Visibility was the determining factor in the development of modern fortifications during the sixt... more Visibility was the determining factor in the development of modern fortifications during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. According to the German political theorist Carl Schmitt, the preservation of the modern sovereign state, which emerged during the same period, requires vigilance (surveillance) in which McEwen sees the perfect mirror image of the principles of fortification design. The categories of friend and enemy defined the modern state, according to Schmitt, whose thought has enjoyed a revival since his death in 1995, especially in post 9/11 politics. The same categories of friend and enemy were basic criteria for the design of fortifications during the during the period when the modern state was first theorized by Machiavelli, Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, the three thinkers Schmitt claimed as the "founders of (his) discipline." With Schmitt as a guide, this essay examines the spaces of early modern fortification to discover how visuality has shaped the space of modern politics.
Visibility was the determining factor in the development of modern fortifications during the sixt... more Visibility was the determining factor in the development of modern fortifications during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. According to the German political theorist Carl Schmitt, the preservation of the modern sovereign state, which emerged during the same period, requires vigilance (surveillance) in which McEwen sees the perfect mirror image of the principles of fortification design. The categories of friend and enemy defined the modern state, according to Schmitt, whose thought has enjoyed a revival since his death in 1995, especially in post 9/11 politics. The same categories of friend and enemy were basic criteria for the design of fortifications during the during the period when the modern state was first theorized by Machiavelli, Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, the three thinkers Schmitt claimed as the "founders of (his) discipline." With Schmitt as a guide, this essay examines the spaces of early modern fortification to discover how visuality has shaped the space of modern politics.
It is a bold venturc to take on Vitruvius, the author claims in the opening lines, and it is impo... more It is a bold venturc to take on Vitruvius, the author claims in the opening lines, and it is impossible to disagree with such a statement. For centuries, the ten books written by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio around 25 B.C. formed the backbone of archi tectural theory and practice, sealing with the authority of the ancients the polarity between retiocinetio and febrice, or ers and scientia, that underpinned the classicist understanding of archi tecture. De Architecture Libri Decem, the only treatisc of its kind to survive from antiquity, was a revered text. It was repeatedly translated and interpreted, its often-impenetrable text subjected to continued exegesis and never-ending commentaries. It inspired a host of cmulators and propellcd a book trade that thrived on the populariz.ation of principles that were once transmitted only among the initiated. More importantly, Vitruvian classicism, as the key paradigm in the deeply rooted System of stylistic hiérarchies, continues to inflect our...
All the King's Hortses: Vitruvius in an Age of Princes, MIT Press, , 2023
In Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture, Indra Kagis McEwen argued that Vitruvius's first-... more In Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture, Indra Kagis McEwen argued that Vitruvius's first-century BCE treatise De architectura was informed by imperial ideology, giving architecture a role in the imperial Roman project of world rule. In her sequel, All the King's Horses, McEwen focuses on the early Renaissance reception of Vitruvius's thought beginning with Petrarch-a political reception preoccupied with legitimating existing power structures. During this "age of princes" various signori took over Italian towns and cities, displacing independent communes and their avowed ideal of the common good. Architects, taking up Vitruvius's mantle, designed buildings and other structures for these princes with the intent of celebrating and making their power manifest.
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