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Walking Venice


Cornell University Thesis (2015)
Venice, Italy



Site Plan with Narrative Pathways
Site Plan with Narrative Pathways


Proposal: to document three sequences of space through the city of Venice


Thesis Advisors
Vince Mulcahy
Jim Williamson
The site documentation of Library in the Labyrinth, these perspective ink paintings portray three linear sequences of wandering through the fabric of Venice and become the subject of A Model of Paintings. The three pathways start in disparate neighborhoods, but ultimately all converge on one site. A fourth pathway starts at the site and proceeds along the park toward the water, out of the maze. There are no perspectives for this pathway, yet. 
Each narrative begins with a summary. Each summary begins with the excerpt from one of John Hejduks 67 Victims. Each excerpt is extrapolated to become a character in Venice. They include: the Drawbridge Man, the Mask Repairman, and the Accountant. Each of these three characters are assigned to one of the three pathways. A fourth character, the Solosit, is assigned to the pathway that leaves from the site. 





The Drawbridge Man



The Drawbridge Man Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper
The Drawbridge Man Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper


The drawbridge man does not believe in clocks. He measure the lenght of the day by the passage of visitors. Some days are long; some days are short. Open, wait, close.When he works with the carpenter, the drawbridge man replicates the connections for their drawings. He is primarily concerned with the way things come together, and the way they used to be separate. The drawbridge man is (currently) very satisfied with connections he percieves to be permanent. Open, wait, close. The drawbridge man knows that one day the visitors will stop coming. he will then have to choose whether to leave the bridge open or closed. Open, wait, close.


The bridges have a sense of permenance. They reach across the water and grip the stone edge like ties forever keeping a ship at dock. Over my head, a lamp written in thin cursive is swallowed by the late afternoon sky. The connection between the caste towes is doomed to rot. The bridge will open only ot the patient observer. It stays closed for centuries as the grains wither away with splashing waves. I turn to the horizon beyond the stone bridge. The particular shape of the arc is like the bridge of a nose, it reveals character within. A relic lies on the ground before me. It marks the edge between the known and the anonymous. The promise of permenance in the stone crenellations draws me down a narrowing alley. I am relieved to see the afternoon sun streak the water. I know how the surface reflects al the different suns. I have emerged from the maze and am once again in a parallel world. One lane for me, one lane for the boat, but they are not entirely separate. The solid ground walks down to meet the water; the water swims up to meet the ground. In the maze all paths eventually converge.




The Mask Repairman



The Mask Repairman Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper
The Mask Repairman Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper


Each day, he walks a different route home from the mask shop. It might be close to the right face of the street, and tightly around the corners. It might be slowly, or very quick. Eventually, he moves on to the next street. On these routes, he has found 67 discarded or lost masks. He meticulously restores one mask per week. He becomes obsessed. By Friday evening of each week, he has dreamed an entire personality of its past. He imagines the expressions that the mask hid. One by one, the mask repairman sells his recoeved masks. Each is laced with memory. The hidden expression are transferred ot the new face.


A breeze from the open water brushes my cheek. All the facades along this edge know the feeling. The open sky blankets them, casting the crevices in shadow. I am curious how the faces show the character behind. I wrap around the winding wall and emerge in a small collection of facades. Some project their shadows onto others, making trasparent masks. I walk towards this building and watch as the maze on the other side slowly slip under the sky. The space between my wrinkled face and the mask shrinks as I walk closer. I am confronted by a blankness, a full face mask with eye holes so small it can barely see through. The street gets taller and thinner every second my gave persists. As I merge I can see the horizon. I am back where I started. Behind the masks is a labyrinth of labyrinths, where all faces are masks to further layers of masks. The open horizon has no mask. After several bridges, the labyrinth invites me to enter again. The masks turn inward to confront eachother; I walk down the center. I seek the point of their convergence. I reach an intersection where one facade in particular stares to the distance. The eyes see a view to the lagoon speckled by the leaves. I stand in the space between the two. I am the face in a city of masks.




The Accountant



The Accountant Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper
The Accountant Combined Leporello, Ink on Paper


Numbers title his memories, but they do not help to organize them. His first memory is 8; his last is 19. There are hundreds, maybe thousands in between.  Sometimes he mistakes his professional accounts with the memories of his own childhood. The system is inefficient; it is imperative he maintain some order. But it does not bother him in the end; he prefers thinking in terms of past experiences than in empty numbers. The accountant uses the streets of Venice as his shelves of memory. He walks particular routes and assigns the records of past experiences to details he encounters. As he carefully learns the labyrinthian streets, he uncovers pieces of his past.


My mind is muddle. I step outside to recover lost memories. I never project memories in my own neighborhood. I would be trapped in them. I wander the blank route I know so carefully; it leads to the labyrinth where my past is organized. I cannot help but feeling lost. I work very hard to keep it that way. I do not read the street names or take notice of the numbers on the doors. I prefer to bear witness to the streets as blank sequences of space, parallel lines always splitting in different directions.. The bridge is a threshold that marks the edge between the present and my past. From above, I can see the edge of my mind. Fragments stretch to the surface that is kept at bay by the water. The water is cleansing; it keeps my projections within the maze. I slip down a corridor. My childhood is in here; that which is lost lies at the end. In the distance, a line stretches across the street. From it hangs the beige of my first house, next to the hazel of my mother's eyes. I step over their shadows on the brick pavers. Different times of day reveal different pasts. I turn drawn, short street. The half open shutters look like the creaking sound of a certain wooden floor. The wrought wires wrapping the window sting. It is a bad dream that recurred for years. I would rather not explain. All records have their place, some less pleasant than others. I get older in this street. I always slow my pace. The facade to my right steps down to reveal the shelf continuing beyond. The tall and narrow frame points me toward the end. Vertical shafts cut through the facades. I use this to remind myself that memories are not distinct and separate. The weight of them makes the shelf start to collapse. This part of my past is overburdened. I emerge in an open space. It is beautiful. It is at the edge of several of my labyrinthian routes. It is the center that I always forget. I have to return here often.




The Soloist






Rather than documenting an existing sequence of space in Venice, the Soloist is a projection for what is to come. It is a narrative for the future project that will occupy the site. It begins at the site that all other narratives converge upon and leads out through the park toward the water. 


The solosit enjoys playing his instrument in the streets of Venice. He imagines the streetscape as a collection of connected stages. The sound of his instrument leaves him immediately and runs through the narrow streets, dances across the canals.  The soloist often hears the music of others as he walks the labyrinth, though he can never see where it comes from. The stages are anonymous. The soloist comes to Venice every summer and plays for six hours each day. He plays the same song everyday. He knows the visitors can always hear several songs simultaneously as they walk the labyrinth. He is part of an orchestra. The soloist spends the last week of every summer in the park. By then, the song has replaced his thoughts. Only by escaping the labyrinth and standing amongst the trees can the soloist feel the silence again. 






Thesis

Architect, Artist, Writer


Architect, Artist, Writer