25 Oct

Life is transcended and approaches heaven through form, light and shadow.

Form in architecture has alternative meaning(s) in contemporary thought, but to Borromini, it was the essence of architecture. The translation of a plan to a cupola and the sky was a significant act in his time and hundreds of years prior, seen through the creation of the pendentive and other means through which the act is made possible. San Carlo becomes a unique creation in the sense its translation to the dome is not limited to simply a pendentive or other transitionary element.

Borromini’s efforts to draw in heaven transcend a simple geometric arrangement. His drawings and the building itself show a struggle to meld heaven and earth. To draw them into one another through the movement of the form, people, eyes and light. His translation from the earth to the sky create a almost undecipherable geometry which one loses their self in. His creation is not simply a building, but something more sublime.