Perhaps the one project that receives the least amount of attention by Douglas Darden is his Confessional. It is not the most exciting project of his, nor one that is easy to grasp why he worked on it. It almost feels shoved into his portfolio so that he can have a religious project. However, it is equally as well thought out as any of his other designs, and might best exemplify Darden's conceptions of the underbelly.
It is the only project of his that is not a new building design, but rather a renovation of an existing building. It is situated inside of the former Church of San Pancrazio in Florence, which is now a museum. For Darden, it is essential to communicate that this is a former church that was desanctified, because the theme of Confessional is the secularization of what is sacred and publicizing what is private. In this instance, the private act of confessing sins becomes public, and this is done inside of a deconsecrated building and broadcasted via radio.
It is so central that Darden gives a rather lengthy — lengthy for Darden — history of the building. He tells us that the Chapel and Holy Sepulchre was designed by the famed Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti and that the chapel was accessible from the inside from the 15th to 18th centuries; then it was walled off from the inside during the Napoleonic suppression of 1808 and later deconsecrated, then used for the Grand Ducal lottery, then turned into a tanning factory, and lastly a military munitions depot. I am uncertain of what its use was in 1989 when Darden visited Florence while he was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, however, today it is a museum.
Darden appears to be utterly fascinated by this inversion of the sacred and the private. It fits in perfectly with his concept of the underbelly. The main piece of literature that inspires this project is Augustine of Hippo's Confessions, which was private confessions that were made public. He even quotes an excerpt of the first chapter in Condemned Building.
What appears to be the spark of inspiration for Confessional is the following flier found in the project file, in which people can call in to hear other people give their confessions.
In Confessional, the parishioner will go into the chapel via a set of stairs from the plaza. The priest enters from inside and goes up a set of stairs to a room above the parishioner's confessional chamber. The parishioner will confess their sins into a specially designed helmet that transmits their confession to the priest via radio transmissions, which obviously others can hear as well.
Darden was not Catholic. He was raised Methodist (I have even been to his childhood church in Lakewood), though as he writes in an essay called "Confidences of a Spec-Writer" (Oz, Vol 14, Art. 11, Jan. 1992) that he is a "diluted Methodist" as well as "isn't devoutly anything." In fact, that entire essay is essential to understanding a great deal behind Darden's thought process for the project. The Spec-Writer (a play on architectural specification writers) criticizes Darden for not knowing what confession is. The Spec-Writer goes on to add:
"The unassuming church in Florence where he [Darden] has been commissioned to design the confessional (which is virtually nothing more in scale than a phone booth, a piece of hyper-rated furniture), is the sheer public nature of this seemingly private act. The violent contradiction! Imagine telling a priest your most personal secrets, your sins, those acts and thoughts which render to you your most unnatural pain — in public! Within the expanse of the open nave of a church, everyone sees the confessor bent on his knees, humble-hunched at the shoulders, a spectacle of whispers."
What Darden conceals in Condemned Building about Confessional is all but revealed in this essay. I won't reiterate everything in that essay, which also includes the Spec-Writer's comments on Hostel, so a link to the essay is provided above.
What is fascinating about Confessional is not just that it exemplifies Darden's conceptions of the underbelly, but also that is a social commentary. Confession of sins has not only always been a private act, but a sacred one. Even in looking at Medieval and Renaissance grimoires, confession has also been a part of purification rituals that the sorcerer must do before conducting any magic ritual (see the Arbatel of Magic and the Heptameron). The purpose of confession is not to instill guilt in the devotee — even though it frequently does — but is meant to release the devotee of their wrongdoings, to be purified, and be spiritually cleansed.
Obviously Darden violates this by turning this turtle on its back and examines the underbelly of confessions made public. Making public this private sacred act desanctifies confession, just like the Church of San Pancrazio. Darden was a fan of Mircea Eliade. I recall in a blog post by Darden's friend Ben Ledbetter, that Darden once remarked about Peter Eisenman: "Spoon feed Eliade to Peter!" One of the most central dichotomies established by Eliade is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. It is a distinction that pervades all his works, but is only concluded in his near final work The Sacred and the Profane. Essentially, the sacred is that which is set apart from the every day world. What is sacred must be apart, set aside from our profane lives.
In confession, we tell our priest things we may not even tell our spouse or our best friend. Sure, we may tell them secrets or private information for their ears only. But with confession, it is telling an intermediary of the Divine our deepest secrets of wrongdoings and failures.
All of that is, of course, violated in Darden's Confessional. Darden is commenting on the dissolution of the sacred, the profaning of those things that were meant to be set apart from the profane, and the nature of sacrilege.
I am almost certain Darden read Emerson. He was a veracious reader, and Emerson gets brought up from time to time in Darden's notes and publications. I will end this with a quote from Emerson I feel summarizes Confessional.
"There is at last nothing sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
