foothold
“Existential foothold” and “dwelling” are synonyms, and “dwelling”, in an existential sense, is the purpose of architecture. Man dwells when he can orient himself within and identify himself with an environment, or, in short, when he experiences the environment as meaningful. Dwelling therefore implies something more than “shelter”. It implies that the spaces where life occurs are places, in the true sense of the word. A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genius loci, or “spirit of place”, has been recognized as the concrete reality man has to come to terms with in his daily life. Architecture means to visualize the genius loci, and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell. Another Scandinavian I found myself very influenced by was Steen Eiler Rasmussen, whose book Experiencing Architecture has been a constant presence in the bibliography for my Introductory Theory Courses, as I insist that the students must not only see architecture but experience it with all their senses and their minds. I have always been very influenced by reading Vitruvius and Alberti and examining all the work that they spawned from Brunelleschi to Giulio Romano, Inigo Jones, and Vanbrugh. Historical buildings,
Left to right: Cincinnati house; Frank Lloyd Wright inscription at Taliesin West, taken from the Taoist mystic, Laotse.
including Gothic, Romanesque, Chinese, Japanese, and Islamic, as well as Renaissance, are still very much alive for me, and filled with lessons. Which is not to say that heroes of the modern movement, Aalto, Mies, Corbu, Rietveld, etc., and their successors, have not been my teachers. There was a time when Jim Stirling seemed particularly interesting, the time when he built the Leicester Engineering Laboratories. It may have been Liverpool as a common denominator between us, or more likely the recognition that he had been looking hard at the British building stock of the 19th century. When I was a student at Liverpool we still did measured drawings, but Quentin Hughes had us measuring the cast iron and glass buildings of 19th century Liverpool. The influence of Stirling might perhaps be seen in the Burrell. Glasgow has a lot in common with Liverpool as a west coast industrial port city that grew mightily in the 19th century. We definitely wanted Glasgow to be present in our building through all kinds of resonances. We also wanted the building to interact with the site, and let as much of the weak northern light in as was feasible, given the sensitivity to light of its contents. So the building faces south and north, with the sunshine passing through the stained glass, and the woodland to the north modifies the exposure to potentially damaging radiation. The juxtaposition of the art works with the woodland is vital to the character of the building and the experiences it offers, just as seeing stained glass against daylight and walking through ancient archways and gateways are critically engaging interactions. 21