Reinterpreting Invisible Cities novel within the context of the Old Quad building
M4
Valdrada
There are two Valdrada cities: one reflecting the other one under the lake. I interpret the upside-down city as a past version of everything above. In the chaos of time, these two cities get closer to and almost meet each other in a spiral of turbulence, and that is where my world sets up. The two cities seem symmetrical but they have never been symmetrical. Everything that happens in a normal city, will happen again the upside-down one years later. “Every face and every gesture” is inverted by time “point by point”. Furthermore, the same thing may have different values in the two Valdradas. A precious existence in the past is likely to be worn out by time. “They live for each other” because, without each other, the present and the past cannot make sense. On occasions, the inhabitants see the shadow of each other through the water, but they are never connected.
Cities & Eyes 1
“The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes.
Valdrada’s inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness. Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid and cold in the mirror.
At times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them.”
Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities. 1972
The Making of the Projected World
There are endless ways to shape the world and to design the space given with the same two elevations. My projected world has a pyramid in the center, and everything is built around that pyramid. I cut the elements in the upper parts into slices and place them in different layers. At the same time, I tried to make more connections between and keep a balance on the right and left sides. I cut all of the pipes opposing them to each other on the two sides. Moving downward, things start to be covered by the water. Following the flow of the water, it connects everything as a whole inside of it, which are all invisible in the elevations.
The Framing of the Perspectives
The first perspective is about the city being reflected. The inhabitants know that every action of theirs will be repeated so they make every movement with dignity and care. It’s like a stage play where there are lighting, decoration curves, flowers, and actors. The actresses place themselves elegantly whatever they do and whatever the settings are.
The second perspective is perpendicular to the first one, where both of the cities can be seen at the same time. There are two versions of everything - both architecture and the inhabitants. The girl on the right glimpses herself in the mirror city. In that past, she was still with the one who is gone by now. But the two Valdradas shouldn’t love each, as it is only the present where they live in.
Final Submission
Reflection
Although this project is not the most challenging one technically, it is the most difficult one for me to work on. There is more space for freedom but it doesn’t become easier when I had to make more choices. I saved hundreds of reference images before I started to rebuild the quads. Lots of great ideas came to me, no matter in the modeling or the perspectives, but there is no way to corporate them all into my architecture. While I want to make one part really stand out, I have to abandon or weaken other less interesting moments. This dilemma has followed my project maybe throughout the semester, especially in this module.
While moving things around in Rhino, I had to think about the isometric and the perspective at the same time, and making adjustments is to jumping back and forth from different views. My final design is to have the two twin cities seem symmetrically connected to each other but in fact quite different and disconnected. One perspective is inside one of the cities looking in a light mood, the other is a side view showing more of the rules of this space. Because half of my architecture is upside down, the floor covered a sizable portion of the structures in the isometric drawing, so I dissolved parts of the floor to reveal a little more of what’s under it. After that, the annotation will do the left job of completing the narrative.
Before I got to this model, I have two versions of architecture different from this one. They might be too deconstructed and out of the bound, and could not provide one satisfying isometric and two perspectives at the same time. When doing the perspectives, I once focused too much on the colours and Photoshop effects rather than the real core element of this module - the architecture. It is hard to maintain the balance - to think both emotionally and rationally, but in my opinion of mine, the important thing is just to do the work, to produce anything. Then when I look at my work, maybe I will find out what can be improved and continue improving.
