Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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Kevin Lynch’s Openness of the Open space
In his article Openness of the Open space published in
1965, Kevin Lynch revisited the very idea of Open spaces
and tented to extend the design and user’s experience to
unusual open spaces that are not part of collective imaginary.
His definition of Open spaces includes vacant areas
that often are not colored green on planners’ maps and
excluded the ‘green’ sites which are closed to the public
like special institutions, inaccessible water reservations,
even sport fields like football or baseball diamonds and
tennis courts.
In Openness of the Open space Lynch suggests a
network of small open spaces within an urban system
that could be accessed by foot or wheel. Their relation to
the general system of circulation was considered equally
important as their internal paths. The theme of movement
and sequence design had great potential for Lynch not
just for its visual stimulus, but for the ability to communicate
the character of large environments.
The very concept of Openness is relevant for the
design of borders of the street-space because they are
“open to choice, open to active use and manipulation,
open to view and understanding, open to access, open
to new perceptions and experiences” (Lynch, K., 1995:
408). In indicating the importance of access, Lynch
explains the critical role of the edge or border between
open and closed space (highway, housing, commercial
area, etc). While exploring the border’s visibility and
accessibility, he admits that it is the most useful portion
of open space. “Careful manipulation of the edge and the
access system is the key to design … location is more
usually influenced by access than by any unique characteristics
of the land …” (Lynch, K., 1995: 400).
The stimulus offered by the concept of access/border
elaborated by Lynch, constitutes a way to represent the
multiple capacity of the street space to be presented as
livable / inhabitable. The emphasis stands on the variety
showing different character of open spaces; on meeting
edge; contrast; confrontation; immediacy and close coupling.
For him Wastelands are particularly applicable as
areas of margins and extreme freedom – out of site and
out of mind [4].
Positioned in the left over space and wastelands these
interventions are the opposite to the design of public
parks, which are usually situated in less dense, elite town
districts. These areas offer possibility to express mastery
because of their unconventionality - they can offer an
experience, challenge and opportunities.
Describing closer the nature of intervention Lynch sustains
it would be sufficient to think of ‘dot’ interventions
with special and condensed character and well designed
access and edges. In the end it would be a system that is
a constitutive part of total environment.
Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown & Izenhour’s,
concept of Iconographic architecture
This well known book from the seventies was written
during the period of profound changes within American
territory, when urban sprawl became an operative rule
and it was no longer possible to trace the city limits.
The presented ‘antispatial’ concept of architecture is
based on communication over space, where the principal
role is played not by volumes or architectural composition,
but by communication that dominates the space as
the main architectural element in territory.
“Because the spatial relationships are made by symbols
more than by forms, architecture in this landscape
becomes symbol in space rather than form in space” the
authors sustained that “The sign is more important than
architecture.” (Venturi,R., Scott-Brown, D., Izenhour, S.,
1977: 13).
This condition resulted with a chaotic image of the
commercial strip, and an unusual order within the landscape.
The only consistent element in the landscape is the
highway, followed by temporary signs along the stripe.
The highway as civic form represents a shared order,
while the elements by the road (buildings and signs)
are private and present an individual order that is
more complex. The road became the joint element that
supported movement, choice and understanding of the
complex environment. In this way for the first time the
attention moved from the urban form that was dominated
by volumes, to the void represented by road and the by
standing elements that traced the space. In this way the
static space transformed into a dynamic of narration on
the move.
Crucial lesson that we all learned in Learning from Las
Vegas was the new way of interpreting and thinking the
environment and the city, abandoning the modernist composition
based on the balance between solid and voids,
landmarks and buildings. In Las Vegas the road system
with its edges replaced the traditional public spaces represented
by voids, squares and pedestrian streets and
expressed new meanings. Starting from this perspective
the infrastructural networks and leisure paths could be
considered as tools for re-reading the territory and setting
of the new priorities. “From urban ephemeral to the territorial
ephemeral, in a “landscape of the provisional” that
still has to be investigated and defined as architecture of
complex relations.” (Aymonino, A. & Mosco, P.V., 2006:
18).
Versus a solution – Thesis
Beginning from these theoretical premises, it is possible
to explore the architectural ‘depth’ of the infrastructure,
where it could begin showing all his fitness for human
habitation and fruition.
In this way the landscape of infrastructures and networks
could be defined as one of the new territories, not