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GARDEN - EXILE

The garden is where Lenny’s exile starts.

It is where he is reminded of all that he lost in Rome. The lushness, the warmth, the flowers, the terraces, the colonnades and the statues, in all their richness.

The garden isolates the house from the city, and Lenny from the world.

His loneliness shows.

CORRIDORS - MALAISE

The Corridors are always the same.

They are the spaces in between everything, inside and outside, up and down, memories and dreams.

Lenny passes through them, again and again, following flashes of lights and faint noises.

They link all the rooms together but never lead him to the same place.

His frustration grows.

GLIMPSES - MEMORY

As Lenny meanders through the corridors, he opens doors, looks around corners and peeks through curtains.

He gets glimpses of a multitude of chambers, never finding what he is looking for.

Are these forgotten memories or lost dreams?

His anger erupts.

SISYPHUS

Lenny passes through the house and its different parts in continuous loops.

The house is a constant but its contents are volatile

Lenny is an isolated figure in a changing environment with a stable background.

Passing By

Exile

Lenny stands in the garden, once again, facing towards the city. The large shadow cast by the neighboring building covers the entire House and its surroundings. He would like to sit, but the sunless afternoon makes it too cold for him. He thinks about his first time there, on a similar day, how he had been underwhelmed by the banal garden when passing the walls, and how unwelcome he had felt by the cold pure white house upon reaching the front door. He cannot remember how long ago; was it weeks? Months already? Could it be years?

-How much time gone to waste! [1]

He misses his long contemplative walks in the lush, warm and calm gardens of Rome. In Vienna the garden does not allow him to walk long enough to finish half a thought. There is no docile ear to listen when he wishes to speak, to be heard. The city seems to be pushing against the walls, shrinking the garden bit by bit, applying pressure, ready to crush him.

- How does death feel?… How does death feel?... [2]

Lenny suddenly turns on his feet and heads towards the house. He does not fear death; he fears the thought of death. [3]

The most whimsical idea was, that not believing in hell, he was firmly persuaded of the reality of purgatory. [4] Was this it? But how did he get here? He should listen only to his own zeal and should bear his exile without a murmur; that exile is one of his duties. [5] But what homeland do those seek to whom this entire world is a place of exile? [6] An exile, of which every one is more ashamed than the sufferer, is not exile at all. [7]

He reaches the door, pushes the handle and steps inside.

Memory

Lenny stands still and looks around him. He suddenly feels very light. The room is bathed in warm sunshine and he can see dust floating in the air. The walls are covered with shelves that contain books and picture frames. The entire surface of the room is occupied by small tables and pedestals, presenting countless other objects. Lenny picks up a book, but doesn’t recognize the language in which it is written. He looks at the frames, but they are all empty. None of the objects seem to be of use for anything to him. He walks around, trying to find something that he recognizes. Nothing. He thinks to himself:

- You’re too tied to the past. [8] None of this matters. The past is an enormous place, with all sorts of things inside. Not so with the present. The present is merely a narrow opening with room for only one pair of eyes. Mine.[9]

Lenny’s thoughts are interrupted by a distant sound. He can make out a quiet, rhythmic thump, emanating from the big empty white wall at the very end of the room. It is free of objects and coverings. [10] Is there someone else in the house? He exits the room to try and get to the other side of the wall. He guides himself by sound. [11] He searches and searches, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting there. He returns to the bright room and looks at the empty wall. The quiet thump continues.

- The future is hidden from me. [12] Is eternal life not as enigmatic as the present one? [13]

Lenny’s frustration grows with every thump. He starts kicking the wall, hitting it with various objects. Noise against noise. [14] White flakes of plaster and wood fly into the air, joining the dust before hitting the ground as he gradually destroys the wall, creating an opening just big enough for him to see through. Lenny looks inside but cannot make anything out in the dark space. He can hear the sound more clearly now, resonating. Lenny keeps going. Hitting, thrashing. The hole is now large enough, letting some light in and allowing him to crawl inside. The darkness embraces him lovingly. [15]

Malaise

As the dust settles, Lenny finds himself in a dimly lit space of strange proportions, much higher than it is wide. Vast. And silent. There is no more thumping. Here nothing but darkness and chilling moisture. [16]

There is however another monument of this dynasty. The celebrated Labyrinth, which must now be passed over entirely in silence. [17] Lenny advances in the only possible direction. The seemingly random movement of the endless walls forces him forward. He loses sense of time, and space seems to curve. He wonders if he really has a choice in navigating this artificial infinity. [18] He knows that his freedom of will consists in the fact that his future actions cannot be known now. [19]

He advances further. Gradually the ceiling becomes visible as it lowers above his head and the space straightens in front of him. For the first time since entering, he sees behind the vertical horizon of the walls. Clarity instead of vagueness. [20] At the end, a heavy door, filling the entire space between ground, walls and ceiling.

Lenny thinks about going back, but the eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills him with dread. [21] He takes a few more steps until he notices on the door, written with golden letters: « The Abode of Beauty ». [22] Lenny erupts.

- Open the door! Open the door, I said! [23]

The door bursts open. [24] He thinks to himself.

- A door opening to the unknown, discoverer of the new, maker of the new, maker of life. [25]

Lenny stands in the threshold. A door between two rooms is in both of them. [26] He steps forward and closes it behind him. His eyes slowly adapt to the bright warm light.

Sisyphus

Lenny stares in disbelief. In front of him he recognizes the unknown objects, strange books, empty pictures. And in the back, a cold, empty white wall.

He falls to his knees.

- My God, my god why have you forsaken me, I say to you now. [27] I came because I’ve never felt so alone and in despair in all my life. [28]

God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence. [29] More cruel than the silence of prisons, that kind of silence is in itself a prison. [30]

Lenny screams and runs to the main entrance of the House.

He skids out, slamming the door. [31]

Other forces would have had to intervene […] to allow architecture to come in for a modest share in the great human revolt. [32] The House is capricious. One can struggle against it and hold back what has to be; then one becomes the person in revolt. [33]

Lenny steps into the cold afternoon light. He walks into the garden. The air was calm, and the sky unclouded, [34] but the Sun is hidden behind a skyscraper.

[1] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[2] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[3] Seneca, Complete Works

[4] Rousseau, Collected Works

[5] Rousseau, Collected Works

[6] Erasmus, Paraphrases

[7] Seneca, Complete Works

[8] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[9] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[10] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture

[11] Serres, The Parasite

[12] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

[13] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

[14] Serres, Genesis

[15] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[16] Jung, Memories Dreams Reflections

[17] Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art

[18] Frankl, The Gothic

[19] Wittgenstein, Tractatus

[20] Benton Sharp, Form and Function

[21] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[22] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[23] Borges, Collected Fictions

[24] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[25] Bergdoll Oechslin, Fragments Architecture and the Unfinished

[26] Russell Norvig, Artificial Intelligence

[27] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[28] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[29] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[30] Proust, In Search of Lost Time

[31] Rand, The Fountainhead

[32] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968

[33] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[34] Humboldt, Equinoctial Regions of America

multiplicity (n.)

"state of being manifold or various," mid-15c., multiplicite, from Old French multiplicité or directly from Late Latin multiplicitas "manifoldness, multiplicity," from Latin multiplic-, stem of multiplex "many times as great in number" (see multiple). Related: Multiplicitous.

Multiplicity and Circularity.

profusion, abundance, assemblage

circularity (n.)

the fact of constantly returning to the same point or situation

a situation in which a series of causes and effects leads you back to the original cause, producing an argument that does not mean anything

Circularity and Multiplicity.

conflict, misunderstanding, oblique, spheroid, ring-shaped

Triptychs

Isolated figure in a changing setting.

Dynamic relation between character and representation.

The place remains the same, the things change.

Glimpses of Chambers - Memory

The Corridors never lead him to the same chamber.

Are these his memories or his dreams?

Is the house constantly changing or does he forget?

Lenny’s anger errupts.

The Garden - Exile

The Garden is where Lenny’s exile starts.

It is where he is reminded of his what he used to have in Rome.

The Garden isolates the house from the city.

Lenny is alone.

The Corridors - Sysiphus

The Corridors are always the same ones.

Lenny passes through them, again and again.

He never stops at the same place.

His frustration grows.

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