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| 5 -
The Importance of Place |
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| Another
aspect of place is the manner in which buildings are
constructed. This includes the materials, their
arrangement and composition, and the amount of
craftsmanship. Through time, these buildings form the
norm against which new buildings are conceived,
constructed, and evaluated by that society. Several
aspects make up the manner of construction, including
relative wealth of a society, the amount of
industrialisation, and social stratification. The norm is
formed partially by habit, but also by virtue that
buildings constructed in that manner are more readily
achievable in that society, due to the social and
technological infrastructure. Each in turn then
reinforces the other. The materials used in construction have often materials that were readily available. These materials then form part of the tradition, and can be seen in vernacular and ‘designed’ architecture. A desert fortress in Morocco (fig 29) is built with indigenous masonry. The western United States is plentiful with timber, and buildings constructed of wood frame are common (fig 26). Much of England has a strong tradition of stone and masonry construction (fig 27). These materials, being in common use will become a norm used by people in considering a place. However, the materials of a place go beyond strict supply and demand equations. More importantly is the acceptance of a norm of the materials. These then begin to have associations and references that are common among the society, e.g., that a stone house represents ‘home’ and ‘solidity’, or that glass and steel are ‘free, modern and open’. To the extent that the materials are indigenous, this is one element of many that begins to contribute to a uniqueness of place. The psychological component of a house has been explored in depth by Gaston Bachelard. He argues that our first houses, when we are young, form a psychological base that we use later in life when we evaluate not only our homes, but our place in the world. Without going further into these arguments, the point I wish to extract is that the feel of a place, whether it be in materials, style of construction, etc forms a part of the collective subconscious of that society. While these materials or style of construction may exist for very practical reasons, e.g., availability of materials, climate, etc., these practical reasons are then further reinforced by psychological reasons as the society builds new spaces for itself. These psychological reasons are often more powerful that strictly practical reasons, as demonstrated by the example (later in this paper) of the urban siting of the Berlin Philharmonic Hall. The concept of place includes private, public and urban spaces. As the concept of what is meant by private, public, and urban changes through time, so will change the nature of the resulting places. Figs 32 and 33 show the Piazza del Campo in Sienna, and mid-town Manhattan. The way that people interact is different. In Sienna, the piazza is a communal space where people can gather, and it is a focus of the community. New York urban spaces are less communal, by which I mean that in public life there is less direct interaction between people. The streets are more of a means of getting from one place to another. Sienna is integrated into the natural environs whereas Manhattan is a man-made construct whose references are not oriented in nature. While the physical environment will influence people’s actions, it was rather people’s actions that influenced the design of these public spaces. The built environment will concretise the values held by that society. Cultural institutions such as courts, museums, hospitals, schools, libraries, etc exist because they are in accordance with the value systems of those elements of society that have the power to see their implementation, either directly or indirectly. The design of each institution, in turn, is influenced by these values. The role of the afterlife, and the concept of a ruler as a god strongly define Egyptian monuments such as Queen Hatshepsut’s temple and the temple of Abu Simbel (figs 30 and 31). An important function of places and buildings is to provide a psychological anchor between the individual and the world. Without this connection, the individual is rootless and feels ‘out of place’. These concretised spaces provide a tactile link to the outside world. Together with social relations with other humans beings, this forms the mediating link between the individual and the outside world. |
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| Fig 30 - Funerary temple of Queen Hatshepsut | Fig 31 - Painting of Abu Simbel | Fig 32 - Piazza del Campo, Sienna | Fig 33 - New York City |
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