u ncommon Ground allows a diversity of readings, most obviously, typological, historiographical and contextual.The book develops a theory of elements —platforms, furnishings, partitions— that challenge typical design priorities (space/plan/façade making). It is also an alter- native ‘history’ of modernism that reconsiders examples from Loos, Neutra, Raymond and Konstantinidis in terms of their commitment to site. While it criticizes radicalizing ideas of both the emancipatory mod- ernists (Le Corbusier’s aerial perspective, Howe’s space-flow, Breuer’s structural gymnastics) and conservative modernists (Sert’s monumental- ity and Wright’s topogenesis), it does so to highlight theoretical limita- tions as opposed to the topographical reality their work often engaged. Warning about oscillations between technological freedom and cultural necessity Leatherbarrow finds in their tension the real framework for design. The book talks at a deep theoretical and disciplinary level. It acknowl- edges the reality of perspectivism in architects’ attitudes, suggesting ways of overcoming perspectivism’s en-framing potential. Selective and sectional understanding are proposed as complementary surveying tech- niques. The disclosure of relevant and latent aspects of a surrounding terrain allows for the productive distinction between geometries of position and those of situation. Architectural levels, although explainable Uncommon Ground. Architecture,Technology and Topography David Leatherbarrow. MIT Press, 2000. — reviewed by Juan Manuel Heredia and Hayub Song
as platforms and their natural and correlates, are not meant to be taken literally. Fundamentally levels are horizons of inhabitation, layers for and of dwelling identifiable by traces of occupation rather than by over-explicit definition. Topography, likewise, is not just the continuity of land and plan, but registrations that measure the interrupted field or ‘uncommon ground’ of architectural reality. Façades (fronts) are discussed in terms of orien- tation: approaching them is less a matter of focused perception than of site awareness. Questioning the pre-eminence of iconography, Leath- erbarrow re-situates the problem of representation within the spectrum of building performance:‘what it does’ instead of ‘what it means’.This is not just function in the traditional sense but the historically-renewed technical and spatial responses to culture and region that allow for its own rehabilitation when inadequate and insufficient. As the tri-partite subtitle of his book suggests, Leatherbarrow’s theory recovers a well- known but hardly rehearsed tradition. The analogical playfulness of his writing permits him move away from excessive catego- rization producing imaginative and provocative interpretations.The book requires the initial effort of attentive reading, once accomplished, the flow of its language engages the reader in its emergent and profound meanings.
one great book
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O n S ite review
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I ssue 10 2003
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