on the grand abstraction as a premise of design: ‘An articulated field or horizon was never intended to be abstract, it was meant to be concrete or practically and topographically specific.’ David Leatherbarrow,‘Building Levels’, Uncommon Ground , p 62 ‘Close proximity annuls aesthetic distance. At the back a practical field replaces or temporarily subordinates visualised objects, or exhanges one kind of visuality for another. The loss of the object allows for a gain in the nearness of things, their immediacy and their ability to sustain practical affairs; and this in turn promotes non- or pre-aesthetic engagements. Such a realisation … demonstrates participation in the whole, recognising it as a mosaic of opportunities.’
David Leatherbarrow,‘Back to Front, or About Face’, Uncommon Ground , p 78
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O n S ite review
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I ssue 10 2003
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