4 - The Importance of Place

4 - The Importance of Place

Architecture is grounded in the physical world. The place and situation of a building is intimately related to the interpretation of the building.

Consider Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. Wright was preoccupied with rooting his buildings to the earth, and he used architectural devices such has horizontal planes, sheltering roofs, and masonry fireplaces to achieve these ends. Le Corbusier, on the other hand, sought to emphasise the rational and ordered aspects of the Villa Savoye by structuring and framing one’s perception of the natural environment in a very deliberate fashion. The important point however is that neither building, despite their very different underlying ideologies, can escape the grounding and reference given to them by the physical environment in which they are in. The architecture mediates between the person and the physical environment in different ways in both buildings, but either way, the physical environment is an element to which the buildings must respond to in some fashion.

The grounding of the physical world will influence the development of a place. The towns of Clisson in France and Anticoli Corrado in Italy are examples of densely developed towns that have grown out of a natural setting. The physical setting materially contributes to the identity and growth of the town. An internal order in harmony with the physical surroundings is developed that then influences growth and evolution. Important also is that these towns developed ‘organically’ over the course of time, and are not the designed work of lone individuals. By developing in this fashion, there is a collective consciousness and memory that is developed and physically recorded. This then influences further growth and development.

The concept of place is multi-faceted. The above passages have discussed the aspect of place and how it is situated in the world. Other aspects of place have to do with society, culture, and values.

A society develops in a place. Without the grounding of place, a society is not rooted. A society that can exist in all places is a society that exists in no place. Without this grounding, a sense of alienation can exist. Arguably, there are elements of western society that are becoming similar across countries due to the influence of mass culture, however, there is a greater part of society that is unique in its identity. This uniqueness is part of the society’s memory. Without the grounding of place, this memory would not exist.

This societal memory will strongly influence the man-made environment. Some aspects of this memory will relate to the physical characteristics of the place. For example, light is a precious resource in the Scandinavian countries, and there are similarities in approaches between Scandinavian architects. Alvar Aalto’s Seinajoki library is characteristic of many of these attributes. Light is a precious resource whose presence is of fundamental importance in the experience of the building (figs 22, 23). Contrast this to buildings in the Latin countries, where the colour temperature and amount of light are very different than in the Scandinavian countries. Mexican architects such as Luis Barragan (figs 19, 20) and others have built a number of projects where strong and vivid colours are integral aspects of the design. In these places, light is strong and plentiful. The appearance and feel between the Mexican and Scandinavian buildings is readily apparent.