Space clearing
Paradise
Thinking the space of paradise in architecture and landscape design inevitably brings to mind an array of references. Amongst them, Terragni's Danteum and the traditional Muslim Paradise Garden show many similarities in their respective portrayals of Paradise.
In his Danteum, Terragni attempted a materialization of Dante's Divine Comedy. Within his vision, Terragni portrayed Paradise--the final step in an allegorical architectural promenade traversing Hell and Purgatory--as a hypostyle room placed above everything else. The room, surrounded by a stone wall, encloses a grid of transparent columns located in-between a gridded floor and ceiling through which we can perceive the level below as well as clearly see the sky. Paradise is thus appropriately portrayed as a floating, empty, and light space. Despite these enticing qualifies, this room is constructed by a strong gridded order (floor, columns, and ceiling) which seems to contradict the very nature of Paradise.
Similarly, the traditional Muslim Paradise Garden is a geometric and well tendered area enclosed by a watt. Within its limits, in this case Paradise is subdivided by four canals into four different gardens, ail of which are carefully cultivated.
Both of these references portray Paradise as a geometric and carefully ordered space. Our proposal builds upon these references by proposing a quadripartite geometric vine garden enclosing an empty room. However, Space Clearing also questions these historic precedents as it attempts to reveal our disciplines' inability to think Paradise outside of a carefully controlled and orderly designed space.
(Competitor's text)
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