Piranesi – Architect of the Imagination

D 2024

Giovanni Battista Piranesi – the Italian architect, engraver, and archaeologist was dubbed the "Rembrandt of ancient ruins" by his contemporaries at the end of the 18th century. Rome was Piranesi's inspiration, his life's work, and, if you will, he reinvented Rome in his numerous vedute. Piranesi has forever shaped our image of the "Eternal City." During his lifetime, he was a respected Roman artist and businessman.

But it was only after his death that he became famous. Ironically, this was due to only a small part of his enormous body of work—16 sheets of his enigmatic depictions of dungeons, the "Carceri." To this day, art historians are still trying to fathom what Piranesi wanted to express with these endless surreal spaces in which staircases or bridges lead to nowhere. Did Piranesi design a gloomy vision of a negative future state? Was this how he saw the world? Or were these graphic fantasies merely an expression of his displeasure at only being able to make an impact on paper as an architect?

Whether psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, director Fritz Lang, or architect Daniel Libeskind—they were all inspired in very different ways by Piranesi and his imagery. For Piranesi's fantastic work continues to have an impact to this day, serving as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists and thinkers.