IX Biennale di Venezia 11 Sette

The architet Peter Eisenman (www.eisenmanarchitects.com) , in occasion of the 9a Biennale of Venice, realized an installation in wich virtual space and phisical space are comparable and visitable at the same time. In the Phisical space of the installation visitors may observe and interact with a similar virtual space. Graziano Mario Valenti, architect and professor at the University ‘La Sapienza’ of Rome, realized the virtual model as experimentation inside of the research named V.I.A. The model permit to navigate into the virtual space and to analize, step by step, the genesis of design.

The VRLM\X3D model (23.4 Mbyte) was built with Rhinoceros and rendered with Cinema 4D.
Several viewer are tryed and selected to show the model but only BSConctact 6.2 was considered the best choiche.

V.I.A. Virtual Interactive Architecture
Is a research developed by universities of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Udine and Venice (IUAV).
Riccardo Migliari is promoter and coordinator of the research.
Fundamental target of the research are the study and the sperimentation of the V.R. tecnology usable to communicate the Architecture.
Inside the research are developed experimentations on two principal way: V.R. for the desig process and V.R. for the documentation of the storical and contemporary architecture
Main objects of study, inside the research, are : illumination, perception, comunication, navigation, usability

The V.I.A. model realized for Biennale’s installation is usable under several way.

After the loading the user will see the ‘secello’ with the LCD Monitor
On the LCD monitor there are two buttons: TO START and TO DIAGRAMS.
The button TO START active the automatic walkthrough across the model .
The button TO DIAGRAMS load and active the animation to explain the genesis of installation’s design.
The default navigation is possibile in the JUMP modality or with the selection of a viewpoint preset. The JUMP modality was choiched to make easy the navigation to Biennale’s visitors: they can interact with the virtual model using only one trackball.
Expert user can switch to GameLike movement an when they will be on START preset viewpoint to switch to Examine modality. During the observation of complete model from START viewpoint, is possible to appreciate the shrewd use of backface culling: some side of the model become trasparent and the user can see the interior.

The words of Peter Eisenman about the genesis of ‘Diagrams of Virtù’.

“Our installation for the Episode section of the Biennale takes as its trajectory a narrative from Palladio to Piranesi to Terragni and finally to my own work. But rather than present this work in images, models, or a narrative text, we have proposed a spatial construct that attempts to disjunct, displace, and destabilize any continuous or sequential “promenade architecturale.” While the ideas of transformation or metamorphosis suggest a narrative in time and space, our project attempts to dislocate the time of the experience of the subject from the time of the object. Thus, rather than being retrospectively historical, our installation attempts a critical projection of the present. In its physical presence of layered walls, ramps, columns, and stairs at different scales, the project is a diagram derived from the sequence of diagrams inscribed in the surfaces.

The diagrams begin from an analysis and projection into three dimensions of Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericati, a dislocation in itself of an ideal villa plan. This is then inscribed with a version of Piranesi’s Carceri stairs to nowhere and the red and green stairs of House VI. The result denies any access to a central, hierarchical place. Finally, the project superposes Terragni’s Casa del Fascio on House IV to produce a metaphorical manifestation of the impossibility of a return to a metaphysical center. This is further highlighted by a horizontal extension on the ends of each plane of the Virtual House.”