ON THE

PARK
BENCH
CONGRESS FOR THE
NEW URBANISM

This platform is a 1-hour lecture

series that includes discussions
about the authors' urbanism form.

Participants will have the

opportunity to communicate with
authors during the session.
BARBARA
LITTENBERG

AUTHOR
Barbara Littenberg has been active
in both practice and teaching
throughout her career. She taught
architecture and author.
STEVEN K.
PETERSON

AUTHOR

He is architect and author.

PHILIP
LANGDON

MODERATOR

He is interviwer.
SPACE AND
ANTI-SPACE

BOOK

The Fabric of Place, City and

Architecture.
 CONTENTS

1. Understand the differences between SPACE AND ANTI-SPACE.

2. Identify cities that create PUBLIC SPACES.

3. Learn the role of URBAN FABRIC in creating interconnected.

4. NETWORKS and public spaces.

5. Understand how buildings can SHAPE the urban fabric.

 This book discusses the factors that support the physical form of cities.

 It was mentioned that the urban texture is not felt as much as before in the
new cities and that this density is negative.

 Buildings are not the only important elements that make up cities, but also
public spaces, streets, etc.

 Articles and projects supported by plans, schemes and images are ways of
narrating in the book referred to in order to urbanize the city and to explain
it.
 CITIES

1. ITALY

2. FRANCE

3. LAS VEGAS
 ITALY
PERCEIVED VS CONCEIVED
SPACE
Consider for a moment the Piazza del Campo
in Siena, Italy.

This is a classic example of an urban space.

The piazza is well formed and enclosed on all

sides (save circulation routes) by building
facades.

These facades give the space itsheight and the

ground its width and length.
Considered together these elements give the
space a volumetric feel which, in turn, makes it
perceivable to our senses.
 FRANCE
ORDERED VS RANDOM

In this example, objects do not make up the

space; Rather, buildings are objects in an
enormous space.

It is clear that in this particular plan, space is

considered to be a flowing being activated
not to be captured or shaped, but only to be
momentarily stopped or deterred.

The focal point here is not the space but the

buildings.
 LAS VEGAS

GARDEN

Interestingly, “Corbu” never drew traditional

solid/void city plans, because they would look too
empty.

He always used shadow plans with lots of trees

and dark grass to fill up the emptiness.
 QUOTE

MINUTE:12.45-17.06
 COMPARISION
Plan of Jackson Park, Chicago, Illinois, by Frederick Law Olmsted, 1895,
after the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Geometric cartesian
Can turn into shapes
Physical form

Figure-ground plans to the same scale of Le Corbusier’s 1945 proposed

Town Center for Saint-Dié, France (top), and the Centro Storico in Parma,
Italy.

• Not Configured
• Unlimited
• Endless
• Flowing through emptiness
 URBAN DESIGN

• ANTI-SPACE, because it is by definition formless, can carry no

specific meaning beyond its transcendental aspirations.
• SPACE must be reincorporated into Architecture…our objective
(as architects) is an elaborate condition of spaces, a collision of
inventions; not a neutral ground of anti-space but a plasma of
spatial fields promoting multiple interactions, choices and
opportunities.
 SPACE&ANTI-
SPACE
• ANTI-SPACE, because it is by definition formless, can carry no
specific meaning beyond its transcendental aspirations.
• SPACE must be reincorporated into Architecture…our objective
(as architects) is an elaborate condition of spaces, a collision of
inventions; not a neutral ground of anti-space but a plasma of
spatial fields promoting multiple interactions, choices and
opportunities.
 IMPORTANT
RESULT
• Not only buildings are important in shaping the urban fabric.
Urbanization should be supported with streets, public spaces, etc.
• Towers and people should not be sharply different in urban design,
so it is important to leave spaces for people to roam on the ground.
• Flowing, gridding and enclosing buildings without dividing them
into walls in the right way is the beginning of positive urban
transformation.
 REFERENCES FOR IMAGE
• http://petersonlittenberg.com/Architecture-UrbanDesign/Space_Anti-Space_part
_3.html

• https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1303&context=utk_gradt
hes

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320455788_Revisiting_anti-space_Inter
view_with_Steven_K_Peterson

• https://www.classicist.org/calendar/events/architecture-in-the-time-of-anti-space
-with-steven-peterson/