Maketts for foggy nights
Sets stones in a ring
Dreamily, mechanically
The giant army's working
Down our throats flows the mead
Of the city we never dream
Our sundown ditty floats afar
It drowns our belches in the air
The rumbling of the wall builders
"One of the statues depicting a building excavated today is a pottery cultic model of a building, greyish black in colour with a matt surface and made to resemble a ruin. The plasticity of the low, square prismatic side walls is provided by flat sheets of various sizes, broken up into steps and stuck to each other. Upon the top, which does not entirely close, one of the corners being open, stands a 'Turkish dome' with abraded gold leaf, rising up from a hollow and ringed by concentric, torn walls. There are prismatic truncations on the upper corners of the encasing prismatic substructure. One on corner can be seen stepped, arced, radiating consoles flinging open the internal layers, much of the wall being missing and in ruins. I wonder if the Doctor, if he were not so...."
"Of the small models of buildings discovered at the ruins I must note that they display not even the vestige of a relationship with the authentic remains of the Growing City. On the excavation area the number of dome remains is insignificant, and there is no trace of the disordered groups of steps found on the models. At first sight the models appear to be the overenthusiastic plastic execution of a desire to construct on the part of a layman. The assumption may be risked that these tiny buildings simply served as an excuse for passing the foggy, cold, autumnal nights together. Chosen philosophers and master builders would come together on particular nights to debate over the ideal form and execution of the more important buildings awaiting construction at certain points in the City. For this reason the participants made finished clay versions of the buildings under debate. While concrete problems also frequently arose, those gathered together mostly occupied themselves with the spatial realisation of spiritual questions.
The in many cases seemingly deliberately nonsensical formation of the models was merely a suitable vehicle for kindling more heated debate or provoking silent amusement.
Today we can only guess as to when the gatherings took place. According to Fragment B56, they occurred when the moon was at its wane, preferably on foggy nights. Secrecy was augmented through hidden hand signals of identification and the use of a different password for each occasion. It is likely that some general atmosphere identified the lives of the city sages with the weaving of never-to-be executed plans, the sophistication of these plans being at the same time acknowledged as the sole serious objective of the sages' lives.
It can be mentioned here that construction and demolition were judged as being gestures of equal ethical value. Today, due to their secretive nature, it is difficult to reconstruct the topics of debate, but their animated nature is testified in that they were the origin of family feuds.
Plan of the Great Dome I.
Plan of the Great Dome II.
Plan of the Great Dome III.
Plan and Support of the Sunrising Tower
