Towards a (non-)theory of the architectural palimpsests

Palimpsest is extensively explored metaphorically but not eroded much theo- retically. Gérard Genette, in his outstanding Palimpsests (1982) has unintention- ally broadened the architectural vocab. What kind of a diagram could be drawn if the revolutionary communications technologies would be expressed vertically? I tried to work out another playful scheme of history as a stratified model, begin- ning from Non-Interactive Hierarchical Layering Model to Non-Layering/Hypertro- phic Now. Huyssen’s Present Pasts examines palimpsestousness; in Pseudo-Science of Layers I followed that path in a ludic way. Coming back to Genette, hyper- text implies the original text. However, each hypogram is in fact a hypergraph, a re-write. In architecture, then, every “real name” is nothing but a pseudonym. (Mimotect instead of Architect.) The word pastiche finds a position with respect to its parallels with modernity. Then follows a palimpsestous literary project; the Lost in Translation experiment: A story is put in a perpetual translation process; all steps become more and more apocryphal. What is lost in translation is found in the parody. Then I foresaw the collapse of my Pseudo-Theory of Palimpsests in various steps, beginning from Techno-palimpsests to Anti-palimpsests. Calvino’s If on A Winter Night a Traveler is a palimpsestous hypertext, a novel that includes only beginnings. I just mentioned some characters like the Native American, The type called Irnerio and finally the most provoking Ermes Manara. I did not refer to concrete examples of Istanbul (or Berlin or another metropolis), I wanted to expand textual tracks, thus indicating other creative channels in architecture.

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