My fear of potentially contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus—fueled by unremitting media coverage of the pandemic and my own paranoia—is taking a toll, though it isn’t yet debilitating. Many would consider my overwrought concern to be unwarranted given the low numbers of COVID-19 cases here in Lane County, and I can’t entirely disagree. Still, an unwelcome and unhealthy level of visceral anxiety buzzes persistently under my skin.
During a recent Zoom meeting, I tried to articulate the nature of my unease and realized how much it is tinged by a melancholy having little to do with the virus. This melancholy is not symptomatic of clinical depression nor does it reflect undue concern about the long-term prospects for my office(1); instead, it is equal parts a product of everything happening in the world today and also a reckoning of what I should consider important personally and professionally. Isolation does promote a measure of detachment and self-reflection. Where should I direct my attention during the time I have left?
The late Aldo Rossi, a Pritzker Prize laureate (1990), imbued his architecture and his observations of the city with a sense of “immense sadness and the weight of history.” This translated to his belief that cities and buildings fundamentally serve as the collective memory of its people. In Rossi’s words, the city is the locus of the collective memory and that memory becomes the guiding thread of the entire, complex urban structure. Ideologically, Rossi was a post-modernist. Contrary to the “form follows function” tenet of the modernists, he asserted the autonomy of architecture wherein its meaning inhered in its irreducible, universal, typological forms. Thus, buildings are “towers” or “arcades” or “basilicas” rather than the uses to which they are put. The typologies of the forms are independent and constant and not entirely shaped by the functions people assign to them.
For Rossi, the key was studying the city as an aggregation of monuments constructed over time. He strove to create structures immune to obsolescence—in effect, timeless architecture. The impetus of elemental typologies compelled Rossi to create drawings and design his buildings in a brooding, enigmatic manner reminiscent of the metaphysical art of Giorgio de Chirico. Common to Rossi’s architecture and de Chirico’s paintings are an overwhelming sense of melancholy born of memories one has but cannot entirely recall. Rossi’s 1979 Teatro del Mondo is a particularly evocative example of his work and this effect.(2) The building is hauntingly familiar and dreamlike. You’ve seen it before, but where and when?
Architecture shouldn’t easily be lost to time. Rossi believed buildings and the cities of which they are a part should provide an order of things that allows us to experience the present as a suspended moment in the passage from the past to the future.
“Time flies” and “life is short” are clichés but both seem increasingly true to me with each passing year. I’m no spring chicken anymore and my time is finite. Chasing immortality isn’t an option (yet). Accumulating memories but also moments where I am fully present and living life meaningfully are important. With age comes the ability to reflect but it has also afforded me perspective and, I hope, a measure of wisdom. If Aldo Rossi were here to speak today, he might advise me to refine my appreciation for the power of memories to shape the future. This means working toward architecture that is timeless rather than fleeting, selfless as opposed to ego-driven. Unfortunately, the exigencies of 21st century development, design, and construction do not often lend themselves to the creation of enduring, ego-less architecture.
There is a wistful sweetness to my melancholy. In my mind it is colored by sepia-toned and softly lit memories. I acknowledge my own impermanence—saddened by it and that of everyone I know and have known—but also appreciative of the passage of time and the imperative of being as observant a witness to life as possible while I remain able. We can aspire to create timeless architecture, but even the most enduring monuments are, like all of us, transient and impermanent. What is important for architects is to add to, build upon, and enrich the collective memory so it is sustained and transcends the earthly limitations of our buildings.
(1) Despite the impacts of the pandemic, Robertson/Sherwood/Architects has been busy; indeed, we just added to our staff to meet current project demands. As I mentioned previously, working from home has been effective. Everyone at RSA appears to be coping as well as can be expected with the strangeness of the new normal.
(2) I happened to be in Venice in November of 1979 and saw the Teatro del Mondo, just prior to the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale for which Rossi designed it. Given his preoccupation with lasting monuments, there is some irony in the fact the floating theater was a temporary exhibit and not a permanent structure.
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