I Went for a Drive

To start, I’d just like to state that the only way I can write this is informally. I initially had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to focus on, but over the last few months, I’ve been having doubts. I guess this is part of the process, but even so, I wish I had something more concrete to start the term.

It began about a year ago when I read two stories. The first was a short story by Borges: The Library of Babel. Borges wrote about a near-infinitely vast library, which contains all possible combinations of characters of a certain language bound in a series of 410-page books. In this library you’ll find everything ever written, and everything that ever could be written. He goes on to describe the architectural qualities of the space, and how the arrangement and circulation work. Borges even submitted corrections to later editions of the story when certain flaws in his description of the space were pointed out. I think what struck me about this story was how Borges took a very pragmatic and architectural approach to describing something impossible. This library, should it be built, would occupy a space larger than the observable universe. Someone did the math (not me).
   The second story is actually a series of short stories: Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. I’ll spare you the drawn out description, but essentially Calvino tells a series of vignettes that span the entire history of the universe, and the every-evolving characters are eons old - maybe a dinosaur in one story, or a subatomic particle in the next. Here again I was taken by the way he describes the impossible in very straightforward ways. An anthropomophized point in space experiencing the big bang is told with as much fanfare as if a man sipping coffee on a terrace.
   Had I not read both of these stories within a brief time span, I would not be writing this today. I’m interested less in the contents of each story than the places my mind created whilst reading them. What I hoped to explore during my thesis, at least initially, was the power of the mind to create space, and possibly explore how to visualize it. What exactly am I seeing when Calvino puts impossible imagery in my head? Or, Can Borges’ Library exist in any meaningful way? Obviously the answer wouldn’t be with a physical building—but what, then?
   These are the topics I was fairly certain I’d want to explore. And because I thought a large part of this thesis would involve visualization, I wanted to look into coding and VR as possible visual aids. Other themes I wanted to explore involved ideas of repetition in architecture and other media as a means to imply infinity, and borders or frames as containers for objects or concepts that extend well beyond them.

And as I write this, I’m starting to realize how much I’ve actually thought about this and that, well, this actually doesn’t sound so bad. So where does my doubt come from? For one, in our 4B modernism class, we were asked to write about a topic of our choice as a term research paper. It was fairly extensive in scope and the point was to get a taste of what we’d be doing in Masters. I chose to write about Virtual Architecture, to get a taste of what I’d be doing in Masters. I spent a lot of time exploring how different philosophers define space and the virtual, from Kant to Deleuze. But then I started to look into more modern writers and thinkers and their thoughts about technology and where architecture was heading, and man, I got discouraged. I wasn’t able to read anything that didn’t sound like middle-aged men who still think of VR as something from a bad 1980s sci-fi movie. Maybe I didn’t have the right sources or I was barking up the wrong tree entirely, but my thesis idea started to feel dated. The research was interesting, but the practical application didn’t excite me.
   The second reason for doubting is that, well, I fucking hate staring at computers all day. For those of you who know me a little, I’ve generally never been one to wow people with fancy graphics and I haven’t explored much in the way or parametric design or fabrication. I generally build things. I’ve built models for all of my major studio projects, and they’ve often spoken worlds more than my drawings - which, I’d like to think aren’t bad, just maybe a lacking a little soul. And more recently, during the last two months, I’ve spent more time in front of my computer than I could bear. This lead to the decision to build a way-way-way too big model for my final presentation, as a reaction to my digital fatigue. I didn’t quite finish it on time and I’m actually still working on it as I write this. But I did realize that I enjoy working with my hands enormously. And so I started to think about what I wanted to spend the next year or two doing? Did I really want to be sitting in front of my computer, chipping away at a topic that I barely found interesting anymore? Or can I maybe explore something else, something physical and tangible, something I can craft with my hands.

I’m starting to ramble, I think, and so I’ll answer some of your more specific questions now.

What key ideas interest you?
    I think I’ve covered this. I just want to add that I don’t necessarily think these two ideas are mutually exclusive, I just want to explore if I can shift my focus away from the digital.

What reference sources can help to inform your thesis? What particular disciplines might be involved? Can you suggest a preliminary bibliography?
   Please see the bibliography I’ve added, which contains sources from my term paper on Virtual Architecture as well as some books I’ve personally looked into.

What is the balance of design and writing that you imagine including in your thesis?
   I think in either scenario, I’d probably hover around a 60/40 writing-to-design ratio. I don’t know that the end result would be a singular artifact.

Can you identify existing discussions relating to your interests? How might you imagine contributing to those discussions?
   This was the number one source of my doubts. I was not able to find existing discussions that I thought related to my thesis or, more importantly, discussions I would want to contribute to. I’d really like some help here, because I don’t think my initial topic is inherently flawed, and I’d be more than willing to explore it further if I found a proper direction. It’s pretty clear just from writing this summary that my first topic is more fleshed out. At the same time, it’s been at the back of my mind for the last year, so it had quite a head start on the second topic, which I don’t want to abandon either.

So these are my confused thoughts. I hope this was helpful, and I apologize for rambling. I tend to come off a bit cynical, but I’m honestly very excited to start the semester and explore these ideas with you.

Thank you for reading¹.


Marco Chimienti
16.08.16

1. This is where I started, and re-reading it is something of a revelation. Despite what Don has called “confident doubt”, I seemed more sure of myself then. I don’t know what changed over the last few months. For the first half, I was getting closer and closer, I think, to figuring it all out. And then something happened, something unexpected and unwelcome, and I was back to, or close to, square one. Maybe this is all just distraction. Maybe I’ve found the ultimate way to work a lot and say very little. Or maybe this is just something I need to get out of my system. There are a lot of maybes, each one leading me further and further away from clarity. This whole endeavor a series of maybes. A series of what-ifs. Thinly veiled parables with no lessons to be learned. Beginnings with no ends. There are no ends because I’m no good at endings, and if the last few months have taught me anything, it’s that I’m not very good at beginnings either.