Varro, the roman author of De Re Rustica, writes at length about his personal aviary in Casinum: an enclosed garden designed for humans and birds, with streams of hot and cold water, a pool adorned with duck houses and an island for guests; a theatre furnished with sedilia avium, “seats for the birds” between columns; and a portico-cage, hosting songbirds.
Oriented towards the stars of Lucifer and Hesperus, marking dusk and dawn, his aviary hinted at planetary relations, while a wind compass connected the ground to the sky, while the human host was placed firmly at the centre. We can imagine being immersed in a stereophonic space, where the polyphony of birds communicating, courting, arguing - amongst themselves or with their outdoor relatives- filled the space, as well as the ears of Varro and his patrician friends. The description of Varro’s aviary has sparked the imagination of architects through the centuries, inspiring the form of Tiberius’ grottos and fisheries in Sperlonga, the Marittime Theatre in the Villa of Emperor Adrian, the drawings of Pirro Logorio and Sir John Soane, and perhaps Bentham’s panopticon. It was a cage, but it was also an auditorium, dedicated to the bird’s songs.
For Belem, we imagined a variation on Varro’s aviary: one where the birds would be invited - with the reward of seeds and berries - to attend as guests or performers, and where visitors may come to listen and observe, but also become performers to an avian audience.
In this Ornithon-Auditorium (Ornithorium?), tall perches frame a circular space, connected by a sheltered feeder filled with grains, berries, and other delicacies. Above this open banquet, six meter over the ground, the poles are crowned by resting spots, casting a projected language of shadows on the lawn, only visible from a bird’s eye perspective. From this height, the birds may observe their human audience, while fertilising and seeding the ground below. A raised circular bench, like a small planet in the perches’ orbit, is for human guests to sit, listen, or perform.
We hope that Lisbon’s avian population will be as interested in our human rituals and day-to-today quarrels, in our chatting, in our music, in our complaints and cheers, as we are in theirs.
