ABSTRACT
Francesco Borromini himself shifted between different viewpoints in designing San Carlino: from one geometrical episteme to another, from one drawing technique to another, from one historical motif to another, from an inherited traditional reference to an abstract shape, and from a ‘symbolic’ to‘construction’ geometry. Like Borromini’s seamless and ceaseless procedures of geometric combination, the apparatus ultimately commits to no one canon or lineage. Simon Rabyniuk’s two projects explore the use of ‘projective geometry’ in San Carlo’s dome, more specifically, the surface of the dome. Both projects reveal and play on the myth of ideal, empty and homogenous space and articulate the value of the nuances, innuendoes and chance occurrences encountered in translating form through any media, are it graphite, light, air, starch, plastic, plaster or stone.
