31) Rocks

Rocks can evoke many different sentiments.
At the Désert de Retz, deep in the forest of Marly, there is a legendary opening through a long stone wall in the woods. Through this portal the wall expands into a convoluted rock formation. Famished spruce trees, bent by numerous tempests, cling on the stone surfaces. Turning around and looking back, that entrance is lost in the steep rugged mass of rock and thousand indents.

William Chambers, a Scottish architect, travels to China several times between 1742 and 1749 and reports at length about the way constructed Chinese landscapes are divided into scenes linked to emotions: pleasurable anxiety, horror, magic. He describes long sequences of scenes where a visitor is subjected to rapid series of strident and violent sensations: on trails that descend toward subterranean holes, entering tenebrous forests, leaning on a ledge on top of a precipice, looking down deep black valleys and murky rivers. The choice of fauna for these scenes, Chambers writes, would be monstrous mammals and birds imported or obtained through insane breeding. All these animals are also watched by giants and Tibetan dogs.

Chambers’ wildly exaggerated descriptions become viral on the taste of the time: architecture that triggers imagination that triggers architecture, and so on.

Rocks can evoke many different sentiments.
At the Désert de Retz, deep in the forest of Marly, there is a legendary opening through a long stone wall in the woods. Through this portal the wall expands into a convoluted rock formation. Famished spruce trees, bent by numerous tempests, cling on the stone surfaces. Turning around and looking back, that entrance is lost in the steep rugged mass of rock and thousand indents.

William Chambers, a Scottish architect, travels to China several times between 1742 and 1749 and reports at length about the way constructed Chinese landscapes are divided into scenes linked to emotions: pleasurable anxiety, horror, magic. He describes long sequences of scenes where a visitor is subjected to rapid series of strident and violent sensations: on trails that descend toward subterranean holes, entering tenebrous forests, leaning on a ledge on top of a precipice, looking down deep black valleys and murky rivers. The choice of fauna for these scenes, Chambers writes, would be monstrous mammals and birds imported or obtained through insane breeding. All these animals are also watched by giants and Tibetan dogs.

Chambers’ wildly exaggerated descriptions become viral on the taste of the time: architecture that triggers imagination that triggers architecture, and so on.