Context: Architecture and the Genius of Place

195 Pages·2015·11.89 MB·English

by  Eric Parry

PRIMERS
Context

PRIMERS
Context
Architecture
and the Genius of Place
ERIC PARRY
To A. A. P. and I. M. P.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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ISBN 978-1-119-95271-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-118-94673-2 (ebk)
ISBN 978-1-118-94674-9 (ebk)
ISBN 978-1-118-94567-4 (ebk)
Executive Commissioning Editor: Helen Castle
Project Editor: David Sassian
Assistant Editor: Calver Lezama
Cover design, page design and layouts by Karen Willcox, www.karenwillcox.com
Printed in Italy by Printer Trento Srl
Cover photograph by Dirk Lindner
Acknowledgements
A book of this kind, like designing a building or directing a film, is made
up of a complex web of parts, and here the actors are those who have
participated; my most significant debt is for the time they allowed me
in discussing their projects, particularly Álvaro Siza, Adam Caruso and
Peter St John, Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, Lisa Fior, and
Peter and Anneliese Latz. The stimulus to write has been a desire to
add a bridge between practice, which consumes my daily life, and the
academic discourse of architectural and urban studies. In the latter I am
lucky to have long-standing friendships with outstanding contributors:
Dalibor Vesely who encouraged me from the outset, Peter Carl, Bob
Maxwell, Wilfried Wang and David Leatherbarrow with their boundless
generosity, Joseph Rykwert and Richard Sennett through their writings
and conversation.
The chapter on the kinetics of the street is the beginning of a broader
study that was stimulated by the Theatrum Mundi group that Richard
Sennett and Ricky Burdett have set in intriguing motion. Associated with
this chapter has been the photographic record created by Dirk Lindner
which continues to inspire me. Closer to home the project would not
have been possible without the diligent, intelligent support of José de
Paiva and in its production to Sarah Blackmore. My partners in practice
Robert Kennett and Nick Jackson have been generous in their support
and reading of the script. José de Paiva, Tao Sule-DuFour, Eimear Hanratty
and Russell Watson have created a number of the drawings for which I am
very grateful. Finally for their gracious patience and encouragement I am
most indebted to Helen Castle and Merit Claussen.
Eric Parry

Contents
Introduction 008
Chapter 1: Pavement 013
Chapter 2: Horizon 048
Chapter 3: Simultaneity 078
Chapter 4: Kinetics 106
Chapter 5: Artifice 146
Select Bibliography 185
Index 187
Picture Credits 192
Eric Parry
Introduction
There are a growing number of remarkable projects
reflecting a widening global appetite and audience for
architectural adventure. When Frank Gehry’s Bilbao
Guggenheim Museum opened in 1997, the cherry on
the urban renewal cake, it did more at a stroke than
the massive infrastructure projects that preceded it,
to reinvent the image of that city. Many others have
followed suit, calling on the undoubted talents of a
battalion of architects who spend as much time in
airports as in their offices.
At the same time interest in the city as an urban and social science project
has burgeoned with the exponential rate of global urban expansion. Deyan
Sudjic’s book The 100 Mile City (1992) explored the reality of the megacity
with a breathtaking pace to mirror its subject. The Urban Age project,
centred at the London School of Economics and supported generously by the
Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Fund, has allowed eminent academics
from the fields of law, economics, urban policy, urban design, politics and
sociology to circumnavigate the globe to assess the comparative conditions
of some of the most influential cities. This work reached a peak of public
008