RECLAIMING SHADOWS
Architecture · Memory · Thresholds · 2022
An essay examining shadow, fragmentation and the unconscious through Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery, using psychoanalysis and visual abstraction to explore how architecture carries memory.
Shadows are fascinating architectural instruments of form and composition. By delving into Rossi’s ‘shadow-making ’, the importance of reclaiming shadows within architecture, against the backdrop of their deeper cultural context, will be explored through a post-Freudian perspective. As the Japanese author Tanizaki once expressed, ‘modern man, in his well-lit house, knows nothing of the beauty of gold’ (1977, p.36). Through this study, the relevance of reclaiming shadows in the context of future city development will be discussed, considering what role shadows can adopt as we advance further into the garish light of the modern age.
This argument is an amalgamation of a twofold critique. First, the importance of the architect reclaiming shadows within their practice. The second is a critique of the idea that the San Cataldo Cemetery at Modena is an embodiment of the unconscious design intention of Aldo Rossi (1931-1997). The relationship between theory and practice is established through the analysis of Rossi’s architectural practice, informed by Freud’s theories on dreams. The scope of this analysis is limited to Freud’s dream interpretation, attempting to make the unconscious mind tangible. Here, the analysis of Freudian theory provides a basis to critique the unconscious reasoning behind the language of shadows within Rossi's architectural practice. The enquiry is limited to the analysis of the shadow imagery within such representation, focusing on the central ossuary at his San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, Italy.
Through analysing the life and work of the Italian architect and theorist Aldo Rossi (1902-72), the importance of engaging with the collage and the fragment will be critiqued. The Cemetery at San Cataldo was arguably the masterpiece which catalysed his Pritzker Prize win (1990), with the construction starting in 1976 and culminating in 1997. However, the cemetery remains unfinished today and exists on a plot of 60,000 square metres located north-west of the original cemetery.
SHADOWS OF THE IN-BETWEEN
The shadow has been described as a symbol of the unconscious mind. Freudian psychoanalysis could provide insight into the unconscious mind of Aldo Rossi through analysing his drawings and architecture. Klein (1959) stresses the important influence of the unconscious within art and the activities of everyday life, particularly in the development of symbol formation and object analysis. Additionally, the unconscious is presented as an instrumental part of the development of the frontal cortex, known as the creative centre of the brain.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is known as the ‘father’ of psychoanalysis. His analysis of dreams and their relationship to the unconscious has been central to the development of psychoanalytic study. He pioneered this in the twentieth century, and he aimed to communicate how the mind processes unconscious thoughts and emotions during sleep. It was articulated that the dream is not an unconscious thought, but instead reveals the structures of the unconscious (Freud 1995), proving the existence of unconscious thought (Hendrix and Holm 2017) and providing a portal into the inner workings of the mind. Moreover, dreams are said to transcend the rational tools of reason, and the transportation of dream images (the unconscious activity not remembered) and dream thoughts (remembered upon waking) is where ‘imagination’ is generated, in Freud’s opinion. Dreams encapsulate “the haunted house of the mind” (Mahon 2005), representing a world of imagination and repressed human desire:
The dream provides a kind of physical consummation for the wish that has been suppressed...
but it also satisfies the other agency by allowing sleep to continue. (Freud 2018, p. 69).
As thinking does not occur in dreams themselves, logic within dreams exists separately from the conscious waking brain. Mahon (2005) argues that a dream, therefore, is a piece of psychological architecture. So, therefore it could be argued that the ‘dream-working’ architect can be said to subconsciously disguise their design intent within the language of form. The shadows of the unconscious prevail in Freud’s dreamscapes, and are indeed critical to the thinking - and therefore, making - process.
THE ANALOGICAL CITY
Rossi’s practice was central in structuring the language of architecture that evolved during the 1970s. He argued that in order to understand the structural language and grammar of a city, a typological framework was essential. The city was described by Rossi as a “historical text” (2007), and only through understanding type could the grammar of the city be explained.
This concept of ‘type’ describes a collective memory, as the architectural object is said to create a dialogue that connects object to city. Typology is the basic principle for architectural imagination, where types and architectural elements become material for transformation (McEwan 2020). Through this, the idea of the analogical city was configured, with the notion of analogy that is represented through fragmented parts of whole objects. These conceptual ideas were materialised through Rossi’s drawings, through which his unconscious shadow imagery is embodied. Rossi uses the ‘analogy’ to place reality within the imaginative sphere, where a language of elements is revealed through abstracting shadows. These drawings define the language of Rossi’s shadows, reduced to a ‘grammar’ of essential typological elements. Through the analogy of shadow, he expressed his detachment from the modern world through the fragmented relationship of object and subject within his drawings (Koo, Kim and Sul 2002).
Trying to further understand this idea, a series of analytical drawings were produced to dissect the shadow imagery of Rossi's architectural forms and typologies. Through the initial Composition 01, it was found that by separating the drawing L’Architecture assassinée into its primary elements, a different language of form is revealed. In L’Architecture assassinée, specific elements are repeated through methods of layering, addition, subtraction, erasure, exposure and scaling. Once these fragments are removed from the density of the original composition, their repetition becomes more legible, revealing a formal grammar constructed from recurring typological elements. Windows, walls, roofs and other architectural fragments no longer operate as components of a complete building, but instead as isolated signs within a larger visual language. This abstraction reinforces Rossi’s understanding of the city as a historical text, in which architectural types are repeatedly transformed and recombined across time. By reducing the drawing to these fragments, the relationship between memory and form becomes more explicit: each element appears to carry traces of another architectural condition, while simultaneously being displaced from its original context. The drawing therefore operates less as a representation of a single place and more as an accumulation of fragments, held together through analogy, repetition and memory.
THE GRAMMAR OF SHADOW
Such methods of repeating shadows can be further defined through understanding how San Cataldo Cemetery evolved. Through deconstructing his drawings that underpin the scheme, the acute sense of the fragmentary is revealed. Hendrix and Holm argue that the unconscious can be seen clearly, as long as the evolution of the idea is clearly defined (2017). However, Lobsinger takes this a step further, arguing that the repeated fragments themselves can be psychoanalytically interpreted. These can provide the freedom to discover new ideas from an existing form; as to repeat is to achieve difference (2002). Furthermore, for McEwan, repetition represents the multitude, embodying the collective life of the city and the incompleteness of the individual subject. I position my argument between these perspectives, as these disconnected shadow fragments could represent Rossi’s expression of unconscious reasoning. This is described through Rossi’s shift from conscious rationality to unconscious irrationality, embodied through symbolic and figurative language revealed through reducing his drawings to their shadow part-objects. Moreover, Rossi’s intentions could reflect his personal suffering in feeling isolated from a modern world he was attempting to reject, equating death with the repressed desire for his youth.
This idea of death can be further dissected within the architecture of the main Ossuary. Existing within the south of the plan, it appears as a flushed pink cubic sanctuary made up of a series of cells that house the caskets of the dead. According to Rossi, this roofless red cube symbolises an abandoned house, a motif repeated throughout the cemetery (Seixas Lopes 2015). Rossi’s deliberately unadorned, stripped-back forms are almost menacing in their intimacy with the dead, as the ossuary evokes a nakedness that is reminiscent of human flesh. Indeed, Mozzato (2018) refers to geometrical forms that enable a type of dream-space to be experienced through a silent and figurative language of analogical images where symbolism is replaced by meaning.
However, Scully (1981) views this simplification of elements as indirect representation, comparable to the pictorial embodiments of Freud's dream work. That is, his forms have a dreamlike quality that describes memory within the unconscious. I suggest that these simplified and fragmentary analogical forms allude to Rossi’s idealised utopia of the analogical city he aimed to represent at San Cataldo Cemetery, described as his own urban poché (Rowe 2005). Here, imagination replaces physical architecture and Rossi’s unconscious desire for a timeless city ripples from his architectural forms. This could reflect Freud's idea that the suppressed desire saturates the unconscious dreaming process (2018).
Moreover, the physical structure of San Cataldo can be used to further analyse the quality of Rossi’s repressed desire for the ‘timeless city’. In 1972, Rossi analogised the design for the Cemetery of San Cataldo after a serious car accident. During recovery, he obtained “a painful awareness of (his) own bones” (Rossi 1981, p. 11). Additionally, Sexias Lopes (2015) says that the structure of the ossuary consists of many tombs, evoking the body of a man and the ribs of a skeleton. It stands as a house of death without window frames or interior floors and stripped of every element apart from its masonry bones. Additionally, Mahon (2005) contextualised this observation, as, for him, structure represents the body, containing a ‘skin’ facade and internal organs.
This idea is pushed further through deconstructing Rossi’s drawing shown in Composition 03. Here, these structural elements could otherwise represent something far less concrete and instead more abstract. Debatably, when these fragmented and dislocated shadows are revealed through removing the context of the building, an unconscious language can be more clearly evidenced. I argue that through this, perhaps Rossi attempts to push the imagination of the viewer further, presenting isolated fragments that are continually repeated and altered. This, in turn, could be reflective of Rossi’s desire to create a distinct framework for the future development of the city, communicating the importance of reclaiming shadows. Only when architecture is presented through this language can the subject take on a clear configuration, challenging the current architectural crisis within a world Rossi defines as one that “cannot be repaired, a world of psychological and human fragments” (Kite 2017, p. 211).
DREAMWORK AND FRAGMENTATION
Furthermore, the quality of Rossi’s Shadows can be defined through Freud’s perception of dreams, and what hidden meanings they contain. Lobsinger argues that such repeated analogised images are intended to stimulate the viewer's unconscious understanding, through taking previous historical ideas and situating them in the present (2002). This could represent Freud’s concept of the dream as a symbolic language of repressed desires (1955), and the repetition of shadow forms could represent Rossi’s wish to fulfil unrealised desire. This is built upon by Dumitrescu, who presents Freud’s belief that the unconscious is represented through a symbolic language that originates from the quality of the dreaming process, where hidden ideas are concealed (2019). However, Rossi’s repetition of analogised images could instead symbolise his lack of fulfilment experienced in the present, and encapsulate his yearning for the creation of a dream world. This is presented through individual shadow fragments divorced from their original context. So perhaps, the chaotic repetition in his drawings could reflect Rossi’s yearning for a utopian city, a timeless place of the dead. This could represent unconscious anxiety within himself, confronting moral and social degradation in a war-torn society and a feverish postmodern city.
Additionally, Scully (1981) argues that Rossi’s architectural forms have a dreamlike quality, as he selects repeated shapes from a “repository of memory” of the city (Rossi 2007). He argues this quality is sourced from the abstracted impression of these shadowy forms, and Kite (2017) supports this concept by analysing how Rossi’s analogous compositions were situated in a place where architecture ends and a world of imagination begins: a dream world. However, Freud highlighted that when we dream, we are placed into the psyche of our true selves, grounded firmly in reality:
In dreams is truth: in dreams we learn to know ourselves as we are in spite of all the disguises we wear to the world, [whether they be ennobling or humiliating]. . . . (Freud 1995, p. 94).
It can be argued that engaging with the dark and the fragmented is linked to dreaming. Glover (2009) argues for the clarifying quality of the shadow through the projection of unconscious fantasy upon the creative process. In contrast, Caneva diverges from dreaming, as she argues that the fragments of reality are meaningfully connected to lived experience, as “(Rossi’s) thoughts, his dreams, his feelings, are blocked in the self-reference of the drawn or built shapes” (2018, p.2). Here, she states Rossi creates a ‘fantastical’ reality to inspire authenticity and wonder within the cemetery. Although she supports the idea of ‘authentic’ creativity, she diverges from the presence of unconscious fantasy. She joins Stokes in counteracting Freud’s assumption that “the artist is originally a man who turns from reality” (1945, p.179). Both Stokes and Caneva stipulate that Rossi’s silent shadows instead represent real conscious thought, not the unconscious.
Through deconstructing his representational drawings of the project, I think Rossi consciously shifts his architectural intention into the unconscious realm. This could partially reflect his personal struggle to process the unfolding chaos of a war-torn society within the twentieth century, compounded by advancing further into a digitalised world saturated with processes of excess. Nevertheless, San Cataldo arguably exists as a dreamscape of Rossi’s own mended fragments. It appears to communicate his analogical ideas through not what is said, but what is left unsaid, within the silent language of his shadows.
CONCLUSION
By using the framework of ideas posed in Freud’s analysis of dreams, the language of Rossi’s shadows can arguably justify the importance of reclaiming shadows within the contemporary city. Through understanding the mechanisms of the unconscious, Rossi was trying to communicate a material grammar of the city through his language of shadows. He achieves this through abstraction of shadow within his architectural representation, creating a unique grammar to structure the city. Thus, it is only when architecture is developed as a language, and therefore defined through grammatical rules, that a subject or object can be clearly defined. This is in order to challenge the fragmentary chaos of a post-war urban landscape, defined by an anxious state of physical and moral disintegration. Through the lens of Freud’s dreamwork, it is highlighted that Rossi’s shadow language defines his repressed desire for the timeless city, a dream world far away from the feverish and fragmented condition of the contemporary urban sphere. In addition, the language of repeated typological shadow forms represents Rossi’s desire to create an alternate framework for the future development of the city. This communicates the importance of ‘reclaiming shadow’ to oppose the alienation of the modern city. This attempts to prevent a dysfunctional architectural condition, aggravated by advancing into an age of digitalised drawings and processes.
Perhaps through engaging with a part of our repressed selves, we can obtain a higher perception of the world around us, as designers and as human beings. The production of dreams, the city and architectural spaces are embodied by the psychic, social and spatial relationships that stitch them together. Therefore, shadows are argued to communicate authenticity, providing an oceanic well of creativity. In summary, shadows play a monumental role in architecture, urging that without darkness, light cannot be described.
SELECTED REFERENCES
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