Types and Gripes: Italy is full of sad types. Even its villas have issues. They are Emo. They are Malcontenta. The churches are not much better. The Basilica di Santo Spirito sheds a single tear from its single eye because it never got a face. Boo, hoo. What do these sad types have to gripe about anyway? Can't we cheer them up? In Civilization and its Discontents, psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud theorized the tension between individual expression and societal norms of conformity. The discontents that he diagnosed in his psychiatric patients were products of the normalizing forces of civilization, repression of individual desire according to rules of sameness. This line of thought might be understood analogously to theories of architectural typology: no single building constitutes a type; rather a typology comprises many instances bound by a common, tacit, rule-set. Each instance of the type contains exceptions to the rules.
In this course, students studied the built fabric of Florence through the frame of architectural typology. Students critically read theories of typology, from Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand to Aldo Rossi which were intersected with readings from psycho-analytic theory, including the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These readings served as a lens through which to study church typology in Italy, specifically church facades, which form the outward expression of the typology. Most churches in Florence represent an aggregation of various expressions of architectural eras. These structures were built through spans of hundreds of years, and their baptisteries, domes, and facades can represent the work of multiple architects working in different times. The Duomo in Florence, for instance, is a medieval structure with a Renaissance dome juxtaposed against a neo-Gothic façade that was only completed in the late nineteenth century. Despite a church expressing various memories of different eras, they are ultimately tied together by type.
Many churches in Florence remain unfinished, but still adhere broadly to typological constraints. Bare San Lorenzo never got the façade that Michelangelo promised him. Could we use the knowledge gained from Freud or Rossi’s reflections on type theory to draw San Lorenzo a new face? What are the ordering mechanisms which are indispensable to a type? Students will use the analytical drawings of Florence’s unfinished facades (shown above) with which to speculate new facades.
In this seminar, students expressed various lines of typological argumentation gleaned from readings and research, advocating a concrete position on type. Collectively, we produced an activity book comprising of analytical drawings and elevations created in class. These drawings endeavored to establish the type while also leaving room for new expressions.
This seminar was influenced by Professor Mona Mahall’s 2017 Cornell University seminar and studio about typology: Types and Figures and Types and Pipes.
Julia Chou
Yongqi Lu
Erik Bakken
Spring 2019
