Towards a (non-)theory of the architectural palimpsests
Palimpsest is extensively explored metaphorically but not eroded much theo-
retically. Gérard Genette, in his outstanding Palimpsests (1982) has unintention-
ally broadened the architectural vocab. What kind of a diagram could be drawn
if the revolutionary communications technologies would be expressed vertically?
I tried to work out another playful scheme of history as a stratified model, begin-
ning from Non-Interactive Hierarchical Layering Model to Non-Layering/Hypertro-
phic Now. Huyssen’s Present Pasts examines palimpsestousness; in Pseudo-Science
of Layers I followed that path in a ludic way. Coming back to Genette, hyper-
text implies the original text. However, each hypogram is in fact a hypergraph,
a re-write. In architecture, then, every “real name” is nothing but a pseudonym.
(Mimotect instead of Architect.) The word pastiche finds a position with respect
to its parallels with modernity. Then follows a palimpsestous literary project; the
Lost in Translation experiment: A story is put in a perpetual translation process;
all steps become more and more apocryphal. What is lost in translation is found
in the parody. Then I foresaw the collapse of my Pseudo-Theory of Palimpsests in
various steps, beginning from Techno-palimpsests to Anti-palimpsests. Calvino’s If
on A Winter Night a Traveler is a palimpsestous hypertext, a novel that includes
only beginnings. I just mentioned some characters like the Native American, The
type called Irnerio and finally the most provoking Ermes Manara. I did not refer
to concrete examples of Istanbul (or Berlin or another metropolis), I wanted to
expand textual tracks, thus indicating other creative channels in architecture.