ideal-city

Still on the Central Pavilion’s main axis is The Piranesi Variations, curated by Peter Eisenman. The theory-minded architect invited Belgian architects Dogma, students from Yale School of Architecture, and Jeffrey Kipnis, who in turn worked with students from Ohio State University Knowltoon School of Architecture, to “revisit, examine, and reimagine Piranesi’s 1762 folio collection of etchings, Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma.” Like the Grafton/Mendes da Rocha installation, models are the focus here, occupying the middle of the space near related drawings on the walls. Not surprisingly, Eisenman’s contribution, “A Field of Diagrams,” is immediately recognizable as Eisenman, a layering of various grids at different sizes and angles on top of each other. Even topping off the gridscape are buildings that look like unrealized designs by the architect.

Dogma’s “A Field of Walls” is Eisenman’s antithesis; it “reconsiders the power relations” of Piranesi’s etchings through a parallel series of wall-like buildings. It is brutal and imposing in its repetition and its dominance over the landscape. Neverthless, there is something appealing in Dogma’s reading of Piranesi and the diagram they created, as if the parallel walls — something that could never be willed into existence — have a clarity that invites pondering what they might mean.