Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital: a genealogy of individual and collective intelligence in his architecture

I will be speaking at the Architectural Space and Society Centre at Birkbeck 9 November 6pm Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square, Birkbeck Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital: a genealogy of individual and collective intelligence in his architecture Sophia Psarra, Bartlett School of Architecture Leveraging new materials and means of production, architects, planners and corporate powers... Continue Reading →

Oct 23, 2018

The cognitive art of rendering displays of complex data – design strategies in the Piazza San Marco

Visibility Graph Analysis of the Piazza San Marco in the context of neighbouring islands using Depthmap software1 Blog Entry I ‘...and the whole place in its huge elegance, the grace of its conception and the beauty of its detail, was more than ever like a great drawing room, the drawing-room of Europe profane... Continue Reading →

Jul 23, 2018

Mapping Real and Representational Space – Part I

‘However abstract, however contemplative in spirit, however remote from practical application, it [geometry] must surely have arisen from, and easily translates back into, the tasks of shaping artifacts, laying out buildings, and surveying land’. Robin Evans, The Projective Cast: Architecture and its Three Geometries. In a visually oriented culture we tend to equate... Continue Reading →

Jul 8, 2018

A Monumental Piece of Mythmaking: Jacopo de’ Barbari aerial view of Venice -Part III

Looking closely at Jacopo de’ Barbari’s print, the earliest and largest naturalistic aerial view of the city that survives, we see that he used a geometric device, common to Mappae mundi. The vertical axis connecting the two mythological figures traverses the Orologio and runs between the two columns in the Piazzeta. While the columns guarded... Continue Reading →

Jun 22, 2018

A Monumental Piece of Mythmaking: Jacopo de’ Barbari aerial view of Venice -Part II

Consisting of six large sheets, the famous 1500’s woodcut (Venetie MD) by JACOPO de’ Barbari was a monumental feat of printmaking (135 by 282 cm).1 It took three years to complete, composing a southwest view of the city projecting viewers to a height of 500 metres, a position previously unimaginable. Yet, the naturalistic detail of... Continue Reading →

Jun 15, 2018

A Monumental Piece of Mythmaking: Jacopo de’ Barbari aerial view of Venice -Part I

In The Venice Variations (link to the pdf of the book) I discuss the properties of Venice’s urban form through which it came into being over a large period of time. These operations gave the city its physical form, social and economic life. Alongside these operations, a parallel project of mythmaking was taking place, by... Continue Reading →

Jun 8, 2018

In Good Company

Delighted to see #thevenicevariations in the bookshop of the @la_Biennale Thank you to the team of @UCLpress @BartlettArchUCL @bartlettSDAC

May 27, 2018

The Venice Variations: Introduction Preview

Between authored architecture and the non-authored city "To distinguish the other cities’ qualities, I must speak of a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice." -Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities Three artefacts In 1972 the Italian writer Italo Calvino published his most acclaimed work of fiction, a novel about cities that made a seminal... Continue Reading →

May 17, 2018

UCL European Institute Video

In this video I introduce my new book on Venice, and how, as humans we are wired to look for ideal patterns, for stories, for ideal places and ideal patterns in literature, art, architecture, design... tracing them through three ‘artefacts’: a city—Venice, a book—Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and a piece of architecture—Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital. The book... Continue Reading →

May 17, 2018

The Venice Variations: Preview Part 4

The future we must strive to achieve So why Venice matters today? Venice allows us to address very significant questions concerning our urban future. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery? By which mechanisms they foster imagination and innovation? How do they adapt and sustain... Continue Reading →

May 2, 2018

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Category: The Venice Variations