10 Oct

notes on a history theatre

This map, on rough stone tablet, worn and cracked at the edges, is clamped to the wall with heavy brackets. A portion is covered by the dedication, also on stone tablet.* A boy traces his finger from the bottom-left corner and follows the river upward, collecting pieces of his city. The island in the river. A labyrinthine temple. The two bridges that cross into the walls that house the mortal remains of the city’s two greatest emperors. The stadium that uses water from the river to flood its own interior. The boy’s finger follows these processions. The glide over the island. The maze-like zigzags through the temple. The solemnity in the mausoleum. The spiralling through the stadium.

And with a hip and skop, his feet are off to experience what his memory just prescribed.

* (paraphrased from Stanley Allen’s Piranesi’s “Campo Marzio”: An Experiment in Design)