A symbolic interpretation of six cities. From geometry to topology by Stefano Corbo and Qianyu Liu

From Geometry to Topology.
The assemblage of six cities.

by Stefano Corbo and Qianyu Liu

From Geometry to Topology is an imaginative reading of six existing cities: Cairo, Rome, Beijing, Paris, New York, and São Paulo. These cities – their morphology as well as their architectural specificities – are first analyzed and then re-interpreted via two main simultaneous tools: topology and appropriation.

Topology
The study of material conditions such as scale and proportions is counterbalanced by the obsessive application of multiple design techniques: fragmentation, collision, transplant, grafting, estrangement, etc. The polarity between these two different moments fabricates a reading of the urban space which is other, in the sense of a focus on topological conditions of adjacency and superposition. In other words, the same space of the city can be read for its visible and current characteristics, but also as a virtual possibility of transformation.

Appropriation
Similar to Andrea Palladio’s transposition of the Portico of the Pantheon into his Villa La Rotonda – where the act itself of transferring implies variations and contradictions – the six cities of this project are informed by a specific dynamic: iconic architectural episodes are repetitively manipulated and variedly applied to re-shape not only the current urban fabric of those cities, but also the figure-ground relationship. Among those architectures are the Mogamma Building in Cairo, the façade of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale in Rome by Bernini, the perimeter of the so-called Forbidden City in Beijing, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Flatiron Building in New York, and Lina Bo Bardi’s Museum of Art in São Paulo. Those structures, once applied to the indeterminate ground of the city, cease to be simply architectures and turn into signs, or transformative patterns. Their relevance is not only historical; it becomes generative.

Outcome
In the Age of Hyperobjects, through topology and appropriation, these six cities constitute an assemblage: composite yet unified entities that, to quote Manuel DeLanda, “in addition to persons, include the material and symbolic artifacts: the architecture of the buildings that house them; the myriad different tools and machines used in offices, factories, and kitchens; the various sources of food, water, and electricity."