Superimposition of actual church and digital recreation. Rendered in V-Ray for Rhinoceros, composited in Photoshop.
Instruments of Passion | Rome, Italy
The work presented here was done during an intensive analysis studio completed on site in Rome, Italy. Through an in-depth study of a piece of the architectural canon (in this case, Francesco Borromini’s 1646 San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane) as well as the greater urban context of the city, students were meant to fully immerse themselves in the genealogy of architecture that forms the foundation of the contemporary discourse, so as to better understand how to shape it into the future. This culminated in a proposal for an evolution of the existent piece of Roman architecture—an evolution in the sense of an alternate, unrealized version of the work, rather than a potential future construction.
Urban Site: Rome
Local Site: Quirinal Hill (Detail of Giambattista Nolli’s Pianta Grande di Roma)
Longitudinal section of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane is a masterpiece of the Italian Baroque; perhaps the purest example of the sheer emotion, complexity, and ambiguity introduced into architecture in counter to the stoic perfectionism of the Renaissance that preceded the period. Analysis of the church began from the ground up, beginning with the construction of the wildly complex plan and working up through the interior elevations (the scope of the project having been constrained to the church interior), and leading to the ethereal dome above, the complex coffering of which is the vehicle for the proposed evolution of the space. Also presented are sketches from exploration of the urban fabric of the city.
On Construction
The plan of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane is one of the most complex in the city, defying any simple explanation of its origins. It is an ellipse, but constricted; a greek cross, but extended. It is convex, yet simultaneously concave; there is no one word that can describe it beyond: ambiguous. As complex as the design is, though, it can be constructed using nothing but the tools of architecture immemorial: the compass and straightedge, as depicted at left.
Beginning the plan with a rhombus formed from two equilateral triangles (1), these triangles can be bisected, inscribed (2) and circumscribed (3) to closer approach the final form of the plan, at which point an ellipse constructed around the previously inscribed circles (4) forms the inner boundary for an offset rectangle and the centers of two more circles (5) that serve as framework for the final quartet of circles (6) which complete the construction of the plan. From this conglomerate of geometric figures, 16 points can be culled which serve as the site for the 16 engaged columns that define the interior limits of the church. Books have been written on the further complexities therein (this analysis doesn’t even begin to touch on the inherent symbologies) but it will suffice to say that there is always more to unpack.
Translating this ambiguity into the third dimension results in an architecture of even greater complexity. The church is divided in a tripartite structure, beginning with a colonnade of engaged columns that encircle the space, undulating in an overlapping concave/convex pattern that continuously circles the room, framing the three altars and the entrance to the space at the cardinal focal points. Above the colonnade is the pendentive level, which simplifies this undulation into a figure-ground pattern, with pendentives bursting out of the convex points of the colonnade and coffered half-domes filling the spaces between while simultaneously capping the concave altar niches. Above this lies the dome, the culmination of the space.
