Kobrin, age 24, in Győr, circa 1876
Transcribing my many (and at times incomprehensible/deranged) navnotes from Manaus - notes which, once rendered in text, I will surely post for our readers here - has given me cause reflect anew on the enigma that is Mezin Kobrin. As most of our readers no doubt know, in his lifetime Kobrin traveled extensively and completed eighteen labyrinths, using materials ranging from glass to bamboo to igneous rock. Remarkably, Kobrin's productivity increased as he aged. In fact, twelve of these eighteen labyrinths were constructed in the last decade of his life. As I have just navigated the previously unknown, arguably unnavigable and center-less Amazonian labyrinth which I have dubbed the Manuas Cave Labyrinth, I have been given cause to reflect on Kobrin's late labyrinthectural writings, writings with which I was previously unfamiliar and would have proven invaluable indeed had I been aware of them. For curious readers, these late writings have been anthologized and translated by Ari Ghisk under the title "Contributions to Acentrism" and are available via Junctures Ltd. Printing.
My navjournals will provide context to my sense that in the case of the Manuas labyrinth (as well as the Amazon Basin labyrinth, which as Cruemer noted when beginning work "finishing" its construction seemed "an utter aporia of walking" - a labyrinth which, given my recent navigation, I now believe was left intentionally unnavigable by Kobrin at the time of his death), we have perhaps an unprecedented example of a purposefully center-less, and, ultimately for the walker, fatal labyrinth. Simply put, it is my contention that Kobrin, possessed of the notion of a sovereign, "pure" labyrinth, began, in the waning years of his life, to design labyrinths devoid of traditional structural components (atriums, Great Rooms, and, yes, even centers). It is thus that a certain nihilism enters Kobrin's work, an alarming symptom of a sociopathic labyrinthecture that was arrested only by the designer's own failing health.
The late Kobrin is remarkably dense, ponderous and poetic, so I will quote only this brief and profoundly relevant passage, taken from Section XVI of the Szeged Lectures (1928).
The center is a leaping-forward if left remote, an area in which the corridor gathers itself into itself only in the absence of external entities. It is what is nearest and most far away from the subject, a guiding principle that may do only violence. To dissemble it, to upend its unavoidable thrust, this is our task. What of the squandering that occurs if the center is left permeable? The labyrinth thus becomes history, machination, "prone-conquerable" to the walker. To surpass this is the enactment of proper labyrinthecture - the truth of proper recursivism in the wake of Gerrit.
What Kobrin calls for then is nothing other than a labyrinth without a center. But where does this leave us as historians and navigators? What is the place of the labyrinthologist in such a labyrinthology? And where does this leave the walker?
My navjournals will provide context to my sense that in the case of the Manuas labyrinth (as well as the Amazon Basin labyrinth, which as Cruemer noted when beginning work "finishing" its construction seemed "an utter aporia of walking" - a labyrinth which, given my recent navigation, I now believe was left intentionally unnavigable by Kobrin at the time of his death), we have perhaps an unprecedented example of a purposefully center-less, and, ultimately for the walker, fatal labyrinth. Simply put, it is my contention that Kobrin, possessed of the notion of a sovereign, "pure" labyrinth, began, in the waning years of his life, to design labyrinths devoid of traditional structural components (atriums, Great Rooms, and, yes, even centers). It is thus that a certain nihilism enters Kobrin's work, an alarming symptom of a sociopathic labyrinthecture that was arrested only by the designer's own failing health.
Kobrin at age 65 (Szolnok, Summer, 1941)
The late Kobrin is remarkably dense, ponderous and poetic, so I will quote only this brief and profoundly relevant passage, taken from Section XVI of the Szeged Lectures (1928).
The center is a leaping-forward if left remote, an area in which the corridor gathers itself into itself only in the absence of external entities. It is what is nearest and most far away from the subject, a guiding principle that may do only violence. To dissemble it, to upend its unavoidable thrust, this is our task. What of the squandering that occurs if the center is left permeable? The labyrinth thus becomes history, machination, "prone-conquerable" to the walker. To surpass this is the enactment of proper labyrinthecture - the truth of proper recursivism in the wake of Gerrit.
What Kobrin calls for then is nothing other than a labyrinth without a center. But where does this leave us as historians and navigators? What is the place of the labyrinthologist in such a labyrinthology? And where does this leave the walker?
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3 comments:
Call me naive, but it seems to me that a labyrinth without a center is no labyrinth at all. I get that some schools avoid the center and others seek it out, but it seems that the center is definitive.
Acentrism is just pure rebellion.
Drake, I think you make an interesting point. In fact, throughout labyrinthological history, movements have ruptured with tradition all on the basis of the center. Recursivism, for example, emerged as such because it rejected the priority of the center (though some political differences certainly come into play).
It is in the Asian labyrinth that we can best understand the meaning of the center. Perhaps Alex could discuss further.
Drake: You've hit on something here. After copious reflection upon the late Kobrin's text - paying particular attention to his frequent mentions of the labyrinthecture of both Heris Gerrit and Toh Mi Lei (not to mention my own recent firsthand experience in the Manuas labyrinth), I've come to the conclusion that it is indeed a type of rebellion that governed the construction of Kobrin's final labyrinths. It is not, however, rebellion at labyrinths as such but rather a particular type of labyrinthecture - in particular the Western canon in the wake of both Gollesten and Aaldi (as disparate as they seem). I believe Kobrin aspired to create a labyrinthecture that resisted the hegemony of the Western tradition but went too far, made too many alterations to the fundamental structures that, taken together, comprise the essence of the labyrinth.
John: Well spoken. My posts and navjournals in the coming days will elaborate my views on the (problematic) interconnectedness that exists between late Kobrinian recursivism and Eastern/Buddhist labyrinthecture.
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