LINEAR SOUNDINGS:
26 fragments of the linear discourse
Christian Marion
Architect Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Industries
de Strasbourg (1978).
Pensionnaire de l'Academie de France (1981).
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREES
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
AND
MASTER OF CITY PLANNING
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(February 1987)
c Christian Marion 1986
The author grants to MIT permission to reproduce and
to distribute
publicly copies of this
thesis document
in whole or in part.
Signature of the Author
Christian Marion
Department of Urban Studies
Department of Architecture
Certified by__
fsulian
Beinart
rofessor of Architecture
Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by
fJjulian
i rt, Chairman
Departmental Com±4tj ee for rwauate Students
Department of Architecture
Accepted by
Phillip Clay, Chairman
Departmental Comittee for Graduate Students
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Rotcn
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2
LINEAR
SOUNDINGS.
26 fragments of a linear discourse.
Keywords:
line,
references,
distribution,
"To
roads,
skyscrapers,
velocity,
know
object
streets,
is
its
to abstract
the
linear
control of space.
essence,
which by
spatial
from the real
the
subject
possession
is
then
of
called
knowledge."
Thus "the real
two real
the
essences,
impure
dross,
object has to be made of
or if
the pure essence and
essence,
you like
the
gold
and
the
(Hegelian terms),
the essential and the inessential."
(Louis Althuser and Etienne Balibar. Lire
le capital,
Paris,
Maspero,
1967)
3
26
LINEAR SOUNDINGS:
fragments of the linear discourse.
by
Christian Marion
submitted to the department of architecture
in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degrees
Master of Science in Architecture Studies
and
Master of City Planning
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(February 1987)
ABSTRACT.
This text
is
a follow-up
study for a work that
focused
on squares that was published by the author as Piazza
Pulita [Roma, Officina Edizione, 1983].
The purpose of both works is to comment on the
production
of sense of linear
features
of the
environment.
The multidimensional character of these features,
which includes economic, sociological, political,
psychological and aesthetic,
or even exclusively,
technical
components, make it necessary to approach
them heterogeneously. That is,
a set of observations
that must be used that imply multiple points of view:
a plurality
of pertinence.
For heuristic purposes, these observations are
organized from two points of view:
-- A roughly chronogical point of view according to
which the evolution of lines is seen as a means of
social organization and cultural expression.
-- An experimental point of view that attemps to
express the effects
of linear
features of primarily
the built
environment. The effects
focused on are
generally space and time effects.
It is the very principle of this research upon the
discourses
of linearity
(and of the text
which
represents it)
that its
figures cannot be classified:
organized, hierarchized, arranged with a view to an
end (a settlement): there are no first
figures, no
last
figures. To let
it be understood that
there was
no question here of a history of line
(of a line
story) and to discourage the temptation of uniform
meaning, it was necessary to choose an absolute
insignificant order.
Hence,
we
have
subjugated
the
series
of
figures
(inevitable as any series is, since the text is by its
very nature
obliged
to progress)
to
a pair
of
arbitrary
factors:
that
of nomination and that
of
alphabet.
Each of these
arbitrary
factors
is,
4
nonetheless,
tempered: one by semantic necessity
(among all
the nouns in the dictionary, a figure can
usually
receive only two or three), the other by the
age-old convention which decides the number of letters
in our alphabet. Hence, we have avoided the wiles of
pure chance,
which might,
indeed,
have produced
logical sequences; for we must not underestimate the
power of chance to engender monsters; the monster in
this
case, would have emerged from a certain order of
figures, a "philosophy of line" where we must look for
no more than its
affirmation.
An approach towards the line rests on simple
questions: What is it?
What is its
nature? Why does it
exist?
The focus of this research is to perceive explicitly
the collective
image of lines through its
urbanistic
production as well as its models of production and
representation.
An approach to the theme of linearity
rather
than to
the actual street,
channel
or skyscraper, allows
distance in analysis and constructive analogies.
To learn means, here,
to compare.
When one compares an apple and a grapefruit, one
learns
about fruit.
When one compares an apple and a
bowling ball,
one learns about symbol. When one
compares an apple and a car, one learns about object.
When one compares different phenomena that share a
single
characteristic,
we learn about this
common
feature.
We describe this
world of similarities
on the basis of
paleological thought, where the line is a street,
the
line
is an elevator,
the line
is transportation,
the
line is time, the line is architecture.
These stories
will
teach us about the line
as a
phenomenon.
THE SPEED AT WHICH LIFE IS LIVED IN THE PRESENT
HISTORICAL POINT HAS CREATED A PERCEPTION OF THE
LINEAR ENVIRONMENT,
THAT IS PARTIAL AND LIMITED ONLY
TO WHAT IS SEEN AT A GIVEN INSTANT. LINES ARE BEING
INCREASINGLY EXPERIENCED NOT AS FEATURES OF
STRUCTURES, NOT AS PARTS OF A WHOLE, BUT FOR THEIR OWN
SAKE AND AS IF FROZEN IN A SINGLE MOMENT IN TIME. IN
OTHER WORDS, BOTH APPROACHES LEAD TO THE SAME POINT:
LINEARITY IS SUPPORT TO DISAGGREGATION OF SPACE
BECAUSE OF THE USE OF ITS POTENTIAL EXTENSIVITY.
Julian Beinart, Professor of Architecture,
Thesis Supervisor.
5
MAP.
CHRONOLOGICAL
A.-
FIRST
APPROACH.
CLUE:
EGYPT...........................9
a human view of the world
Wherein we learn that
makes a
human
B.-
a frame of reference.
line
A line
is
a
construct.
SECOND
CLUE:
CARNAC
(NORMANDY) ............ 16
Wherein we show that line may be a pure symbolic
interpretation of the world.
C.-
TRIBAL
Wherein
ORGANIZATION........................18
we
indicate
necessary to man in
D.-
OPPORTUNITY
that
line
may
not
be
terms of social organization.
TO
NODES.......................22
Wherein we understand that line is a factor of
separation,
a
such, a tool
necessary
means
of distribution,
and,
as
for power, Line is possibly a
consequence
of
the
increase
of
population.
E.-
TRANSMUTATION.............................. 28
Wherein we note the historical transformation of
the line from form to space of communication.
F.-
HUNGRY
Wherein
FOR
we
CONTROL.........................30
illustrate
the
Baroque
period
expression of line as control and order.
G.-
DREAM
Wherein
(NIGHTMARE)..........................36
line
is
a
tool
for
colonisation
replication.
6
and
H.-
FOR
THIRSTY
INDIFFERENCE...................39
to express his aspiration
Wherein man uses line
for the infinite
I.-
and absolute.
VELOCITY...................................48
Wherein
line
is
the
propagation
of prestige,
power and a vision of the future.
J.-
CONCENTRATION,
Wherein line
VIOLENCE....................60
annhilates space.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH.
K.-
GEOMETRY...................................67
Wherein a piece of paper defines the essential
characteristics of a line: division and time.
L.-
NIGHTSHIFT.
................................ 74
Wherein location in
the geographical
M.-
a function of
surroundings.
PATH.......................................76
Wherein location
markers
N.-
a trajectory is
in
RUE
in
a trajectory
is
assessed by
the trajectory itself.
DE
RIVOLI..............................83
Wherein location in
a trajectory is
and quantitative
both qualitative
determined by
markers,
by
inside and outside markers.
0.-
NECESSITY
Wherein,
physical
OF
NODES.........................89
because moving
path
appears to
is
difficult,
give
birth
nodes.
7
to
natural
the
P.-
EVENTS.....................................95
Wherein the appreciation of time in
a path varies
with the intention and the social context.
Q.-
REPRESENTATION............................100
Wherein modes
of visual representation are
critiqued.
R.-
RAIN......................................132
Wherein the rain shows human constructs to be
inserted into the soil.
S.-
ARCHITEXT.................................134
Wherein two architects who use line teach us how
this
T.-
concept
is
related to their projects.
HIGHWAY...................................172
Wherein an appreciation of time and a reading of
the trajectory inform a project.
U.-
MOVIES....................................175
Wherein we observe that linearity can support
violence.
V.-
DAEDALUS
ALIGNED..........................178
Wherein the written word devolved from space to
intensified linearity:
the process of writing no
longer involves past and future.
W.-
WATCHING
Wherein man's
TIME.............................184
representation of time can be tied
to the twilight of the street.
X.-
TRENDS....................................190
Y.-
LIBRARY...................................194
Z.-
NOTES.....................................198
8
HISTORICAL APPROACH
A.-
FIRST CLUE:
EGYPT
Wherein we learn that
world makes
line
a human view of the
a
frame of reference.
Line is
a human construct.
What is
the perception of the line
in the
we know nothing.
world at scale one?
The line
could be described as the result
of an action, on one hand, and is an
existing
thing,
a
state,
on the other
hand.
Line as action.
A boat without wakes and sea-stream gives
the impression of being lost.
The same
observation applies to an airplane: when
it
is
a
point
in
the sky,
it
has the
appearance of a useless thing.
This sense of utility
is
best represented
when
a
line
we
Writing
deal
has
with
no
more
sense
remains on the paper: a line
it,
the pen is
of writing is
paper,
and a
its
on
if
is
paper.
nothing
drawn on
instrument. The scope
to leave some marks on the
line
is
its
sense,
a
line
becomes, at a second degree, its reason
of
action.
w e
k n ow
a
direction and what
It seems, therefore, that humans secure the point has done.
9
thenselves
in
leaving
consequence,
a
that
referential
trace,
this
essential
and
trace
has
in
fact
result
seeing
a
meaning. It is
symptomatic of a situation
of
in
the static
which the
of
a
movement Confirms the action.
Line as status quo.
A
line
seems
recognition
the
necessary
to
the
of space. Without a line,
selvage,
we
differentiate
edges.
is,
also
have
no
means
to
two physical elements: no
It
is
thus,
the desert at
night. A line
an evident physical reference
whereas the sand under our feet is
physical
or
only a
support.
On another scale,
the sky and the earth
separated by the horizon line compose the
physical
The
landscape in
horizon
is
a
its
line
uniquely to the subject
This
line
moves to
simplest form.
that
refers
looking at it.
each movement of the
-
_'
-
subject. It is at the same time, material
and
immaterial
and
1
n
In the first
map of
rectilinear
(and, at the same time, there roads from Nurnberg
Mayor Erzlaub shows
is no way to determine a width for it,
as street connections
we will
observe in
model
of
untouchable,
the
it
is
strictly
"geometry").
It
infinite,
is
of
of the inaccessible,
10
(1492).
Completely
the new for that
time is
the
but it
the correct scale.
Roads, as lines,
became represented
references.
is also the primary symbol and reality
that
locates
Man
in
the world.
representation
of
this
immense
in
which
circle
world
we
The
is
are
an
the
center.
The simplest model of man's existential
space is therefore a horizontal plane
pierced by a vertical axis.
[see
Bachelard,
"la
Abellio,
l'espace";
poetique
de
"la
structure
points
like
absolue"]
Of
course,
stars
there
that
are
localize
him,
immediately note that
the
but
we
a sole point does
not give him the position in
the world,
but a direction to follow. The link
between
two
immaterial
spatial
points,
instead,
as
an
rectilinear link gives a
reference,
and not only spatial
directions.
A line is not only a physical locus, but
becomes a reference that locates us in
our physical
we
existence.
know where we are.
We exist because
We create
these
rhis
1641
map of
shows
are
references when we do not have them. A Brother Jung
that
line
concretizes
a
possible
control of our universe.
11
means
of
rivers
references stronger
human
than
constructed lines.
The Egyptian
landscape offers a first
clue to a better understanding of this
basic phenomena. Hardly any other country
has
a
geographical
simplicity
structure
of
such
and regularity. On both sides
of the long and narrow Nile valley are
deserts which put clearly defined limits
to Man's space. Egypt can therefore be
described as a longitudinal oasis with a
relatively
uniform
characteristic
throughout. Together the basic elements
of
nature
establish
a
simple spatial
structure, with the Nile flowing from
south to north and the sun rising from
east to west. "These simple bearings are
represented
"world":
the
above
sun
hieroglyph
pp89)
and
the
inscribed"
Weltgeb&ude
1928
the
for
a section through a valley with
sky
moving
in
transversaly
(see H.
Sch&fer,
der Alten Agypter,
or for "city":
Berlin
a cross in
a
circle.
The fields on either side of the Nile
were
divided
to
form
an orthogonal
acting
coordinate system with the river
as
a
longitudinal
axis.
The
to form a
pyramids were placed along it
row
of artificial
great
mountains parallel
12
to
the Nile,
the image of the range of
at
mountains
in
Egypt.
Upper
From
the
pyramids long causeways led approximately,
at right angles
down to the river.
The power of nature,
regular
flooding of the Nile,
certain extent,
power
of man.
to
one
be
concretized by the
was to a
copied to concretize the
The Egyptian temple seems
of
the
first
forms
using
straight
lines
spatial
composition around a single
geometric
to represent power:
line,
axial
Its
composition,
Funerary temple of
of Queen Hatshepsut,
Deir-el-Bahri, built
power, whereas the Egyptian vernacular c. 1500 B.C.
The terraces are
with
architecture from the same period bordered
colonnades, inclined
planes and axiality
aggregates different forms.
making this a work,
So,
planning
and architecture
were of great originality
owes much
that still
Middle
the
employed to complete and articulate
the to
tradition.
Kingdom
natural
structure
of the country. The
creates the building as a symbol
purpose was to make visible
the spatial
structure which gave Egyptian man his
sense
of
existential
identity
and
security.
Arguing that
"the whole symbolism rests
on the accepted correspondance of things,
on an intuitively
connection
conceived and perceived
between
microcosm
13
and
macrocosm"
Agypter",
(M.Lurker,
Weilheim,
Norbert
Schulz
Architecture,
"Symbole
1964,
p.9),
(in Meaning
Preager
concludes
that
geographical
structure
der alten
Christian
in Western
Pub,
NY,
"Egypt's
2
1975)
3
simple
provides
a
.
basis
for symbolizing a basis for existential
meanings. In the physical
environment
these
as
were
organized
concretized
and
enclosures,
orthogonally
which
were
axially
structured
disposed
in
accordance with the great longitudinal
space of the Nile valley. This also holds
true
for the
layout of settlement
and
towns."
When the natural
landscape does not
provide references, a line is made up in
relationship
with the cosmologic field.
The Pantheon is
examples
of this
one of the most obvious
kind. The sphere that
generates the space is composed on two
axes:
visitor
a horizontal axis that leads the
to the vertical axis,
axis mundi. Cheops
The piercing of the volume by a line
of
Giza,
B.C.
Rising
Pyramid,
c.
built
to
2600
to
a
general height of 146.5 m,
building is a
this
of 2.5
mountain
characteristic of monuments.
million m3.
The Egyptians also dig a direction in 1)Cheops 2)Chephren
3)Mycerinus
their tomb-pyramids that relates to a 4)Sphinx.
reference
seems
to
be
a
14
particular
star.
In
this
case
the
architecture is built on a double vision
of the universe,
can
touch
the material that
that produces
places
volumes, and the immaterial
one
and
that here
produces internal corridors hooked on it
as an accident, an annex branch.
15
B.-SECOND
CLUE:
CARNAC
Wherein we show that
(NORMANDY).
line
may be a pure
,
symbolic interpretation of the world.
The
of
alignments
example
of
reference
an
Carnac are
existential
to
space,
another
dream
so
e
far
in
more
interesting because they screen a field.
a
A
line
was
not
enough.
It
present/represent a reference in
should
its
more
complete dimension, give a width, or -- as
far
as
we
are
in
the
field
of
*
speculation--,
repeat
show the infinite,
iteration.
its
sign,
as
to
the always possible
The
innumerable thing,
emphasis
in
is
on
the
the same direction.
Thus would it not be the combination of
these existential
aig
references that give to
Frane)
the North-American cities their power and
their
security, their propensity to
expansion?
Whereas the alignments of Carnac seem to
be
a mythical
extension
and mythical
demonstration of control on space (they
say: "we know...the existence of space"),
those of North-America seem to generate a
rationality
different
'
of physical extension, of a
order (they say:"we know ...the
16
em
n
A
extension
of
Although
space").
this
verified,
it
alignments
are
difference
seems
should
that
defined
be
Carnac's
and
limited
whereas North American urban structures
are
defined
to be unlimited.
contrary of the latter,
Roman cities
To the
the projects
of
were limited inside walls to
50000 inhabitants, both limitations being
predefined.
limited,
Although
their
the
potential
cities
were
reproduction
along cardus and decumanus permits to say
how the roman landscape structure
have generated North-American
Carnac's alignments,
Le Rouzic et
M et
might
Carnac:
alignments
of Menec.
structure.
as we know [Zacharie
Mme Saint-Just Pequart,
"Carnac," Berger-Levrault, Strasbourg,
1923.
Denis
Paris,
Roche,
1969],
"Carnac,"
are
Tchou,
material
interpretations of a spiritual world. The
path through it
scope,
not build
was ceremonial,
the expression of spirit.
a rationality
could understand.
raises,
intellectual
that
and its
It
an atheist
Like a cathedral,
with the line,
did
man to a level
concerns.
17
it
of
I
0
@
WD
@@@@[WOJ
"'"''
C. -TRIBAL ORGANIZATION.
Wherein we indicate that line may not be
man in terms
necessary to
of social
organization.
If
we
conceive of
locus of social
passageway
both
a street
interaction and a
linking destination,
as a
linear
then the
street does not appear to exist at the
simplest levels
identify
of human society. We can
paths leading out of a village
into the surroundings; and we can find
ritual
ways,
lanes
reserved
menstruating women, and
for
even tracks
connecting a settlement. But the street
with boundaries that separate interior
from exterior,
private from public space
does not exist
in
societies.
village
as a
hunting and gathering
The compound or encampment or
itself,
"field
which seems to function
of interaction,"
[Rapoport,
House Form and Culture] is
a
series
system.
of
This
not defined as
destinations
lack
of
in
street
a
linear
seems
to
correlate well with a similar nonlinear
interpretation of time (see "Time and the
watch"}.
Nomadic
and
seminomadic
tribes
18
often
inhabit
circular
villages.
Their
settlements tend to be temporary, made of
natural
materials,
clearly
distinguishable,
portable, and, while
of the surroundings.
an integral part
The absence of the
street in circular villages appears to
reflect
no
strongly
felt
need
for
boundaries between public and private
behavior
(even
though
Levi-Strauss
manipulated Bororo villages to prove,
some
extent,
the
contrary).
to
Unity,
interdependence, and cooperation were the
rule;
and the unit
of cooperation is
the
coresident band --not the nuclear family
[Lee and De Vore,
Man The Hunter;
Claude
Levi Strauss, The Elementary Structures
of Kinship,
Boston,
In
society,
such
a
Beacon Press,
1969]
architecture
is
carrying a mechanism of communication and
can
be
utilized
group of
to
the
relationships
inform
the
entire
state of interpersonal
and to set into motion the
system of sanctions by which the order is
maintained.
For
example,
"among
the
Mbuti, a woman may orient her hut door to
express
liking,
for
neighbour."
a
indifference,
or dislike
[Gloria
Levitas,
Anthropology and Sociology of Streets in
19
On street, MIT Press, 1978]
The circular
settlement in
the Truli
in
villages
in
Puglia,
Sardinia and
and the Indian
Brazil exhibit other forms of
spatial choices contiguous to some forms
of social
organization not ruled by
linearity.
Again, the
basic unit
of adaptation
appears to be the compound itself,
no existence
Generally,
separate
of linear streets.
husbands and wives live
in
huts which are arranged in
rough circle
work
with
of
a
within which most of the
the
compound
is
conducted.
Depending upon the specific elements of
the
social
structure,
a man
and his
wives' huts may be clustered separately
from
those
of
his
brothers,
and
occasionally the houses of husbands and
wives
may be
passageway.
connected
Among
huts
circle
while all
the other side
NY
covered
all
the
of the
side
the wives'huts may be on
[Paul Oliver, Shelter and
Praeger,
compound may take
lineage,
Massa,
may be on one
men's
Society,
the
by a
1969].
A
large
in several families, a
segment of a lineage,
moiety,
20
or
'lanimetry
of
uraghe village
the
in
even a
clan.
about these
nature
But what is
most striking
settlements
of life
smaller units
within
is the public
them.
Although
of cooperation exist,
and
the household may function as a unit
production,
the critical
of
need for a large
cooperative group demands public food
storage
shared by all
compound.
have
the
occupants of the
While the circular village
may
a headman or men's club house, even
granaries
of
the
headman
are
not
private. For "in severe shortage, what
food is held openly
equally by all
18]
long
"As
circular in
must be shared
within a compound."[see
as
a
village
remains
form one can generally infer
that it is egalitarian both politically
and economically,
private
and that privacy -- like
property--
evidence"
will
be
little
in
[Gloria Levitas, Anthropology
and Sociology of Streets in On street,
MIT
Press,
1978].
The
beginnings
of
a
concept of private family life may be
seen in
the use of a covered passageway
(a private
wives,
street)
but
linking a man and his
by and large
family boundaries is
little
the concept of
developed.
21
D.-OPPORTUNITY
Wherein we
factor
TO
NODES.
understand
of
that
separation,
distribution,
and,
power. Line
line
a
is
a
means
as such,
a
of
tool for
is possibly a necessary
consequence
of
the
increase
of
population.
The
village
of
rectangular
houses
presents a very different picture: In
Middle
East
where
this
form
the
first
appears, the houses seem to be designed
to
accomodate
individuals.
families
rather
Although
there
than
may be
a
headman's granary, each household has its
own
concealed,
facilities,
interior
and the implication of these
findings
is
household,
rather
village,
storage
that
the
individual
than the compound or
has now become the basic unit of
production.
Further more,
it
appears
that since the household storage units
are hidden from public view, the cultural The
f irst
three
Cruisads reached the
imperative
for
sharing beyond the
holy
land
by
landroads.
household itself either has considerably
Most of the journeys
weakened
or
no
longer
exists.
"While
were accomplished on
the old roman roads.
disparities of wealth among members of a Roads were the only
way to spiritual
circular compound are virtually non- conquest.
22
existent,
the
opportunities
accumulation
of
resources
family
to
be
seem
rectangular
within
present
house."
for
the
in
the
[Gloria Levitas,
Anthropology and Sociology of Streets in
"On
Street",
are
MIT
very
much
Press,
in
1978].
evidence
Streets
in
the
rectangular village and function as the
link between discrete,
bounded units. But
much of the activity
circular
villages
that
in
took place in
the public communal
center now takes place within the privacy
of the household court.
This
does
not mean that there is
relationship
within
infrastructure
the
of
Actually,
the
no
social
settlement.
due to common activitites,
the
population shared by intermittence what
Emile
Durkheim
solidarity"
called
[Emile
Division of Labor in
Press,
"mechanical
Durkheim,
Society",
"The
NY Free
1933].
In both the rectangular house village of
the Middle East and the linear
maritime
village
we see the emergence of a change
in
nature
the
which in
of human
relationships
turns depends upon technological
23
and
ability
villages
Both
habitat.
of
emphasize the family as the basic unit
and both have begun to grant
production,
privacy to the family.
often found strung
village,
The linear
alongside roads and river banks,
because
access to the
coerces
the
villages
form.
road or water
Actually,
in
are organized
perpendicular
to
emerged
the
these
or
parallel
topological
generator. In a circle all positions have
equal access to the center of information
of
the
social
Studies
group.
of
communication mentioned by Gloria Levitas
and
a
certain
sense
of
spatial
distribution would propose that circular
forms
are
egalitarian,
of
sense
and
provide
for
satisfaction
participants,
being,
all
however,
efficient in performing tasks
a
less
requiring
numerous divisions.
The street
this
social
should not be arranged for
reason
in a simple category of
separation.
Where -a
example,
moiety
system
members
dominates,
of each half
for
may be
arranged on opposite sides of the street.
24
\-hrC
$
1Crovwer~?
In this
case, the street
spatial
symbol
moieties.
It
agreement
effectively
a
of separation of the
has
inhabitants
is
been
built
themselves,
itself
is
the
by
and
proof
the
this
of
a
superior unity frequently indicated by
some focus included at its
its
end,
center or at
such as the chief's hut, village
shrine or temple, communal granary, or
men's club.
The street may express organization of
groups,
subclans
whom it
or lineage segments for
is the place of interpersonal
interactions, generally confirmed in a
particular segment of the street;
behavior,
villages
is
noted in
in
these last
that
on
Mexico and in
observed
societies,
the -first
in
our
this
rectangular
the Near East,
contemporary
in New York, or Penang;
personal observations,
in
I noted
there were always physical stimuli
which
people aggregate
such as
a
hydrant giving water or the sole tree on
the street.
way,
In
these
cooperative
a wider and more complex
societies
function
as
work groups and ceremonial
organizations,
cutting across
25
nuclear
families and lineages to provide another
source of activity.
The emergence of the street,
then, seems
to
a
symbolize
or
express
awareness of the separation
and public,
gradual
of private
family and larger community.
Competition
and
intensification
of
production rather than cooperation and
stability
of production emerge with the
street.
In
the
evolution
of
the
Western
settlement in this last millenium, the
communitarian
structure
is
shifting
progressively from the notion of place
and linear aggregation of place [see
the
un-published study of Paolo Portoghesi on
the "slargi"
di Roma,
a study that
shows
how the facades whose reciprocal angles
with
the
series
axis
of
of
places
simplified
and
the street
to
a
create
complete
anonymous
a
and
linear
distribution].
As
long
as
it
seems that
a
line
is
a
San Miniato.
division of society,
of
the
master
of
it
this
raises the issue the nature of
landscape
in
formal
and
the
model. direction East-West,
obliged
the city
b e
t o
like Main Street, the f o r m s
aggregated
in
a
linear development.
are
the
City
Hall
Regarding segments,
door
the
the
26
suggestions of power as they control the
entrance and control the meeting.
The birth of the
generates
society is
power
line in the community
in
such
a
way
regulated and directed.
27
that
E. -TRANSMUTATION.
Wherein
we
note
the
historical
from form to
transformation of the line
space of communication.
The transformation of linearity
time,
the
crystalizes
through
evolution
of the
wall of the city.
The presence of the city wall symbolized
and
supported
the
cooperative unit,
through a
presence
of
a
Amsterdam walled.
operating essentially
system of interwoven kin,
work
and religious networks.
Within this
both
(walled) city,
social,
and
public
were still
activities
households;
activity
was
Strasbourg walled.
economic _
and
embedded
in
the
trade and social life were
conducted together. In
the medieval city,
developing specialization in craft was as
much apparent by specialized streets
by the
of the
presence
hall.
guild
as
The
church and state grappled for control
over the emerging cities and indicated
this
tension
in
spatial
the
implementation.
At
that
time,
stability,
the
street
defined
but soon became a unique
28
p
vector of dynamism and specialization.
The evolution
marks this
of the wall
evolution
muro Aureliano
in
of the
cit
the same way.
Il
in Rome is at the same
time a defensive form and an aqueduct.
is
statism
and
initially
movement,
It
whereas
the walls of the city were only
an envelope for the city.
several
European cities,
see how the wall is
Actually for
we can clearly
a potential
medium of
The Ring of Vienna.
All these
cities'
walls
became
an
examplary transformation
of the
wall
in opportunity
to
peripherial
which we could determine two components, development and
transit circulation.
one
of
which
has two essential
communication.
The Ring of Vienna is
an
orientations. The line was viewed as a
protective element against the world (see
scheme)
and
communication.
became
a
drag
for
The variant of the second
stage is the wall as a park.
Taking
apart,
belongs
place
for
metaphor
this
variant,
to which
the Ring, the line became
circulation,
for non-space,
that
is
a
to
say a
a place
where
nobody stays, an absence of statism, a
non-place.
29
F.-
HUNGRY FOR CONTROL.
Wherein
we
illustrate
the
Baroque
_
_g
__
expression of line as order and control.
People,
from a geopolitical power's point
of view,
are disposed to some sort
of
centralization, some nodes that center
the line.
The same population, for an equal area,
in a closed centrifuge
figure is more
difficult to control than a population
whose linear housing is
controlled at the
middle and at the two ends of the street.
Each focus,
each alteration
to the line
suggests a possibility of control.
Nodes appears as power and control.
The structure of the prisons relates
best physical
example,
in
the
which there
is
no way to escape.
The analogy between streets and prison is
made
televised
shows
more
convincing
by
watching
information that dramatically
the
outside their
see outside,
prisoners
grids.
as is
hanging
Their scope is
provocative,
to
the scope of the bow-
window of Back Bay. Although this
is
mirrors
it
can
be
without other presumptions.
30
analogy
admitted
The
prison
of
Philadelphia
and
Lamberton.
Orde r
and
observation allowed
by
the
straight
-- line of
line,
vision-- makes the
a
model
linear
componenent of their
circular
composition.
The
along
concentrates
the
+
never
but more
line,
interruption such as--
at its
effectively
in
the power,
thus
control,
the Rome of Sixtus V,
the Paris of
in
Haussmann, in the medieval town of Italy.
-
We should perceive this type of linearity
as a transitory solution from the nonstructure towards a vision
linear spatial
world as a unit of rational
of the entire
systematic
communication.
The
18th century Parisian
of
Haussman,
in
interventions
with
line
hism
predecessors,
Rambuteau and Bonaparte,
are conceived
on the basis of rational
arguments.
Among
are
these
the
-- more than
sanitarization of "fresh air"
the creation of the Bois de Rome in 1748.
The 15th century
intervention of
(310
Vincennes--, of the water supply
1000 trees,
Sixto V, Leone X and
miles),
of public gas in
the street,
of Paolo III.
*240
the efficacity
in
of movement -- not so much
terms,
military
in
but
CONTROL of public movement,
companies
terms
of
the 15 bus
2j '2
-
being unified in the sole
Companie Generale.
"
Zola
in
"Les scenes de la
rue de Paris"
Back
ah*
Bay:
-
Newbury
street.
New order of Boston
of
Paris
the
about
describe
later
will
by
conceived
Olmsteed.
and
"disemboweled
is
it
Haussmann that
31
bleeding
as the prey of speculation,
victim of all-consuming greed (in
Guide
p.194)
Rougeon
adding,
Macquart,
still
that
later,
this
the
Parisin
economic
speculation is "making the money dance
(...)
giving the laboring classes no time
to think." In
-
the Paris Guide, the Rue de
Rivoli was seen as a symbol of the new
world -- long,
wide, and cold:
no longer exists in
once dead,
and
is
advent
"The street
Paris, and the street
the reign of the boulevard Paris:
of
the
grand
arteries
(in
lack)
Haussmann
(in
Paris Guide p.924).
In the XVIII century, people feared the
street. In reaction, the utopians of this
period
created
"gallery streets
imaginary
cities
whose
are -a means of internal
communication which will be enough to put
to shame all
the palaces and fine towns
of civilization"
[text written by Fourier
between
The
1803
and 1808,
"les
phenomenon of social
manuscrits"].
condensation
Orio Litta:
Villa
interested him more than commercial Somagi built by
Marc'Antonio dal
Re. The order is
in
the
as
the
Phalanstere
values. "In
essentially
scenographic.
would
street
gallery
the
Royal,
Palais
act as a binding agent."
32
The Passage du Caire was created in
1799.
It transforms and comforts the society
that
created
it.
The
overproduction
caused by technological advances made it
imperative
for
the manufacturers
of
luxury goods to discover new methods of
distribution,
promotion.
resulted
factors:
store
faster turnover and easier
The
success
from
a
the
of
combination
supply of goods in
variety
the
and a supply
arcade
of
two
department
of public
space for undisturbed promenading, window
shopping and display of merchandise.
On one hand, the show window defines the
retail
store
in
its
simple
form:
the
product is protected from the weather and
can be viewed through the window after
the shop has closed. Fixed prices replace
bargaining. A variety
individual
replaces
hand,
production and competition
mutual
the
of goods replaces
support.
routes
On the
other
-- galleries
and
passages--
[in Bentham and Ledoux quoted
by Antony
Vidler,
Street
Reality:
solely
The Scenes
Transformations
1750'-1871
in
a means of fast
of the
in Ideal
"On Street"]
and
were
communication or
33
aids to more perfect observation. Trapped
in a cylindrical void or in wedge-shaped
cells,
the inspector and the inmates were
denied
all
vision;
social
connections,
space for its
been rendered
On
save
that
of
own sake has
non-existent.
another scale,
the plans of the works
of Henri St Simon such as the railroad
from Paris to Marseilles or the general
distribution of water in Paris
or the
piercing of the street from Le Louvre to
La Bastille
announce the interventions of
Haussmann.
At a
time in
which the street
community control
lost
its
and .began to be a place
of fear and transit in a divided society,
the galleries and the Haussmannian lines
of force reveal a means of control and
calculation
is
of power. The straight
line
proven to be a place of control in the
words of
Victor Considerant
Considerant,
[Victor
"Considerations Sociales"]
"Just as the cross determines the form of
medieval
(spiritual
series
cathedrals
and
churches
control and consensus),
so the
or row determines the form of the
34
dwellings and factories of the phalanx.
They are, however, also linear extensions
of the meeting place,
of squares;
are
also "passegiate."
So,
at the beginning of its
they
development,
the arcade
was an object of private
speculation,
an imitation of the Palais
Royal; in the Passage Choiseul, the model
was
the
early
Burlington
Christian
it
Basilica;
was the Exchange
in
[Johann
Friedrich Geist, "Arcades, The History of
a Building Type",
MIT Press,
it
became
the
symbol
progress,
the
showpiece
established
Germany,
nations,
of
like
1983].
Then
cultural
of
newly
Italy
and
which were seeking recognition. Lowther
Arcade,
London, 1830-31.
They
appear to
be a sort of cultural One of the earliest
London arcades, 245
control:
the arcades, as seen above for feet long, 20 feet
wide, 35 feet high.
the Haussmannian interventions,
were Although based on
the bazaar model, it
urban models for visions of a prestigious has almost the same
connotations as the
future in which the street
is controled. Boulevard Haussmann:
cleanliness, order
This promenade allows people to walk and control.
without
fear.
35
G. -DREAM
(NIGHTMARE).
Wherein line
is
a tool for colonization
and replication.
Yoan Friedman, 1958.
'.
--
Tramway for Berlin.
of
the
Conquest
street
by
la
nouvelle
bourgeoisie
.
(19th.c).
,.1Efd
Kenzo Tange: Plan of
the bay of Tokyo,
1960.
The
title
of
Hafraba-guides in
1929
The
Edgar
(Germany):
strengt
h
labor
Chambless:
with
Roadtown, 1910.
of
identified
lines
passing
through the country.
36
The intention is not only the symbolic
of
generator
order,
the
for
sake
progress, but, through the means
of
of a
to express one's new power on the
line,
bigger area of the city.
We can distinguish two formal ways
linearity
to
confront
the urban
in
space
with a new project: either vertically,
with the
skyscraper,
through lanes in
is
only
population,
constant
territory
This
or horizontally,
the city.
visual
as
for
one N. Ladowski.
Project in Santo
Domingo, 1929.
the
The first
most
of
whereas the second one is
physical
presence
in
a
the
of the neighborhood.
line
passing
remains therefore,
occurance is,
through
the
whatever its
city
economic
the more direct and the
simpliest way to show and demonstrate to
and
OSA:
Magnitogorsk, 1929.
JJ.
the city
project
the
presence
of society;
of
erection
one
much more than the
(one
skyscraper
public intervention,
is
a
the other a private
--
one).
The
linear
urban
is
project
then
considered as a factor of prosperity:
it
The
drags
Leonidov
of one's urban group
down
everything
and
becomes
37
an
linear city of
Soria y Mata, 1899.
exchanger,
it becomes the speed, where
everything is
fast
is
possible: the dream to go
the dream to be everywhere,
to
have the power of ubiquity.
Thus, the spectrum of lines becomes, in
the
words
of
Samuel
Florman,
civil
del
Gonzales
astillo: Belgian
inear city, 1919.
engineer, a "diagram for prayer" [in
Culture and Technology, Arnold Pacey, MIT
Press].
The rectilinear
track is
therefore a form
of colonization.
38
H. -
THIRST
FOR INDIFFERENCE.
lines to express his
Wherein man uses
aspiration for the infinite and absolute.'
Lines are not any more simply connections
between points, but an undifferentiated
space support to travel.
Let's imagine now a gridiron city whose
nodes
are
nothing
other
than points
lines
a choice of path. The
allowing
that structure it are arranged as in a
supermarket, where you forget that you
have
pay.
to
It
is,
the
actually,
presence of the quantity of merchandise
that
an
obliges
If
structure.
would
it
were
creation of a
linear,
we
of
the
city like Fathepour Sikri,
an image of a finite
it
not
possibility
the
have
linear
extensible
space,
even though
could be extended.
There is,
thus, a will
city
gridiron
that
that
determines a
interprets
our
existence in space.
The nodes are communicative places,
in
instance
the
the
structure
example,
for
diagrams of L'Enfant and
of MIT.
In the
latter
the lobbies are potential places
39
of control
but the space that would
traditionally
be a place related
to
socio-political power are empty spaces
contiguous to nothing else than stairs
and elevators
apart from the library
building
10.
This
last
in
case
is
interesting because the real power seems
now to be the sole idea of movement.
The
result
is
an
amalgam
of
thematic
variations along strong linear codes.
linear
structure
is
The
massive by essence,
because it is potentially infinite.
In
both
cases,
supermarket,
alignment is
the
the
street
and
character
the
of
the
to make a great collection,
the locus of analogous things.
In both cases, the alignment is a form of
autocontrol
of these analogous things in
relationship
to the space that can be
covered.
Both are the expression of the infinite
consumption of space and things,
be approached
Carnac:
they
like the
are
the
that can
alignment of
exhibition
myth.
40
of
a
Man,
here again, tries
infinite,
That
to
to represent the
show how powerful
he is.
is probably why the nodes do not
have any more importance.
Just asas in
Carnac, there are no existing nodes, in
Hampshire
Street,
cross-roads
are only crossroads.
to
in Cambridge,
the
That is
say an opportunity to change lines.
The
notion of scale disappears in the
infinite, because these opportunities are
barely marked in the space by signs other
than the indicators of direction.
One might suggest that this is more the
result
of
the
importance
of
the
population than a mythical and concurrent
interpretation
course,
would
of
a
village
not
detectable
villages
the
of
need
organization;
the
a
universe.
500
Of
inhabitants
systematic
linear
this is a mistake easily
through
a
few examples
that are stricly
of
organized along
street. They express clearly that
they are the result of external pressure
and
external
superior
spirituality
presence usually
order
as
like
in
the
of
commerce
religious
pilgrimages.
41
a
or The
nodes
are
circumstanciated by
the utilisation of
the land.
However,
spatial
in
the
field
recognition,
of social
there is
and
absolutely
no need to structure a small scale space
with lines,
whereas a large scale area is
easily structured within linear geometry.
Taking the case of Los Anceles,
one might
feel the overlap of two basic structures:
on one hand, the puddles of neighbourhood
distributed in the region with indefinite
contours,
on the other hand, an informal
grid of highway that might almost exist
for itself. Each one of these solutions,
here exceptionally mixed,
concretizes the
research of references for the control Great Wall of China.
1)
Han Period, 206
B.C.
Ming
2)
front of a population impossible to know 1368-1644.
of the individuals in
and the security
(in a way,
the
Period,
space transcribes this
anxiety).
It
is
then
through
methods
classification
that
in
to space and society.
relationship
short,
large fields
smaller
divisions;
of
man knows how he is
In(
need breaking up into'
loosely
connected
fields suggest consolidation.
The case of French villages shows how
only one line at first was a means
42
to
*
'
divide
the space in
"geometry"),
were
and that
added;
say that
two (as seen later
later
two
in
lines
they are smaller. We could
an increment of these villages
gives a gridiron pattern eventhough it
not true
for
the same village,
new villages.
is
but for
As such, of course, a line
is only participating in the division of
space.
The choice of linearity
division
is
as a method of
not
ingenuous.
opportunity of the line
infinite
want
extension.
to
space
signify
as
is
The
its
possible
Western
countries
the improvement
extensible
spaces
of their
for
the
infinite. Similarly, their economic
Communications
growth refutes
at
the same time
types of recognition
the
other between
A and
are difficult.
and extension, like
character of aggregation,
B
whose
components, moreover, risk in varying so
much at the measure of the renewal in a
rapid evolution
continuity
accepted
that
would not mark the
of the infinite.
loss
of social
In
the now
consensus,
would be more and more delicate to trust
oneself in
this
type of constant spatial
43
it
Communications
between A and B are
very clear.
invention that would not have definitive
constraints and rules.
The
hypothesis
linear
of the
necessity
of a
organization as a measure of the
population
remains
to be submitted
to
tests.
By briefly
considering the functions of
movement
people,
goals
one
(in
the case of the street,
ideas,
either
can
goods)
in
and
of
access
(to
or abbuting the street),
trace
three
aspects
of
the
changed role of the street.
Initially,
for
communication,
satisfied
postal
certain
these
Whereas
linguistic
telephone,
the
systems:
or subway
extensions
powers
transmission)
of
functions have been
by other linear
,
ranges
system.
of
now
and
chiefly
without demanding his presence
street,
power
essentially
man's
(transcription
function
the
in the
the extension of his locomotive
(transportation)
has taken place
by superimposing itself
44
on
the
street.
Thus,
while the street
is
a
necessary place of movement from one part
of the city to
another, it
is
still
possible to converse with a neighbour,
to
perceive or receive news through radio
and
television,
entertained,
therefore
or,
leaving home.
artifacts
finally,
to
be
to shop without
This might say that
those
created to support linguistic
extensions bypass the street in the same
manner
do. In
as
the
communications
reality,
the street
itself
support of most of them.
and telegraph
of mail,
cables,
themselves
is
the
The telephone
the transportation
newspapers and magazines,
the
piping of water, gas and -electricity pass
through the subsoil of the public street,
so that
whereas it
has become possible to
communicate on a linguistic level over
great
street
pattern,
artifacts
for
that
distances
that
with
the
no
reference
to
communication
support this capability
short distances,
as well
as those
extend man's range of mobility, are
largely bound to the subsurface of the
street.
45
Secondly, "it can be seen that a reliance
on
a
mechanically-aided
mode
of
communication, such as the automobile,
greatly expands the range of movement and
access
such
generating
as pedestrian movement"
as
a
result
environmental
incompatibilities."
street
[Czarnowski,
The
as a Communications Artifact
"on
Streets"]
Thirdly,
all
lines become a support to almost
the matters used in
our lives.
Their
configurations depend on scale, type and
architecture
such
as well as on functions in
a
way
that
morphologies.
they can
These
offer
new
morphologies
may
increase the complexity of governing the
street. But this complexity relates
essentially
simple
to a number of different,
things,
whereas
it
such as a car,
simplifies
its
a
but
wire,
global
utilization by man... For instance, the
pedestrian
a
client
time,
may
only
be
considered
for merchandise;
the
exceptional
at
quality
as
the same
of
the
street, which promotes sitting, or, not
doing anything, aspiring to a quiet space
may barely be taken into consideration.
46
The street
of this
due
thus,
becomes poorer in
new complexity.
to
mass
divulgation
This pauperism
production
of
spite
and
mass
information/behaviour
cannot take into account the expression
of the personal and rich behaviour of the
individual.
These three events, the replacement of
the
street
movement
as
a
by
system
other
communication,
the
of
access
channels
alteration
and
of
of
the
street by the superimposition of modes of
communication requiring varying scales of
operation,
and
the
development
of
configurations of streets that rely on
mechanized
movement
distend regional
and
form
greatly
patterns and constitute
M.Masmanjan.
a metamorphosis and a narrowing of the Park for the future
in Moscow, 1929.
role
of
the
street
as
a
locus
communication.
47
the
of
of Paradigm
linear
track's
indifference.
I.-VELOCITY.
Wherein
line
prestige,
is
the
propagation
power and
a vision
of
of
the
clear now that
the
future.
Although
it
seems
existence of a linear system is mainly
symbolic,
the
official
reason
for
its
implementation remains an economic one.
Glenn
D.
Westley
in
"Planning
the
Location of Urban Suburban Rail Lines"
[Ballinger,
Cambridge,
1928]
determined
the path of rapid transit with equations
in which the users seem important factors
of
decision.
Actually
the
implicit
content of such equations assume that
1)
the
less
further
the centroids
important
they
are
are,
(which
the
is
a
caracteristic of the gravity model);
2) the
longer the travel is,
likely
you are to do it;
3)
the
city
has
to
be
the
distributed
corridors.
48
less
in
In fact, the USERS are distributed on a
bidimensional space, and their
location
filtered through models that determine
the optimal path.
We can already see that
the individuals
are not considered in the implementation
of
such
transportation.
essentially
This
due to the fact that
is
subway
transportation has to be, by hypothesis a
mass transportation,
the line
being now
the concentration of the rapidity.
The insertion of time in the concept of
transportation
reveals
the
disconsideration of the individual. The
San
Franscisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
designers
thought that
traveler,
facing the choice between using
his
private
"the interurban
automobile
or using
mass
transportation, will be influenced in his
choice more by the speed and frequency of
interurban transit service than by the
distance he must travel
in
his own car
or by local transit to reach the nearest
rapid transit
Railways
station
(Sokes B.R. Urban
and Rapid Transit,
1972)." Whereas
we have
IPC TPL.Hope,
known for more
49
than twenty years now,
described
by
Micropsychologie
(also explicitly
Abraham
Moles
in
et vie quotidienne) that
the "time spent inside vehicles is judged
to
be
far
less
spent walking,
by a factor
onerous than the
time
waiting and transferring,
up to 3 or 4 times."
When designing the tramway of Strasbourg,
the engineers applied their concept of
efficiency.
It
says
efficient,
the
distributed
every
these stations,
be
between
a
that,
stations
250
have
meters.
Cronenbourg,
cemetery
to
be
to
be
One
of
happened
and a
to
highway,
whereas if it were at 150 meters instead,
it would have been on the border of a
very urban and dense neighbourhood.
I proposed
the
shift
of
the
When
station,
engineers told me clearly that they were
working for the transportation system,
not for the users.
A third
argued by Jonathan
example,
Richmond for the project of BART,
"studies relative
in
is
that
to BART were practiced
terms of validation
in
which none of
50
the
viable bus alternatives have been
considered,
in
to a behaviour
leading
which the bus network has been modified
to
feed
LRT
the
for
and not designed
people's trips."
These
three
examples
impression that
through cities
a
diffuse
the
linear distribution
like San Franscisco or
Strabourg are submitted to reasons other
than economic ones.
* One remains paradoxically economic, but
within
the
context
of
an
"overall
macroproduction target and an overall
income multiplier."
It
feeds economic
growth and generates economic growth.
this
in
sense,
which
it
is
line
In
a vision of the future
as
movement
is
just
contiguous to economic growth.
* It
is
of
B.R.
a symbol of progress in
Railways
Stokes,
and
the words
BART manager,
Rapid
Transit,"
["Urban
Chapter
"BART and the community," IPC Transport,
Press Limited,
Hope,
much
the
high
technology
with
system
face
is
1972] reveals
desired.
He
and the future:
lifting
plans
for
51
how
evokes
"[...]
these
prestigious
[...].
thouroughfares
Berkeley [...] was a scene of purposeful
[...].
confusion.
Built by
the
Rohr
corporation, basically an aerospace
concern,
BART trains
advanced in
are among the most
the world." The prestige,
the
order and the ambition to be the first
("catalyst in
"development
tool")
employed means.
change"
sociological
If
justifies
there is
the
no double-
checking in the analysis, as for a simple
statistical
test,
it is because the
responsible individuals do not want to
hear something else than the results
they
want.
*
Another
reason for which economic
factors are minimized when considering
the decision of building a line
the
connotation
of
this
is
when
line
is
innovation. We tend to value creativity
and
it
is
not
in our nature to place
limits on it. We tend to feel that the
innovative
burdened
restriction
impulse
with
too
should never
much
be
political
or economic parsimony.
52
Obviously
a
line
here
is
part
of
a
complex system, and this text does not
intend to propose that a network composed
of lines
makes a line
a unique factor of
decision.
However, in the cases above, we have seen
that lines
level
as movement imposes a certain
of seduction.
They are a support
for prestige and innovation.
The
Space Program participates
same concept.
We could argue that,
again, travel
is
innovation.
in the
here
a source .of prestige
and
For the Statue of Liberty,
the Centre George Pompidou,
the memorial
to the Vietnam War in
Washington DC are
monuments,
of
sources
innovation,
at all.
and
prestige
and they do not use linearity
Linearity is
an efficient
tool
factor of prestige because of its
intrinsic
idea of movement,
propagates
easily
the
and thus,
prestigious
intervention in
the environment.
Where castles,
temples,
the case of illustration)
placed
viewed,
as
and
a
in
such
they
factor
cathedrals
(in
and towers are
a way that they
can be
are using lines of vision
of propagation
53
of their
meaning which is
usually power, whether Line
or cultural.
spiritual
In
is
a
human
its
to
construct for
s ake:
Vosgian own
the
transport.
for
plain,
a
-
as a
using line
generate roads,
cathedral
and
a castle
instance,
--
tool of design.
The physical means to show its
in
the city
to
be
follows the same principle:
means
everywhere
the
than
higher
as
being
(as
others
in
San
in urban
for a highway,
and the
that everybody
subway,
either
propagating
or
Gimignano),
corridors
presence
*
would be obliged
to take.
In
the creation of our
we
desert,
are
-
lines in the
in
participating
two
essential concepts:
1)
We built
which
common
a collective
interprets
place
for
links between them,
is
super-monument,
the city
less as a
individuals,
but
as
links whose criteria
celerity.
Velocity raised
monument.
54
as a
2)
We
say
inserted
clearly
in
RAPID
that
our
transportation
is
as a place of
DISTRIBUTIONS.
the transportation
future
Actually,
what isi
for? The purpose of
transportation
is
"to bring people or
goods to places where they are needed
(DIFFUSION),
greatest
within a
and to
variety
of
concentrate
goods
and
the
people
limited area (CONCENTRATION),
in
order to widen the possibility of choice
without making it
necessary to travel."
(Lewis Mumford in The Highway and the
City)
A
good
transportation
system
minimizes unecessary transportation;
in
and
any event,
mode
to
it
and
offers a change of speed
fit
a
diversity
of
human
topographical,
power
purposes.
The geopolitical,
expressed in this view seems however a
transitory
evolution
concept
of
in
the
front
of
the
systematic
generalisation of linear vectors. We will
analyze now how this generalization
stimulates a world of chronopolitical
power.
The argument proceeds from the essence of
the communication itself: SPEED.
55
We immediatly evoke the fact that the
more
important speed
is,
straighter
is
the line. And we then have to distinguish
clearly the straight line from the others
(see "geometry")
The original reasoning of climbing on as
mount
to be
economy
of
transported suggests an
human
energy.
We
save
the
discomfort of a long pedestrian travel
with
the
help
of
the
speed
of
the
movement. The ideal of travel originates
in
the
combination
constant
two goals:
research
weightlessness,
velocity.
of
and
Whether
of
of
one
an
an
or
the
ideal
infinite
the
other
detaches the traveller from the physical
territory
and,
thanks
to the
vehicle,
gives access to one of the first
relativity.
of his
The traveller
mount,
WAITING.
its
a prisoner
DRIVING or in
its
The kidnapping and the carrying
off are in
travel
in
is
forms of
the heart of the accelerated
(by metaphoric opposition to the
pace
of the walker whose act of going
fast
remains
mount is
the
grounded on earth).
an exchanger
cabalistic
tradition)
The
(also mentioned in
whereas
56
the
landing charge
is
an upsetting
of the
equilibrium, a rupture.
In driving,
the traveller
activity
undertakes an
stimulated by speed.
same
time,
mechanism
he
is
he is
object
directing.
horse or vehicle,
by teaching
the
But at the
of
the
The mount,
codifies his behaviour
him what he has to do to
advance,
to accelerate,
to turn.
codification
is
obvious
more
This
in
stimulators such as video-disk games that
extract windows from the edges of the
image,
blow
laterally,
them
up
and
put
them
so to give an impression of
velocity
due to the fact that
of speed is
of vision
controlled
the sense
by the periphery
(Note that our cars could have
prismatic windows which could produce a
decoupled impression of speed,
slacken
these
the
pace
games,
of
the
the
so as to
vehicle).
In
learns
to
driver
synthesize the parameters to speed up to
his
maximum.
between the two
The
game
(as it
United States). The driver
united
for
to
remain
limits of speed fixed by
himself or by law
are
is
the
is
in
part
of
and the mount
same purpose.
57
Of
course,
this
is
manipulation
also the pattern of any
of
instrument.
once the journey begins,
totally
involved in
But
here,
the traveller
it,
is
and he cannot
leave immediatly his mount. There he is
trapped.
In
the traveller's
identify
a
waiting speed one can
prematured
accelerated
movement
ageing:
makes
the
time
go
quicker and the environment erases its
old signification.
The displacement
abstract,
on itself.
closed in
is
Because it
does not have other physical references
than itself,
it
is
When looking at
a production of fear.
the extreme velocity
of
the space shuttle or the successive
winners
of maximum speed,
obvious.
The
mount
this
horary
pertaining
developed at
The
such as in
route
to
its
But as the
space disappears,
Time remains,
more
originates
existence between two places.
territorial
is
the sole
the cult
the
of the
railroad
the dawn of the railroad.
is
not
a
route
of
communication, but the concentration camp
of the velocity,
clearly
(as determined earlier)
symbolized
in the
successive
58
competition
of speed
plans
and
time
straightness
not
on Salt
space.
Lake.
The
It
road's
makes new the history of
celerity, the rectitude of the line (?the
axis?) is
the fossil
of the bullets
armour
in
plated
on
Reich-Autobahn.
the unidirectionality
speed. The metonymie of
phenomenon is
is
also
this
written on the snow by the
and uniform marks of the
repeated
Time
in
the
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59
J.-
CONCENTRATION, VIOLENCE.
Wherein line
annihilates
the notion of
space.
The general mobilization is the ultimate
form of this
disguise:
the marks of the
railroad and of the speedway are like the
marks of camoflage on the
building,
they dissimulate the unity for
conformity.
have
"facade" of a
Defaced Western countries now
faces
of
a
body
excessively
equipped,
outrageously made-up by their
means
communication, from aerial
of
cables to jets'
condensation contrails
covering the azured fieldsweep,
erasing
its
color.
representation
of
before
Through
this
the
equipment,
increasingly lose the direct view
we
of the
physical world... the map instead of the
territory,
the
statistic
instead
of
facts.
Given the possibility of traversing a
region
at a steady sixty-five miles an
hour, it is said that anyone with a car
can, within sixty
with
friends,
millions
shops,
factor that this
minutes, make contact
of
jobs
cinemas,
and
umpteen
etc...
statement omits is
60
The
time.
Regional man has less time to spend at
his
destinations.
means
of
are
the street
for
parking
trajectory
place
compensation
locomotion
destination,
made
In
the
from it
typical
to another
like the shopping
center
(at
station.
The population is
best)
or
to
the
subway
going "where
the action is", as generally stated;
population
as
essentially
lots,
conducts
of exchange
is
used
the
does not stay anymore
the
to
interact.
The conductor becomes the semi-conductor
of an abstract
the
shoot
process. For the captain,
devices
U-boat
commanding
officer, there is no other memory than
the fire-control officer; the magnetic
tape concentrates by its unrolling the
trajectory of the missile to its
like
the
Roman
road
target,
concentrates
the
power of the Empire in the movement of
its legions, in the tubes leading to its
conquered territory
road is
a
(as already said,
form of colonization).
(By proxy, the walkman
linear
the
creates this
(and here we could say monosemic)
61
quo: it
space by its
status
homogeneity
of
places,
disparity
,
the
the
decreases
of
intensity
the
through
feelings,
differenciated
the
restores
constant broadcasting of the same rhythm,
if
not
the
of violence,
project
absence,
and
auditive
It
music.
same
is
not
of
but a project
represents
a
relentless
continuity with an affinity
the continuous
street's
is
and
skyscraper's
to
"white noise.")
This indifferentiation
skyscraper
a
the
external
spread in
street:
texture
the
the
is
the
repetition of a simple frame almost ad
infinitum,
as
well
as
the
street's
texture in its prevalent repetition of
the undifferentiated cars that are now
building the street
to
opposition
clean by
already new,
the
immobile
dirty,
pavement and edifices in
background; cars
are ready to invade every parcel of the
streets'
territory
in
permanent
a totally
new form of renewal.
Rolled up on its
plain,
this
line
because it
is
Governed
by
drum or unrolled in
symbolizes
the infinite
always similar to itself.
order,
it
forms
62
a
first
the
military
glacis,
project
of
and,
as
such,
is
a
fire power violence, but a
strange violence not sanctioned where the
movement
is
every thing and the goal
without any value.
its
success
is
As for the courtisan,
nothing,
only the pursuit
is important, its seduction provokes the
departure, its innocence is the trap of
the travel;
alluring,
it
conducts to the
horizon.
When the probable disurbanization due to
the
Barbarian
invasion
of
European
countries squares with a first type of
dissemination the dispersal in the tract
of
the
geopolitical
disurbanisation
invasion of
dissipation
in
way,
means
once
resulting
the
from
the
time is equivalent to a
chronopolitical
of the
field,
the restriction of the
field
due to the rapidity
of displacement.
political
In
this
importance
was
indirectly identified as space populated
in
the
region
whereas,
as well
henceforth,
as in
it
is
the
nation,
essentially
associated with a spatial and territorial
63
depopulization. This is
the result
of the
very high degree of people's, goods, and
messages' mobility. This is the result of
the paradoxal populating of the time of
displacement.
Densification used to be the ultimate
result of a stage in time and geographic
location
such
of human migration.
type of
superseded
Nowadays,
densification has been
by
the
phenomenon
of
deportation, in a political and social
environment.
place
is
As such,
the quality
essentially judged
of a
by
its
potential axis of displacement whether
airport,
subway
station or
-- for the
profession of planners-- topographical
link extension.
Present deportation is
responsible for
a social renewal in the
urban integration.
from disintegration
suburban
Such renewal results
of alternate
migrations.
In
urban-
other
words,
deportation differs from densification in
the sense that the latter uses the speed
of migration as a means for targeting
goal,
a
whereas the former implies that
migration is
no longer a goal, but rather
64
an
aimless
Therefore,
and
accelerated
the phenomenon
movement.
of deportation
can by no means be compared to the human
levy en masse of the XVIIth century,
or
to the migration from one countryside to
urban
areas
century.
beginning
This
total
in
the
XIXth
mobilization,
affecting both work and leisure, does not
aim to transport people but to dephase
them
at
an
social
accelerated
rhythm.
deregulation,
disynchronisation
This
this
of
human
activities'space and time, are becoming a
vectorial
power
improving
movement's
dictature.
These constatations enlightened us about
the contemporary urban crisis.
irrelevant
Polis is
to the political
It
is
crisis.
The
not any more, pre-eminently,
political
communication
provoking
The
locus.
a
being
means
dispersed
disurbanisation
perceived on the site
not
the
of
are
hardly
of the metropolitan
concentration. The 100 million persons
passing through Houston airport in 1989
are facts confirming that the social and
political problematic of populating is
65
shifting
from a place to a non-place, the
non-place
instantaneous
of
exchanges
migrations.
and
quasi-
The road is
now
only a vector.
The state of urgency becomes the new town
of
a sort of time-populating, where
heretofore the state of siege achieved
space-populating.
66
PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH.
K.-
GEOMETRY.
Wherein
a piece
essential
of
paper defines
characteristics
of
a
the
line:
division, time.
fi-
Suppose there is already a line on the
paper.
"What is
a line?" seems to be neither the
right question, nor the good approach.
I trace
a line
deal
in
on the paper. And I will
this
essay
with
the
representation of line as an active
observer.
1)
"What do I see?"
2) "Why do I see it?"
3)
"What can it
1)
I see that
be?"
a straight
line
is
defined
by two points.
However,
I
recognize
several points,
that
if
I
draw
I define visually a cloud
67
determines one (or more)
of points that
line(s)
with
correlation:
this
a
coefficient
line
is
a
synthesis
'
-
of
of
-
these points. I note that aligned points
are particular type of clouds, and there
is
more than one way to link them. The
link I
the
-
.
A~
am tracing helps me to understand
behaviour
of
these
points.
It
transforms and simplifies their reality.
For me,
as an observer,
a line
has two
essential characteristics:
--When traced on a plan, a bi-dimensional
space,
it
divides it
in
two. In
fact,
if
I see it in a three-dimensional space, it
does not separate anymore two spaces,
but
may become a mark in space.
-- When
I
trace
it
on
this
plan,
it
requires time to be written and, in the
same way,
when I look at it,
it
requires
time to be read.
These characteristics seems to be general
to
the
concept of linearity when an
observer exists.
68
4
.
-*
The only existing geometric straight line
in
the natural world
is
the horizon line
(and yet we know and abstract its reality
2.
as a curved line).
The line
I
see on the paper has a width
and a length.
But this
It
forms a space in
itself.
space has a particularity.
An area always has a diagonal, whereas it
is
the
impossible
for me to represent or see
diagonal
of
a
straight
line.
The
compulsory approximation of the diagonal
with the
line
length is
the paradox of-
rectilinear space, and could also be its
essence.
Therefore whatever is
the argument,
it
is
not interesting to consider the diagonal
of the line,
and, on the contrary, if
it
is, the concept of the argument is not
anymore an observed line.
The successive zooming in
on the screen
of the computer would deform the argument
of the constant existence of the width of
the line.
If
the line,
its
I
zoom a thousand times onwidth remains the same.
69
I
t
forget that I am already using a tool
that writes and reads. By metaphor,
a pen
and a magnifying glass at each zooming
are
different.
itself
is
Actually
wrong,
the
metaphor
because what I am really
doing is to keep the same drawing at each
zooming,
scale,
We
and
that's
I write beside
all.
considered
curved
here
a
straight
line. A
line seems to possess the same
characteristics,
line
another
but actually
possesses
always
a curved
a
diagonal
dimension to which I refer in terms of
internal segments. We can conclude that a
curved line,
and
an
having width, a total
intermediary
perceptible
characteristics
portion
finite
has
more than the straight
used
all
and
the
of the area of which we
spoke above. The curved line
are
length
to
defining
determines
line
a space as we
it.
We have to
distinguish fundamentally the curve from
the straight line.
70
2)
The issue might be the culture
observer.
that
Actually,
of the
and
habits
education
teach the sense of perception
(see
Merleau Ponty Phenomenologie de l'espace)
give,
for instance,
line
(left
this
last example is supported by the
fact
that
a direction to this
to right).
reading
The property
from
right
to
of
left
carries another direction to read a line
than the reading from right to left.
Every single thing in the world can be
codified/represented by a group of lines.
This
code
is more interesting when
it
represents the complexity of this thing;
however,
is
a perfect complex representation
the thing itself;
to know what
therefore,
is the
argument of the
representation
to
codification
means
by
we need
know
of
if
line
the
is
interesting for us.
Lines
are
fundamental
codification
or
items in so far as
interest or
intention
makes them so.
71
two ways
There are
look at a
to
line:
and from the interior.
from the exterior
The scale -- say, the relative sizes of
the observed line and its
perceived
size
by the observer-- determines which way we
perceive it.
a
(However,
one
third
means
representation by
abstract
be
might
the
of
words)
3)
placing myself before a sheet of
Still
Line can be seen
from the exterior --
paper, suppose there is line that means it is a separation-the
from
or
,
something in the world for me. I perceive interior --and here,
it is a support for
it, right now, as a relationship between navigation.
points. This is concretized by the fact
my
that
matter to
go along its
eyes
something that goes
really
that there
is
along this
line.
I imagine now
line.
perceive the entire
This movement could be
vibrations as well as vehicles or humans.
the line
So I discovered on my paper that
is
a
link
and can
between two points,
represent, and actually be, channels for
circulation and communication.
I
see
the
extremities
line,
are
and
I
important,
are points of priviledges,
that
note
its
because they
here, points
72
of return. I determine, therefore, a
second characteristic:
the line as access
to points-places. Moreover,
I can stop my
glance at a certain point and say that
the line
is
on it.
represent,
and
Thus,
actually
this
line
be,
a
can
shared
space between points, such as spaces of
buildings
on the street,
or floors
on
the whole page,
I may
vertical columns.
If
I take a look at
lose
the
notion
movement, but
line
of
the
line
as
a
I can discover that the
as a segment is
a place itself.
And
I note that if it is infinite, I can cut
it,
in
such
a
way
that
its
supported by the infinite
case it
can represent,
parts
line. In
such a
and actually
be,
an interface or a meeting place,
ranges
elevator,
case,
which
of
human
the
the place
might
characteristics
encounter,
train,
the
is
not
like a
are
as
car.
for wide
in
In
the
this
support to place
have
linear
car for instance,
but would not exist without it.
73
L.-
NIGHTSHIFT.
Wherein
location
in
a trajectory
function to geographical
is
a
surroundings.
(Abstract notion of time and place with
no reference to past)
To
the
course
line
in
keep
straight
The
the ocean,
does
relief
that
actually,
the relief
does
reference:
it
not
a
governs
the
itself
in
the
is
it
landscape;
exist,
but it
changes
remains a simple topology that
implicate
a
trace
the desert.
not exist,
monotony
is
to
and
the
and
does not
path.
The
magnetic empire -the course-, the sun,
the
moon
and the
stars give points of
reference.
The
route
route
du
is
mythical;
Rhum",
Throughout
changes little
the
one
"La route
hours,
for us,
says:
des
"La
Indes."
distance
the
even in
reference
to the sun.
the
The monotony of the sea's journey is
same as that
that
last
of the
of the nighttime highway,
Rue de Rivoli.
But,
in
or
this
case, the variations of the shop
windows become rapid points of reference.
74
(Rhythm)
The monotony is evaluated in terms of
increasing and decreasing hours;
it is
also
the walk on the Golden Gate, when it
is
raining:
the
continuous
of the
transformations
interest
us
going down,
anymore,
landscape do not
it
is
the
cable
tangenting us horizontally
and going up, that locates the precise
evolution
of
our
path.
Of
course,
on
another scale, the vertical cables are
marking rythmically our pace. But it
not
offer us
corresponds
advancement
journey,
give this
a geographic position;
each
however,
does
to
of
the
the
thought
certificate;
in
there are no spatial
certificate,
verticals
of
the
an
sea
devices to
except the line
behind as mentioned above.
75
PATH.
M.-
Wherein
location
assessed
by
in
markers
a
is
trajectory
in the
trajectory
itself.
An ocean-crossing is never marked by a
physical
division,
but by a temporal one,
the evaluation of which could only be
done with a measure of it.
*
If
he possesses a
sun's apogee
only the
sextant,
can give him a notion of the
advancement along his course. Here,
scale
is
the
only cosmic: To make his point,
he does not need a watch. His trajectory
will
be known
only at noon every day.
Noon is a time straightly related to the
geographical
*
But
localize
when
space.
the
wants
navigator
himself at
four p.m.,
to
he must
comprehend the nature, that is to say,
have a precise knowledge of the currents,
the winds,
and a very precise
loch to
give him the distance that he already
covered. There is no relationship with
time in
this
evaluation.
76
* A third possibility is the use of the
sextan, charts knowing
the polar derive,
the exact measure of the time in
Here,
seconds.
time and culture are intimately
involved.
the
Interestingly,
vast
suburban North-
American rings appear to have the same
pattern. One is driving, closing his eyes
for ten minutes,
and when one opens them,
one
sees the same place;
(or
reader,
or
informed
visitor)
not
discovers
architectural
the spectator
well-
actually
jumble. Even if
how to see -- to decipher--
an
he learns
this
jumble,
nothing would ever prove to him where he
is
exactly located. As if
ocean,
he were in
the
he must trust himself to a course
(sometimes, a skyscraper, sometimes the
rectilinear
barely
street
admit
confirms
the
that
the right
distance
itself,
it
but he will
is the sun
direction),
covered
that
and,
to
from the
taken
speedometer.
The mountain excursion is an interesting
counterposition
of
this
suburban
77
geography. It gives us multiple points of
reference among which we have only too
many
certain number
But a
choices.
of
them are not an obvious common choice to
people. Therefore the path is
different
better
references:
station
not
("Texas"
forgotten) but
light,
not
stores
through
described
only
only
after the
whose
also
the
correlative
name
could
gas
be
after the third
restaurant
with red
(because there could be some
ambiguity with a house with the same type
of color on the window,
because the red
stores might have been painted),
the scissor-like
but also
74
crossroad.
The mountain shows us two mamels, a pick,
a small
forest
or a ravine or still
saddle as intermediate goals.
in
We are led
our reasoning to the notion of
present
in
adult rally,
children's
in
a
track,
games and in
the
which the founded message
authorizes us to go ahead.
We were interested in this text for the
references which permit us to go ahead in
our path. We want to know how to succeed
in
the
measure
of
time,
which
is
the
architectural option that demonstrates
our advancement.
78
Of course,
eventhough we don't know where
we are, we know that
we exist.
Time on the Harvard Bridge is long and
monotonous
and
microevents:
measured
in
fact
the sand grains
by
we see
passing under our feet, the gutter, the
cleft
in
the stones that border the
walkway, or even a banana peel on the
ground become
spatial
an important
reference to
source of
inform us about a
position of knowledge about ourselves in
our movement.
We are always
An
looking for them.
interesting
developed in
water is
have
any
grains.
(when
always
Out
I
abashed
movement
is
is
ice skating where the iced
perfectly smoothed,
surprise
edges.
counter-example
and does not
of
the
was five!),
by
this
perceived
I
plan
thanks
I am the only reference,
my eyes fixed on the floor,
first
remain
whose
to
its
and when
some doubts
accompany my judgement of the velocity I
knew just
before looking at the ground.
79
If we approach the concept of path with
its
concept
phenomenal
defined as the order of
succession and/or change, we
are actually utilizing
the definition of
time.
If
of
this
order is
reference,
viewed with other frames
religious
interpretive
of the world,
as well
as
to raise
the
path as a ritual phenomenon whose time
linear aspect is
abbrogated:
a thousand times
commuters,
this
we could go
from A to B as the
the sensation we have from
trajectory
would
be
constant,
avoiding the variations
of the weather,
of
The
one's
retraces
own
this
mood...
ceremony
constant and makes of the
path an absence of linear time, it gives
to the path a
fixed
in
constant
time.
repetitions
always beginning,
Roughly
speaking,
many
influence the sense of time;
and thus, we can say that,
very ordinary
activities approaches the dimension of
ritual ceremonies essentially due to the
dimension of time.
80
In
a
Western
of
frame
reference,
Christian Norbert Schulz explains that
"buildings and settlements are static,
apart from certain mobile elements of
secondary importance. Nonetheless man has
in
succeeded
time,
"building"
by
translating basic temporal structures
into spatial properties (reference 18)."
He says: "Primarily life is movement and
as
such
it
possesses direction
and
l o
0oo*
000
rhythm.
path
The
is
therefore
a
which Ritual path from
to
settlement
in
camp
initiation
concretizes the dimension of time.
"
Bushman "werf.
Sometimes the path leads to a meaningful Kalahari Desert.
Africa.
goal, where the movement is arrested and
fundamental
existential
time becomes permanence.
symbol
Another basic
symbol which concretizes the temporal
dimension is
therefore the center.
The
archetypal buildings which visualize the
concept are the Mal and the enclosure,
which often appear in
combination.
The
Mal used by ancient civilizations was
usually understood as an axis mundi. At
the acropolis, Mal (hill)
(plateau) are
and enclosure
unified. In
ancient
architecture we also usually find a via
sacra
which
leads
to the center,
81
and
which is used for ritual re-enacting of
"cosmic" events.
basilica,
are
path
In
the
Christian
(nave) and goal
united
to
symbolize
Salvation"
of
Christian
the
(altar)
"Path
doctrine.
of
The
basic phenomena of the urban environment,
the street
and the square, also belong to
the categories
This
analysis
linear
of
of path and center."
accentuates the hypothesis
time
and
space
as
an
interpretation of the western world.
If
it
is
so we should find a relationship
0
between the physical representation of
time and the space.
Mycenaean tomb (the
"Treasury
of
Athens") Mycenae
c.1325 B.C.
built
An unroofed corridor
of "dromos" leads to
the round, corbelvaulted underground
chamber. A side room
is hollowed directly
out of the rock.
and
Direction
centrali ty.
82
N.-RUE
DE
RIVOLI.
Wherein
location
determined
by
quantitative
outside
in a trajectory is
both
qualitative
markers
and inside
and
and
markers.
(Arcades
as
rhythm.
Where rhythm = time
References
Here,
inside/outside)
the Gallaratese
from the streets
is
quite different
of Bologna.
The first
one complacently monumentalizes time; the
pace
is
measured
speedometer,
in
pure columns,
the
and the building's space can
only be understood, counted, by the
outside space,
street
of
as
for a bridge. The
Bologna
puts
continuous distraction
references:
it
is
in
impossible for him to
in reference to the
environment,
arcades'intervals
user
of the temporal
regulate his pace
closed
the
because
are different
the
from one
building to another,
and also because
they
their
are different
in
expressions.
But the pedestrian is not disturbed by
that.
Actually,
he
does
not
need
a
precise temporal trim to know where he
83
is;
it
is
the
to
the
in
passage
where
all
the
is
to find
without the need to count.
a place
in
These
differences
representative
whereas
the
the
a
is
no outside.
patterns
are
in
the
in the Gallaratese, the
produced by a single decision
partitioned
within
in
game
oneself
of the differences
urban concept:
division is
a
This street
there is
itself,
the
becomes
street
object
contrary,
Bolognese
by different
collective
street
streets
ownerships
consensus
pattern.
We
are
see
regarding
here
an
example of the correlation between the
social
production
and the
obtain on the path and its
The Rue de Rivoli
is
feeling we
time.
a complex mix of the
two modes of recognition of space that we
saw: the time as rhythm and the marks in
the space. In
is
the
the arcade,
shop
architecture;
seems
it
to
passerby
window,
is
offer
of this
actually
the
monuments
that
the reference
and
not
the
the decoration that
a
reference
corridor,
intervals
stipulate
to
whereas
between
his
84
the
it
is
the
precise
simple: the
urban location. The reason is
shop windows'
variations
swallowed
little
are little-bya
in
universe
so
repetitive that the variations cannot be
memorized, a little bit like the waves
around a ship, also different one from
the other.
to
let
is
mentally important not
onself be swallowed in their
iterative
has
It
variations.
never
(Who,
chosen
to be
by the way,
lost
in the
multiple reflexions of the meerschaum,
loosing at the same time the notion of
minutes?).
It remains to the pedestrian only the
references of the intersections,
with the
Place
and the
Vendome
for
instance,
presence of the monuments (le Louvre,
Tuileries,
a
statue,
a
Les
square and the
subway stations which are at the
same
time, an alteration to the rythm of the
arcades).
It
is
the
offered by the street's
that enriches
exterior,
equally
asymetric section
the feeling of time.
(The shopwindows of Rue de Rivoli are not
real
temporal
references
inummerable
variations.
references
come
due to
The
after
real
the
time
picking
85
up
something
important
variations,
point,
for me
so to make of it
in these
a particular
an outside point equivalent to the
squares or the interruption of the subway
station)
(limits of recognition)
The
path
in
"Il
Corviale"
creates
a
fantastic sensation of what it is to be
lost
in
a linear
model in terms of time.
What allows the passerby to know where he
is?
The
scale
of
knowledge of his
article of ...
the
door,
and
the
pace might help him. An
proves how it
is
only the
scale of the architecture that gives (the
image of) time to the actor in space.
In
the Corviale corridor,
the
doors
because
prove
one
one's
knows
that
the numbers on
advancement,
each
number
corresponds to an apartment that has a
size. One can therefore evaluate the time
of walking between two apartments.
It
is
exactly the same pattern as in
the
evaluation of time in an elevator. We
know the usual time of travel between two
floors
by evaluating the age of the
86
in
elevator,
correlation to the height of
the building. Sometimes,
rapid or
so
is
it
that
so
That
slow.
have a sense of
we really
confirms that
we are surprised
time not given by the scale of the linear
(we
space
the indication
but merely by
it),
see
don't
of the
floor we pass
inside the elevator.
(We might think more generally about the
difference between stop-go systems such
and the continuous flow
as the elevator
systems, such as the moving side walk or
the
In
lift.
paternoster
the second model,
notion of advancement is uniquely
is
to time. The rhythm of floors
related
replaced by the reading of the watch and
linearity
become more abstract. We note
that this pattern could be found in the
considering
elevator
when
between
floors
and
the
space
is
well
this
demonstrated by shuttle elevators in the
skyscraper)
The
length
of the
difference between
models.
perceive
elevator
In
the
the
path's
space is
the main
these two linear
corridor
end,
we
usually
whereas
the
does not permit a physical
87
evaluation
stop.
from
their
of the point at
Both models
the
are
exterior.
total
we
then,
we know
of the apartment or
We
distance' only if,
If
perceived
length. We know where we are
floor--.
we see its
first
Only
going -- the number
which
which one will
can
evaluate
the
when inside the model,
end.
don't
have
indicating
numbers, Il
this
Gallaratese:
image,
In
we
can
rhythms that we recognize or rythm we car only count;
the
ouside markers are
refer to, and if we do not see the end, in reality a main
refernece.
we are just lost.
I
rrrL~r~rrrrrr
I
I I
Eu rrrrrrr
rrrrrrr
88
0.-
NECESSITY OF NODES.
Wherein, because moving is difficult, the
physical path appears to give birth to
natural
nodes.
We may try
to understand here, what moves
us along a line.
Moving
in
space
therefore it
is
is
difficult,
and
meaningful to assume that
man created the path to facilitate
this
movement. Therefore, a contrario,
potential
movement of the
the difficulty
the The
the
is
line
naturally heavy or opaque.
it
opaque;
seems to be actually
as seen in
"geometry",
creates two areas where it
to travel.
On the line,
it
is
is
On
less
the line
difficult
easier. The
consideration of the section of the line
explains
to
privilege in
-- moving is
us
that
the
line
is
a
the bi-dimensional space.
uneasy, but we are pushed by
the reward of having something from it.
The thought
moving,
is:
I will
can propose that
"If
I
spend this
energy
get something from it."
this
routes
century, along Roman
space. This roads, were marked
by inns.
of moving in
is for two reasons:
-- space
pilgrim
to
Santiago
de
path expresses Compostela, 12th
mentality,
89
We
found
in
the behaviour
that
of the commuters
and
of the American moving constantly,
is generated by good sense in its words
"we
have
to
suffer
to
conquest
the
paradise."
The myth
that
percourses
our
human path, could then have its
Christ's
Western
source in
Path of the Cross. The paradigm
of this hypothesis is found in the tenmile
arcades
Bologna,
the
going
after
city
itself.
The
abstract,
model
of
the
fantastic city's street
extracted from it
passageway
city of
having been for miles in
structure of this
is
out of the
and become a covered
completly
nude,
or better,
in the sense that it is not
anymore the structure
of the city,
but a
the covered passageway
was of
model for it.
Until now,
the
vernacular
order,
protecting
the
walker and improving a direct adaptation
to the natural
space for the city. Out of
the town, we discover the cosmic order of
the same spatial
travel
it
an
climbs,
the arcades
situation:
through the landscape and put in
undulating
line
to hook itself
that
goes,
and
at the top of the
hill.
90
Chapels rhythm this cross-path.
These punctuations of the path, religious
rest-alts, are found in other forms in
other
civilizations
strengths
in
and
human energy.
draw
their
Actually,
our
pace at the time of an ascension --and it
is
fundamental
to note that we are always
analyzing and talking
path in
terms
terms of ascension,
of
decline--
submitted
to
trajectory is
the
about an inclined
in
effectively
compulsory
marked
installation
bivouac,
is
in
and not in
stops.
The
a similar way in
of
the
alpi-nist's
the alpine chalets that
are
placed every six hours of walking, by the
inns along medieval roads, but also, at
another scale
punctuation
of
of this
the paragraphs
book
P. FINCIANA
equally submitted to the
capacity
natural
P.LAMINIA
Eden,
text,
man,
in
the
P-T2-
the breadth of
remember here the
(let's
Eden,
Eden...,
whose
The Aurelian Wall,
all
almost
contribution to the elaboration of a new like
an
was
walls,
form of language has been emphasized by opportunity for
openings. At the
time,
an
the introduction of Roland Barthes, same
will
architect
explaining the contemporaneity of the consider these doors
as alteration (or
only sentence
that
composes this
91
book).
nodes) of the
wall.
We should counteroppose
these natural
the hypothesis of
and cultural
symbolic
stairs,
landings
found
nodes to the
with no
in
India
intermediary
or in
Mexico.
These ascendances are not created for man
and
clearly
cosmologic
specify
their
purely
and symbolic allocation:..-
ascension towards the sky,
recognized universal
towards theK,
forces,
at the same Route of the"Royal
way of the Coast"
time that they represent extraction from and the "Royal way
of the Mountain" in
the occult
forces. Their foundations in the Incas realm at
time of the
the
the Chtonian locus soar them up towards conquest
of
the
country
by
the
the
stellar
forces
in
a somewhatSpanish in
15241533.
megalomaniac trend.
But the difference between the vertical
element -- the
one we are
led to talk
about now-- and the horizontal path is in
their
in
spatial
situation. The first
the middle of the space,
one
is
in
a
(explained in
the first
eyes
one is
the second
bidimensional
"geometry").
one is
space
Consequently,
immediately swept by the
and becomes a virtual
linear space,
whereas we generally cannot have an
entire view of the second,
are
sure
to
be able
to
eventhough we
walk along it.
92
As
the
above,
mentioned
is
street
by
the
same
measured
originally
phenomenon.
An agrarian city did not need,
to
be
extended.
indefinitely
Thej
around the village contained a
territory
number
of
inhabitants
pow.er
of
agrarian
the
perceived
restaurants
the!
production.
punctuation
Wel
following the
the gas station andl
instrument:
utilized
limited to
on the highway for instance.
The road-engineers know that the velocity
of
is
circulation
of
fundamental
importance to analyze the progressive
immobility of subjects:
subject is
in
moving,
the faster the
the further he will go
the same amount of time. Depending on
the hypothesis, we observe a "natural"
birth of intermediary points in
One
trajectory.
of
the
the given
examples
that
shows it most clearly is found on the
Nakasendo, "highway" between Kyoto and
Tokyo.
Every
five
towns were used (till
kilometers,
little
100 years ago)
as
stops for the people walking (among them
few could afford to buy a horse) between
the
two big
cities
(see illustration
the following page).
93
in
Therefore
it
seems we could believe
thatBetween
and
Tokyo
Osaka:
it is impossible to prolong indefinitely
a linear
city
because natural nodes are
always built along itineraries.
-**C"*
.-
U
U
S
5
4
4
-T. -VI
4.
--
00
J.
0
A
H ,
i-i
SAOI
.
-4W-
3
-
a;
4
.
A*
S .
..
1.4
',S.
~
-
-
[
.
-oft~
4n.
i%,-*
41w>
as
pssae.Th
onf
Th
asaass-g.i
Tspaeoes
notn
hav
primordial
importance in the
representation of
the street.
94
P.-
EVENTS.
Wherein
the appreciation
path varies
social
Let
of time
in
a
with the intention and the
context.
us
between
take
the
the
elevator
case
of the
and
choice
the
stairs,
where expectation of time and saving of
energy are the parameters to evaluate.
We know everything about the stairs
: no
anxiety;
the
time
and
characteristics of
well-known
climb
and
the space used
(and then,
Borromini's
energy
are
what a surprise to
stairs
in
Palazzo
Borghese whose steps are less than 11 cm
high)
The
elevator reveals
evaluation
of its
how complex the
parameters is.
We can
distinguish three stages.
The first
one is
in
front of the elevator
where you don 't know how much time the
elevator will
It
take to come to your floor.
is the first evaluation of time in
which you are also aware of the people
coming. This opens up the second stage
where everybody enters the elevator
95
and
pushes the buttons: people going
than
you
are
your
friends
further
(they
are
factors
of time-contraction),
people
stopping before you are your
ennemies:
they
are
whereas the
factors
of
time-
expanding. When you know the people you
are riding
with, your evaluation of the
time of travel will
know
they
further.
stop
at
Of course
be shorter if you
the
same
this
floor
or
psychological
pattern has strong repercussions only if
you are in
a hurried situation
evaluation of time is
third
that
very important. A
stage appears when
the
elevator
where the
you realize
can be stopped by
anybody outside your world.
evaluate the time this
You cannot
could take,
but
you can make an evaluation negotiable
with your anxiety.
The scope of your travel is giving you
time to generates hates and loves,
thus
making more complex your evaluation of
time.
If you wish
talk
with,
the presence of people to
your
time
enters
in
consideration to a lesser extent, and the
considerations above are no
longer so
96
strongly related to your evaluation of
time.
Contemporary
scientists
assume that
macro-economy makes magistral mistakes in
terms of individual behaviour,
but can
resolve mass problems in a consistent
way.
Time taken as a parameter seems effective
only if considered as a real and massive
abstraction.
(From
space
to
infinite
increasing
scalelessness)
The definition
of Leibniz's relational
theory of time derives time from events
and not the other way around.
words,
events
are more
important
other
than
how
moments.
Thus,
repetitive
forms on a large scale would
be problematic in
we
In
understand
existential
terms for
human beings. We are able to perceive
time only within the limits of our own
Actually we would not have events
lifes.
as
a
reference
for ourselves,
but
a
rhythm; this rhythm determines moments.
But these moments, when not related to
97
spatial
references,
lead our spirit
to an
imperceptible sensation of time.
If
if
on a highway for a very long time and
nothing
is happening -- a city, a
bridge, a tower-- as a singular event,
the
rider
feels
existence,
state
neither
nor his movement.
of
waiting.
such
in
means
a
of
as a watch, the
noise of the car, the line
axial mark,
own
He is
Without
counting time,
regular
his
of the
the rider loses the sensation
of doing something. The passage of events
will
give a sense of time through which
he will
the
perceive its
own existence.
Thus
linear traject ory/. pace has to be
punctuated
to
offer
some
existential
capacity.
We note
in
linearity
the highway trajectory
tends to be represented with
punctuation relative
to man.
The scale
scale
of
its
interpretation
loosing
that
the
to the car and not
of the highway is
instrument.
would
say
human
scale
A
the
human
that we
for
are
the
he Roman road is
unctualized when
arriving in the city
y
abstraction
of the travel.
should note that
Actually we
the tool man uses is
98
at
stepping
on
locks that
allow
the riders to get
off their
horses.
translating the
his scale and the tool is
the
journey:
is
velocity
board, the scale
seen on
of the landscape is
the
seen
through the windshield.
conceived
is
way
this
in
to
mark,
the stopping point: in
or in
the street,
then, that
miss
the1
the elevator
the inadvertence about
the intention.
time deviates
time in
It
the path is
mental translation. So,
of
already
nodes
..
I
clear
is
already a
time on our watch
replaced by the regular rhythm of arcades
or
(
track
a linear
in
the risk
As a result,
(whose
translation
been described)
is
-
has
not as
direct
and immediate for a localization along
Ostia.
the path
than physical
marks.
What
is
important seems actually to be the choice
to stop. The landmark and not the number,
the
architectural
repetition
should
variations
be
whose
perceived
as
finished or hierarchized are what matter,
otherwise the user would be on the edge
of the infinite and of the absence of a
nowhere,
metaphor
of
the
time
contemporaries are projecting.
99
our
The characteristic
linear development
of this
city.
is
due to
essentially
the position of the
Castrum,
primitive
erected
at
250m
from the Tevere, amd
to the track of Via
The
Ostiense.
Decumanus had the
possibility of
aligning the public
building in aregular
way.
It
is
the
of
agglomeration
these markers that
its
improves
linearity.
Q. -REPRESENTED
LINEARITY.
Wherein modes of visual representation
are
critiqued.
A long time ago,
neighborhood.
I was living in this
I kept something of it
in
my memory.
At this
time I took pictures
January
I
pictures.
Then I
tried
to
tried
of it.
This
recognize
the
to compare them.
In February, I went to the place and took
some notes. Here are all these notes.
Reflexions on place,
I
could
recognize
the
photographs
because...
On site,
the DAY,
Sunday 2/16/86 at
4:20
pm.
On
site,
at
NIGHT,
Saturday
2/8/86
6:30 pm.
100
at
1.
Cedar Street.
PHOTO:
...because the
gas
street is
station is
in
lower and the
the foreground.
DAY
To
be
grand,
the
in
an
less
street
discontinuity
ascending
street
is
less
imposing. The inflexions of
show
of
at
the
trace
same
time
(compared
others).
101
a
to
2. Grove
Street.
PHOTO:
... because of corresponding photographs
viewed in
the other direction.
DAY:
Not
sympathetic,
because
it
is
not
finished.
When penetrating in
a smaller street,
I
feel progressively encircled.
A green
bow-window is catalysing my
attention
as well
as a pink VW,
or a
vault.
NIGHT:
engaging;
foreground enlightened
Cambridge
Street.
problem is
the end: black and evasive.
Very
luminous.
102
by
The
3. Anderson Street.
PHOTO:
... impossible:
Anderson and Garden are
confounded.
DAY:
Not sympathetic,
EMPTY,
the mass of the
building on the right.
No trees.
Big bow-window of the
the left.
The light
hotel
on
dries the street.
NIGHT:
Sad,
<but irregular> not inviting except
for the end.
103
4.
Irving Street.
PHOTO:
... because
of
this
bow-window
and
the
direction of the car.
DAY:
Open,
on
without pole (except the bow-window
the
right;
negligible),
without
interest,
do not feel
and sense
the bow-window on
corridors
are less intimate,
the left.
The lateral
no scale
in
perspective.
The doors and
the architecture are less chic, poorer.
NIGHT:
simple,
clear, no surprise. The cars in
negative direction darken the street,
opposition to Garden Street).
It
seems
interesting to be at the end.
104
a
(in
5.
S.O.
Russel Street.
PHOTO:
... because
others,
it is
less
large than the
and only one row of car.
DAY:
gloomy,
lugubrious,
Till
opens itself
it
sad.
on the
left.
Sadness of the cross-wires.
The cut on the big building is
making it
sympathetic, however.
Not
any more pedestrian
only one
appropriation:
of the two spaces belongs to
cars.
The lateral
corridor makes me think of a
parallel street.
NIGHT:
Gay,
lights
the edifices are enlightened by the
placed near the wall.
But a big unique light.
Street not very
long.
105
6.
Joy Street.
PHOTO:
...
because it is finishing further than the
others and does not close.
DAY:
Very
of
Because
sympathetic.
the
edifice's scale at the end?
On the left,
on the right,
textures and
material precise and finished.
NIGHT:
Sad,
big black blocks at
the middle and
at the end.
Sympathetic,
because
there
are
moving.
106
people
7. Hancock Street.
PHOTO:
... because
it
is
the perspective is
finishing
further
and
closed.
DAY:
A
curious
sensation because it is convex
in a strange way.
Sympathetic,
colors and forms varying and
happy. Clear at the end.
NIGHT:
Sympathetic,
very large,
curved at
end.
107
the
8. Ridgeway Street.
PHOTO:
...very small
and gives on City Hall.
DAY:
The connotation of backyard is
decisevely
negative.
108
9. Temple
Street.
PHOTO:
... because I
City Hall.
see the
DAY:
darker than the precedent.
The absence of
cars means also emptiness or absence o
utilisation.
Hancock
having,
receives
Street
however,
the
more
light,
same section
(the
sitting,
flat,
same for Joy Street).
NIGHT:
engaging,
horizontal,
a
man
less tiring,
the temple is
goal.
109
a
Comparison
The
first
of these streets.
one
objective,
shift
is
done with the
50mm
the second one with the 35mm
objective.
Between
Cedar
Street
and...
...Grove Street:
--
the
light
direction
and
of the
the
somewhere makes
--
--
parked, more
sensation
Grove Street
the homogeneity
make
car
of
going
nicer.
and the
trees
(?)
Cedar Street nicer.
the continuity of the roofs on Cedar
Street, the important foreground in Grove
Street makes the first
one nicer.
...Garden Street:
--
Garden Street being steeper than Cedar
Street,
the latter
seems nicer,
perhaps
also due to the presence of the two big
buildings on Garden Street.
... Irving
--
Street:
the bow-window of Irving Street
a nice scale.
110
gives
... S.O.Russel
-the
in
spite
of the edifice on the right,
scale
of
intimate;
wider,
S.O.Russel
Street
is
if the sidewalk on left were
it
perspective
but
street:
would
better;
at the end is
retained...
...because
emptiness
be
nice...
the
escape,
ambiguity?
of
the
bow-window,
is not felt;
the
is it right in
reality?
...Joy Street:
--
the tree gives a gentle scale and even
if the end of Joy Street is high, the
curve offers an opening.
the
curve
gives
increasing
emptiness
it
slope.
In
impression
spite
of
of
some
and the variety of Joy Street,
belongs
kind than
an
The presence of
to homogeneity
(of another
for Cedar Street);
actually,
its texture is alive; Joy Street seems
also more enlightened.
...Hancock Street:
The dissymetry of the latter imposes a
comparison by sides.
--
on the right, Cedar Street is nicer
than Hancock Street;
the metalic stairs
111
weigh
on
the
ambiance;
monumentalises
imposes
the
it
(also
scale);
the
the
end
because
it
street
seems
empty.
--
on the left,
nicer
than
Hancock Street
Cedar Street.
contrasting
it
the transition
of the
is
more
of forms at
degrees are smoother,
walls as in
clearly
Because
lateral/end,
luminous,
is
there is
45
no blind
Cedar Street.
... Temple Street:
In
the
latter,
immediately
the
nicer
foreground
but
the
is
background
makes me fear, and however rich it seems,
the slight
skim is
a romantic access to a
temple.
Between Garden Street and...
... Grove Street:
the
first
one
seems
wider whereas
it
might be the contrary; the factors are:
macadam
clearer,
foreground,
emptiness
in
the
smaller building, the type of
building at the end.
112
...Cedar Street:
Because of the
section
and the
slope,
in
Cedar Street, the space seems compressed,
in Garden
However,
walk in
Street,
because of its
slanted.
end, I prefer to
Street:
The end of
it
seems
Cedar Street.
... Irving
regular
it
Irving Street places
and varied
has no blind
... S.O.Russel
perspective;
the
moreover,
walls.
Street:
The seduction of the
bow-window,
in
spite
latter is in the
of the sordid left
sidewalk and the metallic stairs.
But
Garden Street,
conduct one
at least,
seems to
somewhere because
it is
bigger.
...Joy Street:
The latter
seems more pedestrian.
the final
opening,
the metallic
(?),
the same on the tree
on the right
because
of
anecdotic,
Is
stairs,
and the house
where a garage door is
its
finition?
whereas
in
it
The tops
nice
are
Garden Street they
are repetitive.
113
... Hancock Street:
The
left
wall
is
austere;
the
right
facade is black, heavy, amplified by the
end.
The
left buildings
seem
to
be
separated one from the other, the edifice
set-back
has
an
effect~
of
future
alignment in which I can understand that
the
others could be demolished
in the
future.
... Temple Street:
--
on
its right:
pedestrian
Temple Street has a
quality
roundness
of
with
trees.
The
some buildings and the
temple at the end.
--
on its left:
sombre,
Temple Street is dead,
banal without the life
of Garden
Street.
Other remarks:
Garden Street is more sympathetic than
Irving Street,
cut in
because the ascendance
is
hal f.
Cedar Street
is more
Grove Street,
because of the continuity
sympathetic than
of the roofs.
114
I
could
actually
comparisons.
But
go
an
ahead
analysis
in
these
of
these
remarks gives already some interesting
results.
Firstly,
that
the
instruments
of
recognition of a street in the photograph
are:
the
slope,
architectonics
some
remarkable
(like the bow-window),
the
direction of the car parked,
the section
and more than anything else,
the edifice
at
the end of the street.
As far as this recognition seems to be
attached to details,
a whole
roof),
carry a
and not the sense of
(like the continuity of the
the wide angle objective does not
lot
of information about it.
Secondly, it determines the factors of my
decisions
relative
to sympathy,
in
my
order of importance:
For the 50mm objective:
1.-
Discontinuity of slope.
2.-
Direction of the car (front view).
3.-
Architectonic:
4.-
Variation of textures.
5.-
Architectural
bow-window and tree.
homogeneity.
115
6.-
Mobile
and
exceptional
elements
(badly parked vehicles,
personage).
7.-
the
Connotation
of
building
(temple/industry).
For the 35mm objective:
1.-
Continuity of roof.
2.-
Perception
of
the
profile
and
the
section.
3.-
The end of the perspective.
4.-
The walls of the high buildings.
5.-
The
metonymy.
Both views give an ambiance of the street
that
is
systematically
positive
when
something activates my curiosity,
negative
when
I
really
do
and
not -what
happenes.
Thirdly,
the
representation
missing
is
part
of
always forgotten in
this
the
reading:
--
Colors:
the red sidewalk might be a
surprise;
--
Textures:
however,
we are used to
understanding intuitively dirty papers
and the texture of brick and
there
--
is
Noises:
no need to
wood, so
mention it.
actually,
here,
photographs evoke silence.
116
the
None of the notes on place mentioned the
colors of these streets or the noise of
Cambridge Street as part of the decision,
but this
is
perhaps because all
of them
are colored the same and contain the same
level of noise.
The possible
disparition
mobile elements,
like cars, panels, trees
are
never mentioned.
we
take
these
definitive;
that
of some semi-
It
is
probably that
elements
as
being
it is clear in these notes
they are,
however,
making a great
part of the judgement.
Fourthly, the statism of these images did
not
seem to
However,
influence
the terms used in
these streets
terms
used
judgment.
the visit
are more spatial
of
than the
in the criticisms of the
photographs:
light,
the
intimate,
"imposing,
penetration,
scale,
large,
emptiness."
We have therefore
to analyze in
another
way the representation of the space with
photographs.
117
We can roughly imagine three methods of
representation.
1) Taking pictures every ten meters, for
instance, to simulate the depth of the
space.
This method has the essential
advantage
of being rigourous and presents the space
in
an
anonymous
compared
to
observer is
the
way.
the
Actually,
second
method,
excluded from the space:
observer
is
the photographer,
cannot take the picture that
likes,
but
when
is
the
if
he
he wants or
obliged to follow
the
machinery of the instructions.
On the other hand, this
the
reader
space is
a
method offers to
temporal
dimension.
The
only a support to a successive
advancement
certified
by the
successive
photographs. We are almost in a movie
whose
images
are
rigidly dictated
somebody who does not know the space,
who wants to advance in
it.
considered
as a pure form.
have particular
interest,
not
generating
its
by
but
The space is
It
does not
because it
own
model
representation.
118
is
of
I
119
2)
A variation
second
of the first
one:
remains
the path,
the
represents
same,
the
observer
is
according
model built
in taking pictures,
but
these
pictures
photographer's
obliged to
to
the
the
feel
view;
the
the street
sensibility
of
the
photographer. He is not only included in the
space, because he is looking at subjective
pictures
(made
by
the
subject),
but
also
included in the sentiment of the moment of
this space.
On the other hand, he does not
know what he would have felt,
because he does
not know the rigor of these pictures.
Actually,
he knows that the photographer is
man sharing the same culture. It
issue -of trust.
We can note,
is
a
then an
for instance,
that several architects, one by one in the
street,
will
details
among 18 shots. Again,
take
(pure) observation
is
impossible
common items. In
two or three
of these
to
in
identical
the strict
18 pictures,
know what would
spite
of this
it
be
the
ignorance, we
know that there are precise common pictures;
and this
knowledge might be of a higher level
of information regarding the sensibility
the
space
than a
rational
and
of
systematic,
also boring, representation of the street,
where
no details
can appear.
120
HH
1k~A
w~)
b
AL
/1
ta
I
I
3)
The
third
is
model
a
approach in
cubist
which the successive shots are not marked on
the image:
every glance,
whether affirmation,
regression, bifurcation or intention,
accumulated
within the same image,
on the same temporal point.
totally
included
in
are
actually
The subject is
the perception of the
space, but does not have any reference, in
terms
of
evaluate
time
feeling
image is
of
the
nevertheless,
image that
in
terms
importance
the
cumulative
or
he is
of the
space,
image.
taken with the
moment.
is
of
The
to
This
personal
observer,
introduced so much in
this
obliged to grasp some of its
part as being a subjective reality that could
be perfectly
his.
The conditional employed
means that it is also possible that this bag
with Stop and Shop would be present and
meaningful
to perceive the space as an entire
constituency,
eventhough it
could be replaced
by another brand "Purity Supreme".
relevant
to
the
perception
They are
of the
space.
Although an American would not be plainly
conscious
of
it,
world means "this
this
is
bag
for
90% of
an American street"
more secure mode than any architecture.
123
the
in
a
I
I
124
125
A
drawing of
more
abstract,
reality:
not.
the street is immediately
because
it
we don't know if
We can
reality
therefore
easily. As such,
potential
for
its
exists
or
it
project
it
our own
has a greater
interpretation.
When we deal
with a simple
geometrisation
projection
looses
like
the
form of
orthogonal
of the elevation
of Bishop
street in Montreal, we are not observing
space
anymore, but a synthesis
buildings'
forms. In
are originally
of the
fact, these facades
drawn to be built,
and to
be a clear representation of their form;
a contractor's
built
forms.
They do not
want to represent any spacial
the street.
here
feature of
However, the towers are seen
as volumes
forward the elevation,
because they are normally like
such,
that.
As
they represent not only the rhythm
of "facades",
but
the
rhythm of volumes.
Therefore, we have a notion of the rhythm
in
the space of the street.
126
The
normative
orthogonal
interpretation
projection
understand
shadows,
space.
however,
interpretation
the
us thus
allows
the
of
to
Without
the
we might make a wrong
of the tower's volume
--
deflected instead of inflected.
In the drawing in
the
same
kind
interpretation
our habit
perspective,
that
to
of
it is not
process
takes place.
decode
the
volumes
of
It
is
of
a
drawing by looking at their respective
sizes and by focusing at the intersection
of the lines.
The interpretation
through normative
and
not
through
rules
is
made
of perspective,
a
normative interpretation of
architecture.
127
The drawing presented here proposes also
some more features rarely
the
elevations:
introduced in
provisory
permanent elements
and semi-
that at the same time
give scale and explain the depth of space
because of their size invariability.
It
is
have
essentially
a
because of them that we
better
although
notion
the
contains
of
perspective
the
space,
in
itself
intrinsic features of volume
never attainable by a single elevation.
The
informations of a perspective are
centralized.
There
foreground
There is
is
a
notion
of
and of background.
more precise information about
the same object in the foreground than in
the background. This is
also a reason to
understand better the space.
The perspective at 180 degrees that we
have here,
described the same street.
additional
information is:
The
--
Treatment of angles.
--
An apparent distortion of the straight
line
what
that
is
it
Although
richer
obliged the reader to analyze
that
complex,
he
this
is
looking
distortion
than a 45 degree perspective:
128
at.
is
it
the
gives
street,
two ends of the
and a
tendancy to imply a reading in
relative
which we are more aware of the partiality
of the point of view (usually taken for
granted in
a
45 degree perspective,
just
because it is usual)
--
In
the perceived (but
not real,
as in
the elevation) length of the linear space
of
the street,
space,
we
confront
we
isolate a forward
identify
it
it,
with
referential
and
further
space;
volume-space
segmentation
then
insures
and
a
we
this
this
perfect
interpretation of the linear space.
This phenomenon seems to be transcribed
from the notion of rhythm that
we explain
in another chapter.
A plan of the street
is
actually
giving
the same kind of information as does the
elevation.
Both
utopians
have
to
extensively
been used
plan
quintessence
of
linear
a
abstraction of the reality.
The
cities.
drawing
by
is
its
Planners take
advantage of this to generate repetitive
129
the
easiest
and have
as the sections,
such
features,
way to draw.
-
not thought of
is
intellectualized,
The product,
fitting the human body.
Geometry
remains
preponderant
in
our
conception and our view of the city.
It
employs very often the straight line for
simplicity
of
lay out,
reasons as in the
above, or for visual
analysis
of Bill
analysis
as mentioned
Hillier
who argued that
of the cities
could be done by a,
visual tool. The straight line would have
a propensity to explain social behaviour
because
our view is
A third
of Soria y Mata,
repetitivity
the
of
advantage
rectilinear.
city,
is
linearity
its
satisfying
is defined by rapid
transit;
the
200 m
linear project as parallels,
axis,
the
from
it
is delineated the City.
program:
that
extensibility,
leads us to perceive a
whatever
The transversals
100
marked every
do
not
clearly
manageable.
For
instance,
conceived
by
the
linear
Soria
y
egalitarian tool. This is
is
track
Mata
as
not the surrounding space.
and
He forgot that
infinitively-extended
building
would
loose
an
only because he
was considering only the track itself
the
linear
1899.The axis
lines
the
of
sense
a
of
compactness and physical unity which is
130
m
a
denote
superrhythm, inside
or outside markers.
Probably the drawing
kind of
allows this
approach, impossible
to conceive in scale
for
except
one,
means of locomotion
like trains.
and that
the very nature of cities,
mentioned
natural
-- as
in another chapter-- there are
nodes
emerging
from
linear
features. He probably thought like Drury,
The Streamline Towns of
[Linear cities:
the
1933],
Future,
essentially
and
matters
on economic and social
a writer
that
a
city
is
a mechanism by which people
goods
are
kept
in
close
communication, and that a single axial
route with a minimum of crosscurrents of
traffic is the most efficient means of
organizing it;
a city to him should have
the efficiency of an industrial plant,
which is of course, linear.
131
R. -RAIN.
shows human constructs
Wherein the rain
to be inserted into the soil.
The street, when it is raining, stretches
that
we are in
perspective:
doubly its
a plan
and
separates two worlds, the real
the virtual,
image. We are floating
its
on a sea as smoothe as a mill-pond.
The
plastic expression of the perspective is
reinforced.
lines
the
There are now not just
of forces, but eight, that
vanishing
point
of the
North-American
street.
This
four
lead to
straight
vanishing
point is our goal, but, when it ends up
as slightly
in
curved or as a
fact,
an
facade,
intermediary
forms
goal,
a
threshold.
We
see
more:
accentuated,
space
is
in
the
doubling in
bigger.
street
is
different
enter
into
the
Actually, we feel
one hand,
verticals
The
length. The
of the
section
and
depth
are
narrowed.
of
a
We
crevice.
twice privileged:
on
by the exceptional quality
of
the rain, on the other hand because we
penetrate
more
deeply
into
a
world
anchored in the Earth, and, from this
fact, take off towards the sky.
132
But at the same time we feel the anguish,
-
because the rain sinks us into the earth.
It reveals
as a collective
the street
corridor in which we are the troglodytes
It
from the inclemencies.
sheltered
reveals
itself as a Chtonian strength
elaborated by man. It
reveals our power
of imitation of nature.
The human transformation of space from
space
with no
bordered
(fig.1),
track
(fig.2),
to a
space
a
a
space
limited
(fig.3) whose insertion in the earth is
by
accentuated
the
rain
(fig.4)
may
i
quickly become a notion of enclosure.
We could interpret such linear space as
--
built
Strong collective
space with a
quality of intimacy.
--
The result
exterior
factors
of densification due to
such as the limitation
of land or speculation around a center of
communication and of goods distribution;
these last
reasons tend to disappear.
133
~1
S.-
INTERPRETED
Wherein
teach
two
LINE.
architects
us how this
concept
who
use
is
related
lines
to
their project.
A line
and
can also
be viewed as a particular
efficient
tool
of
analysis.
The
following essay tries to reconstruct the
virtue
of this
tool.
For this
scope,
it
compares two architects
on the basis of
their
and
written
ideas
of
their
projects.
Wright
and Sullivan's...
... philosophical
The
considerations......136
context........................141
The
tree:
Sullivan...................143
The
tree:
Wright.....................148
Continuity and discontinuity.........155
New
The
York,
Chicago,...the
city........160
line.............................164
Conclusion...........................170
134
This text
a comparison between Frank
is
Lloyd Wright and Louis Henri Sullivan.
from the general to
arises
The analysis
the particular.The theme of analysis is
concretizes
of the
linearity
the vertical
in
itself
It
phenomenon.
linear
the
skyscraper and of the architectonic of
The
details.
ideas
as
as
well
the
buildings of the two architects authorize
this
method of comparison.
The remaining conclusion of this
is
of
deceivingly
the
simple.
It
realization
consists
that
Sullivan's buildings express
one that
analysis
mainly
the
is
idea
the same
his written works convey.
The case of Frank Lloyd Wright, although
more complex, will describe what kind of
or
coherence,
between
are
found
indescribable diversities
the
in
expressed
incoherence,
his
projects
and
in
his
writings.
Wright's
and
considerations
their
are
autobiographies.
comparison
philosophical
Sullivan's
between
better
decoded
in
To make a correct
the
two men
135
it
is
necessary to understand that Sullivan
(1856-1924) wrote his memoirs when he was
already a professional
in
decline,
alone. He was only thirteen
than Wright
(1869-1959),
and
years older
but he belonged
to another generation, the one which had
been working after
the Chicago fire.
But
the same generation underwent a complete
transformation
commercial
from
the
return
classicism.
generation
was
to the
Wright's
carrying
forward
this
transformation.
The
concept
of
transcendence
and
organicism find a common point in Louis
Sullivan
and Frank Lloyd Wright in
the
philosophy of Walt Whitman.
The philosophical
possible,
differences offer a
but not probable, explanation
of these architectural forms.
Monsan [1] considered Wright as well as
Sullivan as frustrated poet-mystics.
The character of Sullivan applies in
this
sense.
Wright in
fact,
transcendental
[Emerson's
too much enamored by the
cult
Essays
of
self-reliance
(1841-1844);
136
"Self-
Nothing else is
reliance:
than the
fact,
in
sane,
of your own mind..."],
integrity
imbued himself and
with
American culture
it.
was an enthusiast of
Of course Sullivan
the
doctrine
to
adherence
a
overall
but
his
transcendantalism
had
of
Emerson,
being the
of
convinced
to himself,
cult
process
the
applied
Wright, conversely,
of the
character.
contemplative
translator of a prophetic
while Sullivan appreciated more
mission,
the romantic and intimate component of
Emerson's doctrine.
the
appreciation of
Philistine
Through his
universe,
convinced
to
Wright
be
could
the
hero
be easily
of
a
new
architecture, whereas Sullivan could not
have had this behavior having been in
never
Sullivan
Europe:
affirmed,
as Wright
Guggenheim Museum site
still
try
thousand
to
years
figure
would
have
had done on the
:"Bill.
one
this
from now!"
they will
[2].
137
out
a
The
approaches
that
the
around
concept
Sullivan
gave
saying
a
of
good
general position when he
account of his
about
formed
architects
the
organic
architecture.
spoke
context
through the different
itself
expressed
a
such
of
result
formal
the style
that
the
of a
tree
[3]
is
only
the
style
adaptation
of
environment.
Wright took this
progressively
an
organism
enriched,
to
its
concept,
and made
it
coincide, in 1939, with the expression
"organic
total
In
society"
[4]
a
concept
ly ambiguous.
this
context,
theoretical
the
practice,
again
synthetic
and
formula of Sullivan,
follows function" [5]
in
in
that
become
understandable.
"form
("which would mean,
architecture
a
living
might
art")
Moreover,"the
is
function
created or organized the form". In
fact,
he had already explained in
clear
"pressure" is
terms that
and the "resultant" is
less
the "function"
the "form".[6]
The
probable motivation of the clarity and
the
simplicity
found in
of this
assessment
are
the fact that he was obsessed by
the research of a style.
138
For Wright,
""form follows function" has
"form
Only when we say or write
phrase.
and
a stock
insignificant:
become spiritually
are
function
significant."[7]
is
one"
Wright
the
slogan
pointed
out here
the mark of the reappropriation of the
formula. The ideas of Wright were more
explorative
express
in many different ways,
himself
through
a
kind
coherence found, not in material ,
temporary style,
so to
of
nor in
but more evidently in
the very design for its
own sake. He has
never healed in himself the trauma of
structure
versus phantasy.
A common point between the two men is the
consideration of function as part of the
vital
but
force,
also
the
and emotivity as individual,
character
of the
function
as
expression of the environment, social and
physical,
in
In
sense,
this
between
which it
the
has been developed.
vexing
conflict
devotion to pure nature and
devotion to the "age of the machine" gave
to the work of
period -up to
Wright's first
1920-
creative
its special
power:
"nature became my Bible". Nevertheless,
in 1901, he formulated his famous Hull
139
House lecture
on the
the Machine
curse
[8]:
"Rightly used,
machinery
should
Arts and Crafts
puts
emancipate
upon
the
of
the very
handicraft
artist
from
temptation to petty structural deceit and
end this
wearisome struggle to make
things seem what they are not and can
never be.. .Yes,
it,
although he does not know
the Artist is
rational
now free to work his
will with freedom unknown to
structural
tradition."
later:"Consider
well that
and
a house is
a
machine in which to live but architecture
begins where that concept of the house
ends...
work
Standardization should be put to
but never
process
that
meaning
of
allowed to master the
yields
this
the
speech
organic."
takes
expression when
Wright later
conscientious
architect
The
another
wrote: "A
learns
to
understand the nature of human nature so
well that the character of his structural
ability
organic
may eventually
architecture
presenting man to man."
justify
calling
man's
love
[9].
140
of
The
context.
Sullivan was
thirty-one when Wright
entered his office (1887)
and he had only
been practicing his characteristic style
for five years as a partner with Adler
and two years in a drafting position in
Adler's
office.
Even at
the very beginning,
proud
of
his
Sullivan's
some
power
of
imitation
motives."Then
ornaments
such
characteristic
as
of
I
improvised
I
had
seen,
of the Adler and Sullivan
buildings.
I
little..."
Wright was
had
[see
for
studied
the
them
argument,
a
his
autobiography and the article by Grant in
Record,
Architectural
Wright";[10]].
known
"Sullivan
and
In the same way his well-
expression
"Lieber
Meister"
concerning Sullivan can be interpreted as
an
ironical
manner
of
a
devaluation,
which was surely more unconscious than
and
voluntary. But Wright was flattered
exhilarated when he saw the plans of the
auditorium, making him feel that he was
in the main
architecture.
current
In
fact,
of contemporary
Sullivan
was
himself a new-comer to these currents.
141
Three years later the Schiller Building
was built, showing differences between
buildings:
preceding
the
progression
towards the smooth wall-surfaces,
oblong
openings and heavy projecting cornices,
which
find precedents
only in
the firm's
private house designs,
and notably in
the
for
which Wright
was
Charnley
House,
responsible.
The confusion of purposes
the Schiller
Building mark the impact and
importance
of Wright's presence in
in
the
Adler and Sullivan firm. The Dooly Block,
the Pueblo Opera House,
House,
the Seattle Opera
the St. Nicholas Hotel are cases
he resorted to
picturesque
a
composition bringing
and atmosphere discordant parts
The concept of structure
into harmony. For
shape
in
Wright's example, the Late
had not
taken
German medieval
moment, he was too style of the St.
imagination. At this
in
point.
Nicholas
Hotel
(St
1892-93)
concerned with formulating and expressing Louis,
reconciles
the idea of architecture as geometry.
undulating bays and
a top-story gabled
roof. There were
From 1893, when Wright and Sullivan
also occasions when
Sullivan would adapt
only three
built
Sullivan
parted,
else's
someone
design to fit his
strange needs.
were
They
residences.
amalgamations
style
and
of Wright's
Sullivan's
domestic
later
own vernacular
style.
142
Wright's
ideal
specifically
not
of
shelter
as
human condition proceeded'
from
his
social
orientation,
characteristic of our own day,
geocentric
line
aV""
of
but from a
empathy:"...the true earth
human
freedom.""...the
life-indicative
of
house not ON a hill
or
ON anything but OF the hill."[11]
Wright's geocentric
point
to
ideology is
Sullivan's
barycentrism:
but the
contrapuntal
the edifice per se and in
the Meyer Building,
307 West Van Buren
st.,
Chicago,
Il.
se.
1893.
The tree:
Sullivan.
The unique paradoxical standpoint that
Sullivan
developed
consideration
two parts,
that
resides
in
nature's
the
rhythm has
growth and decay. It
seems an
anticipation of his own life.
On the other hand, he argued in
Office
Building Artistically
that a tall
be
Considered"
office building has naturally
three parts. There is,
base,
"The Tall
first,
a two-story
and each of these two floors
differentiated
immediatly above,
on
there is
the
is
to
facade;
"an indefinite
143
upon
tier,...an
cell
in
tier
of offices piled
number of stories
to
being similar
office
a honey-comb".
At this point,
a
the
and not
choice of the metaphor of a tree
of a honey-comb for the whole building
the importance of the linear
identifies
phenomenon in the architectural concepts
In
of Sullivan.
there is
the top of the building
which along with the
the attic,
basement,
mechanical
Sul livan
houses
the
equipment.
cal
led
building's
function
This
"physiological";
The
S chil le r
Building; 64 west
St.
Randolph
Chicago.
1891-92.
elevators and other mechanical devices
the
system." Despite
extremely
Sullivanian
[12].
character of the
Shiller Building as
of the tree as a natural a whole, the cleanThe argument
cutting
of
the
indows in the rear
this
three-division
for
reference
wing and the little
partition proceeds from a classical horizontal motif
the
bay
above
windows
on
the
front
not
could be identified
background that
could
be due to
Wright's
hand.
The
,
favorite
in
Viollet-Le-Duc
only
horizontal motif
in with the central
but also
reading,
Sullivan's
colonette becomes
the consistent theme
Vitruvius.
of
the
Meyer
building.
for the vertical
solution
Sullivan's
The horizontality of
expression of the skysraper has been the Meyer Building
i s
p a rt i a l 1y
universally accepted as his most maintained in the
were
part
of a
"circulatory
clean-cut
important
has generally
contribution to architecture.It windows"
been avowed that
it
144
"Chicago
of
the
stock
Exchange
Building.
issues-
his
from
experiments
Richardsonian
earlier
That
[13].
is
opinion
not
accurate.
totally
Sullivan's Richardsonian buildings of the
late 1880s have relatively ample bays
that
of the Roman arch rendered
capabilities
in
the wide-panning
correspond to
cut
stone.
The
method
is
a
load-
bearing one, and Sullivan confronted no
difficulties
with it
in
masonery designs.
The Auditorium Building, the Walker
Warehouse,
and
the
Anshe
Ma'ariv
the Auditorium
Building, the Walker
Synagogue have strong lithic expressions Karehouse,
and the
Ma'ariv
Anshe
blending well with their building Synagogue have
strong
lithic
technique. But in buildings supported by expressions blending
with
their
well
metal structures, height and method of building technique.
but the threeconstruction conflicted with this heavy, partitioning concept
was already there:
tectonic
load-bearing, and essentially
The elevation of the
Chicago Auditorium
treatment. In 1890 when the firm received (1886-1889)
i s
three
in
divided
the parts: a two-story
skyscraper commission,
first
its
base, a binding-base
Wainwright Buiding in St. Louis, Sullivan of gigantic arcades
and a three-story
rightly realized that the style he had a t t ic.
This
composition was the
been developing for commercial buildings premise of his ideas
expressed later.
this
in
be appropriate
would not
instance,
and hence made the Wainwright a
"proud and soaring thing"[14]
by going to
an expression he had not used before
the Gothic.
145
But the three-partitioning concept was
already
The
there:
of thd
elevation
Chicago Auditorium
(1886-1889)
is
divided
in three
a two-story
base, a
parts:
binding-base of gigantic arcades and a
This composition was
story attic.
three-
the premise of his ideas expressed later.
of the Cathedral of Reims,
The influence
the nave of the cathedral of Paris [for
idea
The Transcendantalist
argument see:
of Louis Sullivan[15]],
and of Viollet-
Le-Duc caused Sullivan to draw lessons
structure
Gothic
and
such
work
from
the
translating the spirit of the
Gothic,
metal
modern
to
applicable
from
terracotta.
as
buidings
cut
His
the
stone
facades
Wainwright,
Trust and Savings Bank Project,
Guaranty
are
into
for "Flower
the
and the
of the
reinterpretations
elevation of a Gothic cathedral,
interior
with
its
becoming
in
gallery,
many
instances,
second
important
Sullivan's
floor.
The
early
(and that
Sullivan,
after
for
European
his first
him
experience
Wright will
of
take up
period, probably defining
another
field
of action)
146
is
in
the
crannied wall"
A decorative figure
in
cream
white
terra cotta,
designed for the
hallway of the Dana
House. Richard W.
Bock Sculptor.
probably
the
main
for
reason
this
behavior.
brilliant
Despite Sullivan'
solution for
skyscraper facades, he would find from
time to time that
his "Gothic elevation
scheme" could not take in
features
Adler
building.
In
some prominent
had determined
for
such cases he resorted
picturesque
discordant
composition
parts
into
a'-
to a
bringing
harmony.
For
example, the Late German medieval style
of
the
1892-93)
St.
Nicholas
Hotel
(St Louis,
reconciles undulating bays and a
top-story
gabled roof. There were also
occasions when Sullivan would adapt
someone else's
The
design to fit
similarity
Ashland
of
block
of
his needs.
Daniel
1892
Burnham's
and
Sullivan's
Chicago Stock Exchange Building of 18931894 is
a case in
Pragmatic
architectural
point.
necessities in
day-to-day
practice had caused these
departures from ideology. Studying them
is of less interest than realizing how
the confusing anomaly of alternating nonand supporting
supporting
alike
on his
piers
looking
his idea
facades clarifies
of "form follows function."
147
a
tall
that
convinced
was
Sullivan
buildings were to reveal their essential
spaced rhythm of
by a closely
loftiness
ambiguities
in
even
verticals,
uninterrupted
mechanical
if
expression had
to be
committed to achieve
end,
expressing
the
In
it.
a- transcendental
character was to Sullivan the fundamental
reason
for design,
and his skyscraper
fervid
this
clearly reveal
facades
belief.
Wright.
The tree:
formulation of Wright's
The volumetric
skyscrapers
proceed
from
apparent revelation: "The first
of
a
expression
in
of the Price Tower,
Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie,
a
reality,
St-
for
to the project
similar
a
in
for St-Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie
1929." The elevation
very
same
mast structure was
treelike
project
the
describes,
ofV
process
conscious
in
subdivision of the vertical line which is
compositive -- beginning,
middle,
end--
and rhythmical. The continuity and the
tenuity
are
different
in
the
serial
juxtaposition of
elements
progressive form of amendment.
148
in
a
In the plan, the proposition of three to
one in
space produces
of office
'favor
and corewalls rise
surprises. Fire stairs
to a
coronet
continual
of
assymetry
exterior
an
for the owner.
of offices
Blue-green copper -inside and outsideblue of the sky.
counters the different
Copper fins further modify the light vertical
over
horizontal
apartment
windows,
ensuring
elsewhere-
in
silhouette the vibrant dotted line Wright
prefers.
The
of
identification
skysraper
places
a
tree
Wright
for
a
at
a
The plan of St Mark's-in-
contradiction.
the-Bouwerie is biaxially symmetrical.
Therefore there are some apartments that
exposed to the sun and to
are incorrectly
the wind.
This is
Wright's
considerations
human life"
will
correct
in
contradiction with
"relative
to
[16].
Wright
and to the site
this
error
in
later
doing
the Price Tower.
However the gap between the reality
of
his buildings and the post-justifications
raising
from
different
types
149
of
naturalness
and of organicism are rather
impossible to explain. For instance,
saying that "it
is
a logical development
building in the age
of the idea of a tall
glass and steel
[...]
privacy,
and beauty
lives
safety
within
it
in
There is greater
than is
for
possible
human
in
any
other type of apartment building" [17],
he
enters
in contradiction with an
assessment twenty years older considering
his
architectural
years earlier:
propositions
twenty
"Principle one: Kinship of
Tne
building to ground [...]. As result,
new buildings were rational:
and clean,[...]"
So
the
low, swift
[18].
concept
that
Wright
termed
"Organic Architecture" shifted
from an
approach to the design of buildings into
an account of his personnal experience.
It
gradually ceased to masquerade as an
easthetic method
frankly as a list
and offered itself
of events -- provoked or
circumstancial-- and his answers to them.
It is at the level of architectonic of
the
building
that
he
maintained
a
coherence between his architecture and
his ideas
[19]:
"In
organic architecture,
150
price
Tower,
Okla.
the Bartlesville,
1956.
[from ]
The presence of a
a
in
skyscraper
field hunt the small
preexisting houses.
Wright forgot that a
vertical volume must
correspond to an
important horizontal
territory.
the
hard
dotted
straight
line
and thus
breaks
to the
where stark necessity ends
allows
rhythm to
appropriate
order to leave suggestion to its
enter in
This is
proper values.
The
line
basic
modern".
of
evolution
Sullivan's
skyscrapers found in their simplicity as
well
as
in
emancipation
About the
wrote
in
he
skyscrapers.
Wright's
Wainwright
"As
an
composition
their
Building,
(Sullivan)
Wright
threw
the
Civic Center for Los
Angeles. 1926.
'stretch' on my desk with the first three
His project
bays outlined in
Angeles in 1926 is,
the
essence,
expression of the
lacked unity. futuristic Sant'Elia
utopia.
happened... Until Louis Sullivan
the way,
high buildings
They were built
one
... Root's
in
layers...
showed in
All except
Monadnock...
a
noble
building"[20].
The research inside the space and on-site
if
convinced Wright to go further:
the
liberation works in the horizontal plane
"why will
not work in
it
the vertical
plane? No one has looked through the box
at the sky up there at
the upper angle,
Why not?
Because the box
have they?
always
had
a
of a
pencil I sensed what had Civic Center for Los
cornice
at
the
top
(...)
This cornice was the feature that made
151
the
conventional
some way,
box
classic."[21]
In
the classicism of Sullivan was
hated by Wright: he wanted
an adaptation
on site rather than a new definition of a
general
state
or
statement,
typically
North American
even
after
(at least
1910).
"I
or
am here seeking not for an individual,,
normal
Tall
but
solution,
special
type,..."
said
Office
Buildinjq
a
for
Sullivan
truer
in
The
Artistically
Considered[22]. To him, culture consisted
of the sum of instinctive means by which
a nation
sought the universal
good.
Sullivan considered that building types
would come and go with the development of
material
progress,
but
his method
raising them to the dignity of art
of
would
remain forever unchanged.
Sullivan
was born
at
western civilization.
industrialized
Wright designed his last
1952 at
which
skyscrapers in
the beginning of the "third wave"
saw
intelligence,
in
the dawn of an
the
the
birth
of
artificial
holography,
etc...time
which the Marina of Bertrand Goldbergh
in Chicago could be considered in the
152
-
terms of Wright as innovative and organic
as Wright pretended for the Price Tower.
The tripartite classical division of the
composition of the Wainwright
vertical
Building is
yet present
in
Wright's
1912
skyscraper for San Francisco, the Press
Building. But the edge of the building is
already treated in an assymmetry and the
cornice is
divided in
two: one cantilever
lateral
is
very important and another,
frontal
, two stories lower, much less
important.
The
progressive move and evolution from
the Richardsonian skyscrapers of Sullivan
to the utopic and semi-realistic mile
high skyscraper of Wright pass through
important
steps
rather
clearly
exactly explained by Wright himself:
and
"Now
-to go on- for instance in the Johnson
Building
in
Racine
,Wisconsin,
you catch
no sense of enclosure whatsoever at
angle.
feel
You are
looking
any
at the sky and
the freedom of space.
The columns
are designed to stand up and take
made a part
over
of
the ceiling,
the column is
the ceiling:
continuity. The whole boxing
up of humanity by architecture has come
153
to an end.(...) My architecture began to
point
this
to
with
of all,
window."[23].
corner
At
began
I
first
idea,
manifest this
the
first.
at
conservatively
and
gradually
freedom,
have
of
Wright's
evolution,
skyscrapers are metaphoric expressions of
the "one floor
flowing into another" as
Wright commented about his museum.
buildings must be!'
He proclaimed that tall
tall
in
feeling
and
at the
These
earth-loving.
same
time,
structures,
the'
Golden Beacon, the H.C. Price Tower,
Johnson
well
as
the Mile High Sky
City,
Wax
projects,
Tower
Fairmont Hotel
the Rogers
1946),
as
(San Franscisco,
Lacy Hotel Project
the Mark Tower, and
Catholic
Cathedral.
(Los
the
his
the
1944),
(Dallas,
even the
Angeles,1931)
were designed as solitary shafts of
steel,
have in
concrete,
metal and glass.
common a tension between a serial
superposition of small
and straight vertical
is
They
horizontal
lines
lines. This tension
the precise hooking of the building to
earth: a direct linear system which keeps
together the top , the attic
as well as
154
the multitude of intermediate parts
the
and trims them on the ground, as
floors,
if
,
A
they were going up and away. Wright's
plan for skyscraper construction
general
was
of a central
the use
concrete taproot,
earth,
deeply embedded in
with cantilever
from this
central
finished
with
reinforced
floors
the
emanating
mast. The facade, then
copper,
brick
or
glass
panels was used decoratively rather thanThe
pillars
of
Wright are born on
structurally.
"Ornament
is
tothe first
floor
and
without
up
go
architecture what efflorescence of a tree discontinuity to
reach the roof. The
or plant is to its
structure."[24]. These h e i g h t
is
punctuated,
structures
utilize
the cantilever
and measured, scanned by
the parapets of the
reinforced concrete to create the body of floors,
or ends
in
the
the building with the exterior formed of infinite by
two
spheres on the top
materials complementing the locale,
of the pilars
at the
front
elevation
of
the
Larking
Building; ...
Johnson Wax Building
Continuity and discontinuity.
Laboratory
Tower.
The real
architects
formal
is
testified by
continuity of the two
also,
but only apparently,
the consideration they made
on the conditions of the skyscraper.
The
ideas of
Louis Sullivan about the
skyscraper are clearly
Tall
Office
expressed in
Building
Artistically
155
The
1950.
Considered
are
they
necessary
the
business;
these:
the
for
manner.
plainest
the
in
conditions
Briefly,
the
(1896) [25]:"Let us state
are
offices
of
transactions
invention
and
the
perfection of the high-speed elevators
make vertical travel, that was once
tedious
and
painful,
now
development
comfortable;
easy
of
and
steel
manufacture has shown the way to safe,
rigid, economical constructions rising to
a great height;
in
population
continued growth
the
great
of
cities,
is
The dottedi line
1
y
l
i
r
t
u
a
o
v
a
l
s
consequent congestion of centers and rise
erceived in section
the
offers
in value of ground, stimulate an increase and
of an
possibility
in number of stories; these successfully easier reference
osition.
-to go on- for
'Now
one upon another, react on ground
piled
instance
in
the
and Johnson Building in
by action
-and so on,
values
Racine ,Wisconsin,
reaction, interaction and inter-reaction. you catch no sense
enclosure
of
any
at
whatever
Thus has come about that form of lofty
angle.
construction
called
the "modern office
You
are
looking at the sky
and feel the freedom
Th e
space.
answer to a of
columns are designed
for in it a new grouping of social to stand up and take
call,
over the ceiling,
column is made a
the
conditions has found a habitation and a
art of the ceiling:
ontinuity.
name ."
building."
It
has come
in
156
Wright in the Princeton Lectures in 1930
took
this
analysis
departure,
as
destruction
an
of
as
a
point
of
for
the
argument
the
city:"A man
in
congested downtown New York street,
a
not
long ago, pointed to a vacant city lot
where steam shovels were excavating. "I
own it," he said, in answer to a question
to a man next to him (the man happened to
be me),
up,"
"and I
making
own it
clear
all
the
way
an upward gesture with his
hand. Yes, there stood His Majesty, legal
ownnership.
to sell
Not only was he legally free
his
lucky lot
in
the landlord
lottery to increase this congestion of
his neighbors "all
the way up,"
but he
was blindly encouraged by the great city
itself
to
do
so,
in
favor
of super-
concentration.
Space-makers-for-rent
say
solve
congestion,
the
problem
might honestly add,
of
skyscrapers
create congestion,
and
in
order to solve it some more some other
it
will
probably all
disolve
day,
until
out
into the country, as inevitable
reaction."
157
As already said before, Wright had not a
social
conscience,
but was a demagogue.
verbal
proposition
entered
in
with his projects for New
contradiction
York.
of his
clarity
the remarkable
However
He
suffered
duplicity
from
a
disquieting
of egomania and fitness.
His
megalomany distroyed completely an ideal,
as
probably
Corbusier.
million,
had been the case
for
Le
Le Corbusier's City of three
where fourty- thousand tenants
are to be packed into "Vertical Villages"
of "merciless grandiosity," seems a rural
retreat
compared to the Mile High Tower
project
by Wright,
inhabited by
528 stories
high and
130,000 people. In his
literary
description
structure
ever conceived.. .wiping out the
hateful
of
spread of the city"
invoked once more,
"drilling
the
"tallest
the tree
was
as was the taproot,
into bedrock for inserting the
spinal core.. .similar in principle to the
foundation
system
that
saved
the
structure of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo
in the 1922 tremblor."
His
of a Civic Center
project
Angeles
in
1926
is,
in
for Los
essence,
158
the
utopia.
Sant'Elia
futuristic
of the
expression
Wright was
not only megalomaniac
but utilized his sensibility
for an
appropriation of the new ideas
of his
contemporaries;
permanent
and
he wanted himself as a
individual
echo
of the
world that environmented him.
Even with
Tower,
a
project
such as the Price
his description and justification
was going far
away from a simple, modest
and sober commentary:
spinning,
here
"Steel,
serves
the
the spider
democratic
individual's healthy aspiration with even
more privacy and no less convenience than
the
ranch
sentence
house
is
a
in
THE
typical
DUST."
example
This
of his
assessment; demagogic and contradictory
with other
about the
justifications;
Prairie
here
it
is
House or more generally
his consideration of the skyscrapers in a
town.
Moreover,
he is
found in
complete
contradiction with his idea of democracy:
"Our national
idea"
[26].
159
New York.
The attitude Wright had about this city
and its
skyscrapers varies.
Of course,
hated New york:"A place fit
he
for banking
and prostitution and not much else...a
crime
of
crimes...a
vast
prison...
triumph of the herd instinct... outgrown
as overgrown...the greatest
mouth in
the
The National Life
preying
upon, Insurance building
have been
was to
humanity.. .pig
erected on Water
in
Square
Tower
pile... carcass.. .parasite... fibrous
Chicago. Unlike most
of the skyscrapers
tumor... inconguous mantrap of monstruous of this period, it
a solid
was not
dimensions! Enormity devouring manhood tower stepped at the
world...humanity
top
in
confusing personnality by frustration of conformity with the
New York zoning law.
individuality.
Is
this
not
the
Antichrist? The Moloch that knows no God
but more?"
But these considerations did not dissuade
him
from
designing
The
National
Life
Insurance Company for Chicago in 1924 or
a Cathedral
built
trees
for New York.
Later when he
the Price Tower , he said how, "as
crowded
in the forest have no
chance
to
become
could
if
they
themselves
stood
(as
so
alone)
they
the
skyscraper needs to be freestanding to
become
a
human
asset."
So
becoming
160
The main block of
was
the building
very thin and from
block wings
this
projected out on one
light
with
side
between.
courts
no
wa s
Ther e
external skeleton at
because of the
all,
cantilevered floors.
vertica l
"The
(copper
mullions
with
filled
shells
non
conducting
material) are large
and strong enough to
carry from floor to
floor and project
much or little as
shadow on the glass
which may or may not
Much
be wanted.
projection enriches
the shadow. Less
projection dispels
and
shadow
the
of
"witness
the
from slavery of commercial
skyscraper
bandage
of
release
this
to a human freedom."
His arguments based on the destruction of
the
totally
are
forest
considering his belief in
irrelevant
Nature.
translating
the
spirit of the Gothic
considering the fact that a singl structure from cut
stone into metal and
His
terracotta.
is nothing
skyscraper in a small city
facades for such
as
the
more than the reduced exported model of a buidings
Wainwright, the
the Trust and Savings
city
like
New York; although
Bank Project, and
difference of scale could be important the Guaranty are
reinterpretations of
interior
for the citizens, the meaning is the same the
a
of
elevation
cathedral,
Gothic
as is the presence of privileges.
with its
gallery, in
many
instances,
seemed more nearly a becoming Sullivan's
Wright's project
important second
of exorcism. Wright's New York floor.
rite
Moreover,
he
purification
lies
to
ceremony
himself
whe
consisted
of
imposing a single monumental work derived
from his
the
own imagination. The degree and
nature
reflected in
his
desperation
were
the scale and content of his
significant design for New York:
first
"
of
Steel
Cathedral
including
a
Minor
Cathedrals for a Million People."
161
To some extent,
Wright's allegiance
to
the nineteenth century was overstated by
his own attempt to portray himself as a
Transcendentalist,
using "Emersonian
language to mask the plain bad manners of
his
personal
quixotries"
quirks
and
professional
as explains Mushamps in
Man
about Town(27].
Superficially Sullivanesque, the approach
was uniquely Wright's and in
opposite
clear
of
:"It
Sullivan's.
is
the social
some way the
Sullivan
was
not my purpose to discuss
conditions"
[28]
Wright
diverged
theory,
exalting the architect above the
from
his
mentor
society he thought to express.
theme of his
The main
book The Disappearing City
(1932)[29]
is
obsolete
central
spiritually
the
replacement
city
of
by
a
the
more
advanced alternative.
anticipation
before
had
with
Cathedral.
in
been
his
Taller
seen
project
The
six
years
for
the
than any building then
standing in New York or anywhere else,
almost as
elevation,
wide
the
in plan
cathedral's
as
it was
in
implicit
intention was to obliterate by its
162
scale
whatever portions of the city had not
been
razed
site.
in
the
As Wright's
American
urban
preparation of
first
design
public
Midway Gardens,
its
for
facility
an
since
the Cathedral showed the
direction his progress had taken:
now he
would not attempt to reform urban culture
from within but would blast it from
without.
For Sullivan
lay
in
and Wright , the solution
polemical
established
the
maneuvers
architect's
that
right
to
create a poetic statement independent of
the building's
patron,
or indeed of the
very functions that a particular building
might be commissioned to perform.
Sullivan brought to the task a vision no
less
heroic than Wright's, a will
firm than Wright's would become.
quest for an architectural
broad
as
Sullivan
an
entire
to
tried
admit
no less
In
his
principle
"so
of no exception",
to invest the meaning of
culture
in the design
single building.
163
of a
If,
as
Lewis
Mumford
"Sullivan
wrote,
was the first American architect to think
consciously
of
civilization,"
his
relations
and
if,
as
with
Wright
the rebuilding of Chicago was
supposed,
nothing less than the moment of "critical
necessity"
by
architecture
entirely
which
revive,
man
would
see
then
Wright
was
correct to regard Sullivan as an
awakening of the modern soul, from Victor
Hugo by way of Viollet-Le-Duc.
Wright had identified
with the
Where once
his own ambitions
"Birth of Chicago skyscrapers",
he now opposed himself to the even more
impressive spectacle of New York. As an
unemployed
to
the
architect,
Wright
had
little
lose by refusing to compromise with
most
expression
powerful
of
his
architectural
culture.
Romantic he had quite
And as a
a bit
to
gain.
In
literature.
The line.
The argument of Muschamps [30] Wright's
building after
1910 became more heavily
ornamented,"the
Prairie
pursuit
House
of
spatial
clarity
became
obscured
new
forms
to
of the
by
convey
164
his
an
expanded sense of development" is
only
asserted by the wide-ranging repertory of
forms
(Maya
and
orientalia,
motifs,
Sullivanesque
variations,
more
Navajo
clunk
vegetable
cubist images) but never in
deeper
analysis
can
a
these
architectural expressions be considered
as parts integrated in the architectural
tissue.
An
analysis
treatment
based
of
on
the
the
line
effective
reveals
the
constants as a product of the magnificent
advice of Sullivan
to Wright:"Take care
of the terminal
and the rest
will
take
care of itself"[31]
Wright's
apparent
instability
described by his fundamental
exploration.
for
to
single
him is
so vast
sustain a
conviction
performance.
The world
a constant
that
longing for
This desire arose from his
impossibility
beyond a
is
it
field
of research,
never ends. Conscious of
his exceptional capacity of design, he
wanted
more.
birth of his
In
this
is
probably
the
incoherence between ideas
and programatics.
165
Whatever
his
form,
a
at
considerations
lower
level,
made
coherence of his forms.
plus
Continuity"
about
the
for
the
The text "Tenuity
[32]
asserted
how
important is the line-task in the formal
structure
of
principle
his
in
buildings:
"Another
construction-I call
it
continuity- a property which may be seen
as a new elastic,cohesive stability."
main idea is
to get a principle
inspiration
freedom. In
in
horizontal
in
the "quiet,
line
(it
will
of human tenure
human
for
a
new
"The New Architecture" [33],
Wright found
line
for a new
,
design
The
intuitional,
always be the
on the earth)"
a
interpretation suited to modern
machine performance. Even if it seems
fundamentally
erection
incoherent
of
his
with
skyscrapers,
the
this
assessment explains the formal concept of
his
houses
and
puts
the
problem
of
continuity in relation to humanity and
machines. Therefore the evolution of his
architecture
structural
takes the
form of
new
elements: "Instead of post and
beam construction, the usual box building
construction by way of the cantilever and
continuity."[34]
that
is
to
166
say,
an
industrial
structure
and an architectural
pattern. The first one, the industrial
structure,
appeared
in his work after
1910; the second one,
pattern,
the architectural
has always been present in
architecture.
Prairie
The
archetype
of
House, Robie House,
archetype of his late work,
his
the
and the
Fallingwater
demonstrate how the fluidity of space and
the
continuity
of
the
cornice
or
the
parapets are an intrinsic part of his
design.
The line,
when
it
inside
here or there, never ends; and''
is
ending
another
somewhere,
volume
or
it
goes
another
Midway Gardens, 60th
structure: it is born from the earth in st. Chicago. 1914
[image from ]
the design for a kindergarten called "the was to generate the
infinite like the
little
Dipper" on Olive Hill
for Aline four chapiteau
of
the Midway Garden
Barnsdall, denied by a dotted line the crowned
by
four
rectangular
arcs
volume of the roof between two walls
in which
o ffe r
a
direction
for
a
the Hollyhock House, or ends in the line ar
an d
immaterial volume.
infinite by two spheres on the top of the Fairmont Hotel, San
Francisco. 1944.
pilars at the front elevation of the
Larking Building; another solution was to
generate
the
infinite
like
the
four
chapiteau of the Midway Garden crowned by
four rectangular
arcs which offer a
167
direction for a
linear and immaterial
volume. "In fine" in La Miniatura the
formal structure is
prominent
blocks.
is
vertical
by a line,
chairs,
one line
it
of
concrete
it
is
from the window
one direction, only
which conducts the volume in
simplicity and in
As
lines
Every parcel of his architecture
structured
to his
evidently made by the
is
Wright's
its
continuity.
proposed
space
by
does
Brunetti
not
assume
meaning of a static element:
theater
of events
inexorable
in
[35]
the
it is the
continuity.
law of transformation"
acts between the diverse parts
edifice
its
"The
[36]
of the
as well as between the edifice
and the environment.
For Sullivan,
than
a
the line
generator
because of his
line
is
nothing else
of space,
classical
and this
education: the
used for surrounding a surface -
maybe decorated-,
inspiring
architecture
is
or a hole. He pretended
himself
but in
from
the
Gothic
fact has only taken
the exterior aspect of the Gothic, which
168
is,
in
essence,
a progressive vertica]
not
and
subdivision,
inspiration
stylistic
has
line
Gothic
The
division.
tripartite
a
been
for Sullivan,
i
bul
structuralistic.
not at all
comparison between the interio]
A useful
of the Transportation Building and the
of the Larkin Building reveal:
interior
columns intersected b:
problem of serial
floors.
to th<
relative
solutions
the different
Sullivan was clearly inspired b:
the nave of a Gothic Cathedral.
Howeve:
the verticality
of the columns was cut b:
a
cornice
continuous
as
a
failei
interpretation of a lateral nave. Th' ,arkin Comp-any
dministration
power of European culture does not allo
uilding. 680 Seneca
t.
Buffalo NY.
Sullivan the expression of verticality
904.
obsessed as he was by the subdivision o
per se.
the verticality
The
of Wright are born on th,
pillars
first
discontinuity
height is
floor
and
to
go
reach
punctuated,
withou-
up
the
roof.
measured,
by the parapets of the floors.
169
Th<
scannei
The
structure
evidently
of
the tree,
a chosen linear
which
reference,
utilized more than usual
is
i
by the tw
architects.
The different
interpretations
are
not
only coming from their experience, but
also
from their different philosophical
backgrounds
explained here before.
The The Transportation
Building.
consequences for the architectural
the verticality
of the columns was
a
pattern are that the tree, for Wright, cu t e d
by
cornice
continuous
has its roots in the ground as the as
faile d
a
interpretation of a
columns of the Johnson Laboratory, and lateral nave.
for Sullivan
ground:
the roots
are out of the
the precise difference between a
romantic and
a romantic-sentimental
outlook.
Conclusion.
The relationship of these two architects
to
linearity
is
obviously different.
Both architects nevertheless directly
used the tree as a metaphor for their
building. For Sullivan,
it
initiates
a
natural tree partition of the built form.
For Wright, it is a support for cultural
interpretation and greatness of his
architecture. More generally, Sullivan
170
used lines
in
his design as a generator
whereas Wright used linear structures to
raise man to the level of the spirit.
0
4,
171
T.-
HIGHWAY.
Wherein an appreciation
a
informed
a
trajectory
the
of
reading
of time and
***
Wangenbhegr
.,
project.
.
-
*
OR
: duDne
Glet
This reflexion
upon time and references
i-ow cd.
might seem superficial and impracticable
and
in the territory of architectural
the
the design of
production. In
urbanistic
I
highway Colmar-Mulhouse,
tried,
to present this concept and
nevertheless,
propose a consistent solution.
of
types
used by different
This highway is
In
drivers.
terms
of
spatial
references, they can be differentiated by
long journey,
those on a
from Marseilles
to Amsterdam for instance,
to commuters.
The seven overpasses could not in
be
of
same
the
these two groups.
type
any way
for
of reference
The proposition is
to
offer two frames of reference in the same
form.
these
For the long-distance traveller,
seven
silhouette,
which
distinguishable from afar;
his
mind
a
temporal
the
have
bridges
are
same
hardly
they build in
reference at
172
the
*
*
*
scale
of his travel
and at the possible
level
of perception of this travel
which
it
details
impossible for him to see
but it
to their
are
is
in
is
easy to count them, due
limited number. Evolving details
inserted
inside the
silhouette in
such a way that they develop different
degrees
of evolution
(in
fact for the
very perceptible long-distance traveller,
these forms will
move,
like
the little
Roumanian books that have animated the
figures).
details
The commuter might use these
as a reference point in
journey. He will
his daily
not only count them, but
probably take them as landmarks when used
to distinguish one detail from the other:
"where the piercement appears,
where the
column is bigger than the level of the
road..."
The
variations
complexity
of
these
allows him to discover new
combinations every day , as it is for a
cathedral
whose
silhouette,
far away, gives the
details,
spirit
locus
viewed
from
and whose
viewed from near, enriches the
and the knowledge of the past.
173
Contrary to numbers of a recent project
of
the
same
kind,
where bridges
are
either individual monuments emphasizing a
discontinuity,
signifying a collection of
heteroclitous objects more than the
reason
the
of existence
same,
this
of the
project
road,
offers
or all
a
continuous level of interpretation within
an internal
consistency.
174
U.-
MOVIES.
Wherein we
observe that linearity can
support violence.
When popular culture is
our referent,
we
can observe that the idea of violence
has
become so commonplace as to form a
filmic fabric.
The
idiosyncracy
American television
thought.
screened
by
North
series supported this
The viewer is
only stimulated by
the
concomittant violence of the bullet
and
the
repeated
run-pursuit.
Space
supports the violence of the velocity
apparently
inducing death,
death
which the
on
but a virtual
camera
does
not
zero" the hero is
the
weigh.
* In
"Point limit
symbolic projectile
himself,
he abstracts
much
challenge
to
forbidden
speed,
of hope: he surpasses
himself,
death
but
to
not so
with
search
the
for
liberation through high velocity. The
common expression of this
liberation
is
the slow-motion movement of the car
flying over rivers and other cars.
175
* In
"Duel," the road pursuit arduously
challenges
gravity,
levitation
in
of the
the
laborious
vehicles climbing the
mountain.
* Fellini's
"Roma" proposes the traces of
a tradition.
He stopped the traffic
creates life
in
this
traffic
and
jam: as in
"L'embouteillage" the road does not exist
as a line,
it
is
a
to
create
pretext
speed is
not any more a path, but
a place,
annulated.
just
when
Nothing works.
This
nothing is
the hope of displacement.
Only
at
point,
this
he
said,
social
interaction is possible.
* Of course,
even in
the United States,
Simon said to Simon "Check the strip",
but the strip
is
still
at
this
time the
residue of a place like a square whose
main caracteristic remains
information
Marion,
* In
a place of
["Piazza Pulita" Christian
1983].
"Koyaaniskatsi" (music by
Phillip
Glass), the city's linearity is resumed
in an uninterrupted movement of fluids
shown by the accelerated shots. Humans and
vehicles
circulate
as
sausages
176
in
This trivial
factories.
analogy reveals
that
linearity
"The
layout of roads shall
the
they
type,
will
becomes
volume
and
carry"
said
Transport in
in
of
In
accord with
speed
the
England in
Urban Areas").
Department
only a mechanism.
of traffic
ministry
1966 (in
of
"Roads
the same way,
Environment
the
justified
a
zebra-crossing when PVA2>100million where
P is
the number of pedestrians crossing
the road in
one hour, and V is
of vehicles
[in "Roads in
in
the number
the same amount ot time
Urban Areas"].
The accuracy of this equation reinforces
the blindness interpretation of linearity
as a factor
of movement that
we observe
in movies.
177
V. -
DAEDALUS
ALIGNED.
Wherein the written worddevolved from
space
to
intensified
process of writing no
linearity:
the
longer involves
past and future.
The exploration of Japanese poetry shows
in its content and its writing where a
place is:
the haiku:
I saw the first snow
That morning I forgot
To wash my face.
In its meaning, the the space is filled.
It
Its
is
whole, homogeneous,
translation
because it
undetachable.
has weakened
is
it
already,
impossible to comment the
ideogram that composes it otherwise than
with the metaphor and the syllogism
Roland Barthes in
(see
L'empire des signes"):
"Talking about the haiku would be purely
and simply to repeat it."
It
composes a
place, a genius locus, a strongly defined
space on the page. It is not part of a
collection.
it
Its
meaning itself
enhances
above graphic typologies. Actually it
cannot be translated by the collection of
the alphabet
looses it
spatial
letters,
sense,
or
its
if
it
is,
aesthetic.
178
it
Eventhough Japanese writings are being
typewritten.
not
But its
lost
in
graphic thought
the typwriter. The western
typewriter "is
quick to transform writing
into a mercantile product;
the text
it;
at
it
pre-edits
the very moment one writes
theirs,
by its
countless characters,
no longer aligned in
row of
is
a single stitching
letters but rolled on drums,
refers to
the
ideographic marquetry
scattered across the sheet -- in a word,
space;
hence the
machine
extends,
at
least
potentially,
a true graphic
art
which
would would
no
the
longer be
aesthetic labor of the solitary letter
but
the
abolition
aslant,
of the
freehand,
in
all
sign,
flung
the directions
of the page.
(Roland
Barthes,
"Empire
of
Translated by Richard Howard,
signs",
Hill
and
Wang, 1982).
These writings whether Japanese,
whether
hierograph
or
consistently different
Chinese,
Arab,
are
from Western
writings.
Writing a
tracing
line
with a pen is
a sign along a line.
an act of
The thought
179
does not concentrate on the line,
but is
obliged to take the time to wander over
it
with
the
pen.
definitive:
The
We say:
we can cross it
remain.
The
thought
"It's
is
written." Yes,
out, but this
thought
now
is
also will
then
asking
a
level of completion not necessary with
the word processor.
The word
is always entire in the hand
writing.
It
inadvertance
the word is
can't
place it
cut
by
the
of the word processor.
important,
for the thought,
it,
be
the hand,
If
sorry
will automatically show
on the paper field.
Where
the hand writing is flexible and slow,
the
word
processor,
rapid
and
hyperaccurate, is immediatly a perfect
finite product
writing,
story,
of the writing. This tool
cannot
way.
of doing so in
Not
restricted
alignment of the words,
small
the
the pen does not either, but
allows possibilities
extensible
of the
and does not show the stage,
think. Well,
it
at any moment
an
by the
I can write two
words one under the other on an
equilibrated
waiting
list.
Where
we know
the material support of the hand writing,
what
is
the real
support
of
the word
180
processor? The screen? The key-board? The
remote print-out?
The diskette
double-
track? The electricity?
Whereas the hand writing is submitted to
a
complex
tool,
interpretation of
a
simple
could we believe that the word-
processor will
thought?
thought
allow the same richness of
Surely
to its
now,
it
restricts
the
final product in
a
linear
way.
Writing,
in
these
examples,
seems
to
evolve from a notion of area to a notion
of line. The computer line as a system, a
mechanism,
an
is
a tool that
impoverished
indifferentiates
any possibility
capitals,
become
with
place.
It
the space,
annihilates
of privilege
(games with
parenthesis
codes
collides
whose
and
underlines
system belongs
so
intensively to the linear system that it
could only be (perceived as) a systemic
variation).
It
Parisian
boulevard,
concentration,
place
does not have, as for the
has
a
place
of power. Rather,
to
be
found,
it
of
if
is
this
the
beginning of the chapters, the locus of
place
such
as
the
title
still
conventionalized.
181
very
A computer line
could be an analogue to a
gridiron
in
plan
its
and
expansionist,
characteristics:
indifferent
to
the
topography (of the paper and pen, of thegp 0 O
terms of his personal style).
author in
far richer,
But the Chicago plan is
to its bidimensional
similarity is
due
aspect. A better
reflected
between computer
lines and highways.
Why do we have this evolution?
It
proceeds
from
an
abstraction,
a--,/
dematerialization similar to the urban
utopias mentioned earlier.
the
writing
accurate
above.
a
It
presence
gives to
immediately
for the image of time mentioned
The
possesses its
writing
intrinsically
absence,
by virtue
of the
sudden disparition due to the
switching on and off.
the
electric
current
Psychoanalysts
as
current
see
the
representation of power. This power is
immediate,
ephemeral and
instantaneous,
temporal vowed to the switch. The current
represents the ideal velocity:
the speed
of light.
This
overlay
writing
of
might
layers
not
composing the
be
representation of the linear
a
perfect
writing of
182
our
environment.
induces;
nevertheless,
It
insinuates
its
in a sense more probable
evolution
and
is
as we compare
the Japanese and the Western urban space
in
the way they are used.
183
W. -WATCHING- TIME...
Wherein
be tight
In
of time ca
man's representation
to the twilight of the street.
the nomadic period, as well as in
th
pre-agrarian period, time was regulated~.
-0
0
and
etea
on the weaisr
phenomenoparition
as the weather,, and the daily apparitio
of the sun. The future was similar to the
past and
time was
somewhat cyclical
entity.
still
Actually
nowadays
or non-denied as a
,
in
considered eithe
as
it
is
the
cas
some contemporar
Sto nehenge
alithic
me
complex.
whoseThe outer diameter
of the peripherical
spatiality
is thematically circular, time dit ch is about 125
m. A the top right
unconsidered as
a linear
is the beginning of
is
totally
avenue 548 m
an
and
phenomenon: when you ask "what happened lo ig: the ditch
just
holes
th e
before?," the answer relates
to a story ins side may go back
of
to the middle
invented and signifies the non-importance the third millenium.
central
Th e
me galithic shrine
of the past.
dat es from 1800-1500
B. C .
villages
in
The sundial
is
South
Africa,
a space that
concretizes Det ail
shi ine.
time, standing always at the same place.
In a way, the space of time is a physical
non-temporal
space,
a space that does not
move, a space that shows and demonstrates
the existence
still
strongly
time is
of time. But this
related
to
external
184
of megalithic
factors
such as the shadow,
the clouds
and more generally the weather.
del
Mangia
itself
in
piazza del
Campo
time and architectural
this
The Tore
is
in
form and by
bias governs the city.
The city
in
itself is valorized by the presence of
this
immense
sundial.
transition between
civilization
This
period
of
the agrarian forms
of
and
the
dawn
of
the
mechanization generalized linear spaces
in a collection of successive places and
nodes.
But
these
spaces
were
still
strongly related to restrained social
groups intimately
linked in
their
daily
life.
The
clock
encircles
determined
circular
space.
It
in
takes
a
more
the
old
form of the shadow trajectory to
project
form
time
it
in
that
an independent
could
representation
abstraction,
fit
of
space and
anywhere.
time
is
now
but remains collective.
The
an
At
the advent of a long linear space marked
by
axiality,
corresponding
monument
power,
and
its
the clock became the
center of the living-room. In
a period in
which society loses control of itself as
185
a whole,
one
and becomes larger and larger,
can assist
to
the
division
distributed to families,
of time
clock by clock.
There were no more spatial analogues for
the
representation
spatial
of time,
and
the
necessity of the growing city
instead of being unified under a common
clock,
is
divided along the alignment of
the street.
The watch is the perfect individual
distribution
of
time.
It
is
now
rectangular and does not refer at all
the movement of time-shadow
The
digital watch
time
and gives
structure
and
sense of time
movement.
It
space.
displays a precise
little
indifferent.
in
to
Its
only
form
gives
overaccurate sense of present,
is
an
but this
present in the field of time cannot be
anymore represented by contrast to the
past
and
future
number that
other
than through
comes before or after.
It
the myth of the (horary) precision,
and submission to this order.
way
the
Simondon,
space becomes
In
abstract
and meaning,
186
is
order
the same
"le monde des objets"],
only representation
a
[see
it
is
for its
E:__
own
is
street
a
along
also
referenced with numbers.
in
does not exist;
uniquely
locus
Spatial
the space of
reality,
become a serial
the street
people
of
distribution
The
sake.
variation
on
the same typological basis, and spatial
numbers that we can
references become
straightly relate to the digital numbers
of the watch.
we
(Apparently,
could
an
elaborate
analogy between the mechanical watch and
the
mechanical
and the
town,
town. Then,
watch and the electronic
would
ask:
"What
digital
is
an
we
electronic
linearity?")
If
the analogy in
this
story of time with
urban history remains quite imperfect, it
leads
however to this text of Karsten
Harries:
[in Thoughts on a Non Arbitrary
Architecture, Perspecta 20]
"We may know much more about history than
ever before,
past
but precisely in
of
object
an
making the
scientific
investigation, the sense of belonging to
the past
is
reduced to a
lost
(...).
Time has been
coordinate on which we move
back and forth with equal facility: the
187
past
tends
to
material."
also
be
a
reservoir
Our architectural
looks
to
of
conception
history
to
base
its
premises. The material is, however, only
conceptual and never physical as it
during
a
good part
centuries,
in
of the
was
first
15
building Santa Sabina for
instance.
All times have seen the expression of
prestige
concretized in
monuments,
space and form:
palaces
or
writing.
(broadcasting allows only temporary
prestige)
The material of these forms were, for a
long time, only punctual, such as for the
Place des Vosges.
However, the deification in
the temple of
Hatshepsut, or in the Temple of Preneste,
the
imposing
castles
and
tower
Ludwig
extravagance
of
the medieval
II
of
associated
Baviera's
a
punctual
possible
distant
prestige
to
perception:
the straight line, line of
view,
became
means
to
follows
show
the
a
important.
its
same
everywhere means either
The
presence
physical
in
principle:
a
city
to
be
being higher than
188
the others
(as in
San Gimignano),
or
propagating in urban corridors as for a
highway,
and the subway lines,
that
everybody,
by budgetary dissuasion,
would
be obliged to take.
189
X. -TRENDS.
This
text
was
boundaries.
It
an
exploration without
established
linkages betwwen line
rather
metaphoric
and other notions
than viewing these associations
merely as logical assumptions.
For example, line
is
described as a means
of dividing space without eliminating
space itself,
as an
and line
is
also
described
annihilator of a geographical
notion
of
space
measured by
present
favor
time. I did
this
formulations
in
material
(e.g.,
of
space
not want
in
to
logical
assuming that we view
line as an annihilator of space, then we
are
logically
obliged to consider line
as an action, a factor or a function, and
not any more as a state, a place,
support).
that
is
I am insisting
more complex,
a
upon a reality
and more elusive
than a logical thought.
Because a
metaphor can be stated
absolute form,
throughout this
text,
in
I
have used formulations that may be too
extreme
for some readers to accept.
example of such a
statement
is
An
"We know
that distance does not count any more." A
more precise and semi-quantitative way of
190
expressing this
know that
idea would be to say "We
distance is
becoming less
and
less
inportant." I hope the reader will
make
allowance
individual
for
bias
this
in
cultural
my
and
manner
of
expression.
SO WE LEARN that
line
is
--
A reference for man.
--
A necessary interpretation of the world.
--
An apparition
control,
of prestige,
distribution,
order,
separation.
--
A form evolving towards space.
--
A symbol
--
An annihilator of space.
--
A division
of the future.
of space and a
reader of
time.
--
A geographical locus.
--
Marked as opposed to rhythm.
--
Represented and interpreted.
--
Performing a support for violence
--
Evolving
in
writing
and
in
the
representation of time towards a negation
of space.
-- A
support
instantatenity
to
evasion,
escape,
as opposed to matter for
events.
191
We have shown the undivisibility
of its
diversity.
We
understand
now
through
that
centuries
its
evolution
leads
to
the
disappearance of line as space: as far as
"the interval
is
"the interface
Virilio,
a measure of time" [Paul
TA
Linearity
a measure of space" and
364
fevrier-mars
becomes
1986].
essentially
an
interface.
It disappears as space.
However,
man needs space in
the line and
uses it.
In our daily path, the corridor of the
shopping centers has replaced the via dei
Condotti. Clearly, the view the visitor
has of Copley Square cannot be the same
that the farmer of la
not
comparable,
rue Haute. Even if
these paths observe
a
different interpretation of the world. We
analysed how one is
by itself
(that
involves movement and speed),
and the other one is
(that
a consumption
involves
a
a physical statement
notion
of
sharing
place and expressing power).
192
a
We have seen that
an attentive
observer
can perceive
a
contemporary
society may still have a
linearity
enriched.
Our
pace rhythmed by banana peels and towers,
may still
intend to talk
may still
hate to
in
swallow
an elevator,
miles.
We saw how Western countries displaces
these intentions towards an incohercible
violence of the speed.
But even if
in
this
this
text,
culture
its
is
predominant
arbitrary
division
in
two loci of observation assumes that man
is a beast in search of meaning through
rituals,
new means of production,
markers and natural
The
dawn
of
apparently
reality,
the
(surnatural) rhythms.
electronic
change
my guess
spatial
this
is
era might
behaviour.
that
it
In
can only
sophisticate this search by the reduction
of the
dimensions
of space.
Isn't
it
after all
what the line has already
efficiently
done to man?
193
Y.-LIBRARY.
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and
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Virilio
Paul.
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di
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Tafuri Manfredo.
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1975.
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1980.
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Hyman
William
A Lover's Discourse.
A.
Constructive
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of
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Thinkin~g in
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department of Tansportation.
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[2]"Frank Lloyd Wright and the Ageing of Modern
Architecture"; Sibyl Moholy-Nagy; Progressive
Architecture, May 1959.
[3]"Meeting in Chicago, 1887"; Inland Architect
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[4]"An Organic Architecture";Frank Lloyd Wright.
[5]"Autobiography of an Idea"; Sullivan.
[6]Kindergarten Chats; Sullivan; 1901-1902.
[7]Architectural Forum; May 1953.
[8]Progressive Architecture; May 1959.
[9]Progressive Architecture; May 1959.
[10]
Vol.118,
November
1955.
[ll]An Autobiography; F.L.Wright.
[12]The Inland Architect; December 1904.
[13]Architecture,
Nineteenth and
Twentieth
Centuries; Henry-Russel Hitchcock, 1963.
[14]"The Tall
Office Building Artistically
Considered"; Sullivan.
[15]The transcendantalist idea of Louis Sullivan
[16]New Architecture: Principles. Chapter III:
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Wright.
[17] Architectural Forum. 1938.
[18]The New Architecture: Principles. Chapter I:
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1957.
[19] Two lectures
in
Man in Architecture.
and Buildings.
[20] cited
1956.
in
architecture: To the Young
1931. in Wright Wrightings
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February
[21]cited
in Frank Lloyd Wright; Olgivanna
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[22]The Tall Office Artistically
Considered.
196
[23]Frank Lloyd Wright; Olgivanna Wright.
[24]Architectural Forum;
May 1953.
[25]The Tall Office Artistically
Considered.
1953.
May
Forum;
[26]Architectural
[27]
Man about Town.
[28]The Tall Building Artistically Considered;
Louis Sullivan.
[29]The Disapearing City. Frank Lloyd Wright.
[30]Man about Town.
[31]cited in Apprentice to genius; Edgar Tafel.
[32]in A Testament,1957.
[33]A Testament,1957.
[34]from "An Address to the Junior Chapter of the
American Institute
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[35]Elementi di una matricia organica; Fabricio
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[36]A Testament. Frank Lloyd Wright.1957.
[37] Architectural
Record. In the cause of
architecture.
modern
october 1928 VIII Sheet metal
instance.
197
and a
Z. -NOTES
I want to thank all
this
project.
restriction,
the participants
Every discussion,
help,
contibuted
in
advice,
to
non-quantifiable way.
Aaron Fleischner
Bill Porter
Cynthia Schubert
Donald Sch8n
Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno
Hernando Vargas
John Habraken
John Whitman
Joy Hecht
Julien Beinart
Karen Mitzener
Raphael Fischler
Roger Simmonds
Ranko Bon
Sergio Vasquez
Therese Vien
Tom Emodi
198
it
in
a