Palladian
by Adria Bernardi
by Adria Bernardi
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Palladio, Andrea (1508–80). The most influential and one of the greatest Italian architects (see PALLADIANISM). Smooth elegant, and intellectual, he crystallized various Renaissance ideas, notably the revival of Roman symmetrical planning and HARMONIC PROPORTIONS.
The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture |
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the immensity of these silent stretches of space! There is nothing like silence to suggest a sense of unlimited sound. Sounds lend color to space and confer a sort of sound body upon it. But absence of sound leaves it quite pure and, in the silence, we are seized with something vast and deep and boundless. It took complete hold of me and, for several moments, I was overwhelmed by the grandeur of this shadowy peace.
Henri Bosco, Malicroix, in Gaston Bachelard, “House and Universe,” The Poetics of Space |
the space of the house becomes understood,
further integrated into the mind and body,
it became less strange, after an absence
from it, and a return to it – after re-in-
habiting it. the space of this house – a bungalow –
has become more familiar during these days
when the others are absent (for a few days –
this remains the time of motherhood) there
is a kind of calmness that reminds me of the days
before I was a mother – that is to say
there is no appointment at the end of the (school) day
no appointed time at which I must be present
that determines the space
inside the house – changes the condition
whether it is silence – or absence – this
kind of solitude in which it becomes
possible to find the house, the body,
the mind again.
the space described above – of such silence --
was at the top of the stairs looking at
the Palladian window at night.
In the middle of the night. When
everyone else was asleep. It was not
a frequent occurrence, but one
that ran in tandem with insomnia –
times of waking up – after sleeping – distressed
or not – or times – it must have been
during that first seven weeks of a newborn –
(But then I would not have been sitting
at the top of the stairs, surely, but
only taking care of the baby and then walking
like a sleepwalker drawn by magnet
past the window back to bed & sleep.)
I sat on the top step – and looked at the way
the moon made shadows, complicated
shadows, (patterns) through the window.
I sat, content.
After living in the house for twelve years,
I began to detect the mathematics
of the window, began to understand them:
its divisions & to see
how many divisions time could be figured
into by the segments within that half-circle –
or circle if you consider that its shadow –
its double, made a circle. I began to
wonder where these windows were made –
and made originally – and wondering whether
like the window-makers of the cathedrals –
these window-makers were asserting a theology.
Clear, concise, and complex as the mind.
And shadow.
further integrated into the mind and body,
it became less strange, after an absence
from it, and a return to it – after re-in-
habiting it. the space of this house – a bungalow –
has become more familiar during these days
when the others are absent (for a few days –
this remains the time of motherhood) there
is a kind of calmness that reminds me of the days
before I was a mother – that is to say
there is no appointment at the end of the (school) day
no appointed time at which I must be present
that determines the space
inside the house – changes the condition
whether it is silence – or absence – this
kind of solitude in which it becomes
possible to find the house, the body,
the mind again.
the space described above – of such silence --
was at the top of the stairs looking at
the Palladian window at night.
In the middle of the night. When
everyone else was asleep. It was not
a frequent occurrence, but one
that ran in tandem with insomnia –
times of waking up – after sleeping – distressed
or not – or times – it must have been
during that first seven weeks of a newborn –
(But then I would not have been sitting
at the top of the stairs, surely, but
only taking care of the baby and then walking
like a sleepwalker drawn by magnet
past the window back to bed & sleep.)
I sat on the top step – and looked at the way
the moon made shadows, complicated
shadows, (patterns) through the window.
I sat, content.
After living in the house for twelve years,
I began to detect the mathematics
of the window, began to understand them:
its divisions & to see
how many divisions time could be figured
into by the segments within that half-circle –
or circle if you consider that its shadow –
its double, made a circle. I began to
wonder where these windows were made –
and made originally – and wondering whether
like the window-makers of the cathedrals –
these window-makers were asserting a theology.
Clear, concise, and complex as the mind.
And shadow.
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De Riverberatione
Le riverterationi sono cavaste • da corpi di chiara qualità • di piana e semidēsa superfitie, • le quali, percosse dal lume a similitudine • del balzo • della palla, lo ripercuotono • nel primo • obbietto. Of Reverberation. Reverberation is caused by bodies of a bright nature with a flat and semi opaque surface which, when the light strikes upon them, throw it back again, like the rebound of a ball, to the former object. 205. “Fifth Book on Light and Shade,” The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Vol. I |
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from “house and universe”
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In the tiniest of hatreds, there is a little, live, animal filament.
And faced with this pack, which generally breaks loose, the house becomes the real being of a pure humanity which defends itself without ever being responsible for an attack. La Redousse is man’s Resistance; it is human virtue, man’s grandeur. but the flexible house stood up to the beast. Henri Bosco, Malicroix the dignity of solitude of those who dwell in La Redousse The inhabitant of La Redousse must dominate solitude in a house on an island where there is no village. He must attain to the dignity of solitude that had been achieved by one of his ancestors, who had become a man of solitude as a result of a deep tragedy in his life. He must live alone in a cosmos which is not that of his childhood. The man, who comes of gentle, happy people, must cultivate courage in order to confront a world that is harsh, indigent and cold. The isolated house furnishes him with strong images, that is, with counsels of resistance. The house acquires the physical and moral energy of the human body. In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical forms. A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space. |
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Et l’ancienne maison,
Je sens sa rousse tiédeur Vient des sens à l’esprit. (And the old house I feel its russet warmth Comes from the senses to the mind.) Jean Wahl, Poèmes |
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the house defined by taking leave it, by going out into the world:
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But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell-like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves as shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. How beautiful a street is in winter! It is at once revealed and obscured.
Virginia Woolf, “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” The Death of the Moth |
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It is the house/home – taking leave of it, and the return to it, that shapes her essay – but, more importantly, puts us in mind, eyes body –with perception of the writer: Here is my home, my attitude towards it, how I see it how I define it, am defined by it, how it defines me, all of my objects, my things, my narrative, my life — in short – freedom – now I am outside the door – and here is how I see it – the world, the streets, with my eye (my oyster eye) – in winter : in 1930 in London.
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And I saw 2 palladian
windows & one
palladian window
over a door --
down the street
from a building named
monbijiou
the morning after the
night I dreamed
my grandmother was standing
in a vestibule — there were
others off to her right
and on my left in a room
She was wearing
a dark blue
navy blue
suit
jacket
and
skirt
and she opened her arms
and embraced me and started
crying (she didn’t cry)
and said, in italian,
I thought I would never
see you again.
windows & one
palladian window
over a door --
down the street
from a building named
monbijiou
the morning after the
night I dreamed
my grandmother was standing
in a vestibule — there were
others off to her right
and on my left in a room
She was wearing
a dark blue
navy blue
suit
jacket
and
skirt
and she opened her arms
and embraced me and started
crying (she didn’t cry)
and said, in italian,
I thought I would never
see you again.
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Occasionally, I dream of the house:
I rounded a corner on the landing – there was so much space around me – light — an opening a lightness in the sternum and a bounce, not drag in my step as I started to walk downstairs. |
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The window described a month ago is back with variation.
This day it is directly in front of my desk directly in front of me; a month or so ago, it was farther to the right the position of the sun has shifted to the left, farther south, and in front of the shadow there are flowers, pink and white and most of the green of the leaves. |
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There’s only one mountain today, on the top row.
I see, understand: layers. The green of the wall, the wall’s undercoat the colors of the flowers. The glass pane, the ice, make translucent marbling, the light itself; it’s a clear day, blue and ice cold. (The radiators are working overtime) |
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the small windows in the palladian arch are teeth, with narrow gaps between each tooth. the outer teeth are blurred. they are teeth seen in an x-ray. my son has a space between his two top teeth, and below, a space between the two middle teeth.
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Today I watch the shadow in front of me
It is less articulated now The light through the panes Against the walls is brushwork |
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When it is late, the shadow’s almost gone.
A shadow of a reflection (half-awake in half-light) in half-light is there shadow? Now that the heron’s gone the shadow is an arch if you want to see it, you’ll have to get up earlier and earlier. Did I mention there was snow? There was snow. And Mount Wachusett in the distance. There was snow no one had yet walked upon. At the deepest, I sank to my calves, sturdy girl, sturdy calves, but then it leveled out, only to ankles, and I walked under deep blue, I saw no animals. Not even a bird. I saw no trail markers but passed the Moss Stairs, with its plaque that said in summer in dry spells the moss Must be watered. Snow on the back of my calves I had the illusion of being alone for a moment, in this world, it was still, and did I say the sky was Minnesota blue, no precipitation, it was not Minnesota, I walked, as walkers do, to clear my head, to empty it, to leave some room for rumination, I tried to put aside old-saws, I tried to push away domestic consternations, I contrived to banish, for this clearing, and succeeded to some extent, all the small, necessary worries. (What are we without anxiety and worry?) I walked, I think I was even cognizant of breath. My grandfather was born on this day, March tenth, one hundred nine years ago. It was a winter with snow when the twins were born. (siblings of my paternal grandfather) He, my maternal grandfather, was born at the end of winter; was there snow? there must have been snow in those mountains. He was born at Pommastaggia, the house they didn’t own; they once owned a house but lost it. His mother had been in labor and he was born and there was snow. (Is the mountain visible from Pommastaggia?) And was his father there, or was his father gone, with the other men, working in winter? Later they went to North Africa. A baby who must have looked not unlike my brother or my cousin, serene wide eyes and already distinctive nose that gave the child’s round face Character already (I remember my grandfather making fun of his sister-in-law’s nose, he called it a big beak, for its size, its hook, and I remember thinking, he’s got some nerve making fun of her nose because his was only a slightly smaller version of it.) , I’ve imagined, had the gentlest upbringing of them all, not materially so, but in terms of lovingness. He had both mother and father present and healthy; their grandchildren still speak of them with tenderness in their voices: Maria. Pepe. They are the ones with uncomplicated names: Maria, Giuseppe. He, my maternal grandfather, was named Antonio, and he was called Tonino. He was the only one with an uncomplicated name, the others Mariuccia, Massima, Nello, my paternal grandfather’s name shortened from Leonello, plus the names of two older brothers, the twin brothers, Primo and Secondo, who had died in infancy. The men he worked with worked with walked on stilts. He pulled a stick of gum out of his shirt pocket, silver foil. He produced flowers, yellow daffodils, from behind his back. He whistled, fischio; he called my brother Fischin’ Little whistle. |
I’ll tell you now about the window that emerges on my wall, the wall in front of you
an arched window, with palladian window pane
left, at sun rise,
and how it moves from right to
left along the wall, just above the desk
as the minutes go by
and disappears just for the day,
when I’m not watching.
an arched window, with palladian window pane
left, at sun rise,
and how it moves from right to
left along the wall, just above the desk
as the minutes go by
and disappears just for the day,
when I’m not watching.
George Grantham Bain, “Belgians re-enter Termonde” (undated. between 1914–1915)
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Palladian window on door and grate, 218 e. 17th St., nyc. May 6, 2013.
Palladian window on door and grate, 218 E. 17th St., NYC May 6, 2013.
Former Tammany Hall Building, 100. E 17th Street, New York City, May 6, 2013 with cellphone.
Former Tamany Hall Building, 100 E. 17th Street, New York City. May 6, 2013 with cellphone.
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Old South Meeting House, Boston
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Old South Meeting House, Boston
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Old South Meeting House, Boston
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Old South Meeting House, Boston
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The Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, Raton, New Mexico
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Palladian
• arithmetic sequencing geometric sequencing that is to say – what follows – scanning • — • — • — • — •• — • — • (drawings of palladian window, one with circles) association vs. ordering by compression accumulation, listing or deduction scanning in search of; vs. imposition of will, order system |
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I think there’s a reason we lived there twelve years. |
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I went upstairs to do the work of bringing the window inside. I stepped into the room; there was no light. I needed to go downstairs into the cellar into the basement to the fusebox that steel house open it to trip the circuit re-synapse that break that had been broken in otherwords switch flip let circuit get its vehicles back again to get some light on this matter |
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in recalling the location in paris i am disoriented, i am scanning the mental map, trying to recall a name. i sit. i wait. i fend off anxiety. what do i remember? what was near it? this memory of the memory of the remembering is already too clear, a deception. i have remembered, found its general vicinity. i have located it, circled close to it; the palladian window, windows, in the church, the stained glass windows within the palladian windows, a church that looks like it should be in rome: here is the palladian window within the church with the darkest of stained glass. it is incongruity that drew me to it; a familiarity; this strange juxtaposition. where was it, where it is it? is it st. severin? st. — what? i scanned the list, nothing lit up. i scanned the maps, nothing, nothing. and then, and then, not here, not here, process of elimination, yes, close to here, yes, and what, and where, the little light of recognition went off, the cluny, yes, it was on that day when we were walking, we were making, and here is what i remembered most clearly from the beginning, a diagonal path, we were cutting across the piazza, the place, the square in front of the church, (in back?) (on the side?) where i stopped to take the photographs, putting the walk on pause. here was one of the places i said, i’d like to, i need to, stop. i need to take one of my turns now, while the others waited. |
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This window is darkened.
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This window
blocks light |
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Palladio insisted that architecture must be governed both by reason and by certain universal rules that were perfectly exemplified by the buildings of the ancients. He thus shared Alberti’s basic outlook and his firm faith in the cosmic significance of numeric ratios. . . . They differed in how each man related theory and practice. With Alberti, this relationship had been loose and flexible, whereas Palladio believed quite literally in practicing what he preached. His architectural treatise is consequently more practical than Alberti’s—this helps to explain its huge success—while his buildings are linked more directly with his themes. It has even been said that Palladio designed only what was, in his view, sanctioned by ancient precedent. If the results are not necessarily classic in style, we may call them “classicistic” (to denote a conscious striving for classic qualities); this is indeed the usual term for Palladio’s work and theoretical attitude.
H.W. Janson, with Dora Jane Janson, History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the Dawn of History to the Present Day |
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Birdhouse Door.
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Old South Meeting House, Boston.
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I am doing the work of bringing
the window inside. |
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West End Middle School, Gymnasium, eastern side of building, Nashville, Tennessee, November 19, 2013
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West End Middle School, Gymnasium, eastern side of building, Nashville, Tennessee, November 19, 2013
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West End Middle School, Gymnasium, eastern side of building, Nashville, Tennessee, November 19, 2013
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West End Middle School, Nashville, Tennessee. Side Entrance. November 19, 2013
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West End Middle School, Nashville, Tennessee. Walled-up Palladian Window. Northeastern Corner. November 20, 2013
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West End Middle School, Nashville, Tennessee. Northern Side of Building. November 20, 2013
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“Historic building for sale.” Music Row. Nashville, Tennessee.
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The parent, the generative person or essence,
or ideal, or condition, which holds the space
or concept for the child, or the other, holds the space
or concept, or ideal, or condition, so that the child,
or the other, may return to it, unconditionally,
across time, in time, and out of time’s constructs
I saw light coming through that window
at all hours of the day and night
making shadows on the wall and floor
at angles, a clock. Arcs. Seasons.
I saw light going into that window
going into that house, carrying in groceries
from an asphalt-covered driveway,
impossibly routine, walked
under the window and past it and light
stopped me in my tracks.
I saw light from inside and outside
that window and now
wherever (or very often) I see that window, its
form repeated in however likely or
unlikely a place, I am stopped
in my tracks, or surprised, or feel a pang,
turn-of-the-century-before house,
or pleasure, amazement, wonder, for
concept; I would not be seeing it now
if I weren’t outside the house; I wouldn’t be
seeing it had I not dwelt
inside.
The window gave me a way of looking at light
from within and without
coming inside and going inside
the house, angles, bisected, refracted
divided into partitions, in arcs,
that lasted of some long durations
during the day, morning or afternoon,
or in the middle of the night,
or that were over in an instant –
or patterns that were made on the wall
through that window at that moment
that invited me only to sit or stand
and see it.
or ideal, or condition, which holds the space
or concept for the child, or the other, holds the space
or concept, or ideal, or condition, so that the child,
or the other, may return to it, unconditionally,
across time, in time, and out of time’s constructs
I saw light coming through that window
at all hours of the day and night
making shadows on the wall and floor
at angles, a clock. Arcs. Seasons.
I saw light going into that window
going into that house, carrying in groceries
from an asphalt-covered driveway,
impossibly routine, walked
under the window and past it and light
stopped me in my tracks.
I saw light from inside and outside
that window and now
wherever (or very often) I see that window, its
form repeated in however likely or
unlikely a place, I am stopped
in my tracks, or surprised, or feel a pang,
turn-of-the-century-before house,
or pleasure, amazement, wonder, for
concept; I would not be seeing it now
if I weren’t outside the house; I wouldn’t be
seeing it had I not dwelt
inside.
The window gave me a way of looking at light
from within and without
coming inside and going inside
the house, angles, bisected, refracted
divided into partitions, in arcs,
that lasted of some long durations
during the day, morning or afternoon,
or in the middle of the night,
or that were over in an instant –
or patterns that were made on the wall
through that window at that moment
that invited me only to sit or stand
and see it.
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Harmonic Proportions
There is indeed a controlling principle that accounts for the harmonious, balanced character of his design: the secret of good architecture, Brunelleschi was convinced, lay in giving the “right” proportions—that is, proportional ratios expressed in simple whole numbers—to all the significant measurements of a building. The ancients had possessed this secret, he believed, and he tried to rediscover it by painstakingly surveying the remains of their monuments. When he found, and how he applied his theory to his own designs, we do not know for sure. He may have been the first, though, to think out what would be explicitly stated a few decades later in Leone Battista Alberti’s treatise on architecture: that the artithmetical ratios determining musical harmony must also govern architecture, for they recur throughout the universe and are thus Divine in origin. Similar ideas, ultimately derived from the Greek philosophers Pythagoras, had been current during the Middle Ages . . ., but they had never been expressed so radically, directly, and simply. When Gothic architects ‘borrowed’ the ratios of musical theory, they did so with the aid of the theologians and far less consistently than their Renaissance successors. But even Brunelleschi’s faith in the universal validity of harmonious proportions did not tell him how to allot these ratios to the parts of any given building. It left him many alternatives, and his choice among them was necessarily subjective. H.W. Janson, with Dora Jane Janson, History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the Dawn of History to the Present Day |
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Harmonic Proportions
A system of proportions relating architecture to music. The Ancients discovered that if two cords are twanged the difference in pitch will be one octave if the shorter is half the length of the longer, a fifth if one is two thirds the other, and a fourth if the ratio is 3:4. It was therefore assumed that rooms or whole buildings whose measurements followed the ratios 1:2, 2:3, or 3:4 would be harmonious. Early Renaissance architects, notably ALBERTI, seized on this discovery as the key to the beauty of Roman architecture and also to the harmony of the universe. The idea was further developed by PALLADIO who, with the aid of Venetian musical theorists, evolved a far more complex scale of proportions based on the major and minor third – 5:6 and 4:5 – and so on. The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture |
Auditorium Building, Chicago, November 18, 2013
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Auditorium Building, beading and hinge detail, morning, Chicago, December 9, 2013
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Auditorium Building, doors and window, morning, December 9, 2013
Harold Washington Library, Chicago, November 19, 2013
Ogilvie Transportation Center, Chicago, December 9, 2013
Commercial Building, Lunette with Text, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, December 2, 2013
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Lunette, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, December 2, 2013
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Oh night without objects. Oh window muffled on the outside, oh, doors carefully closed; customs that have come down from times long past, transmitted, verified, never entirely understood. Oh silence in the stair-well, silence in the adjoining rooms, silence, up there, on the ceiling. Oh mother, oh one and only you, who faced all this silence, when I was a child.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge |
That window with those quadrants, those segments
seen four seasons over twelve years, with these
eyes, from the inside of the house, from landing,
from top of the stairs, from bottom, from mid-
point, in motion & paused, at night & during
the day, at various hours, had the effect of
removing the chip on my shoulder, of knocking
it off – of tipping it – the scales – until they
fell away again and again through the/ that seeing
through it
inside to out
and now seeing it again from outside to in.
(at intervals and on landscapes – do
not inhabit but am passing through or
by or across)
seen four seasons over twelve years, with these
eyes, from the inside of the house, from landing,
from top of the stairs, from bottom, from mid-
point, in motion & paused, at night & during
the day, at various hours, had the effect of
removing the chip on my shoulder, of knocking
it off – of tipping it – the scales – until they
fell away again and again through the/ that seeing
through it
inside to out
and now seeing it again from outside to in.
(at intervals and on landscapes – do
not inhabit but am passing through or
by or across)
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The means to peace
the means to stillness the way out of my anger is within me – this window |
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closed my eyes
there it was and again, and again northeast, southwest stretched, compressed |
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while living in the house
I saw it; i noticed it oh. perhaps as associate association in others; did I perceive it? unexpectedly find, see again, that medium of double vision |
The son of Piero dalla Gondola he was born in Padua and began humbly as a stone mason, enrolled in the Vicenza guild of bricklayers and stonemasons in 1524. Then, in about 1536, he was taken up by Giangiorgio Trissino, the poet, philosopher, mathematician, and amateur architect, who encouraged him to study mathematics, music, and Latin literature, especially VITRUVIUS, and nicknamed him Palladio (an allusion to the goddess of wisdom and to a character in a long epic poem he was then writing). In 1545 Trissino took him to Rome, where he studied the remains of ancient architecture for two years.
The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture
The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture
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The window gave a way of looking at light
from within and without coming inside and going inside angles, bisected, refracted divided into partitions, in arcs, that lasted of long durations morning or afternoon, or in the middle of the night, or that were over in an instant – patterns that were made on a wall through a window at a moment that invited only to sit or stand and see it. |
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there over the front door of the public library in Raton, New Mexico,
where the descendents walk/went/ is contemplated one of palladio’s namesake windows: center three, two, one/over it |
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The backbone of the window is illumined only at night and then on only one of the walls and only for a moment, for in the time it takes to say this, it is already off-center, off-shoulder of the middle arch, already tangent to its spine, the half-moon already at a tilt against it, only shadow, its echo behind it, a conch shell, an eardrum, in silhouette, its double, in triplicate, moon-defined wakefulness between its radiating and ordered partitions.
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Notes
“Palladio, Andrea (1508–80). The most influential and one of the greatest Italian architects (see PALLADIANISM) . . .” John Fleming, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner, eds., The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1980), 235.
Image of Palladian shape is the iMac hard drive of previous desktop computer.
“‘the immensity of these silent stretches of space! . . .’” Gaston Bachelard, quoting Henri Bosco from Malicroix, in “House and Universe,” The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 43–44.
Leonardo Da Vinci, De Riverberatione / Of Reverberation, 205, “Fifth Book on Light and Shade,” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. I. Compiled and Edited by Jean Paul Richter. (New York: Dover Publications, 1970), 113.
The quotations from Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, can be found on the following pages: “In the tiniest of hatreds, there is a little, live, animal filament.” 44; “And faced with this pack, which generally breaks loose,” 44; “‘but the flexible house stood up to the beast.’” (quoting Henri Bosco, Malicroix) 45; “The inhabitant of La Redousse must dominate solitude in a house on an island where there is no village” 46; “The house acquires the physical and moral energy of the human body.” 46; “In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical space.” 47; “Et l’ancienne maison, / ” Jean Wahl, Poèmes, 48.
“But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes.” Virginia Woolf, “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” The Death of the Moth (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1942), 21–22.
“Belgians re-enter Termonde,” undated photo taken by George Grantham Bain between 1914 and 1915. Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Palladian window on door and grate, 218 e. 17th st. Nyc. May 6, 2013 with cellphone; Palladian window on door and grate, 218 e. 17th st. Nyc May 6, 2013 with cellphone. Information about address sent to self via text message. Information retrieved via email September 10, 2014, as my mother is undergoing knee replacement surgery 9:34–9:35 a.m., having read, and earlier stopped reading, a section on Emilian art, having looked up reference on Palladio via internet on cell phone.
Former Tammany Hall Building, 100 E. 17th Street, New York City. May 6, 2013 with cellphone.
Photos of Old South Meeting House. Taken with cell phone.
Palladian window over the front door of The Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, Raton, New Mexico. Raton is the largest city nearest Dawson, New Mexico, where 263 miners died in on Oct. 22, 1913, in Stag Canyon, Mine 2, and where 123 miners died on Feb. 8, 1923, in a mine explosion in Stag Canyon Mine 1, owned by Phelps Dodge Corp. Among those killed were immigrants from Italy, Greece, Mexico, Austria, France, England, Russia, and Japan.
Sketch of the Palladian window made while writing Obbligato: The Life and Times of Mrs. Francis Home, Towards a Theory of Healing, (In Three Parts). Unpublished manuscript.
“The windows are darkened.” “The windows here block light.” Photos taken with cell phone.
Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet. 23 Rue des Bernardins. Paris.
“Palladio insisted. . .” H.W. Janson, with Dora Jane Janson, History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the Dawn of History to the Present Day (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. and New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), 384–85.
West End Middle School and Gymnasium, eastern side, Nashville, Tennessee. Cellphone, Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, 2013. “West End High School in Nashville, Tennessee, was built by the WPA during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and opened on Sept. 7, 1937 with 823 students in grades 10–12 and 30 faculty members. The school remained a high school until the spring of 1968. . . Since the fall of 1968, West End has served as both a junior high and then as a middle school,. . .” (West End Middle School website, 2014).
“Historic building for sale.” Nashville, Tennessee. Photo taken on iPhone. Division and 17th Avenue South, Music Row. The building was demolished in 2015.
“There is indeed a controlling principle that accounts for the harmonious, balanced character of his design: . . .” Janson & Janson, 1967. 320–21.
“Harmonic Proportions. A system of proportions relating architecture to music. . .” Fleming et al., 1980. 150–51.
“Palladianism,” Fleming et al., 1980. 235.
The Chicago Window, The Auditorium Building. “This architectural treasure is a paradigm of the Chicago School, featuring a steel frame, lightweight terra-cotta exterior, the distinctive three-part “Chicago window,. . .” . . . (http://www.roosevelt.edu/CampusCommunity/Chicago.aspx)
Wrought-iron Lunette. Henry Crown Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago. Photo of lunette and text taken with cell phone Dec. 2, 2013. The text reads: “BURNHAM AND ROOT / Above left: Lunette from the Main Entrance of the Commerical Building, 1885–86 (demolished 1971) / 319 SOUTH LASALLE STREET, CHICAGO WROUGHT IRON Gift of Cleveland Wrecking Company, 1972.812 / The development of LaSalle Street as Chicago’s financial district in the 1880s created a need for speculative office buildings such as the Commerce Building. This particular structure was never a financial success, however, and was converted into a hotel in the 1930s. The lunette, designed by John Wellborn Root, incorporated a spiral, a device he frequently used in his ornamental details. This large-scale lunette was located above the doors at the main entrance to the building.”
“Oh night without objects” Rainer Maria Rilke, Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, in Bachelard, “The Dialects of Outside and Inside,” op. cit. 230.
“The son of Piero dalla Gondola he was born in Padua. . .” Fleming et al., 1980. 235.
“there over the front door of the public library in Raton, New Mexico, /” in Calisto typeface.
“The backbone of the window. . .” from Obbligato: The Life and Times of Mrs. Francis Home, Towards a Theory of Healing, (In Three Parts). Unpublished manuscript.
“Palladio, Andrea (1508–80). The most influential and one of the greatest Italian architects (see PALLADIANISM) . . .” John Fleming, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner, eds., The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1980), 235.
Image of Palladian shape is the iMac hard drive of previous desktop computer.
“‘the immensity of these silent stretches of space! . . .’” Gaston Bachelard, quoting Henri Bosco from Malicroix, in “House and Universe,” The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 43–44.
Leonardo Da Vinci, De Riverberatione / Of Reverberation, 205, “Fifth Book on Light and Shade,” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. I. Compiled and Edited by Jean Paul Richter. (New York: Dover Publications, 1970), 113.
The quotations from Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, can be found on the following pages: “In the tiniest of hatreds, there is a little, live, animal filament.” 44; “And faced with this pack, which generally breaks loose,” 44; “‘but the flexible house stood up to the beast.’” (quoting Henri Bosco, Malicroix) 45; “The inhabitant of La Redousse must dominate solitude in a house on an island where there is no village” 46; “The house acquires the physical and moral energy of the human body.” 46; “In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical space.” 47; “Et l’ancienne maison, / ” Jean Wahl, Poèmes, 48.
“But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes.” Virginia Woolf, “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” The Death of the Moth (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1942), 21–22.
“Belgians re-enter Termonde,” undated photo taken by George Grantham Bain between 1914 and 1915. Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Palladian window on door and grate, 218 e. 17th st. Nyc. May 6, 2013 with cellphone; Palladian window on door and grate, 218 e. 17th st. Nyc May 6, 2013 with cellphone. Information about address sent to self via text message. Information retrieved via email September 10, 2014, as my mother is undergoing knee replacement surgery 9:34–9:35 a.m., having read, and earlier stopped reading, a section on Emilian art, having looked up reference on Palladio via internet on cell phone.
Former Tammany Hall Building, 100 E. 17th Street, New York City. May 6, 2013 with cellphone.
Photos of Old South Meeting House. Taken with cell phone.
Palladian window over the front door of The Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, Raton, New Mexico. Raton is the largest city nearest Dawson, New Mexico, where 263 miners died in on Oct. 22, 1913, in Stag Canyon, Mine 2, and where 123 miners died on Feb. 8, 1923, in a mine explosion in Stag Canyon Mine 1, owned by Phelps Dodge Corp. Among those killed were immigrants from Italy, Greece, Mexico, Austria, France, England, Russia, and Japan.
Sketch of the Palladian window made while writing Obbligato: The Life and Times of Mrs. Francis Home, Towards a Theory of Healing, (In Three Parts). Unpublished manuscript.
“The windows are darkened.” “The windows here block light.” Photos taken with cell phone.
Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet. 23 Rue des Bernardins. Paris.
“Palladio insisted. . .” H.W. Janson, with Dora Jane Janson, History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the Dawn of History to the Present Day (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. and New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), 384–85.
West End Middle School and Gymnasium, eastern side, Nashville, Tennessee. Cellphone, Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, 2013. “West End High School in Nashville, Tennessee, was built by the WPA during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and opened on Sept. 7, 1937 with 823 students in grades 10–12 and 30 faculty members. The school remained a high school until the spring of 1968. . . Since the fall of 1968, West End has served as both a junior high and then as a middle school,. . .” (West End Middle School website, 2014).
“Historic building for sale.” Nashville, Tennessee. Photo taken on iPhone. Division and 17th Avenue South, Music Row. The building was demolished in 2015.
“There is indeed a controlling principle that accounts for the harmonious, balanced character of his design: . . .” Janson & Janson, 1967. 320–21.
“Harmonic Proportions. A system of proportions relating architecture to music. . .” Fleming et al., 1980. 150–51.
“Palladianism,” Fleming et al., 1980. 235.
The Chicago Window, The Auditorium Building. “This architectural treasure is a paradigm of the Chicago School, featuring a steel frame, lightweight terra-cotta exterior, the distinctive three-part “Chicago window,. . .” . . . (http://www.roosevelt.edu/CampusCommunity/Chicago.aspx)
Wrought-iron Lunette. Henry Crown Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago. Photo of lunette and text taken with cell phone Dec. 2, 2013. The text reads: “BURNHAM AND ROOT / Above left: Lunette from the Main Entrance of the Commerical Building, 1885–86 (demolished 1971) / 319 SOUTH LASALLE STREET, CHICAGO WROUGHT IRON Gift of Cleveland Wrecking Company, 1972.812 / The development of LaSalle Street as Chicago’s financial district in the 1880s created a need for speculative office buildings such as the Commerce Building. This particular structure was never a financial success, however, and was converted into a hotel in the 1930s. The lunette, designed by John Wellborn Root, incorporated a spiral, a device he frequently used in his ornamental details. This large-scale lunette was located above the doors at the main entrance to the building.”
“Oh night without objects” Rainer Maria Rilke, Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, in Bachelard, “The Dialects of Outside and Inside,” op. cit. 230.
“The son of Piero dalla Gondola he was born in Padua. . .” Fleming et al., 1980. 235.
“there over the front door of the public library in Raton, New Mexico, /” in Calisto typeface.
“The backbone of the window. . .” from Obbligato: The Life and Times of Mrs. Francis Home, Towards a Theory of Healing, (In Three Parts). Unpublished manuscript.
About the Author
Adria Bernardi is a translator and author of a collection of essays, two novels, a collection of short stories, and an oral history. “sidewalk & other neural networks of well-being,” a multi-genre collection of essays in which “Palladian” is included, is forthcoming from New Rivers Press.
About the Work
This piece began with the premise that I had learned to look at a Palladian window in ways that corresponded to a period of my life in a house where I had had the unexpected good fortune to live for a long period of time. In the researching and writing, I began to see the Palladian window in different moments of time, place, and context and came to understood that that my ways of perceiving had been transformed by living in the presence of this window; it had changed the way I understood inside and outside, dark and light, and the kind of understanding that arrives over time in reverberation. This piece was a long meditation and I tried to reassure myself that a shape would eventually emerge. At moments when I felt discouraged about the endeavor, I would see a Palladian window, sometimes while walking or in text or in a dream. With its formality and aesthetic argument for unity, harmony, and clarity, the window often presented a paradox, appearing in a context that was far from the ideal. Once I understood that the Palladian window as an external form that had become internalized, and which needed to become externalized, I understood the window itself would reveal the form. "Palladian" will appear in a volume of multi-genre essays to be published by New Rivers Press.
Adria Bernardi is a translator and author of a collection of essays, two novels, a collection of short stories, and an oral history. “sidewalk & other neural networks of well-being,” a multi-genre collection of essays in which “Palladian” is included, is forthcoming from New Rivers Press.
About the Work
This piece began with the premise that I had learned to look at a Palladian window in ways that corresponded to a period of my life in a house where I had had the unexpected good fortune to live for a long period of time. In the researching and writing, I began to see the Palladian window in different moments of time, place, and context and came to understood that that my ways of perceiving had been transformed by living in the presence of this window; it had changed the way I understood inside and outside, dark and light, and the kind of understanding that arrives over time in reverberation. This piece was a long meditation and I tried to reassure myself that a shape would eventually emerge. At moments when I felt discouraged about the endeavor, I would see a Palladian window, sometimes while walking or in text or in a dream. With its formality and aesthetic argument for unity, harmony, and clarity, the window often presented a paradox, appearing in a context that was far from the ideal. Once I understood that the Palladian window as an external form that had become internalized, and which needed to become externalized, I understood the window itself would reveal the form. "Palladian" will appear in a volume of multi-genre essays to be published by New Rivers Press.
