House of Leaves (27 page)

especially complicated and twisted. [Aside from the practical aspect of fishing line—a readily available and cheap way to map progress through that complicated maze—there are of course obvious mythological resonances.
Minos’ daughter Ariadne, supplied Theseus with a thread which he used to escape the labyrinth
. Thread has repeatedly served as a metaphor for an umbilical cord, for life, and for destiny. The Greek Fates (called Moerae) or the Roman Fates (called Fata or Parcae) spun the thread of life and also cut it off. Curiously in Orphic cults, thread symbolized semen.]

Oddly enough, however, the farther Holloway goes the more infrequently he stops to take samples or mark their path. Obviously deaf to Seneca’s words.

Jed is the first to voice some
concern over how quickly their
team leader is moving: “You know
where you’re going, Holloway?”
But Holloway just scowls and keeps
pushing forward, in what appears
to be a determined effort to find
something, something different,
something defining, or at least some
kind of indication of an outside-ness to that place. At one point
Holloway even succeeds in scratching,
stabbing, and ultimately kicking
a hole in a wall, only to discover
another windowless room with a
doorway leading to another hallway
spawning yet another endless
series of empty rooms and passageways, all with walls potentially hiding and thus hinting at a possible exterior, though invariably winding up as just another border to another interior. As Gerard Eysenck famously described it: “Insides
and in-ness never inside out.” [
143
—
Gerard Eysenck’s “Break Through (not a) Breakthrough: Heuristic Hallways In The Holloway Venture.”
Proceedings from
The Navidson Record
Semiotic Conference Tentatively Entitled Three Blind Mice and the Rest As Well.
American Federation of Architects. June 8, 1993. Reprinte
d in Fisker and Weinberg, 1996.]

This desire for exteriority is no doubt further amplified by the utter blankness found within. Nothing there provides a reason to linger. In part because not one object, let alone fixture or other manner of finish work
has ever been discovered there. [1
44
—footnote text boxes not included]

Back in 1771, Sir Joshua Reynolds in his
Discourses On Art
argued against the importance of the particular, calling into question, for example, “minute attention to the discriminations of Draper
y…
the cloathing is neither Woollen, nor linen, nor
silk, sa
tin or velvet: it is drapery: it is nothi
ng more.” [
145
—
See Joshua Reynolds’
Discourses on Art
(
1771
)
(New York: Collier, 1961).
]
Such global appraisal seems perfectly suited for Navidson’s house which despite its corridors and rooms of various sizes is nothing more than corridors and rooms, even if sometimes, as John Updike once observed in the course of translating the labyrinth: “The galleries seem straight but curve furtively.”

Of course rooms, corridors, and the occasional spiral staircase are themselves subject to patterns of arrangement. In some cases particular patterns. However, considering the constant
shifts, the seemingly endless
redefinition of route, even the absurd way the first
hallway
leads away from the living room only
to return, th
rough a series of lefts, back to where the living room
s
hould be but clearly is not; describes a layout in no way
r
eminiscent of any modern floorplans let alone historical
experiments in design.
[146—For example, there is nothing about the house that even remotely resembles 20th century works whether in the style of Post-Modern, Late-Modern, Brutalism, Neo-Expressionism, Wrightian, The New Formalism, Miesian, the International Style, Streamline Moderne, Art Deco, the Pueblo Style, the Spanish Colonial, to name but a few, with examples such as the Western Savings and Loan Association in Superstition, Arizona, Animal Crackers in Highland Park, Illinois, Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, or Mineries Condominium in Venice, Wurster Hall in Berkeley, Katselas House in Pittsburgh, Dulles International Airport, Greene House in Norman Oklahoma, Chicago Harold Washington Library, the Watts Towers in South Central, Barcelona National Theatre, New Town of Seaside Florida, Tugendhat House, Rue de Laeken in Brussels, Richmond Riverside in Richmond Surrey, the staircase hail in the Athens, Georgia News Building, the Tsukuba Center Building in Ibaraki, the Digital 1-louse, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, the interior of the Judge Institute of Management Studies in Cam- — bridge, Maison a Bordeaux, TGV Railway Station in Lyon-Satolas, the post-modernism of the Wexner Center for Visual Arts in Columbus, Ohio, Palazzo Hotel in Fukuoka, National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, Pyramid at the Louvre, New Building at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Palace of Abraxas at Marne-La-Vallée, Piazza d’ltalie in New Orleans, AT&T Building in New York, the modernism of Carré d’Art, Lloyds Building in London, the Boston John F. Kennedy Library complex, Nave of Vuokseeniska Church in Finland, head office of the Enso-Gutzeit Company, Administrative Center of Silynatsalo, the Eaines House, the Baker dormitory at MIT. inside the TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport, The National Theatre in London, Hull House Association Uptown Center in Chicago, Hektoen Laboratory also in Chicago, Fitzpatrick House in the Hollywood Hills, Graduate Center at Harvard University, Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, General Motors Testing Laboratory in Phoenix Arizona, Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store in Los Angeles, Casino Building in New York, Hotel Franciscan in Albuquerque New Mexico, La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, or Santa Barbara County Courthouse, the Neff or Sherwood House in California, Exterior of the Secondary Modern School, Maisons Jaoul, Notre-Dame-du-i4aut near Belfort, The Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, The Farnsworth House in Piano, Iflinois, The Alumni Memorial Hall at illinois institute of Technology, Guggenheim Museum in New York, or nothing of the traditionalism of Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, the Zimbabwe House and Battersea Power Station in London, Choir of the Angelican cathedral in Liverpool or Memorial to the Missing of the Somme near Aras, Viceroy’s house in New Delhi, Gledstone Hall in Yorkshire, Finsbury Circus facade, Castle Drogo near Drewsteignton Devon, Casa del Fascio in Como, Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, Central Station in Milan, the New York City World’s Fair Interior of the Finnish Pavilion, lobby of the Stockholm Concert House, Stockholm City Library, Woodland Crematorium, Police Headquarters in Copenhagen. Helsinki railway station, Villa HvittrAsk near Helsinki, Grundtvig Church in Copenhagen, Villa Savoye in Poissy,
25
rue Vavrn in Paris, 62 rue Des Belles Feuilles also in Paris, Notre-Dame du Raincy,
25
bis, rue Franklin, Paris again, Chateau of Voisins, Rochefort-en-Yvelines, New Chancellery in Berlin. The Festival House near Dresden. the Schr&ler House, Utrecht, The Bauhaus in Dessau, or the expressionism of the Fagus Factory near Hildesheim. Amsterdam’s Scheepvarthuis, Rheinhalle in Düsseldorf, the Chilehaus in Hamburg, Einstein Tower in Berlin, Schocken Department Store in Sutigart, Auditorium of the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin, The Glass Pavilion in Cologne, Bresau’s Centennial Hall, l.G.-Farben Dye Factory, Höchst, the Völker schlach Memorial in Leipzig. Haus Wiegand in Berlin, AEG Turbine Factory also in Berlin, the Stuttgart Railway Station, Leipziger Platz facade and the National Bank of Germany in Berlin, the American Radiator Building in New York, the Nebraska State Capitol, the )etl’erson Memorial in Washington, D.C., Villa Vizcaya in Miami, Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, or Fallingwater, Administration Building at the S.C. Johnson Wax Factory, plan for the Tokyo Imperial Hotel or Taliesin East. the Robie House, the Winslow House, Warren Hickox House, or History Faculty Building in Cambridge, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the David B. Gamble House, The Seagram Building in New York, the Portland public service buiding, or the Art Nouveau of the cathedral of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Assembly building at Chandigarh in India, Casa Milá in Barcelona, the Majolikahaus and the Secession building in Vienna, the Greek Theatre at Park GüeII, Case Batilo, and Casa Vicens in Barcelona, and the staircase of the Tassel House in Brussels, Central Rotunda at the international Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Turin, Palazzo Castiglioni in Milan, the Elvira Photographic Studio in Munich, the Stoclet House in Brussels. The Imperial and Royal Post Office Savings Bank in Vienna, Darmstadt Artist’s Colony, Library Facade of Glasgow School of Art, Paris Metro station entrance, Castel Beranger also in Paris, Maison du Peuple in Brussels, the Exchange in Amsterdam, the staircase of the Van Eetvelde House and Hotel Solvay in Brussels, or anything of the Bungaloid style, the Mission Style, the Western Slick Style or the Prairie Style, whether the Crocker House in Pasadena, the Town and Gown Club in Berkeley, or the Goodrich House in Tucson, or any evidence of 19th century modes, whether stylistically enunciated as Jacobethan Revival, Late Gothic, Neo-Classical Revival, Georgian Revival, Second Renaissance Revival, Beaux-Arts Classicism, Chateauesque, Richardsonian Romanesque, the Shingle Style, Eastlake Style, Queen Anne Style, Stick Style, Second Empire, High Victorian Ltalianate, High Victorian Gothic, the Octagon Mode, the Renaissance Revival, the Italian Villa Style, Romanesque Revival, Early Gothic Revival, Egyptian Revival, Greek Revival, such as University Club in Portland Oregon, Calvary Episcopal in Pittsburgh, the Minneapolis institute of Arts, Germantown Cricket Club in Penn. sylvania, All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., Detroit Public Library or the Racquet and Tennis Club in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Riverside County Courthouse in California, the Kimball House in Chicago, the Gresham House in Galveston, Texas. Cheney Building in Hartford Connecticut, Pioneer Building in Seattle, House House in Austin, Texas, Bookstaver House in Middletown Rhodes Island, Double House on Twenty- First Street in San Francisco, Brownlee House in Bonham, Texas, Los Angeles Heritage Society, Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, Cram House in Middletown Rhode Island, House of San Luis Obispo, City Hall in Philadelphia, Gallatin House in Sacramento, Bla- — gen Block and Marks House in Portland, Iangworthy House in Dubuque, Iowa, Cedar Point in Swansboro, North Carolina, Haughwout Building in New York City, Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank in Philadelphia, Calvert Station in Baltimore, Jarrad [louse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Old Stone Church in Cleveland, Church of Assumption in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rotch House in New Bedford, Massachusetts. St. James in Willming. ton, North Carolina, Philadelphia’s Moyamensing Prison, Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Lyle-Hunnicutt House in Athens, Georgia, Montgomery County Courthouse in Dayton. Ohio, which is not to exclude the non-presence of other 19th century examples such as the Pennsylvania station, exterior and concourse, Villard Houses in New York. the Boston Public Library, Court of Honor at the Chicago World’s Fair, the St. Louis Wainwright Building, the Buffalo’s Guaranty Building, Watts Sherman House in Newport Rhode Island, Boston Trinity Church, Ames Gate Lodge in North Easton, the Philadelphia Provident Life and Trust Company, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Nott Memorial Library in Schenectady, New York, saloon in the Breakers, Boston City Hall, or Greek and gothic presence in the New York City Trinity Church, Philadelphia Girard College for Orphans. the Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institute, Boston Tremont House, Philadelphia Merchant’s Exchange, Ohio State Capitol, The Singer’s Hall in Bavaria, Washington, D.C. Treasury Building, the Palais de Justice in Brussels. Empress Josephine’s bedroom at Château of Malmaison, the Academy of Science in Athens, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, Moscow Historical Museum, the New Admiralty in St. Petersburg. the grand staircase of the Paris Opéra, the St. Petersburg Exchange, Thorwaldsen Museum, Senate Square in Helsinki, Florence Cathedral, Milan’s Galleria Vittono Emanuele II, Palazzo di Giustizia in Rome, Conova Mausoleum near Possagno, Padua’s Caffé Pedrocehi, the Parliament House in Vienna, the Dresden Opera House, Befreiungshalle near Keiheim, Walhalla across the Danube, Feldherrnhalle in Munich, Berlin National Galerie or Bauakademie or the staircase in the Altes Museum or Schauspielhaus, nor the gothic revival of the campanile of Wesminster cathedral, New Scottland Yard, Standen in Sussex. the house at Cragside in Northumberland or Newnham College in Cambridge, or Leyswood in Sussex, the Crystal Palace or the Law Courts in London, the chapel at Keble college, Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, or the Saloon of the Reform Club, Elmes’ St. George’s Hall in Liverpool, Taylorian Institution at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians, British Museum in London, Devon Luscombe Castle, Cumberland Terrace in Regent’s Park, the Paris Grand Palais or Gare du Quai d’Orsay or the staircase at the Nouvelle Sorbonne or the Opéra or St-Augustin or Fontaine StMichel or Parc des ButtesChaumont, the Marseilles Cathedral, the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, the Salle de Harlay in the Palais de Justice, or the reading room at the Bibliothéque Ste-Genevieve, Gare du Nord, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, St-Vincent de Paul, Church of the Madeleine, rue de Rivoli, the arc du Carrousel, nor anything like 18th century classicism of the Washington,
D.C.
Supreme Court Chamber, the staircase vestibule in the D.C. capitol and the capitol itself, Baltimore Roman Catholic Cathedral, bank of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia Jefferson Library, Monticello near Charlottesville, First Baptist Meeting House in Providence Rhode Island, Drayton Hall in Charleston, King’s Chapel in Boston, or examples of the Jeffersonian Classicism or the Adam Style, such as Pavilion VII at the University of Virginia, Estouteville in Albemarle County, Clay Hill in Harrodsburg Kentucky, Nickels-Sortwell House in Wiscasset, Maine, Ware-Sibley House in Augusta, Georgia, or the Congregational Church in Talimadge Ohio. or the Dalton House in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Sheremetev Palace near Moscow, Cameron Gallery in Tsarskow Seine, the Catherine Hall in the St. Petersburg Tauride Palace, Leningrad Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen Amalienborg Palace, Lazienki Palace near Warsaw, the mock Gothic castle of Lowenburg at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, mosque in the garden of Schwetzingen near Mannheim, Villa Hamilton near Dessau, Milan’s Palazzo Serbelloni, the Sale delle Muse in the Vatican, the Boston Massachusetts State House, Paris BarriCre de Ia Villette, the Director’s house at the saltworks of Arc-et-Senans near Besancon, Paris Pantheon, or La Solitude in Stuttgart, Rue de Ia PCpiniCre, Château at Montmusard near Dijon, the breakfast room of Sir John Soane’s Museum, or the French Neo-Classicism of the Hameau at Versailles, the staircase of the theatre at Bordeaux, the anatomy theatre in the Paris School of Surgery, chambers for the mausoleum of the Prince of Wales, entrance and colonnade of the Hotel de Salm, Syon House in Middlesex, Versailles St. Symphorien, or Petit Trianon, or London Lin coIn’s Inn Fields, the Consols Office in the Bank of England. the plan of Fonthill Abbey, the Cupola Room at Heaton Hall. the Dublin Four Courts, the Somerset House in London, the Casino at Marino House in Dublin, the Pagoda at Kcw Gardens. Stowe House portico at Buckinghamshire, drawing room at 20 St. James’ Square, Middlesex Syon House, Marble Hall at Kedleston, Temple of Ancient Virtue in the Stowe Elysian Fields, staircase at 44 Berkeley Square. Holkham Hall in Norfolk, the cupola room in Kensington Palace, Tempietto Diruto at Villa Albani Rome, entrance front to S. Maria del Pnorato also in Rome, Ancient Mausoleum from
Prima Pane di Archiierturt’ e Prospelilve,
or the Baroque expansion indicated by the cascade of steps at Born Jesus do Monte near Braga, or royal palace at Queluz. the Royal Library at the University of Coimbra, the palace-convent of Mafra near Lisbon, Salamanca Plaza Mayor, cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, cathedral at Murcia, Granada cathedral, the transparente in Toledo cathedral, octagonal pavilion at Orleans House, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Radclifre Library in Oxford, the Wieskirche, chapel of WOrzburg Residenz, or Stepney St. George-in-the-East, St. George’s. Bloomsbury London, Oxfordshire Blenheim Palace, the mirror room of the Amlienburg in Munich, the Yorkshire Mausoleum at Castle Howard, Chatsworth Derbyshire, the painted hall at the Greenwich Royal Hospital, Rome’s interior dome of S. Carlo alle quattro Fontane, or the Salon de Ia Guerre in Versailles. St. Paul’s Cathedral, Piazza S. Pietro, Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the abbey church at Ottobeuren, or the German rococo of the Zwingei Walipavillon Dresden. St. John Nepomuk in Munich. the high altar at the abbey church of Weltenburg, the staircase at the Residenz WUrzburg or the church at Vierzehnheiligen, the monastery of Melk in Austria, staircase at Pornmersfelden, the upper Belvedere, Imperial Library of the Hofburg, Karlskirche in Vienna, the Ancestral Hall at Schloss Frain in Moravia, or French rococo like the Salon de Ia Princesse at Hotel de Soubise in Paris. not even just the interior chapel at Versailles, domed oval saloon at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Paris HOtel Lambert. S. Agata in Catania. the Syracuse cathedral, the ballroom at the Palazzo Gangi in Palermo. the majolica cloister at S. Chiara or the Piazza del GesO in Naples, or even the uncompleted Palazzo Donn’Anna. or the interior of the Gesuiti in Venice, the plan of the University Genoa, the Royal Palace at Stupinigi, the Superga near Turin, or the staircase at the Palazzo Madama, or the dome of S. Lorenzo in Turin, or the interior of the dome of the Cappella della SS. Sin- done, or the Trevi Fountain or the facade of S. Maria Maggiore or the Spanish steps or the frescoes on the nave vault of S. lgnazio in Rome, or also in Rome the exterior of S. Maria in Via Lata, Pietro da Cortona’s SS, Luca e Martina, Villa Sacchetti del Pigneto, Piazza Navona, Fontana del Moro, S. Ivo dell Sapienza, facade of the Oratory of the Congregration of St. Philip Neri, chapel ceiling at the Collegio di Propa ganda Fide or the S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Scala Regia in the Vatican. S. Andrea al Quirinale, nor even elements of the Renaissance as evinced by the Great Hall at the Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. Longleat, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. the Gate of Honour at Gonville and Calus College in Cambridge. Burghley House in Northamptonshire, Meat Hall in Haarlem, the House Ten Bosch at Maarssen, the Mauritshuis at the Hague, the Antwerp town hall, the arcaded loggia of the Belvedere in Prgaue, Wawel Cathedral in Cracow, the town hail at Augsburg, Schloss Johannesburg, Aschaffenburg, the court facade of the Ottheinrichsbau of the Schloss at Heidelberg, the Jesuit church of St. Michael in Munich, court of Altes Schloss in Stuttgart. Escorial, the Portal of Pardon, Granada, palace courtyard for Charles V at Aihambra, Granada, the Royal Hospital at Santiago de Compostela. the Queen’s House in Greenwich, the Bourbon chapel at St-Denis, chateau pf Maisons-Lafittern the church of the College of the Sorbonne, the Palazzo Corner della Ca’Grande in Venice, or the Francois I gallery at Fontainebleau, Place des Vosges in Paris, gateway of the chateau at Anet. the Petit Chateau at Chantilly, the Chateau de Chambord. Square Court of the Louvre, Courtyard of the Chateau of Ancy-le-Franc, the Medici Chapel. the open staircase at Blois, the interior of II Redentore in Venice, or Villa Rotonda near Vjcenza, Palazza Chiericatj, Villa Barbaro, S. Maria. Vicoforte di Mondovi, Palazzo Farnese, Caprarola, the Strada Nuova in Genoa, the hemicycle of Villa Giulia, Villa Garzoni, Pontecasale, library of S. Marco in Venice. the Loggetta at the base of the Campanile, Cappella Pellegrini in Verona. Rome’s S. Maria Degli Angeli. the giant order of the Rome Capitol, staircase of the Laurentian Library in Florence. or Mantua’s Palazzo Ducale or Palazzo del Te, or Palazzo Farnese or Palazzo Massimi or Villa Farnesina or Villa Madama in Rome. or S. Maria della Consolazione in Todi. Belvedere Court, S. Pietro in Montorio, or Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, S. Maria della Grazie in Milan, Cappella del Perdono, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence, the Pienxa Piazza. Rimini Tempio Malatestiano, Mantua’s S. Andrea, Florence’s S. Spirito or Pazzi Chapel. to say nothing of the lack of even a gothic signature, whether like the church of Sta Maria de VitOria at Batalha, the Cristo Monastery at Tomar, the palace of Beilver near Palma de Mallorca, cathedral at Palma de Mallorca, the Seville cathedral, a’ d’Oro in Venice, Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, Venice’s Piazzetta. the Doges’ Palace Facade. or the nave of the Milan Cathedral, Orvieto cathedral, or the Florence cathedral, or the upper church of S. Francesco at Assisi. cathedral and castle of the Teutonic Order at Marienwerder Poland, the town hall at Louvain. St. Barbara in Kuttenberg, the Vladislav Hall in the Hradcany Castle in Prague. St Lorenz in Nuremberg, the Starsbourg cathedral, the Uim cathedral, Vienna Cathedral, interior of the Aarchen cathedral, the Prague cathedral, the choir vaulting of the church of the Holy Cross, choir of Cologne cathedral, Oxford New College, or Harlech Castle in Gwynnedd North Wales, Stokesay Castle in Shropshire, the Great Hall of Penhurst Place in Kent, the King’s College Chapel in