DIS/CONTINUOUS GENEALOGIES: Douglas Darden’s Ideograms

Douglas Darden’s (1951–1996) use of precedent is complicated. Published in 1993, Condemned Building, An Architect’s Pre-Text presents ten rhetorical works of architecture produced by Darden, who died just three years after its publication. Each project is presented with a composite ideogram comprised of four images referred to as a “Dis/continuous Genealogy” – black and white line drawings of objects superimposed on each other to create the ideogram. The composite ideograms are presented as formal precedents for each project. Darden’s use of the Dis/continuous Genealogy to produce form, however, is not consistent through the ten projects in Condemned Building. This essay will present two projects to demonstrate how his use of precedent, while presented as common within Condemned Building, was, in fact, neither common nor similar. Rather, Darden’s use of precedent in his work is, in fact, much more complex and nuanced than a formal reference to the ideograms, thus opening up new ways of imagining the role of precedent in architecture.