the Platypus
An Unknown Object
"The first Australian colonists to see the platypus [...] saw it as a mole, and in fact they called it the 'water mole,' but this mole had a beak, and therefore it was not a mole [...] The platypus was discovered in Australia at the end of the eighteenth century and was first named "water mole,' 'duck mole,' or 'duck-billed platypus.' In 1799, a stuffed specimen was examined in England, and the naturalists could not believe their eyes, with the result that some insinuated it was a practical joke on the part of a taxidermist."
Umberto Eco
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Giacomo Pala
Giacomo Pala is an architect, writer, and architectural theorist based in Innsbruck and Vienna. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Innsbruck, and an assistant in Studio Sam Jacob at the Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna. He received his Master’s Degree from the Scuola Politecnica of the University of Genoa and completed his Ph.D. in Architecture at the University of Innsbruck with a dissertation titled Genealogies of Affinity: Piranesi and Syncretic Architecture.
His research explores architectural composition as a form of knowledge production, with a focus on rewriting, syncretism, hybridization, reference, estrangement, and the reinvention of historical forms. His writings have appeared in Architectural Design, The Contested Territory of Architectural Theory, Scenari, ArchDaily, Daidalos, CARTHA, and other journals and edited volumes. He is the author of essays on postdigital architecture, realism, collage, postmodernism, ornament, Piranesi, Aldo Rossi, and the politics of architectural representation.
Alongside his writing, he develops artistic and practice-based research through installations, exhibitions, and public projects, including Frank Variation, Hypnerotomachia Naturae, TRANSformING, Piazza Novissima, and Tower of Amras, winner of the KÖR Art in Public Space Tyrol competition. His teaching spans bachelor and master design studios in Innsbruck and Vienna, where he works with students on architecture as a discipline of composition, speculation, montage, fiction, and critical reinvention.