Place, time and the art of architecture: The education of Charles W. Moore.

摘要

Charles W. Moore (1925–1993), architect, writer, and educator, insisted upon the importance of place. He meant that the first responsibility of architecture, for the well being of individuals, communities, and the natural environment, is to preserve, where they exist, to order, where they are confused, or to create, where they are absent, human environments that are identifiable, meaningful, and memorable. Time, the evolving historical context and the fourth dimension in the perception of architecture and in the physical life of buildings, was to Moore an inseparable aspect of a place. As an art form, architecture, he asserted, is the making of places incumbent on a profound understanding of existing character and physical and historical contexts of a location and the needs of potential users.; This search for the origins of Moore's understanding of place follows a narrow subject, his education and experience from 1942 through 1965, and a larger subject, changes in architectural ideas and education in the same period. The first chapter is an overview of the idea of place in 20 th Century architecture and planning, cultural geography, and philosophy. The following six chapters, relying on archival material, contemporary writing, and Moore's own words, present the chronological development of Moore's idea of place. As a consequence of his education at the University of Michigan, Moore regarded himself as a modernist, within a definition that required appropriate architectural solutions to specific problems. His first extensive practical experience in California established his lifelong concern for the environment and its relationship to architecture. Travels in Europe followed by his first teaching post at the University of Utah convinced him of the importance of historical knowledge as the fulcrum of architectural education, a conviction that led to pursuit of a PhD in architecture at Princeton, where his philosophy coalesced around the concept of place. During his tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, Moore tested and applied this idea of place in his architectural design, teaching, and writing.