Lecture: Erika Naginski, "Impossible Design: Porsenna's Tomb and French Visionary Architecture"

Porsenna's tomb is a monstrous, incommensurable object of wonder that haunted the Western architectural imaginary from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Against the backdrop of architecture's interaction with archaeology, this lecture treats various reconstitutions of the fabled Etruscan royal monument. The cryptic description left us by Pliny the Elder (after Varro) prompted architects from Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to Jean-Jacques Lequeu to evoke an impossibly colossal structure premised on the repetitive logic of stacked geometric elements. To take Pliny at his word was to confront the engineering of something that contradicted the Vitruvian mantra of solidity, utility, and beauty. It is arguably with the visionary architects of the late 18th century-and, especially, Étienne-Louis Boullée and his students-that this contradiction found its most emblematic expression. Erika Naginski, professor of architectural history, speculates on why this might have been so, that is, on how it came to be that this ancient megalomaniacal architecture resurfaced in the context of absolutism's demise.

[@heyguysinternet]

I re-listen to this lecture about once a year because it is so engaging and the material is so up my alley! So great to have it on here for public access. The student's comment about whether or not "modern" architecture has any equivalent myths -- or myths at all -- is interesting to me in light of recently reading two books: Joseph Rykwert's On Adam's House in Paradise, and Alberto Pérez-Gómez's Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. I would offer the answer that our architecture today has no myths because architecture has been turned into a purely practical affair of technology, wherein formalism is merely a kind of admittance of visual pleasure. In this climate, myths can only exist as things of the past, because, to the modern mind, a "myth" is synonymous with a falsity, rather than a fiction possessing fundamental truths. Sustaining myths cannot be forced upon an art: the latter must find the former and then integrate it over time. As such I don't see architecture having any myths for a long time -- not until we've outgrown materialism and recognized, once again, the transcendent dimension(s) of reality. I long for a time when architecture can mean more than its provisional or "stylistic" aspects!

[@heyguysinternet]

This is one of the most interesting architectural lectures on YT!

[@kaiwoolner-pratt9196]

this is one of the best lectures i've ever seen

[@dannyprendergast818]

Fantastic lecture! The illustration by Antonio do Sangallo the Younger (00:20:39) appears to have conical geometries based on the circles in the plan despite them being describes as a series of pyramids. The restriction of two-dimensional representation makes it difficult to identify all of the geometries in this imaginary proposal, but the argument could be made that the figures are pyramidal because each circle is inscribed in a square. However, the rotation of the square in the plan is not reflected with vertical lines in the elevation and the central figure defies the logic of a circle imbedded in the square and therefore it can only exist as a cone which raises multiple intriguing questions about the remaining forms. The drawing becomes even more fascinating when one begins to consider the intention behind the artists inclusion of cones instead of pyramids. It certainly reflects an interesting attitude of the renaissance relative to geometry and antiquity.

[@canweng5546]

fabulous

[@jimiq22]

I really want to know what the fuck all of this jargon is im so frustrated it looks amazing

[@heyguysinternet]

Which terms are you confused by?

[@totalbodyregeneration]

Use a dictionary

[@dustinwatkins7843]

this is more advanced, start your learning more from the bottom up, it's all awesome and worth it

[@davepowell7168]

Piranesi's prison is more cosy.

[@dragonmartijn]

Crap.