These images are from a book I bought in Firenze. I think they are compelling for anyone thinking about memory and architecture.

Ponsi, Andrea. Firenze: Changing Viewpoints. Alinea, Editrice S.R.L., Firenze, Italia, 2001.

Memory and Abstraction

“Memory is the inseparable companion of design. It gives us the possibility of re-experiencing the places in a city and recreating them in immediate and spontaneously rapid images. The fact that the act of thinking is simultaneous with that of drawing eliminates every difference between the two moments: one draws remembering, one remembers drawing. The selection made by memory creates a certain degree of abstraction in drawing. This is the phase in which forms become opaque as the memory fades, or become sharper and more accentuated when one is concentrating on a minute detail. In the same way as for shapes, quick decisions are made about colours, to express the sensations stimulated by buildings or urban views perceived in an every-day, often inattentive perception of the city.” (p. 37)

Loggia dei Lanzi

The Subjective Map

“Pictorial type design, which simulates a more direct expression of sensation, is replaced by the need for reflection, for a phase in which analytical thought has priority again. This is the moment when one discovers the relations between things, when metaphors are invented, and particular points of view are chosen. Drawing becomes slower and more precise and often the pencil is guided by the decisive linearity of a ruler or a set square. These drawings turn into little maps completed far from the places they represent, in the seclusion of a room, on a drawing table. Each image represents a special theme, sometimes on an urban scale, as the interpretation of the formal structures of the whole city, and sometimes as interpretations of specific buildings or itineraries.” (p. 49)

Panorama dal Forte Belvedere

Da Palazzo Pitti al DuomoPiazza Signoria con statue