#writtenarchitecture

[fat-seminar]

The name of the rose

The description of the Benedictine Medieval abbey, and of all the spaces that compose it, is very detailed and architectonically specific. The abbey is meticulously represented, but its geographical location is unknown. The author mixed some features of different existing historical buildings, for obtaining the exact correspondence of space and narrative. 

In general, it is interesting how the author associates to every space a deeper religious meaning and symbolism, not just an introspective metaphor. Another curious characteristic of the novel is the choice of the described subjects. While spaces and atmospheres are largely and specifically portrayed, the look-like of the characters is barely mentioned.

The abbey is fully described by the protagonist following its gradual exploration, not just with words but with drawings too. The drawings are architectonical plans, so the building could be reconstructed based on the information the author provides us. 

Since his arrival Adso (the co-protagonist and narrator) has great admiration and dedication to the details of the environment that surrounds him. In the narrative, each room has its meaning and a consequent emotional impact on the young novice. 

Moreover, each important room of the abbey is the scene of the discovery of a dead body, densifying the plot of the mystery. Two places are particularly fundamental for the story: the scriptorium and the library. Both closed and with limited access, they have discordant characteristics. 

The scriptorium is a symbol of light and clarity. Of all the pages of the novel, the only notes of color and brightness are used for this room.

On the other end, the library represents darkness and obstinacy. It has a labyrinthine form. Adso and Guglielmo know that the solution to the intrigue is the library. It is the center of the novel and the key element for the end.

[fat-seminar]

Chapter 18 – the Dark Void

I went to see the building one afternoon after many years. l'd walked along

that perpetually crowded street so very often, on those same sidewalks

where during their midday break necktied but slovenly high-school students

toting their school bags shove each other around, and where husbands

pass on their way home from werk and housewives from their gettogethers,

but l'd never gone back after all these years just to Iook at that

building again, the apartment building which had once meant so much to

me.

lt was an evening in winter. Darkness had fallen early and smoke from

the chimneys had descended on the narrow avenue like a foggy night.

Lights were on in two floors only: dim, dispirited lights in two business offices

where people worked late. Otherwise, the façade of the building was in

total darkness.

 Dark curtains had been closed in dark apartments; the windows

were as empty and frightening as the eyes of a blind person. What I

saw was a cold, insipid, and unprepossessing sight when compared to its

past. One could not even imagine that once an extended family had lived

here, on top of each other, in each other's hair, and in a hubbub.

I enjoyed the rack and ruin which had pervaded the building like the

punishment for the sins of youth. I knew that I was seized by this feeling

only because I could never get my share of sinful bliss, and that seeing the

decay gave me a taste of revenge, but at that moment I had something else

on my mind: "I wonder what happened to the mystery hidden in the pit

which became the airshaft. And what happened to the pit as weil as what

was inside it?"

I thought of the pit which used to be right next to the building, the bottomless

pit that had inspired shivers of fear at night, not only in me but in all the pretty children, girls, and adults who lived on all the floors. lt seethed

with bats, poisonous snakes, rats, and scorpions like a weil in a tale of fantasy.

I had a feeling it was the very pit described in Seyh Galip's Beauty and

Love and mentioned in Rumi's Mathnawi. lt so happened that sometimes

when a pail was lowered into the pit, its rope was cut, and sometimes they

said that there was a black ogre down there who was as big as a house.

Don't you kids go anywhere near it! we were told. One time when the doorman

was dangled down from a rope that was tied to his belt, he returned

from the zero-gravity journey he made into the infinite darkness of time

with tears in his eyes and lungs blackened with cigarette tar for all eternity. I

was aware of the fact that the desert witch who guarded the pit could also

assume the shape of the doorman's moonfaced wife, and that the pit was

closely related to a secret that lay deep in the inhabitants' memories. They

were afraid of the secret inside themselves as if fearful of a past sin that

could not stay buried in the past for all eternity. Eventually they forgot about

the pit, its memories and secrets as weil as what it contained, like instinctive

animals who scratch some dirt to conceal their disgrace.

One morning, waking up from a black nightmare that seethed with human faces, I discovered

that the pit had been covered over. lt was then that I understood with

horror, gripped by the same nightmarish feeling, that the pit had been

turned inside out, and it now rose out of the site that was once called the

pit. They had a new way of referring to this new space that brought mystery and death up to our very windows; they called this darkweil the air shaft.

ln reality, the new space the inhabitants called the air shaft in disgust

and disgruntlement (unlike other lstanbulites who termed this kind of

space a light weil), was neither an air shaft nor a light weil. When the place

was first built, there were vacant lots on either side; it was not one of the

ugly apartment buildings which later lined the street like a solid dirty wall.

When the Iot next to it was sold to a builder, the kitchen windows, the windows

of the narrow and long inner corridor, and the windows of the little

room that was used for different purposes on each floor (storage room,

maid's room, nursery, poor relation's room, ironing room, a distant aunt's

room), all of which had a view of the mosque and the tram tracks, the girls'

lycee, Aladdin's store, and the pit now faced the windows of the tall

row-house style apartment building next door, only three yards away. That

was how a lightless and oppressive space without a breath of air, which was

reminiscent of an infinite weil, was formed in between the dirty nondescript

concrete walls and the windows that reflected each other and the floors

below...

[fat-seminar]

[fat-seminar]

[fat-seminar]

Nicola Yoon: “EVERYTHING EVERYTHING”

“That night, I dream that the house breathes with me. I exhale and the walls contract like a pinpricked balloon, crushing me as it deflates. I inhale and the walls expand. A single breath more and my life explodes.” p.22

She feels like a part of the House

“The sunroom is my favorite room in the house. Its almost all glass. Glass roof and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look out onto our perfectly manicured back lawn. The room is filled with realistic and lush-looking fake tropical plants. There is even a babbling stream that snakes its way through the room, but there are no fish-at least no real ones. Because it´s meant to be tropical, my mom keeps a heated fan running and a slightly too-warm breeze fills the room. Most days I love it because I can imagine that the glass has fallen away and I’m Outside. Other days I feel like a fish in an aquarium.” p.71

This room is trying to represent the outside world, it gives her the feeling of being outside. The room is mimicking a tropical rain forest, a place she is never able to experience. That is why ist constantly reminded her of being trapped inside her house.

The sunroom is their weekly meeting point.

By the time I get there, Olly has managed to climb halfway up the rocky back wall, hands and feet wedged into crevices. He’s pinching one of the large banana leaves between his fingers when I walk in. He lets go of the branch but remains where he is on the wall. „ Are you going to stay up there?“ I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.

„I´m thinking about it, Maddy. Carla said I had to stay as far away from you as possible and she doesn’t seem like the kind of lady that you piss off“

„This is a crazy room „ he says, looking around.

„Yeah. My mom built it so I could feel like I was outside“

„Does it work?

„Most days. I have a really excellent imagination.“ p.74

[fat-seminar]

J.K. Rowling: “Harry Potter and the Philospher‘s Stone”

The Dursleys‘ house in Privet Drive 4

„A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen.“ - p. 18

„Nearly then years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys‘ front door; it crept into their living-room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been [...]. Only the photographs on the mantlepiece really showed how much time had passed.“ - p. 19

„The Dursleys‘ house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors [...], one where Dudley slept and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn‘t fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard [under the stairs] to his [new] room.“ - p. 32

Language It is only a brief description, which not really goes into detail. The plain language is a sign of the normality that is symbolised with both, the writing and the architecture.

Architecture The architecture of this domestic building is very normal and lies in a tidy residential area, what emphasizes the non-extraordinary character of it. The pricate space is stuffy and shows the life of a wealthy family.

Meaning In this setting, it’s all about the values of the family respectively the society. The bourgeois middle-class architecture frames perfectly what is happening. A totally normal life, which doesn’t want to be concerned with extraordinary things, is heavily disturbed by magic. The house itself also illustrates the situation between the two boys: The one who has two rooms full of stuff and the other who lives in a cupboard, so the discrimination and unequal treatment is metaphorically shown in the described spaces.

Hogwarts and the Great Hall

„The narrow path had opened suddenly on the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.“ - p. 83

„[Professor McGonagall] pulled the door wide. The Entrance Hall was so big you could have fitted the whole of the Dursleys‘ house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches [...], the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.“ - p. 85

„Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles which were floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. [...] Mainly to avoid the staring eyes, Harry looked upwards und saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, ‘It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside [...]’ It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn‘t simply open on to the heavens.“ - p. 87

Language Unlike Dursleys’ house, Hogwarts is described with vivid language. In very much details it tells about dimensions, materials, lights and colours, so that one can picture the space in the mind. There are also more subjective remarks on the rooms and the figurative description shows how impressed the main character is.

Architecture Everything about is seems exceptional, and compared to the middle-class architecture, it is huge and very rich. It is also very representational because it is a public institution, but in the narration of the book, it is also representational for the whole magic world.

Meaning This builiding is there to oppose the normal world, Harry comes from. It is outstanding and full of extraordinary things, which give a completely new perspective to look at them. On the other side, with its bewitched ceiling it symbolizes a world full of new opportunities to the students, where there are no boundaries compared to the real world.

[fat-seminar]

About Italo Calvino “Invisible Cities”

"The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. In one there is the great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its chain spokes, the Ferris wheel of spinning cages, the death-ride with crouching motorcyclists, the big top with the clump of trapezes hanging in the middle. The other half-city is of stone and marble and cement, with the bank, the factories, the palaces, the slaughterhouse, the school, and all the rest. One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary, and when the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city.   And so every year the day comes when the workmen remove the marble pediments, lower the stone walls, the cement pylons, take down the Ministry, the monument, the docks, the petroleum refinery, the hospital, load them on trailers, to follow from stand to stand their annual itinerary. Here remains the half-Sophronia of the shooting-galleries and the carousels, the shout suspended from the cart of the headlong roller coaster, and it begins to count the months, the days it must wait before the caravan returns and a complete life can begin again." - Italo Calvino „Invisible Cities“, 1974, S.63 

The text describes a city which is divided in two, so the view is also divided in two. The narrator creates a visual language without becoming judgmental. Every word feels like a completely pure narrative of what he has seen. It is not about the importance of individual architecture but about the overall picture. The language manages to discover a city and its architecture through new methods. The city becomes tangible without having to rewrite it in the narrative. The text faces two contrasting ways of a city, that shows in a simple way how much versatility a city or architecture has. The exchange of functions makes it clear that it is also about the versatility in the point of redefining the given. It becomes somehow amusing to imagine how it would be to exchange the temporary and constant. But through this loose choice of words this short joke becomes an exciting idea. For the book as a whole, it’s interesting that every city was named after a woman. This book is not only about architecture as such, but about life within architecture. About surreal things that become real by not losing their pure existence. To stimulate imagination and emotion. About the role of women within architecture and about the role of architecture itself.  

To close my contribution here are the introducing words of the book: "Cities are like dreams," says Marco Polo. "Everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most improbable dream is a picture puzzle that hides a wish or its reversal, a fear.“ - Fischer Verlag about Italo Calvino „Invisible Cities“, 1974, introducing words  

[fat-seminar]

The description of the Antwerp railway station is not too specific regarding its general layout but listing and describing a lot of details and key elements of its architecture. The language used to describe architecture is not poetic but rather analytic.

The descriptions resemble a lecture in architectural history, given that the main protagonist is an art historian.

By the analysing some of the elements borrowed from renaissance architecture a good image is given about the ideas of power and representation, underlying this type of architecture, back in the days it was built.

Although description of architecture is a big part of the book, it has no greater meaning for the plot but rather is jut describing the environment of the protagonists.

The architectures described in the book have no greater meaning for the plot but rather are just the environment surrounding the protagonists.

[fat-seminar]

Architecture in “The Great Gatsby“ (by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The book is about Jay Gatsby’s life and how is is trying to pursue the American Dream. It is set during the Roaring Twenties, in 1922. Because the book is about wealth, money, and one's position in society, consumer objects play a big role in the story. Characters' choices of clothes, cars, and homes say a lot about them and serve as symbols. One of the central symbolic objects is Gatsby's house. The word 'house' is the most frequently used word in the book, appearing 95 times. In the first chapter, Gatsby's house is memorably described by Nick Carraway, who is the narrator of the story and lives in a much smaller house next door: 'The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard--it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.' Gatsby's house is notorious for its lavish and raucous parties: 'There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.' Gatsby's house is symbolically important for its location. A large part of the book takes place on the twin peninsulas of West Egg, where Gatsby and Nick live, and East Egg, where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Gatsby's mansion symbolizes two broader themes of the novel. First, it represents the grandness and emptiness of the 1920s boom: Gatsby justifies living in it all alone by filling the house weekly with "celebrated people." Second, the house is the physical symbol of Gatsby's love for Daisy. Jordan even tells Nick in Chapter 3 that Gatsby only bought the house to be across the bay from Daisy.

[fat-seminar]

Die hellen Tage (Bright Day’s) by Zsuzsa Bánk

The Bright Days of Zsusza Bánk, tells the story of three children who find their way in life. “The adolescents gradually learn that all idylls are fragile, that dark shadows may be present even if we can’t see them, […]” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) The provisional and ephemeral little house of the Hungarian artist family is a guiding theme in the book and stands symbolic for the characters. The Mother Evi is as oblique, unconventional and detail-loving as the house she lives in.The selected section from the very beginning of book supports this impression. The description focusses on the unusual parts, marks out that it is unorganized, arbitrary but also bright and pending. Contrasted with German bureaucratisation, an image of freedom is emphasised. As the children are growing up, their look on this home is also changing. What initially seems to be paradisiacal, is later reflected. The author confronts those two perceptions in the section.

Aja lived with her mother in a house that wasn’t a real house, just a little cottage held together by boards and wires, a shack to which new parts would be screwed whenever there wasn’t enough room, when it got too tight even for the few pieces of furniture Aja’s mother owned, the boxes and crates that she stacked up, and the shoe boxes she collected for the many letters she kept. Wires and duct tape ran like spider webs through the two small rooms, the tiny kitchen, and narrow hallway, for the lamps that were on even in the daytime when the sun was shining and light penetrated every nook and cranny of the house. Back then I knew nothing about houses, nothing about what they should be, what they should look like, and where they should stand or, that they needed to have a street and house number, and that it wasn’t enough to say it’s on the other side of Kirchblüt where the fields begin and the gravel paths intersect, not far from the signalman’s little house, and it looks as if it were floating. I didn’t know that you had to get permission to do hammering and to keep chickens; that there was someone who was in charge of deciding where and what Aja’s home should be. And I had no idea of the mornings Aja’s mother spent in the corridors of government offices. I thought Aja’s house was a house that had everything it needed, even though it had no lock on the door, which is why Aja never took along a key. Aja’s mother left the crooked garden gate as well as the door to the house unlocked. When someone asked her whether she wasn’t afraid of burglars, robbers, and thieves, it made her laugh in that way she had, just a little too late, a little too softly as if she’d just now had to think of something that would never otherwise have occurred to her. What is there, she’d say, that they could possibly take from us?

Sometimes Aja’s mother would fall asleep before finishing a sentence, before expressing a thought; and at night, when Aja woke up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, her mother would be sitting next to the circle of light cast by the lamp as if waiting for morning. In any case that’s what Aja would tell me. Her mother had scratches on her hands, green stains on her knees and legs, and she looked funny with all the dirty band-aids and bandages made of rags. Peeling onions, she’d often cut herself with a knife that she would hang on a hook high up so that Aja couldn’t reach it. She’d bang her head on cupboards, get tangled up in electric wires and drag stuff along that would then break, and she’d put those fragments away in a pail together with other shards and splinters that could no longer be mended. She walked through her house, her garden, and through all the streets of our little town as if there was nothing in her way, no obstacles, as if everything had to get out of her way and not the other way around. And it was as if she couldn’t waste a thought on it, as if her thoughts were too precious, as if she had too few and had to be frugal with them.

[translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo]

[fat-seminar]

The book is about Jay Gatsby’s life and how is is trying to pursue the American Dream. It is set during the Roaring Twenties, in 1922. Because the book is about wealth, money, and one's position in society, consumer objects play a big role in the story. Characters' choices of clothes, cars, and homes say a lot about them and serve as symbols. One of the central symbolic objects is Gatsby's house. The word 'house' is the most frequently used word in the book, appearing 95 times. In the first chapter, Gatsby's house is memorably described by Nick Carraway, who is the narrator of the story and lives in a much smaller house next door: 'The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard--it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.' Gatsby's house is notorious for its lavish and raucous parties: 'There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.' Gatsby's house is symbolically important for its location. A large part of the book takes place on the twin peninsulas of West Egg, where Gatsby and Nick live, and East Egg, where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Gatsby's mansion symbolizes two broader themes of the novel. First, it represents the grandness and emptiness of the 1920s boom: Gatsby justifies living in it all alone by filling the house weekly with "celebrated people." Second, the house is the physical symbol of Gatsby's love for Daisy. Jordan even tells Nick in Chapter 3 that Gatsby only bought the house to be across the bay from Daisy.