An Architecture of Place

Challenging mainstream architecture?s understandings of place, this book offers an illuminating clarification that allows the idea?s centrality, in all aspects of everyday design thinking, to be rediscovered or considered for the first time.

Rigorous but not dense, practical but not trivialising, the book unfolds on three fronts. First, it clearly frames the pertinent aspects of topology?the philosophy of place?importantly differentiating two concepts that architecture regularly conflates: place and space. Second, it rejects the ubiquitous notion that architecture ?makes place? and, instead, reasons that place is what makes architecture and the built environment possible; that place ?calls? for and to architecture; and that architecture is thus invited to ?listen? and respond. Finally, it turns to the matter of designing responses that result not just in more places of architecture (demanding little of design), nor merely in architecture with some ?sense of place? (demanding little more), but, rising above those, responses that constitute an architecture of place (demanding the greatest vigilance but offering the utmost freedom).

Opening up a term regarded as so common that its meaning is seldom considered, the author reveals the actual depth and richness of place, its innateness to architecture, and its essentiality to practitioners, clients, educators, and students?including those in all spatial disciplines.

"In this thoughtful, engaging, and timely volume, Randall Lindstrom undertakes the first detailed and rigorous inquiry into the concepts of place and space that are so frequently invoked in contemporary architectural rhetoric and yet seldom seriously examined. Lindstrom?s book challenges architects to address the questions: ?What does place mean for architecture?? and ?What does architecture mean for place???which is to ask, ?What does architecture contribute to place, to that in which our lives are lived?? Such questions relate directly, not only to architectural theory and practice, but to our everyday human existence."

Jeff Malpas, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, and author of Place and Experience

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"An Architecture of Place presents a coherent and diligent study on what is at the very core of architecture and so many related disciplines; namely, the idea of place. Randall Lindstrom weaves a compelling narrative around the vast potential and depth of that idea. Whether a professional, educator, or student, if you want to discover the thresholds of architecture and their crucial importance in practice, immerse yourself in these pages."

Despoina Zavraka, Architect and Landscape Architect, TTDZ Architects, and Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

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"An Architecture of Place offers an intensive yet thoroughly engaging journey to discover, or rediscover, what the idea of ?place? is actually all about. With a thoughtful and thought-provoking narrative, Lindstrom challenges readers?including architects, planners, and other designers?to seriously re-examine previously held beliefs about place. And they stand to emerge from that re-examination with a profoundly altered perspective, one that can equip both professional and layperson to better engage with the places in which they build."

Edward J. Barry Jr., AIA, NCARB, LEED-AP, Architect and Principal, Farnsworth Group, USA

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"This book brings together what, in French, spans several distinct but related notions?place (open space), lieu (location), espace (space), and endroit (place)?and it captures the richness of an idea that none of those notions, alone, can convey. This is critically important for practicing architects because an awareness of place is what finally moves a project from thinking to reality and sees it contribute to humankind and our habitat. Lindstrom offers a brilliant examination of what place is, as well as the implications of listening, discerning, and responding to it. To do so, he draws on an extensive journey of practicing and thinking architecture in the United States, Europe, and Australasia."

Denis Dufourcq, DPLG Versailles, Architect and Principal, DYArchitectes, Paris, France

"This is not a typical architecture book. It is not about a building or any particular building type, yet 'building' is a central theme, and it leads to and informs a significantly better practice of architecture. . . . The possibilities presented by place, which is the only source of any possibility, would seem to be the essential considerations of architectural practice, but they are so often misread and overlooked. Needed is an understanding of place at its fundamental level. That is a precondition of place-attentive architecture, and of place-sensitive design in any realm."

Joseph T. Connell, IIDA, LEED-AP, Design Principal (Chicago), Perkins&Will