"Learning from Las Vegas"

Robert Venturi, Denise Brown and Steven Izen's book 'Learning from Las Vegas' makes an argument for finding order with in an apparently chaotic urban environment.  It has been a long time since I read that book, but essentially he creates figure/ground diagrams of a variety of components about that city, like patterns made from cars, roads, telephone poles (actually I should be taking a quick look at the book to be sure of my examples, but hey, don't have the time).  The impression the book gave was that 'disorder' can have an underlying order which is 'okay', opening opportunities for design.

The problem is, humans do not visually experience urban environments from a 'figure/ground' perspective and their experience is ultimately a cluttered and chaotic one.  Most people will, in very chaotic environments, pick out landmarks... a sign, an intersection, etc. that they become familiar with and thus eliminate the chaos of that node in order to make sense of the rest of their context, so that they might continue.  As environments become more chaotic with signage, telephone poles, advertisements, billboards, un-defined roads, etc. one has the tendency to 'speed up' in order to get to one's destination safely and thus feel assured of the success of their 'travel'.  This is not the role of an Architect or Urban Planner, to accept chaos as part of a 'good urban experience'.  In fact, these environments are typically considered disposable as time proves when edifice after edifice gets torn down and rebuilt.

The role of Architect is to help people make sense of their environment... to create order.  They must understand the responsibility of their project to the community, that is, is their project a context building or a focal point building.  As a context building it is important to enhance the existing context which reinforces the identity of a neighborhood or community.  As a 'focal point' building, it is important to stand out as a representative of the communities spirit. While both context and focal point buildings can have elements of each, it is fundamentally important that they fulfill their roles in bringing order, enhancing our human experience, instilling pride and providing balance within our built environments.  It is these qualities that will yield more enduring architecture and enhance our life's experience.

Landmarks has moved towards reinforcing our 'context' structure of our communities.  This is a good thing but even here, there should be a fundamental understanding that even in Landmarks districts there is a need for counter points and juxtapositions.  Boston is proof that balancing high quality architecture, whether old or new can yield a healthy city life and a community proud to be a part of it.