Architecture and fiction

Abstract

This report argues that architecture is more than just physical, built form; that architecture involves ideas and images that are fictional. Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities is the piece of fiction which is examined. Themes from the book -women, ordering systems, Venice - are studied so as to extract their architectural relevance. The theme of women becomes the grounds for looking at the city from a feminist perspective, which allows for the breakdown of oppositions which separate architecture and fiction. Venice is studied in terms of the images that have been created of it: a look at the city as it has been written and as it has been visually portrayed. Together these images create the fictional image which becomes a part of architecture in the city.