the symmetry of Aldo Rossi's handrails
by eamon byrne
It would be another difference a building has from a “sculpture”. It would be something that even photographers would have difficulty in disguising, since many modern buildings, even many modern photographs of buildings, place such emphasis on symmetry. For both architects and photographers, because the geometry of cubes and simple curves leads the eye along lines of least resistance, it would seem natural to focus on this property of cubes and curves. So we notice the proportionate grid of windows, the curved roof, the patterned facade. Unfortunately this striving for perfect proportion can be a bit of a chimera. The perfect symmetry of the frontal facade of Aldo Rossi's tower placed so perfectly in the centre of that palazzo, led up to by those perfectly positioned granite steps, will be always just slightly satirised by that pair of polished steel handrails, not to mention that kiosk parked out front selling coffee. Sooner or later the steel handrails will have become scuffed steel handrails pushed slightly off-centre by people leaning against them while they pause to prise the lids off their paper cups. Admittedly this can't always be blamed on the architect. The handrails will have probably been a council add-on. Then again it can't be blamed on pictures either. Perhaps later, when you will look at the modern photograph you took, with your cellphone, on your notebook, when you are home, up high in your condo, overlooking the plaza, the handrails will look just a tad non-symmetrical because you had the camera just a tad too far to the left when you tripped the shutter. At least you had a camera. So you will have evidence — for when you want to look at it again, and think about it, the imperfect symmetry. For the rest of us, in real life our eyes aren't placed on a perfectly placed tripod. Those handrails will tend to look even more out of place as we walk by in real time, about 8 am, in the quiet morning, if we were to notice them. But probably we don't notice them, the symmetry of the handrails coming, existing for a split second, then going again. At the very moment we should be noticing the perfect symmetry of Aldo Rossi's handrails, other things are undoubtedly on our minds. Although it's unlikely that one of them is that these handrails might be the council's handrails. For we are absorbed by the aroma of the coffee coming from under the lids of our paper cups. And anyway not many people tend to think of things like this — the symmetry of Aldo Rossi's handrails — this early in the morning. Unless for the sudden loudness. When then we see that the scuffed rail is running with someone's blood. And we drop our paper cups and now we are among the many running in all directions away from Aldo Rossi's handrails, across the plaza.
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On the basis of this account, I begin to suspect some member of the council spent time sharpening those steel handrails (unless it were Aldo Rossi . . . .)
Architecture as satiric touchstone works splendidly here and keeps attention on the palazzo (its tower and handrails) and its coffee-guzzling visitors.
(Giving the coffee kiosk a demonstrative façade or aspirational flourish of its own could enhance effects if handled as deftly as the rest of the piece.)
"Sooner or later the steel handrails will have become scuffed steel handrails pushed slightly off-centre by people leaning against them while they pause to prise the lids off their paper cups. Admittedly this can't always be blamed on the architect. The handrails will have probably been a council add-on."
Quite amusing and entertaining.
Great piece, Eamon.
"And we drop our paper cups and now we are among the many running in all directions away from Aldo Rossi's handrails, across the plaza."
*
Excellent.
So deftly done, this, with its slippery point of view, the subtle shifts of focus, the sense that we are reading one thing, then something else entirely--but what, exactly?--and the underlying content which seems to be talking about architecture, then distraction, or possibly obsession. And then the shift into real time, when we are jolted into the awful present where the meaning may be the suppressed fear, omnipresent. A terrific piece, it goes without saying.
At first glance this looked to be too dense and esoteric for my pedestrian taste. It took David Ackley's insightful comment to entice me to give it more than a glance. I agree with him. Fascinating read.
Thank you all for the kind comments. This piece was excerpted from an old essay on an Aldo Rossi building which is in Japan. The shift at the end was suggested by the random nature of public shootings in the United States.
One thing that just occurred to me in response to your comment was the juxtaposition of order and chaos in the modern world that your piece invokes. In one way, it can seem that some forms of order can seem to facilitate chaos. Our children, herded into enclosed spaces are convenient targets for the berserk. And that hotel in Las Vegas! How nicely arranged for a mass shooter, with its high multiple vantage points, its oversight of crowds, its protection for the shooter--almost as if its peculiar order opened an inviting door to the chaos minded, as if the architect had designed in the antithesis of the order it seemed to embody.
Indeed. Chaos overlaid with design. The architect sees a building as one opportunity, the shooter as another.
Interesting discussion. Perhaps a whole new school of "security conscious" architecture will arise if this chaotic trend continues. From Bauhaus to Madhouse.
Oh, I like this. Reminds me of the Robbe-Grillet school of New Realism, measuring distances between objects. It resonates, packs a punch effortlessly. Lovely to read.
. . . not many people tend to think of things like this . . .
Thank you Mathew, Dianne, Beate.
Mathew, I note that plazas or open public spaces figure prominently in prominent US shootings, ie Dealey Plaza & Las Vegas Strip. It's inevitable that shooters will use high places. No fault of architecture. Dianne, thanks for picking up on the similarity with Robbe-Grillet, one of my favourite writers.