The Notion of Corporeal Architecture in the Book Le Colombières: ses jardins et ses décors de Ferdinand Bac: Motor Sensoriality, Haptics and Symbolism

Abstract

According to Alberto Pérez-Gómez, the Hypnerotomachia treatise together with other classic texts written by Piranesi, Boulleé, and others, have represented a counterweight to the technical vision of the theory of architecture represented by the treatises written by Palladio and Alberti. The texts of Les Colombières and Les Jardins Enchantés, written by Ferdinand Bac, could be considered as part of that literature that, far from theorizing architecture and landscaping from a quantitative perspective, re-gives it its ontological meaning from corporeal experience. In the particular case of Les Colombières, the book was constituted as a descriptive memory of the landscape work built by Ferdinand Bac in the vicinity of the city of Menton between 1919 and 1925. This particularity is what gives the text relevance, since the images and literary constructs that Bac implemented, allowed him to describe and perpetuate the corporeal spatial experience of the architectural and landscape space of his built work. This article analyzes the metaphorical, symbolic, and mythological literary resources, as well as the graphic sequences through which the author literally reconstructed the architectural and landscape space that is embodied in the reader. At the end, the reasons why Les Colombières could be considered a key theoretical text to understand architecture from corporeal experience are argued, analyzing the acceptance that the book received in the Guadalajara context of the twenties in Mexico, particularly in the early theoretical notions of architecture of the young Luis Barragán.