JorgedaCruz - Resonance of Ruin: Deconstructing Babel through Charcoal • Berlin 2020
Resonance of Ruin – Deconstructing Babel, 2023
Charcoal on paper, 240 × 300 cm
Privat Collection, Berlin
Resonance of Ruin – Deconstructing Babel is a charcoal drawing developed by Jorge da Cruz in 2023. The work revisits the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, approaching it not as a literal illustration of the Old Testament, but as an exploration of human ambition, architectural memory, and the relationship between construction and destruction. Through references to different historical periods, da Cruz presents the tower as a structure in which the desire to build and the inevitability of deterioration coexist.
The story of Babel has occupied an important place in Western art and culture for centuries. Its central image, a tower built by humanity in an attempt to reach the heavens, has become a familiar representation of collective ambition and its limitations. Da Cruz returns to this narrative through its architectural possibilities, considering how a monument intended to demonstrate human achievement can also become a record of failure, transformation, and successive attempts to begin again.
At the centre of the composition stands a monumental tower assembled from architectural fragments belonging to different periods. Roman ruins, elements of more recent constructions, and references to Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Tower of Babel coexist within the same structure. The building appears simultaneously unfinished and partially destroyed, as though different generations had continued to construct new levels upon the remains of earlier ones. Its architecture does not follow a single historical style or a coherent building plan. Instead, the accumulation of forms creates a structure in which different moments of history appear to overlap.
The reference to Bruegel is particularly important. His sixteenth-century interpretation of Babel presents an enormous construction site, filled with architectural details, scaffolding, cranes, and human activity. Da Cruz draws on this imagery while departing from the original composition, introducing architectural elements that suggest a wider history of monumental construction and its eventual decline. This process of reinterpreting historical painting can also be found in After Cana, where Paolo Veronese's Renaissance banquet becomes the setting for an approaching flood. In both works, a familiar historical image provides the starting point for a new composition in which the apparent stability of a grand structure or social gathering is gradually brought into question.
The use of charcoal is central to the drawing's construction. Its range of tonal values allows da Cruz to move between precise architectural details, dense areas of darkness, and surfaces that appear partially erased or unfinished. The drawing develops through the addition and removal of material, a process that establishes a direct relationship with its subject. Walls, openings, and structural elements emerge from the paper, while other sections dissolve into shadow. This contrast between definition and disappearance contributes to the impression of a building whose physical condition remains uncertain.
At the base of the tower, a narrow expanse of water introduces a different scale and rhythm into the composition. Several small boats move across its surface, almost disappearing beneath the enormous architectural structure. Their presence creates a contrast between the monumentality of the tower and the ordinary activities taking place around it. While the building represents a collective effort to construct something lasting, the boats suggest movement, adaptation, and the continuation of everyday life beyond the ambitions of the monument itself.
Human figures are also present among the ruins, although their forms are faint and partially absorbed into the architecture. Rather than occupying a central position, they appear as small traces within the larger construction. Their scale recalls the relationship between people and monumental architecture, where the individual contribution often becomes difficult to distinguish from the accumulated work of generations. The tower is therefore not only an architectural structure, but also a record of human activity, much of which has disappeared into the building itself.
Resonance of Ruin – Deconstructing Babel brings together biblical narrative, art-historical references, and the material possibilities of charcoal to examine the recurring relationship between ambition and impermanence. The tower becomes an accumulation of different times, constructions, and failures, suggesting that human achievements are rarely as permanent as their builders intend. Yet the drawing does not end with destruction. The small boats moving beneath the ruins introduce another possibility: that beyond the collapse of monuments, human activity continues, often on a quieter and more modest scale.
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The Great Tower of Babel (Vienna, 1563-Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Bruegel’s most famous and detailed version.
On the Myth of Babel
The myth of Babel occupies a particular place in the Old Testament and in the history of Western culture. Beyond its religious origins, the story has become a familiar reference for human ambition, collective organisation, and the difficulties of communication. Its relevance extends into architecture, politics, art, and the many ways in which people attempt to construct something together.
In the biblical account, humanity shares a common language and a collective purpose. The people decide to build a city and a tower reaching towards the heavens, an undertaking that represents both their capacity for cooperation and their desire to exceed ordinary human limitations. The construction depends on a fundamental condition: the ability of its builders to understand one another.
The turning point comes when that common language is disrupted. According to the narrative, God confuses the speech of the builders, making communication between them impossible. The work can no longer continue, and the people are scattered. The interruption of language becomes the cause of the project's failure, transforming what began as a collective ambition into an experience of division.
One of the most interesting aspects of Babel is that its central conflict is not necessarily the destruction of the tower itself, but the disappearance of the understanding that made its construction possible. The structure becomes unfinished because the relationships supporting it have broken down. In this sense, the failure begins in communication before it becomes visible in architecture.
This relationship between language, cooperation, and collective ambition helps explain the continuing relevance of the myth. The impulse to build something larger than the individual remains present in contemporary societies, whether through cities, political systems, artistic movements, or personal relationships. These undertakings depend on shared meanings, agreements, and the capacity to communicate across differences. When those conditions weaken, even apparently stable structures can become vulnerable.
For Jorge da Cruz, this dimension of the narrative is particularly relevant to Resonance of Ruin – Deconstructing Babel. Rather than approaching Babel exclusively as a warning against pride or excessive ambition, the drawing considers the fragility of collective achievements and the difficulty of sustaining them over time. The tower becomes an architectural expression of a broader human condition: the desire to construct something lasting despite the possibility of misunderstanding, division, and failure.
The myth also introduces an important distinction between collapse and disappearance. Although the biblical account describes the interruption of construction and the scattering of its builders, the image of Babel has gradually become associated with ruins, abandoned monuments, and failed civilisations. These later interpretations have expanded the narrative beyond its original events, allowing the tower to represent the accumulated remains of different human ambitions.
In Resonance of Ruin, this idea finds expression in a structure assembled from architectural fragments belonging to different historical periods. The tower appears to have undergone successive attempts at construction and reconstruction, suggesting that failure does not necessarily mark the end of human activity. Each generation inherits the remains of earlier projects, sometimes preserving them, sometimes transforming them, and sometimes beginning again.
On the Myth of Babel therefore considers the story not simply as an account of human ambition and its consequences, but as a reflection on the conditions that make collective achievements possible. Language, cooperation, and mutual understanding are as essential to the construction of a shared world as the physical structures that represent it.
What remains after Babel is not only the memory of an unfinished tower, but also the persistence of a familiar human impulse: to gather, to communicate, and to attempt once again what previous generations could not complete.
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