ro | en
Argument › No. 18/2026

Descending Time, Rising Infinity. Temporal Architectures in Piranesi’s Carceri

https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.18.11

  • / Department of Architecture, Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

The Carceri series by the Italian architect, archaeologist, and writer Giovanni Battista Piranesi is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable architectural representations of the eighteenth century. Developed through successive editions published in 1745 and 1760, the engravings depict vast prison-like environments composed of staircases, bridges, suspended structures, and seemingly infinite spatial recessions. While previous scholarship has primarily interpreted the series through its spatial complexity and association with the sublime, this paper examines the Carceri through the concept of temporality in architectural representation.

The study investigates how temporal experience is generated through visual and compositional mechanisms embedded within the engravings. Focusing on Plate VII as a concentrated analytical case, it combines visual composition and Gestalt principles with theoretical perspectives on sublimity and temporality developed by Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Paul Ricoeur. Particular attention is given to compositional strategies such as vertical layering, horizontal truncation, perspectival recession, suspended structures, perceptual voids, and bodily scale references.

The findings suggest that the Carceri operates as a form of temporal architecture. Rather than presenting time as a linear progression, the engravings evoke anticipation, delay, interruption, and deferred resolution. Infinity and confinement, movement and stasis, extension and obstruction coexist within the same spatial framework, transforming architectural representation into a medium that organises temporal experience. In this respect, the study contributes to discussions of architectural representation by demonstrating how images can shape the perception of time as effectively as they shape the perception of space. The Carceri thus emerges not only as an experiment in sublime representation but also as a profound exploration of temporality in architecture.

Keywords

Piranesi, Carceri series, architectural temporality, immensity, infinity, spatial confinement

Download

References

  1. Burke, E. (1757/1823). On taste: A philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful; With several other additions; Reflections on the French Revolution; A letter to a noble lord (C. W. Eliot, Ed.). P. F. Collier & Son Corporation.
  2. Denny, N. (2002, November 4). Dungeons of the mind: Ned Denny is surprised to discover an 18th-century equivalent of Nintendo. New Statesman, 131(4612), 43–45.
  3. Ek, F. İ., & Şengel, D. (2007). Piranesi between classical and sublime. METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, 24(1), 17–34.
  4. Ficacci, L. (Ed.). (2001). Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Selected etchings = Eine Auswahl der Kupferstiche = Une sélection des eaux-fortes (B. B. Dick, Trans.). Taschen.
  5. Fletcher, B. (1996). A history of architecture (D. Cruickshank, Ed.). Architectural Press.
  6. Kant, I. (1764/1960). Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and sublime (J. T. Goldthwait, Trans.). University of California Press.
  7. Kant, I. (1790/2007). Critique of judgement (J. C. Meredith, Trans.; N. Walker, Rev. & Ed.). Oxford University Press.
  8. Lefebvre, H. (2004). Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life (S. Elden & G. Moore, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1992)
  9. Piranesi, G. B. (1743). Prima parte di architetture, e prospettive inventate ed incise da Gio. Batta. Piranesi, architetto veneziano, dedicato al Sig. Nicola Giobbe [Etching series]. Stamperia de’ Fratelli Pagliarini.
  10. Piranesi, G. B. (1745). Invenzioni capricci di carceri [Etching series].
  11. Piranesi, G. B. (1760). Carceri d’invenzione [Etching series].
  12. Piranesi, G. B. (1769/1836). Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi, desunte dall’architettura Egizia, Etrusca e Greca, con un ragionamento apologetico in difesa dell’architettura Egizia e Toscana […]. (Original work published 1769)
  13. Piranesi, G. B. (2010). The prisons/Le carceri: The complete first and second states. Dover Publications.
  14. Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.; Vol. 1). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1983)
  15. Robison, A. (2022). Piranesi’s “Catalogo delle Opere.” The Burlington Magazine, 164(1428), 230–245.
  16. Roncato, S. (2007). Piranesi and the infinite prisons. Spatial Vision, 21(1–2), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1163/156856807782753895
  17. Small, I. (2007). Piranesi’s shape of time. Image & Narrative, (18). https://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/thinking_pictures/small.htm
  18. States, B. O. (1979–1980). The Piranesi effect: Alone and well in prison. The Hudson Review, 32(4), 617–620. https://doi.org/10.2307/3849825
  19. Stoppani, T. (2006). Voyaging in Piranesi’s space: A contemporary re-reading of the beginnings of modernity. Haecceity Papers, 1(2), 32–54.
  20. Tafuri, M. (1987). The sphere and the labyrinth: Avant-gardes and architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s. MIT Press.
  21. Venturi, F. (1972). Italy and the Enlightenment: Studies in a cosmopolitan century. Longman.
  22. Wilton-Ely, J. (1978). The mind and art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Thames and Hudson.
  23. Wilton-Ely, J. (1993). Piranesi as architect and designer. Yale University Press.
  24. Wittkower, R. (1961). Piranesi as architect. In Piranesi. Smith College Museum of Art.
  25. Yerkes, C., & Hyde Minor, H. (2020). Piranesi unbound. Princeton University Press.