Student Work
1∕2
Title
Teleologies of the architectural surface via Borromini
Project Description
This suggests an open, proto-parametric logical system that can sustain the constant redefinition of form, space, volume, order and meaning. This openness also anticipates that not every aspect of the church would be worked out completely in any given stage of its evolution. Such a system produces generative potential and compels architectural innovation in most unlikely realms. This type of openness would only be conceptualized in logic and mathematics later in the 17th century by figures like Gottfried Leibniz.
In the algorithm, as the column diameter attains a particular value, it leads to the elimination of a set of columns. Inversely, the columns are willed into existence by values of specific parameters rather than only classical principles of columns. On further increasing the values of the diameter, the remaining pairs of columns coalesce into apses and the lozenge morphs into a lobed octagon—the first figure drawn by Borromini. The interchangeability of the elements redefines their fundamental genetic properties and their functional/structural roles in the scheme.
These modifications were driven by questions of urbanity and the building site; and also by intensive formal properties of columns and apses. By reverse engineering the code implicit, a pseudo-algorithmic intuition in Borromini’s design process and thinking emerges. His artistic intelligence itself functioned algorithmically and parametrically. With animated algorithms, not only can all the possible iterations and generative potential in the design process be computed but also visualized. The animations represent a form of spatial dynamism that is created not only by rhythmic elements on a surface but as a result of a kinetic design process manifest spatially as affectively instable, fragile and tenuous conditions of the architectural surface.