Abstract

ABSTRACT
JOSEPH THOMAS MONICO
Interpreting the Landscape: An Architecture of Place
Under the direction of Assistant Professor José L.S. Gámez, Ph.D.


Interpretation of a place...architecture as a physical and interpretive construct of place — a dialogue between cultural artifacts and the living landscape.

This Comprehensive Architectural Project will present an architecture that is conceived from, and rooted in, the landscape. It will be a study in an interpretive architecture tied to a specific cultural site, where spatial, formal and programmatic concepts are resolved as a response to the hermeneutical phenomenology and ontological significance of place. The basic themes of hermeneutical phenomenology are interpretation, textual meaning, dialogue, culture, and tradition.[i] For example, the study of how things appear is phenomenology and how things and their appearances are functions of human culture is hermeneutical phenomenology. Phenomenology requires one to be receptive to the potentials associated with understanding human experience as a powerful reality. Hermeneutics imparts a deep interpretive quality to the notion of phenomenological experience. The fusion of this philosophy into architecture has ontological significance as it involves a willingness to pursue sensory experience for the potential revelation of truth, thus, a perception of reality in space and time.[ii]

In addition to phenomenology, the relationship between site and its cultural history compels architecture to be an interdependent construct of place. Various elements in and of the design are essential to the whole composition. The architecture is not simply an assembly of separate elements or influences, but rather a cohesive, interwoven assembly conveying meaning much greater than the sum of its parts. As a work of architecture, the construction becomes an integral part of the site, local culture and meaning, and individual interpretation, at the same time, the natural and metaphysical phenomenon of site is an influence over the architecture. The resulting construct exists as part of this interdependent relationship and cannot exist separate from it.

This notion of site, proposed by Carol Burns in the essay “On Site,” presents the concept of the constructed site. She defines the constructed site as a synergy between natural site form, natural phenomenon of the earth, existing cultural artifacts, perceptions from our surroundings and the emotions they evoke, and the constructed form of the building. Nature, cultural history and the individual and collective perception of it, impart an order upon the site and the architecture is guided and shaped by these forces.[iii] An example might be a community center designed to maximize shared activity that evokes notions of tribal community organization - as sharing and mutual caring dynamics displayed in these cultures are reinforced in the design of their villages.

The natural, visible and invisible phenomena of site, along with cultural artifacts and traditions, are the basis for the interpretations used to generate the conceptions that become a literal basis for construction. This construct is an architecture that yields to natural interruptions and evokes a deliberate perception of place. It seeks to harmonize or define itself with nature and the artifacts within, as well as, the interpretations and meanings associated with human habitation.

The project I am proposing will be an Interpretive Center located in the historic Landsford Canal State Park, in Chester County, South Carolina, along a section of the Catawba River that is protected and identified as a river restoration site. This state park is notable for its historic canal ruins, flora and fauna, and the southern end of the park is traversed by the “Great Wagon Road,” a colonial trading and migration route that ran from northeast Pennsylvania through the Carolina Piedmont, and crossed the Catawba at Land’s Ford. The ford is an ancient crossing, used first by animals and Native Americans. It is located along the geographic fall line.

I have chosen this site for its rich history and the cultural artifacts it contains. I believe the site has all the elements for an intensive study of place and invention of an interpretive architectural construct. The park contains a cultural history and historic artifacts worthy of preservation, exploration and discovery by present and future generations. I believe the proposed project is an appropriate venue for this purpose.



END NOTES


[i] Phenomenology Online, http://phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/5.html
[ii] Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture. New York: Routledge, 1997. pg. 83.
[iii] Burns, Carol. “On Site,” Drawing/Building/Text. New York: Princeton Press, 1991. pg 147-155.

Prologue

As I began the introduction of my Comprehensive Architectural Project (CAP) in a presentation to my studio colleagues, I spoke of an opportunity I had in 1991 to design a second home for a New York City businessman in the southern mountains of Vermont. The site was in the little town of West Dover, located midway between Bennington and Brattleboro on Route 100. Not much happens in West Dover until the snow falls, but when the days grow short and the winds turn cold, skiers from all over the northeast crowd the little town to test their skills on Mt. Snow.

The site my client had chosen was a 19 acre lot located due north of Mt. Snow and it commanded the southern ridge of a lower mount. I remember my first visit to the property as clearly and vividly today as it was revealed to me that day. I was there with the Owner to do a site survey and determine where their new residence might be placed and if there were any other remarkable features on site that could be used in the design. I was carrying in my pocket a small knife to cut staking twine and a Silva Polaris compass; over my shoulder I slung a field transit. This image of me is what I hold in my memory - that of the Architect, the tekton – climbing that mountain, possessed with the will and the tools necessary to read the terrain, I would define a specific geographic location for the homesite and record the natural phenomena that controlled that microcosm. In this encounter, I would record the metaphysical, what my mind and body experienced. The influence of sensory experience and what the mind conveys through perception would give me clues about what it might be like to live in this place.

Using the transit, I carefully established an east-west axis along the most advantageous ridge on the lot. It was quickly realized that a building placed with its long axis running east-west would provide spectacular panoramic southern views and a full appreciation for one of Vermont’s most notable slopes. We surveyed the types of vegetation and the nature of the soils. The site afforded excellent solar orientation and natural rock outcrops. One outcropping in particular was suitable to be blast-formed during site preparation to form a deep crater in its base for the design of a natural rock pool.

Beyond the physical was the metaphysical, and as such, the phenomenological. This is what we perceive through our senses. Through discovery, imagination, knowledge, history, culture and time- all contribute to our interpretation of place. How it would smell after a snow or rain. The way the wind sounded as it blew through the pine trees. Fresh snow and the warmth from lighting a fire of hickory and oak; the mountain air and the change of seasons, all affected how form and space is developed in the design of the residence. Architecture is informed as a captured experience and contributes to the whole of everyday life in the home.

View of Mt. Snow looking south from the Eigen House site.The final design of the residence is not relevant to this introduction, other than to mention that care was taken to integrate and overlap spatial elements between indoor and outdoor. Opportunities to place individuals on the boundary between inside and out, completely outdoors or indoors, was done to inform one about that very place – being - to be on the mountain, and to live with it through every season of every year.

Martin Eigen, my client, and his wife Joan enjoyed their home. I sent him an email in 2001, right after Memorial Day. I received a reply from his daughter that both he and Joan, along with Marty’s mother had died in a plane crash. He had crashed his plane on an attempted landing on that Memorial Day weekend at the Mt. Snow airport. His daughter told me of her disappointment of having to put the house up for sale as part of closing out her parent’s estate. I don’t know what has become of Eigen House. One day I hope to visit West Dover again and see the place where I have left a part of my soul. The project I tell you about took place in the landscape, and that landscape was entered, uncovered and human settlement occurred. The house and site, by coming into being, are made part of the landscape now, and will carry forward making its own history as it is viewed, experienced, and inhabited by others. Architecture was rooted in the experienced I had in Mt. Snow, and that experience is vivid in my memory. To capture the phenomenology of the mountain is what I realize I was always trying to do.