Vesper No. 9 | The Adversary | Fall-Winter 2023
Fabrizio Marzilli
Douglas Darden and the Allegory of the Adversary
Keywords
Douglas Darden, Condemned, Loss, Underbelly, Limit
American architect Douglas Darden identifies
the diptych of theory and design as an antagonistic pair. Through design
practice, he identifies the rival as a constructive loss to a given idea of
architecture by favouring another, understood as a ‘critical mediation on
finitude and failure’. This controversy underscores an intrinsic theme of
architecture, namely the relationship between construction and destruction,
between positive and negative. Every act of architecture becomes a dialogue
between these fundamental pairs, where the potential of architecture lies in
the ‘recognition of this reciprocal condition’ and the
centuries-old ability of architectural canons to be overturned. Through
Darden’s figure and work, the text engages with the theme of the
adversary as an attitude for a re-signification of architecture through the
investigation of what lies behind, what is hidden, toward that limit that the
architect identifies in architecture itself.
contacts
t. +39 041 257 1542