Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Architectural Topographies

Architectural Topographies is a critical dictionary for architects and landscape architects in which the graphic lexicon can be read from a beginning, the ground, to a conclusion, the specific case studies. Intended as a tool to help you recognize, analyze, choose, and invent solutions, the book’s key words refer to the physical and material relationship between construction and ground; to where and how the link is built; to the criteria, methods, and tools used to know and transform the ground; and to the possible approaches to the place and their implications on the way the earth is touched. Fifty case studies by forty-six of the greatest architects of the previous hundred years are represented throughout in sectional drawings which place the buildings along the same ground plane to illustrate how the key words might be combined and to show each architect’s position on their built work in relation to all the others. Includes drawings by the author of projects by Alvar Aalto; Tadao Ando; João Batista Vilanova Artigas; Gunnar Asplund; Patrick Berger; Mario Botta; Erik Bryggman; Gonçalo Byrne; David Chipperfield; Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks; Le Corbusier; Sverre Fehn; Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy; Dick van Gameren; Grafton architects; Herzog and De Meuron; Steven Holl; Arne Jacobsen; Kengo Kuma; John Lautner; Adalberto Libera; Frank Lloyd Wright; Paulo Mendes da Rocha; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos; Glenn Murcutt; Juan Navarro Baldeweg; Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey; Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin; John Pawson; Giuseppe Perugini, Mario Fiorentino, and Nello Aprile; Renzo Piano; Georges-Henri Pingusson; Peter Rich; Rudolph Schindler; Roland Simounet; Alvaro Siza; Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; Luigi Snozzi; Alejandro de la Sota; Eduardo Souto de Moura; Fernando Tavora; Jørn Utzon; Livio Vacchini; Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, and Marcella Aprile; Amancho Williams; and Peter Zumthor.

Tomà Berlanda is an architect and co-founder of ASA Studio, based in Kigali, Rwanda. Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Architectural Topographies

A graphic lexicon of how buildings touch the ground

Tomà Berlanda Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

ROUTLEDGE Routlesge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of Tomà Berlanda to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Berlanda, Tomà. Architectural topographies : a graphic lexicon of how buildings touch the ground / Tomà Berlanda. pages cm Includes index. 1. Architectural design--Themes, motives. 2. Landscape design. I. Title. NA2750.B47 2014 729--dc23 2013035462 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

ISBN: 978-0-415-83621-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-83622-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-81319-6 (ebk)

Acquisition Editor: Wendy Fuller Editorial Assistant: Emma Gadsden Production Editor: Siobhán Greaney Typeset in Univers by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent To my mother and father Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Contents

List of figures ix Preface xvii Acknowledgments xix

Introduction: The quest for architectural topographies 1

Chapter 1 Intersections: Why a graphic lexicon? 11

Chapter 2 The building meets the ground: Ground. Foundation. Plinth. Artificial ground 55 Ground 56 Foundation 60 Plinth 62 Artificial ground 64

Chapter 3 The discovery of the terrain: Topography. Landing and grounding. Strata. Earthwork. Water and air 67 Topography 70 Landing and grounding 73 Strata 76 Earthwork 77 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Water and air 80

Chapter 4 The right placement: Site. Lightness. Dissolution. Enhancement. Objets trouvés. Artefact 87 Site 89 Lightness 91 Dissolution 92 Enhancement 96 Contents

Objets trouvés 98 Artefact 101

Chapter 5 Horizontal and vertical: Gravity. Horizon. Between earth and sky. Architectural promenade. Shifting topography. Threshold 105 Gravity 106 Horizon 107 Between earth and sky 109 Architectural promenade 111 Shifting topography 113 Threshold 115

Chapter 6 Elemental forms: Platform. Wall. Retaining wall. Footbridge. Inclined plane 119 Platform 121 Wall 124 Retaining wall 125 Footbridge 127 Inclined plane 129

Chapter 7 Images and metaphors: Feet on the ground. Anchoring. Roots. Clouds 133 Feet on the ground 134 Anchoring 135 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Roots 137 Clouds 139

Notes 143 Bibliography 151 Image credits 163 Index 165

viii Figures

1.1 Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Bear Run, PA, USA, 1934–7 11 1.2 Gunnar Asplund, Woodland crematorium, Stockholm, Sweden 1933–40 12 1.3 Alvar Aalto, Housing, Kauttua, Finland, 1937–40 12 1.4 Erik Bryggman, Resurrection chapel, Turku, Finland, 1938–41 13 1.5 Adalberto Libera, casa Malaparte, Capri, Italy, 1938–42 14 1.6 Amancho Williams, Bridge house, Mar del Plata, Argentina, 1943–5 15 1.7 Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth house, Fox River Valley, Plano, IL, USA, 1947–9 15 1.8 Giuseppe Perugini, Mario Fiorentino, Nello Aprile, Fosse Ardeatine mausoleum, Rome, Italy, 1947–9 16 1.9 Alvar Aalto, Town Hall, Saynatsalo, Finland, 1949–52 17 1.10 Rudolph Schindler, Ellen Janson house, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1948–9 17 1.11 Arne Jacobsen, Munkegaard school, Søborg, Denmark, 1948–57 18

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 1.12 Roland Simounet, Sainte Marguerite Marie church, Tefeschoun, Algeria, 1956–7 19 1.13 Le Corbusier, la Tourette convent, Eveux, France, 1953–7 19 1.14 Fernando Tavora, Cedro school, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 1957–61 20 1.15 Alison and Peter Smithson, Upper Lawn Pavilion, Fonthill, England, 1959–61 20 List of figures

1.16 João Batista Vilanova Artigas, School of Architecture, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1961 21 1.17 Georges-Henri Pingusson, Deportation memorial, Paris, France, 1953–62 22 1.18 Sverre Fehn, Nordic pavilion, Venice, Italy, 1962 23 1.19 Alejandro de la Sota, Maravillas Gymnasium, Madrid, Spain, 1961–2 23 1.20 Alvaro Siza, Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal, 1958–63 24 1.21 Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy, Public baths, Bellinzona, Switzerland, 1967–70 24 1.22 Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Brazilian pavilion, Osaka, Japan, 1969–70 25 1.23 Jørn Utzon, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, 1959–73 26 1.24 John Lautner, Marbrisa house, Acapulco, Mexico, 1973 28 1.25 Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, Marcella Aprile, Open air theatre, Salemi, Italy, 1983–6 29 1.26 Tadao Ando, Church of the water, Tomamu, Japan, 1988 30 1.27 Steven Holl, Berkowitz house, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, USA, 1984–8 31 1.28 Peter Zumthor, San Benedigt chapel, Sumvigt, Switzerland, 1985–8 31 1.29 Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos, Cemetery, Igualada, Spain, 1986–90 32 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 1.30 Luigi Snozzi, Diener house, Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland, 1990 33 1.31 Glenn Murcutt, Meagher house, Bowral, Australia, 1988–92 33 1.32 Tadao Ando, Contemporary Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan, 1992–5 34 1.33 Mario Botta, Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Monte Tamaro, Switzerland, 1992–6 36

x List of figures

1.34 Livio Vacchini, Sport hall, Losone, Switzerland, 1995–7 37 1.35 Herzog and de Meuron, Rudin house, Leymen, Switzerland, 1997 38 1.36 David Chipperfield, River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, England, 1989–97 38 1.37 Renzo Piano, J. M. Tjibaou Cultural centre, Noumea, New Caledonia, 1991–8 39 1.38 Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks, Maryhill Overlook, OR, USA, 1998 40 1.39 Patrick Berger, UEFA headquarters, Nyon, Switzerland, 1994–9 41 1.40 Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Museum of the Altamira cave, Santillana del Mar, Spain, 1995–2000 42 1.41 Sverre Fehn, Ivan Aasen Centre, Orsta, Norway, 1996–2000 43 1.42 Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin, Church, Mortensrud, Norway, 1998–2002 44 1.43 Eduardo Souto de Moura, Two houses, Ponte da Lima, Portugal, 2001–2 45 1.44 Kengo Kuma, The Great (Bamboo) Wall house, Bejing, China, 2000–2 46 1.45 John Pawson, house in Germany, 2003 47 1.46 Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland, 2002–4 48 1.47 Gonçalo Byrne, Maritime control tower, Lisbon, Portugal, 1997–2005 49 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 1.48 Dick van Gameren, Dutch Embassy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2002–5 50 1.49 Grafton architects, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, 2008 52 1.50 Peter Rich, Mapungubwe interpretation centre, Limpopo, South Africa, 2008 53 2.1 Sectional sketch, Alberto Campo Baeza, National Museum of Maritime Archaeology, Cartagena, Spain, 1998 56

xi List of figures

2.2 Footings study, Sean Godsell, Woodleigh school, Baxter, Victoria, Australia, 2001–2 59 2.3 Section studies, Alejandro de la Sota, Student residence hall, Ourense, Spain, 1967 60 2.4 Section, Shigeru Ban, Wall-less house, Karuizawa, Japan, 1997 62 2.5 Sectional study, Peter Rich, Mapungubwe interpretation centre, Limpopo, South Africa, 2008 64 2.6 Ground 66 2.7 Foundation 66 2.8 Plinth 66 2.9 Artificial ground 66 3.1 Sketch of the paved road towards Acropolis, Dimitris Pikionis, Ascent to the Acropolis—Philopappu, Athens, Greece, 1951–7 69 3.2 Sketch, Roland Simounet, church of Sainte Marguerite Marie, Tefeschoun, Algeria, 1956–7 70 3.3 Sketch “the architect explores the terrain,” Alvaro Siza 74 3.4 View, Arnaldo Pomodoro, study of burial zone in relation to the natural environment, Urbino, Italy, 1974 79 3.5 Sketch, Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks, Maryhill Overlook, OR, USA, 1998 80 3.6 Model view, Artengo, Menis, and Pastrana, Vallehermsa Botanical Garden, La Gomera, Spain, 1990 81

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 3.7 Eduardo Arroyo, Map of wind vectors, New East-wind city, Cordoba, Spain, 2002 83 3.8 Sections, Carlos Ferrater, Barcelona Botanical Garden, Spain, 1989–99 84 3.9 Carlos Ferrater, Drawing of topographical manipulation, Barcelona Botanical Garden, Spain, 1989–99 84 3.10 Topography 86 3.11 Landing and grounding 86

xii List of figures

3.12 Strata 86 3.13 Earthwork 86 3.14 Water and air 86 4.1 Sketch, Alvaro Siza, Swimming pools, Leça de Palmeira, Portugal, 1959–73 93 4.2 Sketch, César Portela, Finisterre Cemetery, Spain, 2000 94 4.3 Sketch, Kengo Kuma, Kokohi Bath House, Atami, Japan, 2002–3 95 4.4 Sketch, Mario Botta, Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Monte Tamaro, Switzerland, 1992–6 97 4.5 Section drawing, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, Sohlbergplassen viewing platform, Sohlbergplassen, Norway, 1995–8 99 4.6 Sketch, Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin, Mortensrud church, Oslo, Norway, 1998–2002 100 4.7 Site 103 4.8 Lightness 103 4.9 Dissolution 103 4.10 Enhancement 103 4.11 Objets trouvés 103 4.12 Artefact 103 5.1 Sketch, Vittorio Gregotti, Residential Complex, Cefalù, Italy, 1976 108 5.2 Illustration for one of Saarinen’s writings and sketches

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 for Dominguez house, Alejandro de la Sota, Pontevedra, Spain, 1973–8 110 5.3 Sketch, Alberto Campo Baeza, de Blas house, Madrid, Spain, 2000 110 5.4 Sketch of ascent, Alvaro Siza, Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal, 1958–63 112 5.5 Sketch, Luigi Snozzi, Diener house, Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland, 1990 112

xiii List of figures

5.6 Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Bagsvaerd church, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1974–6 115 5.7 Gravity 117 5.8 Horizon 117 5.9 Between earth and sky 117 5.10 Architectural promenade 117 5.11 Shifting topography 117 5.12 Threshold 117 6.1 Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Silkeborg Museum, Silkeborg, Denmark, 1963 122 6.2 Sketch, Alvaro Siza, Santa Maria Church, Marco de Canavezes, Portugal, 1990–7 123 6.3 Sketch, Jesús Aparicio, Horizon house, Salamanca, Spain, 2007 124 6.4 Sketch, Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, and Marcella Aprile, Open air theatre, Salemi, Italy, 1983–6 126 6.5 Sketch, Mario Botta, House in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland, 1971 127 6.6 Sketch, Aurelio Galfetti, Public baths, Bellinzona, Switzerland, 1967–70 128 6.7 Sketch, Roland Simounet, University residence, Tananarive, Madagascar, 1962–70 129 6.8 Platform 131 6.9 Wall 131 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 6.10 Retaining wall 131 6.11 Footbridge 131 6.12 Inclined plane 131 7.1 Sketch, Francesco Venezia, casa Malaparte, Capri, Italy, 1985 136 7.2 Sketch, Fernando Tavora, Cedro school, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 1957–61 138

xiv List of figures

7.3 Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Bayview house, Sydney, Australia, 1962 139 7.4 Sketch of waves and clouds, Fumihiko Maki, Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Tokyo, Japan, 1990 140 7.5 Feet on the ground 141 7.6 Anchoring 141 7.7 Roots 141 7.8 Clouds 141 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

xv Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Preface

This book is an expansion upon the research produced during my doc- toral dissertation in architecture and building design at the Politecnico in Torino. The original investigation has been continued and further elaborated through teaching in different contexts, particularly at Syracuse and Cornell University, and most extensively during my years in Rwanda, at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. Professional practice and scholarly work in the “land of the thousand hills,” have espe- cially reinforced the notion that the relationship between man-made transformations and ground is a privileged observation point for any architectural, urban, and landscape intervention. What originated the reflection is the acknowledgment of an existing gap between recurrent statements on the importance of how buildings touch the ground and the lack of explicit criteria for such an assessment. Both in the analysis of built works and in pedagogical practice, these are conceived here as a constant habit of questioning the meaning that gives a sense of consciousness to our work. Hence the inspiration emerged to create a tool to recognize, analyze, choose and invent possible solutions within a logical concatenation. Something that would allow for, and at the same time overcome, the specificity of a single case: a device enabling the reading and interpretation of the relationship with the ground beyond the apparent heterogeneity of the practice.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 This topographical lexicon is a tool that combines reality and invention. By establishing relationships between the heterogeneous elements which compose both explanatory texts and the built architectures, it helps to understand and explain works and statements, constructive details, and the differing visions of the world. Hopefully it will contribute to overcome the dichotomy between abstract pro- nouncements and architecture, in the writing of place.

Kigali, Rwanda, June 2013 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Acknowledgments

This book, as any architectural project, is the result of a long process from initial idea to final completion and, as such, would have not been possible without the recommendations, suggestions, and encourage- ment I’ve received from many individuals, to whom now go my heartfelt thanks: To Pierre Alain-Croset, who served as my primary advisor, for discussing with me the initial idea, and providing crucial feedback at decisive moments. To Cristina Bianchetti, Kenneth Frampton, Roberto Collovà, Angelo Sampieri, Stefano Pujatti, Brad Cloepfil, Delia Wendel and Sunniva Viking, who took the time at different stages to discuss and help me clarify the nature of the topic, and with whom the conversation continues. To my colleagues Francisco Sanin and Larry Davis at Syracuse University, Lily Chi at Cornell University, and Sierra Bainbridge at the Kigali Institute of Science of Technology, whose suggestions constantly pushed me to further focus the work. To all my students, with a particular debt to the insights of those who participated in my Architectural Topographies classes. To Wendy Fuller and Laura Williamson, my editors at Routledge and Taylor & Francis, who made the project possible. To Frederick Courtright for chasing endless image permissions.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 A special thanks goes to those friends who have shared with me the constant confrontation of running a practice together, first Lorenzo and Andrea in lat45N and now Nerea who has made asa studio a reality, together with all those who have worked and still work with us. Lastly, to my family, who although very far, were close to me with unfaltering support all along. Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Introduction The quest for architectural topographies

Before placing stone on stone, man placed a stone on the ground to recognize a site in the midst of an unknown uni- verse, in order to take account of it and modify it. Vittorio Gregotti1

The trajectory that translates a conceptual design in a built, structurally stable and properly placed architecture in space, finds a crucial moment in the way in which the building touches the ground. In their statements, architects and critics have long shared the awareness that this unavoidable encounter constitutes an integral part of the design and is intimately connected to the attitude one holds with regard to the site and with the relationship between artefact and nature. Often, however, this recognition does not go beyond a rhetorical call for the need of anchoring the building to the ground, to be realized by means of a non-specified topographic sensibility. “Great” architects elaborate their own personal repertoire more or less consciously, but the attention to the geographical nature of places, to the form of the terrain, and to the topographical singularities is not mechanically translated into built form, neither is it easy to establish the mediating moments. Furthermore, even critical analysis, which mostly deals with the link between ground and artefact in terms of poetic vision or architectural language, does Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 not always place these elements in relationship with the built solutions, which are invented or readapted case by case. Assuming that this relationship can be reduced to a limited number of elemental situations, to which an exceptionally rich variety of built answers are given, the first phase of the research was devoted to an investigation of buildings and projects to explore how the relationship with the ground is prefigured and materialized in each of them, and to the reading of theoretical texts and monographs. The temporal framework considered is that of the last 100 years, from the beginning Introduction

of the modern movement until the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries between architecture and landscape architecture, whereas the field of investigation expands over different geographical and cultural areas. The decision not to start from a preconceived list of hypo- thetical situations, but from the built works, in order to re-trace their constitutive elements, seemed coherent with the intention of decom- posing and framing the theme from a point of view that coincides with that of the architect who discovers the site before the project, conceives its relationship with the construction, and builds it tectonically. To this end, the collected documentation has been re-elaborated and represented graphically through sections. These appear to be the most appropriate means of representation, not only to show the vertical relationship between the various strata, but to reveal and synthesize all relationships between ground and architecture. As Carol J. Burns puts it: “conveying the topographic qualities of both building and setting in the baseline, the horizon line, and the profile line, the section shows the relationship between site and building in phenomenological terms and not in geometric terms.”2 Sections underscore the new configuration generated by the solidarity between earth and artefact, which is different from the one the line of the ground and building would have if considered separately. They show how the materialization of this link can be reduced to three primary situations, depending on whether the main aspect is the interlock, adjacency, or separation. This does not represent in and of itself an original discovery, but bears implications whose comprehension requires the overcoming both of the simple geometric description of the earth’s profile, intended as a line with no thickness, and of the uncritical classification of constructive details that allow for buildings to either penetrate the ground, simply place themselves upon it, or entail with it a punctual and limited contact. Each design is of course influ-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 enced by technical and financial constraints, as well as by the features of its site. But when looked upon as physical realizations of very diverse ideas on architecture and landscape, all the case studies pertaining to the first half of the twentieth century—Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses, Le Corbusier’s buildings on pilotis, the first terraced houses by Mies van der Rohe and his later unbuilt bridge structures, Richard Neutra’s, Rudolph Schindler’s, and Alvar Aalto’s architectures—can be read as the result of a constant reflection on the encounter with the ground, although not systemically expressed by the authors nor investigated by scholars. Even more directly connected to the idea of meeting

2 Introduction

the ground are projects by architects who constantly and explicitly recognize the importance of the topic, both from a theoretical standpoint and as the conceptual generator of their work. Among them, Steven Holl, who towards the end of the 1970s, identified the topic as one of the crucial nodes of the relationship between architecture and place, and continued this investigation in his later work. According to him: “the relation between things is the focus, rather than the object-type. The zero point of such a relation is a section at the surface of the earth.”3 The Y House in the Catskills mountains (1997–9) is a built manifesto of this statement. In Holl’s words: “the house occupies the hill and the site through three primary relationships: in the ground, on the ground and over the ground. The portion over the ground is suspended, cantilevered above the portion in the ground.”4 In more recent years the use of materials and load bearing structures that do not require a traditional foundation platform has become more common, and technology now allows for inexpen- sive means of moving the ground and disrupting its configuration. Therefore, raised, stacked, inflated, vectorial, carved, exposed, and inscribed are adjectives entered in current vocabulary, which, by objectifying the noun “ground” extend the meaning of modifications operated by architecture, to involve both building and transformed soil. But interlock, adherence, and separation remain the categories from which all types can be derived. Whether they refer to the entirety of a project or portions of it, or appear simultaneously in the same building, they are at the same time concrete material phenomena and abstractions, which synthetically represent an idea and desire to either belong or keep the distance from the terrestrial contingency and its laws. Sections provide clues to the authors’ intentions. In order to understand them it is important, on the one hand, to take a closer look

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 and reduce the observation field to uncover the tectonic solutions, and on the other to integrate the reading with sketches, statements, narrative elements condensing, and representing the architect’s position towards a specific location. Thus the way in which a building is related to the ground loses any geometrical abstraction and reveals itself as a significant evidence of the approach to place. It is a theme Christian Norberg Schulz examines within the more general dialectic relation between place and architecture. Referencing Martin Heidegger’s thought, specifically the passage on the “temple that stands on the ground and towers into the air,”5 he states that:

3 Introduction

the word stand denotes the relationship to the earth. Rise the relationship to the sky. Standing is embodied through the treatment of the base and the wall. Some buildings are “ground-hugging,” others rise freely, and in others again we find a meaningful equilibrium.6

Be it as it may, the modes in which the unavoidable need for stability of any construction is achieved, transferring vertical loads to the earth by means of an appropriate technical solution, are also the expression of the comprehension of place, mainly concretized through the means of touching the ground. For Norberg Schulz the way in which the physical continuity between ground and artefact is achieved is intimately interconnected with the need for a phenomenological approach. This is targeted at capturing, through physical experience, the essence of the world’s elements, earth, nature, and all that is profoundly rooted and buried in every site, in search of a resonance or tuning with the place, in a double and indivisible human and geographic connotation.7 From the first phase of the research, where the selection and preparation of graphic materials overlapped with the readings, two main elements emerged, allowing for a further refinement and focus of the topic. The first is the complex nature of the encounter with the ground, which cannot be reduced to a dimensional or representational scale issue. Both the sections and the comparison between the designer’s statements and their built work, show how the materialization of intentions, expressed through drawings and models, happens through tectonic nodes, syntactic constructive elements linked to topography. Whether one shifts between construction details and the relationship between artefact and nature, or proceeds in the opposite direction, from an idea of this relationship to the invention of specific ways of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 touching the ground, the exploration requires continuous viewpoint adjustments. It suggests the adoption of a cross referencing way of looking at things, in order to grasp the significant intersections between theoretical debate and solutions adopted on a specific site. In other words one could posit that the encounter with the ground is configured as a function of the strategy of modification of the site. This in its own turn, is both a result and evidence of the unavoidable conflict between the aspiration of achieving through architectural work the final moment of a process of transformation of a portion of the world, and the awareness of its temporary nature.

4 Introduction

On the other hand, a widespread ambiguity of language, due both to the use of terms to which a new and wider meaning is attributed, and the introduction of others, borrowed from different disciplinary fields, calls for an investigation on the meaning of the words used, and on the concepts they refer to, starting with topography. To this end the research expanded to include works not only and not necessarily by architects, which in different ways address the relationship between the configuration of the earth’s crust and man’s constructions. Be they labelled as architecture, art history, or landscape architecture writings, they all concur in asserting that the term topography can no longer be reductively intended as the description of the geometric aspects of a site, its slope and orientation, but must consider all the elements of its materiality, inferring them from geology, geography, and history. The process of dilatation of the meaning of topography did not happen in an isolated way. Equally important overlaps and interac- tions between disciplines, arts, and professions have radically changed the way the themes of design, construction, and manipulation of the ground are investigated across all scales. Rosalind E. Krauss’ research, breaking boundaries between sculpture, landscape, and architecture, gives origin to many reflections, which contribute to establish the topographic dimension and the relationship with the ground as foundational elements of architecture. The notion of expanded field elaborated by Krauss8 within a structuralist diagram derived from linguistics, destabi- lizes traditional spatial categories because it includes in the same class every intervention of ground manipulation, “from marked sites to the construction of sites, from the construction of structures in the landscape to architectural interventions.”9 David Leatherbarrow believes “topography is the topic (theme, framework, plan) architecture and landscape architecture hold in common.”10 For this reason he gives great importance to the defini-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 tion of the meaning and role of topography. In his view, topography is not limited to recording the natural features of a site, but “incorporates terrain built and unbuilt,”11 revealing energies and elements of a place. Singling in topography the element that allows it to shift between building and the territory, from architectural project to land art and landscape architecture, while preserving individual specificities, bears implications far beyond the legitimate need of simultaneously operating at different scales, overcoming traditional disciplinary boundaries. Concentrating the attention on the ground as primary material for design, and not as an abstract flat surface upon which the architectural object is placed,

5 Introduction

allows for the removal of every boundary between natural and artificial landscape, with the result that everything is landscape. If critics have a hard time in classifying some projects as buildings or landscape elements or defining them as forms of land art, landscape art, or earth art, the issue is not to change classification criteria but to treat also architecture as a discipline that operates in an expanded field. By recognizing that the manipulation of the ground is not only inseparable from the design, but bears the same importance as all other components, it will stop being a preliminary operation which allows it to build, or an ancillary intervention which completes or mitigates its effects. The popular phrase defining “architecture as constructed ground” recalls Alvar Aalto’s approach, “who sought to create a synthetic landscape all his life.”12 His procedure originates from the conformation of the terrain and invents topographies to compose sequences of images framed by and in the landscape. For “his unusual interest in landscapes where terrain rather than buildings provide the primary structure” and his ability to conjugate architectural vision and analytical observations of the earth’s crust, many of his buildings must be approached as “man-made landscapes rather than detached architectural objects.”13 In recent years the invention of topography has become a frequent concept in architectural debate. Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros, for instance, are convinced that landscape may be designed and thus becomes artificial, and further that the project is “validated insofar as it achieves a complete re-description of place, above all proposing the invention of a topography.”14 The notion of topography they are referencing is the process of construction of the landscape and not its formal image. Every place is now understood as a landscape, whether natural or artificial, and landscape is no longer the neutral background against which architectural objects stand out, but is the subject itself of its

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 transformation. Inventions of a new artificial topography are transformation projects in territorial environments of great dimensions, ranging from James Corner’s to George Hargreaves’ parks, where the preoccupation is not on the final form, but rather on the orchestration of the different forces and fluxes of substance and energy. The site is constantly recycled, topography continuously reinvented and architecture a tool, which takes part in the transformation of the landscape only if it is capable of understanding the specific processes of each site, and of placing on the ground the elements which will facilitate its evolution, sowing “the seeds of future possibilities.”15 As part of this strategy that

6 Introduction

privileges the development process, particularly significant is the inclusion of all those atmospheric agents and natural elements in constant modification—water, wind, climate, and light—marking the integration of new preoccupation and themes within the traditional notion of the earth’s surface. Lastly, in one of the many trespassing and paradigm shifts from one discipline to another, even literary critique has acknowledged the transition from an idea of topography as the combination of static characters to be recorded, to that of elements whose evolution is directed by the project. In other words, from a definition of topography limited to “graphic delineation of a physical space or the configuration of its surfaces to one more closely derived from the literal meaning of topos or place merged with graphein, to write.”16 Hence topography, which literally means writing of place, is something that not only can be read, but also written. The survey has highlighted how, starting with the definition of topography one can find and follow unforeseen directions, but the suggestions that emerge are affected by the ambiguity of the vocabulary employed, since for many of the terms pertaining to the encounter with the ground, different definitions are offered to the extent that they need to be specified on a case-by-case basis. Questioning traditional approaches, concepts, and classifications has produced new terminology, and redefined the existing one. It is therefore necessary to place in relation the results of this exploration with the reflections and questions which have suggested its framing and development, in order to integrate them and allow them to interact. In more recent years a significant production of thematic dictionaries and disciplinary glossaries has emerged. In the most inter- esting cases, instead of a compilation of lists in alphabetical order, one of the most obvious and conventional symbols of totality, the formula of a critical dictionary is preferred, where it is not the meaning of the 17 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 word which is explained, but its duties. With an analogous intention and preoccupation, and rejecting the hypothesis that it would be useful and possible to tackle the theme to generate a classification according to predetermined categories, or vice versa an exhaustive listing, an infinite catalogue, the path followed was that of identifying the primary elements and their logical concatenation. This choice, paired with that of defining the words on the basis of their concrete use, is functional to the construction of a lexicon, at the same time finished and open, marked by a coherent structure, yet capable of accepting contaminations and the insertion of new words. If, taken as a whole,

7 Introduction

the definitions, concepts, images, strategies, and solutions, can be conceived of as the words of the encounter with the ground, and if questioning the words within a specific practice necessarily transforms itself into a discourse on the same practice, the lexicon becomes an appropriate tool for reading, interpreting, and creating. The sequence revolves around some key words. It starts with terms that refer to the physicality and materiality of the encounter between construction and ground, and to where and how this link is built (ground, foundation, plinth, artificial ground). It continues with those describing the criteria, methods, and tools used to know and transform the ground (topography, landing and grounding, strata, earthwork, water and air), and expands on those relating to the spectre of possible approaches to the place and their implications on the way the earth is touched (site, lightness, dissolution, enhancement, objets trou- vés, artefact). The attention then shifts towards issues, which are more directly referred to in the design process; from the direct comparison with the specific area to the spatial surroundings, in the various directions that the architect deems appropriate, from the different poetic visions inside which the theme of the encounter with the ground takes place, to the ways of narrating these relationships. This group of words is articulated in chapters five to seven, respectively dedicated to the dialectic between the horizontal and the vertical line (gravity, horizon, between earth and sky, architectural promenade, shifting topography, threshold); to the architectural tropes of the encounter with the ground (platform, wall, retaining wall, footbridge, inclined plane); to the rhetorical expedients, images, and metaphors used by critics and authors (feet on the ground, anchoring, roots, clouds). The lexicon can be read as a text where the reasoning develops from a beginning, the ground, to a conclusion, the materialization of the encounter and the construction of a narrative. It is also possible to

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 jump from one entry to another, concentrating on the ones that include quotations or references to authors and works documented in the sections or, rather, start from the study in section and, from this, go back to the concepts. Whatever the path followed, it will be noted that many terms related to the encounter between building and ground are given a duplicity of meaning, pertaining both to the solution of a physical problem and the structuring of thoughts. This linguistic duplicity, which refers to the ambiguity of the question, can be seen as an indirect confirmation of the need to reflect on its ontological, rather than static, foundational value. The lexicon is a contribution in this direction. It is

8 Introduction

not a handbook that classifies a sequence of elemental topographical situations and offers and recommends, for each of these, a repertoire of solutions, but it helps to understand intentions. Ultimately the lexicon does not offer answers to how to touch the ground, it highlights questions which need to be asked. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

9 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Chapter 1

Intersections Why a graphic lexicon?

The sections presented here have been drawn based on heterogeneous material, construction sets, publication drawings, sketches, photo- graphs, and on site visits. Their purpose is to highlight the encounter with the ground. A thick line represents, by crossing it, the continuity between earth and building. A series of thinner lines suggests the dimension and configuration of architecture and the topographical site.

0 1 5 10 20m Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Bear Run, PA, USA, 1934–7 Intersections

Most technical handbooks identify the solidarity between construction and ground with a geometrical problem, as if it were an issue of defining the contact of a volume with a line, or with a construction technique. This literature considers the potential alternatives, describing and evaluating the advantages, which buried buildings possess with regard to protection from environmental agents, and thermal inertia, the different solutions to build on a slope, and the range of available systems allowing to lift buildings off the ground. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Gunnar Asplund, Woodland crematorium, Stockholm, Sweden 1933–40 Alvar Aalto, Housing, Kauttua, Finland, 1937–40

12 Intersections

It is mostly a compilation of criteria and devices, rather than a reflection on the significance and the implications of the encounter. Case studies are used as abstract models, adaptable to any situation, as if it were possible to build everywhere. This attitude seems the symptom of a widespread belief, that is one of the consequences of the development of techniques permit- ting to modify the earth’s profile in a fast and cost effective way. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Erik Bryggman, Resurrection chapel, Turku, Finland, 1938–41

13 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Adalberto Libera, casa Malaparte, Capri, Italy, 1938–42 Intersections

By allowing architects to operate at an unprecedented scale in the removal of the terrain’s asperities, inconceivable until a few decades ago, there is a risk of generating architectures which are indifferent to site. Groundworks have become ordinary practice. This is indeed a risk many architects declare being themselves aware of. In the past architecture used to react to topographical conditions and to the difficulties of establishing foundations through expressive forms: substructures, walls, buttresses, and crypts. Today, when it finds an obstacle, it simply removes it. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Amancho Williams, Bridge house, Mar del Plata, Argentina, 1943–5 Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth house, Fox River Valley, Plano, IL, USA, 1947–9

15 Intersections

In Steven Holl’s words: “in the past the connection between building and site was manifest without conscious intention,”1 whereas today it is made more complex by the development of ground modification techniques. This needs to be explicitly addressed as a component of the architectural project, a part of its constructive transformation. It almost appears that until a certain moment in time no specific need was felt for a reflection on the ways of establishing a connection with the ground. The former absence of a variety of alternatives to the problem has now been replaced by a sudden abundance. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Giuseppe Perugini, Mario Fiorentino, Nello Aprile, Fosse Ardeatine mausoleum, Rome, Italy, 1947–9

16 Intersections

In other words, one could argue that from the moment it has become possible to build everywhere, technology started a conflict with topography. The scope of this work has been to overcome this reductive approach. For this reason the synoptic charts at the end of each chapter show how relationship can be established between every building and each of the words of the lexicon, through combinations and cross references. Whether one proceeds from the single words to built work, or in the opposite direction, the process requires and suggests continuous adjustments of the point of view. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Alvar Aalto, Town Hall, Saynatsalo, Finland, 1949–52 Rudolph Schindler, Ellen Janson house, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1948–9

17 Intersections

It calls for the adoption of a cross-cutting gaze to capture the significant intersection between the theoretical debate and the technical solutions for a specific site. Integral parts of this reading are the sketches, condensing and summarizing both the authors’ intuitions and intentions with regards to the site and its configuration. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Arne Jacobsen, Munkegaard school, Søborg, Denmark, 1948–57

18 Intersections

Some architects express clear and absolute preferences for one or the other condition and obsessively repeat the same trope, while others are willing to engage in response to the specificities of the site and claim their decisions depend on the features of the site, or on the type of relation they want to establish with it. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Roland Simounet, Sainte Marguerite Marie church, Tefeschoun, Algeria, 1956–7 Le Corbusier, la Tourette convent, Eveux, France, 1953–7

19 Intersections

For instance, Rudolph Schindler embeds Harris House (1942) on a rocky ledge, which he adopts as foundation. His Kings Road House (1922) sits on the ground without modifying it. A series of enclosed spaces marked out with chalk define the geometry, running parallel to the ground.2 In sites with a steep slope he prefers solutions, which are detached, separate, and carefully thought of on a case-by-case basis. All still conform to the idea that the building must “never be placed straddling the ridge, but should hug the flank of it, becoming part of its surroundings, and leaving the main lines of the mountain untouched.”3 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Fernando Tavora, Cedro school, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 1957–61 Alison and Peter Smithson, Upper Lawn Pavilion, Fonthill, England, 1959–61

20 Intersections

He first develops a typology of sectional configurations on steeply sloped sites experimenting with different options, and then reduces the options to three basic configurations, placing his designs in explicit relation with each of them. He explicitly identifies Wolfe House (1928) as the paradigmatic example of a building “balancing above the hill,” Walker House (1929) as “cascading down the slope,” and lastly, van Patten House (1935) as a construction “rising up in a counter motion to the hillside.”4 Ultimately his research does not deal with formal preoccupations but is rather concerned with limiting the mountain’s disruption. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

João Batista Vilanova Artigas, School of Architecture, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1961

21 Intersections

This becomes even more important in his later work, when the prevailing solution he adopts is to detach the house from the ground. Almost all built work from this period appears to float on a horizontal plane that hovers over the hill.5 In La Tourette (1953–60) Le Corbusier adopts two different approaches for the two components of the convent. The church holds a strong symbolic relationship with the ground, resting on it and “marrying its slope,” as is exemplified by the lateral chapels, which magnify the earth’s shape, embracing its protrusions. The convent, instead, is lifted off the ground, allowing the basement to mediate the differences in level.6 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Georges-Henri Pingusson, Deportation memorial, Paris, France, 1953–62

22 Intersections

Sverre Fehn employs two apparently opposite manners of relating to the ground: either by constructing a plinth upon which the construction rests or by excavating the land surrounding the site. In the first case “the earth is covered by a foundation, while in the second, the secrets of the underground are brought to light.”7 Many of John Lautner’s houses appear to rise up from the ground, but “if he knew how to root the building into the earth, he was equally good at dissolving the relationship of house to ground altogether.”8 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sverre Fehn, Nordic pavilion, Venice, Italy, 1962 Alejandro de la Sota, Maravillas Gymnasium, Madrid, Spain, 1961–2

23 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Alvaro Siza, Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal, 1958–63 Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy, Public baths, Bellinzona, Switzerland, 1967–70 Intersections

Depending on whether the site is on sloping or flat terrain, Luigi Snozzi shifts between two criteria. In the valleys he:

meticulously seeks out all the traces on the land and every propensity for change: rows of vineyards, walls, the foundations of old convents, changing attitudes and traditions … In the hillside houses he creates two volumes: one of them is well-rooted in the earth. It is essential, solid. It plunges into the ground and rises well above it. The other appears to rest upon a flying carpet.9 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Brazilian pavilion, Osaka, Japan, 1969–70

25 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Jørn Utzon, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, 1959–73 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Intersections

Kengo Kuma believes that, whatever the shape given to the solidarity between construction and ground, architecture remains a dissolution of one into the other, an elimination of any dichotomy between figure and ground. The Kokohi Bath House (1999–2003) is placed on a narrow strip of land halfway up a cliff, and appears as a landing10 on the side of the mountain, sheltered by a simple pane of corrugated polycarbonate, supported by thin metal posts. The Kiro-San observatory (1991–4) is wedged into a pre-existing horizontal cut in the hill of which it becomes part of, a building transformed in topography. “To restore the mountain peak, he conceives architecture like a hole instead of an object.”11 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

John Lautner, Marbrisa house, Acapulco, Mexico, 1973

28 Intersections

His “floor in the forest” house (2001–3), on the other hand, is a floating horizontal element, where the emphasis is on the floating nature of the floor, rather than of the entire box.12 Different modes of relation with the ground can also be present in the same building. The Soba restaurant in Nagano (2002–3) for one half rests on the ground, for the other on slender pillars. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, Marcella Aprile, Open air theatre, Salemi, Italy, 1983–6

29 Intersections

In Glenn Murcutt’s buildings separation from the earth prevails. However, he has no preclusion to the use of the interlock, such as in Ockens House (1977), or in that of the adherence to a light plinth, as is the case in Magney House (1982–4). He says it depends on the climate, on the level of heat and humidity. “If you lift the house off the ground the snakes go underneath it … the elevation allows you to watch for termites.”13 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Tadao Ando, Church of the water, Tomamu, Japan, 1988

30 Intersections

Peter Zumthor’s Thermal baths in Vals (1996) are conceived as a cross section of the stone layering of the place, and the construction is visible only from its inside. The section is determined by a continuous series of natural stone strata. “This stone is built of stone, gneiss from Vals, quarried 1000 metres further up the valley, transported to site, and built back into the same slope.”14 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Steven Holl, Berkowitz house, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, USA, 1984–8 Peter Zumthor, San Benedigt chapel, Sumvigt, Switzerland, 1985–8

31 Intersections

The double layered enclosure of the Topographie des Terrors (1993) project in Berlin follows the ground, while preserving its autonomy. Zumthor himself defines it as “an elemental manifestation of architecture intermeshed with topography.”15 On the other hand the Briol hotel expansion in Barbian is lifted off the ground on slender supports like a “tree house on stilts.”16 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos, Cemetery, Igualada, Spain, 1986–90

32 Intersections

In some instances constructive solutions reach the point of contradicting the perception of the type of solidarity in place. The San Marcos in the Desert resort scheme (1929) by Frank Lloyd Wright appears to fuse itself in the hill on which it sits, but the drawing in section shows that it had been thought of as being excavated, above the sloping ground “on cast concrete piers and dwarf walls which in turn used the desert floor as a foundation.”17 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Luigi Snozzi, Diener house, Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland, 1990 Glenn Murcutt, Meagher house, Bowral, Australia, 1988–92

33 Intersections

The section of Rudolph Schindler’s Wolfe House tectonically contradicts the image of a building, which mirrors the contours of the land. All the vertical supports, placed on the back, are concealed, and the entire composition seems an effortless continuation of the steep hillside it dominates. When describing the work Schindler explains that “no excavating was done to speak of, instead of digging into the hill the house stands on tiptoe above it … only the foliage from an abundance of flow- erboxes all over the buildings laces it back to the ground.”18 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Tadao Ando, Contemporary Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan, 1992–5

34 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Intersections

As a result of the disparate range of approaches, the meaning of interlock, adherence, and separation must be analyzed case by case and placed in relationship with the specific tectonic solutions. Interlock is not synonymous with a room set in the ground, or hypogeal building, but rather refers to a configuration which is thought of in such a way that earth and construction, while sharing a space which is volumetri- cally defined, complete and complement each other. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Mario Botta, Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Monte Tamaro, Switzerland, 1992–6

36 Intersections

The compenetration can be achieved in different ways. The ground can be excavated to create or emphasize ledges or cracks. The construction can be inserted in an existing cavity, closing it or creating a parallel space. The earth can be moved to the side and used as a filling for another spot on site. The interlock can help to solve technical problems, remove differences in level and fillet contour lines. Ultimately it can be the response to existing constraints, or the result of an intentional quest for continuity between nature and artefact, a fusion of the building in the ground. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Livio Vacchini, Sport hall, Losone, Switzerland, 1995–7

37 Intersections

In Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solar Hemicycle, Middleton, Wisconsin (1943–8) the excavation of a concave garden and the displacement of the soil to establish a landfill resting on the walls, which are always in the shade, allows for the creation of one of the first examples of passive heating systems. Energy is preserved through the optimal solar exposure, and the thermal insulation provided by the earth’s mass.19 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Herzog and de Meuron, Rudin house, Leymen, Switzerland, 1997 David Chipperfield, River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, England, 1989–97

38 Intersections

Alvar Aalto creates the raised central court in Saynatsalo (1949–52) exploiting the glacier morainic terraces and the soil resulting from the foundation excavations, which become an integral part of the construction. A raised open space was formed by using the inner walls of the ground floor accommodation to retain the material excavated from the foundation.20 In Kauttua (1937–40) the interaction between building and earth is achieved through the construction of a service vane, serving as basement, on the hill’s flank. This is made of a series of stepped volumes, each being located at, and directly connected with, the same level as the dwellings. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Renzo Piano, J. M. Tjibaou Cultural centre, Noumea, New Caledonia, 1991–8

39 Intersections

Alejandro de la Sota intentionally creates the void where he places the Maravillas sports hall (1961–2), a building that literally “talks with its section.”21 By extending the upper level horizontal platform of the existing playground, the proposal can be understood as an operation of completing the space of the sloping terrain. In the Orense (1967) university dormitories he investigates possible interlocking solutions with reference to the slope, depending on their specific position of each prefabricated module, which makes up the complex. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks, Maryhill Overlook, OR, USA, 1998

40 Intersections

Adherence does not only refer to buildings that are laid, like carpets, on the terrain. There is a call for examining the diverse approaches to how the earth’s surface is prepared by means of a light consolida- tion or thin platform, which becomes an artificial ground, and follows the profile of the existing contour lines. The absence of level change between the artificial horizontal plane and the ground, the continuity between exterior and interior floors, together with the absence of joints in the paving, ensure that the transition between topography, ground, and building produces an extension in floor plan rather than in elevation. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Patrick Berger, UEFA headquarters, Nyon, Switzerland, 1994–9

41 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Museum of the Altamira cave, Santillana del Mar, Spain, 1995–2000 Intersections

Arne Jacobsen’s works, from the Bellavista complex (1931–4) to Rodovre City Hall (1956), which “lies flat on the earth like a toppled skyscraper,”22 follow the movement of the terrains on which they rest. In Kengo Kuma’s Bamboo Wall house (2002–3):

the slanted topography of the site is left intact, and a slender architecture built directly onto the undulating ground ... the level of the ground is varied according to the topography. A linear wall like structure appears as though it is crawling on the landform, avoiding land reclamation and maintaining the complex topography.23 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sverre Fehn, Ivan Aasen Centre, Orsta, Norway, 1996–2000

43 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin, Church, Mortensrud, Norway, 1998–2002 Intersections

Kuma explains how, in general, architecture is raised on a flat terrain producing variations thanks to the silhouette of the upper portion of the building. Here the roof plane is horizontal, while the floor follows the terrain in its non-uniform progression, allowing it to avoid ground manipulation and respect the topography. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Eduardo Souto de Moura, Two houses, Ponte da Lima, Portugal, 2001–2

45 Intersections

The Siting projects conceived by Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks from 1993 onwards, investigate architecture as a particular endeavor that produces buildings whose meaning is not assignable to, or defined, by, other cultural media. Specifically the Maryhill Overlook, a 150- foot concrete ribbon placed on the edge of a cliff in the Pacific Northwest marks the territory, indicating a direction, and suggesting different possibilities of occupation as well as the essential character of its site. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Kengo Kuma, The Great (Bamboo) Wall house, Bejing, China, 2000–2

46 Intersections

Of the three primary relationships between buildings and ground, separation is the most imprecise, although suggestive. A building cannot be completely devoid of ties with the earth, but limiting these to a series of points, or discontinuous surfaces, allows it to leave the main horizontal plane separate. The resulting unbuilt interstitial space can be perceived either as part of the construction or the ground. In both cases it sepa- rates and connects the ground with the building which seems lifted or “floating.” Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

John Pawson, house in Germany, 2003

47 Intersections

Lifting the building on punctual supports suggests the impression of leaving the earth’s crust almost intact, and allows us to distinguish the load bearing structure from the buildings which are carried on them, better comprehending the tectonic solutions. The separation can be due to technical reasons, isolation, and protection from dampness, floods, animals, or to utilitarian criteria, such as the cost of construction, of the plot, or the intention of touching the ground in the least intruding and permanent way. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland, 2002–4

48 Intersections

The 1934 sketch for “a glass house on the hill” is the first scheme in which Mies van der Rohe proposes a construction detached from the ground though strongly tied to the site. “Spanning a valley depression, the house grows out of the landscape. Mountain and house are one.”24 Even the design for Resor house (1938), intended for a site crossed by a small river creek, is conceived as a bridge connecting the two banks, so much so that Philip Johnson referred to it as a “floating self-con- tained cage.”25 Similarly to Mies’ Farnsworth House (1945–51), David Chipperfield’s River and Rowing Museum is located on a plot where periodical floods take place. In both cases lifting the building off the ground is a response to the features of the site. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Gonçalo Byrne, Maritime control tower, Lisbon, Portugal, 1997–2005

49 Intersections

At Farnsworth House, however, both the vertical supports, which are moved towards the interior of the structure, and the absence of lateral enclosures seem to convey the idea that the building is a floating object. Chipperfield’s museum, on the other hand, sits above the ground in the flood plain of the river, therefore establishing a new ground plan for the museum. This ground plan extends outside of the building, “forming a raised platform reminiscent of those found in the Japanese temples.”26 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Dick van Gameren, Dutch Embassy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2002–5

50 Intersections

Herzog and de Meuron refuse the “floating syndrome of the modern era.”27 The function of the pilotis of the Rudin House in Leymen (1995– 7) is not of support, but symbolic, because the house in reality rests on a horizontal plane which is a sort of “sedan chair of flying carpet.”28 It is located on a hill as a “grey monolith left behind by the last ice age.”29 There, resting on a horizontal surface placed in front of the slope, with one side cantilevering and the other three carried by metal columns, the house manifests its “desire of separation from the ground.”30 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

51 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Grafton architects, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, 2008 Intersections

Paulo Mendes da Rocha refuses the idea of “taking possession” of the ground, considering it “synonymous of theft and destruction.” For him lifting the building in order not to alter the terrestrial surface is particularly important. To those who ask him whether the relation between building and ground is “fundamental in his work,” he replies that “not touching the soil was never a stylistic issue because building raised enclosures is a way of preserving the ground … leaving the terrain in nature can mean a lot today.”31 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Peter Rich, Mapungubwe interpretation centre, Limpopo, South Africa, 2008

53 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Chapter 2

The building meets the ground Ground. Foundation. Plinth. Artificial ground

Dictionaries offer a range of definitions for ground, as well as for other nouns referring to where and how a building touches the earth. Besides a first explanation, which references the physical features of the noun, its concrete and tangible materiality, others are related to the structuring of thought. Highlighting this duplicity of meaning, found in many languages, is not an academic curiosity, but the starting point of a reflection on the encounter between building and ground. The variety of interpretations can be taken as evidence of the multiple vantage points one should address the issue from. “Ground,” for its profound analogy that shifts between modes of thinking and of building, is the key word. John Rajchman develops a reflection targeted at understanding “new ways of thinking and perhaps Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 also of building,” and calls it “a nodal and synaptic word.”1 For him “it is a word like foundation, with uses in both philosophy and architecture suggesting some deep analogy or affinity between the two.”2 Indeed, evoking a logical correspondence between thought and architecture, human activities both in need of a ground to support and to give them significance, suggests the opportunity of abandoning every conception of ground as abstract planar surface on which any architectural object can be placed upon. Robin Dripps says it helps to “develop an The building meets the ground

awareness and understanding of the structure of the ground so that its potential for making connection can become a part of any architecture that engages it,”3 and underscores the meaning of ground in a biologi- cal, geological, and metaphorical sense as context for human thought. Within architecture, once the ground is revealed and it is made visible, “it is possible to give the ground a voice equal to that of the products of human artifice.”4 Two necessities stem from this. On the one hand, that of considering the ground’s features of physical, organic matter, a mix of stones, dust, and sand continuously disintegrating. On the other, of using it as a foundation in a logical and conscious way, since the ground is at the same time something one can touch, but also a mental construction.

Sectional sketch, Alberto Campo Baeza, National Museum of Maritime Archaeology, Cartagena, Spain, 1998. Reprinted with the permission of the Estudio Arquitectura Campo Baeza.

GROUND

The two main dictionary entries for the term ground (terrain in French, grund in German, terreno in Spanish and Italian) respectively point to its physical quality, as being the surface layer of the earth’s crust where

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 one builds upon, and to its symbolic meaning of foundation, starting point on top of which a thought—or series of thoughts—can be built. In English, ground is also a verb, to ground. Its past participle, grounded, is frequently used to describe a well-resolved encounter of a building with the earth. Even more varied is the meaning of its opposite, ungrounded—literally off the ground. This can synthetically denote the result of the struggle pursued by modern architects to free their buildings from traditional constraints, reducing their contact points with the earth’s surface by lifting them. More generally it refers to buildings,

56 The building meets the ground

which are detached from the ground, where the absence of a specific link with it implies their indifference to the specific location, since they are reproducible anywhere, irrespective of the natural site.5 Ground can also mean backdrop. Ungrounded, with no background, recalls the figure–ground juxtaposition, but, when referred to a statement or reasoning, means devoid of rational base, with no foundation. Architectural criticism often considers, and translates, the words earth, land, ground, and soil as equivalent. In reality, conceptu- ally important differences exist between them. If not all the definitions are easily translated from one language to the other, taking into consideration their nuances helps to understand the intentions of those architects who explicitly express their thoughts on the meaning each word should have. Moreover, it allows us to compare their intentions and visions with the process, the logical sequence determining their design and construction decisions. The attention for the physical qualities of the ground, its composition, grain, texture, induces some to investigate intervention modes that can be respectful of the site, and pushes others to accelerate its dynamic and continuous transformation. The ensuing strategies are twofold. The first tends to minimize soil excavations and movements. The second emphasizes the ongoing processes, projecting them in new directions. When Roland Simounet states that the place of a project is always a terrain and not a parcelle, he refuses to accept the standard meaning of the French word terrain as synonymous of plot. His dissatis- faction with what appears to him as improper language, is at the same time an operating mode to which he constantly abides by. He tells us how:

architecture is never isolated. It extends into the ground, and it is for this reason that the issue of the building’s contact with

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the earth must be resolved. This can take on different declen- sions, through the vocabulary of the platform, the extension, the plinth, the joint, the collage.6

The concern for the frailty and the actual disruption of the earth’s surface is a recurrent theme in Robert Smithson’s theoretical elaboration. He is deeply concerned with the analogies between the “earth’s surface and the figments of the mind transformation processes”7 and the analogies between the language of words and that

57 The building meets the ground

of rocks.8 He is amazed by the scale of the disruptions provoked by “digging engines and other crawlers that can travel over rough terrain and steep grades. Drills and explosives that can produce shafts and earthquakes” causing every construction to “take on the look of destruction.” His observation that “to turn the terrain into unfinished cities of organized wreckage, excavations form shapeless mounds of debris, miniature landslides of dust, mud, sand and gravel” leads him to think “perhaps that’s why certain architects hate bulldozers and steam shovels.”9 Sean Godsell references Smithson’s thought declaring his constant preoccupation of “never trucking soil away from the site. What is of the site, is of the site.”10 While he still recalls how as a child, visiting his dad’s building sites, he was enthralled by the process where the surface of the site is pegged and marked out, trenches are dug, footings are poured, and week by week the carcass of a building emerges11, he develops for each of his own buildings a set of construction details aimed at reducing the traumatic impact of the connection with the ground. Few punctual foundations, steel structures that are inserted in the sand dunes, become recurring elements in his vocabulary. Quite the opposite are those who “love to dig, to enter in the earth.” Enric Miralles is “fascinated by the excavation that initi- ates a work site and represents the opening of the ground.”12 Many of his works appear as “wounded, incised, trodden, dragged, broken, ground.” The entire Igualada’s cemetery (1985–92) is covered by dozens of scars, evidence of the wounds opened between the stone blocks, and the cut in the valley, where “not even the stones were extracted from the quarry by means of labour but through explosion.”13 These apparently opposite postures share a profound attraction and attention for the physical features of the ground, and do not consider it abstractly

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 as a line or geometrical surface, but as matter that is constantly decom- posed and transformed.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Footings study, Sean Godsell, Woodleigh school, Baxter, Victoria, Australia, 2001–2. Reprinted with the permission of Sean Godsell Architects. The building meets the ground

FOUNDATION

Foundation, as singular noun, refers to building elements penetrating the terrain to reach a stable layer on which to transmit vertical loads.14 Foundations, plural, are also the set of principles operating as basis and support for a science or discipline. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Section studies, Alejandro de la Sota, Student residence hall, Ourense, Spain, 1967. Reprinted with the permission of the Fundación Alejandro de la Sota.

60 The building meets the ground

One of Luigi Snozzi’s aphorisms is that “a building always begins with the foundation.”15 He is convinced that besides offering us clues of a project under construction, foundations can also be read as traces, footprints of buildings that no longer exist. In this case they are some sort of archaeological site, and this double nature can be exploited as a design element, transforming foundations from a technical component to a search of relationships with the site. Many architects appear to be fascinated by the symbolic meaning of foundations, by their capacity of communicating the armature of the architectural idea and, therefore, being a synthesis of all the design process, but it’s still hard to find a direct link between the suggestions evoked by foundations, and a structured investigation and experimentation on building innovations. Some of Richard Neutra’s experiences constitute an excep- tion. He is aware that “foundation is proverbially essential in all human concerns, but even the most ingeniously conceived shop-fabricated structures rest on footings, rather clumsy.”16 His research which aimed at replacing conventional foundation methods resulted in a series of prototypes, together with solutions specific to each site. In many of his works the foundation is the decisive element to understand the modes of touching the ground. Thus the choice between a uniform pour of a concrete layer and few punctual footings, or the decision on the depth at which to place the vertical supports, become an integral part of his designs. Even the absence of foundations provides clues on the relationship the architect wants to establish with the ground. Suggesting the provisional nature of the link, the intervention’s reversibility or transformability, it ideally removes the encounter with the ground. The choice of erecting walls directly from the ground up is frequently adopted by Shigeru Ban. This not only in temporary

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 constructions, such as the Japanese pavilion in Hannover (2000), where the foundation consists of boxes made of steel framework and footing boards filled with sand for easy use after dismantling, but also in constructions built to last.17

61 The building meets the ground

Section, Shigeru Ban, Wall-less house, Karuizawa, Japan, 1997. Reprinted with the permission of the Shigeru Ban Architects.

PLINTH

Wright says there is no distinction between earth and building. He advises to build with and not above the earth, because the ground “is a component basic part of the building itself.”18 The ground he refers to is not a surface devoid of thickness, but a portion of the earth’s crust with different depth and consistency, serving as a base for construction. According to the dictionary a clod is a portion of ground standing out of the mass, and remains encroached to the shoes, while a plinth is a layer of limited depth and different consistency and compactness, which serves as a base for construction. Be it the idea of natural, geological formation, or that of an artificial man-made entity to prevail, the plinth is a support belonging at the same time to the earth’s surface and to construction. It is not a sim-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 ple cladding of the ground, or floor slab, but an integral component of the project. Analogically coupled with the word ground, plinth gives origin to the concept of ground as the base of architecture, reaching beyond the physical nature of the definition, to become some sort of layered memory for the building. At an urban scale, this implies expanding the area of investigation beyond the footprint of a single building. Here the design of the ground concerns not only what is

62 The building meets the ground

resting on it, but also the organization of the earth’s surface as means to incorporate within the project the pre-existing and surrounding city layout. Juan Navarro Baldeweg maintains that the ground is one of the layers that need to be manipulated, and topography becomes the conceptual, rather than physical, level he uses to frame his discourse on the city. In his design for the Salamanca Congress Centre (1985–92), the old city and its fortifications are at the same time “pedestal and limit” of the new intervention. The set is a “bas relief of the artificial ground, which enriches the experience of the link between architecture and ground, with all its topographic, geographical and urban textures.”19 Peter Rich’s Mapungubwe interpretation centre (2008) is built in a complex landscape, both the inspiration for the design and the source of most of the materials for its construction. The vaulted spaces are built using local soil, only adding rubble stone masonry to the surface, and rest on an earthy plinth, which roots the complex to its location. The material continuity with the surroundings suggests that the whole complex has “erupted from the earth in a geological event similar to that which created the mesas of the site and Mapungubwe hill.”20 Sarah Whiting describes Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus in Chicago (1939–56) as an urban bas-relief. Here her attention shifts from the geographic elements of a specific portion of urban ground, to the life of its inhabitants. According to her, IIT’s bas-relief is not an architectural figure, but a way of structuring and inflecting “the horizontal ground plane, permit- ting the surface itself to exhibit its socio-economic contours.”21 For this reason she defines it as an example of “modulated empathetic topography.”22 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

63 The building meets the ground

Sectional study, Peter Rich, Mapungubwe interpretation centre, Limpopo, South Africa, 2008. Courtesy of Peter Rich.

ARTIFICIAL GROUND

Le Corbusier talks in derogatory terms of the physical features of the ground, and defines natural ground a dispenser of rheumatism and tuberculosis.23 For this reason he conceives and always builds an artificial ground. He contrasts the image of a dark and damp house, built

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 with load bearing masonry walls sunk deep into the earth, with that of a light, well ventilated structure, separate from the ground, and has no doubts in stressing his belief that the natural ground must be left with the sole function of “receiving vertical loads, the weight of construction.” With the progressive distancing of the project from the ground, and levelling of the earth at the ground-zero level of the floor, he effec- tively removes all irregularities and differences in level.24

64 The building meets the ground

Wiel Arets explains that his buildings are either cut in the ground or rest on pilotis, and they are never simply placed on the earth. He is convinced that “it’s an illusion to design as if the ground is capable of carrying the weight of a building. The ground we tread upon is thin … We are not touching the ground, the earth we are building on is artificial. It is made from us.”25 The theme of the building’s connection to the ground is defined by Herzog and de Meuron within the awareness of the intrinsic otherness between artefact and nature. For them “to build, to occupy the earth, first entails a new artificial ground.”26 The first operation of establishing the foundation becomes one of the most important, definitive moments of the process. The concern with establishing a clear distinction between ground and building implies that placing a planar surface between ground and building is a decisive and constant moment of their work. Their use of foundations underscores the artificiality of construction and at the same time creates an extension of the natural topographic context. Their first decision for the house in Tavole (1982–8) was to create “a specific topography with virtually no interference in the rocky substratum … the house perches on the ground to form a plinth adapted to the irregularity of the rock and unconnected to the upper room.”27 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

65 THE BUILDING MEETS THE GROUND

Ground

Foundation

Plinth Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Artificial ground Chapter 3

The discovery of the terrain Topography. Landing and grounding. Strata. Earthwork. Water and air

The discovery of the terrain through its direct survey is a decisive moment in any design process, upon which intuition and invention might have different influences but interact nevertheless. Measuring, describing, and representing the features of a site are necessary operations to know, and hence to transform it. By completing these actions the architect operates as some sort of topographer or surveyor. The very act of walking, to measure and explore a terrain, is a rite practised by many architects and is considered in and of itself a component of the creative process. Francesco Careri believes that there is no distinction between

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 walking and designing, and that walking is an “aesthetic tool,”1 simultaneously an act of perception and creativity, of reading and writing the territory. Jacques Gubler identifies a particular category he calls “les architects arpenteurs,” a group in which he places those who develop a project “with the tip of the pencil and their feet,” starting with the traces and signs discovered while walking.2 Gilles Tiberghien not only tells us about walking as a critical tool and as a form of art and architecture, but attributes to it a “revelatory power.”3 In fact the use of terms that evoke a capacity for divination confirms the predominance attributed to The discovery of the terrain

the moment of subjective synthesis of data rather than to their mere gathering. Regardless of how it is achieved, the exploration of a site is not a simple technical operation, nor does it end with the collection of quantitative data and objective elements, but rather requires a process of selection and interpretation, integrated with and inseparable from the design. Richard Neutra is concerned with getting to know the terrain in all sorts of different situations, and ends up flying by night over some of his sites in order to observe them lit from above, by the full moon.4 Frank Lloyd Wright loves to sit and listen to the stories told by stones, and read the grammar of the earth. The idea that we must look at the conformation of the strata of the earth’s crust for suggestions related to building is recurrent in many of his interventions. With reference to the choice of location for Taliesin West (1937–8) he says “I scanned the hills of the region where the rocks came cropping out in strata to suggest buildings.”5 His “geological imagination” recalls the image, evoked by Robert Smithson, of earth’s crust as a giant cast and the idea that “the strata of the earth is a jumbled museum.”6 The peculiar approaches and criteria that every architect adopts, or adapts, in the discovery of the site, are reflected in the elaboration and graphic restitution of elements they deem significant. There are those who would draw everything, those who choose different elements, in relation to topographical specificities, and those who record always only the same data. Alvar Aalto synthetically captures topographical features in drawings that display in an integral moment all elements, lakes, waters and the seas, hills, and contour lines. The same ability for synthesis is apparent both in his travel sketches and project drawings, where “at times he seems to cut away the building form as if moving earth.”7 In Dimitris Pikionis’ drawings all the lines traced on paper unite the building with the surrounding terrain, because the intention is that of creating a

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 relationship between the design and every element present on site, in a quest for total harmony which has been defined as “onto-topographical sensibility, that is his feeling for the interaction of the being with the glyp- tic form of the site.”8 “You, stone, trace of the diagrams of a landscape. You are the landscape itself,” he writes in a text aptly entitled Aesthetic Topography, pervaded by a sense of “joy in moving across the irregular surface of the earth.”9

68 The discovery of the terrain

Sketch of the paved road towards Acropolis, Dimitris Pikionis, Ascent to the Acropolis—Philopappu, Athens, Greece, 1951–7. Reprinted with the permission of Neohellenic Architecture Archives.

Roland Simounet, as a result of his ability to “intuitively” understand topography, has been called an arpenteur ingénieux. He begins every Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 project with a survey of the terrain, collecting topographical, geological, and historical data in order to uncover the elements, even the most hid- den ones, which define the essence of a terrain. He then condenses and solidifies them in a three-dimensional model, giving them the form of a “modulated crust. By doing this he returns to the site all its geological dimension of surface undergoing erosion.”10

69 The discovery of the terrain

Sketch, Roland Simounet, church of Sainte Marguerite Marie, Tefeschoun, Algeria, 1956–7. Reprinted with the permission of Madame Yvette Langrand.

Other architects privilege instead the geometrical configuration of the terrain, both in terms of the exploration and the graphic representation. For Ando, for instance, geometry is the most appropriate tool for ana- lyzing the world and revealing the logic of the ground. His strategy of exploring the site consists of visiting it and immediately reproducing it in a three-dimensional scale model made of contour lines alone, where “there is never trace of vegetation.”11

TOPOGRAPHY

Many architects claim to be convinced of the importance of topography, though for each of them the term means something different. In the most common definition, topography is the art of using a map to represent the height and profile of the earth, based on conventional signs and colours, dotted contour lines and similar graphics. Others define it as the science that describes and represents the features of a given area on a map, with a special focus on the shape and levels of the ground.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Whether we consider topography art or science, its field of operation is generally restricted to the level changes of a relatively small portion of the earth’s surface. Unlike a geographical map, which represents even very large areas, and thus necessarily reduces the number of elements represented, a topographical map uses great detail to represent a relatively small area.

70 The discovery of the terrain

With reference to a given site, topography is defined not only as representation through mapping, but also the very form and movement of the earth’s surface. In other words, representation and the object of representation are thus referred to using the same term. More specifically some differentiate between topography and topomorphy. The topomorphy “is what topography describes as a system of representation… it functions like a template that defines the relationships between the systems and the earth.”12 What in a design plan could look like a sculptural form, technically represented by a system of contour lines, is a complex system, where the passage of one line with another corresponds with different environmental conditions—exposure to the sun, irrigation, temperature influence, and vegetation. Figuratively, topography is a description that shows the interrelations between different components of any given structure or phenomenon, as well as the drawing that synthesizes and shows these features. In current language there is an arbitrary equivalence between topography and altimetry, since both are used in reference to level changes. But altimetry is only a component of topography measuring and indicating the height of points above the earth’s surface, and the collection of lines that join points at the same height above sea level on a topographic map. Ignoring this distinction, architects and critics often refer to topographic sensibility as a quite common ability to place a building upon contour lines, or in any case adapt a project to the level changes of its site. Topography is not synonymous with altimetry, nor with orography. Orography is literally the distribution, as well as the study and representation of mountainous formations. If altimetry, orography and topography all examine the conformation of the earth’s crust, each has its own specific field of investigation. In the last few years, the reflection, debate, and design experiences that radically transformed the meaning of the term topography, questioning its objectiveness and

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 nature of a given fact, have also had repercussions on the interpretation of the other two words. Pierre-Alain Croset considers orography something to be uncovered and revealed through architecture. It is a concept that he uses in the reading of many works by Luigi Snozzi, exemplary architectural promenades, conceived of as interpretations of the orography,

71 The discovery of the terrain

in which we are “amazed by Snozzi’s enormous respect for natural topography: small embankments, minimal displacements of earth, minimal terracing works.”13 For some, both orography and topography are elements that must be consciously revealed by architecture, but in order to be understood, must be investigated in section. To this end, Bernard Cache believes that, in and of its own, orographic drawings are superficial, that is to say geographical and not geological, and he cautions against the risk that the territory is understood progressively more as a trace, as the stratification of signs, and less as a map. He is concerned with exposing the inflections of the orographic map that otherwise remains a design without destiny, a map without a plan. For this reason it is not enough to record a collection of contour lines, but show and expose what each of them, and the transition from one to the other, implies.14 The lack of univocal definitions of topography is, at the same time, the reflex of the delay in adapting language to the radical transformations of significance that the term has been given in the last decades, and the confirmation of the multiplicity of approaches to which it has been exposed and adapted to. What has happened is the progressive dilatation of the reference field of topography, which tends to be increasingly considered a synthesis of all the features of a place, that is not only physical elements, but all elements, captured in a specific moment of their dynamic transformation. This broaden- ing of the constitutive factors of topography determines the need to employ other terms when referring to specific, important but partial, elements of the topography of a place. Moreover, the breadth and variety of variables now forming the concept of topography imply also the impossibility of considering it as a given factor, upon which architecture can place itself. Rather it is something that one does not perceive until architecture brings it to light, and therefore requires a revealing

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 operation. Revealing, that is exposing, bringing attention and giving importance to an object or idea, helps to make visible its features, but what we select is based on the project, because a “continuous tension between topography and design” is in place.15 The survey is an essential component of the revealing process, both in understanding the features of the sites, and of the design.

72 The discovery of the terrain

LANDING AND GROUNDING

If, in the discovery of the site, the work of the architect seemingly overlaps with that of the surveyor further analogies link the survey phase to the work of an archaeologist, concerned with uncover- ing and interpreting the information embedded in the ground. “We begin by thinking like archaeologists might do, metaphorically prod- ding the ground”16 say Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, whose designs are sort of topo/archaeological explorations. Further analogy between the work of the archaeologist and that of the architect, who uses the design of the ground as an instrument of investigation, is referenced by William J. Curtis when he defines Alvaro Siza’s drawings as maps that “heighten the existing forces in a place, to find a balance between new human uses and the pre-existing”17 topographic palimpsest. This is a concept Siza himself narrates, while describing the methodology adopted in Malagueira (1973–7). Here a drawing represents the architect while he “observes and records the crystalline profile of the city, and probably reflects on what happens at the level of the ground and in the layers immediately contiguous to it.” He further goes on to explain that not only the exploration of the site, but even the actual transformation conceived by the architect

manifests itself and is placed on the undulating ground like a white and heavy sheet, revealing thousands of things no one paid any attention to: emerging rocks, trees, walls and paths, wash stands and cisterns, furrows created by water, constructions in ruins, skeletons of animals.18 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

73 The discovery of the terrain

Sketch “the architect explores the terrain,” Alvaro Siza. Reprinted with the permission of Alvaro Siza.

Not only the modalities, but also the duration of the revealing process vary for each architect. According to Siza the ideas developed “during the first visit” are what matter most. “I begin design when I visit Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 a site” he states, because the idea lies in the site, more than in our minds. Other glances, of the architect or others, will overlap later, but “for those who are able to see, the project may and must be the result of our first glance.”19 The attention towards the transformation of the site is recurrent. In Bernard Lassus’ concept of “inventive analysis” we find it is inextricably intertwined with the phases of its discovery. To design we must know how to see even what has disappeared or is dis- appearing, and in order to go beyond our initial ignorance, and ensure

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that “floating attention becomes impregnated with the site,” requires multiple visits.20 Whether it resembles the work of a surveyor, topographer, or archaeologist, understanding a site is a difficult process. Christophe Girot calls it “an odyssey,” and identifies the main steps in a sequence of four trace concepts. The two initial phases of the process, which he calls landing and grounding, are clearly separate and each is composed of different operations and attitudes.

Landing is the first act of site acknowledgment. It conveys the idea of touching ground and reaching for the confines of an unknown world. As in the first meeting with someone, the intuition prevails. While landing is composed more of sensations than documented analyses, grounding is not a moment, but rather a process of orientation through the multiple layers of a site, it’s more about reading and understanding a site through repeated visits and studies.21

Both phases do not ignore the design scope of the entire process, which proceeds with finding—the experience of relating and associating ideas, places, and theme, the discovery and invention of their interac- tions—and founding, the synthesis that leads to a new and transformed construction of the site.22 If we accept the notion that topography is not a mere given figure, but a condensation of data showing the relationship between form and history of the human occupation of a site, and that the territory is a palimpsest and not one layer, the reading of the terrain cannot limit itself to recording the traces left on a topographical surface by a population settled in its folds, but must distinguish between traces and intentions. In every instant of this exploration, intuition and experience share the same importance and both should contribute to a clear and easy way to Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 communicate representation of the site, and to determine the operations leading to its transformation.

75 The discovery of the terrain

STRATA

Lasdun finds the “geological” term strata is appropriate to describe two types of positions. Those where the emphasis is on the materiality of the intervention, like his 1962 scheme for the University of East Anglia, where the main concern is to “make an outcrop of stone on the side of a hill.” And those where the idea is to expose the platform as a clearly identifiable element within the urban ground, where the different human activities take place. In this sense the platforms and terraces of his 1969 London National Theatre, linked as they are by horizontal connecting elements and suspended footbridges, are “the strata of urban landscape,” a real extension of the city.23 Layers of time and of earth or, in a wider extension, geography and history, are the primary elements of the topographical conception Kenneth Frampton refers to when describing Siza’s early work. Both the pools in Leça de Palmeira (1961–6) and in Quinta da Conceiçao (1958–65) are works of “essentially topographic nature,” in fact “bounded domains rather than objects” where Siza’s feeling for the earthwork as a pre-condition for architecture is manifest.24 Besides translating in a strategy capable of adapting architecture to a geological structure, the focus on the layering of the ground may in turn generate a new stratification. At Igualada’s cemetery, through excavating and remodelling the earth Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos invent a new orography, which appears to belong more to the lithic world than to that of architecture. Further, the excavations, the extractions, and the foundations represent crucial instants of the first encounter with the earth, after which the project proceeds along a sequence of horizontal levels, though each layer is simultaneously “excavation and foundation.”25 The grave descent into the earth happens along fractured geological strata.26 Throughout its construction,

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the cemetery rests on its support and follows its orography, using contour lines as guiding traces, replacing at the same time the existing topographical order with a new one. Thus layering can be seen both as a device to connect with the site, whose existing features are exalted and partially concealed, and as a claim for the artificiality of construction. The project for the Schwarz Park housing complex in Basel (1987–8) by Herzog and de Meuron follows the line of the plateau’s slope and translates its geological structure into an architectural form,

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since the layers of the moraine are transposed and exposed in the horizontal lines of the façade, which can be read as isographs, the contour lines of the earth.27 The building rises out of the edge of the terrain like an artificial natural form. Geology and history overlap in the interpretation of topography William Curtis uses to describe the works of Aranda, Pigem, and Vilalta, all featuring a significant sensibility towards topographical and historical stratification.28 This occurs both in relatively small interventions such as the Fussol sports field in Olot (2002), where the rows of seating trace topographic lines and are perceived as terraces reinforcing the natural configuration of the terrain, and moreover in the manipulation of larger sites, where everything is treated as earthwork in order to create “platforms for social use.”29

EARTHWORK

In textbooks earthwork is treated reductively as a synonym of ground modelling.

Earth provides the basis for construction but it is also a material used in modelling the new surface. An earth mass is shaped by removing or applying layers of soil … It depends on the type of soil involved, the incline of the sloping earth, the type of surface reinforcement planned.30

Kenneth Frampton resumes Gottfried Semper’s distinction between building elements in contact with the earth—the platform and the hearth—and the orthogonal system of enclosures and partitions that

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 includes the vertical structure, the roof, and the walls.31 According to Frampton, however, earthwork is not only a topographical footprint, the trace of the building on the ground, but also the manipulation of that same ground plane that cannot be considered separate from architecture. It is a concept that he often adopts, particularly with reference to the work of Tadao Ando—from the Museum of Literature in Himeji (1991), the first work with a “comprehensive landscape character, entailing a sequence of topographic inflections,” to the Chikatsu Museum (1990–4), the first “comprehensive earthwork

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at a truly monumental scale”—in which not only the surrounding space is treated architecturally, but also the preparation of the site is intrinsic to the construction of the building.32 In the Forest of Tombs Museum in Kumamoto (1989–92), the preparation of the ground required a complex work, by “establishing two long walls cutting out and defining a rectilinear slice of land,” whereas what is intended as the building proper, is simply a platform accessed by a wide flight of steps.33 Stemming from a similar definition of earthwork, David Leatherbarrow develops the concept further by deriving a possible interpretation of architecture as the “outgrowth of site preparation.”34 According to him, the preparation of the site is not an accessory to architecture, but there is always a formal link between the modelling of the terrain and the configuration of the building. Leatherbarrow acknowledges that, while between landform and landscape architecture the connection is obvious since, for example, trees are selected based on the features of the terrain, the link between landform and architecture may appear less evident. Based on his research, however, and in particular on the analysis of the work by Richard Neutra, Aris Konstantinidis, and Antonin Raymond, he draws the conclusion that, in any event, the link between building and ground is a substantial and not contingent part of the architectural design.35 In Mies van der Rohe’s early houses what is apparent is the treatment of the site as an integral component of the project. Specifically in Wolf House (1925–7), the construction of the site follows the same rules dictated by the brick adopted for the building.

Rugged stone retaining walls spanning the property—left over from the vineyard—became the theme of the building, which seen from below seemed almost to grow out of its

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 site, refining its inherited features into a complex series of overlapping brick planes and volumes.36

Eduardo Souto de Moura claims that often “the preparation of the site is the project itself … If I have to build a platform and rock already offers half of it, I complete a portion of the design, and once the platform is built, I excavate the rock.” In other instances “if the theme is walls and terraced ground, once I have completed the terracing and the walls, the

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design for the house becomes secondary.”37 All his drawings clearly demonstrate how the earth is worked and manipulated to the same degree as the building. Themes once specific to landscape now belong to architecture and vice versa, and the softness of the boundary between architecture and land art characterizes works of varying dimensions and type. Whether they are referred to as works of architecture designed in terms of landscape, or landscape interventions that take the form of architecture, Alberto Burri’s Cretto in Gibellina, Arnaldo Pomodoro’s project for a burial zone in Urbino, or the Maryhill Overlook and the Sitings projects by Brad Cloepfil, all mark the ground. By modifying existing signs or creating new ones in the topography, they measure and rewrite sites, transforming both them and themselves, into earthworks.

View, Arnaldo Pomodoro, study of burial zone in relation to the natural environment, Urbino, Italy, 1974. Reprinted with the permission of the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

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Sketch, Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks, Maryhill Overlook, OR, USA, 1998. Courtesy of Brad Cloepfil.

WATER AND AIR

The dilatation of the meaning of topography is at the same time a con- Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 sequence and evidence of the trespassing between interventions at different scales, of the superposition of disciplinary fields, and of the incorporation within the architectural project of new thematic preoccupations. The attention to the physical characters of the site does not limit itself to taking into consideration single elements, but extends to the various atmospheric agents, rain, wind, light, climate, and their constant variations. It is a position that Curtis finds in many of Ando’s buildings, which react to features going way beyond their immediate

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surroundings. In Naoshima, the topographic reading extends beyond the limits suggested by the literal meaning of landscape, to “include the light, the clouds, the rain, the wind, the sound of water and more.”38 Caring about atmospheric agents does call for widening the number and variety of the elements to be recorded, and further makes it necessary to understand the dynamic implications, which their constant shift produces within the project. The topographic reading thus stops being the mere recording of a specific situation, but reacts and interacts with the site and responds to it. Artengo, Menis, and Pastrana use the construction of the natural pool of San Miguel el Guincho in 1992 and the subsequent project for the Las Americas pool of 1996 as a research on the importance and significance of the transformation of the natural boundary between earth and water. Not only does the reinforced concrete line, creating a water pool, not alter the rock and the coast line, but with the scope of preserving the cycle of the waves, “a tide calendar has been consulted to determine the times of high and low tides according to the moon.”39 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Model view, Artengo, Menis, and Pastrana, Vallehermsa Botanical Garden, La Gomera, Spain, 1990. Reprinted with the permission of Menis Arquitectos SLP.

81 The discovery of the terrain

Within the transformation process from a general sensibility towards the profile of the ground and an environmental sensibility in its wider connotation, architecture does not restrain itself to acknowledging the fundamental phenomena of organic life which create a site, but uses them as design elements, and allows for their understanding. The relationship between building and ground is no longer based on geometrical analogies and references, but on the comprehension of the dynamic behaviour of natural elements. Glenn Murcutt maintains that topography represents the specific and inalterable qualities of a place, and that the “landscape constantly informs us.” This is why “geology, hydrography, climate, prevailing wind directions” contribute to his decisions, not only regarding the siting of his projects, but also their structure.40 In his very objective way of approaching a site, he goes as far as using a clinometer to measure the height of the trees, to infer what their potential height can become.41 A further step, beyond the understanding and inclusion in the project of laws that regulate natural phenomena, is the attempt not only at building “with” nature, but “like” nature, which generates the idea of a building as an organism capable of adapting to climatic and environmental change. The link with the ground of Takaharu and Yui Tezuka’s Museum of Natural sciences in Matsunoyama (2003) is conceived to not only sustain, but to react to the different snow loads that might cover it. Rather than resting on fixed foundations, it sits on roller bearings to allow for structural horizontal expansion or contraction determined by outside temperatures, which reaches 20 cm in the summer.42 Eduardo Arroyo, in his design for the New East-wind city, uses wind as architectural matrix of all the settlement, and records its intensity and direction in a dedicated topographical map.43 In the Nam June Park museum project in Seoul, instead, he

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 chooses light, sound, and speed as fundamental elements, whose gradient of variation are essential in reading the site and hence programming its transformation.44

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Eduardo Arroyo, Map of wind vectors, New East-wind city, Cordoba, Spain, 2002. Reprinted with the permission of Eduardo Arroyo/No.mad Arquitectos SLP.

The design logic adopted by Carlos Ferrater in his 1989 scheme for Barcelona’s Botanical Garden tries to establish with the site an “intellectual, rather than physical or geographical” relationship. This is based on the assumption that design rationale would make it possible for the

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 location itself to “provide the guidelines of the intervention, by making the forms of the new landscape emerge from out of its morphological, topographical and topological condition.”45

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Sections, Carlos Ferrater, Barcelona Botanical Garden, Spain, 1989–99. Reprinted with the permission of Carlos Ferrater.

The terrain is subject to small topographical mutations, cuts and fills, and is stabilized by means of retaining walls. The manipulation of the landscape follows the insertion of a geometric grid, adaptable to the various topographical accidents, which can become loose along the edges, or increase or decrease according to the slope. This element, completely artificial, ends up by assuming the fractal dimension of nature, and the new landscape will evolve through time with unpre- dictable and uncontrollable results. The scheme will only be complete when the artificial elements will conform to the natural ones. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Carlos Ferrater, Drawing of topographical manipulation, Barcelona Botanical Garden, Spain, 1989–99. Reprinted with the permission of Carlos Ferrater.

84 The building meets the ground

The designs by George Hargreaves point to a similar notion of working landscape, where a framework is conceived, upon which climatic agents will gain control of the site. At Candlestick Point (1985–93) sand dunes influence the various humidity levels and reshape the wind patterns, and the site is constantly modelled by the unstable dynamics of the natural phenomena. Topology, hydrogeology cycles, daily and sea- sonal lighting variables, together with broader atmospheric modules resonate in the site’s programming and are recorded both by artefacts and human body. Hargreaves’ statement “I am setting a framework on the land, the vegetation, people and water will work in it,” recalls Richard Serra’s position when he claims that the designer sets up the process, but does not control the end product. This notion of artificial landscape, where the key element is the process that prepares the ground for future activities, and not a formal image, is at the heart of James Corner’s research on the agency of landscape, specifically on how it works and what it does, rather than upon its appearance.46 In his interventions the activity of “figuring the ground” is based on the comprehension of site specific processes. The attention for the generative capacities of a site besides the content of the project, also deeply influences its representation techniques.47 In the map of shadows for the Mesa Verde Longhouse, by depicting the diurnal patterns of the sun, he suggests how habitation patterns coincide with the movement of the sun, the light and the shadow at the temporal scale of the day, season, and year.48 Ultimately, by revealing, thanks to the juxtaposition of different scales, processes which otherwise would not be visible, his drawings contribute to the new reading of topography, and highlight the relations between what Julia Czerniak defines as the “performative and representational agendas in landscape architecture.”49 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

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Topography

Landing and grounding

Strata Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Earthwork

Water and air Chapter 4

The right placement Site. Lightness. Dissolution. Enhancement. Objets trouvés. Artefact

To build means to cooperate with the Earth, to give man’s imprint to a landscape, which will be thus forever modified … Such careful attention to determine the exact placement of a bridge or a fountain, to give a mountain road the most economical curve, which is at the same time the purest one. Marguerite Yourcenar1

Placing a building does not only mean evaluating and comparing possible positions within a specific plot, it is instead an important moment in the design process. It is a creative act that implies an intentional relationship with and to topography, and provides a multiplicity of operating modes. Two extreme positions can be identified depending on

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the belief that it is always possible to find the right solution, or the consciousness of the need to establish a collaboration between site and building. When looking at built work, without taking into account the architect’s intentions, it is not always easy to distinguish whether the strongest preoccupation was that of choosing the placement within a site to then develop a project, or instead finding the location to place a design that had already been developed. Le Corbusier considers the selection of the site, and the nature of the placement a decisive act, which can reveal itself “criminal or valid.” He addresses and solves it based on his personal sensations The right placement

and reactions in front of each specific site. When describing the convent at la Tourette (1953–7), he narrates having “sketched the road and the horizon,” taken note of the slope and the features of the terrain, and, most importantly, of having “sniffed” the topography.2 Along similar lines, for Fernando Tavora, the first act of building is the “intuitive and at the same time rational” decision on the mode in which the building must touch the ground, a combination and balance of different requirements. The choice of the position must not offend the site, but neither be a surrender to it. It calls for “a well behaved posture” on the part of the new construction, that “must know how to keep its place.”3 Tadao Ando is convinced that the knowledge of a place and the design of the building reciprocally influence each other, in a process repeated over and over until a creative resonance is generated. Discussing many of his works he explicitly underscores the importance of the right placement with regard to the transformation of the site. For his design of the Naoshima museum, he explores the island, “by land and by sea, striving for a profound reading of its expression, in order to select a site, while at the same sketching the proper form of the building in his mind.” His research continues from the point where he turns this image of the building over on nature, “until nature and artefact are condensed and converge into a promontory.”4 Sverre Fehn usually starts projects studying maps and building a physical model. He does not travel to the site until he has an idea but still, when asked to intervene in “uncontaminated” landscapes, he is concerned about “not offending nature”. For this reason the choice of setting is the key to transform the relationship of the building with the site, and hence its significance. To the point that “if one is capable of finding the place, the design is the natural evolution of this choice.” He invites us to explore: “searching in the topography of the landscape with the building programme’s figure in your head, trying to find places

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 where the dimensions in nature can unveil these figures.” Once this search is successfully completed, one must “have the professional courage to withdraw and let the building build itself.” That’s why at Verdens Ende (1988), once the crevice is found, placing some pillars inside the opening is enough. These become the load bearing elements for the roof of the gallery, which is also the viewing platform.5 Paulo Mendes da Rocha says that before building, “you select a site in which you foresee an architectural situation.” All his projects can be read in light of this statement, together with his idea of geography

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as “the primary and primordial form of architecture.” His drawings and long sections are at the same time a tool for enquiry and investigation enabling him “to work out where to put a building, superimposing and concentrating the building and the land, the site and the plot.”6 Glenn Murcutt walks with his clients over the land looking for the right location. At Magney House (1982–4) “it was like water divining.”7 His drawings show how each and every alternative is studied and debated at length, with particular attention to the direction of sun angles in different seasons, prevailing winds, and the specific features of the terrain. At first sight, some of Mathias Klotz’s buildings seem designed as if they could be placed anywhere, tying them to the ground with some simple knot. It has been observed that “his boxes are topographical appendixes … In his projects he looks for ways of placing them, … then he seeks to create a relationship between these floating artefacts and the landscape and the horizon.”8 Instead every project holds a specific link with its site, and the apparent indifference is only the evidence of the desire for a temporary, reversible relationship with the ground.

SITE

Amidst the reflections on the right placement the leitmotif is the ambition of establishing a conscious relationship between building and site. This, however, does not always clarify the meaning every author gives to the word site. In dictionaries its most restrictive definition is that of “a plot intended for building purpose,” a portion of land, fenced or anyway clearly defined, by legally recognized boundaries. The duplicity and inseparable geographic and human connotation of the site has been investigated from multiple points of view. Steven Holl syntheti- Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 cally describes this when saying that “the site of a building is more than a mere ingredient in its conception. It is its physical and metaphysical foundation.”9 Many authors have questioned the differences and relationships between the notion of site as physical element, and of site as perceived condition, leading to the way in which a dialectic relationship is created between material condition and design ideas. According to Bernard Cache the site acquires an identity only following an human intervention. Not only

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the identity of a place is not given … but if the expression genius loci has a meaning, it lies in the capacity of this genius to be smart enough to allow for the transformation or transit from one identity to another … in no case does the identity of a site pre-exist, for it is always the outcome of a construction.10

Carol J. Burns has carried out an accurate analysis and discussion of the different meanings of the word, and of the implications deriving from its multiple interpretations, in an effort which references both theory, “what is a site,” and practice, “how a site informs building and architecture.”11 Burns is convinced that architecture is not composed of buildings and site considered separately, but only by their intentional relation, and investigates the notion of site starting from the distinction between “cleared” and “constructed” site. Talking of a cleared site refers to a tabula rasa approach, or rather requires as a pre- condition that the site is unoccupied and can be treated as a pure and neutral mathematical object. A constructed site, on the other hand, exalts the morphological qualities and specific conditions. According to Burns, the site is not a support, a flat surface on which architecture can be placed. Instead each site is constructed. Her writings place great importance on the language inherent to the description of the site, suggesting constant interaction between architecture and thought, since every place is a unique intersection of ground, climate, production, circulation, different elements and factors, and any approach must take into account these specificities. She reviews one by one all the terms related to the topic, and their way of being used, and each one reveals the nature and vastness of the site. “Lot” is the portion of ground, which has defined limits, that exists before the site, and evokes only boundaries and dimensions. “Landscape” is

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the portion of the earth that the eye can see and perceive. “Plot” is a portion of land, but also the plot of a book, the trace of a narration. Every project is a plot, a trace that directs its modification. “Context” is a connection of words, and suggests a link rather than just a position within the site. Reflections of this kind have influenced architects who explicitly express their intention of using architecture to highlight and bring to the surface the specific qualities of a place, and consider the site a repository of sorts, to find clues to read and understand the

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ground, and where all the manifestations of its physical, intellectual, poetical, and political structure are overlapping and intersecting. Such intentions take different forms according to individual curiosities and priorities. Some, in a fashion that recalls Richard Serra’s claim that the site determines his way of “thinking about what I am going to build,”12 argue that the site should be absorbed prior to being transformed. Others quite openly and programmatically refuse the idea that the site is a priori. Eduardo Souto de Moura believes “the site does not exist, the site is a premise, the site is an instrument. The site is a mental thing.”13

LIGHTNESS

Many authors express the idea that, at every scale, ground and architecture must not be used in violent and devastating gestures, but need to be translated in a form of “man’s reconciliation with earth.” Clark and Menafee consider architecture a “disturbing art” destroying places.14 For them a building site recalls a sacrificial site, poorly disguised by the hope and excitement for the new construction, and believe every settlement should imply a benign and sympathetic occupation of the ground.15 Different language and intentions characterize this approach, which has led to the coining of phrase words such as “placing gently,” to manifest an awareness of the destructive nature of any building activity, and the intention to reduce and miti- gate its effects. Frank Lloyd Wright lays his Prairie houses on the ground with “infinite tenderness.” He either makes each house “step down from its base onto the lawn, until base and lawn become one thing, or sur- Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 rounds each house with gradually descending terraced levels that finally bring the floor line down to natural grade.”16 Convinced as he is that “no house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill belonging to it,”17 he decides to build Ocatilla camp around the top of a low ridge, breaking with the tradition of elevating the building in relation to the site, and trying to follow the movement of the ground and the disposition of the natural elements.

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The aboriginal motto Glenn Murcutt adopts, “touching the earth lightly,” indicates besides his interest for the natural features of the site, and for its reading and understanding as cultural phenomena, his great attention to the modes in which the building’s connection to the ground is realized. Murcutt studies for each site the most appropriate solutions to reduce the impact of the building on the land. In the Ball Eastway House (1983), he develops a footing system that not only is reversible, but also thought in such a way that it is

difficult to see where we have done the boring, and if you took the house away, you would hardly know where it had been. The building is set clear of the ground and makes minimal connection with it. We drilled 100 mm holes for the column supports, filled the holes around the steel support columns with cement, and added crushed rock to the cement for the top section.18

DISSOLUTION

The ambition to build without altering the configuration of a place can also be translated in the attempt of using architecture as a means of being both the completion of and complement to the site. This is achieved by transforming the terrain’s configuration into a new entity. Alvaro Siza, speaking of Leça de Palmeira, says “year after year, with the tides, the sea carries away that which is not essential; at this point a cluster of rocks interrupts three parallel lines: one where sea meets sky, one where sea meets shore, and then the long supporting wall.”19 Since nature had already started the design of a pool, it

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 was important to profit from the same rocks, achieving the contain- ment of the water with only the walls strictly necessary. The architect could limit his work to marking “where to place the feet and where not to go.” The result is an architecture of long lines and walls, that seeks the encounter with the rocks in the proper location.20 Siza does “not touch the rocks … only added something recognizable as not natural.”21

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Sketch, Alvaro Siza, Swimming pools, Leça de Palmeira, Portugal, 1959–73. Reprinted with the permission of Alvaro Siza.

A similar position can be found in Cesar Portela’s words, when, speaking of his cemetery at Finisterre (2000) he says that the place “calls for an architecture … that is an extension of the landscape itself, one that dissolves silently into nature, almost as if it did not exist.” What matters are not the single objects, nor the project. “The hearth of the project is its site … topography, silence, absence and memory are the protagonists … the land is not moved, nor the terrain changed, but the terrain is transformed.”22 The tombs, the elements of the cemetery, suspended towards the sea, and anchored towards the land, dissolve themselves as objects, becoming anonymous components of the rocky slope, following the topography“as if they were boulders that have rolled down the mountain or freight containers from a shipwreck that the waves have thrown onto the shore.”23 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

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Sketch, César Portela, Finisterre Cemetery, Spain, 2000. Reprinted with the permission of César Portela.

Togo Murano often articulates the inferior portion of the wall to establish a continuous surface with the horizontal supporting plane, be it naked ground or paved surface, and sometimes uses the same material for the vertical elements and the flooring. In the Tanimura Art Museum (1983), rather than treating its two surfaces intersecting them at right

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 angles, he links them through a curved surface that connects wall bases and ground surface to create the illusion of a building that has risen up from the earth.24 Fusion, in its literal sense, is a solution adopted on more than one occasion by James Wines and Site, whose great plastic events, rather than resting on the ground, become themselves

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ground. Their idea of integration does not refer to formal elements, rather “they use inherent materials or methods of construction as a way of inverting the total significance of a building.”25 Thus they operate as some sort of “hinge between anthropic and natural landscape,” altering the traditional divide between art, architecture, and place, unifying the three elements. Their 1971 Peekskill Melt proposal stems from the idea of melting the foundations of the existing brick building onto the adjacent green lawn so that the building can be rooted in the ground and, at the same time, can clearly emerge from the ground. Kengo Kuma believes a building should become one with its surroundings, and his “ultimate aim is to erase architecture” or at the very least create “weak buildings,” that is “interfaces with no ambition to dominate the relation between human body and environment.”26 Be it in, on, or above the ground, every design by Kuma wants to be an “architecture of earth,” it wants to belong to the earth and within it dissolve.27

Sketch, Kengo Kuma, Kokohi Bath House, Atami, Japan, 2002–3. Reprinted with the permission of Kengo Kuma & Associates.

Some of Alcino Soutinho’s late works have been described as “earth that dissolves itself in architecture, rather than architecture dissolving into earth.” The project is defined “in the cleavages of the landscape, modelling slopes with cuts and fills, retaining and supporting walls, and Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 buildings are placed as a complement to the modelling of the ground, contributing to the artificial topography of the place.”28 The distinction between earth and ground disappears and is replaced by a single approach where there is no difference between the preparation of the site and building.

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ENHANCEMENT

Sigurd Lewerentz’s project for Malmö’s Eastern cemetery (1936), programmatically entitled Ridge, is based on the strengthening of the presence of an existing ridge as a structuring element of the necropo- lis.29 The architect accentuates the character of the site by means of small land movements, to which the placement of all architectural elements, chapels, mausoleums, and crematorium, is subordinated, and preserves and enhances its morphology by planting it with lines of wheat crops. Using architecture as a means to enhance topography is Alvar Aalto’s typical process. He often derives the organization of the building from the profile of the landscape, underscoring it through architectural tools. His architecture is not “replication of natural forms” but, through it, he “transforms program and site into direct or metaphorical continui- ties between landscape and construction.” His 1963 scheme for Lyngby cemetery “lies in a crater-like ravine. All paths to the graves lead down this ravine. Paralleling the paths are water courses flowing in small brooks.”30 Every element follows and underscores the morphology of the site. In Seynajoki (1962–5), the profile of the terrain is remodelled to highlight the transition from the square to the town hall, which sits on a miniature grass “acropolis.”31 The artificial insertion of an earth mound in the flat urban landscape strengthens the configuration of the site, and at the same time emphasizes its symbolic nature of public space “rising like a geometric hillside over an abstracted architectural forest.”32 Fascinated by amphitheatres and acropoleis, Aalto considers the “town on the hill the purest and natural form of urban design … since it fully reveals its features when contemplated from the level of the human eye, that is from the level of the ground.” Coherently to this vision, many of his schemes create a slope and, thanks to it, invent their rela-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 tion with the ground. “Even in conditions where the given site did not possess distinctive topographical qualities, Aalto created a man-made landscape by means of terraced earth and the interplay of different levels, walls, stairs, creeping plants and vegetation.”33 Buildings placed on the top of mountains, in prominent positions or ledges, lead to talk about extension or dilatation of sites. Mario Botta’s church at Monte Tamaro (1990–8) is an “addition to the mountain,” a “slight geometric correction of the rocky mass.”34 The mountain is “amplified by a small extrusion,” its architectural mass integrated with few stone layers, so that the real theme of the building is the stone.

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Sketch, Mario Botta, Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Monte Tamaro, Switzerland, 1992–6. Reprinted with the permission of Mario Botta Architetto.

The accentuation of topographic peculiarities is a common trait also of Tadao Ando’s oeuvre, in as much as he “architecturalizes” morphology, well beyond the limits of his mandates. For the 1987–9 Izu complex at Shizuoka he considers “viewing the entire cape as an extension of the site,” and seeks “to include its unique natural characteristics in the design and to architecturalize them.”35 According to Ando, blending the construction with the ground implies answering questions posed by the site. The site exists as “an a priori in relation to architecture,” it is the prerequisite that supports architecture’s strength, and it is the discipline’s responsibility to “perceive and satisfy the logic of the place.”

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Ultimately the most important role played by every project is to identify “all that lies dormant in the site and to bring it to the surface. In other words architecture is the introduction of an autonomous object into the site but, at the same time … it is the discovery of the building that the site (itself) desires.”36 Enric Miralles shares the idea that the site “awaits” the construction in order to express its own nature. The architect needs to understand what the site wants in order to deliver the construction it awaits for. For many of his works Miralles says that the construction was not only necessary, but “was already there.” Intervening in the

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stone quarry, where the Igualada cemetery is located, feels to him like “working in a place where the design already existed, (and) appeared complete from the first movement of soil.”37

OBJETS TROUVÉS

Preserving mineral objects and vegetal organisms can be an attempt to reduce to a minimum the disruption of a site’s configuration. Recording their presence does not imply a mere acceptance of a given situation, to be placed next to the various terrain features adding up to the design constraints, but can become the centre of the entire creative process. Erik Bryggman’s Resurrection chapel at Turku (1938–41) starts off as a tabula rasa. The site is dealt with only in a second moment when, in order to minimize modifications to the natural land form, and avoid great excavations, the architect establishes the position of the building, foundation walls, and terracing, in relation with the topography. All this in an effort “to exploit the ground without greater excavations or other encroachments.”38 For what would later become Fallingwater, Wright requires that he be provided with a contour map that would locate “every boulder and every large tree … six or more inches in diameter, explaining that without this information he could not start the design.”39 Alison and Peter Smithson consider the elements and objects, which they discover on site, not only “as found,” but components that can be used as design tools. In their Upper Lawn Pavilion (1959–62) the depth of the well becomes a measure unit. The ground has dimensions, that of the well; a little shorter than the length of the site, much longer than the height of the existing trees.40 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 David Underwood describes the granite boulder of Oscar Niemeyer’s Canoas House (1953) as a “consistent inclusion of the given terrain as found.”41 The stone is kept in its original shape and dimension, and works as some kind of joint, hinge between interior and exterior and between different levels. “It’s not just another rock, it symbolizes the timeless process and anchors the composition.”42 Analogously the site for Glenn Murcutt’s Simpson Lee House (1989–94) offered many possible alternatives to the positioning of the building, and it is a large rock lying like a beached whale that determines the final choice of location.

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The rock becomes a connecting element with the ground, from which, at the same time, it stresses the floating nature of the building.43 Some are ready to modify the plans of their building, in order to incorporate rocks, trees, and other natural accidents. In Carl Viggo Hølmebakk’s Sohlbergplassen belvedere platform (1995–8), the position of the eleven pillars is not rigidly defined in the design drawings, but can be modified in accordance with the roots of the surrounding trees, and in general of the terrain’s topographic details. The curved geometry relates to the existing pine trees, which have been carefully registered at the site, and the square pillars are placed on a flexible grid that stretches to afford space for the pine roots that are impossible to detect on the surface.44 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Section drawing, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, Sohlbergplassen viewing platform, Sohlbergplassen, Norway, 1995–8. Reprinted with the permission of Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk AS.

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Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin’s Mortensrud church (1998–2002) is designed taking into account the elements already on the site. For them “the object remains passive while accepting the presence of an unexpected event.” Not only outside, but also inside the building a number of trees are preserved, and some rocky boulders emerge “like islands” from the church’s concrete floor.45 For other architects, instead, conserving the found element does not imply waiving their intention of stating the intrinsic difference between building and nature. The two reinforced concrete bars, the only contact with the ground of the Bottmingen House (1984–5) by Herzog and de Meuron, which carry the wooden skeleton frame, do not touch the roots of the neighbouring tree. Its presence, however, does not influence the architecture. The tree and the house keep to their reciprocal foreign nature. The tree “passively accepts the presence of an unexpected event, and the house ignores it.”46 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin, Mortensrud church, Oslo, Norway, 1998–2002. Reprinted with the permission of Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor.

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ARTEFACT

In the work of architects who are convinced of the otherness of the building in relation to the ground, two postures can be found. Some are not indifferent to the site, but they shy away from any attempt at integration or mimesis. Others express an outspoken intention of contradicting the “natural” configuration of the site. Richard Neutra says “my experience, everything within me, is against an abstract approach to land and nature, and for the profound assets rooted in each site and buried in it”47 but at the same time suggests linking the building to the ground with “tentacles to the surrounding nature”48 and recommends looking “where the sun rises and sets, and watching from where the wind blows.”49 A similar idea of construction, developed according to internal rules, that does not ignore the essential features of topography, but contradicts them in order to emphasize them, can be found in his statements about the Kaufmann House (1946):

It is frankly an artefact, a construct transported in many shop- fabricated parts over long distance into the midst of rugged aridity. While not grown there or rooted there the building nevertheless fuses its setting, partakes in its events, emphasizes its character.50

Like other Neutra buildings, for whose completion the sites do not provide rules, the Kaufmann House contradicts the natural inclinations of the site, and subverts the existing relations between its various elements. The result is that the house “dominates a lunar landscape like a silver plane just landed on a green carpet unfolded over the emerging rocks.”51 Neutra operates on the landscape without touching it, as in the Lovell Health House (1927–9), which is built in dramatic contrast with Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the slope, or in the Tremaine House (1947–8), where he leaves “the site almost undisturbed so that the ground nearly reaches the window sill.”52 Eduardo Souto de Moura believes that the encounter with the ground is an integral component within the larger scope of allowing for a specific configuration to emerge, through contradictions and denials. For instance, in Ponte de Lima (2001–2) he places two apparently identical buildings on the ground, in two opposite

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configurations. One inserts itself into the site contradicting its natural features, the other follows the slope. In Braga the two stands of the Stadium (2002–3) are intentionally different, one being “carved into the earth as in an amphitheatre, the other rising up from the ground.”53 In this context naturalizing architecture and rendering artificial the context are the same operation. Both stands are built with the same technique, pursuing the same objective of “re-foundation” of a new site. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

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Site

Lightness

Dissolution

Enhancement

Objets trouvés

Artefact Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Chapter 5

Horizontal and vertical Gravity. Horizon. Between earth and sky. Architectural promenade. Shifting topography. Threshold

The erection of a monolith is the first human transformation, which intentionally establishes a dialogue between horizontal and vertical lines. This dialectic exchange, related to the tension between nature and construction, is particularly well described by Le Corbusier in a passage from his Precisions:

I was walking and suddenly stopped. Between my eyes and the horizon a sensational event has occurred: a vertical rock, in granite, is there, upright, like a menhir : its vertical makes a right angle with the horizon … This is a place to stop … The vertical gives the meaning of the horizontal. One is alive Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 because of the other.1

If the act of grounding a stone, without any mediating element, transforms it into a new presence, land art interventions, that modify the landscape by means of inanimate objects laid on the ground without plinths or artificial supporting surfaces, pursue a similar direct interaction “with the ground and the sky, operating a conscious return to the Neolithic.”2 Vertical lines represent the static implications, determined by the force of gravity, of the way in which the building meets the ground and establishes with it a strong knot. These are countered by an Horizontal and vertical

equally important horizontal component, expressing the establishment of a reference level in relation to the line of the horizon. Architecture, both in its physical materiality and as subject of human perception, cannot exist without gravity or horizon. Some architects appear more interested in one or the other, but the modes of connecting every building to the ground are always the result of a dynamic relationship between the line of the horizon and the force of gravity. Steven Holl says that “a phenomenal architecture calls for both the stone and the feather. Sensed mass and perceived gravity directly affect our perception of architecture.”3 In his representations it is possible to decipher a constant concern with the laws of physics and the material circumstances of the ground in a metaphorical sense. His drawings for Turbulence House (2001–4), a little house that sits on top of a mesa with lines extending down into the earth, evoke a link that extends to all directions, and is not limited to the single point of contact.4

GRAVITY

Gravity is the force which attracts physical bodies towards the centre of the earth, and also, when referenced to human behaviours, an extremely serious and austere posture. When Fernando Tavora says he is particularly concerned with the issue of gravity in architecture, he specifies that he is thinking of gravity in its double meaning of physical law and moral behaviour.5 His firm belief that the two meanings are indissoluble and complementary allows his quest for the most appropriate solution of transmitting to the ground the weight of construction, to determine the configuration of many of his works. In the Law Faculty in Coimbra (1993) the ancillary buildings resting on the sloping terrain Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 buttress the central portion of the complex, transforming the entire hill. Mario Botta conceives gravity as the force that ties architecture to the ground, as the embodiment of the research for balance in transmitting loads down to the earth. “The first act of building is marked by laying stone over stone. All buildings carry in their lap this absolute condition of being a portion of the ground hence, “rather than stone over stone, one should talk of stone over ground.”6 For this reason his walls are mass rather than surface, emphasizing the weight of both ground and architecture, which are welded together and never visually contradict the force of gravity.

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For some architects this unavoidable confrontation with gravity is a challenge. Joao Vilanova Artigas believes “architecture is basically defeating the law of gravity” and goes on to say that he takes “great pleas- ure in creating massive forms, bringing them close to the ground and then negating them, as if they were falling, overwhelmed by their weight. And yet they don’t fall.”7 He achieves his goal of dialectically denying gravity by “eliminating supports, crossing spans,” pursuing the equilibrium between loads with essential components.8 The pillars at the Sao Paulo School of Architecture (1961), like many of his other solid and aerial structures, have been described as “supports that sing.”9 Similar conditions pervade Oscar Niemeyer’s buildings. They often appear in need of “anchoring to the line of support, adhering to the horizon’s infinite plan … do not seem to have quite shaken themselves free from the earth, in a manner similar to that of Henry Moore’s reclining figures.”10 In his 1995 scheme for the Caracas Contemporary Art Museum he dismisses the use of pilotis, but does not shy away from lifting the heavy building from the ground. Here, the joint between construction and ground, designed to follow the terrain’s configuration, seems to defy the force of gravity.

HORIZON

“The quiet, intuitional horizontal line will be always the line of human tenure on earth”11 and “the horizontal line is the line of domesticity”12 are statements Frank Lloyd Wright often repeats. Through them he expresses his firm belief that a house should extend itself parallel to the ground, in order to become a companion to the horizon. Identifying the horizontal line with the belonging to the earth also helps Wright Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 to fasten the house to the ground. By mimicking the contour of the terrain, the overlapping parallel planes of the building allow them to “identify themselves with the ground, to make the building belong to the ground.”13 According to Le Corbusier establishing the line of the horizon is a preliminary and crucial act of the design. When describing his La Tourette convent (1953–60) he says “let’s rather seat it from the top, along an horizontal roofline, which will parallel the horizon. And from that line at the summit, we will measure all things, and shall reach the

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ground whenever we touch it.”14 It is along similar lines that Patrick Berger conceives his 1994 design for the UEFA headquarters in Nyon. He selects one single line, metonym of Lake Geneva’s horizon, and uses it to establish the boundaries of the plot occupation, the position of the building, and its rhythmic modulation in layers running parallel to each other and the horizon.15 For some architects the horizon is not just one line, or series of lines, that can be used as a design tool. The apparent line separating earth and sky holds instead a more complex meaning. It is the element which, at the same time, defines the limits of the space visible to us, and invites us to trespass them. When stating that the largest component of his work is concerned with the horizon, Sverre Fehn refers to this wider definition, beyond the dimension of physical division. He introduces us to the notion of imaginary or interpreted horizon pertaining to the invention of the site.16 For him the horizon evokes a “dramatic confrontation between the architects’ creation and nature.” This is symbolized by the image of the tree fighting with the horizon and fracturing it. The tree is here both the tall plant, which breaks the line of the ground it emerges from, and the mast of the ship that sails cutting it against the sea.17 While conceiving his scheme for a housing project in Cefalu (1976) and operating at a territorial scale, Vittorio Gregotti establishes as generating concept “the 0,00 level of the sea that embodies the line of the horizon” and to which all other horizontal lines must relate. The complex interaction between the natural support of the building and the construction technique is not a mere design invention, but a “specific description of the valley’s geography open to the sea” and is pursued by connecting the opposite slopes of the valley with an iterative sequence of inhabited bridges, and a modulation of the gap between each of them.18 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Vittorio Gregotti, Residential Complex, Cefalù, Italy, 1976. Reprinted with the permission of Gregotti Associati International.

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BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

Connecting architecture to both sky and ground is a constant preoccupation of Paulo Mendes da Rocha. In many of his buildings this ambition takes the form of a juxtaposition between the vertical load bearing element and the cantilevered roof, between the horizontal harmony of ground and horizon line, and a seemingly support free lifted and floating structure. The dynamic tension is the main feature of the 1970 Brazilian pavilion in Osaka, which “is essentially a slab of concrete and glass lightly perched on the ground—instead of conven- tionally suspending it on pillars, the option chosen is to modify the site’s topography” so that the horizontal slab appears to be floating free, whereas “the ground continues to undulate.” As da Rocha puts it “the movement is in the site, not in the structure.”19 If the slab emerges as gravitating on the horizon, it cannot slip out of place, and so it comes to rest above the points of the foundational plan, curving to meet the four supports, three undulations of the ground itself and one pillar.20 In some of his other works the absence of lateral enclosures contributes to create a space defined only by a ground platform and roof, where the conscious relation between the exterior and interior spaces reconfigures and transforms the urban space, so that building and site blend in a tectonic and telluric architectural entity. The 1988 Sao Paulo Museum of sculpture is conceived of as “a false underground, directed towards the interior,”21 and not a simple object placed on the ground. Some architects often divide buildings in two parts, or superimposed layers, each with different weight. A sketch by Alejandro de la Sota synthetically portrays the content of an aph- orism by Eero Saarinen, on the contrast between heavy and light

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 elements. According to Saarinen the house of man can be represented by a sphere cut along its equator by a plane, which coincides with that of the earth. The sunken hemisphere will be made of stone and earthy material, the one resting above, will be transparent and made of crystal.22

109 Illustration for one of Saarinen’s writings and sketches for Dominguez house, Alejandro de la Sota, Pontevedra, Spain, 1973–8. Reprinted with the permission of the Fundación Alejandro de la Sota. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Alberto Campo Baeza, de Blas house, Madrid, Spain, 2000. Reprinted with the permission of Estudio Arquitectura Campo Baeza. Horizontal and vertical

De la Sota’s Dominguez house in Pontevedra (1973–8) is the tangible experiment of this intention. In Alberto Campo Baeza’s architectural vision, the expression of the dialectic contrast between the inertia of physical mass and light filled levitation is supported by the conceptual dichotomy between the words stereotomic and tectonic. This is the difference between stereotomic construction, in which gravitational loads are seamlessly transmitted through the mass, and tectonic assemblies, where loads are transmitted discontinuously, through joints. His works are the literal translation of the idea of a construction comprised of a heavy box and a light, smaller one, emerging to capture light, the only way “to defy gravity.” These two building components are diagrammati- cally expressed in many of his designs, ranging from the Dalmau house in Burgos (1990) where the daily activities are located in a solid base that supports a glazed volume above, to the de Blas house (2000).23

ARCHITECTURAL PROMENADE

Architecture’s conceptualization as a sequence of images along a path, generated by freely walking inside it, is also reflected in the way in which the topic of the encounter with the ground is treated in the reading and description of projects. If the meaning of site and topography relies on the perception of those who are moving within them, what matters is how the architect conceives and addresses this experience. Walking along Dimitris Pikionis’ path to the Acropolis (1950–7), Kenneth Frampton says that “the ground is kinetically experienced through the gait, that is to say through the locomotion of the body and the sensu- ous impact of the movement.”24 William J. Curtis compares the same project to the spiritual atmosphere of an ancient sacred way, where the Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 ground is transformed into a series of highly charged places—levels, ramps and routes.25 He then uses similar images of a ceremonial path for Miralles and Pinos’ Igualada cemetery, a “procession,” an invitation to enter within the telluric pattern of the earth.26 Some of Alvaro Siza’s works are architectural promenades. The rise to the Boa Nova Tea House (1956) is a succession of topographical accidents, connected by ramps and small differences in levels, where the horizontal lines, which contrast with the stones are the result of an intentional framing of viewing points.

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Sketch of ascent, Alvaro Siza, Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal, 1958–63. Reprinted with the permission of Alvaro Siza.

Similar experiences characterize the descent to the water in the swimming pools at Leça de Palmeira, and the zigzag sequence across the Bonaval park (1995), an internal threading of vistas and perspectives where since there was no horizontal surface to use as reference, one rises through a sequence of platforms, ramps and stairs.27 Again, in the Serralves Foundation Museum (1997), by modulating a sequence of platforms in response to the different levels of the ground, Siza achieves a constant height of the promenade. The definition of promenade is not limited to works conceived along a linear arrangement, or that occupy a large surface, and must therefore be experienced by moving across them. Also relatively small dimensioned buildings can be conceived dynamically, by laying out a course to approach them. Luigi Snozzi’s homes are an example of this position. They never appear as static, frontal elevations, and the geographical features of their sites are revealed only through the path that leads to them. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Luigi Snozzi, Diener house, Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland, 1990. Reprinted with the permission of Luigi Snozzi Studio d’Architettura. 112 Horizontal and vertical

SHIFTING TOPOGRAPHY

The vision in motion, defined as spatial classification, has influenced the reflection on the picturesque as a critical category, not linked that is to the pictorial, bi-dimensional qualities, but the multiplicity of views. It is the experience of the landscape, gained by physically moving through it, which establishes architectural experience. Richard Serra insists on the discovery by the spectator while “walking within and through” the space. The placement of all structural elements in the open field “draws the viewer’s attention to the topography of the landscape as the landscape is walked.”28 It is precisely for this reason that Robert Smithson describes Shift (1971–2) as a picturesque work, that does not force nature, but exposes the capacities of the site.29 He is in fact convinced that picturesque is not a mind construct, but refers to the earth’s materiality. Serra calls for appreciat- ing the importance of the vertical dimension in the fight against the reduction of all terrains to the flatness of a sheet of paper. He is not interested by a graphic idea of landscape, rather by “a penetration into the land that would open the field and bring you into it bodily, not just draw you into it.” What he mostly seeks for in the landscape is elevation. “Even in works, which are relatively low in relation to the ground he is concerned with investigating what happens to your body when the elevation is shifting, when suddenly there is no longer an horizon”30 or flat surface as reference plane. The obsession with verticality influences his way of working. In the initial phases, as soon as he develops an idea of a specific site, he experiments by means of “steel models in a large sandbox. The sand functioning as a ground plane or as surrogate elevation ena- bles [him] to perceive structures [he] could not imagine.”31 This allows him to work with gravity, which is, at the same time, “a structuring 32 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 and de-structuring force.” His are not sculptures, rather objects that react to topography, and “act as barometers for reading the landscape.” Shift induces a perception of spatial continuity achieved by means of discontinuity. In this piece Serra pushes the phenomenological foundation of his work towards a “parallactic redefinition.” The integration between site and topography, between who sees and who is seen, determines that it is the shifting of the horizon, and not of the observer, that is the decisive element of the spatial experience. The site is a vast field, sitting between two hilltops. Two people walk, for five days, along

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the perimeter of the field, and the farthest distance at which they can continue to walk, without losing sight of each other, determines the boundaries of the piece. Low, sharp, triangular walls, whose length and shape is determined by the curve and profile of the hills, are placed as vertical planes when the eyes of the observers are level across the field. Hence walking down the slope inside the work, its composing elements progressively rise on the horizon. The first descent stops when the top of the wall reaches the level of the eye, and, by a shift, introduces the following levels across the constantly moving horizon. Shift allows for the recording of these displacements, by repeating the operation of framing and reframing “both viewer and site.” The possibil- ity of recording the tracks of visual reciprocity establishes the horizon, as a tool to measure oneself with the earth’s indeterminacy, establishes a dialogue between the global awareness of a human being’s place, and his relation with the ground upon which he is moving. The spatial sequence created by Sverre Fehn in the Archaeological Museum in Hamar (1969–73) is another example of the creation of moving planes. Here a series of ramps and elevated walk- ways inserted across an existing building connect it to the place, and at the same time fracture its horizon. The viewing point is constantly shifting, and the manipulation of the limits of the horizontal field determines the architectural experience. In order to allow for the surge of both historical depth of the terrain and the passage of time, Fehn creates an artificial ground, placed in between the new level of the roof and the irregular ruins encroaching the ground. This develops unforeseen configurations between what is above and what is below. As Suzanne Ewing puts it,

what is supposed to be ground on entering the building is contradicted by the deepening rough stone trenches that

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 become evident as you move through the building … at the moment where the ramp penetrates the building vertical elements invert the spatial horizontality … a route that uncoiling itself in space, seeks to discover a new horizon … it is only from the ramp’s highest point that the horizon is revealed.33

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THRESHOLD

Wright intentionally adopts different postures to highlight “in-between- ness,” the condition of being between two different, and at the same time inseparable, moments. Georges Perec, while visiting one of Wright’s houses near Lansing (Michigan), lives this very same experience, and describes it with the following words:

Bit by bit, as if by chance, without thinking, without your having any right at any given moment to declare that you have remarked anything like a transition, an interruption, a passage, a break in continuity, the path became stony, that’s to say that at first there was only grass, then there began to be stones in the middle of the grass … then it became like a paved grassy walkway … the slope of the ground began to resemble a low wall … then there appeared something like an open work roof …In actual fact it was already too late to know whether you were indoors or out.34

In Villa Mairea (1938–41), Alvar Aalto adapts the slight over craft of the ground floor and the canopy over the entrance, both threshold and portico, to mediate the transition between a wide exterior filled with natural light, and the interior where light gradually diminishes, thus creating an ambiguous effect as to the real position of the threshold, and the boundary between construction and ground. Unlike many of Jørn Utzon projects, where the relationship with the site is mediated by an exposed groundwork, in the Bagsvaerd church (1969–76) the base of the building is concealed by means of an artificial sloping ground. The sole connector between exterior and interior is the threshold. The use of prefabricated elements, reinforced concrete slabs placed above the basement structure, renders the floor of the church an autonomy from Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 the surrounding, creating an horizontal plane with clear cut boundaries.35

Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Bagsvaerd church, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1974–6. Reprinted with the permission of Utzon Fonden.

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Livio Vacchini never conceives specific views framed along an architectural promenade, nor any partial process of narration. His intention is to allow the construction to be detached from its surroundings, revealing its logical and technical artificial nature.36 However, since for him order is the result of a distinction from nature, he gives importance to the moment of the threshold. His own house at Costa di Tenero (1991–2) is placed 140 cm above the entrance level, and the separation between inside and outside is demarcated by a small canopy and a pedestal. The downwards sloping tunnel, leading inside the Losone sport hall (1995–7), wants to identify within the entrance sequence a moment of descent into the earth, and a subsequent emersion.37 In Georges-Henri Pingusson’s Memorial to the victims of deportation (1960–2), the visitor is first led away from the site, to then be turned around and led into a crack, a hole, a capsized world where the building appears as “the inverted version of its site.”38 For Peter Zumthor, thresholds are moments, instants, not places. In his designs the passage between inside and outside is a crucial moment.39 At Sumvigt (1988–9) a few steps and the change of materials raise in the visitor the awareness he is about to leave solid ground to enter the wooden body of the San Benedigt chapel (1985–8).40 Inside, the lightly curved floor of wooden boards spans free on the skeleton of one single truss, and bends under the weight of the steps. The entrance to the Shelter for the Roman ruins in Chur (1985–6) is a steel walkway, running across the entire volume of the complex, and producing a raised, ahistorical, observation viewpoint, before descending to the level of the archaeological excavations.41 Here the changes in level do not only mark the threshold to the building, but the entrance in another temporal dimension. The threshold becomes an intermediate place between exterior and interior in many of Glenn Murcutt’s buildings. The mostly 42 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 oblique entrance sequences, no longer axial to the building, delay the moment one actually enters the building, allowing time to understand the way the building makes contact with the ground. By breaking a seemingly consequential and continuous event in punctual instances, the dilatation of the access experience is a way to read and transform topography. Coherent with the idea that having “an experience of the landscape means designing it,” Murcutt works to remove the separation between building and ground.

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Gravity

Horizon

Between earth and sky

Architectural promenade

Shifting topography Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Threshold Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Chapter 6

Elemental forms Platform. Wall. Retaining wall. Footbridge. Inclined plane

The critical analysis of works and projects frequently refer to elemental lexical tropes, figures of speech, which, by virtue of their definition, remain invariable even through the modification of construction techniques. Platform, wall, retaining wall, footbridge, and inclined plane, are the ones employed mostly to describe the way a building relates to the ground. However, this is only a reduced number of elements that can generate, through iterations or modifications, many others. For instance, the repetition of horizontal planes above the plinth generates layers; the wall, by multiplication, becomes fence; or at a large territorial scale the footbridge turns into inhabited bridge. The same terms can describe the entire building and not only its components. Thus one can talk of bridge building, inhabited wall, or stepped hill. Lastly, even within the same building, one can identify the presence of more elements, placed next to each other or woven together. Sverre Fehn’s Aukrust Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Museum in Alvdal (1993–6) is a long linear wall and also a platform plinth of rubble and built up earth. The same author’s Glacier Museum in Fjaerland (1989–91) has been defined “the contemplative platform in its most literal form.”1 These tropes, elemental architectural forms, are the result of a synthesis of complex experiences, which in specific historical moments, gained relative stability in the collective imagery and are therefore repeated in common language. As such, when used in a particular way, they denote a linguistic shift. The advantage of using Elemental forms

simple elements, that can be placed in different contexts, allows for the combination of invariance and adaptability, and for the use of established language without limiting the creative ability. In order to avoid these terms being considered exclusively as plastic forms, and becoming stylistic motifs, or mere technical solutions classified in handbooks, they must be described in relation to each design’s creative process. Thus they are able to perform as words whose meaning is not uni- vocally defined, but are determined by the syntactical nexus to which they belong. For each elemental form it is also possible to trace back throughout history innovative moments, in order to define archetypes. Basic elements can be employed as criteria to investigate the relation between theoretical assumptions and built work for those architects who have expressed explicitly their position towards meeting the ground. As an example, one can consider the constant presence of the platform in Jørn Utzon’s work—“the theme was on his mind anyway,” says Curtis.2 Or the definition of wall, that in Luis Barragan’s works, is part of an architecture which wants to be born out of the ground, or according to Eduardo Souto de Moura is the element fastening the house to the ground. As part of the progressive blurring of the boundary between natural and artificial landscape within the architectural debate, it has become possible to refer to elemental forms also in what pertains to the primary forms of the earth’s crust, such as slope, valley, peak, ridge, and of the manipulated ground, such as embankment, furrow, terrace. In doing this, the relations between space, ground, and architecture are read applying the vocabulary and toolbox of architectural discipline to the landscape scale. The form of the levee or embankment has been referenced when describing Patrick Berger’s School of Architecture in Rennes (1986–90). The building “facing the water appears as an earth construction, following the curved profile of the river, and resting on a 3 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 granite foundation.” Similar images recur in the description of works, which not only profit from, or adapt themselves to, topographical conditions, but intentionally attempt at translating them into architecture. The attention to the phenomenological perception of architecture, rather than to its design strategies, allows some to interpret the words referring to the encounter with the ground as tools enabling the architect to read and rewrite the topography of a site. When following this approach, the platform, either by mediating the profile of the terrain, or creating a new detached plane, establishes and marks a specific

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height in relation to the existing ground. The wall becomes a measuring unit of the ground, besides being filter and support. The footbridge underscores, by connecting them, the separation between two sides. The ramp, by extending and delaying the approach to a building, creates a sequence of intermediate layers and horizons between earth and construction. The raised platforms upon which many architects place their houses, together with the footbridges conceived as horizontal paths in relation to the ground they are highlighting the movement of, are both a response to functional needs, and the architectural translation of a “conceptual reading of the ground.”4 Thanks to this what is achieved is the disappearance of both the distinction between earth and construction, and also of the difference between having an experience of the landscape and designing it.

PLATFORM

Unanimously considered an architectural archetype, platform is one of the elements of the tripartite order. In fact, many design and construction handbooks reduce the problem of the building’s connection to both ground and sky within the classical tectonic tripartite distinction between base, middle, and top. Some critics employ the tripartite order also to discuss contemporary architecture. For instance, Gonçalo Byrne’s maritime control tower in Lisbon (1997) is described as the articulation of a white stone base layer, supporting the central mass of construction, on top of which, almost dissolving in thin air, is placed a light and transparent crowning.5 The platform can perform many functions, mediating, connecting, or separating building and ground, as part of a conscious and Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 deliberate building strategy. It can demarcate the main reference level or establish a new one. It can place the building in relation to a more or less wide portion of territory. It can highlight an intentional separation between building and ground, or between the base of the construction and its superseding structures. Whether it wants to connect or divide, the platform fixes the attention on the link and the constructive solution it is manifested by, directing the gaze towards the earth, thus expressing the ontological artificiality of every architectural intervention.

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Sigurd Lewerentz and Gunnar Asplund use the platform as connector between architecture and nature. As Alison Smithson puts it, they enrich the landscape vocabulary with the idea of platform, working “with these everlasting ideas and relating to the pleasures of the forest floor.” Speaking of their Woodland cemetery chapel, she stresses “the wonder of the platform created by a level field in the ground, while around the chapel the forest floor undulates.”6 Arne Jacobsen also uses the platform as a device to inter- weave terrain and building.7 In Munkegaard (1955), confronted with a sloping site, he creates a plateau for the school building8 and similarly for St Catherine’s College in Oxford (1951–64) he places the entire complex upon a paved plinth. Jørn Utzon is “fascinated” by this archetypal figure.9 He captures a “magic in the plans between roof and platform” and reinterprets it in all of his projects.10 As Richard Weston puts it:

By articulating all his public buildings as the interplay between an homogeneous earthwork or platform and roofs or ceilings, which variously spring, soar and float above it, Utzon sought to ground his work in our elemental experiences of nature.11

His platforms, removed from the earth plane, are a new and artificial ground, intentionally conceived as independent from the earth, built both to respond to practical constraints, but also to intensify the spatial experience that tends towards the horizon under the sky. Denys Lasdun is also intrigued by the platform and its ceremonial significance in ancient buildings. He employs it as “the dominant architectural element, and first layer of his designs, which are often thought of as superposed horizontal bands.”12 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Silkeborg Museum, Silkeborg, Denmark, 1963. Reprinted with the permission of Utzon Fonden.

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In buildings sitting on steep slopes, platforms solve both a technical problem, and provide the means to represent the connection to the ground. Besides mediating the section and incorporating the differences in level, the artificial plane introduced by the platform establishes relations, which would not otherwise be possible and, therefore, becomes an element of topographic invention. In the church in Marco de Canavezes (1997) by Alvaro Siza, the platform is transformed in a foundation element of sorts, since the mortuary chapel located there “establishes a fixed level, where the church can rest upon, and further, with its granite walls and cloister, determines the distance from the road.” Siza himself clarifies that the inhabited platform must appear as “built nature.”13

Sketch, Alvaro Siza, Santa Maria Church, Marco de Canavezes, Portugal, 1990–7. Reprinted with the permission of Alvaro Siza.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 In Juan Navarro Baldeweg’s work the modelling of the ground, the use of the plinth as a generating element for the horizontal reference plane, the platform stuck in the slope, and the overlap of architectural episodes, are all elements testifying to the idea of a layered configuration of the ground. The House of Rain in Santander (1978–82) lies all at the same level, on an artificial plane created in the slope. The topographic modification transforms the existing system of escarpments and embankments and, by abruptly cutting the hill’s profile, creates an horizontal platform upon which the architectural object can rest.14

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In the Horizon House in Salamanca (2007), Jesús Aparicio uses the platform as ambiguous element, where nature and artefact overlap and contribute to the perception of the construction and site at two different scales. One is a large scale, related to the horizon. The other focuses its attention on the immediate surroundings of where the contact takes place. This second scale, allowing an understanding of the relation with the trees, the water, the rocks, and how the platform reveals the entrance to the house, is dimensionally smaller than the first one, but analogous to it from the perspective of the relation with topography.15

Sketch, Jesús Aparicio, Horizon house, Salamanca, Spain, 2007. Reprinted with the permission of Jesús Aparicio Estudio de Arquitectura.

WALL

There’s nothing more mysterious or beautiful than a wall. Paul Auster16

Gunnar Asplund’s Woodland Crematorium (1935–40) is connected ideally to the ground by a low wall flanking the path. It has been described as “an abstract wall,”17 to underscore its prevailing symbolic meaning of connecting element between nature and architecture. Marc Treib says that “the wall and the resulting courtyard inflect the texture of the for-

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 est, but they do not create a presence defined by an opposition to it.”18 Every wall can be represented as a simple line traced on the ground, but it is conceived and built in different ways. In the instant it rises from the ground becoming an architectural element, it is always a solution and demarcation of the encounter with the ground, a measure of the terrain it is tying the construction to, and a redefining element of the site. Albert Frey explores the idea of walls that move in different directions. The walls of his first Palm Springs House (1941) are “abstract” surfaces.19 A series of planes frozen by a large roof plane,

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extend beyond the volume of the construction and seem to extend in the landscape to which they are connecting.20 John Pawson and Claudio Silvestrin’s Neuendorf House in Mallorca (1987–9) is connected to the ground by a 105 m long wall rising up the hill, and being flanked by a path made of steps, gives it an articulation. Pawson’s later project for the Donnelly House, on a hill with a 45 degree slope, analogously consists of four parallel walls and three water basins. Shigeru Ban’s wall at Villa Kuru (1991) bears a similar connective function; a symbolic expression of the awareness of how even buildings, which apparently pursue a detachment from the ground, must be rooted in it. According to Renzo Piano the external walls of the Beyeler foundation suggest an image of blending architecture and nature, giving the impression of belonging to the ground they emerge from, as “geological elements once belonging to the earth and now statically fastened upon it.”21 Alvaro Siza believes every wall is an element of spatial reference that defines a topographic armature. In the Leça de Palmeira pools, the walls belong to a system of parallel horizontal lines. By deploying themselves as slight incisions22 in the portion of site below the coastal road, they act as support to the urban fabric, and at the same time contain the beach, rocks, and ocean. Tadao Ando’s frequent linear walls, geometrically simple, are always elements of “territorial definition.”23 Besides emphasizing the form and contours of the terrain, they connect the various architectural elements between themselves and with the site, encompassing the project and at the same time invading it. In Matsumoto House (1977), also known as Wall House, an autonomous wall, separate from the building, defines a portion of territory, and anchors it to the construction. In the Children Museum at Himeji (1987–8) the wall is the unifying thread for all the architectural strategy, defining the hill, and, following the contour levels, articulating the different functions. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

RETAINING WALL

The retaining wall is at the same time the architectural element that connects the building to the ground and allows for the morphological reconstruction of the terrain. In Mies van der Rohe’s Riehl House in Potsdam (1907)

125 Elemental forms

a long, uninterrupted supporting wall spanning the plot and serving as a baseline … secures the necessary optical and material support for the house on its slope, while at the same acting as an embankment, pulling the space of the terrace around to the front of the garden. The rampart seems fixed in the ground, as if guaranteeing a firm sense of place within the foundation of the natural surroundings.24

The construction of Baiao House (1990–3) begins with the demolition of the retaining wall into the existing one, thus excavating the ground. Its author, Souto de Moura, says that rather than a house placed inside the earth, it is a home built by working “in negative,” creating a void and then filling it with architecture.25 The rubble stone facade seems to become retaining wall and the transition between roof and terrain is unnoticeable. In the Moledo House in Porto (1991–8) de Moura uses the retaining wall to remodel the terrain, and leave untouched both “primary topographic levels,” specifically the arrival level and the one on which the house is placed. By doing this, the wall emphasizes the absolute horizontal nature of the house. For the open air theatre in Salemi (1983–6), a site next to a granite sloping ridge, suggested to Francesco Venezia, Marcella Aprile, and Roberto Collovà an arrangement made of two terraces.26 To achieve this they employ the rubble from existing houses, cut and consolidated in ground retaining structures. The scheme to “demolish and cut pursues the goal of transforming the walls of the houses in a garden like fortification, terraced parapets, enclosures of private spaces,” and is given the same importance as the buildings themselves. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Francesco Venezia, Roberto Collovà, and Marcella Aprile, Open air theatre, Salemi, Italy, 1983–6. Reprinted with the permission of Edizioni Clean.

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FOOTBRIDGE

The footbridge holds a strong symbolic value as connecting element with the ground. Martin Heidegger posits that the bridge does not connect two existing banks, but rather creates two banks.27 As it is the bridge, by placing the two elements it is connecting one in front of the other, that unites them at the same time highlighting their separation. Linking the building to the ground with an element, which appears separate from the terrain, is a way of intentionally marking the difference between architectural artefact and nature. In many of Mathias Klotz’s projects the choice of defining the entrance by means of a footbridge that reaches the rooftop, or an intermediate level, strengthens the autonomous nature of these buildings, whose intrinsic nature can be read in section.28 This is also the meaning of the footbridge conceived by Luigi Snozzi in the Kalman House in Minusio (1972) or that built by Mario Botta in the Riva San Vitale House (1984).

3.89

-2.46

-4.92

-7.38

-8.94

Sketch, Mario Botta, House in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland, 1971. Reprinted with the permission of

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Mario Botta Architetto.

Botta’s subsequent chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli on Monte Tamaro (1992–6), which he describes as “a viaduct protruding from the mountain for 65 metres”29 is a metaphysical bridge that vertiginously leaves the earth to apparently throw itself in the emptiness below. The Public baths in Bellinzona (1968–70), designed by Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat, and Ivo Trumpy, are also a long footbridge that connects and spatially articulates the pedestrian path between city and river. The punctual

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encounter with the ground is here not only a technical device conceived to grant structural stability to the building, but the solution to the main conceptual part of the project. Bridges like buildings are also constructions for which the choice of limiting the connection to the ground, concentrating it in a few punctual supports, is the response to constraints presented by asperities and water streams. This requires the development of appropriate innovative structural solutions. Seminal in this respect is Amancho Williams’ Bridge House (1943–5), “a slender span, which responds as an abstract form to the neighbouring topography,”30 literally placing the abstract volume of the house over the primary form of a bridge. In many of Craig Ellwood’s projects this approach results in emblematic and iconic structures. In the San Luis Obispo Weekend House (1964–8), as a consequence of the scarcity and high prices of available beach front property, he decides to lift the entire building, letting it rest on its two extremities. Here he places the house across the “canyon in the simplest, purest way—the structure is a roofed bridge spanning 60 feet—leaving the land contours and natural watersheds undisturbed.”31 The drawing of the Bridge House is the architectural manifestation of his ideas. He pursues a similar strategy in the Pasadena Art Center (1970–6), where the exposed structural cage is a rational solution from both a constructive and economic standpoint. The building can be thus read as a “clear dark line floating across the landscape.”32 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Aurelio Galfetti, Public baths, Bellinzona, Switzerland, 1967–70. Courtesy of Aurelio Galfetti.

128 Elemental forms

INCLINED PLANE

Both ramp and stairway are elemental forms, which help overcome a difference in level by articulating it through a sequence of landings. They extend and slow down the transition between exterior and interior, and place the building itself within the sequence. In Alvar Aalto’s buildings the stairway, be it a granite monumental structure, or a simple sequence of zigzag steps with wooden risers cutting through the grass to define its edges, is a constant leitmotif. The architect uses this element to transform the terrain’s configuration, in order to create the perception of the shift between what is built and what used to be there. This happens in many projects, from the church in Toulo (1972), where the access stair is placed like a wedge in the plinth below the central nave, to the Main Hall in Otaniemi (1949–66), where the stair-roof acts as counterpoint between horizontal and vertical. Roland Simounet often places his constructions on the sloping ground in order to consolidate it, at the same time overlaying it with an artificial topography made of steps. The nave of the Sainte Marguerite Marie church in Tefeschoun (1956–7) is a stepped sequence that follows the profile of the terrain. In Djenan el Hasan (1954–7) the supporting elements, running parallel to the contour lines, mediate the irregularities and differences in levels, and create the base for a constructed ground. Also in the Tananarive university dormitories (1962–70) the structure takes ownership of the site and respects it. Running parallel to the contour lines, the retaining walls become supports for the horizontal circulation that isolates and serves the dwellings. This operation allows for the mediation between the cut and fill movement of the soil, and the creation of a superimposed sequence of built layers, that gives rhythm to the landscape. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Roland Simounet, University residence, Tananarive, Madagascar, 1962–70. Reprinted with the permission of Madame Yvette Langrand.

129 Elemental forms

Oscar Niemeyer’s Music Education Centre in Rio de Janeiro (1973), the Modern Art Museum in Brasilia (1982), and the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (1996), are all connected to the ground by means of a spiralling ramp, appearing as a platform progressively lifting itself from the ground to stand out against the horizon. By doing this, the progression between exterior and interior acquires a strong symbolic meaning, and is not built as mere reply to the functional requirements. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

130 ELEMENTAL FORMS

Platform

Wall

Retaining wall

Footbridge

Inclined plane Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Chapter 7

Images and metaphors Feet on the ground. Anchoring. Roots. Clouds

The metaphor is a rhetorical figure denoting a transfer of meaning from one object to another, based on their supposed equivalence. Architects and critics often resolve to the use of metaphors to describe and ana- lytically examine works and projects. By means of an analogical and emulative procedure, the metaphor suggests the building’s transition from the field of construction to that of poetic expressiveness. This activates a chain of formal comparisons with elements pertaining to different sectors of reality. The building is expressed as human body, standing erect, laying down, or sitting on the ground. It is compared to tree, emerging from the ground, or planting itself in it with its roots. Some refer to it as a ship, more or less run aground, or even sailing on the earth’s surface. The vast majority of the images, such as Mario Botta’s Chapel at Monte Tamaro, which is a “stone nail” stuck in the mountain,1 or Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Renzo Piano’s Beyeler Foundation described as a “butterfly opening its wings in the sky,”2 can be classified in two fundamentally distinct and opposed visions of architecture. The first expresses the desire to achieve ownership of the ground, by impressing on it a deep and lasting mark. The other denotes the ambition towards the least aggressive and invasive modes of occupation and construction of the ground. Some admit that the more or less arbitrary image associations, which transform the encounter with the ground in an evocative instant of other situations, do not correspond to the reality of construction. Linguistic Images and metaphors

artifices cannot remove the materiality of architecture. Renzo Piano himself, commenting on the butterfly image, expresses his awareness about “the illusion of weightless,” given the unlikelihood of the “feeling that 4000 sq meters of glass could simply float 8 metres above the ground resting lightly on a stone base.”3 In most occasions, however, the repetitive use of metaphors ends by depriving them of their relevance. Further, it gives little indica- tions as to the tangible and pragmatic approaches to the encounter with the earth. On the other hand, the manifest contradiction between poetic image and built reality reveals how often metaphors serve as rhetoric devices that soften the brutality of the link. The contrast between the apparent lightness and delicacy of the image and the sheer brutality of its real implementation finds one of its most striking examples in Tadao Ando’s description of the clearing of the site for the Rokko 1 housing project (1983). Here, rather than talking about the dynamite necessary to quite literally blow up the stony slope of the hill, he describes how for him the existing greenery “was like a sea, and I imagined the building like a ship sailing in that sea.”4

FEET ON THE GROUND

Some authors describe the modes of encounter with the ground through terms usually pertaining to positions of the human body or of living creatures. Georges Perec has the impression that Wright’s house in Lansing “has slid on to its hillside like a cat curling itself upon a cush- ion.”5 Elsewhere, one reads of buildings sitting, laying down, or standing up, and the same image can take on different meanings, depending on the author’s intentions. The desire to highlight the geometrical relation- Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 ship between the line of the ground and the built volume allows us to infer from this condition a degree of proximity or alienation between artefact and nature. For instance, “while the buildings of Le Corbusier’s usually seem to ‘stand’ on the land, Neutra’s tend to ‘sit’ or ‘lie’.”6 Kaufmann House (1946) sits upon the desert and villa Tremaine seems “to lie within its rolling and lush garden.”7 Even Rudolph Schindler’s King Road House (1922) “sits directly on a concrete slab that is both foundation and final floor.”8 Almost as if deprived of gravitational loads, it is built without expensive excavation works or underground basement.

134 Images and metaphors

The approach that refers to architectural projects as living creatures is a way to stress the author’s attention to the site, and to all the human activities which take place there. The image of the pour of the foundation floor slab for the Herbert Jacobs House in Madison, WI (1936) by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the many single story houses pat- terned after it that appear to be planted in the soil, like a farmer’s boot,9 at a depth no greater than necessary to assure stability, establishes a connection between a specific construction detail and Wright’s obsession with agriculture. He is in fact convinced that the natural land form and the history of the previous occupation of the site manifest themselves in most cases through agriculture and the various forms of the transformation of the soil.10 Among the authors who place a quasi moral emphasis on the position and depth at which the connection between construction and ground is implemented, and consider it evidence of a more or less dignified and well educated posture, Fernando Tavora stands out. He is convinced of the utter importance of understanding how buildings are placed on the ground, and talks of a real art of “sitting down.”11

ANCHORING

The anchored house is the cursory catchphrase often used to underscore an empathy with the site’s features claimed by some architects through an attentive use of materials and formal arrangements. This reductive interpretation is questioned by others. Kenneth Frampton says that more than the physical siting of the building, anchoring involves “both a conceptual rooting and an experiential one.”12 Anchoring is the verb used by Steven Holl in a book bearing the same title to define the Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 physical and metaphysical connection of the building with the site. He shifts the attention from the topographical issues to those relating to the architectural phenomenology, which derive from the scientific cogni- tive modalities of perception. According to Holl the ideas suggested by the first visit to the site, and the intentions of reconfiguring the existing topography, constitute the basis for invention. For this reason “anchoring” must be consciously addressed since, rather than expressing the placing of architecture in a landscape, it is the “explanation of the landscape provided by architecture.”13 Holl believes that the paradigmatic

135 Images and metaphors

example of this notion is Adalberto Libera’s Casa Malaparte in Capri (1939–42), “an oyster shell encrusted onto the rocks, an image that evokes symbiosis, a reciprocal need by two elements.”14 Simultaneously referring to the connection between structures, or between portions of them and the ground, and to the mooring of a boat to a fixed, sufficiently secured, and stable element, the twofold meaning of anchoring is also the reason behind the success of the metaphor of building as ship at anchor. The metaphor is sometimes used to highlight the presence of suspended elements, which enable the access to the building. Such is the case in Richard Neutra’s Lovell Health House (1927–9), described as “anchored to a steep hillside, like a steamer moored along a quayside. The entrance takes the shape of a concrete gangway.”15 The truth is that anchoring rather than a metaphor, is more of an oxymoron. This because the term, which defines a temporary mooring, is used to indicate a solid and definitive connection. Murcutt seems aware of this when, talking about Ball Eastway House, he says that it is “like a building that has docked, put out its bridge like a ship and is ready to go away.”16 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Francesco Venezia, casa Malaparte, Capri, Italy, 1985.

136 Images and metaphors

To stay in the realm of sailing terms, it might be more appropriate to talk of buildings that run aground. Frampton uses this notion to highlight Holl’s Berkowitz House’s (1984–8) sympathetic relation to the ground, to the effect that “the house quietly lies there, on its sand dune, like a stranded ship.”17 The roof is a flat surface, whereas the floor delicately “embraces” the ground, and allows it to keep the volume of the building lifted off the ground. To leave the sand dune undisturbed, the house, built by means of an exposed balloon frame structure, rests on a punctual sequence of vertical footings, each 15 × 15 centimetres, and not on a continuous floor slab. “Metaphorically speaking, the tranquillity of the picture refers more to the dune and the site, than to the building.” Respectful of the beach house tradition, the floor of the house floats above the ground. The floor hugs the site, layering the house into the topography, while remaining delicately suspended above the earth.18

ROOTS

The metaphor of the building rooted in the ground as a tree, which from the ground derives strength to grow, is one of the most largely used and misused. The image of the tree, Abbé Laugier’s architectural archetype, is obviously seductive, since it posits a deep immersion in the site and, at the same time, a natural quality of the building. It further conveys the perception of an implied need of the construction. If the roots are the essential component of a question, of a thought, rooting a building means to prove its need, besides giving it stability. A building that has roots lives a symbiotic relationship with the ground. It is well placed upon it, and is a living organism which moves, breathes, feeds Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 off of it, and not a mineral object. Fernando Tavora’s school in Cedro (1957–61) has roots like a tree, it throws shade and protects its occupiers.19

137 Images and metaphors

Sketch, Fernando Tavora, Cedro school, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 1957–61. Reprinted with the permission of the Fundaçao Marques da Silva.

Similarly in Eduardo Souto de Moura’s Cultural Centre in Porto (1989– 92) one can hear, under his feet, the foundations extending like roots of a tree, physical material which moves “like a spreading lattice work.”20 The kinship relationship between constructions and living creatures has been questioned by Richard Neutra, whose constructions are not outgrowths of the ground, but remain laid upon it. More than once he states his belief that “a desert house cannot be rooted in a soil to grow out of it … houses do not sprout from the ground sucking natural juices out of the soil.” He finds these sort of claims “lyrical exaggera- tions.”21 Architecture is not a natural phenomena, but should rather be seen and conceived as an elemental sympathetic feature of the ground, complementary to its natural environment. According to him, buildings are not rooted, they “stand on waterproofed foundations poured in concrete forms from details dimensioned according to engineering computation.”22 In Frank Lloyd Wright’s vocabulary so rich with images, the meaning of the house “planted by myself on the good earth of the prairie” is somewhat similar to that of the anchored house. But in some of his projects the analogy between tree and house rests upon technical considerations, since:

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 in structural terms a tree is a vertical beam cantilevered out of the ground. Most of its mass is above the ground … The structural force that keeps a tree from toppling over is the restraint applied to its roots by the earth in which they are embedded.23

In his 1925 scheme for the Natural Life Insurance Building he develops a prototype of skyscraper whose sole vertical support is a kind of tree trunk deeply anchored in the soil, which he later developed in the Johnson Wax Headquarters Tower (1950).

138 Images and metaphors

CLOUDS

The architect’s desire of defying the laws of physics “by hanging houses to a spider web” is the generating concept of Rudolph Schindler’s Janson House. Here this effect is achieved by placing the support structure towards the rear of the building and hanging from the roof the load bearing walls above the ground floor.24 Jørn Utzon is always fascinated by clouds.25 In them he sees architectural shapes, white cylinders, semitransparent volumes, and bodies. For this he recommends to his students to lay down and look at the sky as if it were the ceiling of a building with no walls. The first image of the Sydney Opera House (1957–73) is that of a cloud, hovering above the horizontal plane of the harbour bay, and a cloud is also the first sketch for Bagsvaerd church.26 Often Utzon’s sectional sketches illustrate domed roof forms such as clouds, leaves, feathers, sails, and pagodas hovering over a raised or stepped platform and are shown without enclosing walls, with space flowing freely between them towards the horizon. Utzon, however, does not see clouds as formal artefact. He rather believes they are a means “to express the platform and avoid destroying it is when you start building on top of it. A flat roof does not express the flatness of the platform.”27 His are “clouds of concrete” 28 with a material and structural firmness and solidity. Fumihiko Maki is also convinced that:

the most beautiful silhouettes of a building … are those that suggest waves and clouds. There is nothing more beautiful than a white cloud floating in the deep blue sky of summer. We are moved by that image and seized by a desire to impart to architecture the same floating quality.29 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

Sketch, Jørn Utzon, Bayview house, Sydney, Australia, 1962. Reprinted with the permission of Utzon Fonden.

139 Images and metaphors

His Fujisawa sports complex (1984–90) takes the shape of a constel- lation of precise geometric shapes, which compose a cloud like, fluid ensemble. Clouds or bubbles over a platform is the Metropolitan Gymnasium in Tokyo (1990) where, in an effort to make apparent the hovering quality of the roof and to dissociate from the more massive of its support, he develops a series of pin connections.30

Sketch of waves and clouds, Fumihiko Maki, Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Tokyo, Japan, 1990. Reprinted with the permission of Maki & Associates.

According to some, the desire to allow the construction to “float,” to make the building appear not like an object resting on the ground, but weightless and fluctuating is the “synthesis”31 of modern architecture and its obsessive research of parting from the ground. Compared to anchoring and rooting, the metaphor that evokes clouds or flying objects taking off in the sky is the one that most explicitly contradicts the relationship between building and ground. As with other figures of speech it needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis, and in close conjunction with the specific constructive details, without which all remains an architecture of words. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

140 IMAGES AND METAPHORS

Feet on the ground

Anchoring

Roots

Clouds Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Notes

Introduction: The quest for architectural topographies

1 Gregotti, “Address to the Architectural League, New York, 1982,” Section A 1, no. 1 (February–March 1983): 8. Quoted in Frampton, Studies, 8. 2 Burns, “On site,” 154. 3 Holl, “Within city,” 128. 4 Id., “Y House,” 75. 5 Norberg Schulz, “Heidegger’s thinking,” 63. 6 Id., “Heidegger and the language,” 43. 7 Id., “Place?,” 8. 8 Krauss, “Sculpture,” 8. 9 Ibid., 41. 10 Leatherbarrow, “Topographical premises,” 1. 11 Ibid., 12. 12 Pallasmaa and Sato, “Aalto,” 28. 13 Treib, “Constructed landscape,” 58. 14 Abalos and Herreros, “New naturalism,” 29. 15 Corner, “Terra fluxus,” 31. 16 Joseph Hillis Miller, Topographies. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995, 3. Quoted in Jan Birksted, ed. Landscapes of memory. London and New York: Spon, 2000, 177. 17 See reference to Georges Batailles’ concept of dictionary that begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks, as discussed in Bois and Krauss, Formless. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

1 Intersections: Why a graphic lexicon?

1 Holl, Anchoring, 9. 2 March and Sheine, Schindler, 26. 3 Smith and Darling, Schindler, 166. 4 Sheine, Schindler, 159. 5 Along similar lines Richard Neutra recalls “hiking up to that place, so decisive, spectacular and precarious, and told myself that human kind … would one day run out of level ground. It will have to build on steepness Notes

and on prefabricated stilts, with the leaving area pendant from the roof.” See Neutra, “Health house,” 223. 6 Ciriani, “Entretien,” 209. 7 Gronvold, “The lines,” 258. 8 Cohen, “Lautner,” 19. 9 Siza, “Impressions,” 21. 10 Kuma, “GA architect,” 131. 11 Ibid., 14. 12 Ibid., 125. 13 Murcutt, “El Croquis,” 509. 14 Zumthor, Three concepts, 14. 15 Ibid., 53. 16 Id., Spirit of nature, 62. 17 Sweeney, “San Marco,” 155. 18 Smith and Darling, Schindler, 39. 19 Riley, “Wright,” 100. 20 Weston, “Sense of place,” 128. 21 Lopez-Pelaez, “Viewing Sota,” 36. 22 Thau, Jacobsen, 160. 23 Kuma, “GA architect,” 108. 24 Blaser, Mies, 37. 25 Johnson, Mies, 154. 26 Chipperfield, Theoretical practice, 111. 27 Kollhof, “Abstract juncture,” 21. 28 Mack, Herzog & de Meuron, vol. 3, 121. 29 Ibid. 30 Galiano, Herzog & de Meuron, 116. 31 Artigas, Mendes da Rocha, 248.

2 The building meets the ground: Ground. Foundation. Plinth. Artificial ground

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 1 Rajchman, Constructions, 78. 2 Ibid., 77. 3 Dripps, “Groundwork,” 59. 4 Ibid., 88. 5 For the specific relation between unground and off-the-ground conditions with reference to Le Corbusier’s work, see Rajchman, Constructions, 79. 6 Picon-Lefèbvre, “Simounet,” 43. 7 Smithson, “Sedimentation,” 100. 8 On Smithson’s use of language, see Owens, “Earthwords,” 120–30. 9 Smithson, “Sedimentation,” 101. 10 van Schaik, “Godsell,” 23.

144 Notes

11 Ibid., 10. 12 Miralles, “L’excavation,” 72. 13 Lahuerta, “For now,” 11. 14 Diethelm, “Foundation,” 153–69. 15 Snozzi, “Aphorisms,” 105. 16 Neutra, “Foundations,” 14. 17 McQuaid, Ban, 10. 18 Wright, “Natural house,” 94. 19 Dal Co et al., Baldeweg, 340–1. 20 See “Mapungubwe interpretation centre,” last modified November 5, 2009, accessed May 10, 2013, http://www.designboom.com/architecture/ peter-rich-architects-mapungubwe-interpretation-center-south-africa/. 21 Whiting, “Bas-relief,” 644. 22 Ibid., 666. 23 Le Corbusier, Radiant city, 56. 24 On Le Corbusier’s position in relation to the natural ground, see note 5 above. 25 Arets, “Body invaders,” 119. 26 Moneo, “Foreword,” 2. 27 Galiano, “Tavole house,” in Mack, Herzog & de Meuron, Vol. 1, 44.

3 The discovery of the terrain: Topography. Landing and grounding. Strata. Earthwork. Water and air

1 Careri, Walkscapes, 26. 2 Gubler, “Notes,” 28. 3 Tiberghien, “Nomad city,” 15. 4 Lamprecth, Neutra, 11. 5 Wright, “Autobiography,” 224. 6 Smithson, “Sedimentation,” 110. 7 Hewitt, “Imaginary mountain,” 171. 8 Frampton, “Pikionis,” 9.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 9 Pikionis, “Sentimental topography,” 68. 10 Trézières, “Masses telluriennes,” 146. 11 Ando, “Spatial composition,” 10–11. 12 Cavallotti “PROAP,” 28. 13 Croset, “Architecture,” 47. 14 Cache, “Territorial image,” 17. 15 Leatherbarrow, “Topography,” 94–113. 16 Tuomey, Construction, 41. 17 Curtis, Modern, 483. 18 Siza, Scritti, 178. 19 Ibid., 175.

145 Notes

20 Lassus, “Inventive analysis,” 57–8. 21 Girot, “Four concepts,” 62. 22 Ibid., 64. 23 Id., Lasdun, 12. 24 Frampton, “Poesis and transformation,” 10. 25 Miralles, “L’excavation,” 72. 26 Curtis, “Mental maps,” 7. 27 Mack, Herzog & de Meuron, 183. 28 Curtis, “Between abstraction,” 19. 29 Ibid., 11. 30 Zimmermann and Funke, “Ground,” 199. 31 Frampton, Studies in tectonic, 1995. 32 Id., “Earthwork,” 11. 33 Heneghan, “Architecture,” 18. 34 Leatherbarrow, “Earthwork,” 17. 35 Id., “Building,” 25–70. 36 Bergdoll, “Mies’s space,” 87. 37 Daniele, “Interview,” 437–8. 38 Curtis, “Between architecture,” 13. 39 Artengo, Menis, and Pastrana, “Natural pool,” 50–1. 40 On Murcutt’s architecture as built interpretation of the landscape, see Fromonot, “Natura,” 47–50. 41 Murcutt, El Croquis,158. 42 See “Matsunoyama Museum,” last modified March 23, 2007, accessed May 10, 2013, http://www.iconeye.com/read-previous-issues/icon-018- |-december-2004/matsunoyama-museum-|-icon-018-|-december-2004. 43 Arroyo, “East,” 71. 44 Id., “Museo,” 58–63. 45 Ferrater, Syncronizing, 16. 46 Corner, “Recovering,” 4. 47 Id., “Mapping,” 213–33. 48 Czerniak, “Challenging pictorial,” 113. 49 Id., “Looking back,” 108. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

4 The right placement: Site. Lightness. Dissolution. Enhancement. Objets trouvés. Artefact

1 Yourcenar, Memoirs, 120. 2 Petit, Un couvent, 28. 3 Leoni, Tavora, 66. 4 Ando, “In dialogue,” 25. 5 Fehn, Poetry, 29. 6 Wisnik, “Architecture,” 8.

146 Notes

7 Murcutt, El Croquis,158 8 Adrià, Klotz, 8. 9 Holl, Anchoring, 10. 10 Cache, Earth, 15. 11 Burns, “On site,” 146–67. 12 Serra, “Notes,” 174. 13 Pais, “In search,” 29. 14 Clark, “Three places,” 13. 15 Id., “Replacement,” 10. 16 Blake, The master, 318. 17 Wright, “Autobiography,” 224. 18 Beck and Cooper, Murcutt, 71. 19 Fleck, Alvaro Siza, 24. 20 Siza, Immaginare, 13. 21 Jodidio, “Architecture,” 14. 22 Portela, “Cemetery,” 128. 23 Cohn, “Eyes to the sea,” 108. 24 Bognar, Murano, 152. 25 Wines, “SITE. Narrative architecture,” 16. 26 Kuma, “Weak,” 9. 27 Bognar, “Architecture,” 38. 28 Mainini, Soutinho, 48. 29 Ahlin, Lewerentz, 50. 30 Aalto, Band 1, 164. 31 Weston, Aalto, 179. 32 Treib, “Aalto,” 57. 33 Pallasmaa and Sato, “Aalto,” 28. 34 Oechslin, “Botta,” 128. 35 Tadao Ando, “I-Izu, Kamo-gun, Shizuoka, 1987–1989,” GA Architect, no. 12 (1993): 124. 36 Heneghan, “Ando,” 18. 37 Miralles, “L’excavation,” 72. 38 Bennett, Bryggman, 247. 39 Hoffman, Fallingwater, 14. Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 40 Vidotto, Smithson, 102. 41 Underwood, Niemeyer, 79. 42 Ibid., 82. 43 Beck and Cooper, Murcutt, 124. 44 Hølmebakk, “Sohlbergplassen,” 123. 45 Jensen and Skodvin, “Church,” 95. 46 Moneo, “Foreword,” 2. 47 Hines, Neutra, 201. 48 Ibid., 40. 49 Ibid., 62. 50 Ibid., 33. 147 Notes

51 Lamprecht, Neutra, 57. 52 Giedion, “A close-up,” 10. 53 de Castro, Braga, 9.

5 Horizontal and vertical: Gravity. Horizon. Between earth and sky. Architectural promenade. Shifting topography. Threshold

1 Le Corbusier, Precisions, 75. 2 Careri, Walkscapes, 140. 3 Holl, “Gravity,” 14. 4 Id., “Turbulence,” 86. 5 Tavora, “Omaggio,” 68. 6 Botta, Light, 8. 7 Kamita, “Telurico,” 39. 8 Katinsky, Artigas, 175. 9 Ohtake, “30 years on,” 18. 10 Wisnik, “Lightness,” 75. 11 Wright, “Testament,” 214. 12 Id., “Ausgefurthe Bauten,” 113. 13 Id., “Natural house,” 79. 14 Petit, Un couvent, 28. 15 Lucan, “Language,” 58. 16 Ewing, “Horizon,” 302. 17 see Fjeld, “The fall,” 23–30; and Postiglione, “Between earth,” 53–62. 18 Crotti, Gregotti, 80. 19 Artigas, Mendes da Rocha, 74. 20 Villac, “Exemplary,” 16. 21 Artigas, Mendes da Rocha, 86. 22 De La Sota remembers having kept this image (of which the date is unknown) in his mind for several years until “he was finally presented with the right conditions in which to give it physical form.” See de la Sota, “Conferencia,” 185.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 23 Frampton, “Campo Baeza,” 7. 24 Id., “Studies,” 9. 25 Curtis, Modern, 482. 26 Ibid., 683. 27 Curtis, “Siza,” 44. 28 Serra, “Notes,” 180. 29 Bois, “A picturesque,” 32. 30 Serra, “Conversation,” 33. 31 Id., “Notes,” 174. 32 Id., “Questions,” 50. 33 Ewing, “Horizon,” 305.

148 Notes

34 Perec, Species, 37–8. 35 Andresen, M., “Revisiting,” 98. 36 Lucan, “Vacchini,” 39. 37 Masiero, “Prima e dopo,” 16. 38 Landauer, “Seuil,” 24. 39 Hubert, “Lithiques,” 85. 40 Zumthor, Hauser, 56. 41 Ibid., 21. 42 Beck and Cooper, Murcutt, 124.

6 Elemental forms: Platform. Wall. Retaining wall. Footbridge. Inclined plane

1 Miles, “Cool,” 61. 2 Curtis, Modern, 469. 3 Berger, Opere, 40. 4 Beck and Cooper, Murcutt, 43. 5 Byrne, “Coordinamento,” 102. 6 A. Smithson, “Landscape,” 83. 7 Sheridan, “Constructed,” 45. 8 Ibid., 55. 9 Utzon, “Platforms,” 113–41. 10 see Frampton, Studies, 247–98. 11 Weston, “Utzon,” 251. 12 Curtis, Modern, 542. 13 Siza, “Immaginare,” 37. 14 de Sola Morales, “House,” 101. 15 Aparicio, “Horizonte,” 36–7. 16 Auster, Music, 55. 17 Wrede, Asplund, 192. 18 Treib, “Inflected,” 72. 19 Rosa, Frey, 62.

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 20 Ibid., 71. 21 Blaser et al., Piano, 77. 22 Curtis, “Siza,” 42. 23 Ando, “Wall,” 12–13. 24 Neumeyer, “Mies,” 155. 25 Diethelm, “Foundation-Plinth,” 157. 26 Croset, “Teatrino,” 18–25. 27 Sharr, “Bridge,” 46–9. 28 Adria, “Klotz,” 13. 29 Oechslin, “Botta,” 125. 30 Curtis, Modern, 503.

149 Notes

31 Jackson, Ellwood, 168. 32 Pérez-Méndez, Ellwood, 248.

7 Images and metaphors: Feet on the ground. Anchoring. Roots. Clouds

1 Irace, Botta, 29. 2 Blaser et al., Piano, 77. 3 Futagawa, “Piano,” 210. 4 Id., “Ando,” 36. 5 Perec, Species of spaces, 38. 6 Hines, Neutra, 109. 7 Ibid., 205. 8 March and Sheine, Schindler, 119. 9 Riley, “Landscapes,” 99. 10 McCarter, “Usonian,” 253. 11 Trigueiros, Tavora, 90. 12 Frampton, “Holl,” 4. 13 Holl, Anchoring, 9. 14 Id., “Basket,” 90–1. 15 Lamprecth, Neutra, 23. 16 Beck and Cooper, Murcutt, 71. 17 Frampton, Holl, 13. 18 Futagawa, “Holl,” 66. 19 Trigueiros, Tavora, 90. 20 Siza, “Cultural centre,” 10. 21 Neutra, Life and human habitat, 21. 22 Ibid. 23 Blake, Master builders, 370. 24 Smith, Schindler, 164. As the client herself recounts “I had always wanted to live in the sky” and when the architect asked her “how would you like a home made of cobwebs?” she replied asking “how

Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 would you hang up the cobwebs?” Schindler’s reply was “on skyhooks.” 25 Andresen, “Aalto and Utzon,” 25–36. 26 Weston, “Bagsvaerd church,” 278–99. 27 Utzon, “Platforms and plateaus,” 113–41. 28 Treib, “Clouds of concrete,” 165–9. 29 Taylor, “Fragments and clouds,” 142–3. 30 Maki, Buildings, 157. 31 Ciriani, “Entretien,” 221.

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161 Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Image credits

Figure 2.1 Estudio Arquitectura Campo Baeza Figure 2.2 Sean Godsell Architects Figure 2.3 Fundación Alejandro de la Sota Figure 2.4 Shigeru Ban Architects Figure 2.5 Peter Rich Figure 3.1 Neohellenic Architecture Archives Figure 3.2 Madame Yvette Langrand Figure 3.3 Alvaro Siza Figure 3.4 Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro Figure 3.5 Brad Cloepfil and Alliedworks Figure 3.6 Menis Arquitectos SLP Figure 3.7 Eduardo Arroyo/No.mad Arquitectos SLP Figure 3.8 Carlos Ferrater Figure 3.9 Carlos Ferrater Figure 4.1 Alvaro Siza Figure 4.2 César Portela Figure 4.3 Kengo Kuma & Associates Figure 4.4 Mario Botta Architetto Figure 4.5 Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk AS Figure 4.6 Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor Figure 5.1 Gregotti Associati International Figure 5.2 Fundación Alejandro de la Sota Figure 5.3 Estudio Arquitectura Campo Baeza Figure 5.4 Alvaro Siza Figure 5.5 Luigi Snozzi Studio d’Architettura Figure 5.6 Utzon Fonden Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Figure 6.1 Utzon Fonden Figure 6.2 Alvaro Siza Figure 6.3 Jesús Aparicio Estudio de Arquitectura Figure 6.4 Edizioni Clean Figure 6.5 Mario Botta Architetto Figure 6.6 Aurelio Galfetti Figure 6.7 Madame Yvette Langrand Figure 7.1 Edizioni Clean Figure 7.2 Fundaçao Marques da Silva Figure 7.3 Utzon Fonden Figure 7.4 Maki & Associates Thispageintentionallyleftblank Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures

Aalto, Alvar 2, 6, 68, 96, 109; artefact 8, 85, 88, 89, 101–102, Kauttua housing 12, 39; Lyngby 103; link between ground and 1, cemetery 96; Otaniemi Main 2, 4; otherness between nature Hall 129; Saynatsalo Town Hall and 65; relationship between 17, 39; Seynajoki Town Hall 96; nature and 1, 4, 37, 88, 124, 127, Toulo church 129; Villa Mairea 134, 139 115 Artengo, Menis and Pastrana 81; Abalos, Inaki and Herreros, Juan 6 Las Americas pool 81; San Abbé Laugier 137 Miguel El Guincho pool 81; adherence 3, 30, 36, 41 Vallehermosa botanical garden adjacency 2, see also adherence 81 altimetry 71 as found 98, see also objets anchoring 1, 8, 93, 98, 107, 125, trouvés 135–7, 140, 141 Asplund, Gunnar 124; Woodland Ando, Tadao 70, 77, 80, 97, 125; crematorium 12, 124 Chikatsu Museum 77; Church Asplund, Gunnar and Lewerentz, of the water 30; Himeji Children Sigurd 122; Woodland cemetery Museum 125; Himeji Museum chapel 122 of Literature 77; Kumamoto atmospheric agents 7, 80, 81, 85 Tombs Museum 78; Matsumoto Auster, Paul 124 house 125; Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum Ban, Shigeru 61; Hannover Pavilion 34–5, 80, 88; Rokko I housing 61; Villa Kuru 125; Wall-less 134; Shizuoka Izu complex 97 house 62 Aparicio, José: Horizon house 124, Barragan, Luis 120 124 Berger, Patrick 108; UEFA Aranda, Pigem and Vilalta 77; headquarters 41, 108; Rennes Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 Fussol sports field 77 School of Architecture 120 archaeological: exploration 73; site between earth and sky 8, 109–111, 61 117 archetype 120, 121, 137 Botta, Mario 108; Monte Tamaro architect arpenteur 67, 69 Chapel of Santa Maria degli architectural promenade 8, 71, Angeli 36, 96, 97, 127, 133; Riva 111–2, 116, 117 San Vitale house 127, 127 Arets, Wiel 65 boundary: between architecture Arroyo, Eduardo 82; New East- and land art 79; between wind city 82, 83; Nam June Park construction and ground 115; Museum 82 between earth and water Index

81; between landscape and of 113; movement of 37, 57, 71; architecture 6; between natural occupy the 65; plane 122, profile and artificial landscape 6, 120; of 2, 13, 70; relationship with 23, disciplinary 2, 5–6 25; separation from 30; surface Bryggman, Erik: Turku Resurrection of 3, 7, 41, 56, 68, 70, 71, 133; chapel 13, 98 solidarity between artefact and Burns, Carol J. 2, 90 2; ties with 47, 138; touching the Byrne, Gonçalo: Lisbon Maritime 8, 55, 92 control tower 49, 121 earthwork 8, 76, 77–9, 86, 122 Burri, Alberto: Gibellina Cretto 79 Ellwood, Craig: Pasadena Art Centre 128; San Luis Obispo Cache, Bernard 72, 89 Weekend house 128 Campo Baeza, Alberto 111; de Enhancement 8, 87, 96–8, 103 Blas house 110, 111; Dalmau Ewing, Suzanne 114 house 111; National Museum of excavation 38, 39, 57–8, 76, 98, Maritime Archaeology 56 134; archaeological 116 Careri, Francesco 67 expanded field 5 Chipperfield, David: River and Rowing Museum 38, 49–50 feet on the ground 8, 133, 134–5, Clark and Menafee 91 141 Cloepfil, Brad and Alliedworks: Fehn, Sverre 23, 88, 108; Alvdal Maryhill Overlook 40, 46, 79, 80; Aukrust Museum 119; Fjaerland Siting projects 46, 79 Glacier Museum 119; Hamar cloud 8, 81, 139–40, 141 Archaeological Museum 114; Corner James 6, 85; Mesa Verde Ivan Aasen Centre 43; Nordic longhouse map 85 Pavilion 23; Verdens Ende 88 Croset, Pierre-Alain 71 Ferrater, Carlos: Barcelona Curtis William J. 73, 77, 80, 111, 120 botanical garden 83, 84 Czerniak, Julia 85 floating: attention 75; building 47, 50, 89, 99, 128; cage de la Sota, Alejandro 109; 49; element 29; quality 139; Dominguez house 110, 111; structure 109; syndrome 51 Maravillas gymnasium 23, 40; footbridge 8, 76, 119, 121, 127–8, Ourense student residence hall 131 40, 60 footing 58, 59, 61, 92, 137 dissolution 2, 8, 28, 92–5, 103 foundation 8, 55, 60–1, 66, 138; as Dripps, Robin 55 artificial ground 65; absence of 61; meaning of 56; metaphysical earth 55–9; architecture of 95; as 89; phenomenological 113; material 64, 77; contact with 43, platform as 3, 109, 123; wall 55, 56, 77; continuity between as 15, 98; relationship with Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 building and 11, 36, 92, 115; ground 5, 15, 20, 23, 95, 120; contour lines of 37, 41, 68, 70; relationship with site 25, 33, 61, cooperation with 87, 91; crust 76, 82, 125, 134 of 4, 5, 6, 48, 56, 62, 68, 69, Frampton, Kenneth 76, 77, 111, 135, 71, 120; descent into 76, 116; 137 distinction between building Frey, Albert 124; Palm Spring house and 62, 95; grammar of 68; 124 encounter with 56, 76, 121, 134; fusion 37, 94 see also interlock interaction between building and 39, 116, 119, 125; levelling Galfetti, Aurelio, Ruchat, Flora and the 64, 73; manipulation of 77, Trumpy, Ivo 24, 127; Bellinzona 96; mass of 38, 77; materiality Public Baths 24, 127, 128

166 Index

genius loci 90 handbook 9, 12, 120, 121 geography 1, 5, 76, 108; as Hargreaves, Georges 6, 85; architecture 88–9 Candlestick Point 85 geographic/al: connotation 4, 89; Heidegger, Martin 3, 127 drawing 72; elements 63; map Herzog & de Meuron 51, 65, 100; 70; relationship 83; features 112 Bottimgen house 100; Rudin geology 5, 56, 72, 76, 77, 82 house 38, 51; Schwarz Park geological: drawing 72; elements housing complex 76; Tavole 69, 125; imagination 68, see house 65 also Wright, Frank Lloyd; nature Holl, Steven 3, 16, 89, 106, 135; of ground 56, 62; stratification Berkowitz house 31, 137; 76–7 Turbulence house 106; Y house Girot, Christophe 75 3 Godsell, Sean 58; Baxter Hølmebakk, Carl Viggo: Woodleigh school 59 Sohlbergplassen viewing Grafton architects: Milan Bocconi platform 99, 99 University 52 history 5, 75, 76, 77, 120, 135 gravity 8, 105, 106–7, 111, 113, 117 horizon 8, 105, 106, 107–8, Gregotti, Vittorio 1, 108; Cefalù 113, 117; creation of 121; housing complex 108, 108 establishing the 88; experience ground 36–7, 55, 56–8, 66, 105–9; of 122; line of 2, 106; moving above the 95; artificial 8, 41, 113–4; relationship between 64–5, 66, 114, 122; as base of building and 89, 124, 126, 139 architecture 62; connection horizontal: band 122; circulation with 16, 92; constructed 6, 129; 129; cut 28; element 29, 76; continuity between artefact and expansion 82; field 114; level 4; depth of 62; detachment from 76; line 8, 77, 105, 107–8, 111, 22, 125, see also separation; 125; path 121; plane 22, 41, distinction between earth and 45, 47, 51, 63, 94, 109, 111, 95; encounter with 2–3, 4, 115, 119, 123; platform 40, 123; 7–8, 11, 13, 55, 61, 92, 101; relationship between vertical figuring the 85; as foundation and 129; slab 109; surface 51, 20, 33, 56; ground-hugging 4; 112 investigation of 73; as layer horizontality 114, 124 63; level of 43, 70, 73; line of 2, 134; manipulation of 5, 6, inclined plane 8, 119, 129–30, 131 45; as material 6; as mental interlock 2, 3, 30, 36–7, 40 construction 56; movement of 2, inventive analysis see Bernard 39, 91; off the 12, 22, 30, 32, 49, Lassus 74 56, 130; natural 64; profile of 82; relationship between building Jacobsen, Arne 43, 122; Bellavista Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 and 2, 22, 23, 25, 29, 47, 53, 82, complex 43; Munkegaard school 96; relationship with 1–5, 61, 18, 122; Rodovre City Hall 43, St 68, 89, 101, 134, 137; separation Catherine College 122 of 2, 3, 30, 36, 47–8, 51, 116, Jensen, Jan Olav and Skodvin, 121, 127; solidarity between Børre: Mortensrud church 44, construction and 12, 28, 32; 100, 100 surface of 94; touching the 1, 4, Johnson, Philip 49 8, 9, 48, 61, 65, 88; undulating 43, 73; urban 63, 76 Klotz, Mathias 89, 127 groundwork 15, 115 Konstantidinis, Aris 78 Gubler, Jacques 67 Krauss, Rosalind E. 5

167 Index

Kuma, Kengo 28, 43, 45, 95; Floor Libera, Adalberto: casa Malaparte in the forest house 29; Great 14, 136 bamboo wall house 43, 46; Kiro- Lightness 8, 87, 91–2, 103, 134 San Observatory 28; Kokohi Bath house 28, 95; Nagano Soba Maki, Fumihiko: Tokyo Metropolitan restaurant 29 gymnasium 139, 140; Fujisawa sports complex 140 land: contour 34; form 43; materiality: of the site 5; of the reclamation of 43; impact on encounter 8; of the ground 55; 92 of the intervention 76; of the land art 5, 79, 105, see also earth earth 113; of architecture 106, art 6 134 landing and grounding 8, 67, 73–5, Mendes da Rocha, Paulo 53, 88; 86 Osaka Brazilian Pavilion 25, 109; landscape: anthropic 95; artificial Sao Paulo Museum of Sculpture 6, 85, 95 ; continuity between 109 construction and 96, 125; Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 2, 49, dynamic 81; experience of 113, 78; Farnsworth house 15, 49; 116, 121; explanation of 135; Illinois Institute of Technology extension of 93; interpretation 63, Resor house 49; Riehl house 68, 90, 135; intervention in 125; Wolf house 78 79; manipulation of 77, 84, 96; Miralles, Enric 58, 76, 97 man-made 6; meaning of 2, 5, Miralles, Enric and Pinos, Carme: 81, 82; natural 5; profile of 96; Igualada cemetery 32, 58, 76, relationship between building 97, 111 and 53, 61, 100, 128, 129; Moore, Henry 107 synthetic 6; transformation of Murano, Togo 94; Tanimura 6, 82, 88, 105; urban 76, 96; Museum 94 vocabulary of 122; working 85 Murcutt, Glenn 30, 82, 92, 116, landscape architecture 2, 5, 85; 136; Magney house 30, 89; Ball relationship with land form 78 Eastway house 92, 136; Simpson landscape art 6 Lee house 98; Meagher house language 1, 5, 55, 57, 71–2, 90–1, 33; Ockens house 30 119–20 Lasdun, Denys 76, 122; University Navarro Baldeweg, Juan 63, 123; of East Anglia 76; London Museum of the Altamira cave National Theatre 76 42; Santander house of Rain Lassus, Bernard 74 123; Salamanca Congress Lautner, John 23; Marbrisa house Centre 63 28 Neutra, Richard 2, 61, 68, 78, 101, layer 73, 75–7, 108; of earth 56, 60, 138; Kaufmann house 101, 134; Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 76; of ground 76, 77; horizontal Tremaine house 101, 134; Lovell 119, 121; platform as 121; plinth Health house 101, 136 as 62, 123; sequence of 122, Niemeyer, Oscar 107; Rio Music 129; of soil 77; of stone 31, 96; Education Centre 130; Brasilia superimposed 32, 109 Modern Art Museum 130; Leatherbarrow, David 5, 78 Niterói Contemporary Art Le Corbusier 2, 64, 87, 105, 107, Museum 130; Canoas house 134; La Tourette 19, 22, 88, 107 98; Caracas Contemporary Art lexicon 8–9, 11, 17 Museum 107 Lewerentz, Sigurd 96, 122; Malmö Norberg Schulz, Christian 3 Eastern cemetery 96

168 Index

objets trouvés 8, 87, 98–100, 103 95; relationship with site 78; as O’Donnell, Sheila and Tuomey, John support 39, 129 73; Glucksman Gallery 48 Rich, Peter 63; Limpopo orographic drawing 72 Mapungubwe Interpretation orography 71; modelling of 76 Centre 53, 63, 64 roots 101, 133, 137–8, 141; Pawson, John: Donnelly house relationships with ground 23, 125; house in Germany 47 25, 125, 137; relationships with Pawson, John and Silvestrin, site 8, 63, 99, 100, 133 Claudio: Neuendorf house 125 Perec, Georges 115, 134 Saarinen, Eero 109, see also de la Perugini, Giuseppe, Fiorentino, Sota 110 Mario and Aprile, Nello: Fosse Schindler, Rudolph 2, 20, 34; Harris Ardeatine Mausoleum 16 house 20; King’s road house phenomenological: approach 2, 4, 20, 134; Ellen Janson house 113; perception 120, 135 17, 139; van Patten house 21; Piano, Renzo: Beyeler Foundation Walker house 21; Wolfe house 125, 133–4; Noumea J.M. 21, 34 Tjibaou Cultural Centre 39 section 8, 11–53, 72, 123, 127, 139; Pikionis, Dimitris 68; Ascent to the relationship between site and Acropolis 69, 111 building 2–4, 89, 90 Pingusson, Georges-Henri 22, 116; Semper, Gottfried 77 Paris Deportation Memorial 22, separation 121, 127; between 116 building and ground 2, 30, 36, place: approach to 3, 8; 47–8, 51, 116, 121; between comprehension of 4; description inside and outside 116 of 6; distinction between Serra, Richard 85, 91, 113; Shift art, architecture and 95; 113 features of 72; relationship shifting topography 8, 105, 113–4, between architecture and 3; 117 understanding of 6 Simounet, Roland 57, 69; platform 8, 119–24, 131; as Tefeschoun Sainte Marguerite foundation 3, 123; horizontal Marie church 19, 70, 129; 40; as artificial ground 41; Djenan el Hasan 129; Tananarive raised 50, 121, 139; relationship University residence 129 with ground 57, 76, 77; site 87, 103, 113, 116, 124, 126, relationships with site 40, 88, 129; character of 46, 80; 99, 109, 112, 122, 123–4; as connection with building 16, urban strata 76 87; construction of 73, 75, 78; plinth 8, 55, 62–3, 66; as artificial discovery of 68, 72, 73, 98; ground 65; as platform 30, 57, experience of 113; exploration Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 119, 122, 123; relationship with of 67, 68, 70, 73; extension of ground 23, 105, 129 96; features of 19, 67, 72, 92, 96, Pomodoro, Arnaldo 79; Urbino 98, 102, 135; interpretation of burial zone 79 135; invention of 108; meaning Portela, Cesar 93; Finisterre of 89–91; morphology of 96; cemetery 93, 94 perception of 124; preparation of 78, 95, 135; reading 18, ramp 111, 112, 114, 121, 129–30 82, 121; relationship with 61, Rajchman, John 55 83, 85, 87, 88, 115, 124, 134, Raymond, Antonin 78 137; representation of 67, retaining wall 8, 119, 125–6, 130; 75, 97; selection of 87, 88; relationship with ground 84, transformation of 71, 74, 79, 85,

169 Index

88, 105, 125; understanding of Tezuka, Takaharu and Yui: 75, 82, 90, 92, 97 Matsunoyama Museum of Siza Alvaro 73, 74, 74; Bonaval Park Natural Sciences 82 111, 112; Boa Nova Tea House threshold 8, 105, 115–6, 117 24, 111, 112; Leça de Palmeira Tiberghien, Gilles 67 swimming pool 76, 92, 93, 112, topographic/al: footprint 77; map 125; Malagueira 73; Marco 71, 72, 82; sensibility 1, 68, 71, de Canavezes church 123, 77, 82 123; Quinta da Conceiçao 76; topography 4–9, 67, 70–2, 86, 93; Serralves Foundation 112 artificial 6, 95, 129; conflict Smithson, Alison 122 with 17; definition of 7, 72; Smithson, Alison and Peter: Upper features of 1, 9, 15, 101, 120; Lawn Pavilion 20, 98 interpretation of 71; invention Smithson, Robert 57, 58, 68, 113 of 6, 65, 71, 74, 96; meaning of Snozzi, Luigi 25, 61, 71–2; Diener 5, 71, 80, 111; reading 75, 85, house 33, 112; Kalman house 111, 116; relationship between 127 building and 17, 32, 41, 87, 88, soil: definition of 57; as material 91, 98, 124, 137; relationship 63; movement of 38, 39, 57, between ground and 43, 63; 58, 77, 98, 129; relationship relationship between site and between building and 3, 135, 113, 120; representation of 3, 138; touching the 53 11, 68, 70, 82; respect of 45, 72; Soutinho, Alcino 95 transformation of 71, 84, 105, Souto de Moura, Eduardo 78, 91, 111, 123; understanding of 69, 120, 126; Baiao house 126; 72, 82 Braga Stadium 102; Moledo topomorphy 71 house 126; Oporto Cultural Treib, Marc 124 Centre 138; Ponte de Lima two houses 45, 101 Underwood, David 98 strata 8, 31, 67, 76–7, 86; Utzon, Jørn 115, 120, 122, 139; conformation of 68; relationship Bagsværd church 115, 115, between 2 139; Bayview house 139; Sidney Opera House 26–7, 139; tabula rasa 90, 98 Silkeborg Museum 122 Tavora, Fernando 88, 106, 135; Coimbra Law Faculty 106; Vila Vacchini, Livio 116; Costa di Tenero Nova de Gaia Cedro school 20, house 116; Losone sport hall 37, 137, 138 116 terrain 41, 56–8, 84, 99, 113, van Gameren, Dick: Addis Ababa 122, 127; built and unbuilt 5; Dutch Embassy 50–1 configuration of 70, 77, 107, 92, Venezia, Francesco 136 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016 129; conformation of 6; contour Venezia, Francesco, Collovà, lines of 68, 70, 129; depth of Roberto and Aprile, Marcella: 114; discovery of 67–8; features Salemi Open air theatre 29, 126, of 78, 88, 89, 98; form of 1, 125; 126 measure of 124; modelling 78, vertical: beam 138; dimension 113; 96, 126; movement of 15, 43; element 94, 114; line 8, 105; penetration into 60; profile of load 4, 60, 64, 109; plane 114; 25, 40, 45, 82, 96, 114, 120, 129; relationship between horizontal reading of 75; survey of 67–9; 129; structure 77; support 34, touching the 53; transformation 50, 61 of 88, 92, 93, 129 verticality 113

170 Index

Vilanova Artigas, Joao Baptista 107; Wright, Frank Lloyd 2, 62, 68, 91, Sao Paulo School of Architecture 107, 115, 138; Fallingwater 11, 21, 107 98; Herbert Jacobs house 135; vocabulary 3, 7, 57–8, 120, 122, 138 Johnson Wax headquarters Tower 138; Lansing house 115, wall 8, 73, 124, 131; absence of 134; Natural Life Insurance 139; as connection 114; as building 138; Ocatilla camp 91; mass 106; meaning of 120–1, San Marcos in the Desert resort 124–5; relationship with ground 33; Solar Hemicycle 38; Taliesin 61, 92, 94, 114; relationship West 68 with site 25, 73, 77, 98, 119; as support 33, 38, 64, 92, 95, 139; Yourcenar, Marguerite 87 treatment of 4 walking as aesthetic tool 67 Zumthor, Peter 32, 116; Barbian, water and air 8, 67, 82–5, 86 Briol hotel, 32; San Benedigt Weston, Richard 122 chapel 31, 116; Shelter for the Whiting, Sarah 63 Roman ruins 116; Topographie Williams, Amancho: Bridge house des Terror 32; Vals Thermal 15, 128 Baths 31 Wines, James and Site 94: Peekskill Melt 95 Downloaded by [New York University] at 15:00 16 August 2016

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