Architecture as Identification of Place Reference for Welsh farm- Place is to architecture,it may there will be places proposed by houses: be said,as meaning is to lan- the designer,and places created Royal Commission on An- guage.Learning to do architec- by adoption by the users,(these cient and Historical Monu- ture can seem to be like learning may or may not match).Unlike ments in Wales-Glamorgan: to use language.Like language a painting or a sculpture,which Farmhouses and Cottages, architecture has its patterns and may be said to be the intellec- 1988. arrangements,in different com-tual property of one mind,ar- binations and compositions as chitecture depends upon circumstances suggest.Signifi- contributions from many.The cantly,architecture relates di-idea of architecture as identifi- rectly to the things we do;it cation of place asserts the in- The inside of this Welsh farm- changes and evolves as new,or dispensable part played in house can be compared with the reinterpreted,ways of identify-architecture by the user as well beach camp on the previous ing places are invented or re-as the designer;and for the de- page.The places of the beach fined. signer who will listen,it asserts camp have been transposed into Perhaps most important, that places proposed should ac- a container which is the house thinking of architecture as iden- cord with places used,even if it itself.Although such images can tification of place accommo- takes time for this to happen; feed our romantic ideas of the dates the idea that architecture So called 'traditional'ar- past,the architecture itself was, is participated in by more than chitecture is full of places before it became anything else, the individual.In any one ex- which,through familiarity a product of life. ample(a building for instance) and use,accord well with us- ers'perceptions and expecta- tions.The illustration on this page shows the interior of a Welsh farmhouse (the upper floor has been cut through to show some of the upstairs room).The places that are evi- dent can be compared directly with those in the beach camp shown on the opposite page. The fire remains the focus and a place to cook,though there is now also an oven-the small arched opening in the side wall of the fireplace.The 'cup- board'to the left of the picture is actually a box-bed.There is another bed upstairs,posi- tioned to enjoy the warm air rising from the fire.Under that bed there is a place for storing and curing meat.There is a set- tle to the right of the fire (and a mat for the cat).In this exam- ple,unlike the beach camp,all these places are accommodated within a container-the walls 15
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Analysing Architecture and roof of the house as a whole and whose activities have prac- (which itself,seen from the out-tical requirements;who see side,becomes a place identifier meaning and significance in the in a different way). world around them. Although nobody is shown Such is no more than a re- in the drawing,every one of the minder of the simple and basic places mentioned is perceived in conditions under which we all terms of how it relates to use, live,and within which architec- occupation,meaning.One ture must operate.There are projects people,or oneself,into however other general themes the room,under the blankets of that condition the operation of the bed,cooking on the fire,architecture.Just as the lan- chatting by the fire-side....Such guages of the world have their places are not abstractions such common characteristics-a vo- as one finds in other arts;they cabulary,grammatical struc- are an enmeshed part of the real tures,etc.-so too does world.At its fundamental level architecture have its elements, architecture does not deal in patterns,and structures (both abstractions,but with life as it physical and intellectual). is lived,and its fundamental Though not as open to power is to identify place. flights of imagination as other arts,architecture has fewer lim- Conditions of architecture its.Painting does not have to In trying to understand the take gravity into account;mu- powers of architecture one must sic is solely aural.Architecture also be aware of the conditions is however not constrained by within which they are employed. the limits of a frame;nor is it Though its limits cannot confined to one sense. be set,and should perhaps al- What is more,while mu- ways be under review,architec-sic,painting and sculpture ex- ture is not a free art of the mind.ist in a way separate from life, Discounting for the moment in a transcendent special zone, those architectural projects that architecture incorporates life. are designed never to be real-People and their activities are ised,as conceptual or polemic an indispensable component of statements,the processes of ar-architecture,not merely as spec- chitecture are operated in (or tators to be entertained,but as on)a real world with real char-contributors and participants. acteristics:gravity,the ground Painters,sculptors,com- and the sky,solid and space,the posers of music,may complain progress of time,and so on. about how their viewers or au- Also,architecture is oper- dience never see or hear their art ated by and for people,who in quite the same way as it was have needs and desires,beliefs conceived,or that it is inter- and aspirations;who have aes-preted or displayed in ways that thetic sensibilities which are affect its innate character,but affected by warmth,touch, they do have control over the odour,sound,as well as by essence of their work;and that visual stimuli;who do things,essence is,in a way,sealed 16
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Architecture as Identification of Place hermetically within the object:in infinite different ways.And the musical score,the covers of just as there are many reli- a book,or the picture frame.But gions and many political phi- even the essence of architecture losophies,there are many is penetrated by the people divergent ways in which archi- whose activities it accommo-tecture is used.The organisa- dates,which can change it. tion and disposition of places [Architecture has also been is so central and important to compared with film-making-the ways in which people live an art form that incorporates that it has through history be- people,place,and action come less and less a matter of through time.But even in film laissez faire,more and more the director is in control of the subject to political control. essence of the art object through People make places in the control of plot,sets,cam- which to do the things they do era angles,script,etc.,which is in their lives-places to eat,to not the case in architecture.]sleep,to shop,to worship,to The conditions within argue,to learn,to store,and so which one can engage in archi-on and on.The way in which tecture are therefore complex,people organise their places is perhaps more so than for any related to their beliefs and their other art form.There are the aspirations,their world view. physical conditions imposed by As world views vary,so does ar- the natural world and how it chitecture:at the personal level; works:space and solid,time,at the social and cultural level; gravity,weather,light....There and between different sub-cul- are also the more fickle politi-tures within a society. cal conditions provided by the Which use of architecture interactions of human beings prevails in any situation is individually and in society. usually a matter of power- Architecture is inescap- political,financial,or that of ably a political field,in which assertion,argument,persua- there are no incontrovertible sion.Launching design into rights and many arguable conditions like these is an ad- wrongs.The world around venture only to be undertaken can be conceptually organised by the brave-hearted. 17
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BASIC ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE
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BASIC ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE Now that we have sorted out a said that the following list is working definition of architec- complete,but at the most basic ture and its fundamental pur- level this palette includes: pose-conceptual organisation, and identification of place-we defined area of ground can begin to look at the 'mate- rials'that are available to us in doing architecture. These are not the physical materials of building-bricks and mortar,glass,timber,etc.- but the conceptual elements of architecture.And they should be considered not as objects in themselves,but in the ways in which they contribute to the identification (or making)of The definition of an area of ground is fundamental to the places. identification of many if not most types of place.It may be no more than a clearing in the forest,or it may be a pitch laid out for a football game.It may be small,or it may stretch to the horizon.It need not be rectan- In physical terms the pri- gular in shape,nor need it be mary elements of architecture level.It need not have a precise are the conditions within which boundary but may,at its edges, it operates(which have already blend into the surroundings. been mentioned).Principally these include:the ground,which raised area,or platform is the datum to which most prod- ucts of architecture relate;the space above that surface,which is the medium that architecture moulds into places;gravity; light;and time (few examples of architecture can be experienced as a whole all at one time;proc- Opposite Page: esses of discovery,approach, entry,exploration,memory,etc. Places can be identified by a are usually involved). range of basic elements: Within these conditions A raised platform creates a level defined areas of ground, the architect has a palette of horizontal surface lifted above walls,platforms,columns, conceptual materials with the natural ground.It may be roof,door... which to work.It cannot be high or low.It may be large-a
Copyright ?1997. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Unwin, Simon(Author). Analysing Architecture. London, UK: Routledge, 1997. p 19. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sjtu/Doc?id=10057283&ppg=20