Vesper No. 6 | Magic | Spring-Summer 2022
Demetra Vogiatzaki
Quō
In
1499, the editio princeps of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or, Poliphilo’s
Strife for Love in a Dream, made its enigmatic appearance in the renowned
press of Aldus Manutius in Venice. Poliphilo was a lover of architecture and,
above all, a heartbroken man who fell asleep and dreamed. He dreamed of a magic
world made up of dense forests, heavenly islands, and countless outlandish
monuments populated by promiscuous nymphs and sinister dragons. Perhaps the
most curious, and as a consequence, the most scrutinised objects produced by
Poliphilo’s prolific imagination are the marvelous architectural projects
that populate this dreamworld; monuments impossible in both conception and
execution that forge fragments of classical architecture into excessive (in
scale), obsessive (in detail), and unlikely (licentious) combinations.
Amplified by its enigmatic authorship, the elaborate continuum of architecture
and dreams staged by Hypnerotomachia put significant pressure on the
status quo of architecture, right at the moment of its definition as a reborn,
rational discipline.
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