Douglas Darden's Temple Forgetful, Part 1 - Site and Con-Text

 

Temple Forgetful site plan

Of all the projects in Condemned Building, Temple Forgetful is probably the strongest. Oxygen House may be the most renowned and popular, but the strongest from the viewpoint of his narratives, inspiration, and architectural potential, Temple Forgetful is truly the strongest, at least in my opinion.

The site plan sets the stage for the entire project. Darden rarely gives site plans, and when he does, they are barely a site plan. They usually extend out to the immediate boundaries and that is about as far as it goes. Temple Forgetful is the exception. He does not just give a site plan, he practically gives us the whole Roman Forum. It extends all the way to the east and the west to illustrate the Colosseum and the Capitoline Hill, and north to south to show a city block and the Palatine Hill. He does this to illustrate ideas in the design of Temple Forgetful that are present in the overall site. In reality, we should be interpreting the site through Temple Forgetful, and not the other way around.

The Colosseum is elliptical, as is the Capitoline plaza. But they are almost mirrors of each other. The Colosseum is a form, a structure, whereas the Capitoline plaza is a space, and both are elliptical in shape. But "history is dissolved" (to quote Darden in a note found in the project file for Temple Forgetful). He gives us Michelangelo's plan for the Capitoline, yet he does not give the building envelope of the Palazzo dei Conservatio nor that of the Palazzo Senatorio, but rather its older form previous Michelangelo's work. Further, Darden draws the Danteum as it should have been sited if it were ever built. But thanks to the outbreak of World War II, Terragni's "architectural poem" to Dante's Divine Comedy was never realized. Darden was not interested in accurately portraying the surrounding site as it exists in reality, but rather shapes the site according to its history, melding the past with the present, forgetting existing buildings and remembering others that never were.

These are critical aspects of Temple Forgetful. The elliptical shape mirrored across the Forum with the Colosseum and the Capitoline is reminiscent of another building in the Forum that Darden draws attention to, one that is part of his "Dis/continuous Genealogy": the Temple of Roma Amor. This temple is a dual temple, one to the goddess of Rome and the other to Love. The inner sanctuaries to the two goddesses mirror each other, with their cult statues sitting in the semi-circular alcoves that mirror each other — similar to the two opposing semi-circles in Temple Forgetful. Just as the building itself is symmetrical, or more properly a mirror of itself, so too is the goddess's names: ROMA AMOR — a reversgram.

The Danteum being included is also critical to understanding Darden's overall design. The overall proportions and geometry of the Danteum, as described by Thomas Schumacher, are very similar to the Basilica of Maxentius-Constantine. We know the Danteum was important to Darden because he wrote a review of Schumacher's book The Danteum in the now defunct periodical Sites. Darden draws a line from the southeast corner of the Danteum through the Basilica on into the main axis of Temple Forgetful. There is a very subtle yet discernible line where Darden erases the graphite to illustrate this axis. Furthermore, Darden designs some sort of bridge or connector in the northwest edge of the Basilica to firmly establish this connection between the Danteum and Temple Forgetful — albeit, one cannot directly walk through the Basilica to the Temple, but must walk around, as is implied by the footpaths he draws.

Temple Forgetful plan

Darden nearly copies the overall shape and proportions of the Basilica of Maxentius for Temple Forgetful. In fact, if we overlay the plan of the Basilica onto Temple Forgetful, we will see a number of things begin to line up.

Basilica of Maxentius overlaid on Temple Forgetful

However, not everything falls into place. Some of the building elements simply do not line up properly. Darden appears to have adjusted the geometries of the Danteum and the Basilica, i.e. shrinks them. Below are a set of diagrams that are based on Schumacher's diagrams for comparing the geometry of the Danteum and the Basilica, but one set of line work is of the Basilica as-is, and the other set shrinks them to fit within Temple Forgetful.

Grid and Golden Rectangle proportions of the Basilica overlaying Temple Forgetful

Grid and Gold Rectangle proportions shrunk to fit inside of Temple Forgetful

Here we see much more lining up, such as the edge of the ramp, the edge of the semi-circles, the central axis from the Danteum, et cetera. This shifting in scales of the overall proportions is not out of line, but quite fitting (puns intended). Darden appears to be playing with geometry, especially in shifting geometries. Schumacher illustrates in one of his diagrams that the main squares of the Danteum are in fact shifted and misaligned. Darden does something similar with the exact position of the Temple Forgetful in relation to the Basilica, which in turn has its own geometric implications.

Shifted squares in the Danteum

Shifted squares in Temple Forgetful-Basilica

Darden was actually quite fond of playing with geometries in his designs, though sometimes it is more obvious in some projects than others. Night School, for instance, looks very organic and free-form, but actually has a lot of geometric rigor behind it. Oxygen House has some very obvious geometric rigor to it. Temple Forgetful obviously has geometric rigor it, but it's less subtle than Oxygen House, and certainly more obvious than Night School. It takes a considerable amount of understanding of Darden's inspiration for the project to realize the geometric intensity he manifests in this design.

In the next part we will look at the narrative behind Temple Forgetful and the narrative Darden gives us, and look at a few literary sources of inspiration for its creation.