Deep Exploration Series -- Disappearing Architecture: Pursuing the Poetic Beauty of Breath in Elsewhere

Author: (French) Michel Cohen
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Features: A curse inscription reads: "Whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh, death will fly to his head." Most believe this curse is effective, as the tomb of Tutankhamun's retaliatory actions began even as pyramid excavations continued. An earthquake reduced the massive columns of the Olympian Zeus Temple to ruins, with the complete textures scattered on the ground almost making one believe that if they were pieced together, everything would return to its original state.
In ancient Rome, individuals had to pay to draw water from public channels and also obtain the consent of the council. The scale of the entire project and the wisdom and courage demonstrated by Roman hydraulic engineers in solving channel system issues left people in awe. The 1360-foot World Trade Center towers soared into the sky, symbolizing the values of the United States, especially New York City. Who could have imagined that one day it would become the beginning of a global panic under the watchful eyes of the world?
Deep Exploration Series: From the Nile, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent to the mysterious East Asia, from the Mediterranean basin, the Baltic coast, the Central American isthmus, and the Andes Mountains, magnificent architectural wonders that once marked the brilliance of human civilization have stood. Some are still visible today, while others have vanished forever. Those lost buildings still exist in our imagination and memory. Under the erosion of time and human destruction, they gradually turned into desolate ruins and drifting dust.
Architecture has been described as a frozen symphony, and when this frozen symphony is shattered, the melancholic beauty is astonishingly captivating. The secrets and wonders hidden within it are truly irresistible. Architecture provides humanity with a home for both shelter and spiritual solace, and every structure carries the radiance of human civilization. Each building is a treasure, embodying humanity's exquisite artistic expression and profound exploration of human nature. Although it may no longer exist, as a monument of human civilization, its value is eternal and does not fade with the passage of time.
Through remembrance, we become vast and profound. Their distant silhouettes, carrying the aspirations of the times and the power of the spirit, are forever irreplaceable and grow more magnificent and grand as time passes.
There are only two kinds of architecture in the world—one we can still see, and the other, we can no longer. This book tells the story of the latter. Though they have disappeared, they still exist—existing in our imagination, in the past three thousand or five thousand years, or even in the not-so-distant past. These once magnificent buildings, now either reduced to desolate ruins or turned into drifting dust due to the erosion of time or human destruction, have been said that architecture is a frozen symphony—when the frozen is broken, the melancholic beauty remains equally captivating. And the secrets hidden among those ruins can only stir our longing.