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    Genius Loci Towards A Phenomenology of Architecture Part1 - PDF

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    NORBERG Scuutz PENPS REA ewgoror Rizzgous EDINSURCH COLLEGE OF ANT Libharr PREFACE, “Logi isdaubless unskakable, nut eanauot wikhsrane amanho wants Franz Kafka: Phe Trial Tse present Book forins + sequel ta my! theoretical works Mutentions ire Architec~ ie (1963) and Existence, Space and Arciytectare (1971). te 1s also related 10 ry historical study Meaniveg én Westerns Architecture (1973). Comman a all of them is the view that architecture fepresents means 0 give man an "exisemiial foothold” My primary: aim is therefore c investigate the psscbic implications of architecture rather tham ity practical. side, although [certain EI a se as onsen ip benween the ewo aspects, In frten- fions im Avchitecaure the practical, “functional”, dimension way in fact discussed as part of a comprehensive system. Ar the sime time, however, the book stewed that the “eaviumment Influences human beings, and thi plies that the purpose of architcccure Ieanscends the defisition given by early funciionalism”, A therough discassion of perepion an sprboliaion way included, and it was etn oe thee man cannot gain a foot iold chrough scientific understanding alone. He needs synebots, that is, works ‘of art which “represent “ife-situations”, ‘The conception of the work of art ax a “conerenzacion” of a life-situation is ‘mgintained in the present book, It is one ‘of the hasic needs of man to experience his fifesituations as meaningful, and the ‘purpose of the work of acts % “keep” And transmit meanings. The concept of “meaning”was. also introduced in fu- fontions 19 Arelntectare. In general, the early book aimed at understanding ar cchitecture in concrete “architectural” terms, an aim which 1 sul consider pascal important. To ans can sion is created codiy by those who talk about everything else when they Deion Maen fore reflect a belief in architecture; T do ‘not accept that architecture, verncolar ‘oe monumental, is a hixary Or perhaps 3 something which iS made “Wo impress the populace” (Ray art}. There are not different “kinds” re aitecture, but only different situations which. requice different solutions in order to satisly inan's physical and psychic needs My genera am, sid approach has the same ia all the bey mentioned above. As tinte has: however, st certain change in Inethod has become manifest. In In- jentions in Archetecture art and ar chitecture were analyzed “scientifically”, thar is, by means of | cpenhae taken over fran mural sere do no shin eat this approash o wrong. but toy fo mnhee Revie ieee urna when we treat architecture analytically, we iniss the cowerete environmental cha- raver, thal is the very quality which is eet wisi dete nih emetea el ctstigaeet at tee istenrial oki To. overcome this Tack, | introshiced in’ Exslence, Space fd" Architecture the eancepe oF "ex istencial space”. “Existential space is not a legico-machematical term, but comprises. the basic relationships —he- tween man_and his environment. The Dresene book continues the search for foncrae underseanding of the environ tment. The cancepr of existential space fs here divided inthe complementary term space” and “character”, im accordance with the basic psachie fictions “orient and “identification”, Space and sa it are di tw architecture, following the definition ff architecture ay a “concretizstion of existential space", ““Concretization™ is farteenmore explained by means of che concepts of “gathering” and. ‘thing’ The woed “ching” originally meant a gathering, and the meaning of anything consists im what it gathers, Thus Het- Meyer said: “A thing gathers world” jolinow), but Tie pep fot Piacoa fae eet she catalyst wich hay male the present bouk possible and dtermived as ap proach, The wish for “underseandiig archileclure as 4 concrete phenomenon, already expressed in dnrentions in Ars hitectere, could be satisfied in the present wn ae cae a Ssiays on cand aeatheties, ‘have beth salecta and ‘lia aay ee. Eaglsh by \. Hofwadser anguage, Thought, New York First ofall | awe 10, Heidegger concept af iivelling, “Exiseenaal foodile™ and “éwelling” are synonyms, and “dwelling”, in aa existenta sere) fa the prnpeae of arclneetuies Minn dwells when he can orientate himself with and ideatify himself with an cenviminment. of. i shore, wen he ‘experiences tie easironment mean Tul, Dwelling therefore. implies some thing more than “shelter”. Ie irsplies that the spaces where Tile occirs are places, fn the truc sense of the word. A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genins foci, oF “spiric af place”, has bees she concrete reaizy man has m fact and some to terms with in his dally ii Architecture means to visualize hrs loci, and the task of the architect is ro.czeare meaningful places, whereby he ‘helps man to dwell. Lam well aware of che shortcomings of the peetnt book: Many prablems could "he treated in a very sketchy way, ied need further elaboration, The book represen, however, a first sep tosvards 2 “phenomenology of architecture", that isfa thoy which understands dec Here conte, extern The ea of the exten dime: Sion i in fact the main purpose of the prsieat book, Aker decades of abstract, “scientific” theory, it is urgent that we return tm 2 qualitative, phenomenalog- fcal understanding of archivecture, It does not help much to solve practical problems as long as this undersanding is lacking. The book therefore does not treat economies! and social problems ‘The existential dimension is not “deter- mined” by the socio-economical con- ns, although they may facilitate or ¢ the (self-) realization of cert existential steuctures. The socio-econom- ical conditions are like a picture-frame; they offer a certain “space” for life ro take place, bur do not determine its existential "meanings, The existential meanings have deeper roots. They are determined by the sructures of our being-in-tbe- which have been Heidegger in his. classical snd Time” (Soir nl Zeit, ing Dwelling work “Being 1926). In his essay. “Buil “Thinking” (1951), Heidegger moreov related basie existential structures to the functions of building and dwelling, and in “The Thing” (1950) he demonstrated the fundamental importance of the con: cept of “gathering”, Modern architects have in general excluded the existential dimension, although some of them spon- taneously "recognized ity significance Thus Le Corbusier wrote: “The purpose of architecture is to. move us. Are chitectural emotion exists when the work rings within us in tune with a universe whose laws we obey, recognize and respect”. (Vers sme architecture, 1923}, Only with Louis Kahn, however, the existential dimension has regained its true importance, and in his question “what does the building want to be?”, the problem is posed in its essenti form The existential dimension (*truth”) be- comes manifest in history, but its mean- ings transcend the historical situation History, on the ocher hand, only be- comes meaningful if it represents new coneretizations of the existential dimen sion. In general the concretization of the existential dimension depends on how nology”, Louis Kahn includes the “how” of Norural enviconment. In. the present book we have therefore chosen to approach the the existential dimension in terms of place. The place represents architecture's share in wath, The place is the concree manifestation of man’s dwelling, and his identity depends on his belonging to laces Tivant 10 chank all those colleagues and students who have given me inspiration and help. In particular thanks g0 0 my wife Anna Maria De Dominicis for her criticism and untiring help. Because of the composite nature of the book 1 haye not included any bie bliogeaphy. All references are found in the footnotes. Oslo, June 1976 1 PLACE? 1. The Phenomenonof Place Our everyday lifeworld consisis of concrete “phenomena”. It consists of people, of animals, of flowers, trees and forests, of stone, earth, wood and water, of towns,” streets’ and houses, doors, windows and farniture, And it consists. of stun, moon and stars, of drifting clouds, of night and day and changing seasons. Bat it also comprises more intangible phenomena such as feelings. This is what is “given”, this the “coment” of our existence. Thus Rilke asks: “Are we perhaps here 10 say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, jug, frit tree, ‘window, — at’ best: column, Everything else, such a8 atoms and molecules, numbers and all kinds of “data”, are abstractions or tools which are. consiructed to serve other purposes than those of everyday life. Today it is common to gve more jortance to the tools than our life rower." The concrete things which sonstieute our sn world are interrelated in complex and perhaps contradictory ways, Some of the phenomena may. for instance comprise others. The forest consists of trees, and the town is made up of houses. “Landscape” is such a com- prehensive phenomenon. In general we may say that some phetomens form an “environment” toothers. ‘A_concree term for environment is place. Ie is common usage to say that ‘acts and occurrences take place, it is meaningless to imagine any hap- pening without reference to « locality. Place—is_evidently.an_intezral_part-of ‘existence! What, then, do we mean with the word “place? Obviously we mein something ‘more than abstract location. We mean a totality made up of concrete things having material substance, shape, tex ture and colour. Together these :hings determine an “environmental character”, 6 nage 7) 1A winter evening. which is the essence of place, In general a place is given as such a character or “atmosphere”. A place is cherefore a ____ qualitative, “‘otal” phenomenon, which ‘we cannot réduce to any of its proper- ties, such as spatial relationships, with out Tosing is concrete nature out of sight. Everyday experience moreover tells us that different actions need different environments to take place in « satisl= actory way. As a consequence towns id_houses “consist of a multitude of taken into consideration by current theory of planning and archicecture, but so far the problers has heen ereated in a too abstract way. “Taking place” is tially undersea int egan functional” se th implications such as spatial distribution and dimen— sioning. But are not “functious”inter- human and similar everywhere? Evi- dently not, “Similar” functions, even the most basic ones such as. sleeping and cating, take place in very different ways, and demand places with different. pro- erties, in accordance with different cultural traditions and different environ- mental conditions. The functional ap- proach therefore left out the place as a concrete “here” having its particular identity Being qualitative totalities of a complex nature, places .cannot_be described by F analytic, “scientific™ concepts, iter OF principle science “ab- from the given to arrive at neutral, “objective” knowledge What is lost, however, is the everyday Tife-world, concer of man in general and planners and atchiteeis in particular ru _nate "out of the impasse exists that i, the method known as pheno- menology. TPhoromendtogy was conecived asa return to things”, as opposed to. ab- partiGilar places. This fact oF course which ought 6 be the real Upon the able brea stractions and mental constructions. So far phenomenologists have beer. mainly concerned with ontology, psychology, ethics and to some exten: aesthetics, and have given relatively little attention to the phenomenology of the daily. en vironment. 4 few pioneer works. how- exer exist, bur they hardly coniain any direct reference to architecture’. A phenomenology of architeeture is. there fore urgently needed. Some of the philosophers who have approached the problem of our life: ‘world, have used language and litereture as sources of “information”. Poetry in fact is able to concretize those totalities which elude science, and may therefore suggest how we might proceed to obtain the needed. understanding. One of the poems used by Heidegger to explain the nature of language, is the splendid A Winter Evening by Georg Trakl', The words of Trakl also serve our purpose very well, as they make present a total life-sieuation where the aspect of place is strongly felt. AWINTER EVENING. Window with falling snow is arrayed, Long tolls the vesper bell, The house is provided well, The tableis for many laid. Wandering ones, more than a few, Come to the dooron darksome courses. Golden blooms the tree of graces ‘Drawing up the earth’s cool dew. ‘Wanderer quietly steps within; turned the threshold o stone. ‘There lie, in limpid brightness shown, and wine’. We shall not repeat Heidegger's pro- found analysis of the poem, but rather Pint out a. fey, properties hich il luminate our problem. In general, Trakl uses concrete images which we all know from our everyday world. He talks about “snow”, “window”, Shouse”, *“ta- ble", ", “threshold”, “bread and wine", “darkness” and “light”, and he characterizes man_as a “wanderer”, These images, however, also imply more I structures. First of all the poem ishes berween an onside and an The outside is presented in the inside, first two verses of the first stanza, and comprises statural as well as nun-made elements, Natural place is present in the falling snow, which implies winter, and by the evening, The very title of the poem “places” everything in this natural context, A winter evening, however, is something more than a. point inthe calendar. As a concrete presence, it is experienced as a set of particular qua- lities, or in general as a Stimnmung or “character” which forms a background to acts and occurrences. In the poem this character is. given by the _siow falling on the window, cool, soft and soundiess, hiding the contours of those objects which ave still weognized in the approaching darkness. The word “fall- ing” moreover creates a sense of space, or rather: an implied. presence of earth and sky. With a minimum of words Trakl thus brings a total natural en- Vironment t0 life. But the outside also has man-made properties. This is. in- icated by the vesper bell, which is heard everywhere, and makes the “private” inside become part of a com- prehensive, “public” totality. The vesper bell, however, is something more than a practical man-made artifact. It is a symbol, which ceminds us of the com: mon values which are at the basis of that totality. In Heidegger’s words: “The tolling of the evening bell brings mea, as mortals, before the divine™. The inside is presented in’ she next evo verses. It is described as a house, which offers man shelter and security by being enclosed and. “Well provided”. Ie has however a window, an opening which makes us experience the inside as complement to the outside, As a final focus within the house we find the rable, which *is for many laid”. At the table men come together, it is the centre which more than. anything else con- stitutes the inside. The character of the inside is hardly told, but anyhow pre- sent, It is luminous and warm, contrast to the cold darkness outside, and its silence is pregnant with potential sound, In general the inside is a com: rehensible world of things, where the ie of “many” may take pla In the next wo stanzas the perspective is deepened. Here the meaning of places and things comes forth, and man is presented a6 a wanderer on “darksome courses”. Rather than being placed safe- |y withid the house he has created for himself, he comes. from the outside, from the “path of life”, which also fepresents man’s attempt at Corientating” himself in the given unknown environ- ment. But nature also hes another side: offers the grace of growth and blossom. In the image of the “golden” tree, earth and sky are unified and become 2 world, Through man's libour this world ib brought inside as. bre c whereby the inside is thats, becomes meaningful Without the “sacred” fruits of sky and ‘arth, the inside would remain “empty’ The house and the table receiv gather, and bring the world “close”. To dwell ina house sherefore means to inhabit the world. But this dwelling is not easy; ir has to he reached on dark paths, and a threshold separates the Outside from che inside, Represeating the “rife” between “othemess” and mar fest meaning, it embodies suffering and is “urned to stone", In the threshold, thus, the problent of dwelling comes to the fore’ Trakl’s poem illuminates some essential “iluminated”, 5 2. Ousideinsde, on the ground wader the sky Hildebrandt: Gellerstor), Chapel 3. Ontsidesinsde. Gigho Castelo 2 Steommung. Nordic fore near Cele phenomena of our lifeworld, and in particular the basic properties of place. First of all i¢ rel us that every situation is local as well as general. The winter — evening described’ is obviously a local, nordic phenomenon, but_ the implied notions of outside and inside are gener- al, 2 are the meanings connected with The poem hence co properties of existe here-means to make the “viable” as a concrete, local general situation, In doing this, the poem moves in the opposite direction of scientific Ss from thought. Whereas. science de the “given”, poecry brings us concrete things, uncovering the me: ings inherentin the life-world, Furthermore Trak?s poem distinguishes — between natural and man-made cle men's, whereby it suggests a point of departure for an “environmental phe- nomenolog)”. Natural elements are evidently the primary components of the given, and places are in fact usually defined in geographical terms. We must repeat however, that “place” means something more than location, Various attempts at a description. of natural places are offered by current literature on “landscape”, but again we find that the usual approach is too abstract, being based on “functional” or perhaps “visual” considerations’. Again Wwe must turn to philosophy for help. As a first, fundamental distinction Heideg- ger introduces the concepts of “earth” and “sky”, and says: “Earth isthe serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spreading out in rock and water, rising up ino plant and ani “The sky is the vaulting path of the sun, the course of the changing moon, the glitter of the stars, the year's seasons, the light and dusk of day, the gloom and glow of night, the demency and inclemency of the weather, the drifiing clouds and blue depth of the exher. fundamental insights, the di ween earth and sky might seem trivial Its importance however comes out when we add Heidegger's definicon of “dwel- ling’: “The way in which you are and 1 am, the way in which we humans are on th, & dwelling...”. But “on the already ‘andr the sky". He also calls what is between earth and sky the world, and says that “the world is the house where the mortals dwell”? In other words, when man is capable of dwelling the world becomes an “inside”. nature forms an extrnded sl iD leeal Sreurmnaee Ts “particular identity. This identity, or “spirit”, may be described by means of the kind of concrete, “qualitative” terms Heidegger uses to characterize earth and sky, and has to take this fundamental distinetion 4s its_poine of departure. In this way we might arrive at an ex- istencially relevant understanding of landscape, which ought to be preserved as the main designation of natural places. Within the landscape, however, there are subordinate places, 25 well as natural “things” such as Trakl’s “tree”. In these things the meaning of the natural environments “conden The man-made parcs of the environment are first of all “settlements” of different scale, from houses and farms to villages and towns, and secondly “paths” which eonnect these settlements, as well as various elements which transform nature into a “cultural landscape”. If the settiements. are on related 0 their environment, it implies, that they serve as foci where the environment character is condensed and “explained Thus Heidegger says: “The single houses, the villages, the towns. are works of building which within and around themselves gather the mulki- farious inchetween. The buildings bring tee poee or oa close to man, and at the same time place Therefore concentration and enclosure, They are “insides” in, a full sense, whic means that they “gather” what i Known, To fulfill this fanetion they have penines which race to the one ly van fnside can in fact haw openings). Buildings are furthermort related to their environment by rest on the ground and rising towards the, sky. Finally the man-made environments comprise artifacts or “things, which | may. serve as internal foci, and em phasize the gathering function of the” settlement, In-Heidegger’s words: “The thing things world”, sshere “thinging” is used in the original sense of “gathering” and further: “Only what conjoins itsd ‘our of world becomes a thing” Our introductory remarks give several indications about the structure of places. Some of these have already been worked ‘out by phenomenologist. philosophers, and offer good poin: of departure fot more complete phenomenology. ‘A first step is taken with she distinction * of natural and man-made phenomena, for in, concrete terms, between “lands scape” and “settlement”. A second step is represented by the categories of eanh-sky_[horizorcalerertical) and. out side-inside, These categories have spatial implicx tions, and. “space” is hence redntro- duced, not primarily ay a mathemadieal concept, but as en existential. dimen- sion, A final and particularly im porant step is taken with the concept of “character”. Character is determined by how things are, and gives our ite vestigation a. basis inthe concrete phenomena of our everyday lifeworld. ‘Only in this way we may fully grasp the genius loci, the “spirit of place” which 10 the ancients, recognized as that “op- posite” man has 10 come to terms with, lobeableto dwell, 2. The Structure of Place Gur preliminary discussion of the phe- nomena of place led to the conclusion that the structure of place ought to be described in terms of “landscape” and “settlement”, and analyzed by means of the categories “space” and “character”. Whereas “space” denotes the three-di- nization of ‘the elements Which make up a place, “character” denotes the general “atmosphere” which is the most comprehensive property of any place, Instead of making a dis- tinetion between space and character, it is of course possible to. employ one comprehensive concept, such a: “lived space”. For our purpose, however, itis, Practical to distinguish between spac and character. Similar spatial organi tions may possess very differ tas ment of the space-defining elements (the boundary\. In history. the basic spatial forms have been given ever new charac- interpretations", On the other hand it has to be pointed cue that the spatial organization puts certain limits to characterization, and that the two concepts are interdependent. “Space” is certainly no new term in architectural theory, But space can mean. many things, In current literature we may distinguish between two uses: space as threedimensional geometry, and space as percepcval field", None of these however ore satisfactory, being abstractions from the intuitive three dimensional totality of everyday ex perience, which we may call “concrete space’, Concrete human actions in fact donot take place in an homogencous isotropic space, but in e iguhed by qualitative differences, such as “up” and “down”. In architec rm 5. Stinmroug. Desert village outside Khertoun: 6. Inside. Old Norwegian conage, Telemark 7 Subiaco, path of tha minderer, Sacre See tural theory several attempts have been: made to define space in concrete, qualitative terms, Giedion, thus uses he distinesion benveen “outside “inside” as the basis for a grand view of architectural history. Kevin Lynch penetrates deeper into the structere of Concrete space, introducing the cone ipts_of “node” (“landmark”), “path”, ge” and “district”, to denote those elements which form the basis, for men’s orientation in. space’. Paolo Portoghesi finally defines space as a “system of places”, implying that the concep: of space’ has. its roots in concrete situations, although spaces may be described by means of mathe- matics, The later view corresponds to Heidegger's statement. that “spaces receive their being from locations and hot from “space”. The outsidesnside relation which is a primary aspect of concrete space, implies that spaces. pos- ses a varying degree of extension and enclosure. Whereas landscapes are dis- tinguished by a yared, but besically continuous extension, Settlemenis are enclosed entities. Setlement and land- seape therefore have a figure relationship. In general any becomes manifest as a “figure” in. rel ation to the extended ground of the landscape. A settlement loses its ident ity if this relationship is cormupted, just as much as the landscape loses its identity as comprehensive excension. In a wider context any enclosure becomes a centre, which may function as a focus” for its surroundings. From the centre space extends with a varying degree of continuity (thythm) in dife ferent directions. Evidently the main directions are horizontal and vertical that is, the directions of earth and sky. Ceutralization, direction and rhythm ace therefore other important properties of conerete space. Finally it has to be mentioned that natural ele- 12 iments (such as hills) and_ settlements may be clustered or grouped with a varying degree of proximity All the spatial properties mentioned are of a “topological” kind, and correspond to the wellknown “principles oi ganization” of Gestale theory. ‘The prim. ay existential importance of these prin- Giples is confirmed by the researches of Tiager on the child's conception of space’, Geoneirical modes of organization only develop ter in life to serve. particular purposes, and may in general be urder- Sood as'a more “precise” definition of the basic topological structures. The topological enclosure thus becomes a Grcle, the “free” curve a straight line, and the cluster a grid. In architecture geometry is used to make a general eomprehensive system manifest, stich as mic order”. Any enclosure is defined by a boundary. Heidegger says: “A boundary isnot that at which something stops but, as the Grecks recognized, the boundary is t from heh, something. bes sencing”®’, The boundaries of a dui space are known as floor, tall and ailing. The boundaries of a landscape ae structurally similar, and consist of ground, horizon, and sky. This simple Sructural similarity is of basic im- portance for the relationship between 1 natural and man-made places. The en- dosing properties of a boundary are devermined by its openings, as was poetically intuited by Trakl when using the images of window, door and thre- shold. In general the Boundary. and in particular the wall, makes the spatial siructure visible as’ continuous or dis- continuous extension, direction and rhythm, “Character” is at the same dime a more general and a more concrete concept than space’. On the one hand it denows a general comprehensive ac 3 8, Seulement in the landicape. Capractta, emi, 9, Urban inside. Campo, Siena 10, Wall S. Gonignano, Toscana EN i ‘mosphere, and on the other the concrete form and substance of she space-defining elements, Any ceal presence is intimately linked with 2 character. A phen menology of character has to comprise & survey of manifest characters as well investigation of their conerete inanis. We have pointed out that different actions. demand places. with a different 6 A dwelling has to be “protective’, an office “practical”, a ballroom “festive” and a church *so: Clemn. When we visita foreign city, we are usually struck by” its particular character, which becomes an important part of the experience. Landscapes alo possess character, some of which are of & particular “natural” kind. Thus ve talk about “barren” and “Yertile”, “smi ing’ and “threatening” landscapes, in general we have to emphasize that all places have character, and that character is the basic mode in Which the world is “aiven’ To some extent the care of aplace is a function of time; it changss With the seasons, the course of he diy and the weather, factors which above all determine different conditions of light. The character is determined by Ge material and formal constivution of the place. We must therefore ask: how is the ground on which we walk, how is the sky above our heads, or in general; show ate the boundaries which define the place. How a boundary is depends upon its formal articulation, which is again related to che way it is “buile’, Looking at a building fzom this poine of view, we have t0 consider how it rests on’ the ground and how ie rises towards the Particular attention has to be given 10 its lareral boundaries, oF walls, which also contribute decisively co determine the character of the urban environment. We are indebted to Robert Venturi for having recognized this fact, after it had (heen considered for miday yet me 14 moral” talk about “fagades"®”. Usually the character of a “family” of buildings which constitute a place, is *condensed” in characteristic motifs, such as par- types of windows, doors, and roofs, Such motifs may become “con- entional elements”, which serve to transpose a character from one place to Lanotter. In the boundary, thus, charac- ter and space come together, and we may agree with Venturi when he defines architecture as “the wall between the inside and the outside”** Except for the intuitions of Venturi, the problem of character has hardly been considered in current architectural theory. Asa result, theory has to a high extent lost contact with the concrete lfe-world. This is particularly the case with technology, which is today con- sidered a mere means to satisfy practical ‘mands. Character however, depends upon how things are made, is therefore determined by the technical realization (“building”). Heidegger points out thie the Greck word techne meant a creative “re-vealing” (Enther- gen) of truth, and belonged to potesis, that is, ‘maliing™. A_ phenomenology Of place therefore has to comprise the basic modes of construction and. their relationship to formal articulation. Only in this way architectural theory gets a truly concrete basis. The siructure of place becomes manifes 4s environmental oralities. which com- pise the aspects of character and space. Sich places, are known as, “countries”, “regions”, “landscapes”, “settlements and “buildings”. Here we return to the conerete “things” of our everyday i world, which was our point of depar- Are ture, and cemember Rilke’s words We pehaps here to say...” When pla are csi should! therefore terms land” “hay”, “forest”, “grove”, or Ssreet", “courtyard”, “and 15 11, For, Stret in Sermoneta, Lazio 12. Making. St Mary's Wooleoth, London by Haekionoor “wall”, “roof”, “ceiling? ” and “door”, Places are hence designated by mons. This implies that they, are considered real “things that exist”, which is the original meaning of the word “sub- stantive”, Space, instead, as a system of relations, is denoted by prepositions. In four daily: life we hardly talk about “space”, but about things that are “over” ‘or “under”, “before” or “behind” each other, or We use prepositions such as Sav’, Sin", “within”, “on”, “upon”, “to”, “from”, “along”, “next”. “AIL these pre= positions denote’ topological relations of © the kind mentioned beiore. Character, « finally, is denoted by adjectives, as was indicated above. A character is’ a com= plex totality, and a single adjective evidently cannot cover more than one aspect of this totality. Often, however, a character is so distinct that one word seems sufficient to grasp its essence, We ic, thus, that the very structure of everyday language confirms our analysis ofplace. C-Countries, regions, landscapes, settle- ‘ments, buildings (and their sub-places) form a series with a gradually dimirish- ing scale. The steps in this series may be called “environmental levels", At the “top” of the series we find the more comprehensive natural places which y” the man-made places on the levels. The latter have the and “focusing” function mentioned above. In other words, man “rectives” the environment and makes it focus in buildings and things. The things thereby “explain” the environment and mal manifest. Thereby the things themselves become meaningful. That is the basic function of detail in Zour surroundings". This does no: imply, however, that the different levels must have the same steucture, Architectural history in fact shows chat this is rarely the case. Vernacular settlements usually 18, Pine, Nresba nth monastery by Newmar. 2s 14, Enironentl eee 15, Vir ta hive a. topological organization, al- though the single houses may be strictly Beomerical. In laeger cities we often fird topologically organized neighbour- hoods within a general geometrical structure, tc, We shall. ret particular problems of structural cor respondenee later, but have to say some words about the ep” in the scale of environmental the relation = beeen nacural and man-made places. Man-made places are related to nature in three basic ways. Firstly, man wants to make the natural structure more precise. That is, he wants to visualize his “understanding” of nature, “express- ing” the existential foothold he has gained. To achieve this, he builds what he has seen, Where nature suggests a deimitad space he builds an enclosure; where nature appears “centralized”, he erects a Mal”; where nature indicates. a direction, he makes a path, Secondly, man has to complement the given situation, by adding what icis “lacking”. Finally, he has to syntholise his under- standing of nature (including himself). Symbolization implies thar an exper iexced meaning is “translated” into an- ‘other medium. A natural character i for instance translated into a building whose properties somehow make the character manifest”. “The purpose of symboliz- ation is co free. the meaning fromthe immediate situation, whereby i becomes a “cultural object”, which may form pact of a more complex situation, or be moved to another place. All the three relationships. imply that man gather the experienced meanings to create for elk an imago nuerdi or microcosmos which. concretizes his. world. Gathering ‘evidently depends on symbolization, and implies a transposition of meanings. to another place, which thereby becomes Visualization, complementation and “symbolization are aspects cf the general 7 16. Visualization and symboisttion. Caste Allo Adi 17, Symbolisation. etna Jordan: processes of settlings and dwelling, in the existential sense of the word, de- pends on thes: functions. Heidegger illustrates the problem by means. of the bridge, a “building” which visualizes, symbolizes and gathers, and_makes the environment become a unified whole, ‘Thus he says: “The bridge swings over the stream with case and power, It does hhot just connect banks that are already there, the banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set Off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks strerch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the éry lind ‘With the banks, the bridge brings to the ne stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other’s neighborhcod. The bridge gathers the carth as landscape around the stream”, Heidegger also describes what the -bridge gathers and thereby uncovers its value as_a_ symbol. We cannot here enter into these details, but wane to emphasize thae the landscape as such ges its value through the bridge. Before, the meaning of the landscape was “hidden”, and the building of the bridge brings it out into the open. “The bridge gathers Being into a certain “location” that we may call a “place”. This “place”, however, did not exist as an entity before the bridge (although there were always many “sites” along the river-bank where it could arise), but comes-to-presence with and as the brid- ge". The existential purpose of build- ing (architecture) is therefore to make 3 site become a place, that is, to uncover the meanings potentially presem inthe si ‘The structure of a place is not a fixed, eternal state. As a rule places chanj sometimes rapidly. This does not mean, however, that the genius loci necessarily changes or gets lost. Later we shall show that taking place presupposes that the places conserve their idenity during gacertain stretch of time, Stabilitas loci is necessary condition for human lire. How then is this stability compatible with the dynamics of change? First of all wwe may point our chat any place oughe to have the “capacity” of receiving different “contents”, navurally within Feertain limits. A place which is only fined for one particular purpose would soon become uscless. Sccondly it is jident that a place may be “inter preted” in different ways. To. protect “and conserve the genius loci in fact means ‘to concretize its essence in ever historical contexss. We might also say that the history of a place ought to be its “self-realization", What was there a possibilities at the, outset, is une covered through human action, illumi- hated and “kept” in works of t= chitecrure which are simultaneously “old and new”, A place therefore comprises Properties having a varying degree of fnvarianee, In general we may conclude that place is the point of departure as well as the goal of our structural investigation; at ‘the outset place is presented as a given, spontancously experienced totality, at the end it appears as 2 structured world, illuminated by the analysis of the aspeets of space and character. 3. The Spirit of Place Genius foci is a Roman concept. Ac- cording to ancient Roman belief every “independent” being has its genius, its guardian spirit. This spirit gives life to people and places, accompanies. them from birth to death, and determines their character or essence, Even the gods had their genins, a fact which illustrates the fundamental nature of the concept’, The genius thas denotes what a thing is, or what it “wants to be”, t0 use a word 18. Gathering. Salsburg 19, The bridge. Zvich, of Louis Kahn. ft is not necessary in our context t© go. into the history of the concept of gerius and its relationship to the daimon of the Greeks. It suffices to point out that ancient man experienced his environment as consisting of definite characters. In. particular he recognized thar i is of great existential importance to come 10 terms with the gevins of the locality where his life takes place. In the past survival depended on a “good” lationship co the place in a physical as as sense, In andent Egypt, for instance, the country was not uly cultivated tn accoreance wit the Nile floods, but the very structuse of the landscape served as a model for the layout of the “public” ulin Hid should give man a sense of secutiy b symbolising "an. eternal environmental During the course of history the genius. foci has remained a_living reality, al- though it may not have been expres sivdy named as such. Artists and writers have found inspiration in local character and have “explained” the phenomena of everyday life as well as art, referring (0 landscapes and urban milicus, Thus Goethe says: “It is evident, that the eye is educated by the things’ it sees childhood on, and therefore. Ven painters must ‘see everything clearer and with more joy than other people™. Still in 1960 Layrence: Durrell wrote: “As you get to know Europe slowly, tasting the wines, cheeses and characters Of the different countries you begin to realize that the important determinant of any culture is after all the spicit of place”. Modern turism proves that the ex- perience of different places is a major human interest, although also this value today tends to get lost. In fact modern man for a long. time. believed chat science and technology had freed him from a direct dependence on places! 18 ‘This belief has proved an_ illusion; pollution and environmental chaos have suukdendly place has regained its true imporance: We have used the Word “dwelling” to « indicate the total man-place relationship. To understand more fully what this word implies, it distinction berw acer”, When man dwells, he is simul- taneously located in space and exposed fo a certain environmental character. The two psychological functions. in- yolved,-may be called “orientation” and identification", To. gain en existential foothold man has 10 be able to orientate himself; he has to know there he is. But he also hos to identify hirwself with the environment, that is, he has to know how he is a certain pla The problem of orientation has been given « considerable attention in recent theorerical literature on. planning ard architecture. Again we may refer 10 the work of Kevin Lynch, whose concept ‘of “node”, “path” and “district” deno the basic spatial structures which are the object of man’s orientation. ‘The constinite ental image”, and Lynch asserts: “A good environ mental image gives its “possessor an imporsant sense of emotional secur- ity, Accordingly all cultures, have developed “systems of orientatio is, “spatial structures which facilitate the development of 2 good environmental image". “The world may be organized around a set of focal poinis, or he broken imo named regions, oF be linked by remembered routes”. Often these systems of orientation are based on or derived from a given natural struct Where the system is weak, the image making becomes difficult, and man feels jost”. “The tweror of being lost comes from ‘the necessity that a mobile or- 20. Idestifcation. Nordic winter. 21. Mdeatficaion. Khartoum, Sula ganism be oriented in its surround~ ings™*. To be lost is evidently the “Opposite of the feeling of secure yea dsinguishes diecllitg Thea al quality which’ protects ma petting lost, Lynch calls “imageabiligy, which means “that shape, color or Ungeocte whi Gere al ing of vividly identified, powerfully structured, highly ‘useful mental images ‘of the environment™’. Here Lynch im- plies thae the clemencs weichicenttatta the spatial aucune /aregcoreeam “chings" with “character” and “mean ing He limies hincele howe tam dissies the “spariall funcson’ Gaited elements, and thus leaves us with a. emnerticy uniersanaine ogee Nevertheless, the work of Lynch con- stitutes an essential contribution to the theory of place, Ine) impor eae consists in the fact that his empirical. sales of cuicies uta te firm the general “principles of organia= anon” delined by Geral paeleee nad by the escuchar ante Hd a chology of Piaget'*. Withour reduemg the importance of parenanag we aie tO. stress at iveliog those all pec em Hiei wih earner aspects of one total relationship, they dependence within the totslity. It is evidently possible to orientate oneself without rue identi ication; one gets along without feding. “at home”. And it is possible to feel at home without being well acquainted with the spatial structure of the place, that is, the place is only experienced a3. a gratifying general character. True belonging however presupposes that both piychological functions are filly developed. In primitive societies we find that even the smalles environmental details are known and meaningful, and that they make up complex. spatial 20 siructares”. In modern society, how: fer, attention has almest exclusive heen concentrated on the “practical function of criencation, whereas idea {ification has been lef to chance. As a result true dwelling, ina psychological sense, has been substiured by: alien- Ir is therefore urgently needed to 1 fuller understanding. of the amd “chae- concepts of “identification acter" In our context “identification become “friends” with a particular ea- means 10 vironment. Nordic man has to be friend With fog, ice and cold winds; he has co enjoy the creaking sound of snow under the feet when he walks around, he has to experience she poetical value of being immersed in fog, as Hermann Hesse did ‘when he wrote the lines: “Strange to yall in. fog! Lonely is every bush and sione, no tree sees the other, everything is alone... The Arab, instead, has t0 be a friend of the infinitely extended, sindy desert and the burning sun. This thes not_mean that his settlements should nor protect him against the natural “forces”; a desert settlement in fact primarily aims at the exclusion of sind and sun and therefore complements the natural situation, Bue ic implies thar the environment is experienced as meaningfil. Bollnow says appropratel fede Stns ist Cherise that is, every character consists ina correspondence herween outer and inner World, and between body and psyche", Tor modern urbaa man the friendship ‘with a natural environment is reduced t0 fragmentary relations, Instead he has 0 identify with man-made things, such as tsireets and houses, The German-born American architect Gerhard) Kallman ‘once told a story which illustrates whae this means. Visiting at the end of the Second World War his native Berlin after many years of absence, he wanted to see the house where he had grown 2 up. As must be expected in Berlin, the house had disappeared, and Mr. Kall- mann felt somewhat ‘lost. ‘Then he suddenly recognized the typical pave- iment of the sidewalk: the floor on which he had played as a child, And he experienced a strong feeling of having returned home The story teaches us thr the objects of properties and that man’s rela these is usually developed during child- hood. The child grows up in green, brown or white spaces; it walks or plays fon sand, earth, stone or moss, under a cloudy or serene sks; it grasps and lifts hard and soft things; it hears noises, such as the sound of the wind moving the leaves of a particular kind of tree; and it experiences. heat and cold. ‘Thus the child gets acquainted with the environment, and develops perceptual schemata ye all fusure experiences®, ata comprise universal structures which are inte human, as well as locally: determined anid culturally conditioned. structures. Evidently every human being has to possess schemata of orientation as swell asidentilication, The identity of a person is defined in terms of the sd oped, be- cause they determine the “world” whieh is accessible. This fact is confirmed by common linguistic usage. When a per- son wants to tell who he is, it is in fact usual to say: “Lam a New Yorker", or “Lam a Roman”. This means something, much more conerete than to say: “Iam an architect”, or perhaps: “Tam an optimist”. We understand that human identity is to a high extent a function of places and things. Thus Heide “Wir sind die Be-Dingten”®*, It is fore not orly important that our en- vironment has a spatial structure which facilitates orientation, but that it con- sists of concrete objects of identification 22, Mdewtifation $. Gregoria, 23. Metifiation. Naples. 24, Sidvinatl, Ber 25. Endlste, Monterigioni, Toscams. Hunan identity presupposes the identity of place. Identification and orientation are prim= ary aspects of man’s being-in-ihe-world, Whereas identification is the basis for man’s sense of belonging, orientation is the function which enables him to be that homo viator, which is par: of his nature. It is characteristic for modern man that for a long time he gave the role as a wanderer pride of place, He wanted to be “free” and conquer the world. Today we start to realize that true freedom presupposes belonging, and tha: “dwelling” means belonging (0 a concrete pla ‘The word to “dwell” has several con- notations which confirm and ‘llaminate ‘our thesis. Firstly to be men- tioned that “dwell” is cerived from the Old Nosse dvelja, which meant to linger or remain. Analogously Heidegger relax ted the German “wohien” to “bleiben” and “sich authalten"'*, Furthermore he points out that the Gothic winian meant to “be at peace”, “to remain in peace”. The German word for, Pesce, Friede, means to. be free, that_isy protected from harm and danger. This protection is achieved by means of an Umiriedung or enclosure. “Friede” is also related to aafrieden (content), Freund (friend) and the Gothic fron (love). Heidegger uses these linguistic Felationships to show that dwelling means to be at peace in a protected place. We should also mention that the German word for dwelling, Wobmung, derives from das Gawobnte, which means what is known or habitual “Habit” and “habitat” show an ane aloguous relationship. In other words, man knows what has become accessible to him through dwelling. We here rewen to the Ubereinstinmung ot correspon dence between man and. his. en ‘ment, and arrive at the very root of the problem of “gathering”. To gather 2 means that the everyday lifeaword has become *gewohnt” or “habitual”. But gathering is a conercte phenomenon, and thus leads us. to, the final con- notation of “dwelling”. Again it is Heidegger who has uncovered a fun- damental relationship, Thus he points out that the Okl English and High German word for “building”, ban, mean: to dwell, and that it is intimately related to the verb to be. “What then does ich bin mean? The old word bauer, w which the bin belongs, a swers: ich bin, du bist, mean: I dwell, you dwell. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on earth, is. buar, dwell- ing’. We may conclude that dwelling means t0 gather the world as a concrete tuilding or “thing”, and that the ar- chetypal act of building is the Unt Jrieding or enclosure. Trakl’s poetic Intuition of the inside-outside relation- ship thus gets its confirmation, and we understand that our concept of con- cretization denotes the essence of dw ling’ Man dwells when he is able to con qretize the world in buildings and things, As we have mentioned above, “coneretization” is the function of the work of art, as opposed to the “ab- striction” of science”. Works of art coneretize what remains “between” the pure objects of science. Our everyday Hife-world consists of such ‘intermedi ary” objects, and we understand that the fundamental function of art is to gather ihe contradictions and complexities of the life-world, Being an imago mundi, the work Of art helps-man two dwell, Holderlin wasright when he said: “Full of merit, yet poetically, man dwells on this earth” This means; man’s merits do not count much if he is unable 1 dwell poetically, that is, to duvell in the true sense of the word, Thus Heidegger says: “Poetry B does not fy above and surmount the earth in order to escape it and hover over it. Poetry is what first brings man into the earth, making him belong to ic, ané thas brings him into dwelling” Only poetry in all ics forms (also. as the “art of living") makes human existence meaningful, and meaning is dhe fun- damental human need. Architecture belongs to poetry, and its pumose is to help man to dwell. But architecture is 2 difficult art. To make practical towns and buildings is not enough, Architecture comes into being when a “total environment is made visible”, to quote the definition of Susanne Langer”. In general, this means to concretize the genius foci, We have seen that this is done by means of buildings which gather she properties of the place ard bring them close to man. The basic act of architecture is therefore to understand the “vocation” of the place, In this way we protect the earch nd become ourselves part of a com- prehensive cotality. What is here ad- vocated is not some kind of “environ- mental determinism”. We only recognize the fact that man is an integral parc of the environment, and that it can only lead to human alienation and envicon- mertal disruption if he forgets that. To belong to a place means to have an exisential foothold, in a concrete every- day sense, When God said to Adam: “You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer oon the Earth”; he put man in front of hhis most basic problem: to cross the threshold and regain the lost place. i NATURAL PLACE 1. The Phenomena of Natural Place To be able to duvell between heaven and earth, man has t© “understand” these two elements, as well as their inter- action, The word “understand” here does not mean scientific knowledges it is rather an existential concept which denows the experience of meanings. When the environment is meaningful man feels “at home”. The places where swe have grown up are such “homes”; we know exsetly how it feels to walk on that particular ground, to be under that particular sky, or between those par- ticular trees; we know the warm all- embracing sunshine of the South or the mysterious summer nights of the North In general we know “realities” which carry our existence, Bur “understanding” goes beyond such immediate sensations. From the beginning of time man has recognized that nature consists of inter- related elements which express. funéa- mental aspects of being. The landscare where he lives is not_a mere flux of phenomena, it has structure and em bodies meanings. These structures and meanings have given rise

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