Joseph Douglas Darden (October 20, 1951 – April 3, 1996) was an American architectural designer, artist, writer, and instructor. He is most notable for his collection of visionary architecture published in his book, Condemned Building, in 1993. Darden died at the age of 44 in the spring of 1996 from leukemia.
Biography
Early life and education Darden was born in Lakewood, Colorado on October 20, 1951, to Joseph Darden and Nancy Lee Darden.
In the fall of 1969 he enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado. He graduated in the spring of 1974 with his Bachelor of English and Psychology, Magna Cum Laude. He then attended Parsons School of Design in New York, New York from September 1977 to December 1978 on a design scholarship to study industrial design. Darden then went on to study architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall 1979, and graduated with his Master of Architecture, with distinction, in January 1983.Dey, Patrick. "Douglas Darden: Two Resumes," Blogspot: Thoughts Out of Season. 27 September 2015.
Career While still attending the GSD, Darden became the chief studio instructor for the Architecture Career Discovery Program in 1982. After graduate school he became a visiting lecturer at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. for the spring semester 1984, teaching a graduate seminar on the American industrial landscape. From September 1984 until 1987 Darden taught architectural design as an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University in New York, New York. From January 1987 until 1988 he taught architectural design as a special lecturer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. In 1989 Darden moved back to his home state of Colorado to teach. He became a senior instructor at the University of Colorado Denver in the fall of 1990, teaching advanced-level architectural design studios and lecture courses. He continued to teach at the University of Colorado Denver until shortly before his death.Dey, Patrick. "Douglas Darden: Two Resumes," Blogspot: Thoughts Out of Season. 27 September 2015.
Beginning soon after the completion of his graduate studies at Harvard, Darden began writing and designing, publishing essays on architectural theory, as well as publishing theoretical architectural designs (which were later printed in Condemned Building), lecturing at various universities and conferences, and exhibiting various works in galleries and group shows (one notable exhibition was of his Museum of Impostors in the gallery Artists Space in the group show From Here to EternityFrom Here to Eternity. Artists Space. 1986.).
In the course of his career he was the recipient of several fellowships, honors, and awards. Some of the most distinguished are the Entering Professional Designer Project Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984 for his work Museum of Impostors;Annual Report 1984. National Endowment for the Arts. 1985. p. 28. The Young Architects Forum winner (now Architectural League of New York) in 1985, also for Museum of Impostors;Past Architectural League Prize Winners. The Architectural League of New York. recipient of a traveling grant from the Graham Foundation in 1988 for Hostel;Dey, Patrick. "Douglas Darden: Two Resumes," Blogspot: Thoughts Out of Season. 27 September 2015. and a Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 1989,List of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome . The American Academy in Rome. during which he developed Hostel, Temple Forgetful, and ConfessionalDarden, Douglas. Condemned Building. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press. 1993. 160. (see also List of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome). Darden was also listed as one of the leading fifty contemporary architects by Yoichi Iijima in 1993, along with Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Lebbeus Woods, and Eric Owen Moss.Iijima, Yoichi. 50 Contemporary Architects, Inax 5. Japan. 1993. . pp. 120–124.
Later life and death Darden was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) on February 12, 1990. Darden references this date in his letter from Burnden Abraham for the project Oxygen House, which is a house for dying in.Darden, Douglas. "Oxygen House: As I Lay Drawing," Installation, Volume 1. University of Colorado Denver. Fall 1992. No page numbers.Darden, Douglas. "Oxygen House", The Southern Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, Fall 1994. p. 114. He began chemotherapy, and after a few years began to go into remission,LaMarche, Jean. "The Life and Work of Douglas Darden: A Brief Encomium", Utopian Studies, Volume 9, Number 1. 1998. p. 165. although his cancer was not cured.
In 1991–92 Robert Miller, having learned of Darden's illness, conducted a film interview—with grant monies from the Clemson University School of Architecture, and first screened at their Graduate Symposium—called Douglas Darden: Looking After the UnderbellyMiller, Robert. Cirriculum Vitae. August 20, 2014. in order to capture and preserve some of Darden's ideas.
Darden went into blast crisis—the final and terminal stage of CML—in late September 1995, just weeks after he married Allison Jo Rosen on September 16. On the morning of April 3, 1996, Darden died in Denver at the age of 44.
Influences The last year he attended the GSD Darden took a studio with Stanley Tigerman, in whose class he designed the project Saloon for Jesse James.Ledbetter, Ben. "Digital Darden: Resisting the Rhinoceros," Weblog: Ben Ledbetter. 18 May 2015. It was Tigerman's radical approach to architecture that would significantly change Darden's own approach to architecture.Schneider, Peter. "Douglas Darden's Sex Shop," Journal of Architectural Education. 2004. p. 9. Darden dedicates Condemned Building—in addition to his parents—to Tigerman.
Among the numerous drawings, sketches, and studies found after Darden's death was found a study for the frontispiece of Condemned Building. It was found in a box and drawn on yellow tracing paper. This study depicts four leaning books: Marcel Duchamp's La Boite Vert, Jean-Jacques Lequeu's Architecture Civile, Étienne-Louis Boullée's Treatise, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Le Carcieri.Schneider, Peter. "Douglas Darden's Sex Shop," Journal of Architectural Education. 2004. pp. 9, 11. While this version of the frontispiece was not used for Condemned Building, those four artists/architects and the works contained within their respective helped inspire the frontispiece that was ultimately published in Condemned Building.Chapman, Michael and Oswalt, Michael J. " The Underbelly of an Architect," LIMITS Conference, Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne, Australia. 2004. pp. 93–94.
One notable work of visionary architecture that strongly influenced Darden was Giuseppe Terragni's Danteum, an unbuilt monument commissioned by Benito Mussolini for the Esposizione universale (1942). Inspired by and dedicated to Dante Alighieri, it was never built due to the outbreak of World War II. The project is meant to recreate Dante's Divine Comedy in architectural form. As a representation of narrative in architecture, it had a significant impact on Darden's thought. Darden wrote a review of Thomas L. Schumacher's Terragni's Danteum (Princeton Architectural Press, 1985), in which he comments: "...the Danteum does not 'illustrate' the Divine Comedy: Terragni's project is not a literal narrative that makes figures of space; instead it is an architectural poem..."Darden, Douglas. "Book Review: The Danteum: A Study in the Architecture of Literature by Thomas L. Schumacher," Sites, Number 15. New York, NY: Lumen Inc. 1986. pp. 107. The Danteum is a work of what Darden called "narrative architecture", which would become a significant aspect of how he approached his later works.
Pre-text, Con-texts, Sub-texts, and Archi-texts Darden would use a number of terms that he himself devised to describe how a quote, image, sketch, et cetera might influence a project. He would use the term pre-texts to describe passages that "in-form" the initial portion of the design process, but simultaneously cloak and conceal the real intention. Con-texts are the writings by Darden or the inspirational elements that condition the design and give it a sense of believability. Sub-text was the underlying story behind the project—in a sense, Darden's own personal life found in the project (e.g., Darden's letter to The Southern Quarterly on how he related Oxygen House with his leukemiaDarden, Douglas. "Oxygen House or How Life Imitates Art", The Southern Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, Fall 1994. pp. 123–124.). Finally, there are archi-texts, which are writings, thoughts, or ideas by Darden himself that color the project and give it sustenance.Schneider, Peter. "The House at the End of Time ", Part 7: Technology & The Home. 2001.
Of Darden's influences, literature was particularly important. Darden writes: "I wish to demonstrate that a work of literature could not only be a source of inspiration for an architectural project, but that a novel could more directly in-form architecture; that is, a novel could be the veritable client for a building design."Darden, Douglas. "Melvilla: An Architect on Moby-Dick ," Melville Society Extracts, Number 91, November 1992. p. 1. After Darden's death a note of his was found in the project file box for Oxygen House that read: "Literature continues to create an agenda for representation which I deem to be pertinently as large as life. I wish architecture to have that same agenda, and literature has thus been my inspiration and, effectively, my sponsor."Schneider, Peter. "Douglas Darden's Sex Shop," Journal of Architectural Education. 2004. p. 10.
Certainly one of the greatest influences on Darden was Herman Melville, and especially his magnum opus Moby-Dick. One of Darden's later projects was named after Herman Melville: Melvilla. Darden writes concerning this project: "The building honors Moby-Dick as the greatest novel in American history"Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press. 1993. p. 75. Darden quotes an extensive passage from Chapter XLVII: "The Mat-Maker" from Moby-Dick in Condemned Building,Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press. 1993. p. 77 and the passage is inscribed on rough-hewn stone on the side of the building.Giordano, Michele Bazan. "Melvilla: A Theoretical Project," L'Arca, Issue 71. June 1993. p. 14. Darden also references another passage from Moby-Dick in the title image of Condemned Building: "How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished there?"; which comes from Chapter LXXVIII: "Cistern and Buckets".