PLATONIC SOLIDS
INTRODUCTION
The idea of the Platonic solids was adopted by Denis Guzzo based on the need of compressing years of spatial documentation into a super object, able display many photographs combined into a geometric harmony. Denis' visual approach consist into a multi-layered visual approach to the subject, captured from different point of views on large format negatives.
His attachment with the Platonic solids comes from his long term project New Mysteries, developed between 2010 and 2016 in Elusis GR, where the famous philosopher was initiated inside the temple today in ruins.
The polyhedric body of work portraying the place, the city or the region is now definitively escapes two-dimensionality, to enter a natural order of “divine proportion”; in which the solids magically harmonizes the perfection of the ideal world and the mutability of natural phenomena, giving the visitor a 360-degree relationship experience.
HISTORY
From Pythagoras to Kepler, from Leonardo Da Vinci to contemporary science; these geometrical forms has fascinated humanity for millennia.
Long before the Greeks, neolithic people created carved stone models of the five regular polyhedra. Carved stone spheres dating back over 4,000 years, featuring knobs and geometric symmetries resembling Platonic solids, have been discovered in Scotland.
The formal history is deeply tied to Greek philosophy:The Pythagoreans: Scholars trace the initial discovery of the tetrahedron, cube, and dodecahedron to Pythagoras around \(500\) BC, who called them "Perfect Solids".Theaetetus: The Athenian mathematician Theaetetus is credited with first discussing and classifying the remaining two shapes: the octahedron and icosahedron.
Plato's Timaeus: In \(360\) BC, the philosopher Plato integrated these shapes into his cosmological model in the dialogue Timaeus. He famously assigned each solid to the classical building blocks of the universe: Tetrahedron: Fire (\(4\) faces) Cube (Hexahedron): Earth (\(6\) faces)Octahedron: Air (\(8\) faces)Icosahedron: Water (\(20\) faces)Dodecahedron: The Cosmos/Aether (\(12\) faces)3.
Around 300 BC, the mathematician Euclid compiled and systematically described the geometry of all five solids in Book XIII of Elements. He provided the definitive proof that there are exactly five regular convex polyhedra possible in three-dimensional space.
During the Renaissance, artists and astronomers embraced the geometric perfection of the solids. Leonardo da Vinci produced intricate drawings of the solids grouped under a body of work called 'De Divina Proportione'. In his 1596 publication Mysterium Cosmographicum, astronomer Johannes Kepler proposed a model of the solar system where the orbits of the then-known planets were nested within the five Platonic solids separated by inscribed spheres.
Today, scientists continue to discover that the principles of these highly symmetrical forms describe our natural world. They are found naturally in the molecular structures of microscopic crystals, the geometry of certain viruses, and in quantum chemistry.
NEXT NATURE
Lelystad was a chance for modern architects and planners to demonstrate their abilities and convictions and to build from scratch. Interestingly enough, it was not old knowledge of colonial settlement but more recent experiences in laying out city extensions that shaped Lelystad. It fits in the international series of new towns that were developed during the 50s and 60s. A child of its time: grid-like structures, separation of road infrastructure and housing quarters, four-story walk-ups….
The two cities can be considered to be two materialized ideals, two utopias if you like. But utopia in the Netherlands is (almost) always pragmatic. Maybe the Bijlmermeer can be considered Holland’s only true utopian city; the others are ‘utopian about the present’ at best. Lelystad, in its relatively isolated position and as the province's capital, represents a mid-sized regional centre, trying as well as possible to provide all that can be expected from such a town.
But Lelystad never realized its dream in terms of population growth. The original plan was to reclaim further land at its waterfront. Furthermore, there were plans to create the national airport in the middle of the Markermeer. But a core concept changed in the attitude of how the Dutch moved from 'the fight against water' to a condition of co-existence. Therefore it was decided to not reclaim further land and leave space for the water.
Lelystad island was the first settlement, created with basalt stones to host the facilities of those workers who built the Southern part of the province. Cornelis van Eesteren proposed a city that could develop from its own waterfront, inspired by cities like Helsinki. Instead, the government opted for a city centre placed inland, away from its historic core and the central element of the region: water.
Explore selected Lelystad's cartography and research
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WATERLOOPBOS
The Noordoost Polder is, in fact, the most considerable reclaimed territory on earth. Designed by Dutch master planner Cornelis van Eesteren as an immense agricultural machine, which enabled the Dutch to expand to a modern and large-scale productive landscape. It is the first Dutch modern polder in which the layout was planned as an integral task, involving all its agricultural, urban, and landscape elements at once while reflecting state of the art in design, science, and engineering.
With Emmelord at its centre, the Noordoostpolder resumed the concept of the Garden City by Ebenezer Howard, with a predefined structure driven by water channels and large-scale agricultural allotment that allowed the government to move farmers and restructure the land in the south of the country during the '60s.
Hidden between this geometrical manmade land, a unique place has been chosen as a witness of the Dutch unique knowledge of water management. Somewhere between the physical and the digital universe, between reality and simulation, lies a forest. For fifty years, until 1996, hundreds of studies have been conducted here into the behaviour of water. Dutch and foreign ports, rivers and coasts were recreated in the forest as scientific models. From the port of Bangkok and Lagos to the coast of Denmark, from the Willemstunnel in Rotterdam to the port of IJmuiden. In total, more than 200 different studies have been conducted. In 2002 the Waterloopbos became a National Monument, with remains of the Hydraulic Laboratorium 'De Voorst'.
Simulated realities seem to be the privilege of computers these days. Analogy has been replaced by the discrete logic of digital machines: in other words, computer modelling that is faster, cheaper and more precise than physical models. Mankind computed things long before computers, and while computers' computing power and speed cannot be trumped by any other simulation method, we have also lost some qualities of reckoning that today’s digital devices can’t give us.
A unique combination of flora, also due to species that were imported with the stones from the Baltic regions. Models made of concrete and bricks are laying entities that remind us of this unique knowledge. In the forest, you can see how fast nature works. Many models are overgrown by mosses, plants and trees, and birds shelter.
Explore selected NOP & Waterloopbos's cartography and research
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EXHIBITIONS
PUBLICATIONS
2013 .03. RRAAM Rijksstructuurvisie Amsterdam-Almere-Markermeer. p. 134/p. 1664/20/30/70 [out of print].
2012 .03. Amere Oosterwold. p. 134/p. 166. RRAAM Rijk-regioprogramma Amsterdam-Almere-Markermeer. [out of print].
2010 06. Fredomland. Limited edition of 50 copies. Graduation publication with the first body of work. [sold out].
2010 July 2nd. Italiaanse blik maakt Lelystad tot nieuw Atlantis. By Marina De Vries, De Volkskrant. NL
