Douglas Darden's Temple Forgetful, Part 2 - In-Formed

 

Temple Forgetful Section

In a newspaper clipping found in the project file for Temple Forgetful, published on June 9, 1988 by the New York Times, is an article on an old Roman wall that was uncovered in the Roman Forum. One line in the article is boxed by Darden: "Not just a wall but a wall with some specific peculiarity." Darden had recently been accepted into the American Academy in Rome, so clearly he was already diving into what he wanted to produce based on his travels to Rome. This is the starting point of Temple Forgetful. Darden probably saw this excavation firsthand, though I have found no evidence of that. There are peculiar details of his design that are not included in the original newspaper article, but are published much later, such as the old well.

In my previous post on this project, I discussed the axis from the corner of the Danteum through the Basilica and into Temple Forgetful that forms the centerline of the two semi-circles. Of course the most obvious axis is that of this the old wall, which cuts right down the middle and has to be crossed over via bridges. This wall acts, not just an axis, but as a hinge. It is not the central focus of the project, but rather an integral part of the project itself. Some archaeologists propose that this was Romulus's wall, as the wall dates to the time circa Rome's founding. Darden did not seem to care whether or not it truly was the "originary wall," but it was such an inspiring discovery that he just went with it.

Darden plays with oppositions in this design. Just we looked at the oppositions, or rather counterparts, he indicates in his site plan between the Colosseum and the Capitoline, as well as Temple Roma-Amor. So too in Temple Forgetful do we find various counterparts. He primarily plays with remembering and forgetting via the myth of Romulus and Remus. Namely, Romulus is remembered, as the city he founded bears his name, while Remus is forgotten.

In the myth of Romulus of Remus, at least the most notable versions written by Livy and Plutarch, tell us that the twins used ornithomancy to determine where to build the city, in which they observe the number of birds on the hill of their choice. Remus observes six vultures on the Aventine Hill, while Romulus observes twelve on the Palatine. Thus their city would be founded on the Palatine Hill. Remus either gets angry at his brother or simply forgets the sacredness of the wall, but while Romulus is building the wall, Remus steps over the wall. This is taboo, as the city wall is sacred, for it protects the city within. Thus, to cross over the wall anywhere outside the gates was forbidden. Darden describes this story in his own lighthearted way in a lecture presented to the American Academy in Rome to present his final design. Darden represents these two twins as a cistern (Remus) and a theater (Romulus).

In a note scribbled onto a photocopied page of the building section, Darden gives us a great deal of insight. In this note he in-forms us that the depth of the cistern is equal in height to the Palatine Hill, using the approximate ground level of when the wall was built. The Theater of Memory sinks down to this ground level, while the Cistern of Oblivion starts at the current ground level. So we see an oppositions in heights.

Handwritten note by Darden on section of Temple Forgetful

He speaks of the wall as a hinge for the vertical and horizontal aspects of the design, but we can think of this hinge in other ways. For instance, we can think of the wall as the hinge over which Remus crosses over from one side to the other. This is symbolically represented by the tower and "periodic cistern," which dumps water into the cistern. Darden refers to the Remus aspects as water, as water floods and washes away, while Romulus is remembered as dry earth. Thus, the Remus tower arises from Romulus's side (dry earth), crosses over the wall, and dumps the water into the Cistern of Oblivion. It should be noted that there was a dry well discovered in the excavations of this wall, which is indicated on the building plan, and it is directly opposite of the tower on the side of the Theater of Memory. Further, he uses the metaphor of aqua fortis, a highly corrosive acid, to describe the dissolving of history and memory of Remus.

We can keep playing with these ideas, but the next significant aspect to look at is the theater. It is quite literally a Theater of Memory. That is, he literally copies the layout of Giulio Camillo's Theater of Memory, or Solomon's House of Wisdom. Camillo's Theater is not a real theater, but rather a memory palace of sorts. Memory palaces are a mnemonic technique of visualizing a space or a building to learn, store memories, and recall them. It is actually a really old concept, dating back to at least Cicero, but seems to have fallen out of favor in the Middle Ages, which is curious, as this is the time in which the Ars Notoria, a grimoire for rapid learning and better memory, is being developed. By the early Renaissance, the memory palace regains popularity. Camillo writes about his theater in the 16th century, and divides it into seven divisions with seven levels. These are based on the planets, as is obvious by the names of the divisions. Darden quite literally copies Camillo's theater, but instead of seven pillars, he erects four columns on each level of each division — in other words 28 x 7 columns. This is in contrast to the 28 water jets feeding water into the Cistern.

Copy of Camillo's Theater of Memory from project file

The final inspiration for Darden that in-forms this project to look at is a novel, namely, Victor Hugo's Notre Dame of Paris (commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Mounted on the side of the cistern is a marble monument, over which the water from the tower pours down upon. Upon this stone block are the words: CECI TUERA CELA or "This will kill that." This is motto of Claude Frollo in Hugo's novel, in which he declares the printed Bible will destroy Notre Dame. In other words, the printed scripture will kill the essence of the church. Darden actually provides an excerpt of this chapter at the end of Condemned Building.

This/That Shrine

This shrine plays further into Darden's concepts of counterparts. This and that, Romulus and Remus. This will kill that. Romulus will kill Remus. The point is obvious. Yet, Darden still toys with the concept. The waters of dissolution will pour down upon this shrine, and as he illustrates, that water will separate the words "ceci" and "cela."

In a way, Darden not only sets counterparts against each other, he is creating a "balancing act." In Issue 37 of Daidalos (1990), Darden publishes two projects that he calls "balancing acts": Saloon for Jesse James and Temple Forgetful. This brings us back to the notion of hinges. Everything in Temple Forgetful hinges and balances between everything else. The Murus Romana, the "originary" wall hinges and balances the cistern and the theater, as well as the depth of cistern with the height of the Palatine. The theater is a hinge between which balances the dry well and the water tower. The water tower literally hinges and balances, until it tips and pours water onto the shrine. The shrine commemorates the moment where the balance between life and death for Remus hinges. The wall was the place where Remus hinged himself from one side to the other, and where the life of Remus would tip and his brother would kill him. The Sacra Via is a hinge between which balances the Basilica Maxentius and Temple Forgetful. The Basilica hinges and balances between two visionary unrealized projects: the Danteum and Temple Forgetful. Temple Forgetful hinges and balances between the elliptical form and space of the Colosseum and the Capitoline. Through and through, Temple Forgetful is a balancing act between this and that, from the outermost reaches of Roman Forum to the minutest details of the Temple.

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.

The Kingdom of God Will Come Like a Thief in the Night

Michael Conquers Satan by Guido Reni, in Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, 1636

I have recently finished reading the New Testament again, primarily to prove a point to a friend who says that the Devil is barely mentioned and Hell is never mentioned at all in the New Testament, save in Revelations. To all of which I said, “Bullshit!” To add to that, he says that demonic possession was only treated in the New Testament as a metaphor for diseases (bullshit!)—because Jesus cast the flu out into the swine… yeah, that’s what he meant. No, sad to say, no matter how much modern Christians and New Agers think of the reality of (or lack thereof) evil, demons, the Devil, and eternal damnation, it was very real to the writers of the Gospels and epistles, and a thorough read of the New Testament will yield such an understanding.

But while I was rereading the Gospels and epistles a few passages and parables struck me as being quite peculiar, especially for Jesus to say. No, I do not mean things like “He who does not hate his mother and father cannot follow me” or “resist not evil” or even when he calls Peter “Satan” or when he starts flipping tables in the Temple. Rather the passages that strike me belong to the parable of tying up a strong man to plunder his property, found in Matthew 12:29, Mark 3:27, and Luke 11:21-22:

“But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.”

—Mark 3:27

In each instance of this parable Jesus uses it as a conclusion to how he can cast out demons. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of being able to cast our demons with the assistance of Beelzebub, the ruler of demons (i.e. Satan). To which Jesus retorts that Satan cannot cast out himself, for then he would stand as a house divided, and a divided house cannot stand. Jesus claims that through the power of Spirit of God he can cast out demons.

But it does not follow well that in order to steal from a strong man (i.e. Satan) Jesus must tie up Satan to steal his property… what property? Not the demons. The demons are cast out, not pilfered. Nor does it seem reasonable that Satan must be tied up to exorcise demons from human victims, for Jesus does not ever seem to need to do this when performing an exorcism. Rather it seems another parable of thieves gives us better insight into what Jesus meant: that the Kingdom of God will come like a thief in the night:

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

—Matthew 24:42-44

“For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

—I Thessalonians 5:2

The notion here is that the Kingdom of God (i.e the new eon of righteousness and holiness) will come at an unspecified time and date, but it was presumed two-thousand years ago that it was going to be very soon. It comes and cast down the wicked, and holiness will finally reign supreme. It is abundantly clear that writers of the New Testament regarded their time as an age of evil. Even Jesus calls the people of his time an “evil generation” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4; Luke 11:29). Thus this world is the Kingdom of Satan. Satan is referred to in The Gospel of John as being the “ruler of this world” (12:31, 14:30), and that he will be driven out of this world. Paul also took up this notion that Satan is the Lord of this World in II Corinthians 4:4 (“god of this world”). The basic notion implied here that since the world is sinful, the Pharisees are corrupt, government officials are wicked, and many are possessed by demons, then this is Satan’s world. But Jesus’s promise is that when he returns he will put down the power of Satan and bring the Kingdom of God.

It seems that Jesus’s primary occupation was to exorcise demons in the efforts to put down the rule of Satan in this world, for he even gave his apostles the same power. Along with demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit, cleansing people of their sins with baptism, and preaching the Word of God, it seems that just in his life time Jesus made a huge dent in Satan’s power. Then by his own sacrifice he offered the way to salvation from death and sin (i.e. eternal life and forgiveness of sins), both of which assisted Satan’s dominion over people and were now taken from him.

Even though Satan’s power has been crippled, he still holds some power in this world. Why Christ’s sacrifice did not total destroy the Devil and why the Devil still wields his wickedness has been a problem for Christian theologians since 1^st Century AD. And why does Christ have to return to completely annihilate the Lord of this World has been equally troublesome. And when the Kingdom of God will come became a point of anxiety for many of the early Church fathers. Perhaps this is why John says that Satan will be put down for a thousand years, and then return with full might so that he may finally be put away forever (Revelations 20), and Death and Hell may, too, finally die. Then everyone waited a thousand years and still the world was corrupt and wicked, and even waiting another thousand years has yielded little. So when will the Kingdom of God come? Since we do not know and cannot know, it is not our concern, at least for this discussion.

What is curious in Revelations 20 is that Death and Hell will give up their dead and the righteous (those found in the Book of Life) will have eternal life (20:13-15). A similar notion of the righteous being raised from the dead is to be found in The Gospel of Matthew: after Jesus perishes on the cross the saints (i.e. the righteous) come out of their tombs as if they had only been asleep (27:52).

In the early years of Christianity there was hardly any consistency between groups of Christians, much less orthodoxy. There were a variety of books floating around, many of which were never canonized into The Bible. These other non-canonical books became known as the “Apocrypha.” Among the Christian Apocrypha (for there is also Judaic and Christian-Judaic Apocrypha) is The Gospel of Nicodemus (or The Acts of Pilates), which was a very popular work among early Christians (it was not canonized because of its controversial subject matter, and if Revelations is the dividing line of what is acceptable, one can only imagine what The Gospel of Nicodemus holds in store).  In Part II of Nicodemus (not originally a part of Nicodemus, but added sometime later) a few of those saved from Hell attest that Christ came down to Hell, commanded the gates to be opened, and Satan and his demons grew fearful. After some contention with Satan and his demons Christ takes the righteous, including Adam and David, out of Hell with him and leaves Satan confused and destitute. This scene is best known as the “Harrowing of Hell.”

While Nicodemus was not canonized, the Harrowing of Hell became accepted into orthodox Christianity, and found favor with many early Church fathers, such as Irenaeus and Augustine.

And though Nicodemus had not been written for almost three centuries after the composing of the Gospels, the idea that Christ descended into Hell was a prevalent idea, even in canonical New Testment writings. Matthew 12:40 says, “… for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” And Romans 10:7 says, “or ‘Who will descent into the abyss?’ (this is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” And in Ephesians 4:9, “When it says, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?”

The idea at hand here is that the Devil rules the underworld and the dead, for it is by the sin of Adam and Eve that death came into this world, and so through sin and death Satan reigns over the dead regardless of anyone’s righteousness or wickedness. Christ is God in the flesh, so upon his death he must enter the realm of the dead, Satan’s rule. But Satan cannot keep him, for Jesus was without sin, and death could not hold him. I suppose the idea amongst early Christians was that while Christ was in Hell he figured he would bring the righteous back with him. At the same time there are several references in the New Testament to Jesus being a “ransom” for sin and death (Mark 10:45 and I Timothy 2:6), which we might assume would mean he ransomed himself to the Devil for salvation of people from sin and death, but, of course, Death cannot keep someone who is without sin, and so Christ was released from Hell (this was thought of as God’s trick on the Devil by Rufinus and Aquileia in the 4^th Century, and the idea of it being a trick was perpetuated by Gregory the Great; but it was not a favored notion among many early Christian theologians, for it implied that God was petty and had to play tricks).

With the notions of Christ’s descent into Hell, binding Satan in darkness and fire forever, and freeing the righteous from death we might begin to be able to make sense of Jesus’s parable of how to rob a strong man’s house. Perhaps, though it is with some conjecture, what was meant was that in order to save the righteous from death one must bind Satan (i.e. the strong man) and plunder his house (i.e. Hell) for his property (i.e. those who were condemned to death for original sin, but where righteous nonetheless).

I personally do not like to interpret something in one Gospel with other works, such as another Gospel or an epistle or an Apocryphal text (such as trying to interpret the beloved disciple in John by using texts outside of John, for that is a notion and term that can only be understood through John). However, this parable is one of those few instances in which I feel one must look outside of a single Gospel to attempt comprehension of its meaning. This is why I hesitate to assert completely that Christ is robbing Satan of his souls in Hell as being the precise interpretation, though I do feel it is closest.

Further Reading:

Irenaeus. Against the Heretics.

Jeffery Burton Russell. Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. 1981.

The New Testament

The Gospel of Nicodemus. 

Sleeping on a Drunken Boat: Darden and Rimbaud

Clinic for Sleep Disorders by Douglas Darden

Of Darden's projects Clinic for Sleep Disorders stands out as a particularly significant one for today: October 20th, which was both Douglas Darden's and Arthur Rimbaud's birthday.

Clinic for Sleep Disorders was designed in 1987, and was designed in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. This is the same year Darden taught architectural design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He was the recipient of the Fellowship of the New Jersey Counsel of the Arts for this project, so the idea for it must have been on his mind for a couple of years, but drawings were executed for it in 1987. The NJCA usually awards  $1000 for this fellowship, but Darden received $4000; indicating that they regarded him and his work particularly promising.

I have addressed in a previous post (Dating Douglas Darden) Darden's use of deliberate dates in his designs and writings to add a little more significance and meaning into his work. When I first wrote that post I had not yet realized the deeper significance Darden put into the date October 20th provided in the doctor-patient interview in Condemned Building (pg. 56), nor some of the other aspects of that bit of text.

The date given is 20 October 1954. This is Darden's third birthday. It is also Rimbaud's 100th birthday.

The name of the doctor in the interview is Jean Nicholas, and the name of the patient is Arthur. Rimbaud's full name is Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud.

The name of the clinic where the interview is held is at the Charlesville Sleep Clinic in Marseilles, France. Rimbaud was born in Charleville, France, and died at the age of 37 in Marseilles, France.

The image provided on the same page with this interview is one of a young Rimbaud done by Pablo Picasso. Darden even writes that this is Rimbaud, though he conceals the name "Arthur" by simply writing "A. Rimbaud."

"Dreamed client profile: schematic representation of neurophysiological mechanisms of sleep states with Picasso lithograph of A. Rimbaud laid down to rest." —Condemned Building, pg. 56

Picasso's drawing of Rimbaud & portrait of 17-year-old Rimbaud.

Most of the patient's words in the interview are derived or taken completely from Rimbaud's poem, "The Drunken Boat." Without quoting the length of both texts, I will provide some examples (in parentheses will be the stanza followed by the line from that quartet):

Arthur: I have wept too much! (23:1)
This is a cold puddle (24:2). The sun is bitter and the moon atrocious (23:2).
I run (3:3), I am lighter than a cork (4:1).
Unbelievable Floridas! (12:1)
Immobile and blue (21:3).
I was on a boat hauling cotton (2:1-2).

Et cetera.

Ultimately, "The Drunken Boat" is the Archi-text for Clinic for Sleep Disorders—the piece of literature that in-forms and in-spires the project. It would have inspired the "ciphers" for the building elements and programs and the "stages" of a patient's progress through the clinic—from the bridges to the walls to the ferry boat that takes the patient out of the clinic.

Happy birthday Douglas Darden and Arthur Rimbaud.

Further reading:
Douglas Darden. Condemned Building. 1993.
Arthur Rimbaud. Complete Works.
Ben Ledbetter. Condemned Building (a book review), GSD News, Fall 1993. Pg. 42.

Sexy Sadie and Sadism: Douglas Darden's Sex Shop

Sex Shop by Douglas Darden

From MoMA Collection

One of the last (more or less) completed works of Douglas Darden was called Sex Shop, which was excluded from his 1993 book, Condemned Building, due to the controversial nature of the project. Prior to publication of Condemned Building Darden had not really worked on the project very much—though there was a completed Dis/continuous Genealogy with an ideogram, but not much else. He did not actually start working on the design and drawings until two years after publishing Condemned Building. After his death several finished drawings on yellow trace paper were found in portfolio boxes. Peter Schneider has written quite extensive on the project ("Douglas Darden's Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal" is considerably the most informative of his writings on Sex Shop, of which I will reiterate some things). 

Darden construed the project to be an exploration of concepts of sin, shame, nakedness, pervertedness, and also redemption. In his Dis/continuous Genealogy he uses certainly images that have the potential of being perverted with a sort of middle school level mentality: the sex/tant, the fann(e)y coupler, the glass blow-ers, and the Marquis de Sade's Theater of Lubricity. He even dates the project by writing "Twenty-Sex June '95".

The client for the project is a woman named "Sexy Sadie", which Schneider discusses as a play on "Sade" for the Marquis de Sade—the man we name sadism after. Two of Darden's "Archi-text" he used for inspiration to the project are de Sade's Juliette and Justine (two books that make Fifty Shades of Grey look like a Disney story).

But in all I have read on Sex Shop I am amazed at how no one has put together that Sexy Sadie was also the name of a Beatles' song on The White Album—with lyrics like:

Sexy Sadie, what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
...
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see

Further, the name "Sexy Sadie" was given to Susan Atkins by Charles Manson after the song was released (prior to The White Album her nickname was Sadie Mae Glutz). She is the infamous vampiress of the Tate-LaBianca murders, as she claimed to have tasted the actress Sharon Tate's blood after she stabbed her sixteen times (Tate was eight months pregnant). She participated in the killing of the others in house, as well as the Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders the following night. Susan Atkins showed no remorse, and even boasted about the murders. 

Susan Atkins (AKA Sexy Sadie) on the stand for the Mason trials

Susan Atkins, the Sexy Sadie, was sexually wild and cute, but cruel and vicious. If Manson knew about the Marquis de Sade (which I doubt), he must have thought it clever to call this cute vampire "Sexy Sad(i)e."

I suppose Darden must have thought the same thing, at least somewhere in the back of his mind. Certainly Helter Skelter (or at the very least The White Album) must have been in his collection of books (and vinyls). Darden was seventeen when the Tate-LaBianca murders occurred, and I doubt he did not hear about them (my mother was only nine and living in Germany and she remembered hearing about the murders)... much less not read Vincent Bugliosi's famous book.

So it is that Sexy Sadie in Sex Shop probably has a further allusion in addition to the Marquis de Sade: that of Susan Atkins, that sadistic Manson girl, who murdered Sharon Tate and tasted her blood.

Further reading:

Douglas Darden. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

Peter Schneider. "Douglas Darden's Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal," Journal of Architectural Education, Volume 58, Number 2. November 2004.

Vincent Bugliosi. Helter Skelter. 1974.

The Laughing Girls from Troy, New York: Douglas Darden's Unfinished Work

The Delivery of Helen by Castor and Pollux
by Jean-Bruno Gassies, Prix de Rome 1817

Before Douglas Darden died one of the last projects he was working on was called The Laughing Girls from Troy, New York, or simply Laughing Girls. I have run across mentionings of this project several times: LaMarche's article "The Life and Work of Douglas Darden: A Brief Ecomium" mentions the project as an example of how not all of Darden's works were morbid; the obituary in The Rocky Mountain News said he was working on it for the three years before his death; and it comes up in his curriculum vitae 1995 as being published in Chora (publication never occurred, probably because of his illness).

Recently I was able to find a fairly obscure and hard-to-find student-run publication from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Denver, Installation, Volume 2, Fall 1993. In it is an article called "In/n Conversation", which is a three-track conversation between Darden and himself, Darden and a former student of his James Trewitt, and Darden and Keith Loftin III. It is in the second track between Darden and Trewitt that we find some information on Laughing Girls.

It was an "architectural novel" (Darden's widow told me is was a graphic novel of sorts): "What we are attempting is to design and make sites, spaces, forms, objects, details, etc. as the narrative itself." The project centers around three characters, i.e. "clients", who are two fourteen year-old sisters named Cass and Polly, and their nineteen year-old friend, Helen.

These names easily ring a bell: Cass and Polly are feminine versions of the heavenly twins of Greek mythology: Castor and Pollux (better known for being the constellation of Gemini), and their sister, the infamous Helen of Troy.

The idea of the project was to make laughter into buildings—the laughter of these three girls and how that may inform space and produce architecture. As Darden puts it in his part of the conversation with Trewitt: "How could we make an architecture that would not simply represent laughing, but would itself laugh?" It is an unfamiliar approach to architecture. Trewitt discusses in the conversation that architecture often times honors something: values, the site, the client, construction traditions, aesthetic principles, et cetera; so why not honor laughter? Another way the process of this project was stated was that it was not so much about "whether we have made the girls' laughs but whether we have found a way of laughing in approaching their laughs." They continue: "Process is really about finding a set of actions that then become part of the building." In this case, the process is laughter.

In this day and age in which the design of a building is more generated by process of design rather than design principles and elements (i.e. the Classical approach, program, tectonics, et cetera)—how it is designed is more important than the building itself—it is interesting to read about a project that was very much driven by process, but in an extraordinarily different manner: a laughing novel.

I don't know why laughing in particular was significant: perhaps it is a sort of reversa of Oxygen House, or perhaps Darden decided to do something less morbid or controversial.

Ultimately the project was never complete due to Darden's untimely death, and its contents have never been published in any form. I was told by Marc Neveu that about three banker's boxes worth of material for Laughing Girls exists, and that he intends to publish an essay on Laughing Girls in the 2015 Chora issue (the same journal Darden had intended Laughing Girls to be published in).

Further reading:
Douglas Darden and James Trewitt. "In/n Conversation", Installation, Volume 2, Fall 1993.

Dating Douglas Darden

Study for Oxygen House
From the collection at MoMA

I have written previously on some of the references to works of literature, art, architecture, and visionaries in Douglas Darden’s book, Condemned Building: Moby-Dick in the title image, Lequeu and Duchamp in thefrontispiece, quotes from Hamlet scattered throughout the book, et cetera. These demonstrate how deliberate and the extent to which he references and contrives meaning in every aspect of his work, not just in his drawings, but also in his writings, which are very playful in their own right—even in the dates he gives in the projects: for instance, in the sketches and notes of the project file for Sex Shop there was found the title, signature, and date for the project: "Twenty Sex, June '95."

Upon actually reading Condemned Building, and not just looking at the pretty pictures (for they certainly are magnificent), one will notice how much narrative and story Darden puts into his works. Darden regarded literature as his patron, and sees works of literature as clients—hence projects like Melvilla, which is inspired on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, or Oxygen House, which is inspired by William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Sex Shop inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade, et cetera. Darden called the pieces of writing and literature that inspired his architectural designs "archi-texts." So it is that Darden would, as part of the narrative of his designs, contrive his own stories and writings to accompany the designs (like Eisenman's essays on each of his houses, which are as much a part of the house as the house is of the essays). 

Peter Schneider quotes and notes in his "House at the End of Time" (2001) how Darden borrows and is inspired by the first chapter of As I Lay Dying in the letter Abraham Burnden (an anagram of Bundren, and sounds like "burden", and perhaps burn-den, i.e. destroy the living room) writes to the architect. So it is that the date of this letter, too, has some significance. The date Darden gives is "6 July 1979". Originally, in an early iteration of this letter Darden uses "6 July 1962"—which just so happens to be the day William Faulkner died.

Taken from Schneider's "House at the End of Time"

Why Darden switched it to 1979 is somewhat of mystery to me; though, most likely, it was something significant in Darden's life...perhaps it was because that was the year he was accepted into Harvard...I digress.

[EDIT: I have recently found in a fairly obscure and hard to find journal, Installation, Volume 1, Fall 1992 (a student run publication from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Denver—only 500 copies printed), a publication of Darden's on Oxygen House called: "Oxygen House: As I Lay Drawing", in which Darden uses the date "February 12, 1990." This is nearly two years after he finished designing and drawing Oxygen House (from his sketches the earliest date I can find is 20 March 1988). I am speculating here, but Darden had leukemia for five and half years before dying; having died 3 April 1996, this would place his diagnosis sometime in early- to mid-1990; it is possible that this was the date or roughly the time of his diagnosis—but this is pure conjecture.]

Even more thoughtful about this letter from Abraham Burnden is that it is written from Byhalia, Mississippi—the place where Faulkner died.

There is another playful date, and certainly one that has personal significance to Darden, in Clinic for Sleep Disorders. Darden writes a fictitious dialogue between a fictitious Doctor Jean Nicholas (perhaps the physician Jean Nicholas Corvisart, or the pathologist Jean Nicholas Marjolin) and a patient named Arthur, in the absurdly named clinic, Charlesville Sleep Clinic, in Marseilles. The date Darden gives for this interview is "20 October 1954." Why, I do not know, but this was Darden's third birthday—he being born 20 October 1951. [EDIT: see my post Sleeping on a Drunken Boat].

There is perhaps one other thoughtful date in Condemned Building, that of the architect's letter for Saloon for Jesse James. The date Darden writes is "1 April 1986." As best as I can tell this is probably when he began the project.

Douglas Darden was certainly an intense and thoughtful in every detail of his work and writings. Upon close examination of some of his drawings, one will notice that the exact direction his screwheads are turned. So it is that the dates he gives in his narratives for his projects have some meaning as well.

Further reading:

-Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

-Schneider, Peter. "House at the End of Time: Douglas Darden's Oxygen House," Part 7. CUNY. 2001.

-Schneider, Peter. "Sex Shop: An Immodest Proposal," Journal of Architectural Education, V.58, N.2, Nov. 2004.