I arrived at the conclusion that whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more, for space in the image of man is place, and time in the image of man is occasion. Split apart by the schizophrenic mechanism of determinist thinking, time and space remain frozen abstractions… A house should therefore be a bunch of places – a city a bunch of places no less. [1]
Aldo van Eyck
That quotation is reported by Adrian Forty in the book Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. The same quotation also appears in Aldo van Eyck’s book ‘Writings: Collected Articles and Other Writings 1947-1998’, edited by Vincent Ligtelijn and Francis Strauven, but with a slightly different final part. In van Eyck’s book, the extended quotation reads: ‘I arrived at the conclusion that whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more, for space in the image of man is place and time in the image of man is occasion. Split apart by the schizophrenic mechanism of deterministic thinking, time and space remain frozen abstractions… Place and occasion constitute each other’s realization in human terms. Since man is both subject and object of architecture, it follows that its primary job is to provide the former for the sake of the latter. Since furthermore place and occasion imply participation in what exists, lack of place – and thus of occasion – will cause loss of identity, isolation and frustration. A house, therefore, should be a bunch of places, and the same applies no less to a city.’ [2] I opted for the slightly different version reported by Adrian Forty because it reiterates the term ‘place’ at the end, emphasizing its significance within the discourse. This resonates with my perspective on reality, which I see as a nested chain of places: places within places, within places, within places… (see the article Places Everywhere—Everything Is Place).
Notes
[1] in Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000), 271.
[2] in Aldo van Eyck, Writings: Collected Articles and Other Writings 1947-1998, eds. V. Ligtelijn and F.Strauven (Amsterdam: SUN Publishers, 2008), 317.
Works Cited
van Eyck, Aldo. Writings: Collected Articles and Other Writings 1947-1998, edited by Vincent Ligtelijn and Francis Strauven. Amsterdam: SUN Publishers, 2008.
Forty, Adrian. Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000.
Image Credits
Featured Image by Moritz Bernoully on Flickr: Pastoor van Arskerk, Den Haag, NL (Architect: Aldo van Eyck).
