Unresolved legibility : in residential types. / txt
Clark Thenhaus ; edited by Ryan Roark.
- 1st ed.
- 219 p. ill. ;plans. ;photo. ; 26 cm. book
Include Bibliography
An introduction to unresolved legibility in residential types -- Character & contradiction in cabin architecture -- Context-amending & context-offending in the mountain house -- Dramas of the Purlieu & Strange frontality in the farmhouse -- Odd façades & social transformation in the Queen Anne house -- Kit homes & the mathematics of the American foursquare -- Receding façades & traditional cosmetics in the ranch house -- Parenthetical & hyphenated symmetry in the federal-style house -- Points, partitions, rooms & enfilades (or not) in the shotgun house -- Party walls & other interiors in the row house -- Mixed-up stacks & cut corners in mixed-use -- Disciplinary whimsy & darlings.
Architectural legibility requires both visual clarity of a buildings appearance such that its formal, spatial, and material compositions can be comprehended, as well as a certain clarity of its social, cultural, and political histories. While the term legibility carries a connotation of conclusiveness or objective qualifications, legibility in architecture is most often inconclusive and unresolved. Such unresolved legibility is particularly visible in houses, which are the source of inquiry in this project. This book proposes new understandings and interpretations of American residential architecture by investigating and graphically illustrating the forms, spaces, and histories of ten residential types. Perhaps no genre of architecture has been written about more than "the house." As long-standing subjects of architectural discourse, cultural reflection, and experimentation, houses represent a confluence of architectural and broader cultural phenomena. The house is not only susceptible to, but in fact requires renewal and re-imagination; as an architectural type it reflects shifting societal values and the constant reconstruction of meaning that this shifting entails. Such social, cultural, political, and contextual circumstances can best be evaluated under the rubric of legibility. While this might at first seem like an objective undertaking, legibility in architecture is indeterminate and unresolved, revealing the intertwining of architectural expressions with broader cultural circumstances.
9781943532391 1943532397
Architecture Domestic--Design and construction Architecture Domestic--Designs and plans architectural design