This article is about a distinction we often tend to overlook: the difference between ‘place’ and ‘site’.
Although both terms refer to a territory or land, I argue, as others have before me,[1] that the shift from ‘place’ to ‘site’ involves a loss of meaning, which is not just a matter of scale, as a site is typically a specific location within a larger place; this reduction in meaning may lead to a superficial or partial understanding of the complex phenomenon of place, to which sites belong. Historically, the reduction of meaning from place to site follows a more significant reduction: the reduction from place to space, which we have previously explored in several historical articles (see Place and Space: A Philosophical History; see also Concepts of Place, Space, Matter, and The Nature of Physical Existence, and Place, Space, Matter, and a New Conception of Nature).
A ‘site’ defines a specific area, usually a recognizable area circumscribed by limits or boundaries. Conversely, a ‘place’ is a more generic territorial unit that encompasses the site; this suggests that a site is a specific part of a place – ultimately, sites are places. Tipically, when referring to a specific area for their projects, architects and urban planners often use the term ‘site’ instead of ‘place’, such as a ‘building site’ rather than a ‘building place’, to describe the land where a building will be constructed; a ‘site plan’ (rather than a ‘place plan’) to outline the large-scale drawing of the land or territory being developed; and ‘site analysis’ (and not ‘place analysis’) to describe the study or survey of the territory before starting a project. Traditionally, that specific land or territory – the ‘site’ – denotes nothing but the simple physical location of the area with respect to the surrounding environment, something which can be geometrically and numerically determined by boundaries and coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude). That is just common sense, which architects and planners rely on. Then, for example, we have officially ‘protected sites’ nominated by UNESCO, rather than ‘protected places’; similarly, there is a World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA), instead of a database of ‘protected places’. This can be reasonably attributed to the fact that places have continuous spatial and temporal horizons that hardly accept technical, quantitative, or legal boundaries; but it can also be explained by the fact that, in theoretical, academic, or technical discourses, the term ‘place’ is often used in a generic sense (usually derived from geography, sometimes from sociology), with a meaning that is not well-defined. In this regard, Australian philosopher Jeff Malpas, in his book ‘Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography’, notes that many discussions of place in the existing literature fail to clearly define the concept, often confusing it with simple physical location, and sometimes implicitly referencing place while explicitly discussing the narrower concept of space.[2] Fundamentally, place is an elusive concept in its current, traditional understanding; unlike other spatial concepts like, for example, ‘area’, ‘site’, or even ‘space’, it hardly accepts quantification or technical scopes. Therefore, we are not surprised when we read mathematician Bertrand Russel saying: ‘The idea of “place” is only a rough practical approximation: there is nothing logically necessary about it, and it cannot be made precise.’[3]
The fact that place is, more often than not, considered a loose term or an elusive concept, far from quantitative determination, possibly dates back to Aristotle’s initial definition – place (topos) is ‘the first unchangeable limit of that which surrounds’ –[4] which was immediately disputed by his adversaries. We have considered that question in many previous historical articles, some of which are mentioned above. The limitations inherent in Aristotle’s definition of ‘place’ led to its replacement with ‘space’ and later ‘site’, but this shift has caused us to overlook the original, generative, qualitative, and active aspects of place, as seen in Aristotle’s topos and Plato’s chōra, which were eventually supplanted by the quantitative, passive or neutral, and positional characteristics associated with ‘space’ and ‘site’ as simple location.
Where did this now-common, somewhat improper habit of reducing a place to a site, a simple physical location or neutral geographical position, come from? Edward S. Casey, in a passage from the book ‘The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History’, offers us a swift and very clear glimpse of the historical process that reduced place to space and site. In the Chapter titled ‘Modern Space as Site and Point’, we read: ‘We have seen the initial primacy of place posited by Archytas and Aristotle (…) give way to an increasing preoccupation with the supremacy of space in certain later Neoplatonists, many medieval theologians, several Renaissance cosmologists, and a number of seventeenth-century philosophers and physicists. But the very triumph of space over place brought with it an unanticipated outcome (…): the absorption of place into position. (…) It is clear that the groundwork for this (…) was established by Locke and Leibniz in the resolutely relationalist part of their thinking. For if it is true that space is determined entirely by relations, then what matters most (…) is the exact positions of the items related to each other in a given spatial nexus. (…) The primacy of position is thus inscribed in the very theory of space as “something merely relative” and of place as identity of position within a particular group of spatial relations.’[5] A few passages later, Casey discusses ‘the clearing away of place to make room for position as the very basis for the supremacy of space’.[6] He then makes some interesting remarks, particularly relevant to architects, which directly relate to the article’s main point: ‘Positional primacy manifested itself in diverse forms in eighteenth-century life and culture. (…) Perhaps, most revealingly, in architecture, a whole manner of building flourished around what I shall call “site”. By this term I here mean the leveled-down, emptied-out, planiform residuum of place and space eviscerated of their actual and virtual powers (…). If space and place are both utterly relational (…) they do not retain any inherent properties of encompassing, holding, sustaining, gathering, situating (“situation” for Leibniz does not really situate; it merely positions in a nexus of relations). This loss in turn means a loss (…) of the concrete particularity of place (…) the dissolution in the positional relativity of sites. (…) Site is the very undoing of place, its dismantling into punctiform positions. (…) Site is anti-place hovering precariously over the abyss of no-place.’ [7]
Site is the very undoing of place, its dismantling into punctiform positions. Site is anti-place hovering precariously over the abyss of no-place.
Edward S. Casey
I ask: How does this ‘dismantling’ of place into site happen, concretely? What is the hidden pitfall behind the term ‘site analysis’ when architects and planners study or survey a specific territory or piece of land before creating projects? What is the inherent semantic limit of the seemingly innocuous expression site analysis? Anticipating conclusions, the risk is to overlook the impressive variety of processes that occur in a place in the name of what is strictly presented to the eyes, namely, the site as a simple physical or geographical situation. Behind that situation, there are many different processes that cannot be synthesized by the word ‘site’.
To contextualize Casey’s considerations, let’s keep in mind that ‘site analysis’ is the direct English translation of the Latin ‘analysis situs’, a geometric discipline founded by Leibniz that later evolved into ‘topology’, the mathematical study of the properties of space. Therefore, it is obvious that the original connotation behind the expression ‘site analysis’ stems from geometry and mathematics, which are abstract or symbolic disciplines. Then, the word ‘site’ conveys abstract connotations which are far removed from the original concrete and qualitative sense of place that Casey described, with its inherent properties of encompassing, holding, sustaining, gathering, and situating. So, by using the common expression (site or site analysis) that originated from an abstract domain, we are essentially stripping place of its multifaceted qualities, which, as I am holding at RSaP—Rethinking Space and Place, encompass physicochemical, biological, and sociocultural aspects; to borrow from Casey’s terminology, I argue that place encompasses, holds, sustains, gathers, and situates physicochemical, biological – thus, ecological – and sociocultural processes, whereas a ‘site’ is, at best, an abstract, positional representation of a physical or geographical area.
In addition to Casey’s suggestions and in line with the comprehensive sense of place I advocate for at RSaP – place as a system of physicochemical, biological, sociocultural and symbolic processes – it is reductive to speak about the analysis of a site instead of a more comprehensive analysis of place, as the territorial processes under scrutiny always extend beyond the specific boundaries that define a site as a circumscribed area (natural processes, including physicochemical, biological, and ecological ones, do not recognize borderlines; even if physical borders or boundaries exist on the ground, especially those created by humans, they become irrelevant or disappear in the air – the atmosphere – which is an integral part of the site). In essence, what we commonly refer to as ‘site analysis’ should be more accurately understood as ‘place analysis.’ The distinction lies in the fact that ‘site’ refers to a specific physical location, whereas ‘place’, in the extended sense we are calling for here, encompasses the processes that occur within and traverse that area, land or territory, connecting what is here with what is there, and thereby creating a broader spatiotemporal environment that should be our true focus – an integrated system of places substantiated by the same universal processes (physicochemical, biological, ecological, social, etc.). This is a crucial distinction we easily overlook, but between place and site there is a significant conceptual shift: from viewing a physical location as a geographical position or situation to recognizing it as a dynamic, unitary setting where various processes occur and interact, thereby reducing the distance between natural and cultural dynamics. This shift in perspective means we’re no longer focusing solely on the physical site or location, but rather on the content and processes that shape and constantly modify that ‘location’, giving equal importance to physical, biological, ecological, sociocultural, and symbolic factors (i.e., natural and cultural factors), which transforms the background into a foreground.
In this broader sense, even if the term ‘site’ still carries its historical abstract connotation, it can re-appropriate the original creative power and active sense of place, as Casey advocated for: ‘site’ as the region that situates processes and dynamics, facts and events – i.e., the real sense of ‘situation’ –, rather than a simple location (which denotes a passive connotation). In this extended sense, a physical location, or ‘site’, is viewed as a material and spatiotemporal nurturer of processes, encompassing both the physical background and its associated content, namely, the various processes that occur in that place. This conceptualization aligns with the reformed concept of place I’m proposing at RSaP: it cannot be otherwise since ‘sites’ are places, in essence. That’s why, in the end, as an architect, I prefer to think or speak of ‘site analysis’ as the analysis of place.
Image 01: Cretto di Burri, Gibellina (TP), ITALY,1984-2015. Photography by Sebastiano Bellomo
Conclusion
We have observed that there is a significant philosophical and semantic difference between ‘site’ and ‘place’. The distinction is particularly relevant in the context of current approaches to interconnected environmental, social, and economic issues, as studying places requires integrating all their components: physicochemical, biological (including ecological), sociocultural, and symbolic. It’s essential to think of architectures and territories as places, where processes occur (we must identify such processes), rather than as spaces and sites, which are more abstract and neutral terms that can lead to detachment from reality. It is crucial for architects and planners to recognize that a ‘site’, if understood as a simple spatial determinant (a simple physical location or position) undermines the true nature of a place, which encompasses, holds, sustains, gathers, and situates different kinds of events or processes.
Appendix
One of the first modern architects to understand ‘sites’ as more than just physical locations and abstract geometrical determinants was Richard J. Neutra, who, in 1951, wrote the book ‘Mystery and Realities of the Site’. I’ve already dedicated an article to Neutra’s spatial vocabulary – see The Third Skin: Survival Through Design, where I interpreted the spatial expressions used by Neutra in his 1954 masterpiece ‘Survival Through Design’. In the article, I argued that Neutra viewed ‘space’ as ‘place’, meaning that despite using a common spatial language focused on space, which was characteristic of his time, his approach differed from his contemporaries. His perspective was similar to current interpretations of space as place, emphasizing the integration of various processes that constitute environmental reality. This idea, which I also call for at RSaP, is supported by all Neutra’s work, which remains a significant reference point for understanding architecture as the integration of a territory’s physical determinants, such as topography and climate, with biological determinants, including human adaptation to and modification of places in both physiological and psychological senses. ‘Biorealism’ was the term Neutra introduced to give an account of such a peculiar integrative approach.
In ‘Mystery and Realities of the Site’ it is clear that Neutra’s understanding of the ‘site’ is more nuanced than a mere physical location; in his use of the word ‘site’ there is nothing abstract or simply geometrically determined.
My experience, everything within me, is against an abstract approach to land and nature, and for the profound assets rooted in each site and buried in it like a treasurable wonder.
Richard J. Neutra
Neutra’s concept of ‘site’ is effectively a place, inheriting some or all of the characteristic aspects of a place.[8] According to Neutra, any site is defined by both mysterious forces, which he calls the spirits of the place, and pragmatic constraints. The former are inherent to Nature and influence the ‘moods and the intrinsic values of the site’ (e.g., topography, presence of clouds, breeze, sun’s position, the scent of shrubs and meadows, presence of trees, mountains in the background, etc.);[9] the latter, – pragmatic or realistic constraints – are rooted in human psychology and physiology, shaping how people adapt to and modify the site, or natural habitat – an alternative term used by Neutra for ‘site’ (the other term is ‘place’, obviously).[10] From the encounter of Nature – ‘the site’ – and Man – ‘the human responses, organic and social necessities’ –[11] architecture emerges, anchored to its place.
This brief appendix, drawing on the architectural and theoretical work of Richard Neutra, remarks that any site should be viewed as an integrative structure, rather than simply a physical or geographical location. Many levels of interpretations suggest architects and planners should work with the inner grain and fiber of a ‘site’ or ‘place’, rather than against it: ‘never work against its inner grain and fiber. You will pay dearly for any such offence’ [12] is Neutra’s conclusive remark on the importance of the site-as-place.
Images 02-03: Kaufmann House, Palm Springs, California, US, 1946-47. Architect: Richard Neutra.
Notes
[1] Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 180-86. By the same author, see also Remembering: A Phenomenological Study, 2nd edition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 181-215.
See also Jeff Malpas’s Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World, where in an introductive passage, the author says: ‘Indeed, all too often, place is viewed as a function of human responsiveness or affectivity, as a social or cultural “construction,” or else as nothing other than a sort of neutral “site” (perhaps understood in terms of a more or less arbitrary region of physical space)’, in Jeff Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006), 5.
[2] The philosopher says: ‘many of the discussions of place in the existing literature suggest that the notion is not at all clearly defined. Concepts of place are often not distinguished at all from notions of simple physical location, while sometimes discussions that seem implicitly to call upon notions of place refer explicitly only to a narrower concept of space.’ Jeff Malpas, Place and Experience: A philosophical Topography (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), 19.
[3] Benjamin Morison, On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 160.
[4] We find Aristotle’s definition of place (topos) in Physics, Book IV (212a20-21): ‘That is what place [topos] is: the first unchangeable limit (peras) of that which surrounds. That is the definition we find in: Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 55. See also Aristotle on the Concept of Place.
[5] Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place, 183. In the book ‘Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World’, Jeff Malpas, speaking about Descartes’ notions of space and place, offers a different perspective on the nature of ‘position’: ‘Only within an all-encompassing absolute space can the idea of place as simple position make sense.’ In Jeff Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006), 71.
[6] Ibid., 183.
[7] Ibid., 183-86.
[8] While I consider place the most complete structure that we can imagine, a structure which is the emergence of interplaying physicochemical, biological (hence ecological), sociocultural, and symbolic processes, Neutra is primarily focused on integrating physical and biological processes, with a particular emphasis on individual human experience. While the difference is undoubtedly due to the distinct zeitgeist, the underlying working principle of Neutra’s approach – integrating different orders of processes – remains similar. This crucial working principle explains why Neutra’s work remains relevant today, as it implicitly or explicitly addresses ecological and sociocultural concerns that are highly relevant in contemporary architectural discourse. I see a danger in today’s approaches by architects and planners: we often focus on environmental or social questions, neglecting Neutra’s crucial teaching about the interplay between a territory’s naturalistic aspect and human psychology and physiology. The difficult task of architecture today is to integrate past experiences and teachings with new constraints dictated by entangled environmental, social, and economic questions.
[9] Richard, Neutra, Mystery and Realities of the Site (New York: Morgan & Morgan Publishers, 1951), 9.
[10] Ibid., 12, 14.
[11] Ibid., 15.
[12] Ibid., 62.
Works Cited
Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
—. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study, 2nd edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Malpas, Jeff. Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
—. Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006.
Morison, Benjamin. On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
Neutra, Richard J. Mystery and Realities of the Site. New York: Morgan & Morgan Publishers, 1951.
Image Credits
Featured Image, [source] by Michele Cannone, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 at publicdelivery.org
Image 01: Cretto di Burri, Gibellina (TP), ITALY,1984-2015. Bellomo, Sebastiano, photographer.
Image 02: Kaufmann House, Neutra, Richard Joseph, architect; Shulman, Julius, photographer. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Image 03: source on Wikipedia Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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