Visible Specificity As A Cultural Langauge

Pictures of architectural details that are unmistakably North Quad

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Much of Invisible Cities’ Links to an external site. charm can be attributed to the specificity of its writing, and as a result, its narration. Throughout the narrative, 55 versions of city Links to an external site. life are described with enthralling character, the first of which is Diomira, “a city Links to an external site. with sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theatre, a golden cock that crows each morning on the tower.” Details such as these constitute the overall visual communication between Marco Polo and us, as we assume the role of Kublai Khan, contributing to the successful creation of fictional cities through typologies and artifacts. This demonstrates our inherent reliance on specific imagery to create understanding; a facet that is an integral part of architecture.

Now his accounts were the most precise and detailed that the Great Khan could wish and there was no question or curiosity which they did not satisfy. And yet each piece of information about a place recalled to the emperor’s mind that first gesture or object which Marco has designated the place.

Yet, the impact of this highly visual culture seems to go unnoticed at times. Polo describes the city Links to an external site. of Tamara, laden with signs of all sorts, where “the eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things.” This is telling of our current over reliance on distinct symbolic communication, and a reduction of the image to encompass certain connotations. Though architecture is fundamentally a visual field and medium, it is important to allow for an unintentional evolution of meaning and understanding through one’s own sensory experiences, as a result of a slightly passive hand of the architect. Marco himself resorts to a more abstract identification of cities, providing genuine translation not possible through the specificity of visual wordplay.

https://www.archdaily.com/875409/three-principles-of-architecture-as-revealed-by-italo-calvinos-invisible-cities