One thing I've learned is that many architects and designers love the grid. The grid being an infinite pattern of squares or rectangles that continues beyond the page, beyond the city, covering the globe. The grid is a great way to navigate, measure, organize, create uniformity, etc.. There have been dedicated studies, entire architecture practices dedicated to the grid. Works by Peter Eisenman, specifically House II, House VI, and House X; Superstudio's images of the endless monument; le Corbusier's Plan for Paris; work with the grid, work off the idea that the grid is completely equal, there is no beginning, there is no end, it is infinite and ever expanding.
Superstudio probably has done some of the most theoretical work on the grid and you are welcome to go deeper into their thoughts here. If you aren't all that interested about all that theory but would like to my quick thoughts, read on.
The grid today is present in many of our lives. The buildings we work and live in usually are held up by a grid of steel columns, the city blocks of modern cities like New York and Chicago are composed of a basic grid. Even the apps on our phones or desktops are arranged by an invisible grid.
It is used in many of these ways because it is economical, reproducible, great for navigation and understandable. What amazes me is the variety, customization, and uniqueness that the grid allows. New York is a perfect example of this. North of Houston, the grid makes up the city streets, the avenues running east to west and the street numbers running south to north. However each of these rectangular blocks is composed of such diverse buildings/people/views/foliage/businesses.
These idiosyncrasies of spaces created by what appears to be a completely repeated, uniform grid fascinates me. It has led me to ask, how do we stick out in a world full of repetitiveness? How do we find uniqueness in the grid? What are this systems capabilities and limits? Can we use the grid in other ways in our lives?
To clarify, the image above is a snapshot of part of my hometown, Detroit. Probably best know in urban planning circles for it's "Hub and Spoke" plan by Augustus Woodward is still well dominated by the grid.
No comments:
Post a Comment