pbcRRD 7/26/02 10:54 AM Page 1 Uncommon Ground Architecture, Technology, and Topography David Leatherbarrow Although both are central to architecture, siting and construction are often treated as separate domains. In Uncommon Ground, David Leatherbarrow illuminates their relationship, focusing on the years between 1930 and 1960, when utopian ideas about the role of technology in building gave way to an awareness of its disruptive impact on cities and culture. He examines the work of three architects: Richard Neutra, Antonin Raymond, and Aris Konstantinidis, who practiced in the United States, Japan, and Greece respectively. UNCOMMON Leatherbarrow rejects the assumption that buildings of the modern peri- od, particularly those that used the latest technology, were designed with- out regard to their surroundings. Although the prefabricated elements used in the buildings were designed independent of siting considerations, archi- tects used these elements to modulate the environment. Leatherbarrow shows how the role of walls, the traditional element of architectural defin- ition and platform partition, became less significant than that of the plat- forms themselves—the floors, ceilings, and intermediate levels. Arguing that the boundary between inside and outside was radically redefined, Leatherbarrow challenges cherished notions about the autonomy of the architectural object and about regional coherence. UNCOMMON GROUND UNCOMMON GROUND GROUND David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chairman of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He is ARCHITECTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND TOPOGRAPHY the coauthor of Surface Architecture (MIT Press, 2002) and On Weathering (MIT Press, 1993). LEATHERBARROW “The interwoven roles of site, technology, and topography in the art of architecture are examined in this fascinating look at the structures in which we live and work.” —Forecast “[Uncommon Ground] corrects the distorted view that modern architects The MIT Press were insensitive to the physical context of their buildings.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology —Herbert Muschamp, New York Times DAVID LEATHERBARROW Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu 0-262-62161-4 ,!7IA2G2-gcbgbi!:t;K;k;K;k UNCOMMON GROUND UNCOMMON GROUND ARCHITECTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND TOPOGRAPHY DAVID LEATHERBARROW THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND © 2000 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Garamond 3 by Graphic Composition, Inc. and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leatherbarrow, David. Uncommon ground : architecture, technology, and topography / David Leatherbarrow. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-12230-8 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Building sites—Planning. 2. Architecture and technology. 3. Architecture— Environmental aspects. 4. Neutra, Richard Joseph, 1892–1970—Criticism and interpreta- tion. 5. Raymond, Antonin, 1888–—Criticism and interpretation. 6. Ko¯nstantinide¯s, Are¯s, 1913–—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. NA2540.5´ .L433 2000 720—dc21 00-038005 CONTENTS PREFACE vi ONE INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AND ITS HORIZONS 2 TWO BUILDING LEVELS 25 THREE BACK TO FRONT, OR ABOUT FACE 71 FOUR THE TOPOGRAPHICAL HORIZON OF DWELLING EQUIPMENT 119 FIVE IN AND OUTSIDE OF ARCHITECTURE 170 SIX THE PLAY OF ARTICULATION 213 SEVEN CONCLUSION 269 NOTES 285 INDEX 294 PREFACE In this book I consider two topics that are central to architectural work: the construction and siting of buildings. Few, I suspect, would doubt their cen- trality, even necessity; it is virtually impossible to imagine an architectural setting that is neither built nor located somewhere. While plainly important, these topics are not, however, plainly understood when considered together; in design and discourse they are normally treated as globally different areas of thought and responsibility. Irretrievably lost in this division are the continu- ities and conflicts that define every setting’s theme and purpose. Two previous books have prompted this one. The first, On Weathering, examined the relationship between the building and its natural context, the context in which the building completes itself over time, by design and unexpectedly. The second book, on architectural cladding, studies the impact of modern construction technology on the building’s surfaces, questioning whether production determines representation. Standing between these two, the study presented here considers the relationships between the building’s context and construction; my thesis is that place and production, or topogra- phy and technology, are in conflict in late modern architecture, because while the technical objects incorporated into buildings are conceived independently of territorial considerations, constructed buildings never are. Thus a paradox and a question: does global technology destroy topographical coherence and cultural continuity? The answer would seem to be yes if one holds that cul- tures locate themselves in settlements characterized by permanence and speci- ficity — traditional cities — for the installation of elements with no territorial obligations always disrupts traditional patterns. Because stable settlements are the framework of culture, and culture of patterns of life, continuity must be reconsidered in a time when global technology cannot be avoided. Present concerns about construction and siting have historical ante- cedents and geographical variation. In this book I study the middle decades of this century, roughly from 1930 to 1960. During this period the early vi PREFACE twentieth-century utopian and ideological advocacy of industrialized build- ing gave way to the struggle for its realization, a struggle that led to serious reflection on the whole enterprise, precisely because of the difficulty of its re- alization and its disruptive impact on cities and culture. This study is also limited geographically, but not to one region. While the problems being ad- dressed are faced to different degrees throughout the world, I focus on three cultural contexts only, the United States, Japan, and Greece: three that have had distinct settlement patterns and labor traditions, three that have mod- ernized themselves differently. Contextual differences help me formulate the range and nature of responses to the issues facing construction and location in an age dominated by technological modalities of thought. To study the relationships between building and siting in these loca- tions I have focused on the work of three architect-authors: Richard Neutra, Antonin Raymond, and Aris Konstantinidis, who practiced in the United States, Japan, and Greece respectively. These three, who are not generally ranked as heroic figures in histories of the modern movement, have been se- lected for two reasons: the quality and concerns of their built and written work, and the fact that their concerns were shared by others who practiced at the same time in the same regions, others who acknowledged the exigencies of industrial building while accepting the constraints and opportunities of the places in which they worked. While distinct, the three are thus represen- tative. Each of them has been variously studied in existing scholarship. On Neutra, by far the most widely known of the three, there exist a few mono- graphs, including the authoritative book by Thomas Hines, and many ar- ticles. Antonin Raymond, who worked in partnership with Noémi Raymond, has been the subject of just a few papers, journals, and a Ph.D. dissertation. Konstantinidis has been studied even less, mostly in articles by Kenneth Frampton and Sokratis Georgiadis. Existing studies have not considered my question: how the conflict between technology and topography in late mod- ern architecture was understood and addressed. As I studied the buildings and writings of these architects, and this period generally, I observed important changes in the ways buildings were designed and considered. Despite what has been frequently said about the vii PREFACE objectlike character of modern buildings, these were carefully attuned to their locations, but not in traditional ways, nor without consequences for the build- ing itself. The book’s chapters describe these consequences. The first chapter after the introduction shows that walls, the traditional element of archi- tectural definition and platform compartition, came to have less a role in de- fining settings than the platforms themselves, the floors, ceilings, and intermediate levels. This use of the building’s levels meant that architectural boundaries became akin to other (and unbuilt) topographical modulations. Platform thinking thus inaugurated field understanding. Chapter 3 shows that in this period architectural frontality came to be replaced by the build- ing’s four-sided extension into the surrounding milieu, putting in place of the front the kind of configuration that is characteristic of the back, substituting for the building’s pictorial aspect a “practical” spatiality. I distinguish the space of dispersed fragments from the recessive substrate that occasions their emergence. The fourth chapter reverses the outward movement described in the third; I consider the interior furnishings and equipment of the