The Edifice Complex

Much of my research has focused on the threshold between the individual building and its larger built environment. When I was studying in Paris, I spent a lot of time studying contemporary architecture in a city which gets most of its character from ideas and standards that were implemented 130 years ago. I would study buildings by Christian de Portzamparc, or Massimiliano Fuksas, or Jean Nouvel. My bias in interpreting the works was that everything was in some way responding to its context, either by holding the street edge, or following window lines or cornice heights. Everything was, in my mind, sort of shoe-horned into place in the city. I'm beginning to wonder now if that is necessarily true, or if it was by own desire to see that happening. My senses tell me that some are responding more than others. A fair assessment.

Lucia Phinney told me that what I was really studying in Paris were "screens", these veiled elements that were really about separating disparate conditions, be they public versus private, or deeper; in my assessment of the city itself, there was a dichotomy between the public and more touristy areas which were rather pristine, and working-class neighborhoods in the 9th and 10th arrondissements that epitomized the real Paris: a large city with its problems of homelessness, crime, vandalism, etc. According to Phinney, much of my research was an attempt to identify that threshold. Now that I'm back in the States, back in Chicago, I am again finding myself interested in identifying these screens and thresholds.

When it comes to defining thresholds, I have a better idea of what they are not than what they are. I know that I am not just interested in the facades of buildings. The facade is an important aspect of defining the threshold in that it informs and is informed by its context and regulates the privacy gradient. But I have found that by exploring the alleys one can find a truer assessment of what is happening in a building. It's as if the experiential limits of the building are held tight against the facade of the building, but in an alley the limits are extended, perhaps halfway down the block. When you get tot the scale of the city, tings begin to change. Up close is when you feel the weight of the city bearing down on you. Cognitive maps provide barriers with small openings instead of fluid space. However one can be 20 miles out of town and still feel they are connected- this weekend I was traveling through Indiana and could still see the skyline in the distance.

Thresholds are very nebulous. Depending on the scale of the artifact and the level of engagement it can hold tight against a building or be miles away. A screen can be paper-thin or a thick space of transition, and can change with the changing elements of a building, even changing with the diurnal and seasonal periods. I hope I can continue to explore these phenomena in the streets and neighborhoods of Chicago.