Étienne-Louis Boullée

Cenotaph for Newton during the Night

Bibliotheque Nationale

Basilique

Museum

Monument for Vittorio Emanuele II

Boullée was a French architect (1728-1799) who did not actually manage to build anything. That is, none of his monumental designs you can see above. He did build some residential buildings in Paris of which only one (supposedly) survives: L’hôtel Alexandre at n°16 rue de la Ville l’Évêque.

Boullée was a visionary. Yet, it seems that his designs were grandiose, too megalomaniac to be built, even though he lived under Louis XV and XVI. To my knowledge, only the fascist period in Italy and Germany and the Communist rule in the USSR saw such an upsurge in monumental architecture. Only under absolutist regents, monumental architecture seems to thrive. Without having built much, Boullée was largely forgotten. Only in the 20th century he was rediscovered – although also today, he remains fairly unknown among the general public. Peter Greenaway has dedicated a film to the French architect.

In The Belly of an Architect (1987) by Peter Greenaway a fictitious American architect attempts to organize an exhibition on Boullée – on the monument for the Italian king Vittorio Emmanuele II in Rome, of all places. Quite an amusing film, but not very profound.

For an excellent (online) exhibition of Boullée’s designs, visit the Bibliothèque nationale de France. For more information on Boullée, Wikipedia in English and French (for more information).

Thermae Caracallae

A reconstruction of the frigidarium, the cold baths, to be found in the four corners of the room.

Pennsylvania station, how it used to be. Based on reconstructions of Caracalla’s thermal baths.

Farnese Hercules

Many people miss out on one of the most impressive monuments of Rome: The Baths of Caracalla. They are situated at the beginning of the Via Appia, about a 10 minutes walk from the Circus Maximus. With a height of up to 40 metres, the Baths of Caracalla form one of the highest remaining monuments of imperial Rome and remain one of the most impressive.

The main bath complex, without the surrounding walls and gardens, was completed within only four years: from 212 until 216 at least 7,200 men must have been working on the project every single day, at peaks even up to 10,000, most of them unpaid slaves, of course. To gain an impression of the rich decoration, one can visit S. Maria degli Angeli e degli Martiri, built into the baths of Diocletian at Piazza della Repubblica. All kinds and colours of marble were used, even marble columns of up to 60 tons were transported all the way from Egypt. Furthermore, statues decorated the many niches. In the palestrae, the courts where the men were showing off their muscles lifting weights, the Farnese Hercules probably served them as inspiration. That most impressive statue today is to be found in the Museo Nazionale in Naples.

For the most comprehensive study of the baths, see Janet DeLaine, The Baths of Caracalla. A study in the design, construction, and economics of large-scale building projects in imperial Rome (Portsmouth 1997).

Mapping History – Gert Jan Kocken

Depictions of Berlin – Gert Jan Kocken

Depictions of Amsterdam 1940-45 – Exhibition – Gert Jan Kocken

Depictions of Amsterdam 1940-45 – Detail – Gert Jan Kocken

Gert Jan Kocken, an Amsterdam-based artist, has produced a series of photographs/maps/collages/artworks of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Berlin. In the multilayered maps, he combines information from historical sources, such as Albert Speer’s development plans for Berlin, maps of the division of the German capital in 1945 or government maps of Amsterdam marking the living quarters of Jews called the ‘dot map’, indications of escape routes, food aid, unexploded bombs and notes. He creates a highly interesting and deeply disturbing collage of the history of these cities – at the same time a work of art, historical document, interpretation, and ‘analysis’. Kocken made extensive research and visited numerous archives to produce these artworks. To a certain extent, then, it is a combination of science and art, although the product is quite different from anything scientists would produce. It is more of a subjective interpretation, which might, however, come closer to the situation during the war, as Saskia van der Kroef states in her review of the 2010 exhibition:

“Aiming to approach through photography what he defines as “an almost objective truth,” Kocken deliberately complicated his city map images – the nearest he could get, arguably, to the multifaceted situation during the war and occupation. As for the other works in the show, objectivity and distance are summoned not only by a singular use of scale, but also by a just recognition and perfected application of the neutralizing potential of the medium.” Saskia van der Kroef, artforum magazine in 2010.

Possibly, science, art, and society could be drawn more closely together: one research project could result in several ‘products’; apart from the usual scientific article also a more readable article for the general public and an artwork could be made. It might make science more comprehensible to the general public, while at the same time providing the more creative scientists with an outlet for their creative nerve.

More images of Berlin or Amsterdam and Rotterdam on Gert Jan Kocken’s website.

I obtained all information from Kroef’s review and the website of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam.