For this year’s competition, we are to design The Tower of Babel and Noah’s Ark from a ‘Neo-medieval’ approach to architecture. This project makes references to architects such as Piranesi, John Ruskin, and Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa’s Castelvecchio in Verona is a case for ‘Neo-medievalism’, as it was originally built as a simple stone-walled fortification but later modified prior to WW1 to give it a more robust castle-like appearance. Castelvecchio was bombed twice during the war and later restored by Carlo Scarpa. His treatment of the building follows structurally medieval principles in its orientation of beam spans, detailing, and treatment of light for example; the end result is a modern art gallery.
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The Brief – as written by Director Marco Frascari
Architecture as the result of an infinite mirroring of translations began with the architectural dream of the Tower of Babel 1, i.e.: the human origin of ethnification, trans-nationalization. Since then architects moving from nation to nation from ethnic group to ethnic group are constantly translating human virtuality intertwined with the infra-ordinary fabric of our reality, dream stuff, into the built reality, the solid stuff, and vice versa. The dream stuff and the solid stuff are inseparable parts of our constructed solid stuff environment.
A dreaming but ‘incomplete’ Canadian Lady who owns a cottage located on exceptionally large piece of land facing the astonishingly great lake of Nimrod has decided to build two replicas of biblical constructions that can be considered as genetic primers since out of them originated two of the most fundamental building systems, the wet and the dry construction. The first construction will be located on a peninsula protruding within the lake and it is a replica of the Tower of Babel and its construction site during an early phase of the erection. The edifice will be in bricks and it will be surrounded with all the appropriate equipments and devices required for its erection. The second construction is a replica of Noah’s Ark that will be docked in a large bay near the tower.
Genesis 6:15 in the Bible tells us the Ark’s dimensions were at least 135 meters long (300 cubits), 22.5 meters wide (50 cubits), and 13.5 meters high (30 cubits) 2. That’s 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high! It could have been larger because several larger-sized cubits were used. But the 45-centimeter (18-inch) cubit is long enough to show the enormous size of the Ark. 3
In the Bible, the dimensions of the tower are not given, but remember the intention was to reach the top of the sky.
The Design must be presented with landscape orientation on a board 30 x 20 –inches.
Competition Deadline: boards must be pinned up by September 10th at 11:00 in the Pit.
A preliminary and selective judging will take place between 11:00 and 12:00
The judging of the finalists will take place at 16:45 in the Pit.
A celebrative reception will take place at 17:30
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1. The Tower of Babel was, according to the Old Testament (see Gen. 11:1-9), a tower erected on the plain of Shinar in Babylonia by descendants of Noah. The builders intended the tower to reach to heaven; their presumption, however, angered Jehovah, who interrupted construction by causing among them a previously unknown confusion of languages. He then scattered these people, speaking different languages, over the face of the earth.
2. 14. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.
15. “And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
16. “You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.
3. A cubit was the length of a man’s arm from fingertips to elbow.
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