Declinazioni di Trasparenza. Trasparenza fenomenica e configurazioni spaziali

This paper offers a reflection on various forms of transparency, ranging from art to architecture, through the interpretations which Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky gave to the effect of the work in choosing and placing the compositional elements. In a game of perception between figure/background, overlapping planes and hydrodynamic force fields, the authors underlined the importance of compositional theory in understanding/interpreting an architectural artefact. “All arts tend toward structuring the contradiction between that which appears and that which signifies, between form and meaning. Neither field nor figure, however minimal, can avoid the burden of content; even the ‘blank’ canvas, a field for any and all configuration, itself possesses intrinsic structural attributes, becoming a figure in a larger perceptual context” (Slutzky, 1980: 29). Figure and background combine to create a spatiality which defines a perceptual order. This order is determined by the arrangement of the elements which generate a spatial whole, and the way these are interpreted. Through a re-reading of the texts on transparency published by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, and on the hypothesis of what could have been a third essay, planned, but never published, the aim is to investigate the question of phenomenal transparency understood as a visual and conceptual interpretation which lets us draw compositional considerations from it. The issues addressed in these texts and the theories that derive from them, allow us to reflect on the spatiality of a work, whether explicit or hidden; a spatiality which, read through appropriate placement of the compositional elements, determines a precise effect on the viewer and from which ensues an interpretation that is not always unequivocal. The concept of phenomenal transparency evolved in the succession of texts written by the two authors: analysed starting from a schematic of the elements, it passed to reliefs on the façades of Renaissance buildings, until finding a more volumetric character in plans and sections that “speak” through elevations. The paper sets out some results of the author’s doctoral research entitled La trasparenza interrotta. Considerazioni da e intorno al terzo saggio di Colin Rowe e Robert Slutzky [Transparency Interrupted. Considerations from and around the third essay by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky], carried out at the University of Trieste. Given that the composition of an architectural artefact frequently contains a series of theoretical and compositional assumptions which underpin the generation of the object itself, a critical reading of the two authors’ essays and of the differing conceptions of transparency is proposed, as a valid tool to reflect on the role of composition in the architectural project.