The Abandoned State of the Eastern Region

The abandoned Eastern Region is a damaged and only partly accessible area of the House, where collapsed architecture has interrupted the tidal system that sustains other halls. Its transformation from sea-filled spaces into isolated freshwater lakes makes the region both a record of structural decay and a distinct environment of silence, blocked routes, and uneven access.

Collapse and Isolation

East of the First Vestibule, the House is derelict. Masonry and statues from the Upper Halls have fallen through broken floors into the Middle and Lower Halls, blocking doorways and severing connections between spaces. The damage is not confined to one hall: the affected area may extend across forty or fifty halls.

Because the debris prevents the tides from entering, seawater has drained away over time. Rain has accumulated in its place, creating dark, still freshwater lakes. Windows in these halls are half submerged or obstructed by fallen masonry, so little light enters. Cut off from the tidal movement elsewhere in the House, the region is unusually quiet.

The Drowned Halls

These water-filled spaces are known as the Drowned Halls. Their conditions vary across the region: at the edges, the water is shallow and tranquil, with water lilies on its surface; toward the centre, it becomes deep and treacherous, concealing broken masonry and drowned statues. Most of the halls cannot be reached, although some are accessible from the Upper Level.

The damage also changes the function of the architecture. In one Drowned Hall, a large statue of a bearded man leans far out from the wall; its broad back forms a platform above the water from which Piranesi can fish. The same fallen and half-submerged environment that obstructs movement can therefore also provide limited resources and usable footholds.

Weather and Hazards

The House’s wider environmental systems make its damaged regions consequential beyond their immediate boundaries. The Lower Halls ordinarily receive food from the tides, including fish, crustaceans, and sea vegetation. During a period of strong wind, unusually high high tides and unusually low low tides exposed a Lower Hall completely, leaving seaweed, pebbles, starfish, and shells scattered across its floor. Such fluctuations make access and gathering dependent on changing conditions.

Elsewhere in the House, the collapse of ceilings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First North-Eastern Halls altered the weather in the surrounding region. Clouds began entering the Middle Halls through the broken ceilings, making the area colder and greyer. This provides another example of structural damage reshaping the House’s climate rather than remaining a local architectural problem.

Flooding also turns routes into hazards. The path to the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall passes through a vestibule region where debris is frequently scattered by the tides. Jagged fragments make crossing barefoot dangerous and slow, illustrating how damage and tidal movement combine to restrict travel. During the Conjunction of Four Tides, the last two tides rose through the Tenth and Twenty-Fourth Vestibules, filling the surrounding area with turbulent water.

Navigation and Significance

The abandoned region is difficult to understand as a single, traversable territory. Fallen masonry blocks doorways, much of the Drowned Halls cannot be entered, and routes elsewhere may become passable or hazardous according to the tides. Piranesi’s broader explorations nevertheless give the damage a place in his account of the House: he has travelled through eastern halls where floors, ceilings, and sometimes walls have collapsed, with shafts of grey light breaking the dimness.

The contrast between the House’s ordered expanse and its damaged eastern spaces is central to the region’s significance. The halls remain part of a continuing world, but their local systems have been altered: tidal water gives way to rain-fed lakes, open routes become blocked, and architectural collapse changes both weather and access. Their abandonment is therefore not emptiness but an ongoing environmental condition, one that determines what can be reached, observed, and used.