Looking down from the monument of George Washington towards the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (Philadelphia’s very own Champs Elysees) I always — in the course of one of my frequent visits — know that I am back in one of my favourite American cities. Before going down to this specific area, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Boathouse Row, the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute, the Swann Memorial Fountain, Logan Square, the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul all within easy walking distance from one another, that feeling of being back here is not yet tangible, not yet in my bones, as it were.
When the woman in my life and I have parked our car in Market Street, sipped our coffee at Starbucks on Market to prepare for our Sunday visit to the museum district, and started walking down the Parkway, I start getting that feeling of having at last arrived on American soil again, and the feeling culminates in the satisfaction derived from turning around at Washington’s statue to look back the way we have come. I have often wondered why this is the case and concluded that it is not simply the proximity of these wonderful buildings to one another, but especially the manner in which they modulate this part of the city’s space into a configuration of interconnected places with a very distinctive spatial quality that imparts to it the character of a region with its own special genius loci (spirit of place). Moreover, this “region” gathers together places where what Heidegger calls the “fourfold” (the unity of earth, sky, mortals and divinities) may be encountered at every level — in the physical exhilaration of walking the distance, and that accompanies the visual experiences, in the time it takes to walk and to stand still while taking in the changing scene, and finally in the experience of satisfaction and edification in the face of so much creativity.
Nor is this experience restricted to the area described in its entirety, either; it repeats itself in proximity to individual buildings. Take the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance, where it majestically presides over the space projected by the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at its far end. To most moviegoing people in the world it may be recognisable as merely being the magnificent building that provided a grand staircase for Sylvester Stallone’s character in the film, Rocky, to train; to anyone truly familiar with this space, however, it marks the point of arrival after the exhilarating walk down the Parkway, and the gateway to a variegated aesthetic experience afforded by one of the finest collections of art in the world. While still outside, walking towards the main entrance, one may admire the colourful north pediment of the Museum, with its Olympian figures reinforcing the symbolic presence of ancient Greece already intimated by the Museum’s Parthenon-like appearance; once inside, the statue of the huntress, Diana, at the top of the stairs, uncompromisingly signals the neoclassical provenance of the building, with all that this entails regarding the cultural tradition represented by it. Only someone who is completely insensitive to such a transformation of space into an architectural “place” where one may discover variegated artistic “worlds”, as it were, would not feel welcome to explore the various artistic traditions preserved here. On the other hand, if anyone has become as accustomed as we have to the Museum’s various domains, he or she would probably experience the same tranquility and edifying viewing as we do, visually as well as existentially — at the level of Heidegger’s “fourfold” — exploring the unique works preserved there, such as the Duchamp collection, to mention one of my personal favourites.
Or think of Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in irreplaceable Fairmount Park, the biggest municipal park in America, where one could easily forget that one is in close proximity to a city. These rowing club homes, some of which date back more than a century, conjure up a distinctive sense of witnessing generations of people traversing a specific time and space by engaging in shared activities which impart to them a sense of belonging. Walking, skating or cycling along the walkway parallel to the river, one is invariably struck by the civic congeniality of a space configured, once again, into a distinctive place, not least by the many sculptures encountered along the way — including Lipchitz’s The Spirit of Enterprise, with its paradigmatic connotations of America’s pioneering role in history. Even the thought of Star Trek’s imaginary starship, the Enterprise (which can hardly be avoided) is consonant with this pioneering spirit and it is not difficult to see in this sculptural work — within its setting — an instantiation of the combined presence of the members of the “fourfold”: “earth” (physical desire and striving), “mortals” (the meaning of limited human time), “sky” (the challenge to live creatively beyond existing boundaries) and divinities (giving meaning to life through constructive, self-transcending activity).
It is not only on this side of the city that one encounters (architectural) places which make one feel at home for reasons outlined above, of course. Another of our regular destinations is the South Street area where Philadelphia cheesesteak beckons tantalisingly at Jim’s, between browsing for books at second-hand bookstores and hunting for footwear bargains or rare CDs. But whether or not one really needs to shop around for something, South Street is a “Philadelphia place” where strolling on the sidewalk is never boring, always interesting and most important, invariably surprising.
It is impossible to enumerate, let alone do justice to, all the architecturally “created” spaces in Philadelphia — appropriately, the city of “brotherly love” or friendship — which have been transformed into “places” in various ways, usually by a combination of the architectural design of buildings and the spatial interrelationships between different buildings of such distinctive design. As the example of the Philadelphia Art Museum illustrates, the architectural design of a building determines both the quality of its interior space(s) and the space immediately exterior to it, but in both cases the design of other buildings in proximity to it, as well as the modulation of the spaces connecting them, interacts with, and modifies the space(s) of the building in question. Hence, looking down Broad Street from inside Philadelphia’s City Hall, one is aware of the effect of this dialogue between the exterior “Avenue of the Arts” and the interior civic space, namely to allow the spectator a vivid experience of the city as a place where creative cultural pursuits are intimately connected with municipal policy and functions.
As for the buildings and places encountered on Broad Street, suffice it to say that Philadelphia would not have had such a strong association with the arts if the latter were not enshrined in these buildings and the manner in which they interconnect spatially. Architecturally speaking, for instance, the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts surpasses its pragmatic function as art school and repository of a fine collection of early American art: both its exterior and its interior testify to its being an artwork itself, in which a variety of stylistic influences converge. But more than being an artwork, in its role as the oldest art school in the US it also demonstrates — as does the relatively new Kimmel Center — what the American philosopher Karsten Harries (of Yale University) has described as the “ethical function of architecture” in a book with that title. The fact that the Academy has provided students of art with a congenial space for pursuing artistic studies for a long time is witness to the success with which it has transformed ordinary space into an architectural “place” ethically oriented towards the arts, and a place, moreover that embodies the “fourfold” in a tangible manner.
It may come as a surprise to find architecture associated with an ethical function, as opposed to an aesthetic one. While Harries would not deny the aesthetic appeal of many of the elements in a building (such as its materials, the formal aspects of its design and so on) he claims that, primarily, architecture differs from the other arts insofar as its inescapable practical function — to be inhabited — imparts to it a distinctive ethical vocation, namely to provide a sense of “place” or an ethical orientation in the world. This “ethical” function is related to the word “ethos”, and hence, when attributed to architecture, indicates its capacity to impart to the people who inhabit buildings such a sense of “place”. So, for example, when one “feels at home” in a specific building or when an interior space allows one to use it well for its assigned purpose (whether it is to sleep, study or play-act) one may say that it satisfies the ethical requirement to transform impersonal “space” into human “place”. Conversely, when a building makes one feel uneasy or insecure, or does not promote its intended purpose on the part of the individuals or groups who use it — such as studying art, performing music or simply being “at home” — it may well be a sign that it has failed to fulfil this ethical purpose.
From this point of view it is probably no accident that Elfreth’s Alley, in Old City, has been designated the street which has been continuously inhabited longer than any other street in America — just walking along its cobblestones and experiencing the solid home-providing ethos or presence that it projects even to the visitor, confirms the persuasiveness of Harries’ novel philosophy of architecture. It need not be the case, of course, that such a sense of place should be experienced only in or around a building or adjacent buildings. A public park such as Rittenhouse Square in the west of Center City — admittedly partly because of the buildings surrounding it — allows every bit as much of an experience of “place”, in this ethical sense, as some of the spaces inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the east of Center City, like the refurbished Victorian train shed exhibition hall.
It is not the case, of course, that what I have described — drawing on the work of Heidegger and Harries — as the edifying awareness of the “fourfold” and of the “ethical” function of architecture, may only be experienced in public places or buildings with a kind of monumental “presence”. As intimated earlier, an ordinary home, to the extent that it serves the purpose of being a home or an ordinary neighbourhood, could impart such a sense of place just as well. I recall with pleasure the many times we experienced this, walking from my wife’s apartment in Havertown, on the outskirts of the city, to some of our favourite coffee shops — including The Point, a place with all the necessary attributes to make one feel at home — or to the Haverford College campus, itself richly endowed with the architectural and spatial prerequisites for a sense of place. Sometimes we walked through the snow (often feeling the falling snowflakes on our faces) or under a canopy of Fall colours, catching our breath at the beauty around us and discovering, every step of the way, what Heidegger meant when he remarked that we, as humans, so easily forget to be “astonished”. Astonished at what? At the sheer miracle of being and of being able to discover, even in the ostensibly most ordinary of experiences or places, a world or “fourfold” of meaning, an easily forgotten ethos by which to find orientation in what often seems to be a world lacking all sense of direction. (A longer version of this essay appeared in the Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts.)
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26 Responses to “Philadelphia’s ‘ethical’ architecture”
You have left me quite breathless, Bert! Your paean to Philadelphia is utterly unexpected. Perhaps it takes an ‘outsider’ to appreciate the qualities of another’s city, to elucidate the subtle influences that produce the effect of unity, balance, challenge and suprise that you describe so beautifully. You have, in fact, captured to perfection my feelings about Philadelphia!
Despite the ‘grime and crime’ that mar many parts of the city, ‘old’ Philadelphia still exerts a pull on the spirit. The Museum of Art is one of my favourite places. I recall on one visit to the city, finding a complete Japanese tea house in one wing of the museum. The experience of that space is still with me, although the tea house itself may long ago have been replaced by something else.
The bond between Ireland and Philadelphia is an old one and my family ties stretch between the two. The ‘Philadelphia cousins’ were envied for their freedom to explore and enjoy their city from walking through a model of the human heart (what an idea!) in the Franklin Institute to the almost sacred atmosphere of Independence Hall, to the thrilling Christmas organ concerts in Wanamaker’s Department Store, to the amazing New Year parades, the city seemed to offer endless adventure and inexhaustible secrets. Like Georgetown and Boston, Philadelphia has retained something of the spiritual aspirations of its founders.
Perhaps one day, the city may even decide to BE what Penn envisaged: the city of ‘brotherly’ love and felicity.
Siobhan - I would never have guessed that you, too, know Philadelphia sufficiently well (very well, in fact) for my attempted evocation of its beauty to resonate with your experiences. I am thrilled that it is the case. And sure, you remind me of the ‘underbelly’ of the city, which concerns crime and poverty - like in West Philly - I cannot deny its existence. Here I reflected on ‘old’ Philadelphia, which does stir the spirit in many ways. Incidentally, I don’t recall the Japanese tea house in the Museum of Art, but I do remember a similarly reconstructed, late medieval tavern (and on a different occasion its Roman counterpart), which exuded a genius loci very different from contemporary spaces of ‘hospitality’. It is wonderful for people to live in a city with the resources to bring them art and architecture from around the world, and from different eras, too. There are certain things about America that I don’t like, but when it comes to cultural enrichment in the world of the arts, or to top-class academic institutions, it is hard to beat them.
Living in Virginia, Philly is not too far off. Your article makes me want to visit Philly before I make my permanent journey back home to South Africa. I do want to experience the beauty that you see in Philly but in addition to that, I want to eat an authentic Philly cheese steak sandwich.
Randhir - Not only the beauty of the (old) city, but also the Philly Cheese steak sandwiches (near South Street) warrant a visit to Philadelphia. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Philadelphia seems to have an unusually high number of foods that are unique to it. The Cheese Steak, the Italian Hoagie (NOT the wimpy version with mayonnaise!!); Philadelphia Cheesecake (different from the ’softer’ New York variety); Soft Pretzels, a delight that still makes me wish for a Star Trek transporter to 12th and Market circa 1958; a cool drink called Black Cherry Wisniak and another called Birch Beer (if memory serves?); Tastykake (sic) Lemon Pies, wonderful beyond description for a mass produced item; ah, yes, and the ultimate Philadelphia delicacy: Butter Cake, one needs to find a German bakery for this exquisite concoction. And I almost forgot: Devilled Crab from Bookbinder’s!
Other cities have tried to copy these unique dishes without success. Hence, the ‘Giro’ and the ‘Hero” (imitations pf the Hoagie that no self-respecting Philadelphian would eat!); soft pretzels with the most appalling ( Southern US) ingredients (apple-cinammon, poppyseed, chocolate!!! ughh).
The soft pretzel and its crunchy cousin the ‘beer pretzel’ are savoury food, not sweets!
OMG, I nearly forgot ‘Scrapple’! Habersett’s, of course. My Scottish husband preferred it even to the Haggis! No small praise, I assure you!
My sister just reminded me of another Philadelphia speciality, the coconut cream Easter Egg covered with the darkest chocolate. Sadly, this delicacy seems to be available only in the Philadelphia area.
Keep the ‘grits’ (well-named!), buckwheat cakes (no comment); ‘Texas-fried Steak’ (don’t ask), and dull, bland Mid-West stodge. Philadelphia has taste. In every way.
Thanks for a good article Bert, it reminded me of the 2+ years that I spent in Philadelphia in the mid-80s. It was the first city that I settled in after leaving South Africa as a young man, and though my reply won’t do your article justice, I remember the city fondly.
I used to live in the suburbs, near the King of Prussia mall, then the largest mall in the world. But it was a quick drive to Valley Forge, corn fields, and the Amish country.
Being single at the time, I often went down to South Street on the weekend (stopping at the bookshops in West Philly and at the Amish market on the way), and there was usually something interesting going on in the area.
Sometimes on the weekend I would visit the excitement of the Big Apple, but always felt relieved to see New York in the rear-view mirror. I’ve heard Philadelphia being described as DC on a bad-hair day, but I find Washington less attractive and Philly more convivial. Keep in mind that Philly was named the “next great [American] city” in a National Geographic Traveler magazine of 2005.
The last time I visited Philly was in 2005, with my wife. I went back to all the neigbourhoods I remembered from 20 years before, including queueing up for a cheese-steak sandwich at the Reading Terminal market. I must say that Philly is still one of my favourite North American cities.
Siobhan - Thanks for that long list of Philly foods - you know the cuisine far better than I do!
Chris - It is wonderful to hear that there are yet more people who share some of my (and Siobhan’s) feelings about Philadelphia. Thanks for that.
Concerning the archicture you mentioned, and here I am talking about the feeling you experianced because of the physical field of objects and geometries, I quote from an author I forgot: “Place is to space what occasion is to time.”
I feel this accurately discribes what you mention in your article. Even that quote won’t make sense if there wasn’t an inherent connection/association between the concepts. It is a beautiful mixture between the liniar and chronological left-brain experiance and the ruim-gevoel (not sure of german spelling) right-brain experiance
Enran Frankenfeld on September 16th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
What catches my attention most is; the style of Architecture, and the axial ordering principles, which starts from the Philadelphia City hall, through the JFK Plaza (Love garden), the Logan square, up to the Museum of Art.
These buildings are a mixture of classical, and neo classical styles of architecture, all connected according to modernist ways of space making and city planning copied from Georges-Eugène Haussmann a French civic planner.
As one journeys through this axis, the buildings create urban spaces/places within the axis making one experience this journey to the Museum of Art as a series of events with the museum terminating the axis; the museum is raised on a podium to express the power of the museum as the end point of the configuration in the axis, i.e. as a showcase of the recollection of experiences one has experienced while passing through the axis. These spaces are created by the City Hall, The Free Library, The Academy of Natural Sciences, and the other buildings as mentioned by the author.
The Logan circle (with the swan fountain), is also an important historical feature because it used to be a site for public executions and burials, so on this axis lies a history well preserved and documented, such that as one is walking to the museum from the City hall, one passes through these classical spaces with a modern touch; the boulevard, with trees aligned along it, the response of the buildings to the context.
Bert, your detailed description of the scenery and your experience in Philadelphia shows how powerfully the place has managed to capture and appeal to your awareness of place. I am yet to find a place to exert the same pull on me, for me to utter words so beautifully descriptive of a place…. the thought just excites me, the feeling so timeless……
For you to have enjoyed the scenery and special feel the spaces brought, indicates great work done by contributors to the built environment of the area. For the buildings and spaces to be described on their own independent merit and for them to harmoniously merge together in a collective, macro fabrication is just so amazing. This shows the magnitude of the responsibility that is embedded in each architect’s hands, to model and shape the world into an environment that appeals to us both visually and physically not just as spaces of embellishment into the natural environment that only appeals to the visual experience, but as spaces that exert a feeling of belonging and not impose on nature but harmoniously work together with it. As architects, we also carry with us the challenge to create buildings that will appeal to inhabitants, not only now but in generations to come (timeless buildings). Even though our nature as humans considers architecture to be a visual experience, the physical aspect is as important.
We need to erect buildings that tell a story of their existence and be able to be appreciated and acknowledged for the process they have gone through to become a finished product of marvel and appeal to human interest. I am reminded of Maya Angelou’s word; “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” This needs to change; we need to appreciate the energies and steps that come with the complete product and all this lies in the architect’s hands!!
Bert, I think a place such as you have described, is this same campus and that main building that you despise so much. I know that our University campus is not generally a big favourite amongst my fellow students, especially the ones not studying architecture. Yes, it might be a concrete expression ( no pun intended ) of imposed power from the 1960’s with the Main Building which is the worst part of it all. But Bert, have you ever been at a window on the North side of that Main Building on any floor above the 3rd, and seen University road approach you from afar? Following it from Admiralty road all the way directly at you until it turns away to pass through under the bridges? Have you sat on the terraces at the kraal? When students are enjoying the sun, and some are playing on their guitars, others are having fun chatting or chasing after a soccer ball. The sense of place created on the South Campus, is very distinctly so, because of the exclusion of vehicles to the whole scheme… ( by this I mean, the parking areas that are located on the perimeter of the campus instead of inbetween the buildings as is found on Pretoria University Campus for example ) This is interesting, since the modernist Architects all over the world where so fascinated by the motor car!
Here in the Architecture Department, our Campus has also been heavily criticised for buildings that don’t ‘live out’ to …
…the gathering/socialising space of the kraal, and the square in front of the library. These might all be true, but whether the Architecture is brilliant or not, one is at all times aware that you are at this University, on the South Campus. Walking along the walkways on a sunny day or a cold rainy day; the sense of place created ‘under the buildings’; between the buildings; by the vistas that are framed by these buildings; and the sense of place by its location in a nature reserve. Only in this amazing place will you find rabbits and owls and small buck, if you need to come to the university at night. Your description of Philadelphia - I find that emotion from experiencing our campus. Thank you for always writing on inspiring topics! Hope my comment isn’t to late.
The quote: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, comes to mind when reading this piece on the power of architecture in Philadelphia. It serves to remind us to feel what it feels like to live, to be “astonished” by our architectural surroundings. It reminds us of the power of a slow afternoon stroll down a formal park avenue, with the warmth of the sun softly touching your skin while filtering through the branches of the age old trees in summer.
Great architecture creates the essence of a place. It gives it meaning which demands a reaction from the beholder. Great architecture creates a moment in time to pause, appreciate and reflect; creating the love of a place that captures ones attention.
As architects, our life goal should be to continue to create such great architecture that exemplifies Heidegger’s fourfold of earth unity, sky, mortals and divinity. We should strive only to create an environment that astonishes us, creating a space that moves people which evokes their senses and speaks to their soul. This is great architecture.
Wow this article is truly mind blowing, for one to have experienced space this way truly pays compliments to the architects that were involved in the creation of such a place. Architecture is primarily not about buildings, but about people. When Ralf Erskine was asked, what makes a good architect he replied, “First of all you must love people.”
Without understanding people as individuals and their diverse circumstances it becomes difficult to produce good architecture that will respond to peoples needs as an object in a greater context. For Philadelphia to have these great characteristics, means the architects truly took time to familiarise themselves with the people of Philadelphia. They have been sensitive to what existed from the early beginnings’ of Philadelphia, as it marks were people come from, and continue to merge new with old with great sensitivity. And not limiting themselves to the building boundary, but going beyond with the design of outside spaces that are also habitable to people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. That truly edifies the characteristics of great architecture that satisfies the many needs most of them psychological and social.
This kind of respect to the profession of Architecture is what all architects should strive for as we shape how the world will look like, and feel like to its captivity.
As an architectural student I find it truly inspiring and almost impossible to qualify the joy I derive from seeing such writing on a piece of architecture by an individual who is not directly involved in the making of space and places. It takes a lot of time, effort and many sleepless nights behind a drawing board for an architect to produce good architecture and sometimes one wonders if it’s really worth it. In most cases good architecture is recognized by all but experienced by a few. Those that recognize architecture conceive it only as a visual art and the people that experience(deeply engaged) it understand that its true experiential means lies within a bodily feeling by means of which the architectonic shaping of spaces has an immediate effect on our emotions. Good architecture is like a good piece of music or a novel. It has a beginning and an end determined by its structure or composition. Just like the architecture in question there is a defined order to the sequence that is necessary to understand the architecture which creates a narrative space that proves that the productive experience of architecture doesn’t just happen within a building but needs to be organized as an unfolding experience much as the complexities of a novel are unfolded. Once one understands the concept of a narrative space it becomes easy to design magical spaces that are able to capture one’s attention and engage him in a sweet dream.
The one thing that further enriches the architecture of Philadelphia is the fact that some of the buildings mentioned date back more than a century and therefore present themselves to be read as a palimpsest giving the viewer an opportunity to gain some historical perspective on the modern condition.
How do we merge our ethical duty to care with a capitalist consumer driven society oblivious to the quality of our product?
Care is the fundamental basis of all good architecture. Without it all the theory, analysis and play in the world has as much chance of producing good, ethical architecture as hitting a hole in one blindfolded. Care is the driving force that makes you pay attention to site conditions or explore appropriate modes of space or make a beautiful detail. Care is the root of all good space.
This care is difficult to quantify; being a qualitative characteristic. Its nature becomes even more elusive to a capitalist society because of the tendency to quantify quality.
Today care is measured in carbon foot prints, local labor usage, black empowerment, and amounts of money donated to charity. None of these characteristics can ever make a good building without real care.
Real care cannot be quantified. Our inability to realize this has resulted in measuring it by its symptoms. Which is why we believe that an amount of money given to charity equals care. We have mutated what real care is in order to fit the glib and eccentric quantification based understanding that roots our society today.
It has become unfashionable to care. It is no longer expected of us. Instead we are expected to make not space, but objects which titillate and flatter the ego’s which commission them.
I believe the architectural example used here (Philadelphia) is a perfect example of the results achieved when an art/skill is executed in its truest sense (or ethical sense). All the principles of architecture co-exist in a harmonious whole.
This co-existence allows the sapce to celebreate minor everyday activities such as a walk on a path by the Schuylkill river or simply strolling down Benjamin Franklin Parkway admiring the buildings that create the sapce itself. In a sense the architecture, when executed skilfully, intensifies the experience of a given space and creates an awareness in us that otherwise, we would not be able to pick up had the space not been created.
I believe wherever this is done in the world (the skillful crafting of an architectural space (e.g the city of Venice, the Acropolis in Greece, the Pantheon in Rome, etc.) the ethical architecture is able to reach us on an emotional level.
Even Speaking to our soul…
It truly is wonderful to encounter an individual who is genuinely appreciative of the spirit of place, and so sensitive to the effect imparted on it by truly good architecture and urban planning/design.
I believe the prerequisites that constitute an ‘ethical’ architecture can be named, yet cannot be easily created. Like a human personality grows through experience and interaction with others, and in taking shape creates an atmosphere and impression of that person when encountered by fellow persons, so should an architectural space take on an atmosphere and character through it’s interactions and relations with various factors. In an architect’s mind, the space interacts with forms, climate, context(built and human) and client, and begins to take on a ‘personality’ intrinsic to it alone. Once this is realised by architects and designers, and care is taken to either respect the existing character of a site, enhance it through a built intervention, or harmonize with the natural character of a virgin site, the ethical duty is fulfilled. The architectural place created will then take on a character conducive to the intended ethical imperatives. In other words, people will enjoy it. In addition to Philadelphia, one imagines the unique sense of place apparent in some areas closer to home, namely Port Elizabeth’s Central, or the Bo-Kaap in the Cape Town city bowl. These spaces, while entirely different to Philadelphia, possess a unity and distinct character, which can only be attributed to an ethical, careful, ‘background yet foreground’ architecture.
Well,it seems as architecture becomes piece of art in which to express, one needs a strong centralised inner consious to relate narrate his\her feeling about the building or the nature of space exprieced. The philadelphia buildings are more rich in the beauty, the portray architecture as habital art,more practically exprieced as compared to paitinn artifact that its only enjoyement can be absorbed or experssed visually.
Classical architecture has been always the best in terms of aesthetics and ethical funtion relation to the users.Architects of then had knew their people very well, contributing on making spaces worthful to be enjoyed even by the coming generations.In this case, i feel Philadeliphia places were carefully,benched on the love for the people, indentity and powerfully expressed.I believe each of us has that feel for the love of the building, or particular space that can be either inner experienced or the practically enjoyed.The attention to space syntax in Philadeliphia contributes much wider experiece in collection of building precedents,to be expirenced as a whole intergral to the building and the public at large.
What interests me most is the architectural space making mentioned and when recalling from the movie (Rocky) mentioned the few examples i saw were very remarkable spaces. This is also evident as one would tend to turn around at Washington’s statue like the author always does turn to witness how the buildings complement each other and the spaces around them. The originality mentioned makes it more unique or special as compared to the cities which use the architectural elements to modulate their without any creativity but in a universal way. With the museum raised on a podium to mark a point of arrival and a gateway shows how carefully the city has been organized to create different nodes of spaces which are interconnected.
The buildings being a mixture of classical and neo classical styles of architecture if uncompromised i imagine strongly gives Philadelphia the character that it needs to be a remarkable place. Its also an important fact that there is a strong attention given both to the exterior and interior of these buildings which strongly helps in activating the spaces of the city. And i don’t see any reason why someone with a good sense of architectural space would not feel welcome to explore this preserved styles.
With the trees aligned along the streets and, the responses of the buildings to the context and places like Fairmount Park are what some of the modern cities are lacking but with cities like Philadelphia still embracing such spaces I think
What strikes me the most is the style of Architecture and the feeling/ personal experience one seems to get when surrounded by the buildings and spaces in the city of Philadelphia. The place surely manages to capture and appeal one’s awareness of it and this truly pays compliments to the architects that were involved in the creation of such mind-blowing spaces. It serves us to remember what it feels like to live, to be “astonished” by our architectural surroundings especially looking at the manner in which the buildings modulate the city into a configuration of interconnected spaces with a very distinctive special quality that imparts to it the character of a region with its own special ‘genius loci’ as you have noted.
I like the way you describe how the city has been transformed into places in various ways, by a combination of the architectural design of buildings and the spatial interrelationship between different buildings. It is as if the Architects had lived before in the same places and experienced the feeling that one gets now before they even designed for them to have felt the same feeling u had there on your visit, the feeling of being at home. They surely seem to have transformed ordinary spaces into an architectural ‘place’ ethically oriented towards the art and a place, to provide a sense of ‘place’ or an ethical orientation in the world.
This when attributed to architecture, indicates its capacity to impart to the people who inhabit buildings such as sense of place, taking us back to the previous topic of “ethos”. When one feel at home in a specific building or place one may say that it automatically transforms impersonal space into human place as you have suggested.
But I guess the question now remains, do all Architects design ethical buildings, foe people to feel at home or some just do it to get the job done, or maybe to put something into their pockets..?
To quote from your blog above: “…architecture differs from the other arts insofar as its inescapable practical function- to be inhabited…” This is pinnacle point as to why one must consider an ethical architecture.
Unfortunately today the idea that architecture is an art as well as the buildings we inhabit appears lost. It seems it is the thought of most of society that the architecture of the buildings we inhabit does not influence our daily lives, does not move us or speak to the soul. In reality the exact opposite is true and this is where one needs to consider the ethics of it.
For a building to be ethical is does not have to “go green” or enforce its own set of rules on the visitor, it must only be the answer to two problems. The first being the problem of site and the second being the programmatic problem of the building. Only by successfully solving these two “problems” can truly great architecture (and space) exist. An architecture without intensions of grandeur, without imposing ideas on how the building must look and one that does not need to be more then what it must be. This is an ethical architecture.
A quote from the architect R. Buckminster Fuller encapsulates this point: “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty, but if when I am finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
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Bert Olivier is Professor of Philosophy at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He holds an MA and DPhil in philosophy, has held postdoctoral fellowships in philosophy at Yale University in the US on more than one occasion, and has held a research fellowship at the University of Wales, Cardiff.
At NMMU he teaches various sub-disciplines of philosophy, as well as film studies, media and architectural theory, and psychoanalytic theory. He has published widely in the philosophy of culture, art and architecture, cinema, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology, psychoanalytic, social, media and discourse theory. In 2004 he was awarded the Stals Prize for Philosophy by the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences, in 2005 he received the award of Top Researcher at NMMU for the period 1999 to 2004, in 2006 the award for Top Researcher in the Faculty of Arts at NMMU, and in 2008 and 2009 he was both Faculty of Arts Researcher of the Year, and NMMU Researcher of the Year.
Recent events in South Africa (like the looming attempts to control the media), together with a comment by "Maria" on one of my previous posts, have s...
Listening to SAfm this morning, I heard part of a phone-in discussion between the presenter and a representative of a company that has done research o...
The world ain't what it used to be. Globalisation arguably started as long ago as Macedonian Alexander the Great's military expansion towards the East...
Journalism is usually, and I believe accurately, associated with the uncovering and reporting of "facts". Investigative journalism, especially, involv...
Architecture is usually understood as the science, or art, of designing buildings with a view to constructing them, but among its current definitions ...
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You have left me quite breathless, Bert! Your paean to Philadelphia is utterly unexpected. Perhaps it takes an ‘outsider’ to appreciate the qualities of another’s city, to elucidate the subtle influences that produce the effect of unity, balance, challenge and suprise that you describe so beautifully. You have, in fact, captured to perfection my feelings about Philadelphia!
Despite the ‘grime and crime’ that mar many parts of the city, ‘old’ Philadelphia still exerts a pull on the spirit. The Museum of Art is one of my favourite places. I recall on one visit to the city, finding a complete Japanese tea house in one wing of the museum. The experience of that space is still with me, although the tea house itself may long ago have been replaced by something else.
The bond between Ireland and Philadelphia is an old one and my family ties stretch between the two. The ‘Philadelphia cousins’ were envied for their freedom to explore and enjoy their city from walking through a model of the human heart (what an idea!) in the Franklin Institute to the almost sacred atmosphere of Independence Hall, to the thrilling Christmas organ concerts in Wanamaker’s Department Store, to the amazing New Year parades, the city seemed to offer endless adventure and inexhaustible secrets. Like Georgetown and Boston, Philadelphia has retained something of the spiritual aspirations of its founders.
Perhaps one day, the city may even decide to BE what Penn envisaged: the city of ‘brotherly’ love and felicity.
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