Arches
2018–2002
List of architectural projects with objects having a curved head
Introduction
For much that has been built in the World, the presence of the ‘words’ Vault, Grotto and Arch has been constant. The modern age, on the other hand, had progressively removed this ancient ‘word’ from current usage. New ‘words’, which referred to the machine age, were introduced. A deterministic letter on the phenomenon interpreted such substitution as a consequence of the introduction of new techniques of construction, made possible by the advent of the Industrial Revolution (concrete, iron and glass). But, despite this, the ‘words’ Vault, Grotto and Arch still inhabit our imagination. They embody archetypes that still move us today. According to Heidegger, ‘language is the house of the Being’,[1] so, its happening in time could reveal to us the hidden structure of that historicity that it makes possible. The ‘words’ Vault, Grotto and Arch happens in the exercise of the psychological function of Sensation:[2] that possibility of transfiguring the experience that we make in the World, through our body, in architecture. Modern architecture seemed to have lost this erotic-sacral discourse. Its forms appeared as consequences of logical thought, whose overvaluation inhibits all possible integral knowledge of reality.
Notes
- ^ Martin Heidegger, Über den Humanismus, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main, 1949; It. ed., Lettera sull’Umanismo, Adelphi, Milan, 1995.
- ^ Carl Gustav Jung, Psychologische Typen , Rascher & Cie. Verlag, Zurich, 1921; It. ed., Tipi Psicologici, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 2016, p. 493.

Off Club
Rome, 13 September 2018
Arches evoke archaic rituals

Specus Corallii
Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Trapani, 27 August 2016
Where the dead speak to the living

Min at the Soane
Soane’s Museum, London, 13 September 2014
Arch derives from the phallus

House of Dust
Rome, 16 April 2013
Arches disguise doors and cupboards

Arcade
Milan, 25 May 2012
Arches define a perspective

Postmodern Cafe
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 6 September 2011
Graffiti refigure theme of arch

House for Wallpaper*
Neues Museum, Berlin, 6 April 2009
The empty heart

Vaulted House
Parma, 1 January 2008
A cement lunetta

Let There Be More Light
Università di Palermo, Trapani, 25 March 2002
An indefinable veil