My cell phone rang to the tune of birds chirping. It was a call from a former architectural mentee who had returned to Beijing, China after having studied design in Toronto. After exchanging niceties, she asked: “Would you be interested in undertaking a project in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province?” I paused before replying. Without betraying my excitement, I said “Yes, I would consider it, but before I decide, please send me whatever information is available.” She said “Check your email and get back to me. I look forward to seeing you in China.”
Before delving into my email, I decided that it was time for my morning espresso. As I brewed it, Chengdu, Marco Polo, the Silk Roads, and the memories of the spring of 1995 in Palmyra swirled in my mind. But that’s another story.
Having drunk my coffee, I checked my mail from Beijing and, after reviewing the material, realized that the “project” was the creation of a new urban district spanning a vast space.
I read the lengthy description and the following words I highlighted: traditional agrarian culture; impoverished countryside; ubiquitous towers; clash between village life and urban chaos; different places but same appearance; social and environmental problems; a nightmare for an urbanist…
I decided to accept the challenge and informed my mentee accordingly. I further let her know that I would write a position paper and prepare a drawing or two to illustrate the possibilities. The day of presentation to the committee arrived; once seated, I recounted my journey to ‘Spiralia.’
Through the window, I focus my gaze on the ascending branches of the pine grove and my mind wanders back in time to when I was a boy in my beloved hill town on the Apennine mountains. I would sit before the fireplace and play with the long wood shavings of varied colours and random-sized wooden blocks slated for kindling. I would arrange them in ways that resembled tower-keeps of fabled castles that dotted the mountain tops. The elasticity of the cellulose fibres allowed each to be different in height and size, but they all had one common characteristic: the spiral form. I would imagine climbing along the sinuous edge all the way to the top and beyond towards the lenticular clouds hanging in the azure sky.
And there a streak of red flutter comes to rest at the uppermost branch breaking my imaginary journey and I turned to the task at hand, designing the ‘City of Vertical Villages.’
As I sketched out forms of graceful curves, my flow followed the many convergences experienced over the years, urging, in particular, the images of Vitruvian Man and the Bagua: humanism, rationality and natural forces.
I was reflecting on how both iconic symbols gave shape to a paradoxical concept of a unique human essence, of a timeless condition of value intimately shared by human beings, achieved by integrating memory into a malleable space, not fixed permanently in form, that continues to alter with the ever-changing passage of time. “This matrix will foster a balance and revaluation of all that is urban”, I said to myself.
Going to a carpenter’s shop, with a few pieces of differently coloured wood and with the help of a carpenter’s planer, I managed to obtain several chips, enough to create a complex but uncomplicated composition of vertical spirals. Observing how each spiral had voids and continuous solids, I realized that if I filled the void with a ‘skin,’ I would end up with a cylindrical tower.
At that point, Leonardo’s geometry required a third element in addition to the navel and groin. He needed the heart, that is, the spirituality inherent in the Bagua. Thus, to the geometry of Vitruvius Man, I added a smaller circle centred on the heart and was able to rotate by touching the circumference of the original circle.
It is this ‘heart circle’ that is capable of filling the void and highlighting the spiral form. As the heart circle revolves, I imagine walking with it all the way to the last floor and beyond. I pause at the roof and decide that there will not be a monument to the gods of technology and communication, but rather the continuity of the ramp that lifts the human being even higher than the tallest of towers.
Along this imaginary vertical promenade, like the switch-back paths on the face of mountains, I positioned a ramp that connects the communal ‘sky windows’ (piazzette), rotating vertically in a clockwise direction, every four and five floors. These spaces accommodate not only the desire for collectivism but also offer an architecture all of its own.
The same walk takes me back to another childhood memory, that of the journey home from the field by the river. With my parents, after a back work, the uphill walk home was punctuated by picking some wild vegetables for supper, smelling the scents of herbs, stopping to drink spring water, giving a moment’s rest to the precious donkey, and, finally, arriving home having lost all traces of tiredness. A rejuvenating sensory experience.
Similarly, the ascent along the vertical village is intended to create a pleasurable sensory experience; connecting horizontally through bridges to the adjacent vertical villages, it is accompanied by the soothing sound of water and the gentle breeze swirling amongst the vegetation, enlivened by the reflections of sunlight and the echoes of the inhabitants. As day gives way to dusk, the solar cables spiral upwards on the exterior
surface, encircling the exterior, and emitting a glow that highlights the spiral shape. Each spiral becomes a series of vertical villages, grounded in a landscape that reconnects the individual in harmony with nature.
When I watched my father spread the seeds on the field, I noted that they fell in a spiral manner, and this many of you have done on your fields
as have your ancestors. Let the vegetation grow spiralling upwards and in time together we will select where the vertical villages will be located. The making of the landscape is the first intervention that must be undertaken.
These were the concluding words of my presentation…
