The ecological relations of roots (1919) is a book by John Ernest Weaver (1884 – 1966), an American biologist and prairie ecologist. During his life, … [Read more...]
Fields
Architectural projects and artistic researches have explored the potential of isotropic spaces, by definition: territories where the conditions are equally distributed. Hierarchy is abandoned, the distinction between figure and ground disappears and the available land is evenly covered, being it a piece of paper or a territorial plot. In some projects the idea of field is a metaphor, the ever-expanding territory of capital materialized by infinite urban development, in other it is merely a condition, a potential to be explored.
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A Perfect Grid: the Roman Town of Timgad, the African Pompeii
The city of Timgad, in today's Algeria, was founded as a military settlement by Emperor Trajan around AD 100 and its original scope was to be a … [Read more...]
Constructing Abstraction. Pablo Picasso’s Constellation Drawings (1924)
The Constellations drawings are a series of sketches by Pablo Picasso drawn on sixteen pages of a notebook in 1924. For these small drawings in black … [Read more...]
Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard’s Planning and Building Framework in Casablanca
French architect Michel Ecochard, also trained as an archeologist, was the director of the Morocco Department of Urban Planning from 1946 to 1952 … [Read more...]
“The Road”(1958): An Antimonument by Oskar Hansen
"The Road" is an unbuilt project by Polish architect Oskar Nikolai Hansen (team leader) with Zofia Hansen, Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, Edmund Kupiecki, … [Read more...]
On Continuous Space: Louis Kahn’s Olivetti-Underwood Factory
In 1966 Italian typewriters and related products company Olivetti asked architect Louis Kahn to design their factory in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The … [Read more...]
Materializing Abstract Space: Project E-2, a House by Hiromi Fujii (1968-71)
Project E-2 (1968-1971) by Hiromi Fujii is an example of the Japanese architect's research on "neutral" architecture, one liberated from any burden of … [Read more...]
Anatomy of The Line: Drawings by Esjieun Kim
Korean artist and architect Esjieun Kim is interested in the relationship between drawing, movement, and space. The medium which operates the … [Read more...]
Ivan Leonidov’s Competition Proposal for the Town of Magnitogorsk (1930)
In 1930, the Russian architects group OSA, with Ivan Leonidov as team leader, took part in the competition of the urban design of the chemical and … [Read more...]
The Free University of Berlin (Candilis, Josic, Woods and Schiedhelm – 1963)
The international competition for the new campus of the philological institute in Berlin was won by architects Candilis, Josic, Woods and Schiedhelm … [Read more...]
The House of Glass Was Suddenly All Solid Walls, A Project by Anne Holtrop (2006)
Not much happens in A.M. Homes's short story "The Weather Outside Is Sunny and Bright": the protagonist visits her Alzheimer's mother, takes a bath, … [Read more...]
Grid, No Corridors, No Open Floor: Casa Mora by Ábalos y Herreros
Casa Mora is an unbuilt project by Iñaki Ábalos y Juan Herreros, two Spanish architects who worked together from 1985 until 2008. (Cf another post … [Read more...]
The Even Covering of the Field (Sam Jacob)
As a former British Army Captain converted to scholar of early Muslim architecture, K. A. C. Creswell coined the expression "The even covering of the … [Read more...]
Extended Sequence of Flowing Spaces: 33rd Lane (Geoffrey Bawa’s House in Colombo – Sri Lanka) – 1959-1970
Geoffrey Bawa’s house in Colombo (1959 - 1970) is an exercise in horizontal densification. The result of decades-old process of annexation of four … [Read more...]
Rem Koolhaas and the Bourgeois Myth of New York (Gabriele Mastrigli – 2013)
Now that the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale finally came to an end, we think it is the right time to publish this interesting short essay by … [Read more...]
The Field and the Nave: the Mezquita of Córdoba
The Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, also called the Mezquita, is a medieval Islamic mosque that was converted into a Catholic Christian … [Read more...]
The Field and the Wall: The Great Mosque of Samarra
The "Great mosque of al-Mutawakkil" in Samarra, (Iraq), was commissioned in 848 and built in 851 under Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil after his father … [Read more...]
Marco Cadioli’s Abstract Journeys and Necessary Lines (2011 – 2013)
"I'm interested in the signs that man does without knowing" Mario Giacomelli Marco Cadioli is an Italian net artist and teacher … [Read more...]
Mikhail Okhitovich and the Disurbanism
Mikhail Okhitovich was a singular figure in Soviet architecture of the 20's and 30's. As a Bolshevik sociologist, town planner and Constructivist … [Read more...]
Emma McNally’s Fields, Charts, Soundings Cartographies
Emma McNally's work is an artistic cartography of imaginary nodes, network topologies, noise patterns, musical notations. Traces and scatters shape an … [Read more...]
Stan Allen: Diagrams of Field Conditions, 1996
“All grids are fields, but not all fields are grids. One of the potentials of the field is to redefine the relation between figure and ground. If we … [Read more...]
