China's Recreational "Tree Field": Reconciling "Rational" and "Organic"

Many urban (and probably sub-, ex-, and otherwise non-urban) parks in China exhibit a stunningly simple landscape architecture strategy that successfully reconciles a system of overtly rational physical organization with subsequent patterns of inevitably organic human utilization.

Take, for example, the square parcel (pictured above) immediately southeast of Beijing's Heavenly Palace. Some time ago, the entire grassy square was planted with a rigidly gridded array of a standard tree species. This single action comprised the park's entirely rational beginning...

Organicism has singularly determined its form ever since. Each tree, however bound to its accurately gridded origin, has grown into a uniquely twisted and branched specimen. And, more interestingly, as people have filtered through the array in different directions and utilized the space in different ways, infinitely variable lines of foot-packed earth have been worn through the inceptive bed of grass beneath the increasingly nuanced tree canopy. An endless typology of trails and clearings have been etched through the field of trees, visibly superimposing a variable system of human circulation upon the space's strict initial grid. There are wide, relatively straight trails along which groups pass across the park in broad formation. There are thin, wandering trails along which pairs or individuals wind within the field. And there are clearings of various sizes where families picnic or individuals practice t'ai chi.

As trees age and die without replacement an additional layer of complexity emerges: the otherwise comprehensive foliage canopy is perforated by dead spots, generating new instances of spatial and programmatic variability.

Chinese Perspaxoflection

Fresh from a 2-month voyage through China via the northeastern United States, I hereby commence a series of post-China perspaxoflections ("post" instead of "in situ" due to time, computer, and internet access constraints across journeyed asphalt, air, rail, and silk roads) built from expounded field notes, photographs, and/or observational commentary.

Ways of ordering space - both dynamic (through time) and static (across time?) - in the Forbidden City:

• Bricks
  
• Fields of color (walls, sky [daylight, smog, weather, etc.], building materials [variously dirtied, worn, cleaned, repaired, etc.], etc.)
  
• Scaffolding
  
• Troop formation/army rank
  
• "Organic" path systems/records marked by ever-deepening ruts worn by herds of foreign feet
  
• Individuals, crowds, uniformed tour groups (ex. herds of matching red hats) and/or herding tour guides' "distinctive" flags, umbrellas, etc. (vs. depopulated spaces and/or restricted areas)
  
• History/narrative/superstition/tradition
  
• Sound (roar of crowds in open spaces muffled by vast expanse; proximal Chinese shouts; guiding guides; various talking voices; enclosed exhibits' recorded soundtracks; etc.)
  
• Fences (Rhythmic pattern of balustrades, posts, apertures, etc.)
• Walls/doors
• Elevations/planes/heights (stairs, podiums, rooftops, distant cityscape, trees, birds)
• Surfaces/textures/patterns
• Etc.
  

HOTEL TO THAT HOTEL

No longer unique. Can’t be distinguished.

The edge of the bed in Bemidji, Minnesota.
The slippery polyester bed covering.
The dark glass of the television screen.

Grove’s Asheville is Just Shy of Anything

I thought Millionaires could do anything… especially millionaires operating in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

Edwin Wiley Grove (1850 – 1927) was a millionaire. But I bet few people outside Asheville, NC have heard of him. The world knows Coke. In Atlanta we know Candler. We don’t know Grove and we don’t know his “Tasteless Chill Tonic,” the bottled quinine mixture that made him rich. Maybe that’s because people said it wasn’t “tasteless” at all.

Regardless, E.W. did what any respectable human would do with his fortune. He built things - high on hills or intended to tower over neighboring buildings - which he could then name after himself. And the things he built were really, really big – or at least intended to be really, really big. I’ll admit that Sarah and I focused most of the energy during our first trip ever to Asheville this past week on the mountains and the plethora of trails that emanate from the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I did find some time to explore two of E.W.’s legacies.

On Tuesday evening, we headed out to the Grove Park Inn, mostly to see for ourselves the impressive twin-fireplaces that boast the ability to burn 12’ logs. And there they were… big stone fireplaces that could burn 12’ logs. Rumors that in some areas the all-stone exterior walls are a staggering 5’ in section were difficult to actually observe or prove. The building, though LARGE and impressive in that it was constructed in just 12 months, seemed disproportionate and lumbering overall and the additions that had been tacked on over time seemed anything but congruent. To be fair, I didn’t spend enough time there to even see any of the rooms or other (reportedly fine) amenities including spa, etc. But it felt a little bit like a dimly lit, stuffy convention hall and the supposed “largest collection of Arts and Crafts furniture” also failed to impress.

Next was the Grove Arcade downtown, which Grove envisioned as “a massive commercial mall with covered pedestrian thoroughfares and rooftop terraces surmounted by a skyscraper tower.” Sounds famous. This one was just too ambitious. Construction commenced too near to E.W.’s death and it was never finished. After a stint as the National Climatic Data Center (which all you Good Time Charlies will appreciate) it is currently operating as an Arcade and we were able to check off all the things you’d expect to see in a tourist-town mall including overpriced area-furniture stores, public restrooms equipped with homeless people, and several mediocre food vendors.

Quite unlike the Inn, this building is very pleasant to occupy if you can focus vision away from the tacky stores. I appreciated the entirely ramped floor, which covers the grade change clear from one side to the other of the city block that the building occupies, the barrel vaulted ceilings, and the consistent detail throughout.

However, the building that stands there today amidst all of the fine Art Deco buildings of Asheville is not exactly Grove’s vision (good or bad – you decide). The tower was never built. The stock market crashed and with it crashed the towering dream of the then deceased tonic-maker. So all I could do was stand in front of the etched-glass memorial drawing of the would-be building and take this photograph, hardly enough to actually envision what that tower would have meant to the city of Asheville or to Grove’s legacy.

Figure/Ground in Paris

One aspect of Paris that becomes clear, especially if viewed from above, is the density of the urban fabric. The buildings carpet the landscape within a clearly bounded zone. The built carpet reverses the common notion of figure and ground in the urban environment. Generally, when we think of the ground we think of the earth or the landscape upon which figure or buildings are put/planted. What is fascinating about the urban fabric of Paris is the fluidity with which this concept acts. The carpet of buildings creates a ground in which the streets, parks, and monuments are cut out of and therefore become the figures in the landscape. This, in turn, means that the street, the park and the monument become privileged due to their difference from the overarching system. Urbanistically speaking, this has profound implications because the act of privileging such spaces changes the nature of the city and therefore the way people act in it. The street, the park and the monument are public/civic spaces in the city and the privileging of them helps to create an enlivened and vibrant city. As opposed to privileging the private realm of the home which is set back from the street. These spaces become unique and special in the eye of the citizen and appreciated for their ability to make a place amongst the overwhelming redundancy of the city.

The figure/ground relationship shifts back and forth depending on the scale you are looking at. For example, when looking only at a monument in the city, the monument becomes the figure amongst the ground of a park, sidewalk, and street. As we zoom out, the monument, sidewalk, street become a figure amongst the building fabric.

The other way in which these figures operate is to define our place, simply as people, in the world. In the midst of a dense city the person feels insignificant due to the fact that she/he cannot place themselves. Through grand boulevards and defining landmarks that cut through the mesh, the citizen can orient themselves not only physically but ontologically. This ordering and defining of our environment may be one of the essential acts that makes us human. Through this process we develop meaning and symbolism because the boundaries we create relate to shared cultural phenomena.

Perspaxon in Paris

This is the first international posting for perspaxon. I will be spending 3 weeks in Paris as part of the modern architecture and urbanism study abroad. Our next stops include Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Berlin. I will try to keep perspaxon updated with ideas and perspectives on a weekly basis.
Hopefully the other posters will contribute to the page from their parts of the globe...

Chad Perspaxon

Perspaxon has founded a city in Chad!

Move there now!