Part 1
October 2018 - January 2020
Remodelling the
Book of the City of Ladies
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
“The female sex has been left defenceless for a long time now, like an orchard without a wall, and bereft of a champion to take up arms in order to protect it.”
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
Chapter one illumination in Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, Harley 4431, 1411–1414.
The first phase of the research focuses on a close study of MS Harley 4431, which includes a version of Christine’s The Book of the City of Ladies. MS Harley 4431 is a compilation manuscript that Christine assembled for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1410 and 1414. It is one of the most important manuscripts held at the British Library and part of a collection, which formed the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. It constitutes one of the most lavishly decorated versions of The Book of the City of Ladies and was almost certainly written in Christine’s hand. The main objective is to establish the literary and iconographic significance of Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies for the history, practice and education of architecture.
Gallery view of the exhibition at Domobaal gallery. Repositioning the artifacts on the tables.
The primary research methodology is design-led leading to an exhibition, ‘City of Ladies’, hosted by Domobaal gallery in January 2020 and in a refereed paper entitled: ‘The Female Body Politic: Enacting the Architecture of The Book of the City of Ladies’. The work brings together medieval drawing with cutting-edge digital manufacturing and time-based techniques. The exhibition featured an installation and a digital film that spatially and materially reconstruct the illuminated pages of the manuscript.
Plan and elevation sketches and printouts with hand-written annotations.
To enter the figurative space of the city, we decoded the illusory depth depicted in the illuminations and fleshed them into three-dimensions following a design process in reverse. The digital models were 3D printed at the same scale as they appear in the manuscript.
View of the 3D printed miniature illumination models.
Medieval manuscripts were handwritten and illuminated on sheets of vellum, an extremely durable writing and drawing surface made from animal skin, which was also used for architectural drawing. Each of the three opening chapter pages in the manuscript is represented by a whole skin of vellum, supported and framed by a specially designed table. The three tables follow the shape of the skins and are arranged radially forming a circular pattern. The vellum skins lay the tables like tablecloths but are also drawing surfaces carrying significant diagrams and markings. Penelope Haralambidou used a painstaking process of gilding, following medieval techniques with silver, gold and white gold leaf to mark the pure white surface of the vellum.
The first illumination portrays Christine in her study, when she is visited by three allegorical female figures, Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who bring her three gifts, a mirror, a ruler and a vessel. In the text, de Pizan describes these as measuring devices that the three virtues urge her to employ to design and construct the city. Through a process of poetic interpretative design and re-making, we embarked on a translation of these objects into symbolic material guiding principles for the design of a female city.
City of Ladies, table elevation.
In direct dialogue with the installation, a sister digital film created with John Cruwys and Kevin Pollard embodies the attempt to depart from a reading of the past and project de Pizan’s ideas into the far future. Using visual and sonic tropes from science fiction, the film conveys an ambiguous spatial voyage transporting the viewer from the space of the imagination to the interior of the body and from outer space back to the present moment in the gallery.
The research is kindly supported by The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Architecture Research Fund.
The main output of the research was a solo exhibition at Domobaal gallery:
City of Ladies, London, 30 January – 8 February 2020
Special thanks to Domo Baal at Domobaal gallery; B-Made at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL; Graham Reed and Kevin Doyle at Jaytec Glass; and Ray Westall at Moss & Co Timber.
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
"… You alone of all women have been granted the honour of building the City of Ladies. In order to lay the foundations, you shall draw fresh water from us three as from a clear spring. We will bring you building materials which will be stronger and more durable, than solid, uncemented marble. Your city will be unparalleled in splendor and will last for all eternity."
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.
"… For this reason, we three ladies whom you see before you have been moved by pity to tell you that you are to construct a building in the shape of a walled city, sturdy and impregnable."
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404, trans. Rosalind Brown–Grant. London: Penguin, 1999.