architecture WAS Re: GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[David Morris]

>From: pporteous at worley.co.nz
>Regarding the notion of ruins, etc (Doug, I think you are referring to 
>simulacra, which is indeed tied up with simulation, and hyper realities, 
>etc - see Baudrillard for this stuff), some good subject matter is the 
>"Picturesque" English landscape tradition - followed by Capability Brown 
>and the other landscape architects of the 1800's. The idea was that you 
>would populate your large country estate full of Greek temples, ruined 
>castles, pagodas, pyramids, etc,  placed amongst trees, so as not to be 
>viewed all at once. The experience of walking the estate would be that of 
>discovery, and the discovery would be all the world's cultures, represented 
>architecturally. The estate owners had generally done the Grand Tour of 
>greater Europe, as it was called, and the garden worked on several levels: 
>it worked as a visual "photo album" memory trigger, it showed off to others 
>where the owner had been, but most importantly, it symbolized the Victorian 
>ideal of compartmentalising and collecting, and thus taming and making safe 
>the . As an aside, these garden estates also had their fences concealed in 
>large ditches below general ground level, called mini-hahas (yes!). This 
>gave the impression that the owner's land stretched on forever.

This is an excellent description of the "Picturesque" English landscape 
tradition.  These ruins were also called "Follies," weren't they?

>The postmodern architectural fascination with ruins is, I think, part of 
>the general re-embracing of history. [snip] Of course, architects have 
>always liked ruins, maybe because (among other things) the ruin exposes the 
>structure of the building, makes seen what was hidden, and allows the 
>imagination to fly in terms of what is no longer there!

The ruin is inextricably linked with the Romantic tradition, which really 
means a history of the imagination, thus I think your comments very telling.

David Morris

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