People. House. Land: Reconfiguring The Rural

Abstract

People throughout our country have a deep primordial connection to the landscape with which they identify themselves culturally. Currently our existing housing stock is disconnected from the landscape and in turn, the people lack connection to their built fabric. Critical Regionalism and the pluralistic framework of environmentalism are widely accepted movements that seek to connect architecture to context. However, they exhibit weaknesses in the formal articulation of their respective social operations. The formal result is architecture that behaves as nostalgic, formally sympathetic lacking formal strategy or contrasting, indifferent to context. In contrast to these weaknesses, the strength of each theory finds a common denominator in the concern for the performative quality of the building as a method of connection to the land. This research contends that to situate architecture at a midpoint, mediating the relationship between people and the landscape, the formal operations must be re-framed to successfully communicate this social operation. Walter Benjamin states that ‘buildings are appropriated in a two-fold manner: by perception and use - or rather by sight and touch’. The optic and the haptic are intrinsically tied, where the understanding of one is strengthened by the other. Following this understanding this thesis asks; What formal strategies can be employed to embrace the connection between land and people? Can these formal strategies operate both aesthetically and performatively? The theory of Monumentality is proposed as the theoretical lens through which to view a solution. This situates architecture as an artefact, standing as monument to context, conditioning the perception of the site. An exploration of the architecture of Louis Kahn, Carlo Scarpa and Elemental strengthens contemporary approaches to architecture in the landscape. These precedents contribute to the resolution of the underlying disconnection, in the resilience of their formal strategies. The Salk Institute by Louis Kahn and the Fondazione Querini Stampalia by Carlo Scarpa exhibit the transference of a site-specific condition into form as a celebration of site. Elemental does not directly respond to the framework of monumentality; however the Quinta Monroy housing project presents itself as architecture of ‘propelling permanence’ through the expression of diversity in selfauthorship (Rossi 1982).