The Modernists

Architecture and literature are significant and distinctive forms of artistic expression demonstrating the traditions and characteristics of their own. However, the relation between them excels the superficial difference in the final form of their creative process. They are interrelated not only by the underlying structure, but also by their ability to generate complex meanings. This interrelation is particularly interesting to explore in the creative process of writing fiction and deliberately focusing on architectural spaces. In my novel, The Modernists, I employ architectural structures to establish and intensify the central themes and literary meanings to test the ways that architecture, urban space and literature can be brought together in fiction. Accompanied by a commentary, the excerpts from the finished novel presents a story told through the prism of architecture. Keywords: architecture, creative writing, interdisciplinary research, semiotics

Ut Architectura Poesis

This chapter investigates the analogy between architecture and literature, exploring the metaphors of the analogy and focusing on British examples. Renaissance architectural theory drew analogies with music, painting, or poetry, and developed these in progressively greater detail. The Horatian doctrine ut pictura poesis was restated in terms of architecture. The chapter then looks at shared number symbolisms. Numbers shared gave the ut architectura poesis doctrine a demonstrable basis. The chapter also considers the symmetry, analogies, and allegory in Renaissance poetry. It explores Renaissance shape poems, as well as the metaphor of the Renaissance frontispiece, which often resembled architectural (especially theatrical) façades. Finally, it examines the importance of Solomon’s Temple in the temple–poem metaphor.

Building Bridges: The Modes of Architecture

The crossing of borders between architecture and literature has been scrutinized under various scopes. However, the two media types are rarely studied together in terms of “architectural ekphrasis”. The aim of this chapter is to elaborate on this notion by investigating the modes of architecture. To achieve that goal, the author counts on architecture as a medium, as suggested by Patrick Schumacher. Since the limited amount of architectural media traits that are likely to be satisfactorily transmediated by literature are not fully identified by the parameters of already consolidated pictorial models, the author also uses Elleström’s model for analyzing media transformations. The four modalities of media, along with their qualifying aspects, are the backbone of an interpretative framework proposed to explore the presence of architecture in literature. The chapter also leans on the notions of embodiment and perspective.

Poetry, Modern Architecture and Avant-Garde

Writer and poet J.V. Foix had a very prominent role in Catalan culture, especially in the Avant-gardes period in early 20th century. However, it is not well known his involvement in architecture shown by several articles written after he visited the V Triennale in Milan (1933) that were later published in the volume Mots i maons o a cascú el seu. Part of Foix’s work can be considered a critical interpretation of architecture from a literary point of view. Besides a general approval of modernist and Avant-garde architecture, his writings reflect a surprisingly mature conception of architecture that anticipates relevant opinion that both in Italy and in Spain would address architecture theoretical works after World War II. Most likely Foix came into direct contact with the Modern Movement while he was visiting the V Triennale and there he realized the potential of ‘crosswise’ interests between architecture and literature and especially between the international context and Spain.

“Ars sine scientia” or rather “Ars sine geometria”? The debate of 1400 on the elevation of Milan cathedral

The construction of Milan Cathedral from 1386 was one of the most important episodes in the history of Italian and European architecture because of the uniqueness of the building itself — the largest Gothic church ever constructed in Italy — and because of the presence of some of the most authoritative architects of the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries in Europe (Lombard, French, German).The documentation about the discussions on how to build the Duomo in the late Trecento and early Quattrocento, especially on the structural choices to be made and the different Lombard and Northern building-site practices, made famous to English readers in a celebrated article by James Ackerman, is extraordinarily rich and extensive, permitting considerations on the relationship between medieval architectural ideals and an actual project.The paper focuses on the famous discussions of 1400, in part a re-run of those of 1392. It will be argued that famous criticism by the French expert Jean Mignot of Milanese architects involving the terms ars and scientia could have a very different meaning from the one generally accepted in the literature. Consequently, it will result that Mignot wanted to return to the original project proposed by Gabriele Stornaloco, which embodied the desired correspondence between the sacred architecture and the perfect God’s world.All of which, could be of some interest to medievalists in general, and to those concerned with architectural theory and with the relationship between Gothic architecture and literature in particular.

LITERARY ARCHITECTURE

Architecture and Literature are the social forms of art peculiar to the mankind. Architecture creates a story with a thread of spaces whereas Literature builds a visual representation of a place with words. They have been practiced together from ancient times in order to leverage the experience of users in their respective fields. The primary purpose of the research is to study the amalgamation of these domains of art in order to enhance the prospects of designing in a better-experienced way. Architects and Writers work on the same base with an alike goal and, Architectural concepts could be kindled and inspired by anything in the world henceforth, it could be stimulated by novels and narrations of literature. Thus, the result and conclusion would be exploring an exercise and posing an example of the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, manifested by the literature review and case studies, henceforth triggering the thoughts of future evolution and enhancement of practice on the topic