This thesis project was an experiment in thinking/making. Borrowing from the Renaissance Hermetic Tradition of power magic in the work of Dr. John Dee, it began in contemplative research mode in order to find sources for action. The project had its final goal, a theatrical performance (masque) to be delivered as an act of inter-subjective exchange extending beyond solipsism by means of thinking through actions and things. The interdisciplinary nature of the event spoke of architecture's ability to bring together various modes of abstract expression (literature, theatre, theory, music, etc.) without attempts at explicit meaning but by searching for implicitness in the juxtaposition of messages and mediums. In its historical survey from ancient Greek sacrificial rituals to present butchering practices, the thesis project presents as a crosscurrent a critique of power and its contemporary implications. / This document is a record of the events and actions which led up to the construction and performance of "Theseus Re-membered" on the 11th of June, 1992.

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The work of John Dee (1527-1608) posits an approach to architecture based upon the concept of wonder. Sympathetic correspondences permeate Dee's disparate practical activities and architectural discourse. His contributions to astronomy, alchemy, cartography and navigation are grounded in the intersubjective cosmology of the Renaissance. It is in Dee's Mathematicall Praeface (1570), which promotes mathematics as a natural philosophy, that the architect's metier is aligned with the marvellous and established as an art encompassing numerous disciplines. Dee's syncretic formulation of architecture is distinctly attuned to the alchemical and magical discourses pervading the Renaissance and established in relation to his hieroglyphic "Monas" symbol. This emblematic device, discussed in the Monas Hieroglyphica (1564), exemplifies the link between architecture and writing. The Monas symbol permits the architect-as-alchemist to contemplate marvels and effect them in practice. In addition to positioning wonder in human activity, as a navigational beacon guiding the work of the architect, Dee signals the possibility of restoring conjuring-the dangerous and denigrated art of sixteenth century England--into architectural practice.

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