Twins

It's been a few weeks since I have made a post here. I have been doing readings that speak to the relationship of old and new, as well as getting into some readings that focus on the relationship of twins and the double.

The interesting thing about this house, and what drew me to it immediately, is its lack of another half. This house had a twin at one point, its 'other half' was the compliment (completion). Since then it has lost its twin, and now it feels as though it is lacking it. Structurally it can exist on its own, but architecturally it feels only half present.

Twins have been portrayed in history as denoting both union and separation, joining and parting. They can be described as having a "tight but troubled alliance." Twins are not perfect balances (i.e. yin and yang), and they are not polar opposites. They are an in-between, a trick of near-symmetrization. They are a "special case of duality in its mode of self contradiction, a non-resolving duad."

These relationships that are brought up begin to play out in my mind as a means to find an architectural end. What should the 'other half' be? How can it be the opposite and the compliment?

I'll end with this image, taken from the 1921 Baist Real Estate Atlas of Washington DC. You can see the house existing with its twin (inside the orange block), but if you look closely, they are not mirror images of each other.