Six Aphorisms Envisioning Architecture: Douglas Darden's Final Thoughts

 
Random note found after Darden's death

I recently had the privilege of presenting on Douglas Darden's Condemned Building for Oxford Brookes. A question was asked by the Chair of the Post-Graduate Department, Scott Sworts, which concerned Darden's architectural theory and its impact on architecture. For almost any other architect this is a vague and open-ended question that could consume hours of discussion, but for Darden, it draws attention to a void in understanding him and his work: there is a near total lack of any formal writings from him on his theories and ideologies. I attempted to answer the question, but it is a difficult issue to address. Darden's architectural theory is embedded into his work, scribbled into the margins of sketches, scattered post-it notes and scrap paper in project files, etc. He publishes very little of his theories and ideologies, and most of that is early in his career. There is so little published of his early theory that I can list them all here:

• "Architecture in the Age of Spatial Dissolution," Oz, No. 9, 1987
• "The Architecture of Exhaustion," Pratt Journal of Architecture, No. 2, 1988
• "Confidences of a Spec-Writer," Oz, No. 14, 1992

That's actually about it. There are two book reviews, one on the Architecture of Frank Gehry and The Danteum, both published in the now defunct periodical Sites. These give us glimpses into Darden's interpretations of other people's architectural theory, but not much on his own opinions. There are a few other possible articles he may have published, but I cannot for the life of me — nor the librarians who helped me search — find these other publications, but are listed on Darden's resumes. Ultimately Darden's theories and critiques on architecture are in his designs, and most especially in his notes and the things he would scribble into the margins of his sketches.

Furthermore, and to be totally honest, his early theory isn't that great. It is pedantic and naive. His theories are more of a play on architectural discourse than actual architectural theory. He writes like a grad student who has enough knowledge and ideas to get published, but nothing with enough critical substance to be groundbreaking or to carry weight in larger arenas of architectural discourse. There is but one exception, and that is an obscure student-run publication at the University of Colorado in Denver called Installations, of which I have only found one copy in the rare books collection at the Auraria Library in Denver. In Installations 2, 1993, there is a dialogue of sorts called "In/n Conversation" between Darden, his student and assistant James Trewitt, and his colleague Keith Loftin. Here we see a much more mature and developed Darden in his ideologies and how he expresses them. Perhaps the only other example of Darden's theories that are recorded is Rob Miller's documentary on Darden called Looking After the Underbelly, 1991, of which only one copy exists in the library at Clemson University.

Ultimately, there is not an extensive corpus on Darden's theories. Even with what little of his ideas that are formally (and informally) published, there is little that can be cross-referenced and analyzed. It really is of little consequence. Thus, we really have to rely on the notes and letters found in the project files of his designs, his course syllabi, and Condemned Building. However, even his notes and comments on his sketches are not systematized, so establishing any sort of corpus would be problematic. I personally feel these notes and scribbles would need to cataloged by project, and allow them to stand on their own, rather than endeavor to systematize his thoughts across such a large spectrum of works. In reality there is only one thing Darden offers the world for further architectural discourse: the six aphorisms he gives at the end of Condemned Building.

Darden begins Condemned Building with ten projects, each representative the reversal of an architectural canon. These are what we are most familiar with in analyzing Darden's works in this book. However, this is not everything he offers. He ends the book with an excerpt from Hugo's Notre Dame of Paris, and six aphorisms for architecture. As mentioned in my previous post on Darden's increasing interest in abstraction, Darden considered that his book Condemned Building to be the book that would destroy architecture, "this will kill that." Seriously, the last words of the book are the passage from Hugo, "Architecture is dead, dead beyond recall, slain by the printed book," and a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Fall'n on the inventors' heads" (5.2.385). If we are to buy into Darden's narrative, he killed architecture. He designed ten buildings based on the inverse of the canons of architecture, demonstrating how invalid these canons are. If those canons cannot stand the test of Darden's underbelly, then they are invalid, and if they are invalid, then hundreds of years of architectural principles have been destroyed. And Darden killed them.

Of course, Darden does not abandon architecture, nor does he leave us abandoned to the ruin. He leaves us with "Six Aphorisms Envisioning Architecture," which are the following:

I. Architecture is the meditation on finitude and failure.
II. Architecture is the symbolic redistribution of desire.
III. Architecture is the execution of exquisite barriers.
IV. Architecture is the fiction of the age critiqued in space.
V. Architecture is the history of a place told in broken code.
VI. Architecture is carried out by a resistance to itself.

These are not a new set of canons. They are thoughts, brief observations on architecture that Darden can define with certainty based on his challenging the ten canons by exploring their underbelly. When we look at Darden's reversals of the canons, we see how they play into these aphorisms. For instance, the reversed canon for Sex Shop is "Architecture fulfills objectifies desire," and that for Hostel is "Architecture takes possession of a place displaces." These two reversed canons play into aphorism II. We see larger theories about architecture in these aphorisms. Architecture can't be anything and everything, hence it is finite, and to realize that architecture is finite is its own failure. Architecture aspires to great heights, but because it is finite, it resists itself. Thus we see the alpha and omega of these aphorisms: I and VI. 

Sadly, these aphorisms are published in 1993 and Darden spends the remaining years of his life promoting his book and the designs therein, focused on his health, and tying up loose ends in his life. Laughing Girls, and to some extent Sex Shop, are really the only projects that illustrate where Darden wanted architecture to go after he killed it. The abstraction and general concepts behind these projects give us glimpses into what Darden's new agenda for architecture would be, but it is not enough. Just like his formal writings on architectural theory are scant and weak, these two projects, as powerful and important as they are on their own, only give us scant and weak ideas of his new agenda.

In a way, Darden's untimely death is a part of his narrative. It is as if he understood he would die and never see his work fully realized, and these six aphorisms are the gift he leaves us. These are the final thoughts of a dead man, and he asks us to pick up the mantel to better realize a new agenda for architecture. Perhaps Darden could never realize a new agenda for architecture. Perhaps it was necessary for Darden to kill architecture, but someone else has to realize a new architecture.

We may never fully understand Darden's ideologies for architecture. Whatever clear ideologies he had, he worked into his designs and a single book. They are coded and rendered in architectural-literary "puns and reedles" (to quote Joyce's Finnegans Wake). They are haphazardly scribbled onto photocopies of renderings and post-it notes. One may even surmise Aphorism VI plays into why Darden could never fully articulate his agenda of architectural reformation: it is too lofty of a goal that is plagued by finitude, and thus resists itself.

In other words: I do not know. I have no idea where Darden wanted his reformation to go. All that is known is that he needed to kill architecture and rebirth it like Tashtego from Plato's honeyhead. It is an unknown agenda with no clear objectives or any tried and tested theorems or axioms. Darden left us with a tabula rasa, but never sets a new table; only parting thoughts of lessons learned. It is terribly pessimistic and bleak, but of course it would appear bleak if we accept Darden's narrative that architecture is dead, Darden killed it. He could have reformed it, maybe, but because of his early demise, the task to reform architecture is our bur[n]den to bear.

Sex Shop & Laughing Girls - Darden's Increasing Abstraction

Laughing Girls section, from project files

One of the more curious aspects about Douglas Darden's creative and intellectual development over the years is his increasing interest in abstraction. Even in Condemned Building we see him moving toward a near anti-architecture, as his designs drift away from a function building and into more architectural statements, and in his final years we will find that he becomes almost totally abstract.

If we look at a timeline of his works, we find that his early projects of note, such as the Ford House, is a very real house for habitation, albeit it was never built. As he begins his career working in the field of visionary architecture, we see unusual structures, but understandably habitable nonetheless, such as his final studio project under Stanley Tigerman, Saloon for Jesse James, as well as Museum of Impostors and Night School. Once we get to some of the later projects in the Condemned Building collection, we see Darden drifting away from buildings per se, and more into the realm of conception. Hostel is a good example of a near non-building, and Confessional, the last project he develops for Condemned Building (Sex Shop had not been developed yet), it is more a conception of privacy becoming public than it is an actual architectural renovation.

Sex Shop model

Darden would largely be concerned with teaching, publishing Condemned Building, and his health between 1990 and 1993, and he would produce no new architecture designs until his final year of life. Starting in mid-1995 he would return to finish Sex Shop, which is curiously absent in Condemned Building, though it has a spread in the book. He states that the work was too controversial to be built and the drawings and model were confiscated. In reality, he never did any work on it apart from the Dis/continuous Genealogy. Nothing survives of Sex Shop except for the Dis/continuous Genealogy, three sheets of yellow trace paper with a significant array of conceptual drawings, collages, and notes, and a simple diagrammatic model. Given that Darden would die within a year of his return to Sex Shop, it feels almost as if he knew he was not going to survive his leukemia — it feels as if he knew his days were numbered and he wanted to wrap up Condemned Building by finishing Sex Shop. It almost feels like he just wanted to get it over with. He never communicated to anyone, as far as I am aware, that he was working on Sex Shop. Even Peter Schneider seems astonished when he writes about Sex Shop, especially when he was helping pack up all of Darden's materials following his dead. Further, the lack of any any research articles, inspirational imagery, or any other sketches indicate that the project had been maturating in his head for over three years, but ultimately he wanted to get it over with.

I have seen the trace paper drawings first hand, and I must admit, they are curiously abstract. It is difficult to discern the scale of the building apart from a simple infill site plan and some cut-outs of Adam and Eve curiously worked into the sections. Looking at Sex Shop is difficult to wrap one's head around. There is no clear sense of entry, habitation, movement through the building, or even an element of human scale. It becomes increasingly clear while looking at the drawings and model that Darden had become more interested in the idea of an immodest proposal and its conception than producing anything we can conceive as habitable. Plans, elevations, and sections feel more like one is looking at one of Lebbeus Woods's parasitic designs than anything seen out of Darden at this point. 

Laughing Place sketch

All of this becomes more clear when Darden begins work on Laughing Girls. The earliest ideas for Laughing Girls appears in 1992 with a series of sketches Darden called Laughing Place, and these sketches are still fairly abstract. Whatever interest he had in this project ceases within a year, probably due to finalizing the publication of Condemned Building. Shortly after completing Sex Shop, Darden picks back up on Laughing Place, but this time calls it Laughing Girls, which appears to have been inspired by the laughing epidemic among the girls of the village Kashasha in Tanzania, Africa. A xeroxed article on this epidemic was found in the project file.

Given Laughing Girl's overwhelming abstraction, it is difficult to determine what direction Darden intended to take with it. Laughing Place had enough "architecture" to it to sense the direction he was going with it, but when he revives the project, he starts from scratch. He seems even more aware of what little time he has left, as in his sketchbook for Laughing Girls he includes a tumorous mass on a throat-like drawing of some kind of structure and adds the note: "The Cancer growing within us our doubts and all that is below this surface." Like Sex Shop, perhaps Darden did not want to leave Laughing Place unfinished.

Darden along with his assistant, James Trewitt, create a series of spectrograms of laughter. Based on a single photo in the project files of a woman, I presume one of the people being recorded was Allison Jo, Darden's wife. These spectrograms are then used to create a series of abstract forms, which Darden then overlays on profile outlines of female forms. These in turn were used to create extremely abstract models.

Spectrogram and form for Polly (left) and form and body of Cass (right)

Model (presumably Cass)

All of this culminates in an architectural comic (twenty years before Bjarke Ingles would have the idea to do Yes! Is More). The comic follows three girls named Helen, Cass, and Polly, who are travelling from Troy to Ithaca, New York. The comic loosely follows various Greek myths, and plays on Greek names, places, and archetypes. Darden even revisits his Dis/continuous Genealogy, not with ideograms, but with names and places. For instance, in the project files he indicates that Polly is Polyxena and Cass is Cassandra, yet he also indicates that they are twins. Polyxena and Cassandra are not twins, though both live during the time of the Trojan War (Polyxena is not mentioned by Homer). Yet, true to Darden's fascination with transgenderism, there are another set of twins closely connected to Helen: Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers of Helen, and are the Dioscuri that make up the constellation Gemini. The Dioscuri have many mythological connections with the Dardanelles, a strait between Turkey and Greece that connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea. The Dardanelles were fascinating to Darden, as they are similar to his name. In two postcards to his mother, Darden writes as Polly and addresses the postcards to the Dardans and the Dardanelles.

Postcard to Dardan[elle]s from Polly

Darden appears to be creating his own narrative. Rather than relying on existing narratives, such as Faulkner's As I Lay Dying or Melville's Moby Dick, he is creating his own narrative. It is almost as if he wants to explore things in the other direction, i.e. architecture informs narrative. At the same time, it appears Darden is creating a narrative to use for an architectural project, perhaps to revisit Laughing Place, but that is all conjecture. There are several drafts of Laughing Girls in the project files, and it appears that the sixth iteration was a near final draft. However, his blast crisis began and six months later he passed away. He intended to publish it in Chora 2, but this did not come to fruition. In 2016 Marc Neveu was able to get the final or near final draft of Laughing Girls published in Chora 7 as well as in Confabulations. 

We should not conclude that Darden had grown more interested in abstraction, but rather that Darden was becoming almost anti-architecture. If we are to believe the narrative Darden had built for himself, Condemned Building was the book that killed architecture, this will destroy that, then architecture is dead. Darden appears to have moved into the realm of abstraction out of necessity. If architecture was dead, then it became necessary for Darden to explore abstraction. For Darden, the architect could no longer rely on the old conventional forms of design. Architecture as a design profession relied on human habitation as the primary focus of design and expression. In both Sex Shop and Laughing Girls we see Darden relying on expression of the human body as the basis of architecture. 

Expressions of the body are significant to Darden. This appears to have been a fascination for him from his days of dance and ballet. Darden speaks with great emphasis on drawing as an expression of the body in space when Rob Miller interviews him in the documentary Douglas Darden: Looking After the Underbelly. Sex and laughing are both very positive and intense expressions of the body in space, and as such become the primary motives behind their respective projects. Sex Shop appears to fall short of what Darden was exploring with Laughing Girls, probably due to the constraints of Condemned Building in completing the project. Darden had to work with the Dis/continuous Genealogy and other constraints he built for himself years earlier. But Laughing Girls could more purely be explored and realized without any previous design constraints imposed by previous work. This is probably why Sex Shop still has some discernible aspects of habitability, whereas these aspects are almost totally lost or too abstract in Laughing Girls.

Helen's Water Tower, from project sketchbook

Darden does proceed to produce some architectural drawings, mostly sketches with a handful of more refined technical drawings (see image at the top of this post). Few of his sketches are comprehensively "architectural," such as Helen's Water Tower above. They still are amorphic and abstract. The rest of his sketches are largely topographic. It appears Darden intended to do three separate structures, each representative of the three girls and each on its own hill in what appears to be Ithaca. The project files for Laughing Girls are immense; something like eight or nine bankers' boxes filled with photocopies and sketches and letters, et al. Without any sort of "finished product," it is difficult to reverse engineer his designs the way we can with his other projects. One can only follow the sketches, letters, and notes. Perhaps one day I will get James Trewitt to sit down and discuss Darden with me.

Darden was ultimately taking a completely new direction. Many things about Darden change direction in the period between 1990 and 1996. He tries to work at David Tryba's office, but this apparently became difficult for him. He sought to work on a physical architectural project, but this never yields anything. His designs take new levels of abstraction, and his approach radically changes. A great shift occurred in his approach to architecture, and this is most certainly reflected in Sex Shop and Laughing Girls. The publication of Condemned Building seems to be the turning point for Darden. Even simple designs he would do before giving his students a studio project, such as Killing Mountain, take on some levels of abstraction, becoming more amorphic and mechanical.

Whatever Darden's intended direction was in the event he did not die of leukemia, what is clear is that Darden was drifting away from architecture as we know it, and approached building design after the death of architecture.

Douglas Darden's Dis/Continuous Genealogies

Dis/continuous Genealogy for Confessional, from project file

When looking at the ten projects in Condemned Building, each of them comes with a design idea that Darden called "Dis/continuous Genealogy." This is where he takes four to six images that he finds embody the ideas and mechanisms that are inspirational to him, and he overlays them all into an ideogram. Above we see the four images he selects for Confessional, and below is the ideogram created from them.

Confessional ideogram, from project file

For some projects it seems rather contrived. Other projects it seems very legitimate. Others are a toss-up. In reality, these Dis/continuous Genealogies were made after the project was completed, with the exception of Sex Shop and possibly Oxygen House. Some were made years after the project was complete, such as Saloon for Jesse James and Museum of Impostors. Sex Shop's ideogram was created for the publication of Condemned Building, even though he had done no work on the project, hence its absence from the book. Oxygen House, as best as I can determine, may have actually been created while Darden was working on the design. The earliest sketch I find for Oxygen House is in March 1988, almost two years before he completed it, indicated the idea for Oxygen House was maturating in his head long before producing it. He would create three other projects in the interim of producing Oxygen House. However, there are early sketches and notes for the idea of Condemned Building that date to mid-1988, indicating that he had the idea to produce the book five years before publication. This also appears to be around the time when he develops the idea of doing his Dis/continuous Genealogies.

Darden appears to have gotten the idea of the Dis/continuous Genealogies from his friend Ben Ledbetter. Ledbetter describes in his blog of a time when he and Darden were discussing the basic principle of doing these ideograms, in which Ledbetter wanted to call them "archaeologies," whereas Darden preferred "genealogies," and later "discontinuous genealogies." This is probably around the time that Darden gives a lecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology called "Genealogy/Ideology" delivered in April 1987 (I have looked extensively through the project files and have not been able to find a copy of the lecture, but the timeline seems appropriate). The whole idea of Dis/continuous Genealogy is reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's idea of "archaeology of knowledge," in which the sources of inspiration are concealed by the artist. Philippe Duboy speaks of Marcel's "archaeology of knowledge" in his work LeQueu: An Architectural Enigma, published in 1987, and may have been the starting point for this whole concept, as Darden was very fond of this book.

Let us break this down. The term "archaeology" implies that historical things, human evidence got covered up and need to be uncovered to understand where things are today. That is a bit oversimplified, but it fits our understanding of Duchamp, Ledbetter, and Darden. For Duchamp, it means he covered up his inspirations and ideas, and through archaeology we can find the original evidence of his works. In a way, for Duchamp, it is not "archaeology of knowledge," but "burying of knowledge," and it is the viewer that will be the archaeologist. For Ledbetter and Darden, it is the use of inspiring images composited to produce an ideogram that becomes the process of "burying knowledge," and through intense analysis of the project, and even the prestigious position of being able to view the project files, that the archaeology can begin. However, Darden recognizes that design is a process with iterations of ideas and forms, much like evolution, or more appropriately "genealogy." So these inspiring images are family members on a family tree that yield the ideogram. By adding "dis/continuous" to this term, Darden is implying that there is a continuity, but also a discontinuity; that it is a part of the design process and narrative, but irrelevant of the active design process that produces the final product.

However, we should not dismiss the Dis/continuous Genealogies as mere afterthoughts. Just because they were created after the project was completed does not mean they do not hold value. It is always dangerous to tell people that the Dis/continuous Genealogies were developed after the project, because then they are seen as being a lie, a cover-up, a total contrivance that should be dismissed. This could not be further from the truth.

The Dis/continuous Genealogies are equally a part of a the narrative Darden builds around his projects as the letter from the client in Oxygen House, the doctor-patient conversation in Clinic for Sleep Disorders, et cetera. When Darden provides additional materials for his projects, they contribute to a narrative he is building. The drawings and photographs of the models (photographed at a great distance with a telescopic lens to make them appear as orthographic as possible) are the direct representations of the design. The texts, letters, descriptions, and diagrams, even the Dis/continuous Genealogies, contribute to the narrative he is building for the project. So even though most of them were created post facto, they still give us insight into Darden's thought process and add color to the project.

There are some curious selections for the Dis/continuous Genealogies, some that even seem literally discontinuous. For instance, in Temple Forgetful, the Colosseum seems to have had an impact, especially given that the site plan is enlarged to include it (see my previous post on this), yet it is not included as one of the images, but it is for Night School's Dis/continuous Genealogy. None of these images are inappropriate, as they embody ideas in the design or in the literary sources that inspire the design. For instance, Melvilla includes an Iroquois meeting hut and an Iroquois hand loom, both of which are appropriate for Queequeg, the indigenous islander Ishmael becomes best friends with in Moby-Dick.

As I have stated before, it is important to interpret Darden's sources of inspiration through the project and narratives he builds, not the other way around. The Dis/continuous Genealogies are no different. For instance, let us look back at Melvilla, in which he includes the Iroquois meeting hut and an upside-down New England meeting house. He is making a play on Ishmael and Queequeg's friendship, and perhaps may be a homage to something Ishmael says: "Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian." It could also be a reference to Darden's rejection of his Presbyterian upbringing (something he alludes to in his writing "Confidences of a Spec-Writer"). Obviously, we can keep playing with this.

Needless to say, the Dis/continuous Genealogies are important. Most people do not know they were usually created after the project was finished, but even in knowing this, they cannot be dismissed. They need to be understood as important aspects of the narratives Darden builds.

Questions and Concerns About Douglas Darden

 

Darden with one of his pieces from 100 Drawing Nights

Years ago, sometime between the late 1990s and the early 2000s there was talk that Ben Ledbetter was going to produce a book on Douglas Darden. Ledbetter never seems to have indicated such, but it just seemed to be the word around the sewing circle. Ledbetter had been Darden's closest friend at Harvard GSD and continued to be his best friend, but it appears Ledbetter would rather relish the memories he had with his friend than produce a book. I also came across rumors that Barbara Ambach was going to produce a book, but such was bogus. There was a legitimate talk that Peter Schneider was going to produce a book, seeing as he was Darden's closest colleague, having hired Darden at CU Denver, and even giving a few of Darden's lectures for him when he was too sick to deliver them himself. Indeed, Schneider was working on a book entitled Beginning from the Underbelly: A History of Douglas Darden's Condemned Building. But Schneider abandoned this project, probably for similar reasons as Ledbetter, but there is also a great deal of politics behind researching, and especially publishing on Darden. I believe there were rumors James Trewitt, Darden's closest student and assistant on Laughing Girls, was going to publish a book, but Trewitt does not corroborates this.

Darden is a relatively niche subject to research. In reality, two or three people would be a sufficient team to rummage through everything Darden produced and make a book that would more or less be the definitive text on Darden. I myself tried to work with others on producing something on Darden, yet everyone appears to think of it as a solo task, and it might as well be. Had Darden lived longer, it could have been a larger task, but I suppose one person is enough. Had he lived longer, he may have had more impact, but he is really only remembered for his intriguing drawings and unorthodox ideas. All this leads to academic territorialism. Academics who have worked or continue to work on Darden want to be the definitive Darden authority. But again, he's a niche topic. Darden research does not yield much or have many implications on other subjects. Darden is a means to an end. It is research on Darden for the sake of Darden research. It can inspire drawing techniques, design approaches, and ideas for narrative architecture, but that is about it: Darden is inspiration, not a means to further exploration of other things. As a result, publications on Darden are also relatively niche, and they tend to be found in obscure, hard to find publications, or worse, in the transactions of academic conferences. Thus Darden remains relatively obscure, while simultaneously being heavily fought over. 

I myself encountered these politics, some which are delicate aspects of his biography that need to be navigated around (he has only been dead for twenty-five years, after all), but also because Darden is such a specific subject, and no one wants to share the credit. It is part of the reason I abandoned further research on Darden for a couple of years after I published the Wikipedia article on the man and his work. It was very disillusioning and, to be frank, absolutely annoying. There really are better things to do with one's time than fight with other academics. So for two years I did nothing. I set Darden aside and focused on other subjects. Then I began to revisit Darden. Slowly at first, but steadily built up extensive piles of notes, diagrams, interviews, and a great collection of sketches, drawings, and photographs. Only recently have I decided to start publishing these things here. Why? Two reasons: firstly, research on Darden needs to be more readily available; secondly, I am not totally sure a book on Darden is appropriate.

Marc Neveu has announced that he intends to publish a book that will "unpack" the ten works in Condemned Building. I am curious to see what Neveu produces. He appears to have access to all the same material I have. After Darden passed away in 1996, Schneider was tasked with gathering all his materials to archive, and they are currently in the Avery Archive at Columbia University, with the exception of a handful of his graduate material at Harvard, and a few pieces in private collections. Schneider did not simply pack everything into boxes, but rather photographed and scanned nearly everything as they were being packed away. In 2015, Schneider passed these digitized files on to me. Thus, following Neveu's work up until 2016 was fairly easy, but he has fallen silent on the matter since, apart from an announcement around two years ago of his intentions to produce the book.

Over the last three or four years I have let Darden's work and ideas marinate in my head. There are a few questions and concerns that are necessary to be asked when it comes to producing a book on Darden.

Firstly, will this book destroy that? Darden worked in narrative. He studied psychology and literature at CU Boulder before going into architecture. Literature was his patron, his client, and he produces literature when he designs. There are several layers of narrative in his works. There is also narrative in his life. As mentioned, there are delicate matters about Darden's life one must tip-toe around, or censor entirely, yet these play an integral part in his work and development. Shall these be ignored? Or shall they be worked into the narrative he built for himself?

Should one expose these narratives? Or should one maintain the narratives he created? Shortly after Darden's death, Schneider gave a few lectures on some of Darden's work, and still maintained the narrative Darden created, then as the years go on, Schneider is more revealing about Darden's inspiration and ideas. To dig into Darden's narratives and expose them creates the dilemma: will this research destroy that narrative? Will the magic and majesty of Darden's narratives be dissolved in favor of exposing him? Obviously, the same goes for amateur academics on blog posts, because I am guilty of this as well.

I personally do not think there is anything wrong with uncovering Darden's ideas and inspirations that in-form his designs. The question concerns "unpacking" his narratives and exposing them, revealing the truth over the myths he carefully constructed. Darden's drawings are alluring and stunning, and that is usually what draws people to his work. But truly the most compelling part of his work is the narratives. It is important that the narratives do not dissolve, or else there is no magic in his work.

Personally, I believe that in order to maintain his narratives one must interpret the sources of his inspiration through his work, and not the other way around. When Antonin Artaud praises The Chimeras by Gerard de Nerval, he writes: "far from seeing Gerard de Nerval explained through Mythology and alchemy, I would like to see alchemy and its Myths explained through the poems of Gerard de Nerval." For Artaud, de Nerval was such an original, so inimitable, so novel and unique that one cannot rely on myth and mysticism to explain him and his work. Rather, one must understand de Nerval and interpret myth and mysticism through him. The same is applicable for Darden. He took literature, myths, scientific articles, philosophical ideas, et al and reenvisioned them through himself, through his own ideas and personal symbolism. When we look at Clinic for Sleep Disorders, we should not interpret it through Rimbaud's poem "Drunken Little Boat," but rather reinterpret Rimbaud through Clinic for Sleep Disorders. When we look at the plan for Oxygen House, we should not try to interpret it through Faulkner's map of Yoknapatawpha County, but rather reinterpret that map and the entire geography of Faulkner's stories through Oxygen House. When we look at Laughing Girls, we should interpret Greek myth and geography, as well as interpret Darden's life and history through Laughing Girls; not the other way around. In treating Darden's approach to his sources of inspiration, it is important to do as Darden did: let the inspiration in-form his designs, but interpret the inspiration through his work. Such is the only way to maintain Darden's narratives without destroying the magic of his work.

If one were to totally expose Darden's life and narratives, totally reveal every aspect of the man and his work, that work should be prepared for publication, sent to the publisher, and then let it sit on a shelf for 100 years — just as Mark Twain did with his autobiography. This will ensure that people who were close to Darden are dead and their children are dead. This will create a significant separation in chronology to allow others to wonder and admire, without being too invested in the exposure of Darden. It will become an impersonal intrigue. Frank Lloyd Wright wrote his own biography, as did Mark Twain, and this allowed both to maintain the narratives they built around their lives and work. Now, decades after their deaths, we can revisit the truth about their lives and work with impersonal intrigue.

We see this in Jean-Jacques LeQueu, whom Darden admired. For hundreds of years he was obscure. Only a handful of people were aware of his work, of which, according to Philippe Duboy, one artist was Marcel Duchamp. LeQueu was brilliant and talented, but due to personal adversities due to the French Revolution, his career never took off. He spiraled into madness and eccentricity, dying with no money and living in a brothel. He produced absolutely stunning drawings and ink wash renderings, but also intense studies on phrenology and facial character, as well as extensive amounts of pornography. Little was known about him personally or his life, save the little that survived in archives. It is next to impossible to uncover and expose the life, inspiration, and ideas of LeQueu, and so he remains an "architectural enigma." We can really only comprehend him through others, such as Duchamp. Had anyone taken a personal interest in unveiling LeQueu shortly after his death, the intrigue would have been personal and controversial in its time. Had such occurred, we would understand him better today, but the intrigue would be impersonal for us, but not in its time.

But we are not dealing within someone who died two and half centuries ago. We are dealing with artist who died twenty-five years ago. His widow is still alive. His best friend is still alive. His closest colleagues are still alive. Many of his students, both the ones who loved him and the ones who hated him, are all still alive. His projects are still a puzzle waiting to be explored and understood. Thus, we must either preserve his narratives for the time being and keep the revealing details hidden, or create an exposure and lock it in a vault for a long time.

This is antithetical to academia. But in order to be honest to academia is also antithetical to Darden. Such is the dilemma with researching and publishing on Darden.

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.