Turning to an urban condition, the space in the edge becomes broader in its base of definition – containing politics, economy, perception, communication etc. This condition of the contemporary city leaves the observer in a new position forced to view the margin from the margin, rather than from the center as done earlier.
The traditional view was based on a relation of differences involving a center and a margin. And the question is now what happens to the practice of urban activities, the concept of space and the methods of shaping the city, when the center-margin relation has to be replaced by relations between a series of margins forming a complex urban space of exchange and overlappings. Freed from the initial hierarchy of center and margin this marginal space of “sameness” may be reversed as a positive opportunity for reworking the contemporary city.
The marginal space of “sameness” can be described as elliptical, as Albert Pope does in “Ladders” (‘exurban ellipsis’, p.198). The ellipsis may architecturally be used to focus on the problem of center and margin as the ellipsis, with its two centers, marks a position between the circle, with one center, and the square, with four centers. The ellipsis may thereby be seen as a transitional form between two traditional opposing fields. Further the ellipsis may be stretched and scaled in space without losing its character and thus becomes a plural-form – more shaped by forces that react to the edges of the elliptical space than to its center.
But even more important ‘an elliptical expression’ is used in the science of language as an expression from which an apparently essential element has been left out often to condense the language and make it more practical. If anything has been left out of the marginal space of “sameness” it is an urban order based on a strong hierarchy of center and margin.
So recognizing the existence of a marginal space in the urban condition leaves the architect with the opportunity to work in an anti-hierarchical space ready for new architectural expression.
© Thomas Leerberg 2009
Tags: suburbs, urban design