2026.01.17
451.rhawn.gallery . . . if memory serves correctly, the banishment [and subsequent death] of St Marcellus by Maxentius coincided with the death of Romulus, the young son and heir of Maxentius. The circus complex on the Appian Way was built to facilitate the munus of Romulus. Eutropia was the grandmother of Romulus, and Fausta was the aunt of Romulus, as well as the second wife of Constantine, who ultimately killed Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian bridge, all under the sign of the Christian god.
the Maxentian circus complex on the Appian Way 451 Rhawn Gallery 2025.01.03
recently collected ephemera
2025.01.17
    
451 Rhawn Gallery
2023.01.17
From The Discovery of Piranesi's Final Project
17 January 2023 Tuesday
unedited:
I was telling JP about the significance of Theodosius, primarily as the Roman emperor to have rendered all forms of paganism illegal, and thereby establishing Christianity as the empire's only legal religion. Also how Theodosius was the last sole emperor of the Roman Empire, the last in the line of new sole emperors began with Constantine, who was also the first Roman emperor to sanction Christianity. JP brought up Judaism, so I brought up how the [second] Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed under the emperor Titus in the year 70, and that almost 300 years later the emperor Julian, a late son-in-law of Constantine's attempted a rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem, hence Julian the Apostate. Then I threw in that Helena's finding of the True Cross was very likely an imperial hoax. That surprised, and even shocked JP a bit, but the conversation was ending anyway.
2007.01.17
Minimalism in Architecture
I'm definitely a "takes little to do a lot" kind of guy.
2000.01.17
Saarinen, Kahn and the Use of History
The other place in Rome that opened my eyes was the spiral entry ramp of the Vatican Museum. How come no one ever acknowledges that that spiral ramp and the skylight above it is exactly what Frank Lloyd Wright copied (or should I be kind and say reenacted?) when he did the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue? Wright's Guggenheim is certainly creative, but it is not all that original.
What I like best so far about investigating reenactment in architecture, it the search for origins, that which is being reenacted, because it's in the origins that true originality resides. Kahn himself said he wished he could write 'Volume 0'. I'm not going to say that I too want to write 'Volume 0', but I do have real faith in its existence.
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