Monday, February 16, 2009

Landscape/Site/Time

Carol Burns, "On Site: Architectural Preoccupations" Drawing Building Text, ed. A. Kahn (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991) 147-65

John Brinckerhoff Jackson, "The Word Itself" Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press,1984) 2-8

Rafael Moneo, "The Murmur of the Site" Anywhere (New York: Rizzoli, 1992) 48-53

John Brinckerhoff Jackson, "A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time" A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press,1994) 24-26


Question:

Site and Landscape are terms that we have over used to the point that many of us no longer know the meaning of the words. Carol Burns defines site to mean the local position of a building, town, or monument, and landscaped is defined by this author as the portion of land that the eye can comprehend in a single glance. Having read these definitions I got to thinking, What is it that we are architects do to the 'site'? How do we treat the 'landscaped' that surrounds our given site? Have architects completely forgotten about the meaning of these words and thus have they forgotten their purpose?

2 comments:

Jennifer Ensminger said...

It is the goal of every architect (or should be al least) to ptoduce a successful bilding, one that will be around for a very long time. The interaction between site and builing are very crucial to the buildings overall success. Aa Frank Llyod Wright said, "No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Hill and house should live together each happier for the other."

JWash said...

The goals of architects are a bit out of place. Should not the goal of a architect be to preserve the land, the site first, then to create a successful building? By quoting Frank Lloyd Wright you make a point, 'Hill and house should live together each happier for the other.' The hill is still there, not flattened into nothingness as is common practice with today's architects. The hill is taken into account and used to make a successful building, but how many architects actually take the hill into account, other than to determine how much it will cost to get rid of it?