On Combined Yet Opposing Structures: The Double Helix

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Yesterday we looked at Oscar Niemeyer's life and sensual shapes and silhouettes. Let's continue the thread of waving architectures by looking at an inspiring sinuous structure, Giuseppe Momo's spiral staircase at the Vatican Museums.

Born in 1875, Momo was an Italian architect and engineer, well known for his works in and around Vatican City and Turin as well (he worked on the projects for two wool factories around the Turin area).

His style was easily recognisable as he mixed solid and solemn architectures with classical and lighter elements. One of the best examples of this mix between solid and light structures remains the new entrance to the Vatican Museums (1929-1932) with functional solutions such as a double helix staircase and a glass dome (the monumental staircase designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Guggenheim Museum in New York was derived from Momo's solutions at the Vatican Museums).

The most interesting statement made about this fascinating shape - the double helix - was written by Baudrillard. In his philosophical system this figure with no fixed or static structure had a symbolic value and hinted at notions and concepts criss-crossing, sliding and melting into each other.

As Baudrillard explained in The Ecstasy of Communication: “The double spiral moves from Le Système des Objets to the Fatal Strategies: a spiral swerving towards a sphere of the sign, the simulacrum and simulation, a spiral of the reversibility of all signs in the shadow of seduction and death. The two paradigms are diversified in the course of this spiral without altering their antagonistic position. On the one hand: political economy, production, the code, the system, simulation. On the other hand: potlatch, expenditure, sacrifice, death, the feminine, seduction, and in the end, the fatal.”

While the double helix could be an interesting and fascinating starting point for a fashion or a jewellery collection, this figure could also be considered as a metaphor for fashion conceived as a system of distinctive oppositions: on one hand elegance, beauty and endless glamour, on the other "the fatal", as Baudrillard would say, for too many people involved, from exploited designers to exploited workers and consumers.