Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: To include control in our observation of form inevitably introduces a socio-political implication.That kind of implication also goes for the study of economics, which is about control as well and is not without reason called the 'dismal science'.The link is familiar to practitioners, of course, and perhaps wisely circumvented by them, but must be accepted by researchers of built environments.Yet strictly speaking we do not need to know who is in control.We are primarily interested in patterns of control.More disturbing perhaps is that we learn that an autonomous environment does not sit easily with architectural ideology.The stability implied by deeper control hierarchies of form and space contradicts the belief that good art demands full top-down control.Territorial reality, which in history is a source of architectural elaboration of gates and other forms of transition, is now denied contemporary expression, because we prefer to maintain the illusion of free flowing spaces without boundaries of any kind.Finally, sharing of form among designers, by way of type, pattern or system, was always the source of coherence in the built environment, but now is believed to be detrimental to self-expression and originality.
Source: Urban Morphology
Author: Gian Luigi Maffei
Institution: University of Florence
Language: English
Subfield: Building and Construction
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4313149404