17: simulacra and the "grotto-esque"

Over the last century, Western scholarly writing and thought trended towards reinterpreting all phenomena of the universe within a secularized psychological framework. This seduction of Western scientific materialism influenced writers to aestheticize the transcendental, summarizing the grotesque as a mere system of images, Roman ornament or architectural conceit. If the "grotto-esque" is to be condescended, then so too must the brilliant and influential individuals who embraced its stylistic and metamorphic traditions—Ovid, Kafka, Shakespeare, Graham Greene, Descartes, E.M Forester, Alexander Pope and the list continues including royalty (Louis XIV), nobility and clergy across Europe. From this position my thesis seeks to ask not: How did the grotto descend from “residence of the genius” into scorn; but rather, Where have all the grottos gone?

The grotesque is a mode that is, first and foremost, about crossing into a different and transformative order of reality—an enchanted space. My thesis proposes an examination of the grotto as the framework for an enchanted space, a space beyond a simple spatial void, drawn by boundaries of walls, floors and ceilings. A space made real through interaction and inhabitation. The intentions of this thesis are to reintroduce the grotto to contemporary architecture as a poetic work—as a space that is at once both mundane and extraordinary, a space that blends technology and myth into an enchanted space. Like the proscenium of the theatre, the grotto is a metaphorical portal, a place of passage— “to enter is to acknowledge the distance between outside and inside, between reality and illusion” .

Homunculus inhabits the realm of the "grotto-esque". The puppet's suggestive power is linked to its paradoxical status: while it is an inanimate object, its appeal depends on its seeming ability to "live." What is most interesting about the puppet, from an architectural standpoint, is the interplay between its elements and gravity. The inter-relationship between the strings in tension and the load of the puppet creates a parametric situation where when one part moves, the rest follow suit in a predictable manner. This dynamic system reveals how responsive architectonic scaled elements might become gesture. Such architecture becomes something that both changes over time and responds to changes in time.

NEXT STEPS
1. Readings: Richard Sennett's The Fall of Public Man.
2. Researching the contemporary grotto: elevators.

image credit: Monster's mouth. http://www.lindalappin.net/images