty, opac i ty
and trans paren cy, sym me try and dis sym me try har mo ny and dishar mo ny, pro -
por tion and dis pro por tion, form and func tion, super flu ous ness and pur pose,
dec o ra tion and struc ture.” But it is pre cise ly in the very cir cum stances
when one is at the mer cy of oppo sites – when we con front the unusu al, when
the forms of art and archi tec ture, over com ing the reas sur ing con ven tions,
defy our resis tance by enact ing ten sions rather than seek ing bal ance – that
our  “sense of imme di ate liv ing” is inten si fied.
These ten sions were addressed by Raimund Abra ham when he con -
ceived his Sphere Project (1991). A large, met al sphere had been designed
by the Aus tri an archi tect to appear perched in pre car i ous equi lib ri um at the
out er most edge of a con crete plat form at the end of a podi um to be placed on
the Ter rassen plateau of Vienna’s Muse um of Applied Art (Muse um für ange -
wandte Kun st – MAK) [ 8 ]. The sphere was to have been held in place by
a sin gle steel cable anchored to a wall, whose vari a tions in ten sion due to
changes in tem per a ture were to be off set by spe cial mech a nisms inside the
sphere. Seen from below, the sphere would have appeared pre car i ous ly bal -
anced; seen from the podi um on the ter race, it was to have giv en the impres -
sion of being about to plunge down ward. If built, the instal la tion would have
enact ed a mechan i cal and com po si tion al game aimed at allud ing to a con di -
tion of uncer tain ty of soci ety as a whole. Lebbeus Woods wrote about the
project:  “Abraham’s sphere, and the uni ty it pre sup pos es, is only one ele -
ment in an ensem ble, the fragili ty and tem po rari ness of its posi tion cor re -
sponds to the post-Enlight en ment con di tion of insta bil i ty, uncer tain ty and
inde ter mi na cy which mod ern life presents and which rea son alone can not be
cod i fied as a sta tus quo, as – or in a fixed and deter min is tic state.”
5
6
7
8
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
9 10 11
12 13
9 Giulio Romano. Dettaglio del primo cortile di
Palazzo Tè (1524-1534), Mantova.
© Dida Biggi (from Casabella 559, 1989)
10 Peter Eisenman. Wexner Center for the Arts (1989),
Columbus, Ohio, 1995.
© Fabio Quici
11 Anton García-Abril. Balancing Act, 12th
International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale
di Venezia, 2010.
© Fabio Quici
12 Maria Matilde House, Lisboa, Portugal, 2022.
© Fabio Quici
13 Rachel Whiteread. House, London, UK, 1993.
© John Davies (courtesy John Davies)
Aesthetics of Resistance 103
While archi tec ture is by its very nature the art of equi lib ri um, of sta bil i ty, its
forms are not always con ceived sole ly to with stand stress es or to give reas -
sur ing shape to our hous ing. In coun ter ing grav i ty and bound ing space,
archi tec ture also casts into plain view those invis i ble forces that it coun ters,
mak ing them vis i ble.  “Archi tec ture is the adap ta tion of forms to oppos ing
forces” accord ing to John Ruskin’s pop u lar apho rism. While Raimund
Abraham’s sphere may in fact be con sid ered the archi tec tur al coun ter part of
Trisha Brown’s Man Walk ing Down the Side of a Build ing per for mance
piece, on many occa sions archi tects have giv en vis i bil i ty to these invis i ble
forces by work ing pre cise ly with those struc tur al ele ments called into ques -
tion in the pur suit of Vit ru vian fir mi tas. But giv en that achiev ing equi lib ri um
and pro por tion in archi tec ture appears to soothe the sens es and urge only
pas sive con tem pla tion, at times we look to the  ‘cat e go ry of the sub lime’
rather than to that of the  ‘beau ti ful’, in order to dis play  “strength and
fatigue” (to para phrase Edmund Burke) through the use – and even the arti fi -
cial use – of dis crep an cies and alter ations of shapes and of the equi lib ria
them selves. There fore, if the metope and the triglyph at Mantua’s Palaz zo Tè
(1524−1534) slide down ward [ 9 ] by the effect of those same forces that
trans formed into a ruin the mag nif i cence of the clas si cal archi tec ture
observed by Giulio Romano, cen turies lat er, the  ‘rep re sen ta tion of insta bil i -
ty’ takes the forms of a pil lar sus pend ed in the air [ 10 ] at Peter Eisenman’s
Wexn er Cen ter for the Arts (Colum bus, Ohio, 1989). 
On the occa sion of the 12 Venice Bien nale of Archi tec ture, it was to
be Antón Gar cía-Abril to make the forces of resis tance in action vis i ble in
the instal la tion Bal anc ing Act (2010). By insert ing a sec ond struc tur al line,
taut and unsta ble as well as dis so nant with the orig i nal one of the Corderie
dell’Arsenale, Gar cía-Abril aimed to under mine the per cep tion of the reas -
sur ing struc tur al lines of the six teenth-cen tu ry lon gi tu di nal space. Two dou -
ble T pre fab ri cat ed con crete beams placed one on top of the oth er, one of
which bur dened by a con crete weight and coun ter bal anced by a large spring
placed at the oppo site end [ 11 ], high light ed, in the Biennale’s spaces, the
poten tial aes thet ics of the con cept of weight and resis tance. Grav i ty, which
for cen turies has trans mit ted its load to the Arse nale build ing and been dis -
trib uted through the large mason ry columns, found a way to com bine and
react with the new diag o nal struc ture, gen er at ing  ‘an intense fric tion' that
gave rise to a new, unset tling read ing of the involved space.
Oppositions
In cities, one may encounter on a dai ly basis expres sions of resilience by
the pop u la tion, man i fest ed in the form of excep tions to the urban fabric’s
t h
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
14
15
14 Caruso St John Architects and Thomas Demand.
Nagelhaus (2007), Zürich, Switzerland. (courtesy
Caruso St John Architects)
15 The famous Nail House in Chongqing remained
isolated within the construction site, 2007.
9 Cf Antho ny Vidler, Warped Space. Art, Archi ‐
tec ture, and Anx i ety in Mod ern Cul ture [2000]
(Milano: Post media, 2009), 119.
10 Jean Nou v el,  “Emo tion and rea son,” inter view
by Wal ter Mar i ot ti in Jean Nou v el. Inven tion
springs from char ac ter, sup ple ment to Domus
1063 (2021): 9.
Aesthetics of Resistance 105
grad u al ly trans form ing log ic. A pop u lar exam ple has become that of Edith
Macefield’s small house in Seattle’s Bal lard neigh bour hood. Besieged by
a mod ern com mer cial devel op ment in 2006, Edith’s lit tle house, dat ing to
the 1950s, sur vived even her death in 2008 thanks to the pop u lar i ty it
enjoyed after it inspired Pixar’s pop u lar ani mat ed film Up (2009). And near
the Belém Tow er in Lis bon, while cross ing the pedes tri an bridge over Aveni -
da da Índia, one may encounter a unique house that seems to have sunk into
the pave ment of a plaza. This is the house of Maria Matilde [ 12 ], which
dates to the nine teenth cen tu ry. Now for got ten by Lisbon’s toponymy and
hav ing been left with no street address, the house held out against the demo -
li tions in the mod ern iza tion of the Reste lo quar ter, and now stands as mute
tes ti mo ny to the his to ry of the area and of a lifestyle, with its exte ri or plants
and hang ing laun dry, that peo ple nowa days almost wish to con ceal. Seen in
this way, in its iso la tion, the house of Maria Matil da seems ready to become
one of Rachel Whiteread’s casts, with which the British artist  ‘pre serves the
every day’ and  ‘gives author i ty to the for got ten things’. Even her famous
House (1993−1994), the cast of a Lon don ter race house that was to be
demol ished [ 13 ], was seen as a  “mon u ment to an unhealthy and claus tro pho -
bic past” and sub ject ed to attacks by the Lon don Coun try Coun cil.
In fact, in spite of their anonymi ty, these forms of resilience seem
almost intend ed to affirm, by their sim ple pres ence, the noble ide al —
recent ly evoked by Jean Nou v el in the mag a zine Domus — of an archi tec -
ture intend ed as  “resis tance against the sys tem, against phys i cal glob al i sa -
tion that does not respect the genius loci, the spir it of places, the con text, the
dif fer ences between peo ple.”
In Chi na, the so-called  ‘Nail Hous es’ have them selves become sym bols
of resis tance to and oppo si tion against the dev as tat ing urban renew al poli -
cies fol low ing the Asian giant’s eco nom ic rev o lu tion. In this case as well,
these are small, anony mous hous es iso lat ed in the urban con text, whose
own ers — con sid ered  ‘trou ble mak ers’ — refused to aban don them so as
make way for the new, intru sive con struc tions favoured by the government’s
poli cies. Called dingz i hu in Chi nese, these Nail Hous es, in addi tion to being
a sym bol of oppo si tion, have at times also become the last trace of an urban
mem o ry now inevitably lost and entrust ed only to urban frag ments or peri od
photographs. 
In 2007, the British archi tec ture stu dio Caru so St John Archi tects, in
col lab o ra tion with the Ger man artist Thomas Demand, drew inspi ra tion from
one of these Nail Hous es to enter a major pub lic art com pe ti tion for the city
of Zürich [ 14 ]. That very year, the bat tle waged by the own er of a mod est,
two-storey brick home in Chongqing against the builders who had lit er al ly
left a void around it [ 15 ] became an Inter net sen sa tion due to the extra or din-
9
10
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
16
16 Herzog & de Meuron. Elbphilarmonie - The
contruction site as a common ground of diverging
interests, installation at the 13th International
Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia,
2012.
© Fabio Quici
11 Jacques Her zog and Pierre de Meu ron.  
“Elbphil har monie — The con struc tion site as
a com mon ground of diverg ing inter ests” in
Com mon Ground, cat a logue of the 13 Inter ‐
na tion al Archi tec ture Exhi bi tion, La Bien nale
di Venezia, ed. David Chip per field (Venice:
Mar silio, 2012), 90.
th
Aesthetics of Resistance 107
ary images that doc u ment ed the events. In spite of Ms. Wu Ping’s well-com -
pen sat ed sur ren der in April of 2007, the cit i zens of Chongqing still
expressed their admi ra tion for her oppo si tion to the gov ern ment and to the
devel op ers, bestow ing upon her the nick name  'Stub born Nail’. This was the
inspi ra tion for Nagel haus, the win ning entry by Caru so St John Archi tects
and Thomas Demand. The project inter pret ed the dif fi cult con tex tu al con di -
tions of a for mer indus tri al area under go ing dra mat ic trans for ma tion near
Esch er Wyss Platz. It con sist ed of two mod est pre fab ri cat ed tim ber build ings
placed beneath a road viaduct, con tain ing a Chi nese restau rant, pub lic toi -
lets, and a kiosk. Their vol umes, in rela tion to the dif fer ent scale of the road
infra struc ture loom ing over it, were to give the impres sion of hav ing stood
their pre vi ous ly, appear ing almost as  ‘archae o log i cal frag ments.' With their
milled tim ber boards paint ed inside and out, they aimed to pro vide only an
abstract and approx i mate image of the Chi nese orig i nal, almost to demon -
strate how their sources were only poor-res o lu tion pho tographs obtained
from the Inter net. The project would then have become the rep re sen ta tion of
a rep re sen ta tion — an oper a tion in full Thomas Demand style — laden with
polit i cal and social impli ca tions. How ev er, as fate would have it, this kind of
 ‘memo r i al to the resis tance’ of the sin gle indi vid ual hold ing out against the
pow ers that be found a dif fer ent type of resis tance in Switzer land: that of
pub lic opin ion. Far-right polit i cal groups unin clined to jus ti fy the high costs
for build ing the project (evi dent ly too con cep tu al to be under stood by
a broad pub lic) led the cit i zens of Zurich to put a stop to the initiative.
At the Com mon Ground (2012) edi tion of the Venice Bien nale of Archi -
tec ture curat ed by David Chip per field [ 16 ], Her zog & de Meu ron demon -
strat ed that the mak ing of a pub lic work is, in its essence, the result of
patient medi a tion among con flict ing posi tions. In sub mit ting the design of
the Hamburg’s Elbphil har monie then under way, the two Swiss archi tects
aimed above all to show how the enor mous work site in HafenCi ty had been
grad u al ly trans formed from an emblem of civic pride into  “a bat tle field”
between three main play ers: the client (the City of Ham burg), the gen er al
con trac tor and the architect/general plan ner. «Ide al ly, the con struc tion site of
every build ing project is a plat form of inter ac tion that engages these three
main forces; in this case, it relent less ly exposed con flict ing inter ests and
require ments. The sto ry of the Elbphil har monie pro vides, as an exam ple, an
insight into the extremes that mark the real i ty of plan ning and build ing
today.”
In San ti a go (Chile), the social con flict that broke out in Octo ber of
2019 with a series of demon stra tions — known as the Estal li do social —
against cor rup tion and the high cost of liv ing, found in the Gabriela Mis tral
Cul tur al Cen ter (arch. Cris t ian Fer nan dez + Lat er al Arqui tec tura) an ide al
11
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
17 18
19
20
17 The Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (arch. Cristian
Fernandez + Lateral Arquitectura) in Santiago del
Chile, December 2019.
© Fabio Quici
18 Some of the protest images on the walls of the
Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center in Santiago del
Chile, December 2019.
© Fabio Quici
19 A tourist takes a selfie in front of the Gabriela
Mistral Cultural Center, December 2019.
© Fabio Quici
20 How to Guide: Makeshift Tear-Gas Mask.
Illustrated by Marwan Kaabour, at Barnbrook; from
Disobedient Objects exhibition, Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, 2014.
12 Dis obe di ent Objects, Gavin Frindon and
Cather ine Flood cura tors, Vic to ria & Albert
Muse um, Lon don, 26 July 2014 — 1 Feb ru ‐
ary 2015.
Aesthetics of Resistance 109
loca tion for high light ing rep re sen ta tions of dis con tent [ 17 ]. On street lev el,
the main façade in pierced cop per of the cul tur al cen tre on Aveni da Lib er ta -
dor Bernar do O’Higgins became, in the win ter of 2019, a gallery of social
protest in the form of a vast reper toire of street art tech niques: posters, tag -
ging, sten cils, stick ers, instal la tions, and wheat paste [ 18 ]. This spon ta neous -
ly cre at ed gallery gave vis i bil i ty to the mis treat ment and abus es of pow er
per pe trat ed against the demon stra tors by the nation al police and the army.
From the streets and pub lic squares where the demon stra tions took place,
civ il soci ety had cho sen an archi tec ture con ceived as a social con denser to
gath er the rep re sen ta tions of its own resis tance. Like the tables dis played by
Her zog & de Meu ron at the Venice Bien nale, which col lect ed and exhib it ed
the news pa per arti cles and images that had accom pa nied the events at their
work site as they unfold ed, in San ti a go the façades of the Gabriela Mis tral
Cul tur al Cen ter had been cho sen to draw the atten tion of pub lic opin ion not
only to what took place dur ing those weeks, but also to the var i ous forms of
injus tice that afflict ed the  ‘social work site’ of a coun try in transformation. 
While in San ti a go it was above all the aes thet ic and artis tic qual i ties
[ 19 ] of these forms of protest, as they put them selves on dis play in an open-
air exhi bi tion gallery, that reached the unin formed tourist just hap pen ing by,
in 2014 the  ‘prod ucts’ of the protests found offi cial place at a pres ti gious
exhi bi tion venue. 
The  ‘pow er ful role of objects in move ments for social change’ was
exam ined for the first time at the Dis obe di ent Objects show at London’s
Vic to ria & Albert Muse um. This was a case not of cel e brat ing pop u lar artis -
tic expres sions by street artists, but of demon strat ing how polit i cal activism
is also capa ble of nour ish ing design inge nu ity and cel e brat ing col lec tive cre -
ativ i ty by pro duc ing objects that ‘defy stan dard def i n i tions of art and
design’. The forms of resis tance thus took on the appear ance of inge nious
objects assem bled with com mon mate ri als, use ful for pro pa gan da, for per -
son al defence, but also for vio lent action: makeshift tear-gas masks; buck et
pam phlet bombs; book bloc shields; lock-on devices; chang ing designs for
bar ri cades and block ades; exper i men tal activist-bicy cles; etc. Every exhib it -
ed item was also accom pa nied by videos, fly ers, and pho tographs show ing
the geo graph ic and polit i cal con text and the bat tles for which they had been
cre at ed – an iden ti ty at times already declared by their own tech ni cal and
mor pho log i cal char ac ter is tics [ 20 ].
The show at the Vic to ria & Albert Muse um demon strat ed pre cise ly how
the shape of objects is a  ‘trans mis si ble rep re sen ta tion of the cor re spon dence
among acts of resis tance’, a rep re sen ta tion capa ble of keep ing alive the
mem o ry of peo ples’ abil i ty to cre ate but also to destroy and sub vert. In the
end, the frag ments of the Berlin wall we find today scat tered through out the
12
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
21
22
23
24
21 Bosa District, Bogotà, Colombia, 2010.
© Fabio Quici
22 The decorations on the facades of the houses in
Bogotà, Colombia, 2010.
© Fabio Quici
23 Fences in Bogotà, Colombia, 2009.
© Fabio Quici
24 Marjetica Potrč. Pattern Protects 2007; from
Making Worlds, 53rd International Art Exhibition,
La Biennale di Venezia, 2009
13 Rao Vyayan thi,  “Slum as The o ry”, Lotus Inter ‐
na tion al, 143 (2010): 10–17
14 Cf Car los Basu al do,  “Dell’espressione del la
crisi,” Dreams and Con flicts: The Dic ta tor ship
of the View er, ed. Francesco Bona mi, cat a ‐
logue of the 50 Inter na tion al Art Exhi bi tion,
La Bien nale di Venezia, (Venice: Mar silio,
2003), 243.
th
15 Ibid, 244.
Aesthetics of Resistance 111
world, from Rich mond, Vir ginia to Paris, from Toron to to Brus sels, in the
Vat i can Gar dens or beside the uni ver si ty library of Cot tbus, remind us pre -
cise ly of this:  ‘resis tance is a right’.
Self-Determinations
An expres sion of the  ‘pos i tive free dom of peo ple’, self-deter mi na tion is
man i fest ed through actions and objects that speak of the aspi ra tions of peo -
ples and of their strength to trans form the places they inhab it. In spite of the
com mon ly neg a tive def i n i tion com mon ly giv en to the results of the spon ta -
neous trans for ma tions result ing from these aspi ra tions, the the o ret i cal
research that has been done on fave las, bar rios, zhopad pat tis, kam pungs, and
the world’s periph eries demon strates the extreme live li ness and inter est that
these phe nom e na show from the social, polit i cal, archi tec tur al, and urban
per spec tive. As anthro pol o gist Vyayan thi Rao, direc tor of the Ter reform
Cen ter for Advanced Urban Research in New York, has observed:  “the slum
appears over and over as a the o ret i cal ly pro duc tive spa tial ecol o gy.”
The Argen tine Car los Basu al do, cura tor of the sec tion enti tled The
Struc ture of Sur vival at the 50 Venice Bien nale (2003), had col lect ed the
inter pre ta tions pro vid ed by more than 25 inter na tion al artists for the cur rent
sit u a tions in fave las and shan ty towns. Defin ing shan ty towns as  “spaces of
resis tance,” Basu al do saw in these places a pro duc tion of orig i nal forms of
social i ty, of alter na tive economies, and of  “var i ous forms of aes thet ic
strength.” In these places of the unpre dictabil i ty and nego ti a tion result ing
from cri sis sit u a tions, the aes thet ic act was seen as the  “moment of assert ing
the person’s auton o my with respect to a pos si ble world, while liv ing through
and over com ing cri sis.”
Only when walk ing the streets of the infor mal city can one com pre hend
how the uncon trolled devel op ment of these places is not just an act of neces -
si ty con nect ed to hous ing, but also con tains forms of affir ma tion pass ing by
way of forms of vis i bil i ty [ 21 ]. In Bogotá, paint shops have become the new
cathe drals of the infor mal city. Amid dwellings in con tin u ous trans for ma -
tion, with their trun cat ed con crete pil lars and open rebar ready to accom mo -
date new floors, the use of colour and of now cod ed geo met ric motifs in the
façades is not only dec o ra tion but recounts a pro gres sive eman ci pa tion, both
eco nom ic and social, of the fam i ly unit while it takes place [ 22 ]. Colour
restores iden ti ty and rec og niz abil i ty in an oth er wise homolo gat ing con text.
Recov er ing iden ti ty is a neces si ty vir tu al ly ignored by the Bogotá admin is -
tra tion, which con tin ues to offer new row hous ing and blocks of mul ti-storey
hous es with bal cony access with out under stand ing the social dynam ics and
the aspi ra tions of the pop u la tion that will have to inhab it them. The fences
13
t h
14
15
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
26
27
26 Torre David in Caracas
27 Novi Beograd, Serbia, 2014.
© Fabio Quici
16 Yona Fried man,  “Basic & Irreg u lar,” Domus
893 (2006): 74.
Aesthetics of Resistance 113
pro tect ing the prop er ties, as a form of resis tance among equals, whether in
Bogotá, Cara cas, or Guatemala City, become forms of iden ti ty and aes thet ic
expres sions [ 23 ]. It is no coin ci dence that the Sloven ian archi tect Mar jet i ca
Potrč, for her archi tec tur al case stud ies shown at art gal leries around the
world, takes her inspi ra tion from the spon ta neous set tle ments in South
Africa, Colom bia, Brazil, and many oth er places, to recount the dif fi cult
con di tions (envi ron men tal, social, eco nom ic, polit i cal, etc.) that gave shape
to their exis tence, while at the same time high light ing the cre ativ i ty of resis -
tance in its var i ous man i fes ta tions [ 24 ]. In Mar jet i ca Potrč’s well-trained
eyes, as in the eyes of any archi tect will ing to pay atten tion to the sug ges -
tions pro vid ed by both con sol i dat ed and expand ing cities, the population’s
needs and aspi ra tions emerge in the urban fab ric with sim i lar man i fes ta tions,
albeit in very dif fer ent social con texts. There are telling con nec tions that tie
Potrč’s archi tec tur al case stud ies, inspired by the per son al and inge nious
hous ing solu tions of South Amer i can urban agglom er ates, to her designs that
look to the Balkan pop u la tions and to their way of oppos ing the inher i tance
of Sovi et-style mod ernist utopias – and these utopias’ dream of the anony -
mous indi vid ual in the metrop o lis [ 25 ]. Both cas es show the rejec tion of
anonymi ty while cel e brat ing impro vi sa tion and adap ta tion as cat e gories of
an organ ic hous ing more respon sive to the chang ing needs of individuals. 
Yona Fried man, in his praise for irreg u lar struc tures, high light ed not
only the for mal rich ness that derives from them, but also their  “excep tion al
tol er ance for impre ci sion” that makes them acces si ble even to non-pro fes -
sion al builders, with impor tant social con se quences:  “Irreg u lar struc tures not
only admit impro vi sa tion, they also admit that each per son can make
improve ments to them.”
How ev er, the reg u lar struc ture of a sky scraper can also become a man i -
festo of resis tance and self-deter mi na tion in the absence of ade quate
respons es by pub lic insti tu tions. The Torre de David (or Cen tro Financiero
Con fi nan zas) in Cara cas has become an emblem at ic case of adap ta tion and
self-reg u la tion of the com mu ni ty of squat ters inside a stiff, mod u lar struc ture
appar ent ly extra ne ous to the organ ic com plex i ty of infor mal set tle ments. The
45-storey sky scraper in down town Cara cas, nev er fin ished and left in a state
of aban don ment in the ear ly 1990s, has become a het erotroph, an infor mal
ver ti cal set tle ment, an ambigu ous space, fol low ing its occu pa tion by 200
home less fam i lies in Octo ber of 2007 [ 26 ]. Over the years, the num ber of
fam i lies grew to 750, and the inhab i tants, with great resource ful ness, began
to fill and con form the spaces based on their needs, and to an extent pro por -
tion al to their abil i ty to obtain mate ri als, and there fore to their own eco nom -
ic pos si bil i ties. This com mu ni ty, orga nized into a coop er a tive that self-reg u -
lates the tower’s life and its rela tions with the out side in the same man ner as
16
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
25
25 Marjetica Potrč. Caracas: Growing Houses (2012),
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie; 2013
purchased by the Stiftung des Vereins der Freunde
der Nationalgalerie für zeitgenössische Kunst
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie /
Jan Windszus (courtesy the Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Nationalgalerie)
17 Simone & Lucien Kroll. Une archi tec ture
habitée, (s.l.: Actes Sud, 2013), 230.
18 Ibid, 310.
Aesthetics of Resistance 115
a con do mini um on Park Avenue in New York, has been the sub ject of social,
anthro po log i cal, eco nom ic, urban, and archi tec tur al stud ies. Nev er the less,
the aes thet ic impact of the pho tographs of the Torre de David by the Dutch
pho tog ra ph er Iwan Baan were essen tial to mak ing this real i ty known to the
world at large, and for bring ing it into gal leries and into the most pres ti gious
inter na tion al art exhi bi tions. One of the most well-known pho tos, the one
depict ing a por tion of the tower’s exte ri or face with the storeys plugged var i -
ous ly with bricks and cur tains, does not offer an image that is, in sub stance,
so alien in its for mal het ero gene ity. Even in the com plete ness of the hous ing
in our cities, where room is left for self-deter mi na tion there is no lack of
indi vid u al ism man i fest ed by occu py ing and mod i fy ing exte ri or spaces as
well. Log gias enclosed in var i ous ways, the build ing of glassed-in veran das
and win ter gar dens, win dow cov er ings, satel lite dish es and air con di tion ers:
every thing con tributes towards recount ing an inad e qua cy of the archi tec tur al
response to people’s need to help give shape to their own homes [ 27 ]. An act
of resis tance, then, is the non-con formism shown by archi tects like Yona
Fried man (1923−2020), Lucien Kroll (1927−2022), and Ralph Ersk ine
(1914−2015), with their design phi los o phy based upon par tic i pa to ry cri te ria.
Ini tia tives like Lima’s exper i men tal hous ing project (PREVI) in the 1960s –
with its metabolist approach and its nat ur al inher i tance rep re sent ed in the
more recent Incre men tal Hous ing Projects by the Ele men tal Chile stu dio led
by Ale jan dro Arave na – were equal ly non-conformist.
The forms of self-deter mi na tion that give shape to the large urban
agglom er a tions are to be con sid ered as expres sions of resis tance by the indi -
vid ual who wish es to be the causal agent in his or her own life and in the
cre ation of his or her own liv ing envi ron ment.  “The inhab i tant still pos sess es
a trea sure lost by archi tects: a cul ture of scale and of domes tic com plex i ty,
a bon homie that makes land scapes live able,” said Lucien Kroll.  “In
essence, you should nev er design a façade  ‘like an archi tect.’ One must
obsti nate ly seek the  ‘ges ture of the inhab i tant’ and safe guard his or her com -
plex i ty.”
17
18
Fabio Quici Form of Resistance
Aesthetics of Resistance 117
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121
Tullia Iori
Arcangelo Sassolino and the
Italian School of Engineering
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 123
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Two Souls of the Italian School of
Engineering
In this essay I inter weave art, sci ence, engi neer ing, phi los o phy, mate ri als
and forms. The text focus es on con crete and how dur ing the twen ti eth cen tu -
ry the Ital ian School of Engi neer ing has inter pret ed this mate r i al to cre ate
works of art accord ing to two dif fer ent approach es: the nat u ral ist approach
and the pos i tivist approach. To more eas i ly under stand the dif fer ence
between the School’s two souls, which fra ter nal ly coex ist ed, I use the work
of an Ital ian artist, Arcan ge lo Sas soli no. I first frame his work, which is that
of an artist-engi neer, as evi dent in his instal la tion at the Venice Bien nale
2022; then, through the analy sis of oth er pre vi ous works, I show how resis -
tance by form (nat u ral ist approach) and coac tions (pos i tivist approach) are
always present in his pro duc tion to address the sta bil i ty and strength
of materials.
An Artist-Engineer
Arcan ge lo Sassolino’s last work was exhib it ed at the 2022 Venice Bien nale
with the title Diplo maz i ja Astu ta. It is not entire ly clear what the title of the
work — astute diplo ma cy —means. The work was pre sent ed in the
Biennale’s Mal ta Pavil ion rather than the Ital ian, as he won a com pe ti tion
announced by the Mal tese gov ern ment to seek both the cura tors of the Mal ta
Pavil ion and the work to be exhib it ed with in. The work is a homage to the
Behead ing of Saint John the Baptist of 1608, a paint ing by Michelan ge lo
Merisi da Car avag gio placed in the Co-Cathe dral of St. John, Val let ta, Mal ta.
Car avag gio arrived in Mal ta after killing a man in Rome, pos si bly his rival
in love. A boun ty was lev elled to hand him over to the judges who would
cer tain ly con demn him to death. Car avag gio fled to Naples and then to Mal ta
aboard a ship of the Order of Knights of St. John. Pro tect ing him was Alof
de Wigna court, the Grand Mas ter of the Order. Wigna court knight ed Car -
avag gio and in return obtained for Mal ta the exclu sive work of one of the
most bril liant painters of all time. Car avag gio pro duced at least three paint -
ings in Mal ta: Behead ing of Saint John the Bap tist and Por trait of Alof de
Wigna court and his Page (lat er sold and now housed in the Lou vre); and
final ly, Saint Jerome Writ ing, which remains in Mal ta after a theft and
return. Caravaggio's time in Mal ta was short-lived, but there is no doubt that
Alof de Wigna court car ried out an oper a tion of  “astute diplomacy”. 
The con text of Caravaggio's Behead ing is dark. There are sev en sub -
jects in the paint ing: the Bap tist, the jail er, the exe cu tion er who is about to
enact the final blow, a young woman car ry ing the bas ket in which she will
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
1
2
1 Arcangelo Sassolino, Diplomazija Astuta, Malta
Pavilion, Venice 2022. Source: Photo Agostino
Osio Alto Piano
2 Arcangelo Sassolino, Diplomazija Astuta, Malta
Pavilion, Venice 2022. Source: Photo Agostino
Osio Alto Piano
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 125
col lect the head, an elder ly woman dis traught at the hor ror and two pris on ers
watch ing from behind the grates. The light strikes only the pro tag o nists; they
are the ones mak ing the light; then the light scat ters upon the sur face of
the floor.
Sassolino’s immer sive instal la tion, not unlike Caravaggio’s paint ing, is
also dark. There are sev en tanks filled with water. Inside these huge ves sels
fall, in the same num ber as the pro tag o nists in the paint ing, sev en bands of
white light com ing from above, how ev er it is not light, but molten steel; he
turns steel into light [ 1 ].
Sas soli no notes that  “The emp ty dark ness of that wall, of those stones,
of every thing inan i mate – in Caravaggio’s paint ing, that void seems to be the
very con di tion of the scene, what makes pos si ble the vibrant, throb bing light
that makes those bod ies live and move. This rad i cal con trast between light
and dark ness makes the scene into some thing that hap pens before our eyes,
and not mere ly some thing that will hap pen or has already hap pened. It is
this con trast that inter ests me, or rather the idea that only through the con -
flict and unre solved ten sion of forces we can see, even if only for an instant
as a blind ing light, the ori gin of things—an ori gin that, com ing from noth ing
and des tined to return into noth ing, exists only in the  ‘here and now’ of its
appear ance. An ori gin that appears and that at the very moment of its
appear ance is no longer there [ 2 ] . What I am try ing to cap ture is the change
of state, that instant in which some thing is becom ing some thing else, that
ener gy and pow er that exist in the flash of absolute insta bil i ty between the
moments of equi lib ri um that are the before and the after”.
Only through a change of state, and thus only in liv ing time, does steel
become light. Molten met al is incan des cent; when poured it becomes a white
beam of moving—liquid—light. On con tact with water, steel hiss es, cools
and dis pers es to the bot tom, retreat ing into dark ness [ 3 ].
Sas soli no adds,  “I want to free met al from that closed form, to expose
its lumi nous liq uid ori gin. Once melt ed, met al is no longer sim ply sta t ic, no
longer some thing that mere ly exists, unchang ing – instead, it expands with in
a chrono log i cal dimen sion of appear ance and dis ap pear ance: it becomes
time itself. Steel is cre at ed only at very high tem per a tures, and when ener gy
and heat bring it back to its orig i nal liq uid state, it glows with red-hot light;
it becomes stol id hard ness only when that light goes out. Only in the change
of state, and there fore only in liv ing time, does steel become light.”
Met al is trans formed by an induc tion process, like that of the new gen -
er a tion cook ing stoves with out open flames. The steel pass ing through the
mag net ic field goes from zero to 1500 degrees in half a sec ond. The melt ing
is repeat ed in a 6-minute cycle. 
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
3
3 Arcangelo Sassolino, Diplomazija Astuta, Malta
Pavilion, Venice 2022. Source: Photo Agostino
Osio Alto Piano
1 Kei th Sciber ras and Jef frey Uslip, Diplo maz i ja
astu ta (Mal ta: Mid seabooks, 2022).
2 Luca Illet terati and Arcan ge lo Sas soli no,
6Words 20works (Pado va: Uni ver si ty
Press, 2016).
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 127
Dur ing the sev en months of the Bien nale 25,000 kg of steel will have been
melt ed. This is an expen sive but con cep tu al ly  ‘respon si ble’ project: the work
ulti mate ly achieves Car bon Neu tral i ty. Green house gas emis sions have been
reduced to a min i mum, for exam ple by using ener gy from renew able sources
and by recov er ing the steel, which will be re-melt ed and then recy cled (at
80%) in a local pro duc tion facil i ty. A vol un tary inter na tion al stan dard has
been applied and the car bon diox ide equiv a lent emis sions pro duced are cer ti -
fied by a third-par ty audit. Addi tion al emis sions are off set by a for est pro tec -
tion project. 
The off set ting process (sim pli fied): if there is a por tion of CO2 in the
pro duc tion process that is incom press ible and despite all the pre cau tions and
the use of renew able sources, there is a resid ual, to bal ance this resid ual
a CO2 cred it is pur chased on the mar ket and in prac tice, anoth er CO2-
absorb ing project is financed. In this case the cred its used to bal ance the 81
resid ual tons of CO2 from Sassolino’s project are gen er at ed by the Ntaka ta
Moun tains REDD project, launched in May 2017 in Tan za nia, Africa, which
involves local com mu ni ties engaged in pro tect ing their vil lages' for est
reserves. This, too, is  “astute diplomacy”.
Sas soli no con cludes that  “This is a work about con tin u ous loss, about
the impos si bil i ty of hold ing back, about the inex orable and unstop pable flow
of all things. But it’s also about the fact that being is only revealed in van ish -
ing, that light is an evanes cent inter val of dark ness. Some thing keeps dis si -
pat ing, con sum ing, yield ing; the molten drops cease less ly appear, fall, and
van ish. I am try ing to scan time – that which both cre ates being and con -
sumes it – through some thing equal ly elu sive. Maybe mine is, at its core,
a work about the open wound that is life. Why can’t sculp ture flow like time
instead of being a cold, rigid mono lith devoid of the vital ener gy that pro -
duced it? Instead of fix ing the instant of the pas sage, mak ing it once again
some thing sta t ic, I show the pas sage itself, the appear ance and the dis ap pear -
ance, the glow ing, ephemer al lim it that divides and con nects the twin dark -
ness es of the before and the after”.
To cre ate this poet ic pas sage (appear ance and dis ap pear ance), Sas soli no
works like an engi neer, but no engi neer could ever do what he does. Sas -
soli no is not trained as an engi neer; his train ing his to ry is rather anom alous.
He was born in 1967 in Vicen za, Italy, where he lives and works. In the late
1980’s he enrolled in a degree pro gram in engi neer ing at the Uni ver si ty of
Pad ua. But life took him else where, first to the Unit ed States, as a toy
design er where his 1989 patent, Com pound ed Poly he dron for Abil i ty Games,
piqued the curios i ty of a New York-based Japan ese com pa ny. It was in New
York that Sas soli no dis cov ered his incli na tion for art and trained at the
School of Visu al Arts. He then returned to Italy and moved to Pietrasan ta,
1
2
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
3 Tul lia Iori, Il cemen to arma to in Italia dalle
orig i ni alla sec on da guer ra mon di ale (Roma:
Edil stam pa, 2001).
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 129
near Mas sa, where he began sculpt ing mar ble, and final ly back home, where
he start ed a full-fledged work shop with in which he gen er at ed his artis tic
engi neer ing works.
Sas soli no had unknow ing ly inher it ed the DNA of the Ital ian School of
Engi neer ing. In Octo ber 2020 he was award ed an hon orary degree in Con -
struc tion Engi neer ing-Archi tec ture by the Uni ver si ty of Rome Tor Ver ga ta,
where the lessons of the mas ters of Ital ian engi neer ing would have found
their place. In receiv ing this hon orary degree Sas soli no can be seen as the
embod i ment of the two souls of the Ital ian School of Engi neer ing based on
two approach es: one nat u ral ist and one pos i tivist. Specif i cal ly, the nat u ral ist
approach is based on resis tance by form, while the pos i tivist approach is
based on resis tance by coac tion. It is a jux ta po si tion that repeats between
nature and tech nique, between nat ur al and artificial. 
The Two Souls of the Italian School of Engineering
The oppo si tion between nature and tech nique maps its way through the his -
to ries of phi los o phy and sci ence; it impas sioned Aris to tle and it coursed
through Descartes' pos tu lates. Nature is defined as  "oth er than man", it is by
def i n i tion in oppo si tion  ‘to’, and to begin to under stand the two souls of the
Ital ian School of Engi neer ing it is nec es sary to face the pos i tivist approach
in order to bet ter under stand the nat u ral is tic one.
Dur ing the 20 cen tu ry the goal of all Ital ian struc tur al design ers was
to opti mize the behav iour of the mate r i al. The mate r i al to be opti mized was
pre dom i nant ly con crete because it was the only read i ly avail able mate r i al.
Italy has no iron mines; there fore the coun try pro duces very lit tle steel.
Instead, there is an abun dance of cement marl quar ries. Clay and lime stone
quar ries are ubiq ui tous in Italy. Cement is Italy’s main kilo me ter-neu -
tral material. 
Rein forced con crete, in all its forms and vari a tions, is Italy’s struc tur al
mate r i al of choice.
It arrived in Italy from France as it did in all Euro pean coun tries. Rein -
forced con crete was first used as a cheap er sub sti tute for wood and steel. In
the sec ond half of the 1920s it was under stood as hav ing enor mous,
autonomous poten tial, dif fer ent from that of oth er mate ri als. The mar riage of
cement and steel cre ates a com pos ite mate r i al in which you can seam less ly
vary the per cent ages of one and the oth er, actu al ly obtain ing mate ri als with
dif fer ent behav iours; chang ing the ratio of mate ri als changes the strength,
duc til i ty, weight, elas tic i ty . And here in are the two inter pre ta tions the Ital -
ian School gives to the mate r i al: nature and technique.
t h
3
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
4 See: SIXXI. Sto ria dell'ingegneria strut turale in
Italia, eds. Tul lia Iori and Ser gio Poret ti (Roma:
Gange mi, Vol 1, 2014; Vol 2, 2015; Vol 3, 2015;
Vol 4, 2017; Vol 5, 2020).
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 131
The pos i tivist soul, which fore grounds tech nique, is con vinced that it is pos -
si ble to improve mate ri als, to enhance them, to per fect them beyond what
nature offers. This opti mism is cou pled with the belief that the engi neer must
play an active role in the behav iour of build ings: the engi neer must not be
con tent with solu tions found in nature but invent more effi cient mod els. The
design er must be God's helper, Nature's helper. Nature must be cor rect ed;
mate ri als must be imbued with new enhanced capa bil i ties. Struc tures,
accord ing to this log ic, must be trained to respond to stress es for which they
are not suit ed. And this can be achieved by impart ing arti fi cial coac tions to
bod ies, pre vi ous ly deter mined by cal cu la tion, capa ble of cor rect ing the nat -
ur al equi lib ri um state of the struc tures them selves. One defin i tive appli ca -
tion of this idea is pre stress ing: pre stress ing teach es con crete to resist ten sile
stress es, stress es that con crete would not be able to with stand but which,
once pre stressed with ten sile steel, it can eas i ly han dle by loos en ing the ini -
tial prestress.
Con verse ly, the nat u ral ist approach argues that it is not nec es sary to
teach struc tures how to behave. Struc tures should be left free to adapt spon -
ta neous ly to loads while also mak ing up for any gaps in knowl edge on the
part of the design er. This belief in the inher ent resources of nature leads to
a clar i fi ca tion of the engineer's role: the engi neer should observe nature,
study it, inter pret it, under stand it, not nec es sar i ly imi tate it but cer tain ly be
in tune with it. 
Nat u ral ists are skep ti cal about the pos si bil i ty of math e mat i cal ly inter -
pret ing, at the desk, the response of the struc ture; there fore, they rely on
stress cal cu lat ing machines, that is  'small-scale mod els' that are sub ject ed to
load tests in the lab o ra to ry. In using the small-scale mod el as a tool the engi -
neer only needs to learn to read nature's respons es: it is nature that will
explain to the exper i menter how it will behave at full scale. 
It is now clear how both posi tions were equal ly stim u lat ing to Ital ian
engi neers. The nat u ral ist approach was man i fest ed through the work of engi -
neers like Pier Lui gi Nervi and Ser gio Mus me ci who sought the answer to
their problems—though in very dif fer ent ways—in the obser va tion of nat ur al
forms. Ric car do Moran di, on the oth er hand, did not pas sive ly wait for the
inter ven tion of nature but imme di ate ly imple ment ed those arti fi cial coac -
tions capa ble of ensur ing more favor able dis tri b u tions of inter nal stress es
and is why he pro mot ed, at all lev els, with unwa ver ing com mit ment, the
spread of the pre stressed concrete. 
Nervi defined and worked with resis tance through form. Fer ro ce ment,
the mate r i al he invent ed dur ing World War II, was excel lent for shap ing,
curv ing, and bend ing because of its work able thin ness. Nervi nev er designed
orig i nal sta t ic organ isms in terms of bal ance, he always used tra di tion al
4
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
5 Tul lia Iori, Pier Lui gi Nervi (Milano: Mot ta
Architet tura, 2009); Tul lia Iori and Ser gio
Poret ti, Pier Lui gi Nervi. Architet tura come Sfi ‐
da. Roma. Ingeg no e costruzione. Gui da alla
mostra (Milano: Elec ta, 2010).
6 Tul lia Iori,  “L'invenzione di Moran di”, in SIXXI
5. Sto ria dell'ingegneria strut turale in Italia,
eds. Tul lia Iori and Ser gio Poret ti (Roma:
Gange mi, 2020), 16–39.
7 Tul lia Iori,  “Ser gio Mus me ci and the cal cu la tion
of the form”, in Imag ine Math 8 — Dream ing
Venice, eds. Michele Emmer and Mar co Abate
(Springer Inter na tion al Pub lish ing, 2022),
235–254.
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 133
domes and vaults – sta t i cal ly sim ple. What he invent ed was the way to build
them; he broke down his domes into thou sands of small pieces, which he
then recon nect ed like a huge three-dimen sion al puz zle. Nervi used small-
scale mod els to ver i fy forces and form because math e mat i cal ana lyt i cal cal -
cu la tions could not explain the nat ur al behav ior of his struc tures.
On the oth er hand Moran di was a  "God's Helper" engi neer. He cor rect -
ed nature; he applied coun ter weights, added forces to bal ance oth ers, com -
posed forces, forced the struc ture into a dynam ic, seem ing ly unsta ble equi -
lib ri um. If there was a thrust, he applied a coun terthrust. In his most famous
arch bridges the nat ur al thrust of the arch is off set by the pres ence of
inclined struts that act the oppo site direc tion. The struts act as forces inward
to the arch, cor rect ing the pres sure curve. Most impor tant ly, he used pre -
stressed con crete. In his futur is tic sub tend ed tie-rod struc tures, Moran di not
only used pre stressed con crete to con struct beams and roofs, but applied tie-
rods at the ends that deformed the beam in an oppo site and sym met ri cal way
to the action of the exter nal loads: Moran di played with com po si tion of
forces, dynam ic bal ance, thrust and coun terthrust .
Ser gio Mus me ci also had a nat u ral ist approach but a bit dif fer ent. For
Mus me ci, every thing revolved around form. Regard ing resis tance he had an
entire ly orig i nal way of think ing. Mus me ci said,  "In this prob lem, what form
answers opti mal ly? The form is not giv en but must be cal cu lat ed from the
bound ary con di tions of the prob lem?" And he would set off in search of the
lim it form, a prob lem that is eas i ly solved only in the sim plest of cas es. For
exam ple, the  “lim it arch”: if I have a mate r i al with a cer tain com pres sive
strength and spe cif ic weight and I want to make an arch, there is a span
beyond which it is not pos si ble to go. This lim it span cor re sponds to a very
spe cif ic shape that Mus me ci calls the  "lim it arch." The span of this arch can
be cal cu lat ed and is equal to Pi times the strength of the mate r i al divid ed by
its spe cif ic weight. Con crete resists 100 kg/square meter and weighs
2500 kg/metrocube: if we divide the strength with the spe cif ic weight it
results in about 400 meters. Mul ti ply ing Pi by 400 meters, the result is
1250 meters. This is a lim it ing span that can not be exceed ed by a con crete
arch and to which cor re sponds a def i nite shape that, in turn, cor re sponds to
the func tion: y=logcosx. If the arch has a weight to car ry, the shape remains
the same but the lim it span is small er: the shape is invari ant.
Mus me ci argued that the good struc tur al engi neer does not cal cu late
assigned shape but assigns shapes. The engi neer must  “cal cu late form”, not
ver i fy an assigned form. The engi neer should not design cal cu la tion meth ods
to find the stress es but should design the stress es. For exam ple, in his Basen -
to bridge, since it is a con crete mem brane, Mus me ci designs uni form
5
6
7
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
4
5
6 7
4 Arcangelo Sassolino, Untitled, GNAM, Roma, 2018.
Source: Photo Tullia Iori
5 Arcangelo Sassolino, Untitled, GNAM, Roma, 2018.
Source: Photo Tullia Iori
6 Arcangelo Sassolino, Untitled, GNAM, Roma, 2018.
Source: Photo Tullia Iori
7 Arcangelo Sassolino, Untitled, GNAM, Roma, 2018.
Source: Photo Tullia Iori
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 135
stress es in all direc tions with a com plete absence of flex ur al dis tur bances.
And from this he cal cu lates form.
Sassolino’s DNA
These are just the main pro tag o nists of the Ital ian School. Two whole gen er -
a tions of struc tur al design ers have been con di tioned by these approach es, but
those who we do not hes i tate to call philo soph i cal, human ist and cul tur al -
ly complex.
How does Sassolino's work help us under stand these ways of pro ceed -
ing? How does he stand in rela tion to these two souls of the School, and in
what sense did he inher it the DNA of both lines of thought?
To explore these ques tions I refer to one of Sassolino’s ear ly con crete
works—Unti tled— that is on view at the Nation al Gallery of Mod ern Art in
Rome (GNAM), next to a Cret to by Alber to Bur ri, anoth er famous Ital ian
artist who used con crete [ 4 ]. It is a thin resis tant vault by form with a pleat -
ed shape that gives it enough iner tia to remain hang ing with out chang ing
shape. It is like  "the name less vault" of Musmeci's Basen to Bridge
in Potenza.
This seems to be a nat u ral ist approach. But how was this work made?
Sas soli no took a sheet of poly car bon ate and pre-stressed it with thread ed
bars, thus plac ing it in co-action with the bars, cre at ing a coac tion between
steel and poly styrene [ 5 ]. On the poly styrene, Sas soli no arranged a thin
elec tro-weld ed mesh care ful ly shaped to the folds of the pan el that is pro vid -
ed with hooks to hang the fin ished work. He then pro ject ed by hand against
the pan el, lying on the ground, an anthracite-col ored, quick-set ting cement
mixed with fine aggre gates and iron oxide. The pro jec tion of the com pound
gen er at ed a sheet of cement of vary ing thick ness, three or four cen time ters,
but thin near the edges [ 6 ].
When the set ting is com plete, pan el and foil are placed ver ti cal ly, and
the poly car bon ate is sep a rat ed from the cement. The act of their sep a ra tion is
a tear – vio lent. The poly car bon ate pan el resumes its state of still ness, it is
no longer in coac tion, but its mate r i al ten sion, its co-action, has been trans -
ferred to the cement sheet whose jagged edges for ev er record the vio lence of
the detachment. 
There is not only resis tance by form. There is also the idea of solid i fy -
ing the ener gy stored by the com pressed poly car bon ate [ 7 ] In some sense
this is the same oper a tion Sas soli no uses regard ing oth er works in which he
is aid ed by com plex cal cu la tions, con duct ed by expe ri enced engi neers, that
push his works to the  “lim it form”, just as Mus me ci loved.
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
8
8 Arcangelo Sassolino, Untitled, 2007. Source:
Arcangelo Sassolino
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 137
For exam ple, when he stretch es chest nut wood beams (Unti tled, 2007)
between the groans and slur ries of the mate r i al until they break [ 8 ] Or in the
more recent Physis: two heavy bod ies of gran ite and con crete, moved away
and brought clos er, in a dai ly cycle, with a solar-pow ered pis ton, from 2022
part of the per ma nent col lec tion of Arte Sel la, in the area of Mal ga Cos ta in
Val di Sel la, in Bor go Val sug ana (Tren to); and above all, Tem po pie ga to, pre -
sent ed at Art Basel 2022 where—Sassolino says—"a glass is bent to the lim it
of its resis tance: there is a con flict in the act; some how the mate r i al is suf fer -
ing; it could not resist; the time is com pressed into the sculpture." 
Resis tance by form, typ i cal of a nat ur al approach, but also coac tions
between mate ri als and arti fi cial stress es, indi cat ing a pos i tivis tic approach.
In short: works of art between nature and tech nique, full of engi neer ing, full
of the influ ence of Ital ian School of Engineering.
Tullia Iori Form of Resistance
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of Engineering 139
Bibliography
Iori, Tullia. Il cemento armato in Italia dalle origini alla seconda guerra mondiale. Roma: Edilstampa,
2001.
Iori, Tullia. Pier Luigi Nervi. Milano: Motta Architettura, 2009.
Iori, Tullia and Poretti, Sergio. Pier Luigi Nervi. Architettura come Sfida. Roma. Ingegno e costruzione.
Guida alla mostra. Milano: Electa, 2010.
SIXXI. Storia dell'ingegneria strutturale in Italia, edited by Tullia Iori and Sergio Poretti. Roma: Gangemi,
Vol 1, 2014; Vol 2, 2015; Vol 3, 2015; Vol 4, 2017; Vol 5, 2020.
Illetterati, Luca and Sassolino, Arcangelo. 6Words 20works. Padova: University Press, 2016.
Keith Sciberras, Jeﬀrey Uslip (eds). Diplomazija astute. Malta: Midseabooks, 2022.
Iori, Tullia. “Sergio Musmeci and the calculation of the form”. In Imagine Math 8 - Dreaming Venice,
edited by Michele Emmer and Marco Abate, 235-254. Springer International Publishing, 2022.

141
José Calvo-López
Enrique Rabasa-Díaz
Warped Versus Regular
Surfaces
A Form of Resistance to
Canonical Shapes, from Reims
Cathedral to Le Corbusier
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
1
1 Roof, Assembly Hall, Chandigarh. Le Corbusier,
1951. Photograph: Eduardo Guiot. CC BY 2.0.
1 Joël Sakarovitch, Épures d'architecture (Basel-
Boston-Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1998), 185–283.
2 Euclid, Geom e try, c. ‐300, book 11, def i n i tions
2, 11 and 17.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 143
When Le Cor busier vis it ed Sagra da Famil ia in Barcelona, he was not
impressed with the nat u ral is tic design of the tow ers or, of course, with the
Goth ic Revival plan. What attract ed most ly his atten tion was the warped sur -
face in the roof of a small build ing, scarce ly larg er than a shed, hous ing
a pro vi sion al school. 
Such inter est is not sur pris ing: in con trast with his dis dain for the archi -
tec tur al instruc tion of the École de Beaux-Arts, Le Cor busier had a high
regard of the ped a gog i cal mod el of the École Poly tech nique, a Parisian
school endeav our ing to pro vide basic sci en tif ic instruc tion to engi neers of all
dis ci plines. Lat er on, the stu dents com ing out of this school com plet ed their
stud ies in a num ber of écoles d'aplication, that is, schools that allowed them
to apply the sci en tif ic knowl edge learnt at the École Poly tech nique to prac ti -
cal, tech ni cal issues. The founder of the École Poly tech nique, Gas pard Mon -
ge, was also the father of Descrip tive Geom e try. It comes as no sur prise,
then, that the con cepts, fig ures and meth ods of this sci ence appear fre quent ly
in Le Corbusier’s oeu vre, in par tic u lar in the lat er peri ods, when he was try -
ing to escape the nar row bounds of the min i mal ist vocab u lary of the ratio nal -
ism of the Twen ties: hyper bol ic parab o loids in the Philips pavil ion in Brus -
sels, one-sheet ed hyper boloid in the Assem bly Hall in Chandi garh [ 1 ],
a dou ble cur va ture sur face in the roof of Ron champ, or shad ow the o ry in the
Tow er of Shad ows, also in Chandigarh.
This issue is not as sim ple as it may seem at first sight. We usu al ly take
for grant ed that descrip tive geom e try deals with sur faces in a neu tral, sci en -
tif ic, asep tic way. How ev er, the con struc tion of the notion of sur face as pre -
sent ed by descrip tive geom e try has under gone a long his tor i cal process,
walk ing on the line between arti sanal prac tices and learned sci ence. First,
Euclid defines the con cept of sur face in his Geom e try as a face of a sol id
and uses it to describe the notions of sol id angle and diam e ter of a sphere,
but this is all. Also, there is noth ing in clas si cal geom e try about orthog o nal
pro jec tion and only some the o rems about cen tral or con ic pro jec tion in
Euclid’s Optics. This fact is essen tial; until the advent of Com put er Sci ence,
the most effi cient, visu al ly intu itive, and his tor i cal ly rel e vant way to con trol
the prop er ties of ruled, devel opable, warped, or dou ble cur va ture sur faces
was orthog o nal pro jec tion, as we will see.
Admit ted ly, Archimedes and oth er Clas si cal geome ters dealt with the
area and the vol ume enclosed by spe cif ic sur faces, such as the sphere, the
cone, and the cylin der. In the long run, these abstract prob lems meta mor -
phosed in a typ i cal ly Medieval sci ence, prac ti cal geom e try, which should not
be con fused with the abstract geom e try of Euclid or the ruler-and-com pass
geom e try of medieval arti sans, in par tic u lar stone cut ters. This prac ti cal
geom e try, stud ied by cler ics such as Hugh of Saint Vic tor and Gundissal in-
1
2
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
2
3
2 Richard of Saint Victor, “Commentary to Ezekiel” , c.
1175.
3 Villard de Honnecourt, “Sketchbook” , c. 1230.
Longitudinal section and side elevation of Reims
cathedral.
3 Hugh of Saint-Vic tor, Prac ti ca Geome tri ae, c.
1120; Domini cus Gundissal i nus, Liber De Divi ‐
sione Philosophi ae in Partes Suas …., c. 1150.
4 Roger Baron  "Note sur les Vari a tions au XIIe
Siè cle de la Tri ade Géométrique Altime tria,
Planime tria, Cos mime tria," Isis 48, no. 1
(1957): 30–32; Stephen Vic tor, Prac ti cal Geom ‐
e try in the High Mid dle Ages. Artis Cuius li bet
Con sum ma tio, and the Pratike De Geome trie
(Philadel phia: Amer i can Philo soph i cal Soci ‐
ety, 1979); Hugh of Saint-Vic tor, Prac ti cal
Geom e try: Prac ti ca Geome tri ae. Attrib uted to
Hugh of St. Vic tor. Trans lat ed and with an
Intro duc tion by Fred er ick A. Homann (Mar ‐
quette: Mar quette Uni ver si ty Press, 1991).
5 José Cal vo-López, Stereoto my: Stone Con ‐
struc tion and Geom e try in West ern Europe
1200–1900 (Cham: Birkhäuser-Springer
Nature, 2020), 610–612.
6 Gian fil ip po Caret toni et al., La Pianta Mar ‐
morea di Roma Anti ca. For ma Urbis Romae
(Roma: Arti gra fiche M. Dane si, 1960); Emilio
Rodríguez-Almei da, For ma Urbis Mar morea.
Aggior na men to Gen erale 1980 (Roma: Edi zione
Quasar, 1981); Jen nifer Trim ble et. al.,  “Dig i tal
For ma Urbis Romae” , https://
exhibits.stanford.edu /fur; accessed August
16, 2022; Sakarovitch, Épures d'architecture,
27.
7 Sakarovitch, Épures d'architecture, 23.
8 Richard of Saint-Vic tor,  "Com men tary on
Ezekiel", [ca. 1171–1190] MS lat. 14516, Bib lio ‐
thèque Nationale de France, Paris; Wal ter
Cahn,  "Archi tec tur al Drafts man ship in
Twelfth-Cen tu ry Paris: The Illus tra tions of
Richard of Saint-Victor's Com men tary on
Ezekiel's Tem ple Vision," Ges ta 15, (1976): 247–
254; Wal ter Cahn,  "Archi tec ture and Exe ge sis:
Richard of St.-Victor’s Ezekiel Com men tary
and Its Illus tra tions," The Art Bul letin 76,
(1994): 53–68; Karl Kin sel la,  "Richard of Saint
Victor’s Solu tions to Prob lems of Archi tec tur al
Rep re sen ta tion in the Twelfth Cen tu ry," Archi ‐
tec tur al His to ry 49, (2016): 3–24.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 145
us, had three branch es. Planime try dealt with the mea sure of pla nar areas;
Cos mime try taught how to mea sure vol umes and sur face areas of solids; and
final ly, Altime try solved the prob lem of the com pu ta tion of the height of
inac ces si ble objects. Of course, Cos mime try brought back Archimedean
prob lems and sur faces, although it dealt again with sim ple bod ies: the
sphere, the cone, or the cylin der. How ev er, it is worth while to men tion that
the meth ods of Altime try, deal ing with sim i lar tri an gles, have some points of
con tact with those of Late Medieval and Renais sance masons, who also used
tri an gu la tion.
That brings back the issue of orthog o nal pro jec tion. Before deal ing in
depth with this sub ject, we must define the term. Ety mo log i cal ly,  “to
project”, from the Latin  “proiec tāre” means  “to cast for ward”; there is no
pro jec tion when a draw ing depicts objects placed on the same plane.
Although this may be strik ing, the exam ples of Antique archi tec tur al or tech -
ni cal draw ings in orthog o nal pro jec tion, in this restrict ed sense, are vir tu al ly
non-exis tent. Such a remark able piece as the For ma Urbis Romae, a huge
mar ble plan of Impe r i al Rome, pre served as a large series of frag ments,
depicts the town as a foun da tion plan, leav ing aside the hills and val leys of
the city. As far as we know, the arti fact that comes clos er to an orthog o nal
pro jec tion in all Antiq ui ty is a papyrus in the Petrie col lec tion, depict ing
a small Egypt ian shrine in the shape of a pyra mid frus tum in front and side
views. Although the slope of the edges of the frus tum is slight ly dif fer ent,
both views attain to the same height. All this sug gests the idea of an orthog -
o nal pro jec tion, although the con di tion of the papyrus, reduced to a series of
elon gat ed frag ments, and its unique ness, does not allow to reach firm
conclusions.
Our present con cep tion of orthog o nal pro jec tion seems to have tak en
shape in the 12 and 13 cen turies, between the cler i cal and the arti sanal
media. Some minia tures in the  “Com men tary to Eze quiel” by Richard of
Saint Vic tor depict arcades drawn frontal ly, with no fore short en ing [ 2 ],
clear ly pass ing in front of bat tle ments and walls, also depict ed frontal ly. It
is worth while to remark that, accord ing to John of Toulouse, Richard was
a stu dent of Hugh of Saint Vic tor, although this fact is con test ed by some
schol ars. In any case, it is gen er al ly accept ed that Hugh had lived in the
Parisian abbey of Saint Vic tor from 1115 to his death in 1141, while Richard
was the pri or of the same abbey from 1162 until his death in 1173, so both
Richard and his illu mi na tors were prob a bly aware of the geo met ri cal work
of Hugh. 
The minia tures in the  “Com men tary on Ezekiel” do not need to rep re -
sent exact ly arcades and walls; in con trast, archi tec tur al plans and ele va -
tions, even the sim plest ones, require the pre cise place ment of pil lars, ribs,
3
4
5
6
7
t h t h
8
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
4
4 Reims cathedral, nave, c. 1220. Quadripartite vault.
Photograph: José Calvo.
9 Vil lard de Hon necourt, et al.,  "Sketch book"
[ca. 1225]. MS fr. 19093, Bib lio thèque
Nationale de France, Paris. Vil lard de Hon ‐
necourt and Carl F. Barnes, The Port fo lio of
Vil lard de Hon necourt: A New Crit i cal Edi tion
and Col or Fac sim i le (Farn ham: Ash gate,
2009). There is an unre solved dis pute about
whether this arti fact is an  “album” , that is,
a blank book whose sheets were drawn after ‐
wards, or a  “port fo lio” , that is an assort ment
of orig i nal ly inde pen dent sheets that was
bound after wards. Thus, we will use the neu ‐
tral term  “sketch book” .
10 Roland Recht et al., La Cathé drale de Stras ‐
bourg, Dessins et Plans (Stras bourg: Les édi ‐
tions des Musées de Stras bourg, 2015); Hans
Koepf, Die Gotis chen Plan risse der Wiener
Samm lun gen (Wien: Böh lau, 1969); Johann
Josef Bök er, Architek tur Der Gotik-Goth ic
Archi tec ture. Bestand skat a log der Welt ‐
grössten Samm lung an Gotis chen Bau ris sen …
Im Kupfer stichk abi nett Der Akademie Der
Bilden den Kün ste Wien … (Salzburg-Munich:
A. Pustet, 2005); Vale rio Ascani,  "Le Dessin
d'architecture Médieval en Ital ie," In Les Bâtis ‐
seurs des Cathé drales Goth iques, ed. Roland
Recht (Stras bourg: Édi tions les Musées de la
Ville de Stras bourg, 1989), 255–277; Anto nio
Ruiz Her nan do. Las Trazas de la Cat e dral de
Segovia. (Segovia: Diputación de Segovia-
Caja de Ahor ros de Segovia, 2003).
11 Hernán Ruiz el Joven,  "Libro de Arqui tec tura",
[ca. 1560], MS R‐39. Bib liote ca de la Escuela
de Arqui tec tura de la Uni ver si dad Politéc ni ca
de Madrid, f. 46v; Rodri go Gil de Hon tañón,  
"Man u scrito" [ca. 1560], includ ed in Simón
Gar cia,  "Com pen dio de Arqui tec tura
y Simetría de los Tem p los", 1681, MS 8884,
Bib liote ca Nacional de España, Madrid, f. 25r;
Alon so de Van delvi ra,  "Libro de Trazas de
Cortes de Piedras", [ca. 1580], copy, MS R‐10,
Bib liote ca de la Escuela de Arqui tec tura de la
Uni ver si dad Politéc ni ca de Madrid, f. 96v.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 147
tri fo ria, socles and win dows. Sev er al plans in the Vil lard de Hon necourt
sketch book, such as the one for the cathe dral of Meaux and the church
designed with Pierre de Cor bie  “inter se dis putan do”, pro vide clear exam ples
of hor i zon tal pro jec tion, depict ing both the pil lars and the plan lay out of the
vault ribs. At the same time, the sketch book includes an inter nal lon gi tu di nal
sec tion and an exter nal side ele va tion of the nave of Reims cathe dral [ 3 ].
Both draw ings depict objects in clear ly dis tinct planes, thus fur nish ing a neat
exam ple of ver ti cal pro jec tion. The ele va tion includes both the aisle exter nal
walls and the cleresto ry, which are sep a rat ed by the width of the aisles. In
the same way, the sec tion shows the socle and the aisle win dows, as well as
the nave pil lars, the tri fo ri um and the cleresto ry.
From this moment on, orthog o nal pro jec tion took the place of the rep re -
sen ta tion tool of choice in archi tec tur al draw ing. As in the Reims draw ings,
both orthog o nal ele va tions and plans are used to con trol the com plex i ties of
Goth ic spa tial geom e try, as the remark able col lec tions of Goth ic draw ings in
Stras bourg, Vien na, Siena, and Segovia show. It is worth while to remark
that in this large cor pus of draw ings, ortho graph ic pro jec tion was used in
strict ly archi tec tur al draw ings both for plans and ele va tions, as in the Vil -
lard sketch book. How ev er, when prepar ing con struc tion dia grams, such as
the Ger man Grun drisse or the Span ish ones includ ed in the man u scripts of
Hernán Ruiz, Rodri go Gil de Hon tañón or Alon so de Van delvi ra, Goth ic
masons used ortho graph ic pro jec tions only for the plans. In con trast, in ele -
va tions they used a dis ar tic u lat ed scheme that showed all ribs, includ ing
diag o nals and tiercerons, in true shape. If they had shown these ribs in true
orthog o nal pro jec tion, the result would have been ellip ti cal arch es, since
these ribs are oblique to the pro jec tion plane. At this moment, nobody in
Europe knew how to draw an ellip ti cal arch rep re sent ing the pro jec tion of an
oblique cir cu lar arc. Fur ther, such a rep re sen ta tion would have been use less
for masons, who were inter est ed in the true shape and cur va ture of the ribs. 
19 cen tu ry ele va tions and 21 cen tu ry scans of rib vaults show that
ribs of qua tri par tite vaults do not over lap with trans verse arch es when seen
in ver ti cal pro jec tion. This show cas es a cru cial change in the geo met ri cal
vocab u lary in medieval archi tec ture. Gen er al ly speak ing, Romanesque archi -
tec ture uses sim ple sur faces, or, at most, com bi na tions of them: half cylin -
ders for bar rel vaults, por tions of cylin ders for point ed bar rel vaults, half or
quar ter spheres for domes and semi domes, inter sec tions of cylin ders for
groin vaults, lunette vaults and win dows in round walls. Intra dos joints
between cours es are, gen er al ly speak ing, par al lel, except in domes; this lay -
out gen er ates ruled surfaces. 
Any how, in quadri par tite Goth ic vaults it is quite dif fi cult, or indeed
impos si ble, to lay out the intra dos joints as par al lel or con ver gent lines [ 4 ],
9
10
11
t h s t
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
5
6
5 Ginés Martínez de Aranda, “Cerramientos y trazas
de montea” , c. 1600. Diagram showing warped
surfaces.
6 Jean-Baptiste de la Rue, Traité de la coupe des
pierres, 1728. Biais passé.
12 John Fitchen, The Con struc tion of Goth ic
Cathe drals (Chica go: Uni ver si ty of Chica go
Press, [1961] 1981), 117–122.
13 Van delvi ra,  "Libro de Trazas de Cortes de
Piedras", ff. 58r, 58v, 60r; Ginés Martínez de
Aran da,  “Cer ramien tos y Trazas de Mon tea",
[ca. 1600], MS. 457, Bib liote ca Cen tral Mil i tar,
Madrid, 222–223.
14 Martínez de Aran da,  "Cer ramien tos y Trazas
de Mon tea", 223.
15 Philib ert de l'Orme, Le Pre mier Tome de
L'architecture (Paris: Fréder ic Morel,
1567), 126v.
16 “Por haber de estar los artí fices con tin u a ‐
mente asi dos a la mate ria …” Martínez de
Aran da,  "Cer ramien tos y Trazas de Mon tea” .
The sen tence is includ ed in the first page of
the unnum bered pro logue to the manuscript.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 149
since diag o nal and trans verse ribs do not over lap in ele va tion. This led to the
use of warped sur faces in the sev er ies of quadri par tite vaults, a first form of
resis tance against the sim ple, canon i cal sur faces in Romanesque archi tec -
ture. Fur ther, Goth ic masons did not attempt to depict the intra dos joints of
the sev er ies; they sim ply laid them out using cerces or light struts con nect ing
two ribs. This explains why, while mas ter ing the hor i zon tal lay out of very
com plex sets of ribs in Late Goth ic, masons did not use orthog o nal ele va -
tions in con struc tion draw ings, by con trast with archi tec tur al draw ings of
the period.
How ev er, Renais sance con struc tion in ash lar required pre cise ele va -
tions, coor di nat ed with hor i zon tal pro jec tions, in par tic u lar to con trol the
lay out of warped sur faces. Nine teen-cen tu ry geo me tri cians will lat er point
out that gen er a trix es that are nei ther par al lel nor con ver gent lead to warped,
non-devel opable sur faces. Much ear li er, this notion was iden ti fied by
Renais sance stone cut ters on a pure ly empir i cal basis. Span ish texts, such as
Alon so de Van delvi ra or Ginés Martínez de Aran da, allude to these sur faces
as  “engauchi das”, from the French  “gauche”, left-hand ed. Of course, the
term car ries a strong con no ta tion of slop pi ness and irregularity. 
Martínez de Aran da showed in a remark able didac ti cal draw ing the
notion of gauche or warped sur face [ 5 ]. First, we must remem ber that
while two straight lines in a plane may be either par al lel or con ver gent, in
a spa tial geom e try there is a third pos si bil i ty: both lines may be skew lines,
that is, lines that are not par al lel but do not inter sect. In space, two par al lel
or con ver gent lines deter mine a plane; that is, there is one and only one
plane that pass es through both lines. In con trast, skew lines do not deter mine
planes; in fact, no plane can pass simul ta ne ous ly through two skew lines.
Thus, skew lines may not be rep re sent ed in a sin gle pro jec tion. In order to
show the skew con di tion of a pair of lines, we must pro vide at least two dif -
fer ent pro jec tions, as Martínez de Aran da does. The result resem bles a pair
of heli copter blades. Oth er stone cut ting writ ers, such as Philib ert de l’Orme,
also present these appar ent ly inter sect ing lines, although they are not as
explic it as Martínez de Aran da about the con cept. These sur faces gen er at -
ed by skew lines are gauche sur faces; accord ing to Descrip tive Geom e try, no
tem plate, either rigid or flex i ble, can be applied exact ly over a gauche or
warped surface. 
All this does not mean that Martínez de Aran da was think ing in the
same men tal frame that 19 cen tu ry geome ters. Quite to the con trary, he
defined masons, includ ing him self implic it ly, in the intro duc tion of this man -
u script as  “men who stick to phys i cal mat ter”, and his under stand ing of these
issues seems to be pure ly empir i cal. In par tic u lar, he con structs and
applies tem plates to warped sur faces, in con trast with oth er writ ers, in
12
13
14
15
t h
16
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
7
7 Amedée-François Frézier, La théorie et la pratique
de la coupe des pierres et des bois … 1737-1739.
Biais passé with a cylindrical intrados and
elliptical intrados joints.
17 Van delvi ra,  "Libro de Trazas de Cortes de
Piedras", 46r.
18 Math urin Jousse, Le Secret d'architecture (La
Flêche: George Griveau, 1642), 14–17; François
Derand, L'architecture des Voûtes (Paris:
Sebastien Cramoisy, 1643), 122–126; Jean-Bap ‐
tiste De la Rue, Traité de la Coupe des Pier res
(Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1728), 27–28,
plate 17.
19 Derand, L'architecture des Voûtes, 172–175.
20 Amedée-François Frézi er, La Théorie et la Pra ‐
tique de la Coupe des Pier res et des Bois … ou
Traité de Stéréo tomie (Stras bourg: Jean Daniel
Doulssek er; Paris: Charles Antoine Jombert,
1737–1739), 1: 33–34, 2:35–39.
21 Derand, L'architecture des Voûtes, 122–126.
22 Frézi er, La Théorie et la Pra tique de la Coupe
des Pier res, 2:137–140, plate 37. See also
Enrique Rabasa Díaz,  "Los Arcos Oblic u os en
la Traza de Can tería," EGA Expre sión Grá fi ca
Arqui tec tóni ca,, no. 2 (1994): 145–53.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 151
par tic u lar Alon so de Van delvi ra. Although this author con structs tem plates
for rere-arch es, a par tic u lar con struc tive ele ment rest ing on a lin tel and an
arch, he states clear ly that these should be used only as an aux il iary device
for the com pu ta tion of angles between the edges of the vous soirs and that the
vous soirs for rere-arch es should be dressed using the tire some and time-con -
sum ing squar ing method. By con trast, Martínez de Aranda’s tem plates are
meant to be applied direct ly on warped sur faces. In oth er words, Martínez de
Aran da put togeth er anoth er form of resis tance against the canon i cal sta tus
of non-warped surfaces.
Most stone cut ting writ ers of the 17 and ear ly 18 cen turies, such as
Math urin Jousse, François Derand and Jean-Bap tiste de la Rue marched in
the oppo site direc tion. Admit ted ly, they dealt with pieces involv ing warped
sur faces, such as the corne de vache and the biais passé, two kinds of skew
arch es with one or both oblique springers [ 6 ]. How ev er, they did not use
tem plates on these sur faces; rather, they resort ed to the time-and-mate r i al-
con sum ing squar ing method. In con trast, tak ing their cue from De l’Orme,
they used approx i mate cylin dri cal and con i cal devel op ments for non-warped
sur faces, which is quite rea son able con sid er ing that the gen er a trix es of
a cylin der are par al lel, while those in a cone are con ver gent.
All this led Amedée-François Frézi er to dif fer en ti ate between the aris -
toc ra cy of non-warped sur faces, which he labelled as  “reg u lar” and the ple -
beian gauche sur faces. As in any class strat i fi ca tion, there was also a mid -
dle class, those sur faces he called réguliere ment irrégulieres. At the same
time, the class seg re ga tion launched by Frézi er went much fur ther than the
stance of Derand. This author eschewed tem plates for warped sur faces;
how ev er, when the squar ing method involves planes orthog o nal to the face
of an arch, as in the biais passé and the corne de vache, the loss of mate r i al
and effort brought about by the squar ing method is lim it ed, and in this case,
he placed no objec tion against warped sur faces dressed by the squar -
ing method. 
Thus, while Derand’s mis trust of warped sur faces stemmed from prac ti -
cal con sid er a tions, Frézier’s rejec tion was based on con cep tu al rea sons. The
biais passé had been built by cen turies and Frézi er, as a result of his Ency -
clopaedic approach, explained the tra di tion al solu tion to the piece. How ev er,
he tried to put for ward a réguliere ver sion of the piece, while keep ing the
dress ing advan tages of the orthog o nal bed joints [ 7 ]. This led him to design
an improved vari ant of the biais passé with a cylin dri cal intra dos cut by
planes orthog o nal to the faces of the arch, but oblique to the springers.
The intra dos joints of the piece are oblique sec tions of an ellip ti cal cylin der,
result ing in ellip ti cal curves. Para dox i cal ly, all this leads to a much more
17
t h t h
18
19
20
21
22
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
8
9
10
8 Amedée-François Frézier, La théorie et la pratique
de la coupe des pierres et des bois … 1737-1739.
Using the straightedge while dressing stones.
9 Charles Leroy, Traité de Stéréotomie, 1844.
Ellipsoidal vault solved using lines of curvature.
10 Jean-Nicolas Hachette, Traité de Géometrie
Descriptive, 1822. Arrière-voussure de Marseille.
23 Frézi er, La Théorie et la Pra tique de la Coupe
des Pier res, 2: pl. 28.
24 Leon hard Euler,  "De Solidis Quo rum Super fi ‐
ciem in Planum Expli care Licet," Novi Com ‐
men tarii Acad e mi ae Sci en tiarum Pet ro pol i ‐
tanae, no. 16 (1772): 3–34.
25 Gas pard Mon ge,  "Des Lignes de Cour bu res de
la Sur face de l’Ellipsoïde," Jour nal de I’Ecole
Poly tech nique, no. 2 (1796): 145–65.
26 José María Gen til Baldrich and Enrique
Rabasa Díaz,  "Sobre la Geometría Descrip ti va
y su Difusión en España," in Geometría
Descrip ti va, Gas pard Mon ge (Madrid: Cole gio
de Inge nieros de Caminos, Canales y Puer tos,
1996), 55–93; Sakarovitch, Épures
d'architecture, 309–313; Enrique Rabasa Díaz,
For ma y Con struc ción en Piedra. De la Can ‐
tería Medieval a la Estereotomía del Siglo XIX
(Akal: Madrid, 2000), 296–302.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 153
com plex trac ing and dress ing process. As far as we know, no built exam ple
of Frézier’s enhanced biais passé has been found.
It is worth while to remark that the con cepts of  “ruled” or “devel opable”
sur faces do not play an impor tant role in Frézier’s trea tise, oth er than his
insis tence on the use of the straight edge [ 8 ] in the dress ing process. Of
course, he seems to be think ing of the sphere, the most per fect sur face for
Renais sance the o rists, as a  “reg u lar” sur face and in fact he asso ciates it usu -
al ly with the cone and the cylin der. This state of events was to change in
1772, when Leon hard Euler pub lished  "De Solidis Quo rum Super fi ciem in
Planum Expli care Licet”, that is,  “About solids whose sur faces may be
devel oped into a plane”, putting for ward the equa tions that such sur faces
must ful fil in order to be clas si fied as devel opable. This issue has a host of
appli ca tions, as time will show, but it seems that Euler was main ly inter est ed
in cartography.
Any how, Gas pard Mon ge, the founder of Descrip tive Geom e try, was to
take back the sub ject to the field of stone cut ting. He was Pro fes sor of the
The o ry of Stone cut ting in the Mil i tary Engi neer ing School at Mézierès.
Remark ably, his exten sive sci en tif ic pro duc tion about a host of dif fer ent sub -
jects includes lit tle more than a sin gle paper on stereoto my, the sci ence of
the divi sion of solids, which includes stone cut ting as a prac ti cal appli ca -
tion. Try ing to illus trate a new con cept, lines of cur va ture, Mon ge used as
an exam ple a rather far-fetched prob lem in stone con struc tion, that of an
ellip soidal vault with three dif fer ent axes or sca lene ellip soid. He imposed
two con straints to the prob lem: bed joints should be gen er at ed by orthog o -
nals, or more strict ly speak ing, nor mals to the intra dos sur face. Also, these
joints should be devel opable sur faces. Both con straints had some prac ti cal
sense. The gen er a tion of bed joints by nor mals to the intra dos sur face avoids
acute angles between the vous soir faces, which may suf fer dents dur ing the
trans porta tion, hoist ing and place ment process es. At the same time, the
devel opable nature of these sur faces allowed the appli ca tion of flex i ble tem -
plates to the bed joints. How ev er, oval vaults had been built for cen turies
with out the use of such sophis ti cat ed con trol meth ods; to con sid er them as
manda to ry seems rather exces sive from a prac ti cal stand point. In order to
gen er ate a devel opable sur face, nor mals to the intra dos sur face must fol low
lines of cur va ture. In con trast with tra di tion al oval vaults, lines of cur va ture
drawn in the sur face of a sca lene ellip soid do not lay on hor i zon tal planes,
but rather go up and down [ 9 ]. Mon ge was so proud of his find ings that he
pro posed to build the Assem bly Hall of the French Repub lic, under dis cus -
sion at this moment, in the shape of a sca lene ellip soid, with ribs fol low ing
lines of cur va ture, and even that the speak er should be placed under a node
of lines of cur va ture called the umbil i cal point.
23
24
25
26
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
11
11 Antoni Gaudí, Palacio Episcopal de Astorga, rere-
arch over the main door, 1899-1893. Photograph:
José Calvo.
27 Gino Loria, Sto ria del la Geome tria Descrit ti va,
dalle Orig i ni sino ai Giorni Nos tri (Milano: Ulri ‐
co Hoepli, 1921).
28 Jean–Nicolas–Pierre Hachette, Traité de
Géométrie Descrip tive…. (Paris: Cor by, [1822]
1828), 96.
29 Hachette, Traité de Géométrie Descrip tive,
315–318. See also Rabasa, For ma y Con struc ‐
ción en Piedra, 278–286.
30 Enrique Rabasa Díaz,  "Arcos Esvi a dos
y Puentes Oblic u os. El Pre tex to de la
Estereotomía en el Siglo XIX," OP, no. 38
(1996): 30–41; Sakarovitch, Épures
d'architecture, 313–319.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 155
This sug gests that Mon ge was enforc ing here the same con cept of ortho doxy
than Frézi er, exclud ing all forms of resis tance to  “reg u lar” sur faces, not only
for prac ti cal rea sons, but rather on con cep tu al grounds. Any how, the read er
may ask whether an ellip soid with three dif fer ent axes, a non-devel opable
sur face, may qual i fy as  “reg u lar” sur face. It seems that the accep tance of the
sca lene ellip soid in the canon i cal realm of accept ed sur faces stems from ana -
lyt i cal, not strict ly geo met ri cal, rea sons. The ellip soid, whether the sca lene
vari ant or the well-known ellip soid of rev o lu tion, with two axes of the same
length, is a cuadric or sec ond-degree sur face, just as the sphere, the cylin der
and the cone. Such sim ple math e mat i cal rep re sen ta tion must have been quite
pleas ing to the eyes of the sci en tists of the Enlight en ment and the
French Revolution. 
Try ing to  “push fur ther the bound aries of this hap pi ly con quered
realm”, in Gino Loria’s words, one of Monge’s stu dents, Jean-Nico las
Hachette, went fur ther. As Mon ge with the lines of cur va ture, he had
proved a the o rem that he need ed to illus trate. Hachette’s the o rem is high ly
abstract: it states that if two ruled sur faces have a com mon gen er a trix and
they share the same tan gent plane in three points, then they share the tan gent
plane all along the com mon gen er a trix. Mon ge had insist ed in the prac ti cal
appli ca tions of Descrip tive Geom e try in the intro duc tion to his text, so
Hachette need ed a prac ti cal appli ca tion of his the o rem. He found it in the
Arrière-vous sure de Mar seille, a clas si cal stone cut ting piece designed to
solve a door or win dow open ing with a wood en frame crowned by a semi cir -
cle [ 10 ]. Using a seg men tal arch for the inner face of this piece pre vents the
win dow pane to col lide with the sur face of the vault cov er ing the open ing.
How ev er, all three sur faces in the intra dos of this piece are warped. Once
again, as Mon ge with the lines of cur va ture and the sca lene ellip soid,
Arrière-vous sures de Mar seille had been built for two cen turies with out the
need of Hachette’s sophis ti cat ed pro ce dure, and in fact, it is impos si ble to
tell tra di tion al Arrière-vous sures built using the tra di tion al solu tion from the
ones dressed by means of Hachette’s sophis ti cat ed tech nique. Thus, we
may sur mise that Hachette’s focus did not lie on the prac ti cal appli ca tion of
the piece, but rather in his use as an illus tra tion of his theorem. 
From this moment on, Descrip tive Geom e try text books, taught as
a foun da tion sub ject in the host of Poly tech nic Schools that spread through
Con ti nen tal Europe, includ ed not only sec ond-degree warped sur faces as
hyper boloids and parab o loids, but also oth er warped sur faces as the Arrière-
vous sure de Mar seille, the corne de vache and the biais passé, that could not
present the same ana lyt ic cre den tials, try ing again to push for ward the fron -
tiers of this new science.
27
28
29
30
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
12
12 Félix Candela, Los Manantiales Restaurant,
Xochimilco, 1956. Photograph: Dge. CC BY-SA 3.0
31 Charles–François–Antoine Leroy, Traité de
Géométrie Descrip tive … (Paris: Carilian–
Goeury, 1834); Charles–François–Antoine
Leroy, Traité de Stéréo tomie … (Paris: Bache li ‐
er, Carilian–Goeury et Dal mont, 1844).
32 Sakarovitch, Épures d'architecture, 243–244.
33 Frézi er, La Théorie et la Pra tique de la Coupe
des Pier res … 2: 484–486.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 157
The focus of these issues went back to Spain as a result of a strange turn of
events. While most archi tec tur al schools in Con ti nen tal Europe adopt ed the
ped a gog i cal mod el of the Paris École de Beaux-Arts, at the start of the 19
cen tu ry, the archi tec tur al instruc tion of the Acad e mia de Bel las Artes de San
Fer nan do in Madrid fol lowed the mod el of the École Poly tech nique, with
a strong empha sis on Descrip tive Geom e try, con struc tion and, in par tic u lar,
Stereoto my. In the wake of the Cata lan Renaix ença move ment, a new archi -
tec tur al school was opened in Barcelona. It lacked any kind of sup port from
the Span ish cen tral gov ern ment, up to the extent that it had to be financed by
the Barcelona munic i pal i ty and provin cial admin is tra tion. This school had
enough dif fi cul ties to open a new front about didac tic choic es and, basi cal ly,
adopt ed the ped a gog i cal mod el of the Madrid school, which had gained its
inde pen dence from the San Fer nan do acad e my in 1844.
As a con se quence, Antoni Gaudí, trained in the Barcelona school, had
a sol id back ground in Descrip tive Geom e try and Stereoto my, which led him
to an inno v a tive use of warped sur faces and oth er fig ures in the cat a logue of
19 cen tu ry Descrip tive Geom e try. In addi tion to dou ble-cur va ture sur faces
in Casa Milá and many oth er loca tions, a clear exam ple of his approach to
warped sur faces can be seen in a remark able rere-arch, lean ing in a round
and a point ed arch, in the Epis co pal Palace in Astor ga, an exam ple of his
ear ly Goth ic Revival style [ 11 ]. Rear-arch es span the area between a lin tel
and an arch, or two arch es, as in the Arrière-vous sure de Mar seille, but these
arch es are usu al ly round or seg men tal. There is not a sin gle exam ple in
Gaudí’s most prob a ble sources, Leroy’s trea tis es on Descrip tive Geom e try
and Stereoto my of a rear-arch rest ing on a point ed arch. This sug gests that
Gaudí did not lim it him self to a mechan i cal appli ca tion of Leroy’s mod els;
rather, he assim i lat ed the meth ods explained in 19 cen tu ry stereoto my trea -
tis es in order to inno vate in the field of warped sur faces, putting for ward
again a new form of resis tance against the canon i cal use of devel opable and  
“reg u lar” surfaces.
Monge’s text was dis rup tive in anoth er sense. Up to this moments,
warped sur faces had been con nect ed almost exclu sive ly with stone cut ting.
As Sakarovitch stressed, the car pen ter works with lines, and the cop per smith
with devel opable sur faces; in the prein dus tri al world, warped sur faces can
only be mate ri alised in stone, brick or earth. Frézi er had tried to extend
the field of appli ca tion of his new sci ence to wood work, to jus ti fy the title of
his book: La the o rie et la pra tique de la coupe des pier res et des bois … ou
traité de stéréo tomie. How ev er, the sec tion on wood work ing in his book is
sur pris ing ly short and, in any case, deals with thin veneers that can only be
mate ri al ized as devel opable sur faces. Mon ge was much more ambi tious:
he tried to extend the field of appli ca tion of Descrip tive Geom e try to all
t h
t h
31
t h
32
33
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
13 14
13 Le Corbusier, Philips Pavilion at the Brussels
Universal Exhibition, 1958. Photograph: Wouter
Hagens. CC BY-SA 3.0
14 Le Corbusier, Roof, Assembly Hall, Chandigarh.
1951. Photograph: Eduardo Guiot. CC BY 2.0.
34 Gas pard Mon ge, Géométrie Descrip tive,
Leçons Don nées aux Écoles Nor males, l’an
3 de la République … (Paris: Bau douin, 1799),
1–4.
35 Eduar do Tor ro ja y Cabal lé, Teoría Geométri ca
de las Líneas Alabeadas y de las Super fi cies
Desar rol lables. (Madrid: For t anet, 1904).
36 Col in Faber, Can dela the Shell Builder (New
York: Rein hold Pub lish ing Cor po ra tion, 1963).
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 159
branch es of the nascent indus tri al tech nol o gy. In the con text of the Indus -
tri al Rev o lu tion, the dif fer ence between devel opable and warped sur face was
essen tial, since warped sur faces can not be mate ri alised in sheet met al with -
out cut ting the sheet; of course, such process brings about mate r i al waste and
exe cu tion difficulties.
Le Cor busier used to quote Auguste Per ret say ing that  “We are build ing
in con crete, but we still think about stone”. In addi tion to his own oeu vre,
a break through in these fields was dri ven by two Spaniards. Eduar do Tor ro ja
y Cabal lé was a full pro fes sor of Descrip tive geom e try at the Uni ver si dad
Cen tral de Madrid, who had pub lished a Teoría Geométri ca de las líneas
alabeadas y las super fi cies desar rol lables (Geo met ric The o ry of Warped
Lines and Devel opable Sur faces). His son Eduar do Tor ro ja Miret, an out -
stand ing civ il engi neer, used sin gle-sheet ed hyper boloids on the roof of the
Hipó dro mo de la Zarzuela Madrid (1941), and in the Cuba de Fedala in
Moroc co (1956).
While Tor ro ja Miret stayed in Spain after the Civ il War, Félix Can dela
went to exile in Mex i co, after his involve ment with the Repub li can Army as
Engi neers Cap tain. He had fol lowed the archi tec tur al cours es at the Madrid
school, but he got his degree in 1935, in the eve of the Span ish Civ il War. In
Mex i co, he car ried out some projects as an archi tect, but he worked more
fre quent ly as a builder, offer ing to archi tects a sen si ble and inex pen sive con -
struc tion method based in thin con crete shells in the shape of a hyper bol ic
parab o loid; he was famil iar with this warped sur face as a result from his
instruc tion in Descrip tive Geom e try in the Madrid school [ 12 ]. In this
way, warped sur faces leapt the increas ing ly nar row fron tiers of ash lar con -
struc tion to the expand ing realm of one of the 20 cen tu ry typ i cal mate ri -
als, concrete.
Candela’s most fruit ful years, the Fifties and the Six ties, over lap with
Le Corbusier’s late peri od, where the vocab u lary and meth ods of Descrip tive
Geom e try fur nished him a way to break the lim its of the  “reg u lar” sur faces
of the Twen ties, such as cylin ders and cuboids, to delve into a free and com -
plex lan guage includ ing the hyper bol ic parab o loids in the Brus sels Expo
Philips Pavil ion [ 13 ], the one-sheet ed hyper boloid in Chandigarh’s Assem -
bly Hall, [ 1 ] [ 14 ] or even shad ow the o ry in the Tow er of Shad ows in the
same com plex. Thus, this  “form of resis tance” involv ing warped sur faces, in
con trast with the  “reg u lar” forms in his ear ly pro duc tion, can be seen as
a chain in a long process that has its roots in Medieval architecture.
34
35
36
t h
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Form of Resistance
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces 161
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165
Aldo Aymonino
The Resilience of Small
Numbers
From Self-Construction to
Symbol
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
1 2
3
1 Trabucco in Termoli
2 Laura Federici - Trabucco - private collection,
Rome
3 Adriatic Trabucco in Peschici
The Resilience of Small Numbers 167
At the end of the sum mer of 2022, the thresh old of eight bil lion human
beings on earth was crossed. The stag ger ing increase in inhab i tants, cou pled
with increas ing con sump tion and trav el, decreas ing mor tal i ty and dom i nant
urban iza tion, implies a vision of the space in which we act dom i nat ed and
gov erned by the unlim it ed num bers of mass soci ety. How ev er, for the past
30 years or so, a con trary trend has been emerg ing, espe cial ly in the most
crowd ed places on the plan et. Begin ning with exam ples from minor, ver nac -
u lar and local his to ry, this paper attempts to rea son through a few projects
about the per son al need for soli tude, the gaze, and the thought of the sacred
and sym bol ic through mod est ly sized but no less nec es sary projects.
Self-Construction
The so-called  ‘Adri at ic room’, the sea called on maps until two cen turies ago
 ‘the Gulf of Venice’, is one of the few places in the Mediter ranean where
com mon cul tur al, social, spa tial traits are found along its shorelines.
The rep e ti tion, with small vari a tions, of sim i lar build ing modes, func -
tions, and set tle ments make it a unicum that has no equal both on land
and water.
One of its archi tec tur al (and poet ic) con stants is the pres ence of fish ing
huts called  ‘Tra boc chi’: a design theme of which we find built exam ples dot -
ting the coast from the Venet ian lagoon to Apu lia, and which com bine the
appar ent con cep tu al oxy moron between iso lat ed object and deep root ed ness
to a genius loci not already only local but of the Adri at ic basin as a whole.
[ 1 ]
Not only that. The essen tial i ty and fierce inter de pen dence of the parts
with the whole; the dia gram mat ic sys tem of assem bling and join ing the ele -
ments; the resis tance and flex i bil i ty to sta t ic and dynam ic stress es; the clar i -
ty of the tech no log i cal ele ments and the ran dom ness of the over lap ping of
the parts com ing from a poor and imag i na tive but nev er pal try or ragged
reuse; the vari ety of tech ni cal i ty and for mal i ty — typo log i cal? — dic tat ed
by dif fer ent modes of fish ing and exper i men ta tion com bined with knowl -
edge acquired and con sol i dat ed by cen turies of prac tice, make it a pecu liar,
but by no means minor, archi tec tur al and land scape theme. [ 2 ]
If the ele ments are reduced to their pri ma ry func tion al essence, the vol -
umes dis ap pear, the homo gene ity and pover ty of the mate ri als is dis arm ing,
oth er cat e gories take, with a new and com plete ly autonomous force, the
place of the tra di tion al ones: the lines of the cables, the sequences of the pil -
lars and poles that sup port the nets, the mate r i al grains of the woods and
iron, the shad ows that are nev er extend ed and sharp but always formed by
series of sim i lar but not equal objects, the reflec tion on the water. [ 3 ]
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
4
4 Adriatic Trabucco
The Resilience of Small Numbers 169
The local iza tion of the hut at the bound ary of the land scape, at the tran si tion
point between land and water also marks its fate as an archi tec tur al lim it, of
soli tude, of non plus ultra. [ 4 ]
Urban Origami
On the con trary, there is no doubt that tourist pres sure is increas ing ly chang -
ing the face of the  ‘Venice Sys tem’. The near ly thir ty mil lion pres ences
a year are going to impact, almost with out any kind of fil ter or cor rec tive,
a sys tem in pre car i ous bal ance of only — as the count down of the dis play of
the now famous Rial to phar ma cy inex orably recites — 49,999 res i dents in
the his toric center.
Quick ly chang ing the pic ture are added phe nom e na unknown or numer -
i cal ly insignif i cant until very few years ago, such as Bed & Break fasts,
which have in fact deci sive ly trans formed the struc ture of hos pi tal i ty in the
lagoon city, or the  ‘dis cov er ies’ by mass tourist itin er aries, of new areas in
the fab ric of cer tain ses tieri (Ghet to, Mis eri cor dia, the Greeks, San ta Mar ta,
etc.) to be trans formed and  ‘put to income’.
How ev er, new phe nom e na, new ways of spa tial and social use of the
city and the extra or di nary nat ur al envi ron ment that con tains it, are slow ly
spread ing in the edge areas, in the bor der  ‘fringes’ between land and water
that so pro found ly influ enced the whole his to ry of the Venet ian territory.
Venice, the city of the per fect super po si tion of sys tems, described by Le
Cor busier by resort ing to the anatom i cal metaphor of blood cir cu la tion, man -
i fests its most com plex reality. 
It used to accu mu late wealth through the con stant mobi liza tion of
goods from one place to anoth er. Now, with the replace ment of the tem po -
rary stopover of goods by the per ma nent pres ence of mass tourism, the city-
muse um-the ater of itself wit ness es its dis in te gra tion through the con tin u ous
rein ven tion of its past. 
The city has lost its iden ti ty (and part ly its appear ance) and has turned
into a place where decay becomes a nor mal ized con di tion and what was once
its per sua sive trag ic ness los es its charm. 
The fig ure of the tourist and his pres ence become a cru cial fac tor in its
exis tence, mono func tion al ly a total iz ing con di tion. The tourist-col lec tor col -
lects frag ments of images and mem o ries with the sole pur pose of being able
to prove that he  ‘was there’. But mem o ry is not a Carte sian space, and per -
cep tion, often parceled out and dis tort ed by flows and num bers, has become
a ‘dis pos able vacuum’. 
The stone city par excel lence tow ers above, as Fer nand Braudel
reminds us, a sunken for est. Stone is above wood, but wood emerges from
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
5 6
7 8
5 Aldo Aymonino - VivereVenezia 2002 - Origami
one 1
6 Aldo Aymonino - VivereVenezia 2002 - Origami
two
7 Aldo Aymonino - VivereVenezia 2002 - Newsstand
view closed
8 Aldo Aymonino - VivereVenezia 2002 - Newsstand
view open
The Resilience of Small Numbers 171
the water steadi ly in numer ous places and is still the for mal and per cep tu al
medi a tion between stone and water. In the Lagoon, the Larch of the bricole
draws the net that sep a rates the ten u ous bound ary between prac ti ca ble paths
and shoals, while in the city it becomes the three-dimen sion al i ty of land ing
points. Also made of larch is the  ‘tem po rary’ bridge of the Accad e mia, built
by Euge nio Miozzi in 1933 and nev er again removed or rethought in mod ern
forms (the 1985 Bien nale was a train ing ground for inge nu ity to feed the
infi nite  "anal o gous Venices" that still inhab it our mind, but oper a tional ly it
does not count…). 
The  ‘urban folds’ in Larch wood imag ined for Cam po San to Ste fano are
the tools for a rein ter pre ta tion of places that are now over whelmed: cap sules
for soli tude, where one can regain the pre-emi nence of being over mov ing.
The place ment of the urban origa mi, light objects declared ly unre lat ed to the
design of cur rent street fur ni ture, allows a dif fer ent per cep tion of space,
today char ac ter ized by cross ing and pri vate rest areas (bars, restau rants,
hotels…). Around each origa mi, an envi ron ment is cre at ed that is inte grat ed
with the cur rent field, which can func tion as an area of rest and fric tion to
the flow, allow ing the cit i zen and tourist its own priv i leged cor ner, which
man ages to slow ly focus on the ele ments that make up the enti ty of the urban
space, in a vision that goes against the cur rent per cep tion of the field depen -
dent cur rent ly only on the eco nom ic pos si bil i ties and time avail able. The
few, sim ple ele ments employed con front the mul ti plic i ty of urban activ i ties:
stop ping, move ment, meet ing, infor ma tion, exchange, com merce, pub lic
transportation.
The two  ‘water gates’ that sig nal the arrival on the south ern side of the
Cam po of the two canals act as real thresh olds that com bine, like motion less
kalei do scopes, the water and land sys tems. Fold ing in on them selves, they
draw seats and shad ed areas, a very rare and pre cious com mod i ty in Venice.
[ 5 ] [ 6 ]
On the side of the San to Stefano’s church rests, tak ing up a cen turies-
old Ital ian and Euro pean tra di tion (just think of the cathe dral in Fer rara and
Pia cen za, but also of the Stephans dom in Vien na), the arti fact that-con tain -
ing the news stand, pub lic toi lets and a small garbage tools deposit, com pose
the new back ground of the cam po for those arriv ing from the Accad e mia
Bridge. Like a Leonardesque machine, the kiosk changes shape and arrange -
ment with the pass ing of the hours and sea sons: tor toise lock in the humid
Venet ian win ter, it lets light leak from its inte ri or only at night [ 7 ]; while in
fine weath er it opens its  ‘flap’ dis play shelves toward the cam po, inte grat ing
with the pub lic space and becom ing one of its main pro tag o nists. [ 8 ]
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
9
9 Aldo Aymonino - Desdemona e Iago - sketch –
2021
The Resilience of Small Numbers 173
The Lagoon of Incessant Change. 
Then there is water, the found ing ele ment of Venet ian iden ti ty and the con -
tin u al ly shift ing thresh old from which every thing start ed and which, even in
con tem po rary times, marks the point of tran si tion between the two worlds,
the urban and the lagoon, which are so inter twined and inter sect ed that even
to this day it is dif fi cult to define their bound aries with certainty. 
The ter ri to ry of the Lagoon, a true leben sraum of the Serenis si ma, has
always housed with in it very strong con trasts of func tions and modes of use,
seem ing ly irrec on cil able with each oth er. From the splen dor of its mar ble
city to the unsta ble, self-built fish ing huts of Pellest ri na, at first glance so
puny and brit tle; from the agri cul tur al crops of Sant'Erasmo to the mus sel
and shell fish farms; from the glass mak ers' fur naces that have been churn ing
out frag ile mas ter pieces for cen turies to the heavy met al and chem i cal indus -
tries allo cat ed in Marghera; from the del i cate flat-bot tomed wood en boats to
the steel giants built at the root of the Ponte del la Lib ertà, the lagoon space
has always man aged to hold every thing togeth er, often even against com -
mon sense.
The jour ney, or rather, the explo ration we have attempt ed through our
projects is a crit i cal and syn thet ic rein ter pre ta tion of this world in which for -
mal ly any thing can hap pen, held togeth er by the com mon denom i na tor of
water and infi nite and chang ing light, which has as its only orog ra phy the
arti fi cial fig ures of human pro duc tion and the dis tant back ground of moun -
tains and which makes the Latin mot to con traria sunt complementa effec tive
and visible.
The dif fer ent names of the lagoon desert (velme, ghe bi, motte, barene,
sac che, val li, casoni, etc.), have the same toponymic vari ety as the dense
stone city (calle, cam po, campiel lo, corte, pisci na, fon da men ta, riva, ruga,
soto portego, ses tiere, rio, canale, rio terà, etc.) and togeth er they form iden -
ti ty con stel la tions capa ble of pre cise ly locat ing spe cif ic places in the inex tri -
ca ble and con stant ly sur pris ing labyrinth of the Venet ian territory.
The term mot ta or mota (small hill, hump) is gen er al ly used to refer to
an arti fi cial mound of land in the mid dle of the lagoon, change able and with
uncer tain con tours, exposed to the sud den vari a tions of the weather.
The two small motte di Cà Zane are locat ed in the North Lagoon, about
four and a half kilo me ters north east of the island of Tor cel lo. These two
small strips of land, a few dozen meters apart, may rep re sent the thresh old of
a new way of under stand ing the rela tion ship between nat ur al and artificial.
On the one hand, the built, which by its dis ci pli nary statute is sub ject to
the iron law of tec ton ics, on the oth er hand, the Sel va as a phe nom e non of
envi ron men tal autophagy, as a mech a nism of vio lent re-appro pri a tion of terr-
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
10
11
12
10 Aldo Aymonino, Giuseppe Caldarola, Fabrizio
D'Amico - Desdemona e Iago - Plans and
elevations – 2022
11 Aldo Aymonino, Giuseppe Caldarola, Fabrizio
D'Amico - Desdemona e Iago - View – 2022
12 Aldo Aymonino, Giuseppe Caldarola, Fabrizio
D'Amico - Desdemona e Iago - Views – 2022
The Resilience of Small Numbers 175
i to ries, as an aggres sion against the arti fi cial to can ni bal ize it in an anti-
roman tic way. [ 9 ]
The two islands are inhab it ed by two com plete ly dif fer ent arti facts: the
first, Des de mona, is an arti fi cial soil super-ele vat ed on 13 shaped beams of
three dif fer ent lengths sup port ed by inclined pil lars with cubic plinth of the
same shape as the base ment ele ments that con sol i date the ground of the
motte, a small ter ri to ry that is con tin u al ly invad ed by the waters that erase
the traces of its pre-exis tence, and that accom mo dates the spon ta neous veg e -
ta tion that, grow ing over time, will make Des de mona a roman tic ruin: on its
arti fi cial ground, built in such a way that it can also be prac ti ca ble in its
intra dos between water and con struc tion, the ash es of Ezra Pound and Igor
Stravin sky, two great foresti (for eign ers), one Amer i can and the oth er Russ -
ian, both buried in Venice, could be scat tered. [ 10 ]
Instead, Iago is a com plex machine in per pet u al motion: 15 small exca -
va tor buck ets are mount ed on thin met al rods, about 15 meters high,
anchored to the cubic con crete plinths of the base ment, the same as those
sup port ing Desdemona's tra di tion al struc ture. The buck ets accu mu late storm
water, wind-blown dust and debris, bio log i cal remains of birds nest ing in
them, and go into  ‘peak load’ when the weight of the debris that accu mu lates
there reach es 2 kilo grams, spilling its con tents into the lagoon, which, as it
accu mu lates over time will build a new mot ta that grow ing on the old one
will slow ly block the rods and buck et mech a nism, erase the traces of the pre-
exis tence, turn ing the machine into a rusty and anti-roman tic  ‘sylvestre
ruin’, a reminder of the nec es sary alter na tion between arti fi cial and natural.
Iago and Des de mona trans form them selves by look ing at each oth er:
they are per fect bach e lor machines, the Pil lars of Her cules of the mean ing,
poten tial i ty and spa tial i ty of the rela tion ship between archi tec ture and land -
scape; dis tant points in the rar efac tion of the sub ur ban hori zon of the
Lagoon. [ 11 ]
Thus the two ruins, sim i lar yet very dif fer ent in their rai son d'être,
stand out in the appar ent empti ness of the Lagoon, in the cease less muta bil i -
ty of its light and reflec tions, against the motion less back ground of its dis -
tant hori zon. [ 12 ]
Aldo Aymonino Form of Resistance
The Resilience of Small Numbers 177
Bibliography
Misino, Paola and Trasi, Nicoletta (curators) Resitenti Leggerezze. Capanni da pesca sulla costa
abruzzese, DAU Pescara-Umberto Sala Editore 1995
Spinelli, Mario; Marzo, Mauro (curators) viverevenezia, pagg. 108-113 Marsilio 2003
Marini, Sara; Moschetti, Vincenzo (curators) Isolario Venezia Sylva, pagg. 76-83 Mimesis 2022

179
Vida Rucli
Forests of Resistance
Memorial Strategies in Forested
Landscapes of Socialist
Yugoslavia
1
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
1 In Slovene: Goz dovi odpo ra. The title is a ref ‐
er ence to the film by Mar ta Popivo da and Ana
Vujanović Kra jine odpo ra (Land scapes of
Resis tance) from 2021, which nar rates the sto ‐
ry of the par ti san Son ja Vujanović. I had the
plea sure to col lab o rate with the two direc tors
in 2019, on the the atre piece Kra jine svo bode
(Land scapes of Free dom) at the Sloven sko
mladin sko gledal išče the atre in Ljubljana.
2 Ital ian:  “La Resisten za rap p re sen tò la fusione
tra pae sag gio e persone” .
3 Ita lo Calvi no,  “Pre fazione di Il sen tiero dei nidi
di rag no,” in Romanzi e rac con ti (Milano, Italy:
Mediri ani Mon dadori, 1995 a).
4 Jure Mikuž,  “The Char ac ter is tics of Some
Recent Yugoslav Memo ri als to the Nation al
Lib er a tion War,” in Cat a logue of the Yugoslav
Pavil ion, 39 Bien nale of Venice, ed. Zoran
Kržišnik (Ljubl jana, YU: Mod ern Gal ley, 1980).
th
5 Miklavž Komelj, Kako mis li ti par ti zan sko
umet nost? (Ljubl jana, Slove nia: Založba/* cf.,
2009), 369.
6 Edvard Kocbek, Tovar iši ja (Ljubl jana, Slove ‐
nia: Držav na Založ ba Sloveni je, 1949), 9.
7 As not ed by Mat teo Gian cot ti, con tem plat ed
land scape is felt by par ti sans as land scape of
inac tion and is often relat ed to peri ods of
deten tion and impris on ment. Land scape is
usu al ly observed, stud ied and interpreted—
therefore not experienced—only for strate gic
rea sons. Mat teo Gian cot ti, Pae sag gi del trau ‐
ma (Milano, Italy: Bom piani, 2017), 160–164.
8 Ita lo Calvi no,  “Angos cia in caser ma,” in
Romanzi e rac con ti (Milano, Italy: Mediri ani
Mon dadori, 1995 b), 245.
Forests of Resistance 181
Introduction: Landscapes of Resistance
Resistance represented the fusion between landscape and people.
Italo Calvino
Par ti san war is by def i n i tion char ac ter ized by two spe cif ic ele ments: the first
is the emo tion al and phys i cal par tic i pa tion of the whole pop u la tion, the sec -
ond is the  “com plete and suc cess ful exploita tion of nat ur al fea tures of the
coun try side as a place of refuge, a place of abode, a place for ambush es and
war oper a tions in a dif fi cult coun try, under the worst pos si ble con di tions”.
The con crete and sym bol ic bond between Par ti sans and land scape in its
entire ty and com plex i ty was an intrin sic fac tor defin ing the par ti san expe ri -
ence expressed by many writ ers and poets in their post WW2 works. In the
case of Yugoslav Par ti sans, fight ing the inva sion of Yugoslavia by the Axis
pow ers between 1941 and 1945, the impor tance of ter ri to r i al knowl edge and
of its sym bol ic under stand ing is well doc u ment ed, espe cial ly via the wide
pro duc tion of par ti san art (main ly poet ry and graph ics) con nect ed to the
mean ing of forests, val leys and set tled out skirts as places of strug gle, but
also sym bols of  “rev o lu tion ary cross ing, from rooms to open space”.
Edvard Kocbek, a Slovene poet who fought in the NOB (nar o d noosvo bodil -
na bor ba, Eng. People’s Lib er a tion War), wrote in his diary from WW2 (lat -
er pub lished under the title Tovar iši ja, Eng. Com rade ship) the fol low ing
quote by Saint Bernard:  “Trust my expe ri ence, in the for est you will find
more wis dom than in books”.
The rela tion the Par ti sans had to the places of their action is almost
sym bi ot ic and rad i cal ly dif fer ent to the usu al (wo)man–nature rela tion.
Land scape is no longer a con tem pla tive horizon—which it could only be
with the nec es sary visu al and con cep tu al dis tance between man and nature—
but instead coin cides with action; it is felt in its total i ty when a par ti san
enters and expe ri ences it. Land scape is, there fore, no longer a sta t ic view but
becomes dynam ic, strong ly relat ed to the Par ti sans’ actions in space. This
per spec ti val shift of land scape perception—moving from the optic to the
hap tic—made land scape a place of par tic i pa tion, shar ing, per for mance and
move ment and influ enced the pro duc tion of mon u ments in Yugoslavia, as in
oth er parts of Europe. 
This trans for ma tion from con tem plat ed land scape to lived land scape is
inter con nect ed with the new sym bol ic inter pre ta tion of land scape itself.
Land scape could be the metonymy of free dom, as the Ital ian writer Ita lo
Calvi no states:  “The grass and the sun and they, walk ing with their unbut -
toned coats between the grass and the sun, were a new sym bol, airy and
enor mous: what peo ple call free dom”. It could be also per ceived as a lands-
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
1
1 Garavice Memorial Park by Bogdan Bogdanović in
Bihać, today Bosnia and Herzegovina (inaugurated
in 1981). Photo by © Giovanni Emilio Galanello.
9 Miklavž Komelj, Kako mis li ti par ti zan sko
umet nost? (Ljubl jana, Slove nia: Založba/* cf.,
2009), 243.
10 Nick Kaye, Site-Spe cif ic Art (Lon don, Eng ‐
land: Rout ledge, 2000).
11 Richard Ser ra,  “Titled Arc Destroyed,” in Writ ‐
ings and Inter views (Chica go, US: Chica go
Uni ver si ty Press, 1994).
12 Robert Irwin, Being and Cir cum stance – Notes
towards a Con fi den tial Art (Lark spur Land ing,
US: Lapis Press, 1985), 9.
Forests of Resistance 183
cape of death, as in the poem by Karel Destovnik Kajuh Preko smr ti
stopamo v svo bo do (Through Death We Walk into Free dom), where land -
scapes are  “landscapes/of death and dying”. Land scape, there fore, is
a poly mor phic and float ing con cept depend ing on a par ti sans per son -
al perception.
The deep rela tion ship between the Par ti sans and land scape is clear
when read ing Par ti san authors: land scape becomes the exter nal man i fes ta -
tion of inter nal res o nances, its vis i ble form sym bi ot i cal ly express es one’s
feel ings, fore bod ings and sen sa tions. When a partisan’s aware ness enters
a cri sis, this is often reflect ed in lit er ary texts through the rela tion ship
between them and land scape becom ing unsta ble, as if the human fig ure is no
longer inte grat ed in space.
While fight ing, the Par ti sans per ceived them selves as con sub stan tial
with land scape, both sym bol i cal ly and strate gi cal ly: they blend ed into the
land scape, meta mor phi cal ly adapt ing them selves to the nat ur al envi ron ment.
The chthon ic expe ri ence of land’s depth, which hides and saves, espe cial ly
dur ing sweep ing actions, has a strong mean ing (and remains a strong mem o -
ry) since it is intrin si cal ly con nect ed to the shock of almost touch ing death.
These war expe ri ences were shared by many Yugoslav artists and archi -
tects who in the post war peri od ded i cat ed them selves to design ing mon u -
ments: the archi tect Bog dan Bog danović, for exam ple, was a Par ti san in the
resis tance move ment, the sculp tor Dušan Dža mon ja did not fight, but vis cer -
al ly felt the war as a refugee in Ser bia, the sculp tor Vojin Bak ić lost his three
broth ers dur ing the war, etc. In their texts and inter views these artists and
archi tects fre quent ly pay atten tion to the top ic of the monument’s space: the
rela tion ship between mon u ments and authen tic land scapes of struggle.
Site-Specificity: The Site before the Form
A site-specific work might articulate and define itself through
properties, qualities or meanings produced in specific relationships
between an ‘object’ or ‘event’ and the position it occupies.
Nick Kaye
To move the work is to destroy the work.
Richard Serra
What char ac ter izes site-spe cif ic art is that the site where the work is placed
has a fun da men tal role in how the work is con ceived: it is  “con ceived with
the site in mind”. With this spe cif ic atten tion to the loca tion of the
sculpture/work of art, a change also occurs in the way the view er is con side-
9
10
11
12
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
13 See: Michael Fried,  “Art and Object hood,” Art ‐
fo rum, 5 (1967): 12–23. Ros alind Krauss, Pas ‐
sages in Mod ern Sculp ture (New York, US:
The Viking Press, 1977). Ros alind Krauss, The
Orig i nal i ty of Avant-Garde and Oth er Mod ‐
ernist Myths. (Cam bridge, US: The MIT
Press, 1986).
14 Nick Kaye, Site-Spe cif ic Art (Lon don, Eng ‐
land: Rout ledge, 2000).
15 The word sit ed ness was coined by Ros alind
Krauss when speak ing of Richard Serra’s
sculp tures. Ros alind Krauss,  “Richard Ser ra:
Sculp ture,” in Richard Ser ra, ed. Hal Fos ter,
(Cam bridge, US: The MIT Press, 2000), 99–
146.
16 See: Bog dan Bog danović,  “O postavl jan ju
spomeni ka” Arhitek tu ra Urban izam 10 (1961):
26–32; 47–48. Tonko Maroe vić,  “Fore word,” in
Zdenko Kola cio, Spomeni ci i obil jež ja, 1953–
1982, (Zagreb, YU: Globus, 1984), 13–21.
17 See: Edvard Ravnikar,  “Arhitekt-ova anke ta
o spomenikih NOB,” Arhitekt, 9 (1953): 31.
Dušan Dža mon ja,  “Spomenik — izraz iskust va
i uvjeren ja,” Četvr ti Jul 917 (1980): 14.
18 Bog dan Bog danović,  “O postavl jan ju spomeni ‐
ka,” 26–32.
19 Mar jan Šor li * (1915–1975), Jaroslav Černigoj
(1905–1989), Boris Gabrščik, Bog dan Bog ‐
danović* (1922–2010), Edvard Ravnikar (1907–
1993), Branko Koc mut (1921–2006), Marko Šla ‐
jmer (1927–1969). * These archi tects took part
in the Nation al Lib er a tion War (NOB).
20 Tone Faj far (1913–1981), par ti san
and politician.
Forests of Resistance 185
red. In fact, site-speci fici ty is not solved only with the spe cial posi tion the
set ting gains, but it also includes a dispace ment of the spectator’s atten tion
from the work itself towards the envi ron ment the object and the view er are
part of. If for the min i mal ist sculp ture of the 1960s this meant an atten tion
to the rooms where the sculp tures were includ ed and to the viewer’s posi tion
towards the room and the work of art, for the memo r i al pro duc tion of the
same years in Yugoslavia, sim i lar ly to the Amer i can Land Art pro duc tion,
this meant a stronger atten tion to the nat ur al envi ron ment and the land scape
into which the mon u ment and vis i tor were immersed, it meant defin ing land -
scape as the mate r i al (one of the mate ri als) of the art work, nature as part of
a pro duc tion pro ce dure and the sit ed ness of vision as the cen tral point of
some of the best memorials. 
With in the cul tur al debate of the 1950s, 60s and 70s in Yugoslavia, the
term site-speci fici ty was nev er used. How ev er oth er terms and sen tences
expressed the same inter est towards the top ic of sit ed ness: var i ous artists and
crit ics wrote about the  “rela tion to the place” the mon u ment should devel -
op, or about the mon u ments as spa tial sculp tures that should  “com plete the
exist ing ambiance”, or about the cen tral role of the observer’s point of
view, etc. In the fol low ing sec tion I will ana lyze dif fer ent voic es from dif -
fer ent peri ods, com ing to the con clu sion that sit ed ness—or a monument’s
contextuality—was one of the most dis cussed top ics of inter est when design -
ing and writ ing about con tem po rary mon u ment production.
In 1953 the Slovene archi tec ture jour nal Arhitekt pub lished a sur vey on
NOB mon u ments built from the end of the war until then, ask ing three ques -
tions: 1) What do the inter vie wees think about the present pro duc tion? 2)
How should we view these mon u ments:  “with the eyes of those who will
come after us” or should we be led by our present incli na tions? 3) What is
the qual i ty of Slovene pro duc tion in com par i son to mon u ments built in oth er
Yugoslav republics? Sev en archi tects and one politi cian were inter -
viewed, among them two of the most pro lif ic archi tects in Yugosla vian
memo r i al pro duc tion in the years to come: Edvard Ravnikar and Bog -
dan Bogdanović. 
In 1953 the two archi tects were in very dif fer ent sit u a tions: Bog danović
had only built the Jew ish Memo r i al in Bel grade (Spomenik jevre jskim žrt va -
ma, 1951–52), while Edvard Ravnikar had already com plet ed sev er al memo -
ri als, includ ing his best known project, Kam por Memo r i al (1953) on the
island of Rab, designed togeth er with Miloš Bonča, Savin Sev er, Branko
Koc mut and Marko Šla jmer (the last two were also inter viewed by Arhitekt
in the same sur vey), and some of his most poet ic mon u ments, like the
13
14
15
16
17
18
19 20
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
21 See: Berislav Sto janović,  “Spomeničko
obeleža van je znača jnih događa ja naše rev olu ‐
ci je,” Arhitek tu ra Urban izam 10 (1961): 48.
Zoran Žunković,  “Naši spom ni ci danas,”
Arhitek tu ra Urban izam 10 (1961): 24.
22 Bog dan Bog danović,  “Arhitekt-ova anke ta
o spomenikih NOB,” Arhitekt 9 (1953): 31.
23 Edvard Ravnikar,  “Arhitekt-ova anke ta
o spomenikih NOB,” 31.
24 The arti cle was orig i nal ly pub lished in the
news pa per Delo (1956), n. 10, and par tial ly re-
pub lished five years lat er in Arhitek tu ra
Urban izam (1961), n. 10, an issue ded i cat ed
com plete ly to mon u ments and memorials.
25 Bog dan Bog danović,  “O postavl jan ju spomeni ‐
ka,” 31.
26 Ibid., 29.
27 Dušan Plenča,  “Likov na kri ti ka ćuti,” Četvr ti
Jul 717 (1976): 12.
Forests of Resistance 187
Hostage’s Ceme tery in Begun je and Dra ga pri Begun jah (1952÷53), con sid -
ered at the time one of the best exam ples of spa tial mon u ments. Edvard
Ravnikar in his con cise answer, and the young Bog dan Bogdanović—at the
time 31—with his elab o rate text, expressed very sim i lar ideas on how
a mon u ment should relate to its context. 
Mon u ments should,  “when devel oped spa tial ly, enable a real and gen -
uine expe ri ence”, states Bog danović, while Ravnikar, stress ing the impor -
tance of cor rect sit ing, hopes for the pro duc tion of solu tions which  “com -
plete the exist ing ambiance and cre ate a new bal anced envi ron ment”.
Three years lat er Bog danović writes a lengthy arti cle regard ing the
impor tance of posi tion ing mon u ments in space, describ ing exam ples from
dif fer ent Euro pean cities (Place la Con corde in Paris, Piaz za del Popo lo in
Rome, Kar lův most in Prague, Amaliem borg Slot plads in Copen hagen etc.)
while illus trat ing some of the fun da men tal prin ci ples of the rela tions
between objects and space. After describ ing how ancient pop u la tions dealt
with mon u ments and con sid er ing how Renais sance and Baroque artists used
to build mon u ments and what effects they could achieve, he points out that  
“very often the qual i ty of a mon u ment depends on the way it is posi tioned in
space”. More over, he high lights that at the cen ter of his own reflec tions
there is always man, that every thing should be con sid ered in rela tion to his
posi tion in space and his rela tion to the objects he shares space with.
In the mid-1960s, creative freedom gave a new expansion to sculpture,
including memorial sculpture, ‘the art of the free form’ brought new
principles to the forefront: ‘instead of optic, a tactile sensibility, instead
of a superficial image, penetration into matter’s depth, instead of a
description of real form, forms in space...’ The new social climate and a
reinforced humanitarian function of art helped in the stylistic changes
and contributed to the creation of a new type of memorial sculpture.
Dušan Plenča
In the 1960s reflec tions around mon u ment spa tial i ty became more com mon
and more advanced, as, for exam ple, those reflec tions of the art crit ic
Antoane ta Pasi nović and the art his to ri an Eugen Franković, both from
Zagreb and writ ing in 1966.
In the jour nal Živ ot Umjet nos ti, Antoane ta Pasi nović pub lished an arti -
cle express ing mod ern ideas about the role of space in the design of memo ri -
als. Her arti cle is strong ly inspired by Hen ri Focillon’s book Vie de formes:
Éloge de la main (1939), new ly trans lat ed in Yugoslavia in 1964 with the
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
28 Hen ri Focil lon, Vita delle forme: Elo gio del la
mano (Tori no, Italy: Ein au di, 2002).
29 Ibid., 4.
30 Antone ta Pasi nović,  “Pros tor na anal iza
spomeni ka,” Živ ot Umjet nos ti 2 (1966): 25–29.
31 Evgen Franković,  “Javnost spomeni ka,” Živ ot
Umjet nos ti 2 (1966): 17–24.
Forests of Resistance 189
title Živ ot obli ka: pohvala ruci. Titled  “Spa tial Analy sis of the Mon u ment,”
the arti cle rec og nizes in the spa tial project of the mon u ment the main char ac -
ter is tics for the monument’s qual i ty. Using Focillon’s quotes  “the space is
the place of the work of art” or  “the work of art is the mea sure of space: it
is form” , Pasi nović stress es the impor tance of spa tial i ty, devel oped with in
memo r i al projects. In the same arti cle she states:  “Up until now we con sid -
ered a mon u ment through its tem po ral i ty, through its his tor i cal deter mi na -
tion. How ev er, ask ing our selves about the moti va tion and about the result ing
the mat ic func tion ing of the mon u ment, we over looked its real i ty, its speci -
fici ty, its mode of being and exist ing. The mon u ment, how ev er, exists as
a form, as a sculp ture, as a spa tial real i ty”.
Eugen Franković’s arti cle, pub lished in the same issue of Živ ot Umjet -
nos ti as Pasinović’s, starts by ascer tain ing that mon u ment sit ed ness is usu al -
ly, in the major i ty of projects, espe cial ly in the case of minor mon u ments of
local impor tance, not con sid ered at all. He defines three ways in which the
mon u ments do not take the con text into con sid er a tion: 1) The mon u ment,
seen as  “impos ing on the land scape” (orig.  “nametan je pejza žu”), cre ates
a con flict with the envi ron ment. He gives the exam ple of August
Augustinčić’s mon u ment in Ban ja Luka; 2) The mon u ment ignores the envi -
ron ment as if it was a  “stiff ened scene show ing to the view ers its
autonomous play, now— by chance—here, spir i tu al ly tem po rary, but phys i -
cal ly per ma nent.” Here he refers to Van ja Radauš’s works; 3) The third rea -
son for the avoid ance of a landscape/monument rela tion is the sculptor’s
self-suf fi cien cy (orig.  “samod o voljnost kipara”). The  “best (actu al ly worst)
exam ple” is, again, Augustinčić’s mon u ment to Moša Pijade on the bat tle -
field of the Pro le tar i an Brigades.
“The men tioned prob lem with space demands our atten tion as it is an
indi ca tor of cru cial sig nif i cance since the rela tion between the space (envi -
ron ment, ambiance) and the mon u ment is the rela tion between still ness and
change showed by the monument—here [on the rela tion between the mon u -
ment and space] lies there fore all the weight of the expe ri ence”. Here
Franković opens the top ic of the monument’s expe ri ence, rec og niz ing the
pos si bil i ty of a com plex rela tion ship between the mon u ment, the envi ron -
ment and the per ceiv er, and since  “com mu ni ca bil i ty is the func tion of all
pub lic mon u ments,” the monument’s sit ed ness is what gives the  “mon u ment
its char ac ter, the core of its appear ance and significance.”
For the first time in Yugoslavia an art crit ic and art his to ri an writ ing
about memo r i al pro duc tion con sid ers space, how a mon u ment deals with it,
how it com pletes it and how the monument’s char ac ter is also built by the
con text as a fun da men tal ele ment of the mon u ment. What at the begin ning
was con sid ered only by archi tects as the vital ele ment of the real
28
29
30
31
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
2
3
4
2 Documentation of the building process of
Spomenik na Šipku by Vladimir Braco Mušič, near
Špitalič, today Slovenia (1958). Source: Arhitekt
journal, 2, 1960.
3 Documentation of the building process of
Spomenik na Šipku by Vladimir Braco Mušič, near
Špitalič, today Slovenia (1958). Source: Arhitekt
journal, 2, 1960.
4 Monument to the Revolution by Dušan Džamonja
& co., on Mrakovica (Kozara mountain), today
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1972). Photo by ©
Giovanni Emilio Galanello.
32 Giulio Car lo Argan, Dušan Dža mon ja
(Beograd, YU: Jugosloven s ka revi ja, 1981), 9.
33 Evgen Franković,  “Javnost spomeni ka,” 17–24.
34 Gojko Jok ić, Jugoslav i ja. Spomeni ci rev olu ci je
(Bel grade, Yugoslavia: Tur is tič ka štam ‐
pa, 1986).
35 Until the 1960s among 14.000 mon u ments,
3.500 were authen tic mon u ments (“avten tični
spomeni ci”), i.e. remains from the war, all the
oth ers were  “spomeni ci u čast” (mon u ments
in hon or of some thing). See: Heike Karge,
Stein erne Erin nerung – ver stein erte Erin ‐
nerung? Kriegs ge denken im sozial is tis chen
Jugoslaw ien (Wies baden, Ger many: Har ras ‐
sowitz, 2010).
36 Inform biro: Ser bo-Croa t ian word for Com in ‐
form, the Sovi et Com mu nist Infor ma ‐
tion Bureau
Forests of Resistance 191
monument’s expe ri ence, after the 1960s becomes a shared belief: the sit ed -
ness of the mon u ment is a way of mak ing the expe ri ence of the mon u ment
rich er, of mak ing the view er, by means of per cep tion, the sub ject of
the work.
Giulio Car lo Argan, an influ en tial Ital ian art crit ic and his to ri an,
describ ing the opus of the sculp tor Dušan Dža mon ja, address es sev er al key
top ics about Džamonja’s NOB mon u ments, but also gen er al ly about mon u -
ment sculp ture in Yugoslavia notes that  “The mon u ment, before being
a form, is a site”.
Authentic Forests and Memorial Practices
While seeking an authentic expression of our relation toward the
meaning of the war, the authentic traces of the conflict are of specific
importance. We should understand this importance, and present it with
a certain interpretative power, so that it can be understood by everyone.
– Eugen Franković
Among all the dif fer ent rur al land scapes where the People’s Lib er a tion
Strug gle was fought, forests—as places which are hard ly read able, wild and
fragmented—had a cen tral role in the Yugoslav par ti san war fare. This role
could be rec og nized from the fact that sev er al forest ed ter ri to ries where
WW2 took place after the war acquired the sta tus of nation al parks, not only
because they were char ac ter ized by nat ur al beau ty, but most notable because
they con tained impor tant traces of the war, which the new social ist state
would pre serve, as they were the exact loca tions where the Par ti san war and
the Social ist Rev o lu tion, which Yugoslavia rec og nized the need to nur ture,
took place: these areas were defined as forests with his tor i cal char ac ter.
The authen tic loca tions of war events were not always of direct inter est
to peo ple and pol i tics. In fact, espe cial ly in the years imme di ate ly after the
end of the war,  “to remove war marks” was one of the most repeat ed slo gans
that could be inter pret ed by ver ba tim meaning—removing the traces of the
war in cities and landscape—or as refer ring to the peo ples’ mem o rie of the
war. Only after 1948, with the Res o lu tion of the Inform biro and the split
between Tito and Stal in, which had con se quences regard ing the eman ci pa -
tion of art pro duc tion, there emerged the need to pre serve the sites of the
NOB, objects and doc u ments. In fact, part of the Sovi et strat e gy when deal -
ing with WW2 events in Yugoslavia was to dis cred it the role of the Yugoslav
resis tance move ment, incor rect ly giv ing the Red Army cred it for the vic to ry
32
33
34
35 36
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
37 See: Jozo Toma se vich, War and Rev o lu tion in
Yugoslavia, 1941–45: Occu pa tion and Col lab o ‐
ra tion (Palo Alto, US: Stan ford Uni ver si ty
Press, 2002).
38 Zdenko Kola cio,  “O pros tori ma, spomenici ma,
izvorima umjet nos ti,” Arhitek tu ra 155 (1975): 8.
39 Mar jan Tepina,  “O arhitek turi spomenikov
padlim borcem,” Borec 4 (1952): 100–103. Mar ‐
jan Tepina,  “O tra jnos ti spomenikov,
posvečenih nar o d noosvo bodil ni bor bi.” Borec
2 (1956): 85–87.
40 Ibid.
41 Bog dan Bog danović,  “Arhitekt-ova anke ta
o spomenikih NOB,” 31. Vladimir Bra co Mušič,  
“Nekaj mis li o spomenikih NOB,” Arhitekt 2
(1960): 29–31.
42 See: Boro Pavlović,  “Spomenik i pros tor,” Čov ‐
jek i pros tor 14 (1954): unknown page num ber.
 “Spomenik v skladu z okoli co,” Borec 3
(1958): 141.
43 F. Sušteršič,  “Sence na naših spomenikih,” .
Borec 9 (1959), 444.
44 Dra gi Milenković,  “Spomeni ci i umet nič ki
spomeni ci,” Crve na Zvez da 9 (1955): unknown
page number.
45 Mar jan Šor li, “Arhitekt-ova anke ta
o spomenikih NOB,” Arhitekt 9 (1953): 29.
46 Zdenko Kola cio, Spomeni ci i obil jež ja, 1953–
1982 (Zagreb, YU: Globus, 1984).
Forests of Resistance 193
against the Axis pow ers, since the Yugoslav resis tance move ment had won
sev er al war cam paigns four years pri or to the arrival of the Red Army in
Yugoslavia.
Apart from the polit i cal moti va tions behind the grow ing inter est in the
mark ing and car ing for authen tic places of strug gle, the top ic of a place’s
authen tic i ty, espe cial ly when con nect ed to nat ur al con texts, became an
impor tant poet ic leit mo tif, for those authors—most of them architects—who
derived the con cepts for their mon u ments from the  “obser va tion and expe ri -
ence of the place”
In the 1950s the top ic of site-authen tic i ty was not so wide ly dis cussed
among sculp tors, archi tects and crit ics. Stress was placed on a monument’s
mate ri al i ty and dura bil i ty , the monument’s mon u men tal i ty , fig u ral i ty
ver sus abstrac tion , con tex tu al i ty , the monument’s neglect , mon u ments
ver sus art-mon u ments ; all these top ics would remain of inter est in the fol -
low ing decades.
An archi tect who already in the 1950s devel oped a sen si bil i ty toward
the top ic of authen tic sites or war events, and con se quent ly the idea of land -
scape as a palimpsest of mem o ries that the mon u ment should try to inter pret,
was Mar jan Šor li. Šor li was a Slovene archi tect who took part in the resis -
tance move ment (under the name Janez Viher), built sev er al mon u ments, all
of them upon the site of the event the mon u ment was commemorating. 
In the 1953 Arhitekt sur vey, he affirmed, ful ly in line with his prac tice:  
“To mark the his to ry of the NOB in the place where it hap pened is for sure
our most nec es sary task. It is a pity sev er al par ti san graves were moved from
beau ti ful places in nature to ceme ter ies, where they drown among all the
oth ers”.
The top ic of the authen tic i ty of a site was close to those archi tects and
sculp tors who, beside rec og niz ing the impor tance of spa tial ly  ‘col lab o rat ing’
with a cho sen monument’s loca tion, built their poet ics in rela tion to the
event that hap pened in the spe cif ic place: beside Šor li, who worked main ly
in the 1950s and ear ly 1960s, the archi tect Zdenko Kola cio and the sculp tor
Zdenko Sila ded i cat ed some of their best mon u ments to faire le site of a spe -
cif ic event. Sev er al mon u ments built in the sites of suf fer ing, through their
spa tial orga ni za tion, with an archi tec tur al or sculp tur al vocab u lary, tend to
mark spe cif ic points in space, as if they were attempt ing to explain and point
out how the event took place or how the space was orga nized at the time the
event occurred.
“The event is the basis. Sometimes even a fragment of an event can lead
to the solution. This is why the impression of those who took part in it is
precious”.
37
38
39 40
41 42 43
44
45
46
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
5
6
5 Masterplan of the Monument to the Revolution by
Dušan Džamonja (1972). Source: Author.
6 Map of the Kozara territory. Source: Gojko Jokić,
Turistički vodič: Nacionalni park Kozara, 1986.
47 Jok ić, Jugoslav i ja. Spomeni ci revolucije.
48 Argan, Dušan Džamonja.
49 Zdenko Kola cio (1912–1987) was a Croa t ian
archi tect and urban ist, who ded i cat ed a great
part of his career to memo r i al pro duc tion,
doc u ment ed specif i cal ly in the pub li ca tion
Spomeni ci i obil jež ja (Mon u ments and Memo ‐
ri als) from 1984.
50 Zdenko Kola cio, Spomeni ci i obil jež ja, 1953–
1982.
Forests of Resistance 195
In the cre ative minds of Yugoslav artists and archi tects who pro posed
mon u ments recall ing spe cif ic WW2 events, forests became sources of deep
poet ic poten tial, where the for est itself, with its ver ti cal geome tries, frag -
ment ed lights and irreg u lar grounds, played a cen tral role in the
monument’s design.
The fol low ing four exam ples, very dif fer ent in form, size and (what
kind of lan guage? Mate r i al, struc tur al, tec ton ic?) lan guage, illus trate how
forests were inter pret ed as places where vis i tors could have an inti mate
expe ri ence with the mon u ment, devel op a psy cho log i cal con tact and build
a per son al rela tion ship with mem o ry and commemoration.
Monument to the Revolution on Mrakovica
Dušan Džamonja & co., 1972
A for est of high pines, dark light enter ing between them, no grass or low
bush es, only the pines and the earth under them. The hill is marked hor i zon -
tal ly by three-meter-long low con crete blocks, func tion ing as stairs and giv -
ing a rhythm to the ran dom growth of trees and to your walk ing. On the top
of the hill, at the end of an almost rit u al walk, a large light clear ing and in
the cen ter of the eye’s focus a tall con crete cylin der, com posed of dif fer ent
ver ti cal seg ments. The sculp ture is encir cled by con crete blocks and walls
and around them, again, the conif er ous for est extends limitless
These words describe the vis i tors’ encounter with the Mon u ment to the
Rev o lu tion on Mrakovi ca, one of the peaks of Kozara, a moun tain in the
north west ern part of Bosnia. The mon u ment, built between 1970 and 1972,
was designed by the sculp tor Dušan Dža mon ja togeth er with the archi tect
Mar i jana Hanžeković and con struc tion engi neer Miro Rak. 
The mon u ment memo ri al izes one of the heav i est and most famous,
using the words of Josip Broz Tito, hero ic and mov ing, bor row ing Dušan
Džamonja’s vocab u lary, strug gles of the People’s Lib er a tion War
in Yugoslavia. 
The foun da tion al con cept of the mon u ment was to evoke both the sense
of oppres sion of the Par ti sans and the local pop u la tion being encir cled and
the mag ni tude of the strug gle of those par ti sans who man aged to fight,
break ing through the forced encir clement and scat ter ing in the for est. When
speak ing about this mon u ment, Zdenko Kolacio’s words res onate:  “The
event is the basis. Some times even a frag ment can lead to a solu tion”. The
inter est ing oper a tion Dža mon ja made is the trans for ma tion of the descrip tion
of the events in the Kozara moun tains in a spa tial vocab u lary: the mon um-
47
48
49
50
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
7
8
7 Monument to the Revolution by Dušan Džamonja
& co., on Mrakovica (Kozara mountain), today
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1972). Photo by ©
Giovanni Emilio Galanello.
8 Monument to the Revolution by Dušan Džamonja
& co., on Mrakovica (Kozara mountain), today
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1972). Photo by ©
Giovanni Emilio Galanello.
51 Here we bor rowed the ter mi nol o gy used by
Ros alind Krauss to describe Richard Serra’s
spa tial sculp tures. Krauss,  “Richard Ser ra:
Sculp ture,” 99–146.
52 As Richard Ser ra defines his work  “Shift,”
which was con ceived and built in the same
two years as Džamonja’s Kozara mon u ment,
between 1970 and 1972. See: Yves Alain Bois,  
“A Pic turesque Stroll around Clara-Clara,”
Octo ber 102 (1984): 32–62.
53 Dušan Dža mon ja,  “Mem o ri jal ni spomenik na
Mrakovi ci — Kozara,” Čov jek i pros tor 234
(1972): 8.
Forests of Resistance 197
ent, in fact, besides rep re sent ing a sym bol in the his to ry of the Kozara
epopee, trans forms it into an expe ri ence able space where the visitor’s liv ing,
mov ing, react ing body dis cerns phys i cal ly rather than opti cal ly.
A mon u ment with in a land scape is a mark er of the site’s speci fici ty that
with out it could not be leg i ble, it func tions as a machine à observ er,
a barom e ter to read land scape in a phys i cal, his tor i cal and sym bol ic way.
A mon u ment with in a land scape is also a pause in space, it is what makes the
mon u ment-space and site sig nif i cant: it rede fines the expe ri ence, refo cus es
our atten tion and calls to the his to ry of the place: a mon u ment brings time’s
echo into space, which, through such a mon u ment as Džamonja’s—that
bases its sig nif i cance and trans mis sion of mean ing on the inclu sion of man’s
bod i ly experience—becomes embod ied, pal pa ble, phys i cal.
The rela tion between Džamonja’s mon u ment and the sur round ing pine
for est con sists of dif fer ent ambiances with spe cif ic atmos pheres cre at ed by
the way archi tec ture and the for est correspond. 
The first for est-defined ambiance is that of the entrance stair case to the
memo r i al area. From the low er plateau we see in front of us a com pact stair -
case in the shape of an amphithe ater. Via visu al exten sion the for est behind
this first stair case grad u al ly thick ens as the stairs pen e trate the veg e ta tion
while at the same time los ing the com pact form they have at the begin ning.
Here begins the first of the sev er al dema te ri al iza tions: the stairs lose their
mas sive for mal aspect, their well-defined form and pre cise mar gins, adapt ing
to the shape of the land, leave the space to the tree trunks grow ing between
them, emerg ing as hor i zon tal lines among a mass of verticals.
When first climb ing the entry stairs the mon u ment is not in view, we
are immersed in the dark atmos phere of the for est, walk ing under the crowns
of the firs. As Dža mon ja high light ed on sev er al occa sions, this ini tial
ambiance is per ceived by the vis i tor through their body while slow ly ascend -
ing; this ascen dant move ment func tions as a  “psy cho log i cal prepa ra tion for
the expe ri ence” of the mon u ment.
At the end of the stair case a clear ing opens to the vis i tor. At its cen ter
and pushed towards the back stands a ver ti cal ly frag ment ed cylin dri cal tow er
sur round ed by mas sive con crete blocks. 
The main body of the mon u ment devel ops around the cylin der and
behind it anoth er forest ed ambiance invites the vis i tor to the ter mi nal space
of the com plex. Behind the cylin der are 13 radi al ly ori ent ed mas sive con -
crete blocks. They mir ror the geom e try in front of the cylin der, but here they
are four-meters high, heav ier and big ger. They invite us to walk between
them, with in their dark ness, and here the conifers start to appear between the
con crete. And as it hap pened on the stair case, where some con crete slabs left
space for the fir trunks and roots, in some spe cif ic spots the con crete walls,
51
52
53
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
9
10
9 Plan and section of the Monument to the
Revolution by Dušan Džamonja (1972). Source:
Author.
10 Plan and section of the Monument to the
Revolution by Dušan Džamonja (1972). Source:
Author.
54 Andrej Ujčič,  “Spomenik bojevnikom
pohorskega bataljona,” Sin teza 7 (1967): 35–
37.
Forests of Resistance 199
even if fol low ing the geom e try of the radi al lines, adapt their sur face to the
pres ence of trees, becom ing con cave, host ing the trunks. 
At this point the memo r i al space becomes mys te ri ous ly labyrinth-like.
Explor ing this part of the mon u ment enables us to see that it is actu al ly quite
diver si fied, char ac ter ized by small ambiances which already intro duce us to
the inti mate atmos phere of the com mem o ra tive space. Behind these blocks
lays the last stage of the itin er ary: a round wall enclos ing part of the for est.
This inti mate space serves the pur pose of com mem o rat ing the 9,922 par ti -
sans who died in the fight ing on Kozara moun tain. The pres ence of the
conifers’ crowns above our head, fil ter ing the light that soft ly acti vates the
ground are indi rect and del i cate and are fun da men tal in cre at ing the atmos -
phere of expe ri ence. Here the rela tion ship between nature and cast con crete
blocks becomes near ly sym bi ot ic, mon u ment and nature share a mutu al
mime sis.
Monument to the Fallen Fighters of the Pohorje Battalion
Branko Kocmut, Slavko Tihec, 1959
The event this mon u ment recalls is spa tial ly sim i lar to the one behind the
Kozara memo r i al. In the exact site where the mon u ment is locat ed, on the 8
of Jan u ary 1943, the Pohor je Bat tal ion lost all its fight ers after being encir -
cled by the much more numer ous Ger man forces. The mon u ment stands on
the site of the Par ti sans’ last fight: high pine trees, an obscure silence and
light that bare ly reach es the ground define the mon u ment-space – the site of
the Pohor je Battalion's base. Six teen years after the event, when the archi tect
Branko Koc mut and the sculp tor Slavko Tihec were com mis sioned to vis it
the site and pro pose a mon u ment, they found the remains of the sheds the
Par ti sans used for liv ing and sur round ing them the trench es where in the Par -
ti sans had fought their last bat tle and died. The area is approx i mate ly a 100m
diam e ter cir cu lar shape. The first pro pos al by the two artists was to fell the
trees that occu pied this area and, with this void in the mid dle of the for est, to
sug gest to the vis i tors that they were in a par tic u lar place, prepar ing them for
the encounter with the mon u ment. This cir cu lar clear ing recalls the cir cle
the Ger man forces formed around the par ti san base, a spa tial idea with sim i -
lar premis es to Džamonja’s solu tion for Kozara: in that case the sense of
oppres sion of being encir cled was pro duced by the con crete blocks almost
squeez ing the bod ies of the vis i tors when they would reach the cen ter of the
cylin der, while in this case the sen sa tion of being sur round ed would be giv en
by the pines them selves sur round ing the clearing.
Lat er this clear idea, which would not need a sculp tur al ele ment, was
aban doned and the memo r i al place was con ceived more tra di tion al ly, e. g.,
t h
54
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
11
11 Monument to the Fallen Fighters of the Pohorje
Battalion by Branko Kocmut, Slavko Tihec (1959),
Slovenska Bistrica, today Slovenia. Source: Sinteza
journal, 7, 1967 (photo by Jože Kovačič).
Forests of Resistance 201
includ ing a cen tral sculp ture and some small er archi tec tur al ele ments. The
remains of the bat tle posi tions are marked by thir ty-one small stones of
almost cubi cal shapes posi tioned in a circle—the idea of the cir cu lar clear ing
was there fore replaced by these con crete blocks. The names of the Par ti sans
who died in the bat tle are inscribed on one side of each of the blocks—one
block for every fall en Par ti san. With in this cir cle are four teen larg er stone
plates that seem ing ly lev i tate over the ground. These plates mark the posi -
tions of the trench es where the par ti sans fought. And final ly, on the site of
the battalion’s com mand lays the largest stone plate that serves as a pedestal
for two bronze fig ures, a work by the sculp tor Slavko Tihec. 
Mark ing spe cif ic loca tions of small build ings con nect ed with par ti san
life with abstract archi tec tur al ele ments was com mon prac tice among archi -
tects and artists work ing with memo r i al spaces. Big abstract con crete stones
mark the posi tions of the build ings of the Par ti san hos pi tal in Grmeć (a
project by Ljubomir Denković, inau gu rat ed in 1979), abstract shapes—
recalling Robert Mor ris’ beams from 1965—help the vis i tors under stand the
mas ter plan of Javor ni ca par ti san hos pi tal (project by Zdenko Kola cio, 1980–
81).
The entire memo r i al com plex exudes a sub tle hor i zon tal pres ence
among the high pine trees and allows the for est to exist as an intact tes ti mo -
ny to the events, high light ing only built struc tures and trans for ma tions of the
place. It does not illus trate what hap pened, it sim ply marks what might have
been for got ten, com post ed and absorbed by the woods.
Memorial Cemetery in Dovar
Ružica Ilić, 1958
Where as in the pre vi ous two exam ples are locat ed in for est con texts and
devel op a fer tile rela tion with it, here we’ll approach the con cept of the liv -
ing mon u ment (živ spomenik)—the idea that the mem o ry of the trag ic events
of WW2 should be kept alive not by con ven tion al mon u ments, but by liv ing
mon u ments, i.e. mon u ments made of nat ur al ele ments or nat ur al areas, usu -
al ly forests, which, because of impor tant events that took place there, gain
the sta tus of mon u ments or, as in this case, the sta tus of parks (spomen
park). The idea of a liv ing memo r i al instead of an onject-based mon u ment
became a pop u lar dis course cen tered around mon u ment prac tices in the late
1950s,  ‘60s and  ‘70s.
Debates per tain ing to memo r i al parks began to appear at the end of the
1950s. Some of the first arti cles deal ing with park-as-memo r i al emerged in
the jour nal Crve na Zvez da in 1956.
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
12
12 Drawing of the Gorani movement made by the
child Olga Očevski. Source: Četvrti Jul journal,
04.05.1965.
55 Berislav Sto janović,  “O spomen parkovi ma.
Spomen groblje u Titovom Užicu,” Crve na
Zvez da 2 (1956): unknown page number.
56 Ibid.
57 Vladimir Dim itri je vić,  “Veli ka akci ja gorana.
Zeleni spomeni ci,” Četvr ti jul (1965): 18.
Forests of Resistance 203
One arti cle com ments on the result of the com pe ti tion for the memo r i al
ceme tery (spomen groblje) of Dovar, the east ern area of the city of Tito vo
Užice. Describ ing the win ning solu tion by the archi tect Ruži ca Ilić, the
author uses the expression—possibly used by the archi tect her self—green
archi tec ture (zele na arhitek tu ra), to define the solu tion for Dovar park. 
“In the area of the ceme tery, a liv ing tem ple (živi hram) will be built.
The walls of this liv ing object will be formed by the high pine for est, while
the inte ri or will be a green and flo ral mead ow; in the high pine for est there
will be a belt of green paths. In the cen ter of this mead ow, a stone plate will
be locat ed with the names of the fight ers who sleep togeth er here. The most
beau ti ful trees will car ry the names of the dead, which will have, as the
whole liv ing tem ple, a sym bol ic mean ing: the mem o ries of the dead and
their ideas devel op and grow high er and high er”.
Here the archi tect uses poet ic words to express es how memo r i al con tent
could be sym bol i cal ly made man i fest ed direct ly through the pow er of nature.
The stone plate at the end of the memorial’s path marks just the cen ter of the
memo r i al site: the land scape that is the har bin ger of mem o ry, and the
metaphor of the trees as the grow ing of mem o ry is the mes sage offered by
spomen park.
Gorani
Participatory Movement, 1960s
The fourth exam ple embod ies the high est stage of these mon u ments’ dema te -
ri al iza tion, where even nature is not con sid ered liv ing mate r i al, but a pre text
for col lab o ra tive par tic i pa to ry memo r i al practices.
The Gorani move ment is a move ment of younger peo ple which arose in
Ser bia in 1960 and, dri ven pri mar i ly by eco log i cal ideals, first began to take
care of the green ery around mon u ments and lat er designed mon u ment-
forests, parks and tree-lined roads in places where sig nif i cant events of the
NOB took place. This move ment shows that, simul ta ne ous to the cre ation of
mon u ment parks and mon u ment ter ri to ries that began dur ing the same time,
there was the emer gence of dif fer ent memo r i al prac tices from below. 
The actions of Gorani some times used spectacle—“In Požare vac, on the
Čačal i ca hill, for each of the 7000 shot patri ots 10 red ros es will be plant ed.
The hill will burn with red flames” —while at the same time hav ing
a strong educa tive ele ment with the devel op ment of eco log i cal and his tor i cal
aware ness and the pro mo tion of the need to nur ture rev o lu tion ary tra di tions.
With the idea of green mon u ments they shift ed the atten tion from the mon u -
ment-object (already felt as just a fos silized memen to of the past) to the
mon u ment-land scape, which is dynam ic, alive, demands your engage ment,
55
56
57
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
58 Robert Smith son,  “Fred er ick Law Olm st ed and
the Dialec ti cal Land scape,” in The Col lect ed
Writ ings, (Berkley and Los Ange les, US: Uni ‐
ver si ty of Cal i for nia Press, 1996), 157–171.
59 Bog dan Bogdanović’s Memo r i al to the Vic tims
of Fas cist Ter ror in Jasen o vac (1960–66),
Dušan Džamonja’s Memo r i al to the Rev o lu tion
on Mrakovi ca hill, Kozara (1970–72), Slavko
Tihec’s Memo r i al area in Don ja Grad i na
(designed in 1979 and nev er built) and Mio ‐
drag Živković’s Memo r i al to the Bat tle on the
Sut jes ka in Tjen tište (1964–1971).
Forests of Resistance 205
espe cial ly in cus to di al sense, and even tu al ly expos es the signs of your
neglect. The author dis ap pears while the focus lies total ly on the par tic i pa to -
ry moment of col lec tive ly plant i ng trees or tak ing care of a monument’s
surroundings.
Here Robert Smithson’s words about Fred er ick L. Olmsted’s New York
Cen tral Park resonate:
“A park can no longer be seen as a ‘thing-in-itself’ but rather as a
process of ongoing relationships existing in a physical region—a
‘thing-for-us’”.
Memorial Forests as Activated Nature
The art crit ic Jure Mikuž, in his cura to r i al text writ ten for the exhi bi tion of
four mon u ments  ded i cat ed to events relat ed to the People’s Lib er a tion
War at the Venice Bien nale in 1980 wrote:  “We can thus say that all these
projects are inter ven tions into active nature [author’s ital ics], which has its
spe cif ic his tor i cal char ac ter and whose ele ments, sat u rat ed as they are with
sig nif i cance, are in them selves the most direct stim u la tion of the spe cial
feel ing of the place and its com pre hen sion.” With the four exam ples of
forest ed mon u ments and acti vat ed nature, through the analy sis of the debates
regard ing the rela tion ship between the memo ri als and the places with in
which they are immersed, and while exam in ing the projects and scru ti niz ing
the ter mi nol o gy used to crit i cal ly describe them, an extreme ly com plex com -
pos ite land scape of the o ries and prac tices unfolds in front of us—from
expe ri en tial mon u ments to eco log i cal ly aware par tic i pa to ry experiments—
which tes ti fies to the moder ni ty and in some cas es even rad i cal i ty of
Yugoslav memo r i al practices.
58
59
Vida Rucli Form of Resistance
Forests of Resistance 207
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211
Giorgia Cesaro
House in Tateshina
Kazuo Shinohara's
Transformational Space
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
1
2
3
1 House in Tateshina, entrance elevation
2 Kazuo Shinohara, House in Tateshina, first design
sketch, 1985 / Giorgia Cesaro personal archive
3 The ideogram sui [ ⽔ ]traced with a brush.
1 Cf. Mar cel lo Ghi lar di, Arte e pen siero in Giap ‐
pone. Cor po, immag ine, gesto, (Milano: Mime ‐
sis, 2011), 11.
House in Tateshina 213
Doesn’t have nothing
my winter hut.
It has everything.
Matsuo Bashō
House in Tateshi na, Kazuo Shinohara’s lat est project began in 1985 to
end, unre al ized, with his death in 2006. The idea of a hut in the moun tains of
Nagano Pre fec ture is the project of a small space (46, 24 m ) devel oped over
a very long time (21 years).
Like much of what is intense ly Japan ese, the first draw ing of the lat ter
project drawn up by the hands of Shi no hara is a map of signs; and if this
map is cor rect ly read it does not lead to the dis cov ery of a hid den trea sure
but turns out to be a trea sure itself. These first traces of the spa tial com po si -
tion of House in Tateshi na, indeed, offer the pos si bil i ty to observe the
schemat ic find ing of a first lan guage, an ele men tary gram mar (whose terms
seem to be con ju gat ed in appar ent ly mean ing less sen tences), but through
which it is pos si ble to grasp and learn to assim i late a lan guage. Although for
the final struc ture of the project there is a more direct prece dent in sub se -
quent draw ings, this sketch of House in Tateshi na is cer tain ly an indi ca tion
of the impulse val ue that this organ ism so dis tant from the architect’s aspi ra -
tion to spa tial uni ty and the plas tic con ti nu ity of the enve lope, but so
method olog i cal ly explic it in the iden ti fi ca tion of the con stituent ele ments of
the spa tial dis course and in the exper i men ta tion of their com po si tion al
oppor tu ni ties, may have acquired for Shi no hara. It seems right thus to assign
to this mod el at least the func tion of recall ing sim i lar exper i ments that can
be found in the final project draw ings, and on which we will have the oppor -
tu ni ty to focus later.
Cer tain ly, the fea tures, the dri ves, the qual i ties of the lines and colours
of this first draw ing do not reflect the har mo ny of Japan ese cal li graph ic art,
but from the point of view of the pur pos es and mean ings they seem to recall
it any way. This sketch of House in Tateshi na is very sim i lar to a kan ji,
because kan ji are essen tial ly images.
Between the real world and the artis tic world, the notion of  ‘image’ can
reveal a spe cial way of under stand ing the rela tion ship between sen si tiv i ty
and per cep tion: in Japan ese, the notion of zō [ 象] indi cates both the  ‘image’
and the  ‘phe nom e non’, thus spec i fy ing that in the Japan ese hori zon of the
sense inter act ing with images, shap ing or pre serv ing them, con tem plat ing or
pro cess ing them, means inter ven ing direct ly on the real, i.e., on the world of
things and their infi nite uni verse of ongo ing process es.
High light ing the sim i lar i ty between the first image of House in Tateshi -
na and the char ac ter sui [ ⽔], as well as renew ing the appeal for a com par is-
2
1
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
2 Cf. Edoar do Fazz i oli, Carat teri cine si. Dal dis ‐
eg no all’idea, (Milano: Mon dadori, 1986), 197.
3 Cf. Gian gior gio Pasqualot to, Yohaku. Forme di
asce si nell’estetica ori en tale, (Pado va: Ese dra,
2001), 97–121.
4 Ibid., 103–104.
House in Tateshina 215
on between the com po si tion al signs of archi tec ture and those of ideo graph ic
writ ing, is use ful to show the  ‘order of move ment’ that the archi tect intends
not only to test, but also to con vey through these steno graph ic signs of a cre -
ative impulse. The ideogram sui [ ⽔], which means  ‘water’,  ‘liq uid’ or  
‘flow’, is in fact the ulti mate prod uct of a series of signs that indi cate the
action of flow ing.
Accord ing to what the Japan ese notion of zō [ 象] indi cates, each cal lig -
ra phy that rep re sents the ideogram sui [ ⽔] not only shows its own and
unique rhythm of exe cu tion, but also refers to a spe cif ic one and equal ly
unique expe ri ence that has as its con tent the object – but it would be bet ter
to say the process – called  ‘flow’: the flow of things in images, of emo tions
in thoughts, and why not, also of bod ies in space. Dis tin guish ing these
move ments in the draw ing of House in Tateshi na, grasp ing the graph ic struc -
ture and trac ing back to a pos si ble mean ing of the form by observ ing in it
those signs that, even today, retain in their struc ture the reflec tion of an
ancient mes sage of knowl edge, can be a seduc tive, albeit unusu al, way to
inter pret the com po si tion al lan guage of the first draw ing of House in
Tateshi na as that of a sign that wants to make the spa tial i ty of the house
a ver bal iza tion of an action or a progression.
At this point in the dis cus sion, how ev er, one might won der if see ing in
the draw ing of House in Tateshi na the graph ic tran scrip tion of the ideogram
sui [ ⽔] is actu al ly able to ren der the dynam ic qual i ty of the ide al spa tial i ty
of the project: the sign, even when it has no pho net ic basis, isn’t it always,
and in any case, a geometriza tion of a chang ing real i ty, a stiff en ing of the
dynam ic process es it wants to rep re sent? Isn’t it also for ideograms, as for
the char ac ters of a pho net ic-based lan guage, the impov er ish ment of a real i ty
that would like to be inter wo ven with facts, actions, process es, dynam -
ic events?
It is pre cise ly in cor re spon dence with these legit i mate ques tions that the
art of the dynam ic ren der ing of the space of House in Tateshi na is sit u at ed.
Indeed, it could be said that this first mod el max i mizes the rep re sen ta tive
pos si bil i ties of a writ ing already deeply con nect ed to the dynam ic qual i ties
of things and events. If ideo graph ic writ ing had the typo graph i cal form as its
only pos si bil i ty of expres sion, the advan tages it would present with respect
to pho net ic writ ings would be con sid er ably reduced. The dif fer ence there -
fore lies pre cise ly in the prac tice of calligraphy.
The move ment from the cal li graph ic sign of the kan ji to the space of
the draw ing can then be read as the sim ple pas sage from one rela tion ship
struc ture to anoth er, from one scale to anoth er. As hap pens in the cal li graph -
ic prac tice of kan ji, the sketch of House in Tateshi na can con tain a dou ble
ref er ence: on the one hand, to a phys i cal enti ty, on the oth er, to an abstract-
2
3
4
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
4
4 Optical convergences inscribed in the structure of
the first sketch of House in Tateshina
5 The lec ture giv en in 1984 at Yale Uni ver si ty
was tran scribed and pub lished two years lat ‐
er. See: Kazuo Shi no hara,  “A Pro gram for the
Fourth Space” , The Japan Archi tect 353 (1986):
28–35. For ref er ences to the city of Tokyo see:
Kazuo Shi no hara,  “The Con text of Plea sure” ,
The Japan Archi tect 353 (1986): 22–27. See
also: Kazuo Shi no hara,  “Towards Archi tec ‐
ture” , The Japan Archi tect 293 (1981): 30–35.
House in Tateshina 217
ion, i.e., to an enti ty thought philo soph i cal ly and poet i cal ly. Hence, archi tec -
tur al design can be used to sug gest a seduc tive mys ti cism, or to spec i fy clear
inten tions of struc tur al dynam ics. In this, in my opin ion, Shi no hara was very
pre cise. Extreme pre ci sion implies an intrin sic rela tion ship between the
draw ing and the design idea. Under stand ing this rela tion ship we can iden ti fy
the essen tial lines of the com po si tion – lines which, how ev er, are
quite visible.
Observ ing the inter nal vol umes of the house pro ject ed into the plane, it
can be seen that the lat er al axis of the first rec tan gle, the cen tral axis of the
sec ond and the diag o nals of the third, meet at the cen tre of a cir cum fer ence
and, form ing angles of 45°, divide it into equal parts.
These lines are cer tain ly a reflec tion of the architect’s per son al ded i ca -
tion to ele men tary geom e try. By stat ing this, how ev er, only a par tial expla -
na tion of the sig nif i cance of the con fig u ra tive design of the house would be
offered. The mean ing of these lines is to place the human body at the cen tre
of the space. This pres ence is of course some thing invis i ble, which how ev er
can be sensed in these lines that fluc tu ate through sug ges tions of mate ri al i ty
and empti ness. The lines seem, indeed, to have been traced by Shi no hara,
rather than for the con struc tion of the design, to make an ide al user per ceive
a cer tain spa tial qual i ty. Imag in ing a per son with in this space, it can be seen
how his move ment iden ti fies a sort of force field deter mined by the inter ac -
tion with the enve lope which, thanks to the use of accel er at ed and slowed
per spec tive, i.e., ampli fy ing or con trast ing the opti cal con ver gence of the
reced ing lines in per spec tive, alters the spa tial per cep tion, thus giv ing the
sen sa tion of an envi ron ment more or less deep than reality.
In the final draw ing these  ‘lines of force’ will then be hid den and
reduced to the extent of oth er lines of sight. Their fore shad ow ing inten si ty is
imag ined hav ing been replaced by con struc tion prac tice. How ev er, it is pre -
cise ly in this sac ri fice that the pos si bil i ties of the space inscribed in the plan
and in the final sec tions of House in Tateshi na will be defined and pre served,
and Shinohara’s cre ative impulse will acquire strength and integrity.
In 1984, the year before the first for mu la tion of the House in Tateshi na
project, Shi no hara – as Eero Saari nen Vis it ing Pro fes sor – was invit ed to lec -
ture at the Yale Uni ver si ty School of Archi tec ture. Before show ing his
projects, before his real iza tions, he pre sent ed the urban struc ture of Tōkyō,
his city. He explained that the atmos phere that per vades the every day life of
its inhab i tants is very dif fer ent from that which he had per ceived dur ing his
recent vis its to the great Euro pean cities, informed by the ancient fires, the
places of coex is tence of the Greek and Roman tra di tion, and ordered by
mod ern urban axes, large tree-lined avenues and pedes tri an paths. He also
said that he rec og nized in Tokyo –  “where the the o ry of the mod ern city
5
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
5
6
5 Visual cacophony of the city signs, Tokyo, 2017.
6 House in Tateshina, axonometry of the last
conformation of the project.
6 Shi no hara,  “The Con text of Plea sure,” 22.
7 Ibid.
8 Shi no hara,  “Towards Archi tec ture,” 32.
9 Ibid., 33.
10 Ibid., 32.
11 Shi no hara,  “A Pro gram for the Fourth
Space,” 29.
12 Ibid., 34–35.
13 Ibid., 29.
House in Tateshina 219
seems so far away from the dreams of the urban ists” – a typ i cal beau ty of
its own, which he demon strat ed in the vital i ty of its growth and expan sion,
in the free dom of the com bi na tion of the most dis parate build ing types and
in the visu al cacoph o ny of the shapes and colours of the signs of the shops
and busi ness es that pop u late its streets.
With respect to this spe cial  “vital i ty of chaos”, which, speak ing of the
urban con text of Tokyo, the archi tect had exalt ed in an almost parox ys mal
way by call ing it the  “pro gres sive anar chy” of the city, Shi no hara had
explained that, accord ing to him, the only log i cal answer could be the con -
struc tion of a new qual i ty of domes tic i ty, from which to start again to give
mean ing to the com po si tion al ges ture. He had argued, in fact, that since  “the
illog i cal gap between the ordered space and the dis or der of the city is what
nour ish es the vital i ty of chaos” , any build ing that pur port ed to be only
a part of this chaos would nev er be able to deal with the anar chy of the
city.
To high light the idea that had informed his new the o ry of res i den tial
design, in which  “the con cept of archi tec ture direct ly inter sects with the sit u -
a tion of urban anar chy”, dur ing the con fer ence, he quot ed the words he
once read in an arti cle writ ten by a biol o gist for a sci en tif ic journal:
For any sys tem – whether it is a com put er or a bio log i cal sys tem – if it
has no capac i ty to accom mo date ran dom resources, then noth ing new can be
pro duced by that sys tem.
For an archi tect wor ried about not being a mere copy ist of tra di tion al
forms, his to ry had to be con sid ered impor tant more than for the prob lems
solved for those left open, for the expe ri ences that have not proved their pur -
pose and still pos sess the val ues of free dom. In fact, the effort to see an
order, or rather, a struc tur al method with in a chaot ic and wild urban nature is
an indi ca tion of Shinohara’s com mit ment to dis cov er ing a new prin ci ple of
expla na tion for the art of building.
The lat est draw ings of House in Tateshi na are not devoid of that  ‘vital i -
ty’ that he saw per vad ing the city of Tōkyō: they seem to re-present it, com -
press ing and con dens ing it into a com po si tion of sim ple geome tries, under -
lined by the light ness of their vol umes and from the echo of their spaces.
As clear and lin ear as the final lay out of the House in Tateshi na project
is, in fact, inside it  ‘lines of move ment’ com pli cate the com po si tion al
aspects, as if to remind us that the architect’s main con cern was to inves ti -
gate the degree of com plex i ty, or of chaos, com pat i ble with the appar ent
sim plic i ty of the form. While favour ing reg u lar com po si tions and bal anced
pro por tions, Shi no hara had often shown that he was able to use dis tor tion to
pro duce unex pect ed effects. In my opin ion, the last floor plan of House in
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
7
7 House in Tateshina, floor plan and section.
House in Tateshina 221
Tateshi na is a mas ter ful exam ple of this, as it is played on the del i cate rela -
tion ship between sym me try and asymmetry.
Although in plan the shape of the house is a rec tan gle of 4, 9 m x 7,
5 m, the walk ing sur face has been reduced by the intru sion of a floor that
fol lows the slope of the land on which the house insin u ates its foun da tions.
In this way, the shape of the house appears per fect ly rec tan gu lar and sym -
met ri cal, a sym me try that Shi no hara had con tra dict ed by using this and oth er
sim ple solu tions, i.e., by insert ing dynam ic com po nents with in the reg u lar i ty
of the form capa ble of mak ing the  ‘vital i ty’ of the space evi dent. The com -
plex i ty of the city was thus sum ma rized by Shi no hara in a few ges tures made
of rig or and asceti cism, where the pure lines of Euclid ean geom e try are con -
fused with the equal ly pure ones, albeit full of asym met ri cal ten sions, of the
city areas full of hous es irreg u lar ly placed, or with a neigh bour hood sub ject
to unpre dictable devel op ments. This agi ta tion of forms always has as its pur -
pose the ele va tion of our con scious ness, the emerg ing in us of latent emo -
tions, keep ing our atten tion and vig i lance awake, even in the obses sive rep e -
ti tion of dai ly ges tures, to com pose and recom pose order and disorder.
Imag in ing cross ing the thresh old of House in Tateshi na, the small space
of this hut appears in its entire ty: three win dows illu mi nate it, two placed in
the cen tre of the trans verse axis and a third can tered on the lon gi tu di nal axis
of the vol ume. Cor re spond ing to this last win dow there is the entrance door
which, how ev er, is locat ed on the right side of the axis, thus giv ing those
who open it an imme di ate impres sion of sub tle imbal ance. This per cep tion is
accen tu at ed by the vol ume of earth that pen e trates the inte ri or of the house,
and by a sec ond vol ume which, fol low ing the shape of the first, is sus pend ed
over the space cre at ing a mez za nine, acces si ble by a steplad der. Sym me try
there fore gov erns the com po si tion, but it is the asym me try that insin u ates
itself into spe cif ic parts of the whole that dynam i cal ly trans forms the sta t ic
struc ture of the project.
The method and pur pose fol lowed by Shi no hara seem to have been ani -
mat ed by the desire to pro duce a per spec tive accel er a tion effect towards the
back wall which, by cap tur ing the dis tant land scape in its wide open ing,
aims to fix a few priv i leged points, or to open the build ing towards the land -
scape to bet ter enclose it inside.
For this dou ble move ment Shi no hara had relied on the incli na tions of
the dif fer ent floors, through which the shad ow, and above all the reflec tions
of light that prop a gate in it become an excep tion al means to break the
dynamism of nature into the deep est lay ers of the house.
Thus, intro duc ing into the reg u lar perime ter of the hol low space the
per spec tives gen er at ed by the dis tor tion of the vol umes and the light that fol -
lows the incli na tion and the trend, one can imag ine that Shi no hara want ed to
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
8
9
8 House in Tateshina, floor plan and section.
9 Karesansui [ 枯⼭⽔ , “dry garden”] of the zen
temple Daisen-in (XVI sec.), Kyoto, 2017.
14 Cf. Kazuo Shi no hara,  “Kai hotek ina kūkan to iu
imi, Nihonkenchiku no seikaku” [ 開 放 的 な 空 間 と い う 意 味 、 ⽇ 本 建 築 の ⽣ 活 ,  “The Mean ing of
Open Space, The Nature of Japan ese Archi ‐
tec ture”], Papers 57, (1957).
15 Harold Rosen berg, The de-def i n i tion of art:
Action Art to Pop to Earth works, (Chica go: The
Uni ver si ty of Chica go Press, 1972), 56. 16 The term gūzen [ 偶 然 ] lit er al ly means:  ‘what
is’ [ 然 , zen]  ‘acci den tal’ [ 偶 , gū]. This term
there fore cor re sponds to  ‘chance’ , but also
has the val ue of  ‘con tin gency’ , under stood as  
‘coin ci dence’ , that is,  ‘what hap pens in a par ‐
tic u lar cir cum stance’ . For a deep er under ‐
stand ing of the con cept of  ‘case-con tin gency’
in Japan ese phi los o phy see: Shu zo Kuki,
Gūzen sei no mondai, [ 偶 然 性 の 問 題 ,  “The
Prob lem of Con tin gency”] (Tōkyō: Iwana mi
Shoten [ 岩 波 書 店 ], 1935).
17 Under stood by Japan ese aes thet ics as  ‘what
is start ing from itself’ , or  ‘spon tane ity’ . See:
Ghi lar di, Arte e pen siero in Giap pone. Cor po,
immag ine, gesto, 73–76.
House in Tateshina 223
bring the view er to par tic i pate in this  ‘adven ture of move ment’, invit ing him
sub lim i nal ly to cross the house and look towards the entrance wall.
The vision altered by the tight en ing of the seen, i.e., by a decel er at ed
per spec tive elicit ed by the stag ger ing of the two lat er al bod ies with respect
to the lon gi tu di nal axi al i ty of the main vol ume, now makes the space appear
as an inte ri or which, clos ing in on itself, shrinks with respect to its actu al
size. By imag in ing a per son inside the raised vol ume, one can imag ine how
the eye, fol low ing the trans verse axis of the house, can see the out side
through the open ings on the wall of the raised vol ume and the shell of
the house.
A sys tem, that of House in Tateshi na, of a dis arm ing sim plic i ty. Yet,
this sim plic i ty enclos es and secretes an inter lock ing play of one room with in
anoth er, of a space with in anoth er, of a point of view that encom pass es oth er
points of view. In the clear geo met ric reg u lar i ty of the pro por tion al sys tem
of the project, Shi no hara, com pos ing the space in its inter nal bonds and con -
nec tions (i.e., in the strug gle and in the  ‘space machine’ of which he had
always spo ken about: a mod el of  ‘space’ [ 虚 空, kokū] i.e.,  ‘where all things
can be every thing with out obsta cles’.
As Harold Rosen berg wrote about the min i mal ist work of art that  
“instead of deriv ing prin ci ples from what it sees, it teach es the eye to  ‘see’
prin ci ples”, so the project of House in Tateshi na high lights that even when
Shi no hara thought the project out side from large urban cen tres at least an
idea of the Japan ese city was still present in its archi tec ture. More pre cise ly,
he pro pos es a call to  ‘vital i ty’ even in an iso lat ed project on the side of
a moun tain. The ref er ence to the  ‘recourse of chance’ or  ‘for tu ity’ [ 偶 然,
gūzen], that is to the con tin gency of what grows and expands spon ta neous -
ly, can, in fact, man i fest itself both in the urban con text and with in  ‘nature’
[ ⾃ 然, shizen]. There is sim ply the prob lem of how to act in it, of inter act -
ing with spon tane ity, and with its con tin gency to build a place of con tem po -
rary cul ture. Mak ing nature and cul ture coin cide there fore means seek ing in
them a  ‘prin ci ple of com mon under stand ing’ [ 理 会, rikai] that acts as a  ‘uni -
fy ing ref er ence’, or what is called in Japan ese aes thet ics kiai.
The term kiai [ 気 合] lit er al ly means:  ‘union’,  ‘meet ing’ or  ‘agree ment’
[ 合, ai] of ki [ 気], i.e. of  ‘ener gy’ or  ‘vital breath’. Kiai is then the  ‘meet ing
of the breath’, under stood as har mo niza tion through a syn chro nous breath ing
between two enti ties, e.g., as between painter and land scape. Ulti mate ly,
there fore, kiai is  ‘har mo ny’, but also  ‘atten tion’ and  ‘sen sa tion’. This term is,
in fact, used both to indi cate an  ‘affin i ty’, an inter per son al  ‘sym pa thy’, and a
 ‘deep con cen tra tion’ with which one ded i cates one self to an  ‘impor tant task’
[ 機 会, kikai]. In an artis tic sense, kiai there fore involves the abil i ty to harm-
14
15
16
17
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
18 For a deep er under stand ing of the con cept of
kiai [ 気 合 ] in Japan ese art and cul ture see:
Tet suro Wat su ji, A Cli mate. A Philo soph i cal
Study [ ⾵ ⼟ —— ⼈ 間 学 的 考 察 ], trans. Geof frey
Bow nas, (Tōkyō: Iwana mi Shoten [ 岩 波 書 店 ], 1935).
19 Cf. Don ald Keene, Japan ese Lit er a ture. An
Intro duc tion for West ern Read ers, (Lon don:
John Mur ray, 1953), 4.
20 Fuji wara no Tei ka (1162−1241) was one of the
great est clas si cal poets of Japan ese lit er a ture.
His poems were col lect ed with in the col lec ‐
tion enti tled Shinkokin shū [ 新 古 今 集 ,  “New
Col lec tion of Ancient and Mod ern (Japan ese
Poet ry)”], the eighth impe r i al anthol o gy of
waka poet ry com piled start ing from 905 AD.
and end ed with the Shinkokin shū around 1439.
Togeth er with Man’yōshū [ 万 葉 集 ] and Kokin ‐
shū [ 古 今 和 歌 集 ], Shinkokin shū is one of the
most influ en tial poet ic antholo gies in the his ‐
to ry of Japan ese literature.
21 Shinkokin shu, XIV:1320.
House in Tateshina 225
o nize the artis tic ges ture with the chang ing and super-per son al rhythm of the
exist ing.
But how to find this prin ci ple of intel li gi bil i ty, of har mo niza tion with
nature, in some thing that devel ops in an unpre dictable or casu al way, and
man i fests itself in an irreg u lar way?
To iden ti fy the prin ci ple of kiai, what reg u lates this para dox i cal  ‘har -
mo ny of ran dom ness’ can help the images described through the kakekota ba
[ 掛 詞,  ‘piv ot-word’]: i.e. rhetor i cal fig ures, pecu liar to Japan ese poet ry,
based on the super im po si tion of two or more images through the homopho ny
of the words. For exam ple, the word shi rana mi [ ⽩ 波] which lit er al ly means  
‘white-crest ed wave’, or the white trail behind a boat, can sug gest to
a Japan ese the word shi ranu [ 知 ら ぬ] which means  ‘unknown’, or nami da
[ 涙] which means  ‘tears’. From the point of view of the intel lec tu al con -
tent it seems that there is no log i cal con nec tion between these words, yet
these sim ple ver bal asso ci a tions, from the point of view of the emo tion al
mean ing, allow the emer gence of emo tions which, in a poem, can be offered
as a per fect ly coher ent total i ty. It is not dif fi cult, in fact, to under stand how
a poet can cre ate a poem from these three images: a boat goes into the
unknown, a woman in tears looks at the white-crest ed wave left by the boat
of her beloved. A famous exam ple is the Fuji wara no Teika’s tan ka:
き え わ び ぬ う つ ろ ふ ⼈ の 秋 の い ろ に ⾝ を こ が ら し の も り の ⽩ 露
Kiewabinu utsurō hito no aki no iro ni mi o kog a rashi no mori
no shiratsuyu.
Two very dif fer ent inter pre ta tions can be giv en of these vers es. Thanks
to the chain of kakekota ba they can, in fact, mean at the same time:  “Alone
and sad I hope for the end, and I tor ment my heart to see how incon stant her
love is. I slip away, like tears of dew” but also  “The white dew already dis -
ap pears, in this for est where the colour of autumn changes, and an icy wind
blow”. The image of a nat ur al phe nom e non and the image of the end of
a love match per fect ly because in the mind and in the word of the poet there
was a con tin u ous shift from one order of images to anoth er. The ten den cy to
per ceive the con nec tion between words even only with in their kiai, i.e.,
with out con sid er ing the log i cal con nec tion of their con cep tu al mean ing,
ensure that the image of the dew, which will be soon car ried away by the
autumn wind, melts and becomes one with the image of the woman who was
aban doned by her lover, sat ed of her. Indeed, the word  ‘dew’ was not used as
a sim ple metaphor i cal expe di ent to describe a woman’s state of mind, or to
recall the idea of her tears; rather, as can be seen from the sec ond poet ic
image, it has been used in its com plete and prop er mean ing as a nat ur al phe -
nom e non. The author’s inten tion was that the two inter pre ta tions were
accept ed and received at the same time, so that the two dif fer ent mean ings,
18
19
20
21
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
House in Tateshina 227
com plete and autonomous in them selves, are indis sol ubly enclosed in
each other.
Although not all Japan ese poet ry always reveals such com plex i ty, nev -
er the less the  ‘har mo ny of ran dom ness’ seems to be a char ac ter is tic of Japan -
ese, which is cer tain ly one of the most evoca tive lan guages in the world, as
revealed by its sen tences in which every thing they want to say always seems
to tend to van ish in doubt, in inde ter mi na cy or in the mul ti plic i ty of pos si bil -
i ties: ‘maybe’,  ‘who knows?’.
The House in Tateshi na project is also exem plary in this sense, where
the coex is tence of dif fer ent per spec tives, their mul ti plic i ty, inscribes dynam -
ic sequences in the space that make a fun da men tal ly sim ple and uni tary sys -
tem com plex and artic u lat ed. In its clear geo met ric orga ni za tion, in fact,
a mea sure is already evi dent at first glance, yet we are unable to dis cov er
a rule that forms its basis. It is kiai: one can only grasp it intu itive ly, know -
ing that it is not pos si ble move any of its parts elsewhere.
In this long-stud ied com po si tion, Shi no hara then seems to have con cen -
trat ed more on sit u a tions than on facts, more on rela tion ships than on
objects, on the dis ci pline of the process es of spon tane ity rather than on that
of the def i n i tion of space, as is per ceived by observ ing the way in which he
orga nized the envi ron ment through land scapes that allow us to pass from
place to place in an almost sen su al way; a prin ci ple that seems des tined to
become the lega cy of his way of designing.
House in Tateshi na there fore speaks of a world with out hier ar chies,
where dif fer ent spaces come togeth er, each with their own incli na tions, each
play ing their role while par tic i pat ing in the uni ty of the whole.
In a space that enhances the inter minable suc ces sion of brief moments
of the present, the stim u lus is drawn to think of archi tec ture as some thing
alive, based on the flow of emo tion, of what is per ceived here and now.
By cre at ing residues of mean ing, in this lat est project, Shi no hara has
man aged to present space as a pend ing ques tion, raised to the most phys i cal
stage of fragili ty. On this occa sion, indeed, the archi tect seems to have
sought that sub tle point of bal ance where the sense of space is brought up to
where it is no longer pos si ble to ask oth er questions.
Giorgia Cesaro Form of Resistance
House in Tateshina 229
Bibliography
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Rosenberg, Harold. The de-definition of art: Action Art to Pop to Earthworks. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1972.
Ghilardi, Marcello. Arte e pensiero in Giappone. Corpo, immagine, gesto. Milano: Mimesis, 2011.
Keene, Donald. Japanese Literature. An Introduction for Western Readers. London: John Murray, 1953.
Kuki, Shuuzo. Gūzensei no mondai [偶然性の問題, “The Problem of Contingency”]. Tōkyō: Iwanami
Shoten [岩波書店], 1935.
Pasqualotto, Giangiorgio. Yohaku. Forme di ascesi nell’estetica orientale. Padova: Esedra, 2001.
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Chicago Press, 1972.
Shinohara, Kazuo. “Kaihotekina kūkan to iu imi, Nihonkenchiku no seikaku” [開放的な空間という意味、 ⽇本建築の⽣活 , “The Meaning of Open Space, The Nature of Japanese Architecture”], Papers 57,
(1957).
Shinohara, Kazuo. “Towards Architecture, ” The Japan Architect 293 (1981), 30–35.
Shinohara, Kazuo. “A Program for the Fourth Space, ” The Japan Architect 353 (1986), 28–35.
Shinohara, Kazuo. “The Context of Pleasure, ” The Japan Architect 353 (1986), 22–24.
Watsuji, Tetsurō. A Climate. A Philosophical Study [ ⾵⼟ —— ⼈間学的考察 ]. Translated by Geoﬀrey
Bownas. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten [岩波書店], 1935.

231
Petra Čeferin
The Resistant Capacity of
Architecture
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
1 See the state ment of the 2023 Venice Bien ni al
cura tor Les ley Lokko:  “Bien nale architet tura
2023: the lab o ra to ry of the future,” La Bien ‐
nale di Venezia, May 31, 2022.
2 “2022 Fes ti val Theme: Act,” LFA Lon don Fes ti ‐
val of Architecture.
3 See for instance: Space Caviar eds., Non-
Extrac tive Archi tec ture: On Design ing with out
Deple tion (Berlin: Stern berg Press, 2021),
Gabu Heindl et al. eds., Build ing Cri tique:
Archi tec ture and its Dis con tents (Leipzig:
Spec tor Books, 2020), Gevork Har toon ian ed.,
Glob al Per spec tives on Crit i cal Archi tec ture.
Prax is Reloaded (Lon don and New York: Rout ‐
ledge, 2014); Nadir Lahi ji ed., Archi tec ture
Against the Post-Polit i cal. Essays in Reclaim ‐
ing the Crit i cal Project (Lon don and New York:
Rout ledge, 2014), and others.
4 Rem Kool haas,  “Junk space,” Octo ber, no. 100
(2002): 179.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 233
We live and work in high ly prob lem at ic times, a time of burn ing issues that
include the envi ron men tal cri sis, the dete ri o ra tion of democ ra cy, deep en ing
social dif fer ences, hous ing crises, and mass migra tions, to list but a few of
the enor mous chal lenges of the day. Crit i cal aware ness of this spe cial time is
reflect ed also in the field of archi tec ture, which is expressed as a call to
action – a call to pur sue archi tec ture as an active co-cre ator of soci ety, a co-
bear er of much need ed social change today.
This ten den cy is high ly vis i ble at the forth com ing Venice Bien ni al. Or,
for instance, in the ori en ta tion of the Lon don Fes ti val of Archi tec ture that
took a deci sive turn away from last year's theme  “to care” towards a far
more mil i tant posi tion – the call  “to act”. Indeed we also find such a direc -
tion – towards devel op ing the full pow er of archi tec ture in rela tion to social
issues – increas ing ly present in design prac tice. Archi tec tur al the o ry too is
return ing to the ques tion of archi tec tur al agency in rela tion to soci ety. It
seems that a kind of front is tak ing form: a front that aims at pur su ing an
active role for archi tec ture in soci ety, a front that no longer con tents itself
with repeat ing the stan dard claims – how deeply archi tec ture is embed ded in
the mech a nisms that run our world of glob alised cap i tal ism, how its capac i ty
to affect change is so entire ly blocked today and sim i lar. Instead, it is inter -
est ed in an active way, in the pos si bil i ty of break ing through this con di tion
of impo tence – a con di tion in which we, as Junk space would describe it,
appear caught in  “a web with out a spi der.”
But for this front to be effec tive – and this is the cen tral the sis of this
arti cle – the fol low ing is essen tial: in order to tap into the full poten tial of
archi tec ture the issues and chal lenges that archi tec ture and thus we as archi -
tects con front today have to be thought in the way of archi tec ture; they have
to be thought archi tec tural ly. In oth er words, we have to think them from the
point of view of archi tec ture. We have to think them as prob lems and chal -
lenges that archi tec ture con fronts as archi tec ture.
What does this actu al ly mean?
This means that archi tec ture doesn't under stand and approach its task,
some par tic u lar devel op ment of pub lic space for instance, as a task imposed
from out side, from some exter nal agency – even if it is in fact an exter nal
agency that calls on archi tec ture to solve an issue of pub lic space. But rather
that archi tec ture under stands and approach es this task as its inter nal task;
that archi tec ture approach es this task as an archi tec tur al task. And to
approach it as an archi tec tur al task means that at the same time it is solv ing
this task, it also con structs itself as archi tec ture – as that spe cif ic body of
the o ry and prac tice that con nects sci ence, tech nique, tech nol o gy, and art.
That archi tec ture devel ops an archi tec tur al solu tion for a giv en task
means, first ly, that it con structs that par tic u lar object which it should or
1
2
3
4
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
5 For a detailed elab o ra tion of the struc tur al
log ic of archi tec ture as prac tice of cre ative
think ing – the way this prac tice is struc tured
and the way it oper ates in the world: Petra
Čeferin, The Resis tant Object of Archi tec ture:
A Lacan ian Per spec tive (Lon don: Rout ‐
ledge, 2021).
6 Gian car lo De Car lo,  “Architecture's Pub lic,” in
Archi tec ture and Par tic i pa tion, eds. Peter
Blun dell Jones, D. Petres cu and Jere my Till
(Abing don: Spon Press, 2007), 3–22.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 235
wants to make (such as a pub lic space or a school, a house) as an object that
is spe cif ic to archi tec ture; that is to say, as an archi tec tur al object. And not
sim ply as some kind of (dec o rat ed) util i tar i an object. And sec ond ly, it means
that while it cre ates its object – the archi tec tur al object – it is also archi tec -
ture itself that appears in the world as archi tec ture. More pre cise ly, it appears
as a cre ative think ing prac tice – a prac tice that with each con struct ed object
also con structs itself anew, invents itself anew. It re-invents itself.
And only when archi tec ture works in such a way can archi tec ture tru ly
be pro duc tive for the soci ety in which it operates.
Why?
Not only because its objects, the prod ucts that archi tec ture con structs,
respond to the var i ous needs and require ments of dif fer ent seg ments of (a
giv en) soci ety in its time and space, its tem po ral and spa tial sit u a tion. And
not only because archi tec ture con structs pub lic spaces, schools, kinder -
gartens, or hous ing. But because, to empha size the point once again, it con -
structs all these objects as archi tec tur al objects. And archi tec tur al objects are
objects of a spe cial kind. They are sub jec ti fied objects.
What does this mean?
This means that at the same time archi tec ture con structs its objects, that
is, when it con structs sub jec ti fied objects, it also co-con structs, co-cre ates
a human being as their spe cif ic pro duc er, spec ta tor, user. It co-cre ates him or
her as a sub jec ti fied human being.
And here, in my view, lies the social ly trans for ma tive poten tial of archi -
tec ture. And archi tec ture can realise this poten tial if it acti vates its cre ative
poten tial, its cre ative capac i ty. My posi tion, there fore, holds that the act
which is nec es sary today – and not only for us archi tects – is the act of insis -
tence on archi tec ture as a cre ative think ing prac tice. A call to action should
be con ceived and under stood as a call to archi tec ture that oper ates in each
giv en sit u a tion, in the world, as a prac tice of cre ative think ing. This is what
we shall devel op here in this article.
Changing the Question
The act that should be realised today was already defined, in his own par tic -
u lar way, by Gian car lo De Car lo in his sem i nal lec ture  “Architecture's Pub -
lic”. He defined it as the neces si ty to refor mu late the ques tion that
leads architects.
Archi tects focused on the ques tion  “how?,” De Car lo argued, while
they neglect ed the real ly impor tant ques tion – which is the ques tion  “why?”.
In order that archi tec ture evolve into what it poten tial ly is – and it is, to sum
up De Car lo, a social ly trans for ma tive prac tice, or as I would put it, a crea-
5
6
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
7 The prob lem of the archi tects of the Mod ern
Move ment was not, as De Car lo writes, that
they would not think. But they were think ing
only that which the cap i tal ist sys tem gave
them to think. They were think ing instru men ‐
tal ly – to best ful fil the require ments imposed
on them by the pow er struc ture. And they did
that bril liant ly – but there fore they also failed
bril liant ly. For with their design pro pos als
they only sup port ed the giv en sys tem and
thus the many social inequal i ties and injus ‐
tices that entailed. De Car lo:  “Con cen trat ing
on prob lems of  “how” , they played into the
hands of the pow er struc ture. In neglect ing
the prob lems of  “why” , they lost track of the
most impor tant rea sons for their cul tur al com ‐
mit ment.” (De Car lo, 8) If they asked what is
(what I call) the cause of their activ i ty, the
cause of archi tec ture, they would come up
with dif fer ent answers. Which is what De Car ‐
lo did. He found that dif fer ent answer in par ‐
tic i pa tion, the con cept that he puts at the
cen tre of his lecture/text and that he con tin ‐
ued to devel op in his lat er work. This was one
of the caus es that guid ed De Car lo in his
prac tice – guid ed him as an archi tect who, as
his work demon strates, thought creatively.
8 Rado Riha,  “Avtonomi ja arhitek ture in
odloč(e)na žel ja,” in Objekt v arhitek turi:
Deleuze-Riha-Framp ton-Hays, ed. Petra
Čeferin (Ljubl jana: ZRC Pub lish ing, 2021), 45.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 237
tive think ing prac tice – we have to refor mu late the ques tion  ‘how’, such that
we first focus on the  “why”.
We can only agree with De Car lo. More pre cise ly, we can agree with
him on one con di tion – on the con di tion that we under stand the ques tion  
“why” most lit er al ly. That we under stand it as ask ing – strict ly speak ing –
about that ulti mate cause of the architect's action. We need to under stand it
as ask ing the ques tion: What is it that dri ves and guides me as an archi tect?
Or to put it some what dif fer ent ly: What is it – what is that  “archi tec tur al
cause” – to which I am com mit ted as an archi tect? Put in more gen er al
terms: What is it that we as archi tects are striv ing for in our action; what
does archi tec tur al action strive to achieve?
The turn from the one ques tion to the oth er is the turn from archi tec ture
as a prac tice of instru men tal think ing to archi tec ture as a prac tice of cre ative
think ing.
The prac tice of instru men tal think ing lim its itself to ques tions relat ed to
solv ing the prob lems and tasks that the giv en social real i ty has defined as the
prob lems and tasks that need to be addressed or solved. And at the last
instance they need to be solved, because their solu tions serve to pre serve the
giv en real i ty – real i ty as it is. Instru men tal think ing prac tice is and always
remains deter mined by the frame work of the giv en real i ty; it does not try to
crit i cal ly sur pass or move beyond this real i ty. Rather the oppo site: it is
always sub servient to it.
Instead, the prac tice of cre ative think ing active ly engages in deter min -
ing the key ques tions and prob lems that should be addressed and solved in
social real i ty, such that this real i ty could oper ate and evolve as a sphere of
free, eman ci pat ed, and egal i tar i an indi vid u als. With in the frame work of the
giv en real i ty this prac tice oper ates such that it draws on that which it itself is
capa ble of pre sent ing and pur su ing with in the frame work of an affir ma tive
argu ment, as that cause of think ing and action that is worth defend ing and
fight ing for.
It is this cause, and not real i ty as it is, that gives this prac tice its sup port
and its ori en ta tion, the cause that the prac tice of cre ative think ing itself con -
structs in the world. Cre ative think ing is there fore always a sep a ra tion from
the frame work of the giv en real i ty. This is how philoso pher Rado Riha
defines it; he writes that it is  “the act of bounc ing away, dis tanc ing itself
from the giv en real i ty, the act of inter rupt ing with the giv en order, the giv en
real i ty,” and thus it is the act of resis tance:  “The resistence to what is and
what insists because it just is the way it is.” Archi tec ture resists because it
is dri ven by the cause. It realis es this cause in the form of its objects, the
archi tec tur al objects. And inso far as it suc ceeds in this con struc tion, it is
7
8
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 239
with these objects that archi tec ture infringes on, breaks the frame work in
which the giv en real i ty is framed.
(Re)Constructing the Cause in the World
Let us look at this more close ly. Let us first observe the con struc tion of
archi tec tur al objects. How does an archi tect work when she sets out to solve
a task? How does this process begin?
At the begin ning, an archi tect encoun ters var i ous con di tions and fac tors
rel e vant to the giv en task. These include a rich cor pus of archi tec tur al
knowl edge, past and present, the his to ry of archi tec ture and cur rent trends,
as well as the require ments of the con crete pro gram, site, leg is la tion, and
tech nol o gy. Of course, these con di tions also include the fac tors that con sti -
tute the wider con text of the giv en task, such as the cur rent envi ron men tal
con di tions, con tem po rary con sumer cul ture, etc. This set of var i ous con di -
tions con sti tutes the  “mate r i al” with which an archi tect works when she
engages in a spe cif ic task. What makes this task tru ly demand ing, how ev er,
is that there is no recipe, no rule or guide that could tell an archi tect how to
use this  “mate r i al”, how to put it togeth er, such that as a result archi tec ture
would be made – that is to say, an object that is not mere ly a util i tar i an
object but is at the same time also an archi tec tur al object.
The giv en con di tions there fore do not con sti tute all of the pos si ble con -
di tions. Anoth er con di tion must be added to them, a strict ly archi tec tur al
con di tion – the con di tion that con cerns archi tec ture itself. This is the con di -
tion that the archi tect is able to use the giv en set of con di tions in an appro -
pri ate way, such that she con structs archi tec ture out of it. Archi tec ture as an
activ i ty that appears in the world in the form of its prod ucts, its con struct ed
objects – archi tec tur al objects.
The addi tion of this con di tion, which is the spon ta neous begin ning of
every archi tec tur al task, is usu al ly called an inter ven tion in the giv en con di -
tions. The inter ven tion – this is the architect's act with which she opens up
an emp ty place in the set of giv en con di tions, a place for her self. It is in this
place that the archi tect sit u ates her self with her con crete deci sion as to how
to recon struct the giv en con di tions and con nect them such that this will lead
to the appro pri ate archi tec tur al solu tion of the giv en task. It is here, in this
place, that archi tec ture begins.
Why do I say that this place is emp ty? Again: because there is no rule
and no recipe that could tell the archi tect how to achieve an archi tec tur al
solu tion of her con crete task. The right way of con struct ing archi tec ture out
of the giv en con di tions must each time be found anew, from case to case. It
must be invented.
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
9 For the con cep tu al iza tion of the cre ative act
as I fol low it here see Rado Riha,  “Dozde vek in
dejan je,” Filo zof s ki vest nik XXX, no. 1 (2009):
7–20.
10 Zvi Heck er and Andres Lep ik, Sketch es (Ost ‐
fildern: Hat je Cantz, 2012), 139.
11 For a detailed elab o ra tion of the archi tec tur al
object as an object with an inner dif fer ence
see Čeferin, The Resis tant Object, 104–120,
et al.
12 Riha describes this object par tic u lar ly well.
He writes that it is  “the solu tion of a task
which always leaves behind some thing unre ‐
solved, always con tains a moment of  “fail ing” .
Fail ing not in the sense that the solu tion
would fail. Rather, this is a kind of struc tur al
fail ing, inso far as togeth er with the solu tion
a non-solu tion is also cre at ed. In oth er words,
a suc cess ful solu tion also reveals oth er and
dif fer ent, unfore seen dimen sions of the
resolved prob lem. Or it opens an entire ly new
prob lem.” Cf. Riha,  “Avtonomi ja arhitek ture in
odloč(e)na žel ja,” 55.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 241
The cre ative prac tice of archi tec ture is there fore, in a way, cre atio ex nihi lo.
Not, nat u ral ly, because it would ignore the giv en con di tions, iso late itself
from its envi ron men tal con text. But because it is ground ed in the act – the
act of inter ven ing in the con di tions, open ing up an emp ty place with in
them.
It is pre cise ly from this emp ty place that an archi tect pro ceeds with her
con struc tion al act. The architect's act there fore has no oth er sup port but the
act itself. More pre cise ly, its sup port is that cause that guides the archi tect in
her con struc tion, in the process of solv ing a giv en task – the cause which
forces her to think, that is, to con struct. Where by she does not know and
can not know in advance what exact ly this cause is. This par tic u lar way of
act ing is well described by archi tect Zvi Heck er, when he says that an artist
– and I would say that the same holds true for an archi tect –  “is nev er ful ly
aware of what he does, but nev er the less has to do it very pre cise ly.”
The only way to find out, to assume this cause that guides an archi tect,
is to mate ri alise it in the world, ren der it mate ri al ly present. In short: con -
struct it, build it in the form of a mate r i al object that she con structs. And if
she suc ceeds, then the con struct ed object is an object, redou bled in itself. It
is redou bled into the con struct ed util i tar i an object and (in each case spe cif ic)
the cause of archi tec ture, which this con struct ed object ren ders vis i ble. That
is to say, it is redou bled into the util i tar i an object and that spe cif ic form of
archi tec tural ness that an archi tect strives to realise in her con struct ed object.
If she suc ceeds in this process, then the util i tar i an object, apart from being
the util i tar i an object, also becomes the archi tec tur al object.
And the archi tec tur al object is an object of a spe cial kind. For it not
only works as the prod uct of archi tec tur al prac tice, but at the same time it
also works as its cause. This cause is man i fest ed in the way that the con -
struct ed object is always also some thing else than what it is. It is an expres -
sion of the time and space, the con di tions in which it was made. It car ries
dif fer ent mean ings. And yet, it can nev er be reduced to its set of con di tions
and it can nev er be entire ly exhaust ed by the mean ings with which we invest
it. To put it more con cep tu al ly: it is an object that is always dif fer ent from
itself. In short: it is an object with an inner dif fer ence. It is because of this
inner dif fer ence – because of its so to speak eter nal  “some thing else” – that
this object trig gers our thought, the thought of us as archi tects, the bear ers of
archi tec tur al action. It forces us to think, that is, to con struct.
The dif fer ence, the inner dif fer ence, which char ac teris es the archi tec tur -
al object is the man i fes ta tion of the fact that this object was con struct ed from
an emp ty place, so to speak, ex nihi lo. For we can say for this dif fer ence that
it is almost noth ing. Objec tive ly speak ing it is noth ing. We can not see the
dif fer ence as such – we only see a well-con struct ed object. And yet it isn't
9
10
11
12
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
13 In Badiou's terms, an archi tec tur al object
could also be defined as a trans-sit u a tion al
and untime ly object. In his view, the con struc ‐
tion or cre ation of such objects, which are the
prod ucts of cre ative think ing or cog ni tive
enter pris es, requires courage. He writes:  
“With out a doubt, this is the prin ci ple of
courage that under lies any cog ni tive enter ‐
prise: to be of one’s time, through an unprece ‐
dent ed man ner of not being of one’s time. In
Nietzsche’s terms, to have the courage to be
untime ly. Every true poem is an  “untime ly
obser va tion.” Cf. Alain Badiou, The Cen tu ry,
transl. Alber to Toscano (Cam bridge: Poli ty
Press, 2007), 21.
14 For the con cep tu al i sa tion of the process of
sub jec ti va tion as the insep a ra bil i ty of think ing
and action see Rado Riha, Kant in dru gi
kopernikan s ki obrat v filo zofi ji (Ljubl jana: ZRC
Pub lish ing, 2012), 379–399, et al.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 243
sim ply null, because for the archi tec tur al object it is cru cial, con sti tu tive. It
is owing to this inter nal dif fer ence that the archi tec tur al object resists being
reduced to the set of con di tions out of which it was con struct ed, or entire ly
cap tured in the vast net work of var i ous mean ings. It can not be sit u at ed with -
in the frame work of the giv en real i ty, but in its mate r i al pres ence – as I said
ear li er – it breaks this frame work itself. And as such it can per sist and
endure in dif fer ent times, in dif fer ent spa tio-tem po ral sit u a tions, some times
for cen turies.
Co-Creating Architectural People
The archi tect is one who suc ceeds in cre at ing such objects, objects with an
inner dif fer ence. But here we must be more pre cise: only when an archi tect
cre ates an object with an inner dif fer ence does she real ly become an archi -
tect. When we are in the realm of cre ative action, an archi tect isn’t sim ply
one who, as a  “grand cre ator” sov er eign ly cre ates her objects. It would be
more appro pri ate to say that exact ly the oppo site is true: it is the object that
cre ates the archi tect. Object in a spe cif ic sense – the object as the cause of
archi tec ture, a spe cif ic archi tec tur al idea that the archi tect tries to realise in
the con struc tion of her objects. The cause of archi tec ture works both as
a firm start ing point and as that which dri ves and guides the archi tect in her
con struc tions. But as such a dri ving force and start ing point it exists only in
the abil i ty of the archi tect to con struct it in her prod ucts, again and again.
And if she suc ceeds in this process, she attains what she is look ing for. She
encoun ters that cause, the ulti mate cause of her action. It is in this encounter
that she only real ly con sti tutes her self – con sti tutes her self as an archi tect.
Or, to use the more explic it for mu la tion by Riha, she con sti tutes her self as
an archi tec tur al work er, as one who serves archi tec ture, or serves that cause
which she recog nised as that which is cru cial for architecture.
This way of act ing can be called the process of sub jec ti va tion. This is
the process in which those who enter archi tec ture – from the archi tect to the
many pos si ble users and spec ta tors of archi tec ture – are in the process of
becom ing subjects.
The fig ure of sub ject first appears in the Enlight en ment, and marks the
emer gence of inde pen dent think ing, of some one who thinks inde pen dent ly.
For the process of sub jec ti va tion, to which archi tec ture invites us (and not
only archi tec ture, but all cre ative think ing prac tices) some thing else is char -
ac ter is tic. This is a dou ble inde pen dence; that is, the insep a ra bil i ty of inde -
pen dent think ing and inde pen dent action. Sub jec ti va tion or the becom ing
of a sub ject there fore means to be in the process of becom ing an agent of
13
14
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
15 The sub ject is not a con di tion, it is a process.
One does not become a sub ject (once and for
all) but is becom ing a sub ject; when she
thinks cre ative ly, she enters into the com po si ‐
tion of the sub ject and endures in this com po ‐
si tion as long as s/he per sists with the
process of cre ative think ing. Badiou puts this
suc cinct ly:  “Sub ject is sub jec ti fi ca tion.” See
Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foun da tion of
Uni ver sal ism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stan ford,
CA: Stan ford Uni ver si ty Press, 2003), 171.
16 Of course, for archi tec ture to work in this way
(poten tial ly) for all, it must also be avail able to
all. This requires two things. First ly, that all
kinds of struc tures are designed as archi tec ‐
ture, not only some exclu sive struc tures; that
archi tec ture is not the excep tion, but the rule.
And sec ond ly, that archi tec ture and the social
sig nif i cance of its prac tice is pre sent ed and
explained to the gen er al pub lic. That archi tec ‐
ture – in the form of exhi bi tions, pub li ca tions,
lec tures, etc. – in all its struc tur al, intel lec tu al,
sen su al, and emo tion al com plex i ty appears in
the pub lic space.
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 245
inde pen dent think ing AND action. More pre cise ly, an agent who shares her
inde pen dence with the cause that guides her.
The cause of archi tec ture is the cen tral point of the cre ative prac tice of
archi tec ture. It is that which on the one hand the archi tect alone con structs in
the world, and which on the oth er hand con structs her as an archi tect. It
gives her sup port and ori en ta tion such that she can be in the world in that
par tic u lar way that is char ac ter is tic for cre ative action – in the way of dis -
tanc ing her self from the sit u a tion, of bounc ing away from it. An archi tect
who is dri ven by the cause there fore not only pro duces objects of a spe cial
kind, but also acts in a spe cial way. She is in the giv en world in the way that
with in that world and its log ic she acts regard less of that log ic. She pur sues
her own log ic, the log ic of the cause of archi tec ture – the log ic of cre ativ i ty.
She is in the world in the way that she is torn-out of the world. 
By cre at ing the pos si bil i ty of tear ing one self out of the mech a nisms of
the giv en world, archi tec ture, just like all cre ative prac tices, opens this pos si -
bil i ty up not only to archi tects, but to all. Not only to those who them selves
con struct archi tec ture, not only to the pro duc ers, but also the spec ta tors and
users of archi tec ture. The cre ative think ing prac tice of archi tec ture does not
dif fer en ti ate between the experts and the rest, the peo ple. It requires the
same from all: to acti vate their sen su al and intel lec tu al capac i ties. And these
are gener ic human capac i ties, capac i ties that every one has.
This is how archi tec ture works when it approach es its tasks – such as
the devel op ment of pub lic space – as archi tec tur al tasks, and when it also
suc ceeds to solve them as such. Then it con structs struc tures and spaces that,
in a way, con struct us. They con sti tute what we could call a place for human
life. A place for a human being who found there some thing that has worked
as an  “eye open er”, and a  “hear ing sharp en er”, and a  “trig ger for thought”.
They con sti tute places for a human being who looks because she wants to
see; who lis tens because she wants to hear; who thinks because she wants to
think and under stand. In short, archi tec ture cre ates places for a human being
who is capa ble of look ing, feel ing, lis ten ing, and think ing inde pen dent ly –
a place for a human being who acti vates her or his own sen su al and intel lec -
tu al capac i ties. As a result, she or he is in the world in a spe cial way – in the
way of an agent of inde pen dent think ing and action. And it is the acti va tion
of this capac i ty to think and act inde pen dent ly, the capac i ty intrin sic to every
human being, that is the first and nec es sary con di tion for every true
social change.
15
16
Petra Čeferin Form of Resistance
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture 247
Bibliography
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ure.org/
“Biennale architettura 2023: the laboratory of the future, ” La Biennale di Venezia, May 31, 2022. https://
www.labiennale.org/en/news/biennale-architettura-2023-laboratory-future
Badiou, Alain. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. Trans. Ray Brassier. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2003.
Badiou, Alain. The Century. Trans. Alberto Toscano. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.
Čeferin, Petra. The Resistant Object of Architecture: A Lacanian Perspective. London: Routledge, 2021.
De Carlo, Giancarlo. “Architecture's Public. ” In Architecture and Participation, edited by Peter Blundell
Jones, Doina Petrescu and Jeremy Till, 3-22. Abingdon: Spon Press, 2007.
Hartoonian, Gevork (ed.). Global Perspectives on Critical Architecture. Praxis Reloaded. London and
New York: Routledge, 2014.
Hecker, Zvi. “New Idea. ” In Sketches, edited by Andres Lepik, 139. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012.
Heindl, Gabu, Michael Klein, Christina Linortner and Osterreichische Gesellschaft fur Architektur (eds.).
Building Critique: Architecture and its Discontents. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2020.
Lahiji, Nadir (ed.). Architecture Against the Post-Political. Essays in Reclaiming the Critical Project.
London and New York: Routledge, 2014.
Riha, Rado. “Avtonomija arhitekture in odloč(e)na želja. ” In Objekt v arhitekturi: Deleuze-Riha-Frampton-
Hays, edited by Petra Čeferin, 43-57. Ljubljana: ZRC Publishing, 2021.
Riha, Rado. “Dozdevek in dejanje. ” Filozofski vestnik XXX, no. 1 (2009): 7-20.
Riha, Rado. Kant in drugi kopernikanski obrat v filozofiji. Ljubljana: ZRC Publishing, 2012.
Space Caviar (eds.). Non-Extractive Architecture: On Designing without Depletion. Berlin: Sternberg
Press, 2021.

249
Claudio Patanè
Against All Homologation
Prefatory Artworks by
Claudio Patanè
Claudio Patanè Form of Resistance
Against All Homologation 251
The works I present are part of a series of recent graphic reflections on
the terracqueous landscape of the Mediterranean. In particular,
reference is made to that geographical area of myth, visions and
legends: the Mar Ionio, Mar Tirreno and Stretto coasts between Sicily
and Calabria. An illustrated narrative that lies between mirage and
vision, caprice and the oniric, invention in architecture and the
construction of devices of the gaze for the narration of the terracquean
landscape. Re-using codes, expressiveness and styles present in the
vertical architecture of coastal watchtowers of the past; In the
translation into a graphic sign of the equidistant fluidity of the
seascape, which is almost always unstable, changeable, never static; In
the taxonomic cataloguing of geometries for the construction,
observation, contemplation of the horizon of the sea; In the uncertain
and contradictory paradox that exists between natural and artificial
phenomena, reality and fantasy, design and invention.
All the drawings I have made are part of a journey of
RESISTANCE that I operate from a standstill in my everyday life. Very
small works, kept inside my carnet de voyage.
Claudio Patanè

253
Aldo Aymoni no was Born in Rome in1953 and
grad u at ed in Rome in1980. Since 2000 prof
Aymoni no has been full-pro fes sor at the Venice
School of Archi tec ture (IUAV); since 1986 has
been teach ing Archi tec tur al Design in Pescara
and Venice uni ver si ties; since 1991 has been vis it ‐
ing Pro fes sor at the Uni ver si ty of Toron to and
Cor nell Uni ver si ty, USA; worked in Ger many with ‐
in the IBA project; has giv en lec tures on his work
and research in Ital ian and for eign uni ver si ties
(Milan, Rome, Naples, Vien na, Ljubl jana, Toron to,
Lyon, Zurich, Cot tbus, Koblenz, Delft, Patras, Lis ‐
bon, Han nover, Sao Paulo, San ti a go Chile, Shen ‐
zhen, Hong Kong etc.); won the first prize in the
exhi bi tion  "Ital ian Archi tects of the New Gen er a ‐
tion" in 1989; invit ed to exhib it his work at the
Venice Bien nale in the Ital ian Pavil lon in 1991,
2002 and with IUAV in 2006, and in the Milan Tri ‐
en nale in 1995 and at London’s R.I.B.A. in 1996. He
wrote a book on Louis Kahn in 1991 and on Un-
vol u met ric Archi tec ture in 2006. Since 1992 he
has been Vis it ing Pro fes sor at the School of
Archi tec ture at the Uni ver si ty of Water loo-
Ontario, the Uni ver si ty of Toron to school of archi ‐
tec ture, the School of Archi tec ture at Cor nell,
Rome Pro gramme, the Illi nois Insti tute of Tech nol ‐
o gy, the Uni ver si dade Mod er na in Lis bon and TU
Delft. From 2018 to 2021 he was the Direc tor of  
“Archi tec ture and Arts” Depart ment of the IUAV
Uni ver si ty of Venice and is cur rent ly holds the
UNESCO Chair for Her itage and Urban Regen er ‐
a tion. He cur rent ly lives and prac tices in
Rome, Italy.
Rena to Boc chi Born in Tren to, 1949. Pro fes sor of
Archi tec tur al and Urban Design and Archi tec tur al
The o ries at the IUAV Uni ver si ty of Venice, Dept of
Archi tec ture and Arts, until 2019, he is cur rent ly
a mem ber of the doc tor ate Archi tec ture. The o ries
and Project at Sapien za Uni ver si ty of Rome and
of the doc tor ate Archi tec ture, City and Design at
IUAV, Venice. Between 2013 and 2016 he was
nation al coor di na tor of the Re-cycle Italy
research. Among his recent pub li ca tions: Prog ‐
ettare lo spazio e il movi men to (Gange mi, Rome
2010), La mate ria del vuo to (Uni ver salia, Por de ‐
none 2015), Spazio, arte, architet tura (Caroc ci,
Rome 2022).
José Cal vo-López teach es Archi tec tur al His to ry
and oth er sub jects in Uni ver si dad Politéc ni ca de
Carta ge na, where he has been Dean of the
School of Archi tec ture and Direc tor of the Mas ‐
ters’ degree in Archi tec tur al Her itage and the
Doc tor al Pro gram in Archi tec ture. He is work ing
present ly on research projects about the geom e ‐
try of ash lar con struc tion in the Roman and Ear ly
Medi ae val peri ods. He has pub lished research
papers on stereoto my and spa tial rep re sen ta tion
on such peer-reviewed jour nals as Archi vo
Español de Arte, Revista EGA, Nexus Net work
Jour nal, Con struc tion His to ry, Informes de la Con ‐
struc ción or Inter na tion al Jour nal of Archi tec tur al
Her itage. He has been recent ly a Vis it ing Pro fes sor
at Uni ver sità IUAV. He is a mem ber of the Edi to r i al
Boards of Con struc tion His to ry and Nexus Net ‐
work Jour nal and the Steer ing Com mit tee of the
Nexus Con fer ences. He is the author of Stere to ‐
my. Stone Con struc tion in Europe 1200–1900,
pub lished by Springer Nature.
Gior gia Cesaro. Archi tect grad u at ed at the Men ‐
dri sio Acad e my of Archi tec ture – Uni ver si ty of
Ital ian Switzer land – in 2013. She worked in Por ‐
tu gal at Aires Mateus Arqui tec tos, and as a free ‐
lance in Italy, Chi na, and Peru. Since 2015 she is
Teach ing Assis tant at Francesco Cacciatore’s  
“Design and The o ry of Archi tec tur al Com po si ‐
tion” cours es at the Uni ver si ty Iuav of Venice, and
since 2018 Guest Lec tur er at Agosti no De Rosa’s  
“The o ry and His to ry of Rep re sen ta tion al Meth ‐
ods” cours es at the Venice Inter na tion al Uni ver si ‐
ty. Since 2020 she is a PhD archi tect, qual i fi ca tion
achieved at the Iuav Doc tor al School with a the sis
enti tled Machine à Émou voir. Kazuo Shi no hara
and the Devices of the Unex pect ed.
Eliz a beth Cronin is a PhD can di date and instruc ‐
tor at the Uni ver si ty of Flori da (UF) School of
Archi tec ture. Her research focus es on mak ing,
tex tiles, and fem i nist prac tices in archi tec tur al
design and ped a gogy. She received a Bach e lor of
Design, a Mas ter of Archi tec ture, and a Mas ter of
Sci ence in Archi tec tur al Stud ies in Ped a gogy
from UF and was the found ing exec u tive edi tor of
their Grad u ate School of Archi tec ture pub li ca tion:
 “Vorkurs” (Uni ver si ty of Flori da, 2017–present).
Eliz a beth has also taught at the Uni ver si ty of Mia ‐
mi, worked on sev er al design/build projects, and
prac ticed archi tec ture in Mia mi, Tam pa, and Jack ‐
sonville. She is a win ner of the Diana Bitz Book
Award and the ARCC King Stu dent Medal for
Excel lence in Archi tec tur al and Envi ron men tal
Research.
Biographies

255
Agosti no De Rosa (Bari, Italy 1963) is an Archi ‐
tect and Full Pro fes sor at Uni ver si ty Iuav of
Venezia (Italy) and at Venice Inter na tion al Uni ver ‐
si ty. He co-ordi nates the PhD pro gram on Sur vey ‐
ing and Rep re sent ing Archi tec ture and the Envi ‐
ron ment at the IUAV post grad u ate school. He has
writ ten books and essays on the theme of rep re ‐
sen ta tion, the his to ry of images and land art. His
books include, among the many pub lished: Cecità
del vedere. Per una sto ria anti-proi et ti va delle
immag i ni (forth com ing); Jean François Nicéron.
Prospet ti va, catot tri ca e magia arti fi ciale. Rome:
Arac ne Editrice 2013; James Tur rell. Geome trie di
luce. Roden Crater project, Milan: Elec ta 2007). He
has curat ed exhi bi tions in Italy and all around the
world with his team, Ima go rerum based at
Iuav University. 
Char lie Hai ley is an archi tect, writer, and pro fes ‐
sor. A Guggen heim Fel low and Ful bright Schol ar,
he is the author of six books, includ ing The Porch:
Med i ta tions on the Edge of Nature, Camps:
A Guide to 21 Cen tu ry Space, and Slab City: Dis ‐
patch es from the Last Free Place. Hai ley teach es
design/build, stu dio, and the o ry at the Uni ver si ty
of Flori da, where he was recent ly named
Teacher/Scholar of the Year.
Tul lia Iori is an engi neer ing his to ri an and full pro ‐
fes sor at the Uni ver si ty of Rome Tor Ver ga ta,
where she is the coor di na tor of the PhD pro gram
in Civ il Engi neer ing. For many years, she has
been involved in the research SIXXI — His to ry of
Struc tur al Engi neer ing in Italy (ERC Advanced
Grant). She has pub lished books and essays on
the his to ry of rein forced con crete in Italy, on Pier
Lui gi Nervi and Ser gio Mus me ci (also co-curat ing
exhi bi tions at the MAXXI Muse um in Rome), on
con tem po rary engi neer ing in the new mil len ni um,
and, more gen er al ly, on the his to ry of engi neer ing
in Italy with the SIXXI vol ume series. She has
a pas sion for dis sem i na tion: she col lab o rates with
Wiki ra dio,  "La Grande Sto ria," Rai5 and Rai Cul ‐
tura and in the mak ing of doc u men taries (BBC,
Dis cov ery Science).
Clau dio Patanè is an archi tect, has col lab o rat ed
as a teacher and prac tised research in the field of
Draw ing and Sur vey ing Archi tec ture at the Uni ‐
ver si ties of Pado va, Reg gio Cal abria, Sir a cusa and
Venice. He worked as a pro fes sion al archi tect in
Lis bon from 2009 to 2012. He was an instruc tor of
 "urban panoram ic draw ing" for the Urban
Sketchers.Org Sym po siums and Work shops in
Lis bon and the Domini can Repub lic. Since 2017
he has been a teacher of Draw ing Tec. and Prog.
at ABADIR Acad e my of Design and Visu al Arts in
Cata nia. He is a found ing mem ber of the infor mal
group of semi()atelier archi tects. He worked on
a Euro pean research project involv ing the
Depart ment of Archi tec ture and Ter ri to ry (dArTe)
of the Mediter ranean Uni ver si ty of Reg gio Cal ‐
abria, the Escuela Tec ni ca Supe ri or de Arqui tec ‐
tura of the Uni ver si ty of Val ladol id and the com ‐
pa ny NAOS Con sult ing s.r.l. of Saler no. He is cur ‐
rent ly col lab o rat ing as a bur sary-hold er at the
Spe cial Teach ing Struc ture of Syra cuse in Archi ‐
tec ture and Cul tur al Her itage of the Uni ver si ty of
Cata nia for a research project on the city of Sav o ‐
ca (ME). He is a teacher PLUS for DOMĔSTIKA.
Fabio Quici is a Ph.D. archi tect and asso ciate
pro fes sor in the Depart ment of His to ry, Rep re sen ‐
ta tion and Restora tion of Archi tec ture in the
Sapien za Uni ver sità di Roma where he teach es
Visu al Cul ture and Rep re sen ta tion of Archi tec ture
and Visu al Com mu ni ca tion Design. He has pre vi ‐
ous ly taught Aes thet ics and Heuris tics, Archi tec ‐
tur al Draw ing, Archi tec tur al Sur vey ing, The o ry
and Rep re sen ta tion of Visu al and Mul ti me dia
Com mu ni ca tion. He was guest lec tur er at uni ver ‐
si ties in Oxford (UK), Guatemala City, Bogotà,
Carta ge na (ES). He is the author of books and
essays on the use of images and on the his to ry of
archi tec tur al rep re sen ta tion. His research es and
essays are also about the inter pre ta tion of the
infor mal cities and the visu al aspects of archi tec ‐
tur al and urban design. He is author of Il dis eg no
cifrato: ermeneusi stor i ca del dis eg no di architet ‐
tura (Roma: Oﬀic i na edi zioni, 1996); Trac ciati di
inven zione: euris ti ca e dis eg no di architet tura
(Tori no: Utet, 2004), Cit tà: proiezioni e para dos si
(Roma: Form.act, 2007) and he was mem ber of
the lead ing pro mot ers of the cycle of inter na tion al
study sem i nars Idee per la rap p re sen tazione from
which a series of vol umes orig i nat ed (Idee per la
rap p re sen tazione, 2007; Ibri dazioni, 2008; Arte fat ‐
ti, 2009; Trascrizioni, 2011; Atopie, 2012; Impronte,
2013; Visu al ità, 2014, all pub lished by Form.act).
Enrique Rabasa-Díaz is an archi tect and a Full
Pro fes sor in the School of Archi tec ture of Uni ver ‐
si dad Politéc ni ca de Madrid. He belongs to the
Archi tec tur al Graph ic Design Depart ment, and
teach es in the BA cours es and in the Mas ter of
Preser va tion of the UPM. He has been Direc tor of
the doc tor ate pro gram on Archi tec tur al Her itage
and the Archi tec ture Area of the Inter na tion al
Doc tor al School of the UPM. He devel ops his
research in His to ry of Descrip tive Geom e try and
Con struc tion, espe cial ly Stereoto my and stone ‐
cut ting. He man ages a stone cut ting work shop in
the School. He has pub lished research papers on
stereoto my and spa tial rep re sen ta tion on such
st

257
peer-reviewed jour nals as Revista EGA, Nexus
Net work Jour nal, Con struc tion His to ry, Informes de
la Con struc ción and a num ber of books on stone ‐
cut ting and stereoto my, in par tic u lar For ma y con ‐
struc ción en piedra and a crit i cal edi tion of the
man u script of Joseph Gelabert. He is a mem ber of
the Sci en tif ic Com mit tees of RevistaEGA
and the Inter na tion al Con gress es on Con struc ‐
tion History.
Vida Rucli grad u at ed in 2020 from the Uni ver si ty
of Ljubl jana Fac ul ty of Archi tec ture. Since 2017,
she is mem ber of Robi da, a col lec tive that works
at the inter sec tion of writ ten and spo ken word
and spa tial prac tices devel oped in the vil lage of
Topolò (Italy). Cur rent ly her research focus es on
how fem i nist the o ries and prac tices can approach
aban doned landscapes
Petra Čeferin is an archi tect prac tic ing archi tec ‐
tur al the o ry and phi los o phy of archi tec ture. She is
also Asso ciate Pro fes sor at the Fac ul ty of Archi ‐
tec ture, Uni ver si ty of Ljubl jana, where she teach ‐
es archi tec tur al the o ry and his to ry. Her pub li ca ‐
tions include Con struct ing a Leg end: The Inter na ‐
tion al Exhi bi tions of Finnish Archi tec ture 1957–1967
(SKS Pub lish ing, 2003), Trans form ing Real i ty with
Archi tec ture: Finnish Case (Fon dazione Bruno
Zevi, 2008), Archi tec tur al Epi cen tres: Invent ing
Archi tec ture, Inter ven ing in Real i ty (AML, 2008/ ‐
co-edi tor with C. Požar), Project Archi tec ture: Cre ‐
ative Prac tice in the Time of Glob al Cap i tal ism
(AML, 2010/ co-edi tor with J. Bick ert and C.
Požar), and The Resis tant Object of Archi tec ture.
A Lacan ian perspective (Rout ledge, 2021). She is
also the co-founder and edi tor of the book series
The o ret i cal Prac tice of Archi tec ture.

259
Porch Notes
Charlie Hailey
Keywords: porch, place, John Dewey, aesthetics
Porches embrace paradox. More than a simple blend of opposites like open and closed and
public and private, porches make room for conversation on the cusp of nature and
accommodate multivalent experiences along the frontiers of built form. Which is to say a
porch is dialogic in nature. It holds oppositions without dialectical mediation. To understand
such places of negotiation as well as radical reflection, this essay builds on John Dewey’s
idea of the active role resistance plays in experience, specifically the lived experiences on
porches and similarly liminal spaces. Aesthetic experience needs resistance, just like a
porch needs sun, rain, wind, strangers, neighbors, and fiberglass mesh. It is a place that
hosts what Dewey called “undergoing, ” with its idea of receiving, and doing, which oﬀers a
delicate balance. This essay arranges dialogic pairings into a lexicon as a nascent
vocabulary of the porch. These pairings hinge on stories that oscillate between the didactic
and the diaristic. If the former guides practice within a discipline, then the latter registers
private ruminations sometimes made public. A porch frames as it also folds space and time,
it holds secrets and opens out onto streets, it documents and daydreams. So often porches
are celebrated for their combination of inside and outside, which suggests an all too easy
resolution of architecture and nature and of the domestic interior with what is “out there. ”
Amid climate crises, post-pandemic life, and social change, no such resolution exists, and
the diﬀicult work of undergoing and doing must continue and persist.
Stretched Out
Spatializing the Pregnant Body
Elizabeth Cronin
Keywords: feminist practice, stretch, loose-fit, bodies
From corsets to girdles to spanx, women’s undergarments have a long history of structuring
overgarments, creating a formal condition where an interior shell is mirrored by an exterior
skin (or surface). Here, the female body is exhibited as a rigid, static form. Now, with the rise
of athleisure wear, undergarments and overgarments have merged. Such stretchy clothing
provides no resistance against the body. Its tight-fit streamlines an idealized form that is
broadcast to the world. Like the belly band topping a pair of maternity jeans, the stretch of
athleisure wear allows for movement, for growth, where the body is not shaped by clothing,
clothing is structured by the body. This would seem a welcome relief to the harsh strictures
of rigid undergarments, but as Jia Tolentino points out in her chapter “Always Be
Optimizing”: “as undergarments play a lesser role in structuring the idealized female body,
women may shape their bodies (through exercise, surgery, etc.) to forms dictated by an
Abstracts
idealized garment. ”1 Stretchy garments may be flexible in material, but their tight-fit adherence to the
body further establish women as objects, their rigid forms unable to resist.
As an alternative, this research asks: how might stretch act as a form of resistance? defy stasis? alter
containment? act as a loose-fit practice of architecture? transcend body as object to explore body as
infinite space? The drawings and corresponding essay respond by engaging placenta, uterus, and
cervix—the interior depths of the pregnant body—to rethink biological acts of stretching, swelling, and
dilating as generative material for open-ended speculations about architectural space. Thus, this work
simultaneously engages feminist theory while developing a practice of architecture. It constructs a
loose-fit joint between drawings and writing, at times anchored in one another, at others floating
apart. For, as the pregnant body is shaped from the inside-out, her external form a resultant of internal
movement and stretch, so too must feminist architectural practice stretch open the discipline to resist
from within.
1
Jia Tolenti no,  “Always Be Opti miz ing, ” in Trick Mir ror: Reflec tions on
Self Delu sion (New York: Ran dom House, 2019), 82–84.
Space, Body, Architecture
Towards a Difficult Balance
Renato Bocchi
Keywords: Geometry, Space, Body, Contrapposto, Chiasmus
The essay intends to investigate about the diﬀicult conjugation between the more "classical" space-
body, characterized by Euclidean-Cartesian geometry and proportional metrics, and the
"phenomenological" space-body, however present in the classical heritage, characterized from
movement, tensions, from the alternation of gravity and fluctuation.
This conjugation of ancient Apollonian and Dionysian ideals seems to propose a form of resistance,
through the dialectic of opposites, even in contemporary artistic and architectural experiences.
In fact, the proposed interpretative key intends to operate a comparative juxtaposition between
artistic experiences - such as the "Contrapposto studies" by Bruce Nauman nowadays on display at
Punta della Dogana in Venice or the interpretation of classical statuary through a choreographic and
bodily expression performance by the stage director Virgilio Sieni, exhibited some years ago at the
Prada Foundation in Milan - and the space research in architecture traceable in the museum halls
themselves hosting those exhibitions, designed by Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas, or in seminal
architectural works such as Steven Holl's Kiasma Museum in Helsinki.
Aesthetics of Resistance
Fabio Quici
Keywords: aesthetic, resistance, gravity, opposition, self-determination
The representations of the tensions induced by forms of resistance can transform solicitations,
constraints, oppositions and limitations into occasions of emancipation and opening towards new
261
forms of awareness. Can real aesthetics of resistance be identified? Photography, dance,
art and architecture provide examples in this sense and suggest, with diﬀerent forms but
sometimes with similar purposes, diﬀerent ways to interpret some manifestations of
physical and social resistance. Resistance to gravity, considered as a natural condition at
the origin of the development of architectural forms, represents a challenge also taken up
by other artistic expressions that have always interacted with architecture. The mise-en-
scene of the stresses induced by gravitational force can then create spaces for creativity
and amplify the perception of the tensions that we unconsciously experience in everyday
life. In this sense we speak of "fatal attractions” . Resistance can also be interpreted as a
form of political and social opposition. The opposition of the individual or the community
can counteract both the inexorable dynamics of urban transformation and the violence of
political repression. This type of resistance manifests itself in the form of actions and forms
of communication in which the resulting images become social acts. These are images that
circulate in diﬀerent media, images that speak to us from the walls of our streets, images
that struggle to become architectural bodies but also ‘disobedient objects’ . In some forms of
resistance one can also recognize in the opposition the desire for self-determination of the
individual and of the peoples. As expressions of the 'positive freedom of man', self-
determination manifests itself through actions and artifacts that speak of the aspirations of
peoples and their willingness to participate in the transformation of the places they inhabit.
Between the plots of the informal city and the constantly adapting housing structures even
in the consolidated city, both the artist and the architect can recognize forms of self-
determination in which improvisation becomes an aesthetic category and a compositional
strategy. In satisfying a condition of necessity, the individual always finds the opportunity to
aﬀirm his individuality as well, giving shape and image to his inhabiting. Only an
accomplice look can recognize in the forms of resistance, often ‘weak’ , all the strength they
contain in their most intimate substance.
Arcangelo Sassolino and the Italian School of
Engineering
Tullia Iori
Keywords: Arcangelo Sassolino, engineer, futurism, materials, coaction
Arcangelo Sassolino, now one of his generation's most important Italian artists, works as an
engineer but as no engineer ever could.
Sassolino was born in 1967 in Vicenza, Italy, where he lives and works. In the late 1980s he
enrolled in a degree program in engineering at the University of Padua; however, life took
him elsewhere: first to the United States, as a toy designer, after his 1989 patent
"Compounded polyhedron for ability games" piqued the curiosity of a New York-based
Japanese company. It was here that Sassolino discovered his inclination for art and trained
at the School of Visual Arts and then returned to Italy and moved to Pietrasanta, near
Massa, where he began sculpting marble, and finally back home, where he started a full-
fledged workshop within which he generated his artistic engineering works.
Sassolino's sculptures and installations explore the behavior of materials and their natural
physical properties, applying forces and coactions that stress materials (concrete, wood,
steel, rubber, glass, marble) to the limits of their strength. In this way, the artist examines the very
meaning of life and its transience.
Sassolino's works are carefully designed, resulting in sophisticated constructions with high structural
engineering content. Seemingly risky but utterly devoid of danger, calculated with a wide margin of
safety, they are nevertheless capable of arousing increasingly strong emotions: concern, doubt, fear,
emotion, and empathy; also complicit is the skillfully sound involved in the installation. Tension,
anticipation, and the feeling of risk—along with the peculiar beauty of the works—play a key role in the
viewer's experience.
Sassolino calls himself a futurist and feels deeply connected to that artistic avant-garde. One of the
most obvious similarities with the protagonists of the Italian School of Structural Engineering can be
found in this poetics: all our engineers, in fact, in their humanistic approach to structures, identifiable
and unique in the world, have matured from that artistic experience of the beginning of the century in
two ways: according to a naturalist approach, like Pier Luigi Nervi or Sergio Musmeci, or a positivist
approach, like Riccardo Morandi and Silvano Zorzi. Probably these two only seemingly contradictory
souls are now part of our DNA: because Sassolino, with his talent as an artist-engineer, cultivates
both: first the naturalist one, with his beautiful Cements, shaped to resist by form, shiny, silky, made
with a technique that strongly resembles the one adopted by Nervi for his ferroconcrete; and then the
positivist one, with the more recent use in his installations of coactions, pre-stressing, balancing,
thrusts and counterthrusts, which so closely resemble Morandi's ways of designing his bridges.
Sassolino, at this time, synthesizes, better than any engineer, the identity of Italian structural
engineering, its magic, strength, and character. He was awarded an honorary degree in Construction
Engineering-Architecture by the University of Rome Tor Vergata, where the lessons of the masters of
Italian engineering would have found their place.
Warped Versus Regular Surfaces
A Form of Resistance to Canonical Shapes, from Reims Cathedral
to Le Corbusier
José Calvo-López, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz
Keywords: Warped surfaces; descriptive geometry; École Polytechnique; Antoni Gaudí; Le Corbusier
We usually take for granted that descriptive geometry deals with surfaces in a neutral, scientific,
aseptic way. However, the construction of the notion of surface as presented by descriptive geometry
is the result of a long historical process that took place along the frontier between artisanal practices
and learned science. First, there is not much about the general notion of surface in classical geometry,
in particular in Euclid, although problems about the volume enclosed by particular surfaces, such as
spheres, cones and cylinders are dealt with by Archimedes and other scientists in Antiquity. This led
to the formation of a branch of practical geometry, known as Cosmimetry, in the Late Middle Ages.
However, this science deals only with a relatively small number of surfaces, including at most some
semiregular polyhedra, known as Archimedean. At the same time, a key development arose in the
geometrical vocabulary of medieval architecture. While Romanesque architecture uses, generally
speaking, simple regular surfaces such as cylinders, cones, half- or quarter-spheres, the surfaces of
Gothic vaulting, leaning on transverse and diagonal arches, are warped surfaces; that its, their
generatrixes are neither parallel nor convergent.
263
A more general concept of surface arose in the Renaissance, but the distinction between
developable and warped surface appeared first in the practical manuscripts and manuals of
stonecutters, who understood empirically that the surfaces whose generatrixes are neither
parallel nor concurrent cannot be controlled by means of templates. However, other
masons endeavoured to use templates even in warped surfaces, although they are fully
aware of their warped or gauche nature. That is, they opposed resistance to the canonical
conception of regular surface. This debate permeated stonecutting literature of the 16 and
17 centuries. In the first stages of the Enlightenment, Amedée-Francois Frézier showed a
strong preference for “regular” surfaces in his sterotomy treatise. However, the concept of
“regular” surface encloses both developable ruled surfaces – such as the cone and the
cylinder - and double-curvature surfaces, such as the sphere, while excluding warped ruled
surfaces. Later on, other scientists dealt with this matter, in particular Leonhard Euler and
Gaspard Monge. While the former was interested in the geodesic applications of this issue,
the later was more concerned with its use in stonecutting technique, a subject he taught at
the Military Engineering school at Mézières. In fact, he went as far as imposing the
condition that the bed joints of ellipsoidal vaults, which he proposed as the roof of the
National Assembly of the French Revolution, should be developable surfaces. This is useful,
since these joints can be controlled by means of flexible templates, but it is not necessary
on any accounts. Thus, we may surmise that Monge was enforcing here the same concept
of orthodoxy than Frézier and excluding all forms of resistance to “regular” surfaces.
However, the interest in the geometry of ruled surfaces led Monge’s disciples, in particular
Jean-Nicholas Hachette, to put forward a theorem about the continuity of warped surface
portions, giving a disproportionate importance in descriptive geometry manuals to the
Arrière-Voussure de Marseille, a door or window covering materialised with these surfaces.
All this led to a remarkable interest in ruled surfaces in the École Polytechnique, an
institution founded by Monge that exerted enormous influence in many technical schools in
Continental Europe. Traces of this interest can be detected in the work of Antoni Gaudí,
Eduardo Torroja, Le Corbusier and, of course, Félix Candela. The use of ruled surfaces such
as hyperbolic paraboloids in the former’s work is well known; not so well known is the fact
that the detail that Le Corbusier admired most in the whole Sagrada Familia building was
the roof of a small provisional school building covered with warped surfaces. Le Corbusier’s
interest in the Polytechnic heritage, which runs parallel to his disdain for the Beaux-Arts
tradition, can be seen as a chain in this long process.
The Resilience of Small Numbers
From Self-Construction to Symbol
Aldo Aymonino
Keywords: Solitude, Adriatic Room, Water Gates, Venice, Lagoon, Thresholds
At the end of summer 2022 we will cross the threshold of eight billion human beings on
earth. The staggering increase in inhabitants, joined with increasing consumption and
travel, decreasing mortality and dominant urbanization, implies a vision of the space in
which we act ruled by the unlimited numbers of mass society. However, for the past 20
years or so, a opposite trend has been gaining ground, especially in the most crowded
places on the planet. Starting with examples from minor, vernacular history, the essay
th
th
attempts to investigate the human need for solitude, the gaze, and the thought of the sacred and the
permanent through projects that are modest in scale but no less necessary.
Forests of Resistance
Memorial Strategies in Forested Landscapes of Socialist
Yugoslavia
Vida Rucli
Keywords: forested landscape, memorial strategies, Yugoslavia
The article explores the memorial strategies and monument production of Socialist Yugoslavia in
relation to forested landscape, a specific type of landscape where events related to WW2 needed to
be marked. Forests, in the creative minds of Yugoslav artists and architects who proposed
monuments to recall specific WW2 events, became sources of extremely poetic solutions, where the
forests themselves, with their vertical geometries, fragmented lights and irregular grounds, played a
central role in the monument’s design.
The article first analyzes the relation between WW2 monuments of Socialist Yugoslavia and diﬀerent
natural landscapes where the war was fought and where site-specific monuments were built,
exploring concepts as the sitedness of monuments and the authenticity of memorial sites. Secondly
the text presents in depth four diﬀerent examples of monuments built in forested landscapes: from
more classical ones, with a central body and a wider landscape organization, to living monuments
(živi spomenici) where natural elements have the central role, to participatory green monuments.
Outlining theoretical debates from the 1950s to the 1980s published in art and architecture magazines
and exploring built production from the same years, the article aims to give an overview of the
extremely complex and composite landscape of theories and practices which testifies to the modernity
and radicality of Yugoslav memorial practices.
1
In Slovene: Goz dovi odpo ra. The title is a ref er ence to the beau ti ful
film by Mar ta Popivo da and Ana Vujanović Kra jine odpo ra (Land ‐
scapes of Resis tance) from 2021, which nar rates the sto ry of the par ‐
ti san Son ja Vujanović. I had the plea sure to col lab o rate with the two
direc tors in 2019, on the the atre piece Kra jine svo bode (Land scapes
of Free dom) at the Sloven sko mladin sko gledal išče the atre
in Ljubljana.
House in Tateshina
Kazuo Shinohara's Transformational Space
Giorgia Cesaro
Keywords: Shinohara, Tateshina, kiai, randomness, space
House in Tateshina (1985-2006), Kazuo Shinohara’s latest bequest and (unrealized) project, is a small
space (46 msq) developed over a very long time (21 years). Its long-studied composition is of a
1
265
disarming simplicity. Yet, this simplicity encloses and secretes an interlocking play of one
room within another, of a space within another, of a point of view that encompasses other
points of view. As clear and linear as the system is, in fact, inside it lines of movement
complicate the compositional aspects, as to remember that the architect’s main concern
was to investigate the degree of complexity, chaos or randomness compatible with the
apparent simplicity of the form. Indeed, House in Tateshina speaks of a world without
hierarchies, where diﬀerent spaces come together, each with their own inclinations, each
playing their role while participating in the unity of the whole.
Through the analysis of the preparatory sketches and the final drawing of House in
Tateshina, the Japanese aesthetic principle of kiai [気合], composed of ai [合] (‘one-tenth of
the way from the base to the summit of a mountain’ , or ‘mutual understanding’ , ‘union’ ,
‘coming together’) and ki [気] (‘life energy’ , ‘lifeforce’ , or ‘energy flow’) emerges. Kiai is
therefore ‘ensemble of the breath’ , ‘harmony’ , ‘attention’ , and ‘sensation’ . In an artistic sense,
kiai involves the ability to harmonize the artistic gesture with the changing, random,
irregular and unpredictable rhythm of the existing (mono-no-aware).
Through the comparison with eminent cases of Japanese artistic forms actualized by
means of the kiai aesthetic principle, the proposed essay aims to demonstrates how the
composition of House in Tateshina, with its agitation of the form, had as its purpose the
elevation of our consciousness, the awakening in us of latent emotions or sensations,
keeping our attention and vigilance awake, even in the obsessive repetition of daily
gestures, to compose and reassemble our innermost space, that of the house, the space of
order and disorder, of creation and re-creation: the space of transformation.
For Kazuo Shinohara, indeed, more than a ‘making of space’ , as Louis Kahn wrote,1 the
architectural quest was a problem of ‘transformation of space’ [空間創造, kūkan sōzō],2
which he had defined as a ‘thing’ [何, nani] “colorless, transparent and impersonal” , where
the impersonal quality is to be understood in the Deleuzian sense of the term, that is
‘virtually multiple’ , ‘holder of possibilities’; a concept very close to the Buddhist idea of
śūnyatā [ शू ता ], ‘emptiness’ , whose Japanese translation is kokū [虚空], ‘where everything
can be anything without obstacles’ .
1
“Archi tec ture is the thought ful mak ing of spaces. The con tin ‐
u al renew al of archi tec ture comes from chang ing con cepts
of space”: Kahn, Louis.  “Archi tec ture Is the Thought ful Mak ‐
ing of Spaces. ” Per spec ta 4 (1957): 2–3.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566850.
2
The lit er al trans la tion of the Japan ese word sōzō [創造] is  ‘to
tend to’ ,  ‘to pro ceed towards’ [ 造, zō] the  ‘ori gin’ , the  ‘begin ‐
ning’ [創, sō]. How ev er, the  ‘prin ci ple’ should not be under ‐
stood as a  ‘first cause’: in the Far East the idea of a cre ation
of some thing oth er than one self is com plete ly absent,
whether it is the shap ing of a shape less mate r i al already giv ‐
en (as Plato’s demi urge does) or whether it is a cre atio ex
nihi lo on God’s part (as in the Judeo-Chris t ian tra di tion). In
Chi na and in Japan cre ation is seen as a process, a spon ta ‐
neous and free becom ing by virtue of itself. To suite this idea
of a con tin u ous process with out ori gin and with out end, it
was pre ferred to trans late sōzō [創造] into  ‘trans for ma tion’
rather than into  ‘cre ation’ . For an in-depth analy sis see: François Jul lien,
Procès ou créa tion: une intro duc tion à la pen sée des let trés chi nois, (Paris:
Édi tions du Seuil, 1989).
The Resistant Capacity of Architecture
Petra Čeferin
Keywords: Architectural capacity, Cause of architecture, Architectural act, Subjectivation, Creative
thinking
We live and work in highly problematic times, a time of burning issues such as the environmental
crisis, the weakening of democracy, housing injustices, and mass migrations, to list just a few of the
ongoing developments of our time. A critical awareness of this time is reflected in the field of
architecture; it shows itself as a call to action – to pursue architecture as an active co-creator of
society, a co-bearer of much needed social change today.
But for such attempts to be eﬀective – and this is the central thesis of this article – the following is
essential: to tap into the full potential of architecture the issues and challenges that architecture and
thus we as architects confront today have to be thought in the way of architecture; they have to be
thought architecturally. More precisely, we have to think them as problems and challenges that
architecture confronts as a creative thinking practice.
When architecture is practiced as a creative thinking practice, it responds to a given task such that it
constructs that particular object that it seeks to make as an object specific to architecture – as an
architectural object. And this is an object of a special kind because it is a subjectified object. In other
words: at the same time architecture constructs its objects--subjectified objects--it also co-
constructs, co-creates a human being as their specific producer, spectator, user. It co-creates him or
her as a subjectified human being. And here, in my view, lies the resistant capacity of architecture.
Architecture can realise this capacity if it activates its creative capacity. My position, therefore, holds
that the act which is necessary today – and not only for us architects – is the act of insistence on
architecture as a creative thinking practice. This is what I will develop in my article.
267
Izdala Publisher
Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za arhitekturo
/ University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Architecture
Zoisova cesta 12, SI-1000 Ljubljana
Gostujoči urednik Guest Editor
Agostino De Rosa, University Iuav of Venezia (Italy) & Venice International
University
Urednik Editor
Paul O Robinson, University of Ljubljana, FA
Uredniški odbor Editorial Board
izr. prof. dr. Uršula Berlot Pompe, University of Ljubljana, ALUO
izr. prof. dr. Jaka Bonča, University of Ljubljana, FA
Judith Birdsong, Writer and Lecturer, School of architecture, UT Austin
izr. prof. dr. Matej Blenkuš, University of Ljubljana, FA
doc. dr. Mariana Correia, Escola Superior Gallaecia, PT
prof. dr. Peter Fister, University of Ljubljana, FA
prof. PhD Imma Forino, Politecnico di Milano
prof. mag. Peter Gabrijelčič, University of Ljubljana, FA
prof. dr. Vojko Kilar, University of Ljubljana, FA
prof. Robert MacLeod, USF School of Architecture and Community Design
prof. Agostino De Rosa, Università Iuav di Venezia
doc. dr. Matevž Juvančič, University of Ljubljana, FA
doc. dr. Beatriz Tomšič Čerkez, University of Ljubljana, PeF
zn. sod. dr. Špela Verovšek, University of Ljubljana, FA
doc. dr. Domen Zupančič, University of Ljubljana, FA
prof. dr. Tadeja Zupančič, University of Ljubljana, FA
Tehnični urednik Technical Editor
zn. sod. dr. Špela Verovšek, University of Ljubljana, FA
Prevodi v slovenščino Slovene Translations
Boris Troha
Oblikovanje Design
Marko Damiš & Martin Košir
Prelom Layout
Marko Damiš
Črkovna vrsta Fonts
Minion Pro, Acumin Pro
Cena Price
18,30 EUR
Architecture Research
2022
/ Arhitektura, raziskave
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