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mistake:
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Like Vincenzo Fasolo, Manfredo Tafuri made numerous mistakes regarding Piranesi's Campo Marzio. Tafuri's mistakes manifest a more severe gravity, however, because they involve an overall gross misinterpretation of Piranesi's large plan, and, moreover, because Tafuri utilizes his (mis)interpretation of the Campo Marzio as the foundation for his theory of contemporary architecture. Tafuri's mistakes appear within two texts: Architecture and Utopia - Design and Capitalist Development1 and The Sphere and the Labyrinth - Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s2.
The first mistake appears on page 14 of Architecture and Utopia: "Here [in the Ichnographia] the order in the details does not produce a simple "tumult in the whole." Rather, it creates a monstrous pullulation of symbols devoid of significance."
The reality is that the Ichnographia is NOT an abundant breeding of "symbols devoid of significance," but rather a cleverly delineated and labeled narrative of ancient Rome's own Imperial history. Both the many individual building plans and the Latin labels thereof act as a readable text which delivers an accurate historical (and at times even an accurate archeological) account.
1. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia - Design and Capitalist Development (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1976)
2. Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth - Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987).
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mistake
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