In Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Patrick Lynch studied architecture at Liverpool and Communicative Movement between Architecture, Cambridge Universities and completed his PhD at the Sculpture and Site, Patrick Lynch traces the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design. philosophical background to his work as an architect, He is the founding partner of Lynch Architects. raising ethical and aesthetic considerations about Based in London, the practice has won numerous Civic Ground what it means to make good architecture—and good awards and its work has been published extensively cities—today. internationally. Lynch Architects exhibited at the Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008 and 2012, Lynch identifies the comparison of buildings with and at the Milan Triennale in 2016. Patrick is the between Architecture, Sculpture and Site sculptures—and the cliche “sculptural form”— as an author of The Theatricality of the Baroque City, 2011, urban problem, critiquing this formalist tendency as and Mimesis, 2015, which is a companion to Civic one of the main failures of contemporary architecture, Ground. He has taught at Cambridge University patrick lynch arguing that parallels should instead be seen in the and the Architectural Association, and is currently phenomenon of rhythmic spatiality. Rhythmic spatiality a Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool. situates a sculpture or a building in its physical setting and civic context, articulating the interdependence of both. These spatial and symbolic relationships are presented in a series of drawings and photographs by the author, revealing the profound reciprocity of architecture, sculpture and site.

This book, a version of his PhD dissertation, underlines why Patrick Lynch is one of the most thoughtful architects presently working in the UK, combining successful practice with a strongly argued philosophical basis to his work, analysed here alongside historical examples such as the architecture of Alberti, Palladio, Borromini, Sigurd Lewerentz, Álvaro Siza and Rafael Moneo, a critique of Peter Eisenman’s work and discussion of the sculpture of Richard Serra and Eduardo Chillida.

Civic Ground is the second book published by Artifice books on architecture with Patrick Lynch, following Mimesis, 2015, which focused on several built projects by his practice Lynch Architects. Civic Ground and Mimesis can, indeed should, be read in conjunction. Civic Ground sets out the basis for the renewal of a poetics of architecture.

“Patrick Lynch is one of the few architects running a thriving and creative practice who finds time to seriously reflect upon urban design and architecture.” —Peter Carl

“Architecture and sculpture are intimately involved yet in sharp contrast, and Patrick Lynch is one of the few architects who has made both this contrast and complicity crucial to his practice and his thinking. His book makes a brilliant contribution to the £24.95 | $39.95 making of the public realm.” —Joseph Rykwert Civic Ground Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site patrick lynch

Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative The Vulnerability and Re-emergence of Civic Ground: Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site The Problem of Sculptural Form versus Sculptural Spatiality She sang beyond the genius of the sea. We can only hear the rhythm that is immanent within There is no such thing as an absence of content, When new factors intervene, the law must be The water never formed to mind or voice, a given form if we ourselves introduce rhythm into no gap between the practical and the symbolic, reformulated because of new observations and Like a body wholly body, fluttering it. That means we must really be actively involved only progressively more explicit modes of new conditions. Aristotle’s causa efficiens still Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion ourselves in order to elicit rhythm at all. Every work symbolic representation. belongs to the natural, prescientific worldview.... Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, of art imposes its own temporality upon us, not —Peter Carl, City as Image Versus Topography The Greeks distinguished four causes: material, That was not ours although we understood, only the transitory arts of language, music, and of Praxis formal, final, and efficient. Let’s take the example Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. dance. When considering the static arts, we should of a silversmith who is going to make a bowl. remember that we also construct and read pictures, “Every perception is an act of creation” as [Gerald] Four causes must be distinguished in making it: The sea was not a mask. No more was she. that we also have to enter into and explore the forms Edelman says. As we move about, our sense organs the order (to make the bowl) is the determining The song and water were not medleyed sound of architecture. These too are temporal processes. take samplings of the world, and from these, maps factor, “what ought to be done”, something final, Even if what she sang was what she heard. One picture may not become accessible to us as are created in the brain. There then occurs with the “for the sake of which”.... The second cause is Since what she sang was uttered word by word. quickly as another. And this is especially true of experience a selective strengthening of those the shape of the bowl which the silversmith must It may be that in all her phrases stirred architecture… we have to go up to a building and mappings that correspond to successful perceptions have in mind as its form. This is the eidos. Forma The grinding water and the gasping wind; wander around it, both inside and out. Only in this —successful in that they prove the most useful is already a reinterpretation of eidos, which means But it was she and not the sea we heard. way can we acquire a sense of what the work holds and powerful for the building of “reality”... “signals (visible) shape. The final and the formal cause are in store for us and allow it to enhance our feeling were going back and forth in all kinds of hidden interrelated. Together they determine the third For she was the maker of the song she sang. for life. ways (as you usually get them by the non-verbal cause, the material... here, the silver. The fourth The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea —Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of interactions between the players) that make the cause: this is the causa efficiens, the production, Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. the Beautiful and Other Essays whole set of sounds a unified ensemble”.... The poiesis...; this is the craftsman. The modern causa Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew players are connected. Each player, interpreting the efficiens is no longer the same! Poiesis and praxis It was the spirit that we sought and knew ... one has to be willing at some point in his music individually, constantly modulates and is are not the same: making and doing. Praxis has That we should ask this often as she sang. reflections to turn from it to the bustling, arguing, modulated by others.... This is Edelman’s picture a motivation! In the modern sense, causality acutely sensitive Athenian citizens, with civic sense of the brain, as an orchestra, an ensemble, but presupposes a process of nature, not a poiesis.... In If it was only the dark voice of the sea identified with a civic religion, of whose experience without a conductor, an orchestra which makes its today’s science we find the desire to have nature That rose, or even colored by many waves; the temple was an expression, and who built it not own music. When I walked back to my hotel after at one’s disposal, to make it useful, to be able to If it was only the outer voice of sky as a work of art but as a civic commemoration.... dinner with Gerry that evening, I found myself in calculate it in advance, to predetermine how the And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, The one who sets out to theorize about the esthetic a sort of rapture. It seemed to me that the moon process of nature occurs so that I can relate it to However clear, it would have been deep air, experience embodied in the Parthenon must realize over the Arno was the most beautiful thing I had safety.... That which can be calculated in advance The heaving speech of air, a summer sound in thought what the people had in common, as ever seen. I had the feeling of being liberated from and that which is measurable—only that is Repeated in a summer without end creators and as those who were satisfied with it, with decades of epistemological despair—from a world real.... In physics, the law of causality has a reality And sound alone. But it was more than that, people in our own homes and on our own streets. of shallow, irrelevant computer analogies into (Wirklichkeit), but even there only in a very limited More even than her voice, and ours, among —John Dewey, Art as Experience one full of rich biological meaning, one which way. What Aristotle said is true according to the The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, corresponded with the reality of brain and mind. worldview of those days: the Aristotelian concept Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped —Oliver Sacks, On the Move of motion for instance... means that a body is On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres transported from one place to another, to its place. Of sky and sea. Galileo abandoned notions of above and below, right and left. Physical space is homogenous. No It was her voice that made point is more distinctive than any other. Only this The sky acutest at its vanishing. conception of space makes it possible to determine She measured to the hour its solitude. locomotion. Space must be homogenous because She was the single artificer of the world the laws of motion must be the same everywhere. In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Only then can every process be calculated and Whatever self it had, became the self measured. Nature is viewed in a very specific way That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, to satisfy the conditions of measurability. Beings As we beheld her striding there alone, acquire the character of being mere objects and of Knew that there never was a world for her being objectified.... Being “an object” only makes Except the one she sang and, singing, made. its appearance in modern natural science. The human being then becomes a “subject” in the Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, sense of Descartes. Without these presuppositions, Why, when the singing ended and we turned the expression “objective” is meaningless... Is Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, our totally different conception of space merely The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, subjective?... This is already a glimpse of being! A As night descended, tilting in the air, genuine insight! It’s a different kind of truth than Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, in physics, perhaps a higher one! If one sees that, Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, then one has a free stance towards science. Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. —Martin Heidegger, Zollikon Seminars: Protocols, Conversations, Letters Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, The maker’s rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds. —Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West

4 5 9 Preface 65 The City Gives a Definite Direction to Nature: Decorum, Temporality and Urbanity

66 Hans-Georg Gadamer on Art and Architecture as Ornament, Decorum and Play 11 The Vulnerability and Re-emergence of Civic Ground: The Problem of Sculptural Form versus Sculptural Spatiality 70 Clare Lapraik Guest on Figural Cities and Florence

12 Civil and Military Architecture

20 Bacteria Navigating a Nutrient Gradient: The Schumacher-Eisenman Interview 75 Geometric and Rhythmic Spatiality in the Heidegger-Chillida Collaboration 23 The Cardboard Architecture of Peter Eisenman 76 Art and Space 23 Collisive Fields and Bricolage: Colin Rowe on Urbanism as Architectural Form 80 Museo Chillida-Leku and The Wind Comb by Eduardo Chillida at San Sebastián 28 Architecture and Sculpture: The Eisenman-Serra Interview 90 The Kursaal by Rafael Moneo at San Sebastián 30 The Harvest of a Seed: Le Corbusier and the Synthesis of the Arts 97 The Brunnenstern and Hütte at Todtnauberg 31 Sculpture versus Architecture: Serra and Judd on Eisenman and Gehry

32 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: The Eisenman-Serra Collaboration at Berlin and Rachel Whiteread’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial at Vienna 105 Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Site, Architecture and Sculpture at St Peter’s Klippan by 35 Shift by Richard Serra Sigurd Lewerentz 37 Rhythm and the Recuperation of Civic Ground

147 Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses 39 Urban Topography, Physiognomy, Spatial Continuity and Praxis

40 The Topography and Physiognomy of Cologne 161 Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement 42 Dalibor Vesely on Topography, Physiognomy and the Continuity of References between Site, Architecture and Sculpture at Victoria Street in Communicative Space 162 The Problem of Civic Decorum and the Disunity of the Arts in Victorian London 44 The Sacrifice of Space: David Leatherbarrow on alladio’sP Palazzo Chiericati 164 The Problem of Urban Infrastructure, Civic Depth, Rhythmic Spatiality and the and the Palazzo della Ragione Disunity of Victoria Street 46 Building as Gesture and Argument: Joseph Rykwert on Borromini’s Oratory 169 Iridescent Architecture at Rome

48 Peter Carl on Topography of Praxis 195 Conclusion: The Civic Grounds for a Poetics of Architecture

51 Rhythmic and Communicative Space

52 Adolphe Appia on l’Espace Rythmique and Hellerau

56 Henri Lefebvre on Rhythmanalysis and Paris

58 Dalibor Vesely on Communicative Movement at Chartres and Würzburg

61 Peter Carl on Praxis as Horizons of Involvement Richard Serra, NJ-2, Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, Rotate, Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street, London, Preface 1 October 2016–10 March 2017.

1 See Temple, Nick, “Rites of Intent: The This is the third in a series of books, written over a It demands this of a reader too. It is phenomenology Participatory Dimension of the City”, 20-year period, which consider the architectural and in the sense that writing and reading this book was in Cityscapes in History: The Urban Experience, Heléna Tóth and Katrina urban significance of different aspects of poetics: and is a participatory experience. It is an example Gulliver ed, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, theatricality, mimesis, and now rhythm. of hermeneutic enquiry in terms of an interpretation 2014, pp 155–78 and Renovatio Urbis: Civic Ground is my interpretation of the civic and of symbolic meanings revealed in everyday life. Architecture, Urbanism and Ceremony in the Rome of Julius II (The Classical philosophical character of architectural poetics. The The serious and playful wit of Sigurd Lewerentz, for Tradition in Architecture), London: heft and urgency of my argument stems from the example, only becomes apparent if you engage with Routledge, 2011. need to promote and to protect these values in the face his spaces in the ways he intended. 2 Heidegger, Martin, Zollikon of their vulnerability from formalism, cynicism and Unusually perhaps, interpretation in this book often Seminars: Protocols, Conversations, nihilistic irony. began with drawings, both as memories of events and Letters, Medard Boss ed, Evanston: I have attempted to reveal the persistence of an places as well as in situ observations. Northwestern University Press, 2001, p 23. authentic tradition of poetics in imaginative creative My conclusions are derived from a form of praxis work and critical thinking in major modern thinkers— and engagement with artworks and architectural 3 “Richard Serra and Michael Craig- Martin’s 50-year conversation about and their interpretations of Plato and Aristotle— settings, situating them in their social and political art”, The Guardian, 1 October 2016. In despite the clichés and bad faith of much twentieth- and physical topography, and from my own creative suggesting that in his sculptural work century art history, architecture and design culture. attempts as a designer to situate my work in a continuum “formal and material imagination”, inform each other, Serra is surely Civic Ground concerns the public nature of artistic of civic culture. elliptically referring to the work of experience, its fundamental position in our culture, My aim has been to uncover the grounds for the Gaston Bachelard, who “defined a new and the role that architecture, sculpture and landscape recuperation of civic values in architecture, and to concept” that “images of matter… the play in articulating this. “Civic” does not refer to a use make a case for the renewed vitality and relevance material imagination… [is] necessarily required for a complete philosophical class as such, ie a town hall, but to something which of the poetic imagination. These are obviously highly study of poetic creation”. Gilson, orients architecture towards the shared conditions hubristic aims, but I hope that the profound significance Etienne, “Foreword” in The Poetics of of urbanity. The term “common ground” gets close of the contributions of the artists and architects Space, Boston: Beacon Press, 1992, p ix. Serra refers at length to his problems to the original meaning of “civilitas”, which more discussed on the following pages is nonetheless useful with architects (and their lack of properly means civic order.1 Its use in English law in re-establishing its potential today. In particular, understanding and appreciation as common public grazing land, and its survival as the profound influence of modern philosophy upon of sculpture, place, topography, “digital commons”, suggests its participatory character. modern artists suggests that the ideas that informed weight etc) and to the influence of architectural space, tectonics, and However, the ground itself is not simply a matter twentieth-century visual culture still remain vital the importance of phenomenological of property or of one’s “rights” to use it, nor is it just today. Coincidentally, as I write this, on 5 October aspects of perception upon his work a metaphor or a philosophical construction, but it is 2016, Richard Serra is exhibiting a new sculpture, NJ-2, in Writings/Interviews: Richard Serra, Chicago: Chicago University Press, the basis and grounds for life itself. Martin Heidegger a few hundred yards away from Artifice’s offices at 1994. The influence of phenomenology claimed that its central orienting importance for London’s King’s Cross. Talking about NJ-2, and his life’s upon post-war American sculptors human affairs might be best described as “motive” work, Serra provides a coda for this book, and a fitting arguably originated in the teaching and early writings of Rosalind E Krauss, and (what Aristotle called “mythos” or plot) and wrote that: introduction to its thesis: is suggested in her book Passages in “Motive is a ground for human action.... All different Modern Sculpture, originally published grounds are themselves based on the principle of Matter informs form... the rhythm of your body in 1977 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ground. All that is has a ground.”2 The term “motive” deals with time in relation to space... as the piece 2001, pp 239–40). Its continuing relevance to critical appreciation of fuses together the representational and practical changes, you have to change, and either hasten American land art, and in particular aspects of architecture as the expression of civic ground. your stride or turn in ways you hadn’t anticipated.... the importance of spatiality and of Similarly, rhythm is also a universal phenomenon, Time enters into the equation of your bodily Martin Heidegger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art”, is noted by Geoff and its manifestation in culture—as festival, architectural rhythms as you move through the work. It alters Dyer in his essay about Walter De decor, performance, sculptural spatiality etc—is one way the time of your experience.... All our gestures, all Maria’s Lightning Field (Catron County, in which the primary conditions of the natural world and our movements, the rhythm of our body, every New Mexico, 1977), “Space in Time” the recurring social aspects of reality become sensible to us. time we turn, every time we take a step, every time in White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World, London: Canongate, The traditional appreciation of rhythm in the visual we move, the gravitational load impinges on us.... 2016, pp 76–77. I examine below arts is fragmented and disrupted, and so the location of It is a defining factor in how we know our bodily Heidegger’s significant interaction my arguments and the instances of its possible renewal movements through space and time. And no one with the artist Eduardo Chillida— and perhaps also surprisingly, the range widely across time and geography. This book is not pays attention to that... lightness does seem to profound role that sculpture played a literature survey, nor an attempt to demonstrate a be the way the evolution of the planet is going in Double Frontispiece: Adolphe Appia, in articulating his views on spatiality preconceived theory: it presents certain prejudices and terms of microchips or whatever. But in terms of etching of stage set for Orpheus and and temporal experience. Despite his Eurydice, Act II, “The Descent into the abhorrent political views, Heidegger’s experiences of a practicing architect, and involved my understanding your presence on the earth, we’re 3 Underworld”, 1926. influence on artists is profound; participation in a number of events and conversations. all bound by weight and gravity. anyone seriously interested in modern sculpture cannot ignore this, I fear.

9 Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

147 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

Sketches of Santa Maria by Álvaro Top left: Site plan. Siza showing the architect thinking simultaneously about the role of the Top right: Upper level plan (nave). horizon and topography in the design of the church and parochial centre, 1990. Below: Section west-east.

1 Higino, Nuno, Garden and Mortuary: Church of Saint Mary: Álvaro Siza Vieira, Cenateca, 2001, p 44. Higino was a priest, is now an academic, and was Siza’s client for the church.

2 Bauer, Hermann, Barock: Kunst einer Epoche, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1992, p 9. Bauer writes: “Der Ausdruck kommt nach einigen vom portugiesischen barocco (rohe, ungleich geformte Perle)”. For a discussion on the role of rhetoric in Baroque style, see Lynch, Patrick, The Theatricality 1. Church of the Baroque City, Saarbrücken: 2. Parochial Centre Verlag Dr Müller, 2011. This text was 3. Old farmyard originally my Master of Philosophy 4. Courtyard dissertation in the History and 5. Crypt Philosophy of Architecture, Cambridge 6. Nave University, 1996. José de Paiva suggests 7. Belfry that the first mention of baroque is 8. Baptistry indeed in relation to pearls: “Tudo 9. Presbytery pode ser verdade porque ho aljofare 10. Narthex que de cà vai, e as perolas he groso, e 11. Statue of the Virgin redondo, e em toda perfeiçam, e o que 12. Organ shelf della vem das indias sam huns barrocos 13. Plinth mal afeiçoados, e não redondos, com 14. Public square agoas mortas”, Orta, Garcia de, “Da Margarita”, Coloquios dos simples, Goa: Ioannes de endem, 1563, colloquy 35, fol 139v.

3 José de Paiva notes: “The connection of Mary and the sea has, in sense, always been there, though of course historically it is entirely based on wordplay. We see this throughout the Middle Ages in the Latin play between the word mare, -is, and in the pl. maria (lit. ‘seas’) and Maria. The connection to water is there too in medieval iconography either relating to Mary, or the baptism of Christ. ­At Marco de Canaveses, 40 km east of Porto, Álvaro Siza’s From outside, the eastern end of the church is defined This develops with the multiplication church of Santa Maria (1997) sits within the garden by two concave curves. From the inside these compress of Medieval pilgrimages to Marian of an old farm, beside an ancient chapel. The farm’s the view towards the presbytery, focusing one’s shrines—finally coming to identify spring feeds a fountain that fills the courtyard beside attention upon the tabernacle; they act as a form of the pilgrim himself with the shell, under the protection of Mary. In the the crypt with the loud crash of water, and the violent natural perspective whilst also recalling the baroque fifteenth century, this takes a turn disruption of broken splashes of light.1 A cypress tree churches that originated in seventeenth-century with the maritime expansion under sits forlornly in the lower courtyard, around which steps Portugal. Baroque, of course, is a derivation of the the patronage of Henry the Navigator, and by 1500 we are dealing with rise, creating an informal route up to the church above. Portuguese term barocco, originally used to describe churches like Santa Maria de Belém, The lower ground floor crypt-story is faced in granite a misshapen or deformed pearl.2 the foundation of which is availed and seems to grow out of the topography of the site, The crypt sits within the battered granite base. by the Papal Bula inter cœtera, and fusing the farmyard walls into a rocky plinth. It is lit from above with a pale steady light, and from built for mariners as they arrived in Lisbon from the expeditions to the without by the rhythmic oscillation of a broken column indies. The aim of the sea expansion of water. The crypt is subtly reminiscent of a Rococo was made explicit in the sails bearing chapel—a sophisticated cave—and the role that water the cross of the Order of Christ, and could be described as religious, plays is surely not accidental, recalling as it does the political and commercial. In the tradition of Marian chapels in Portuguese Baroque Lusíadas, a Renaissance epic poem architecture,3 and their fusion of Christian and pagan published in 1572, Camões describes it as ‘the expansion of the empire symbolism with Neo-Platonic Humanism. Principally, and the faith’. In line with Franciscan the Virgin Mary is associated in Baroque culture with interpretation, the expansion was now the sea (maria-mares), with sea caves and with grottos. seen as leading potentially to a fifth Maria is typically depicted in “rocky” chapels as if empire, in this case a Christian one, following the empires of Antiquity”, she is (pearly) light, falling onto and emerging from email to the author, 8 March 2014. Santa Maria, Marco de Canaveses, Álvaro Siza, model by the architect. a grotto. She is symbolic in Renaissance painting of

148 149 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

Left: François Boucher, The Triumph of Venus, 1740.

Right: View of the interior of Santa Maria de Belém.

4 See Sedlmayr, Hans, “Zur divinity, and of the fecundity of the natural world.4 height of the marble skirting boards, which rise to become Charakteristik des Rokoko”, The elision of light and water is evocative in Marian wainscoting. Doors rise up and step back from the Manierismo, Barocco, Rococo, Rome, 1962. See also Miller, Naomi, symbolism of both the sea (mares-marias), baptism common parts of the plan, away from the staccato rhythm Heavenly Caves: Reflections and the church itself. Each individual baroque and movement implied by the staircase. The desert-like on the Garden Grotto, London: Allen church is seen—both literally and figuratively—as a piazza is common ground, and the beat of a football often & Unwin, 1982. protective (oyster) shell. Pilgrimage and refuge also marks time on weekday afternoons. typify Marian devotion, as well as the simultaneity of The tall oak doors of the church are opened at death (crucifixion) and life (baptism). These extreme funerals, enabling the western afternoon sunlight to reach contrasts typify the material and spatial hierarchies of in and touch the altar. Inside, the church is cool, the nave Baroque décor; they are fused into highly theatrical a simple rectangle. A baptismal font sits to the left of images of the ground and the sky—painted, plastered the west gate, beneath a tall roof light. This massive shaft and carved spatial thresholds mediated by the rhythmic situates the font beneath a tower of air and light. Similarly, movements of pilgrims, and by the musical devotions a bell tower sits on the other side of the tall entrance, of worship. This dramatic spatiality resonates in the forming a seemingly solid shaft of space that echoes and material iconography of death-earth-darkness, and in inverts the baptistry. Above head height in the nave, the the counterpoint of life-water-light; its recuperation north wall billows outwards like a broken pearl, cut by in modern architecture is particularly clear in Siza’s two clerestory windows. church at Marco de Canaveses. One is struck by the extreme contrast between the A change in level situates the entrance to the church abstract material qualities of the space and the figural on the crest of a hill, one story above a garden and the material qualities of the equipment within it. At two places crypt. This difference is articulated also in the contrast this contrast comes together to provoke movement of between the white stucco render on the outer and inner thought from contemplation towards comprehension, faces of the nave, as well as in the contrast between the resonating without ever fully resolving itself into an image. rough exterior walls and the smooth, slick light of the Reflective, polished oak floorboards direct one’s eyes interiors, which are predominantly lit from above. Visitors towards the sacristy. Oak chairs sit on this oak ground like find themselves precisely situated between a lambent coiled, reclining figures. ceiling and a rocky ground. A tall processional bronze cross sits on the northern The church is accompanied by a two-story parochial Gospel side to the left of the altar, and a Cathedra, or centre that sits facing the west doors of the church, bishop’s chair, sits to the right. There is a strong contrast forming a series of deep thresholds between the dusty between intricate timber furniture and the scale-less, piazza and the variously scaled rooms within. Discrete waxy light of the upper curved surfaces, so that the latter spatial volumes and definite, more or less specific dissolve into shadowy and cloudy peripheral focus; situations are established in shadows and niches; meanwhile, the furniture seems to become extensions of territories are implied by kinks in the walls, variations one’s body, a rhythmic armature of postures and gestures. in the borders of horizons and a stepped internal The timber floor strongly emphasises the traditional ground plane. nautical character of a “nave” suspended above Freedom of movement between the buildings water. Siza has avoided all explicit religious symbols, he continues within the anterooms of the parish centre, claims, although one can see small crosses in some of the which are generally freely accessible when the centre handmade tiles marking the sites of each sacrament. Opposite: Santa Maria at Marco de is open in the summer months. The co-existence of Behind the altar two pale, weak columns of light Canaveses, Álvaro Siza, 1997. View of defined spaces is at once clear and also intimated appear in the gloom, and one realises or remembers the east facade showing the nave of the church sat on a granite plinth, with the and sensed, rather than absolute. A double-height that they drop light down onto the face of someone in old farm yard to the right. meeting room is announced by changes to the a coffin in the crypt below. A faint sound of splashing

150 151 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

Left: View of the old farmyard to the east View of the south facade of the church of the church. (1997) before the construction of the parochial centre with the old chapel in Right: View of the “common ground” the distance. in between the church, seen on the left, and the parochial centre on the right, looking south.

Left: View of the courtyard with pool and window to the crypt.

Right: View of the south facade looking west towards the parochial centre with houses beyond. Left: Interior view of the parochial centre.

Right: View of the interior of Santa Maria showing the baptistry to the right of the tall doors, and the belfry to the left, with the organ shelf in the foreground.

Left: View of the south facade of the church with the parochial centre on the left.

Right: View of the interior of Santa Maria showing the baptismal font. Left: View of the interior of Santa Maria looking south.

Right: View of the interior of Santa Maria looking up towards the north-facing clerestory windows.

152 153 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

View of the interior of Santa Maria Sketch of Santa Maria showing the church looking east, showing the presbytery. sat within the landscape oriented with the solar symbolism of the Christian liturgy.

View of the interior of Santa Maria water rises up from the pool beyond the crypt. A body on showing the statue of the Virgin a cross is implied by the absence of matter each side of and Child at the threshold to the the thin vertical shafts of light. presbytery with the south-facing window on the right. At the moment in the Mass when one first kneels, attention is almost always upon the altar, the Eucharistic prayer, and the actions of the priest. At Santa Maria, however, attention towards the Sacred Mysteries is balanced by a peripheral sensation of light entering from the south. The source of this light reveals itself to be an enormously long horizontal slit window, set 1.2 m off the ground. Midday sunlight falls in through this long slot. A northern Portuguese landscape—of arid hills and scrubland, cars, petrol stations and small houses—comes into view. 5 Leatherbarrow, David, Architecture contrast, the golden cross sits upon the presbytery floor, Communicative space is oriented, in ritualistic and Oriented Otherwise, Princeton: At the end of this very long window, Siza placed an old, Princeton Architectural Press, hovering between matter and light. everyday terms, towards situating particular historical paint-flaking half-scale statue of the Virgin Mary holding 2009, p 11. At Santa Maria, the horizon of ritualistic worship is circumstances (political conflict, human suffering, the infant Christ. Maria is of course patron of the church counterpoised with a worldly horizon that is shockingly human hopes etc) with respect to the conditions and, for worshippers, the human link between numinous close by. The immateriality of light above and beyond the that are common to all. A rhythm of associations and and the material realms, something that Christian belief altar is counter-poised with the rhythm of sunlight, and spatial counterpoints is established at Santa Maria co-laminates. Traditionally, statues of the Virgin Mary are one’s view of the material world beyond the chapel. In in such an orchestrated manner as to suggest that set within a niche, or held above head height on a shelf experiential and geometric terms, its centre is displaced. architects’ and sculptors’ work might be understood or bracket. Here, she looks at the congregation at their Siza’s liminal placement of the statue of the as something fundamentally spatial, and essentially eye height, sat exactly at the threshold between the sacred Virgin Mary reminds us that the relationship between communicative. It reveals, in other words, the primary topography of the presbytery and the body of the church; architecture and sculpture continues to refer us to conditions of urbanity. prayer and worship are situated in a frank encounter spaces beyond their immediate location, and that with the fragile actuality of the everyday world beyond the “orientation”, as Leatherbarrow suggests, “is nothing church. The Gospel is read from a simple oak lectern that other than the acknowledgement of this ecstasis appears to grow from the timber floor of the church. In or alliocentricity”.5

154 155 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Álvaro Siza and Santa Maria at Marco de Canaveses

Axonometric sketch of Santa Maria Sketches of Santa Maria examining the with the old farmyard on the left and significance of its iconographic civic the new public square to the right of topography in the context of the town and the church. Christian liturgical symbolism.

Sketch section through Santa Maria west-east showing the movement of sunlight across the interior throughout the day—the coincidence of solar symbolism with water—and the role of both in sacramental use.

Overleaf: Views of the interior of Santa Maria.

156 157 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site

158 Civic Ground: Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site Acknowledgements renewal 9, 18, 37, 40, 103, 133, 199–200 spatiality 9, 18, 21, 33, 35, 37, 42–43, 49, 54, 58, Truth and Method 4, 19, 52, 66–69, 106, 197, 200 Image Credits Acknowledgements resistance 35, 53, 58–59, 97, 114 61–62, 68, 70, 76, 79–80, 83, 92, 96, 103, 106– typology, 30, 42–44, 100, 167, 196 rhetoric 12–13, 20, 30, 46, 70, 72, 98, 149, 196, 107, 111–112, 151, 183, 196, 199 198–199 spectacle 14, 31, 42, 54, 56–58, 61, 95, 162–163 U Álvaro Siza: pp 148, 149 This book is a version of my PhD dissertation (Practical rhythm 4, 9, 12–14, 18–19, 21–22, 25, 30, 33, Spielraum 95, 103, 139 universal 9, 27, 43, 48, 61–62, 68–70, 79, 98, 103, Andy Laurie: pp 152 (top and bottom left) Poetics, The Cass, 2015) and some ideas inspired by this 37–40, 45, 47, 49, 53–54, 56–57, 59–62, 66–68, Santa Maria 26, 46–47, 54, 71–72, 80, 82, 95, 129, 106, 113, 124, 126, 198 Annabel Gray: p 16 research were published in Mimesis (Artifice books on 70, 78–80, 83, 85, 90, 92, 95–96, 100–101, 103, 149, 151, 154–155 urban depth 16, 18, 35 ©Bernhard-Heiliger-Stiftung: p 76, 77 (bottom left) architecture, 2015). This work began life before that as 107, 119, 121–122, 124–126, 133, 139, 141, 149, St Peter’s Church, Klippan 72, 106, 111–113, urban rooms 168, 176, 200 Caroline Elam: p 13 an M-Phil dissertation at Cambridge University written 151, 155, 165, 175–179, 182–183, 197, 199 116, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 139, utilitarianism 15, 164 Claudia Lynch: pp 31, 128 (middle right) in 1996 (published as The Theatricality of the Baroque Riemenschneider, Tilman 79 141 ©David Grandorge: pp 170–171, 181 (bottom), 202–203 City, Verlag Dr Muller, 2011); the seeds of certain Ridderstedt, Lars 106, 111–115, 124, 126, 129, St Philip Neri 46–47 V David Griffin: p 27 philosophical interests, in what has now become 139 stair 52, 57–58, 60, 83, 93, 151, 174–175 Vattimo, Gianni 76 David Leatherbarrow: p 44 known as Civic Ground, originally germinated in my River Fleet 165–166 Stella Octangula 100 Venus 129–130, 151 ©Digne Meller Marcovicz: pp 99 (top right), 101 B-Arch dissertation at Liverpool University in 1993 (Can River Thames 40, 60, 164–165 Stockholm 106–110, 115 Vesely, Dalibor 9, 25, 40, 42–43, 48–49, 54, 57– ©Duccio Malagamba: pp 150, 152 (middle left), 153 (top Architecture be Poetry?). I have to thank my supervisors Rococo 129, 149, 151 Swedish model, Swedish way 107, 109–110, 114 61, 66–68, 78, 96, 103, 133, 139, 183, 196–197, and middle right), 154, 159, 160 Peter Carl, Helen Mallinson and Joseph Rykwert for Romantics, Romanticism 25, 52–53, 85, 115, symbol, symbolism 21, 25, 46–48, 63, 66–67, 83, 199 Eric Parry: pp 52–53, 55 (top) their help with formulating many of the arguments 198–199 99, 103, 107, 129, 149, 151, 155–157 Vicenza 44–45, 162 ©Fondation Le Corbusier: p 78 that it presents. I am grateful also to the late and much German Romantics 103 symetria, symmetry 32, 43, 44, 106, 200 Victoria and Albert Museum 162–164 Franz Oswald: p 25 (right) missed Dalibor Vesely, for first introducing me to the Rome 14, 23, 26–27, 46–47, 67, 72, 113, 164 Victoria Embankment 164–165 ©Gráinne Hassett, The Calais Builds Project: p 17 architectural decorum of spatial situations. I am very Ronchamp 30–31, 62, 112, 115 T Victoria Street 40, 72, 164, 167–169, 174–175, ©Google Earth: p 117 grateful to Robert Mull who supported this work in Rowe, Colin 18, 23, 25–28, 30, 32, 37, 67, 199 Tafuri, Manfredo 12, 109 178, 182–183 Hans Kollhoff: p 27 many ways. John Glew introduced me to the work of Rowland, Ingrid 43 techne 19, 48, 62, 198 Vienna 33, 35 ©Hélène Binet: p 121 (right) many of the sculptors discussed in this dissertation. I Ruskin, John 31, 115, 164 technology 13–14, 18, 27, 40, 48, 56, 62, 72, 76, villa 25, 44, 47, 72, 100, 102, 115–116, 174 Hufton + Crow: p 182 (left) also have to thank the artists Rut Blees Luxemburg, Rykwert, Joseph 14–15, 18, 44, 46, 79, 131, 178 103, 107, 133, 141, 166–167, 169, 196, 199 Virgin Mary, the 129, 149, 154–155 Joseph Rykwert: pp 15, 37 (right) Joel Tomlin and Hilary Koob-Sassen for collaborating technological-scientific thinking 103 virtual body 42 Laura Evans: pp 108, 109, 152 (middle and bottom right) with me on the work presented in the final chapter, S Temple, Nick 9, 112, 129, 131 Vitruvius 27, 30, 32, 43–44, 46, 52, 78 Lynch Architects: pp 168–169, 172–173, 175, 176, 177 and David Chipperfield and Kieran Long for inviting Sacks, Oliver 5, 43 temporal 4, 8–9, 12, 19, 42, 56–57, 59, 66–67, (top and bottom left), 179, 182 (right), 183 us to develop this at the Venice Biennale in 2012. As sacrifice 14, 40, 44, 62, 79, 103, 112, 124, 126, 79–80, 107, 129, 133, 175, 182–183, 199 W ©Mike O’Dwyer: p 180 (top) well as all the people, organisations and institutions 129, 138 Terragni, Giuseppe 23, 25–26 Wahlman, Lars Israel 115 MIT Press: p 25 (left) credited across the page, I have also to thank Andy San Sebastián 72, 79–80, 83, 90, 92, 95, 107 Texas 27, 31 Wallenstein, Sven-Olov 107, 109–110 Museo Chillida-Leku: p 77 Laurie, Álvaro Siza, Ross Anderson, Eric Parry, José de Santiago de Compostela 28, 79 “The Origin of the Work of Art” 9, 77, 96, 103 Wang, Wilfred 111, 115 Nick Temple: p 131 Paiva, Pär Hedefält, Wilfried Wang, Jürgen Teichmann, Schumacher, Patrik 20–21, 43, 48 The Relevance of the Beautiful 13, 19, 66–67, 95, weather 19, 42, 58, 182 Nikita Sheagill: p 181 (top) David Leatherbarrow, Gráinne Hassett, Kalle Söderman, Schwarz, Rudolf 106, 115, 124, 129 197, 200 Webb, Aston 162 Patrick Lynch: pp 8, 29, 32, 33, 35 (left), 37, 40, 41, 55, Annabel Gray, David Grandorge, Hufton + Crow, Scuole 47 The Way of the Cross 106–107, 122 west gate (St Peter’s Church, Klippan) 128–129, 71, 72, 81, 82, 83 (right), 84, 85, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 110, Tim Soar, Sue Barr, Tom Rothery, Mike O’Dwyer, seasonal time 43, 59, 92 The Wind Comb 80, 83, 85, 92, 95 138, 140 111, 113, 118, 121 (left and middle), 124, 126, 127, Hélène Binet, Frida Melin at the Swedish Centre for Sennett, Richard 14 theatre 16–17, 23, 52–54, 56–57, 60, 68, 78, 96, Westminster Abbey 40, 167–168, 175 128, 130 (middle, bottom left and right), 133, 138, 141, Architecture and Design, Trevor Patt, Laura Evans and Serra, Richard 9, 23, 28–29, 31–33, 35, 37, 106, 126, 139, 169, 174 Westminster Cathedral 169, 175–176, 178, 182 142–143, 143–144, 149 (top three), 153 (middle left and Sandra Martin for the use of their images and for their 48–49, 68 Victoria Palace Theatre 169, 172, 174 Whiteread, Rachel 32–33, 35 bottom right), 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 163 (right), 166, critical advice and insight. I need also to thank Luis Sharr, Adam 98–99 theoria, theory 9, 15, 18–22, 26–28, 32, 42–43, 46, Wilson, Colin St John 25, 112 167, 172, 177 (bottom right), 181 (bottom), 183 (left) Chillida and his colleagues at Museo Chillida-Leku, Shift 32, 35, 37 48–49, 54, 62, 78, 112, 115, 162, 197–200 workroom 95, 100–103 Peter Carl: pp 62–63 and Rafael Moneo for his help in understanding the sign 21, 30, 53, 56, 67 threshold 12–13, 19, 21, 46–48, 52–53, 67, 78–79, Wurzburg 60, 78 Pär Hedefält: pp 139 (right), 140 close relationships between sculpture, geography and silence 35, 58, 60, 78, 80, 85, 95, 112, 129, 131, 90, 92, 95, 100, 102, 115, 129, 151, 153, 154, 162, Richard Serra: pp 8, 36 architecture at San Sebastián. Nina Lundvall needs 183, 196 168, 176, 178, 182–183, 199 Z Ross Anderson: pp 99 (left and bottom right), 100 (right) thanks for her translation for me of the most relevant Silver Forest 180–183 Tiepolo 60 Zig Zag Building, The 169, 171, 178–180, Roberto Sueiras Revuelta: p 83 (left) parts of Lars Ridderstedt’s doctoral dissertation on the situation, situational 14, 19, 20–21, 25–26, 30, Timæus 100 182–183 Rory Gardiner: p 178, 179 (bottom right), 184, 185, 186, architecture of Celsing and Lewerentz. I would not have 32–33, 35, 37, 41–45, 47–49, 53, 57–61, 63, 66– Timorous Beasties 181–182 189, 190 been able to devote so much time to this work without 69, 72, 77–78, 92, 96–98, 100–101, 103, 106–107, Todtnauberg 97–100 Sandra Martin: p 152 (top left) the understanding and trust of my wife Claudia Lynch: 109, 113, 115, 119, 121, 124–125, 129, 133, 139, Topics 98 Sigurd Lewerentz: p 139 (four on the left) as ever, she has been a wry, rigorous, critical friend. 151, 162, 167, 169, 178, 182–183, 197–200 topography, 9, 14, 18, 20, 26–28, 35, 40, 42, 44– ©Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design: pp 106, I would like to thank also our co-director at Lynch Siza, Álvaro 72, 147–159 45, 49, 52, 62, 80, 95–96, 106, 141, 148–149, 154, 107, 117, 119, 121 (right) and 122–123 architects, David Evans for his wise counsel and for his Skåne 110, 116 157, 162, 164, 168, 178, 183, 200 ©Sue Barr: pp 178, 180 (bottom), 182 (right), 183 (right), appreciation of the importance of this work to me. I Snow, John 164, 167 topology 42, 98 187 must also thank Maia Caiger-Smith, Clémence Monk, social reason 198 topos 46, 53, 62, 76, 106, 141 162, 164, 174–175 ©Tim Soar: pp 179 (bottom right), 184, 185, 188, 189 Mary Chapman and Jessica Hendey for their help in Socrates 62, 78, 100 Totenbaum 99 ©The Alberti Group, Bath University, courtesy Robert keeping Lynch Architects running over the past seven Solà-Morales, Ignasi de 76 tradition 9, 15–16, 18–19, 21, 23, 26–27, 35, Tavernor: pp 71 (top), 72 (right) years and whilst I was writing this book. Finally I’d like Somerset House 164–165 52–53, 58, 61–62, 69–70, 72, 78, 83, 98, 103, 106– ©Tom Rothery: pp 190–193, 201 to thank my children, Valentin and Lotte, for putting space 5, 9, 12, 16, 20–23, 28, 30, 33, 35, 37, 107, 109–113, 115, 122, 131, 139, 149, 162–163, Trevor Patt: p 130 (left) up with the various trips to see “architecture”, and 40–44, 48–49, 52–54, 56–61, 68, 76–80, 83, 85, 166–167, 169, 175, 196–199 Wikimedia Commons: p 151 for repeatedly pointing out that there are many other 90, 95–97, 103, 106, 110, 112, 115, 119, 121–122, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” 112 interesting things to do as well. 124, 129, 133, 141, 151, 155, 168, 176, 196–200 treppenhaus 60

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