Delft University of Technology

On Public Interior Space

Harteveld, MGAD; Scott Brown, D

Publication date
2007
Document Version
Final published version
Published in
AA Files: annals of the Architectural Association School of Architecture

Citation (APA)
Harteveld, MGAD., & Scott Brown, D. (2007). On Public Interior Space. AA Files: annals of the Architectural
Association School of Architecture, 56, 64-73.

Important note
To cite this publication, please use the final published version (if applicable).
Please check the document version above.

Copyright
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent
of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Takedown policy
Please contact us and provide details if you believe this document breaches copyrights.
We will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

This work is downloaded from Delft University of Technology.

For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to a maximum of 10.
On Public Interior Space
Maurice Harteveld and Denise Scott Brown
Itllhe city loday, riM mtcl il1 poblic olno and shop itl malls, we mOtJe alol1g
cflf)f17d ~alkllYs (lIldgo from streff 10 strut by taking shortcuts throug/t
Ihe boildillgs ofa city bloc£. Itl ream decades, the Ol1/oonl (l1ld proportion
ofpoblic space Wilhil1 Urbttl1 buildillgf has slfadily il1creosed, wilh much
ofilformil1g part ofa larger inlfnor (lIld fXlfnor jMdeslliOlI l1etwork.
Yel, althoug/t imenorpublic space has /Kcome an important conslitofllf ofIhe
contemporary city and ofoor orbol1 fXpenfllce, il is rarely desigtud as soch.
Prompted by Ihis discOtllleclion, A/ounce HOiteveld hasfollowed dijftrf111
leads 10 fXamil1e contemporary urbttn design in relalion 10 public illfenors.
Throug/t this resrorr:h, he has dOCUmf1lled in particular the Urbttl1 Ilnalyses al1d
orr:hileclural designs of Robert Vmlun and Dellise Seoll Brown, in which
inlmor poblic space is occorr/edsignificanl olld multiple roles. !dells pionared
by Vetllun alld SCOII Bf'OW:N hUVt' become absorbed wilhin orr:hileclural
practiel, nOlably Iheir use ofthe Nolli Mop iNlroduced in their t972 sludy
ofLas Vegas. Similarly, the COllcepl ofthe 'rue immeur' seen iNlheir earliest
projects, has millufld ill their loltrc:or/: to indude an inlemolstrut imbedded
in alutwor/: of umon public spaces (l1ld pOlh~oys, both imenor and
~·terior. Howroer, althoog/t they 17fer 10 interior public spacefrequemly in
Iheirwriting, Ventun and SCOIl Browl1 hUVt' yf/to descri/K Iheirviews on
il in any great deloi/,' a morefocused txominoliolllhotlhefollow;'lg dialogue
be/'lJt«1l Mounce Horteveld (l1ld Denise SCOII Brown seels 10 provide.
litH: 'The street through the bUilding' is a recurring ,heme in your
design work. In your recent book, Arrhitecture as Signs OIld Systems:
Fora A/01l1urist Time, llearncd that this SUCCt always ties inro thc
exterior pathway system leading ro thc building. With this approach,
the internal street can be designed to support the urban circulation
system while at a smaller scale it forms the spine, as you call it, of the
public secror of your building. To make appropriate public interiors
you closely study the surrounding urban patterns then design the
architecture to fit with these and to encourage communication.This
secms to bring the tWO of you togcther: the urbanist and the architect.
DSB: I am happy that you have found thc book useful. It attempts to
broaden our grasp, as architects, by applying urban idcas ro architectural
design, in and our of buildings. Bur it's perhaps an over-simplification
to call Bob an architect and me an urbanist. We arc cach both. Thc
dichotomy is within us as well as betwecn us. It's a four-way dichotomy.
AIH: In looking at these intcrnal streets, therc seems to be significant
variations between projects - in both their public nature and how they
arc designed. For example, the street between the Life Sciences
Institute and the Commons Building in your University of t.,·liehigan
complex is more accessible than the one between the twO wings
of the regional governmental complex in Toulouse. In bOlh designs,
the major street is internal to the project but outdoors, and it is aligned
with surrounding pathways. But in Toulouse it can be closed off
by gates, therefore it is perhaps more privatc. In the Trabant Studenr
Center of the University of Delaware the route is interior; it is
both a street and the major public area of the building. And within the
existing Princeton building that you converted to thc Frist Campus
Center the streets arc low and narrow. They arc thc least open in
the series, and are also SCt at right-angles to the outdoor path. Could you
explain how thcse diffcrences in publicity are affected by the design
assignment and the urban analysis? In what scnse are they all public?
DSB: It would take a book to answer these questions. Bur first, a
linguistic issue: in English, 'publicity' commonly means 'communication
for the purpose of making certain information better known'. This,
I think, is different from what you intended. How such publicity
is achieved through architecture and urbanism intelests Bob and me
very much: however, weren't you referring in your question to a
more general and abstract idea of'public quality'?
MH: When I use the term 'publicity' I'm referring to sociologists
who catcgorise interiors public if they are part of the so-called public
realm. In the '950s, through writers such as Hannah Arendt, this
realm was defined as the sphere of action and speech. So, in its origin,
the notion is closely related to communication. I would say that
interiors are public when they open themselves to the knowledge of
a community. A shopping mall, for example, unlike a home or
private club, issues an invitation to the general public. Thercforc, to
continue this reasoning, it is open to general regulations similar to
those for an outdoor street. Bur you arc right that, in design, the statC
of being publicly known is only one aspect of a much broader
quality of being public. Others might include being inviting to the
public, and being part of a network of public spaces and pathways.
In considering these broader aspects, the emphasis on the public
quality of the space becomes most important.
DSB: The difference between 'public' and 'civic' should be noted too.
And you're right: our various internal streets and spaces have very
different public qualities - as different as those of a city. As we design
them, we find mctaphors in a range of urban prototypes, from medieval
market routes ro cxpressways, and we hear in mind the issues of
location and capacity that transportation planners consider. We develop
our categorics and hierarchies of street typcs from, among othcrs,
transportation engineering, from Lou Kahn's famous plan for
Philadelphia's streets, from our '¢>os analyses of Las Vegas, and from
David Crane's 'four faces of movement'. Crane was one ofthe few
members of the University of Pennsylvania planning faculty during my
time there who tried to maintain a link between architecture and
social-sciences-based, 'non-physical' (as they called it) urban planning.
It was Crane who set me to study regional science, and whose intercst
in urban change and unpredictability has been an influence on my
work evcr since. Thesc, then, are the underpinnings of our ideas on the
design of the public sector, or street, in buildings. But this is half the
story. The other half concerns specifics of the brief or progf'amme,
which give the basis for the projcct. In the client's intended activities,
the relation between thcm, and the spaces required to accommodate
them lies the first definition of the public tcalm. And the first role of
the 'strect through thc building' is circulation. It forms part of thc
movement systcm, along which the building's spaces arc located, and
from which access to and among users' activities is obtained. Urbanists
study urban economics and transportation enginecring to undcrstand
how patterns of circulation affect urban development and how land usc
and movement are interrelated in the city. And Crane includes 'giving
access' as one of his four faces of movement, pointing out that this
quality defines the strect as a 'city builder', because giving access to
land enables its development, In the same way, we consider thc street-
through-the-building as an access-giver and try to combine activity
patterns and circulation in designing buildings as we would in planning
a city. This forms the basis of our claim that we do land use and
transportation planning illside buildings. Yet, as 'interior urbanists'.
wc find we must work with catcgories offunction beyond those of
the brief. These relate to thc building's role in the community, and
may concern the size and volume of movement or activity. Particularly
important are categories that differentiate between public and private
activities or spaces, and help [Q define the character of each and the
relations between them. [n considering public-private relationships in
architecture, we have [earned from a comparison of NoIIi's map of
Rome and our Nolli map of the Las Vegas Suip, and from Crane's idea
of the 'Capital Web', which he describes as the infrasuucmre of all
public facilities in a city.
AfH: So understanding public space mcans understanding irs relation
to private space, and especially so as we consider public interiors.
I am remindcd of a discussion that was at the centre of the discourse
on urbanism in the late nineteenth century. The pioneering urban
theorist Josef Stubben pleaded for a clear division of public and
private space, while Camillo Sitte argucd in support of an interwoven
relationship because a great part of public life took pl:lce within
buildings. Not only public squares bur also enclosed spaces were,
he claimed, used publicly. This is what we sce in thc city today,
bur many designers seem to have forgonen the eomp[ex symbiosis
that exists between public and private.
DSB: A beach is public and a town hall is civic. In the first we all
share a common good but don't join together to do so. In the second
we are part ofa community. But public and civic functions may also
be served by the interiors of some private and institutional buildings.
Shopping malls arc to some extent public today, and Las Vegas
simulates the public sector both indoors and Out. The combination
of public and private has a long and varied history. An auspicious
early twentieth-century example is the much [o\"ed interior of the John
Wanamaker department store (now Macy's) in Philadelphia. It's a
large atrium inside a private building, bur people arrange to rendezvous
there as ifit wcrc a public squarc. It feels civic and it has a role, both
retail and ritual, in thc communal Christmas celebrations ofthe city.
[n Tou[ousc, the client saw our diagonal street across the sire as
highly civic but in addition to its civic functions it provides a pedestrian
shortcut between twO existing commercial areas. I had hoped it
could contain a suect market as do other Toulouse streets, however
the clicnt would not countenance a commercial use and although
this sueet is the public access to all government offices it is shur off
at night for security. There is also a small civicp/att before rhe S(lIIe
de I'Assembfle that is lined with trees and benches like the square
ofa tradiriona[ French m(lirie. Unfortunately this has been dosed to the
public again for rcasons of security. But children walk to school u[ong
our street and the local community gathers there for events. And some
intcrna[ spaces have de\'eloped ancillary uses. The assembly hall
complex is used for important public announcements and conferences,
and a marker for fruit and vegetables has appeared, unofficially,
underground in the parking structure along the route to the elevator.
At our University of rVlichigan Life Sciences complex, a series
of pedestrian paths, bridges and public spaces connect the academic
sciences, a life sciences research faci[iry and the medical centre.
These routes are more like medieval streets than a civic plaza. They
cake users directly where they need to go, via relutively narrow
pathways that widen to give access to doorways or to allow eddy
space in which people can congregate. Encouraging serendipitOus
meetings between scholars of different disciplines is a major aim
in the planning of our academic streets. We therefore [ocate informal
stopping places at points of encounter where important pathways
cross. In lab buildings, we place coffee lounges olTthe main corridor
near the clevator. In exterior spaces around intensely used buildings
we provide informal seating, sometimes cafe chairs, often JUSt steps,
parapets and [edges. Here in good weather students can study or
workers eat lunch. 'rhese informal oppormniries along the way reveal
mther than demonstratc their function. People, especially students,
seem happy to discover and define uses for themselves. Give students
a bench to sit on and they will lie on ir or dance on it, but provide
a parapet or ledge and they will creat it as an engaging opportunity.
The major route that passes through the Trabant Center lies on
a direct path between the college dormitories and the lecture ha[ls.
It serves the twO primary functions of all streets - to join points
longitudinally and to provide access to activiries and StrUCTUres
bordering it. Sitting spaces along it purvey the feeling of a combination
seminar room and sidewalk cafe. It is therefore much morc than
a food court. The narrow streets of the Frist Campus Center emerge
directly from the heavy basement structure of the existing building.
Bob managed to draw from this picturesque but uncompromising
hericage a needed interplay between the Center's right, low spaces and
its high, expansi\'e ones. The right-angle rum that concerns you
at the main entry to the building must be seen in the context of the
eircu[ation plan in that part of the campus. A pathway does indeed
traverse the front of the Frist Building, and it widens to form a patio
at the entrance; bur it's less used for access to the Center than is
r..kCosh Walk, which runs parallel to ir, to the north. The entry afC:lde
added to the Frist exterior is designed to draw from this larger
crowd of pedestrians, bringing them from several directions into the
building via a series of new doorways, creared from what were originally
basement windows. People walk across rhe pathway and into the
basement. Once there, they move between the heavy supportS, through
tight, low ways, past campus centre facilities in a Las Vegas-like
setting, then on to the vast, light spaces of the cafeteria and student
offices above. This sequence coO\'ertS whar was once a building serving
one academic department into a facility for the whole community.
Although the original front door still admits students and faculty to
classrooms and a libmry above, a more civic entry and access pattern
has been added for the campus l.:entre. But 'civic' for undergraduates
can be funky and a little (but only a liule) like Las Vegas.
AIH: [n all these designs the internal street is used as a connector and
communicator between the private and the public domains, [inking
pathways, imerwea\'ing the public sector, and using eommunicarion-
graffiri (signs and symbols).
DSB: Streets can play many roles. Crane's 'four faces of movement'
suggest that they function as channels for the circulation of people,
goods and vehicles; city builders, in that they give access ro places
for settlement; rooms for activities, especially in mild climates and
in developing areas, where much of life takes p[acc outdoors and
on streets; and information givers, tclling travellers wherc they are in
the city, providing the locus for communication berween individuals
and purveying messages, communal and commercial. This is the
publicity funerion, whose iconography we studied in Las Vegas.
In all its roles the street is a link between the public and the private,
at scales that range from the sidewalk access of a row house to the
movement nerworks that serve major facilities and urban areas. And
this applies to interior streets too. Yet if interior public space is to
contribute to urban circulation, careful study of its context is required.
6,
for this reason we analYie activity and movement systems around
the project site and document the quality of nearby public space,
exterior and interior. And we consider trends within these systems
and demands on them. This gives a framework for the planning
of relationships both within the project and beyond it. And from these
planning studies of the broader surroundings our designs frequently
spring. In evolving designs from context, we've found the
transponation planning concept of 'desire lines' to be useful. These
lines are drawn directly between where people are and where
they want to be, regardless of whether direct routes exist. Many VSBA
project partis stem from desire lines. Sometimes the building or
complex encloses a portion of the area-wide movement system and
is literally built around the desire lines.
11tH: The internal street seems very much akin to the model of
the Parisian arcade. These covered streets are parr of the network of
public space, giving access to shops and theatres, and they also
display signs. But more important to this comparison, arcades also
function as systems ofshoncuts that have survived over time.
DSB: Yes, it's important that interior streets take people where they
want to go and, just as the market place sits ar rhe crossroads in a town,
so the more public functions must be located at major access and
crossing points, where mOSt people pass. And yes, arcades that nm within
buildings make an interesting comparison with the street. Your
research reminds me of the two-level main street of Chester, England.
Here interconnected pedestrian ways arc set one above the other.
They face the street on one side and arc lined by shops on the other.
This building section occurs in all the private buildings along the
length of the street. It has been maintained by successive builders over
hundreds of ycars, so valuable is it to the rerail uses of the city. We
also experienced the longevity of shortcuts in Toulouse. The site, when
we first saw it, had already been cleared and we planned our diagonal
across it ro serve as a shortcut between tWO nodes in the city. But only
when our project was well into construction did we discover from an
old map that we had sited our route exactly where a street had once run.
MH: Although a comparison could be made between urban internal
arcades and the internal streets in your designs, the urban contexts
are quite different. VSBA buildings are mostly free-standing, while in
general the arcades are embedded within a city block. Your buildings
are surrounded by public open areas while arcades have backs which
are private. How, then, in your designs do these open spaces keep
or achieve their public meaning without contradicting the objectives
of the internal strcet? How, through architccwral and urban dcsign,
do you prevent rear areas and anonymous outdoor space from flanking
the building?
DSB: The intcrnal arcadcs are lined on either side by private (mainly
rctail) uses. They are connectcd, as well, with service and loading
arcas at the back. In our work as urban planners we sometimes
collaborate with rerail economists who help us define the commercial
nawre of the street and set up the relationships you are discussing.
They choreograph the various retail uses to achieve the most
profitable selling environments for individual stores and the community.
We must also plan carefully for service functions. Though these
may lack bcauty, thcy can't be evaded but must be adequately sized
and welilocatcd. We wax lyrical on the subject of servicc planning.
M HLEs 56
If we don't, trucks and maintenance vehicles will invadc thc public
places of ~bin Street and the pedestrian paths of the campus.
MH: There is a more extreme version oCthe internal street in the fOlm
of the suburban mall. Architects who design them seem to focus only
on the inside. Their building complexes arc introverted; blind outdoor
facades form a blank box surrounded by parking lots. But recently
there has been development towards a more outdoor-onemed typolo/:.'Y.
Competition with rcnewed city centres and with other retail areas
has forced some malls to be abandoned. Others are being redesigned
to imroduce outdoor pedestrian spaces, which surround parts of
the complex and open up the facades of the buildings. It seems that
interior public space needs outdoor space and more important, needs
to be part of a differentiated and hierarchic systcm of public space.
DSB: This is a major finding of both your work and ours. From it,
further questions deri\·e. for example. how should the advantages of a
lively indoor street be weighed against the need for vitality on the
exterior? We made a study of the Republic Square district in Austin,
Texas, where our client was planning to build office buildings and
hoped to achieve vital retail activity on the street. We analysed ways in
which building entrance and access patterns could be designed to
support and cnliven ground floor, street-facing retail. If the eocmnces
to the office building are locatcd too near the road intersection, then
mid-block retail uses may suffer because fewer people will go by
them. But mid-block entrances draw people past storefronts as they
head toward building lobbies and elevators.
As you have noted, mall developers are seeking ways to open up
shopping malls and give them some of the interest of Main Street.
When we plan for small main streets, we try to help storekeepers to
differentiate themselves from the malls by using tile fact that they have
the great open sky, not a mall roof, over them, and by imaginatively
adapting their historical buildings to create unique outdoor and indoor
shopping spaces. For this work we must find economists who love old
buildings and understand their possibilities. We have also tried to apply
concepts of retail planning ro the major thoroughfares that pass through
and around our institutional buildings. Meeting places, which could
be lounges, cafes, community buildings, or outdoor congregating spotS,
belong where routes cross. The 'hundred per cent area' of urban
economics is at or ncar the busiest crossing. Here should be thc most
intense group activities, physical or mental, of a city - and also, we
suggest. of a building. Large-volume lecwrc halls require wide corridor
access space. This is congested only every hour, when classes change,
but as swdents wait there they can meet and chat. We try to provide
seating and a glass wall facing the campus, so this corridor can augment
the sparse common-room space that is all most universities can afford.
As it continues to other pans of the building, this way may widen or
narrow to serve its access functions. It may give information via norice
boards and provide convenient locations for telephones and electronic
communication systems. Off it, indoors or out, we like to provide
eddy places with a coffee machine nearby, so that fruitful discussions,
initiared as studcnts walk Out of lectUrcs can continue informally.
11tH: You could also refer to the unique Las Vegas Strip ofthc l¢os.
It showed that a vast systcm of public interiors could exist that, as you
explained in uamif/gjrom UIS Vegas, was disconnected from the
outside in order to keep patrons disorientated in time and space so they
would lose COUnt of the hours and remain at the gambling tables.
Nowadays along what was once the Strip, thc outdoor space is more
esublished and more part of the whole systcm. Outdoor piazzas and
open arcas berween buildings and on what is now Las Vegas Boulevard
arc introduced. So both Las Vegas and the malls have tCllnsformcd
or evolved. Do you think these transformations share a similar logic
concerning the differentiation of the public system and the elimination
of anonymous outdoor space?
DSB: On Las Vegas Boulevard today hardly anything is public and
probably in the malls it never was, but both try to imitate a public
SCCWf. Malls cncourage scmi-civic and political evcnts to take place on
their parking lots or in their interior courts and 'community halls',
which are usually nicked-away spaces unsuitable for retail usc and with
little public presence. Las Vegas has created a private-public secwr.
The Boulevard is so different from [he Strip we studied in the 1960s.
Highly pedestrianised, it seems like an elongated Piaa..a Navona.
The 'public' plazas that lic bctween the Boulcvard and the casinos
imitate the public sectors of historic European cities. Where strident
signs, a /JOT1e-clXlth"t and a reassuring: view of parking once beckoned
the llutomobile, now, famous plazas of Europc are jammed together
to beguile the pedestrian on the boulevard. Why go to Venice,
lraly, they seem to ask, when you can experience Venice, Nevada?
But the morc the casino front yards have been made to rcsemble
old civic places, the more private they've become. There is almost
no public sidewalk left. E\'erything that looks like a civic plaza is
private to within half a meter of the street. And 'private-public' in nOt
really public, as would-be protesters discovered when they tried
to assert their right to public assembly on Boulevard sidewalks.
Both Las Vegas and thc malls must think hard-headedly about
systems for service and parking, especially customer parking. On the
Boulevard, parking has graduated to struetures behind the casino
hotels, leaving the front yards available for a pseudo civic townscapc.
Bm vast parking lots remain the prevalent and reassuring first view
of the shopping mall. In both cases, the store service system is out of
view and anonymous.
Now Las Vegas is changing once again. Like contemporary
architecture it is moving away from architectural allusion and the
aim to communicate and toward architectural abstraction and
the projcction of luxury and quality service. It is hard to imagine
a Las Vegas hotel that no longer romances you off the boulevard but
purveys, instead, an air of privacy and high-class exclusiveness.
What will be thc nature of thc public realm in such a complex? I SUSI}(.'Ct
that landscaping will provide the primary image, and that it will be
used 10 shield the view. while disclosing discreet but fascinating hints
of the facilities resctved for JUSt a fcw inside. Perhaps this will work.
Perhaps by the laws of contrast, abstract nco-modern architeemre will
present an irresistible attraction to a public jaded by the old Las
Vegas. But how soon will people of the 20[OS tire of architectural
abstraction, as their grJndparents did in the 1960s?
IIIH: It seems that for you mapping is the single most important element
in understanding interior public space. It helps to depict the public
interior as a segment of a pedestrian path system or pan of a bigger
network of public space. In the past you have explained your use of
different techniques of analysis. I would argue that interiors contributc
to the city ifthey ha~'e an urban use and an urban location. It seems,
therefore, that analyses should be made of the numbers and patterns of
users. Do you recognise these themes in your analysis?
70
DSB: In dcciding what kinds of analysis and analytic mapping to do
we face a dilemma: the range of possible in\'estigations is vast and the
tasks could go on forever bm funds arc limited. So wc consider how
to focus from the Start. Wc try [Q avoid what one of my professors called
the 'whale method' of urban research. The whale opens its mouth
as it swims, and whatever flows in is what it eats. This is not effective.
Therefore, as urban researchers, we must devise techniques to discovcr,
early, the most relevant research variables for a given tOpic. We may
do this by conducting a brief, once-over-lightly overview of the project,
before delving inco detail. We have also learned to introduce a first
attempt at design deliberately tOO early in the process to help structure
the next rounds of researeh. So design can scrve as a research tool -
as a heuristic for further research - as well as vice versa. But genemlly
we examine patterns of activities and movement, and diffcrentiate
these by type and intensity, preferably over time. We also consider
natural patterns and systems and those of built structures; and we
distinguish betwecn activities and the structurcs that hold them. The
age of structures is an important variable, and there are many others,
particularly those to do with capacity and location. Mapping [he raw
data of usc and structure is just a first step. Bcyond that, we may
want to break our information down further. The computer allows us
to disaggregate one variable, for e;;:amplc, the distribution of all
sciences on campus, and to study the pattern it makes. And our analysis
includes synthesis (we are aftcr all architects). We may juxtapose two
variables. For example, for Tsinghua University in Heijing one of our
most cogcnt maps superimposed dcnsities of people on a map of
campus green space. It showed that there was little match between
where people and landscape were. At Michigan. we derived the
location and [he conceptual design of our Life Sciences complex from
juxtaposing mapped distributions - of campus sciences, theatres
(on campus and in downtown Ann Arbor), museums, topography and
pedestrian pathways. For the Las Vegas Strip, we mapped signs
and lighting by intensity, location and purpose. The maps that rcsulted
portrayed the fcel of the place better than could traditional urban land
use maps or the orthogonal plans of architecture.
'l'hcse analyses and syntheses provided information, but they were
also design tools. They helped us move seamlessly into the process
of synthesis architects call design. And they had a heuristic value,
in that some early synthescs of variables led to astOnishing insights
and in many cascs to the pan;. For us, design and analysis proceed
in tandem throughout the design process. In sum, what you analyse
and how you do it depends on your problem. You hopc that your
once-ovcr-lightly study and your successivc cycles of analysis and
synthesis will give you a good sense of where to go.
Alfl: Either intense activities or a good urban location can make
interiors appear more urban. Beside this, public interiors, for a casino,
campus centre or church, require high-<luality space where urban
discomfort is eliminated. This brings me back to Nolli's plan. In their
ability to clearly reveal the urbanistic network - the mazes of public
space - these maps clarify the urban designer's role in forming interior
spaces. In this scnsc, they redcfinc the dichotOmy between the city
planner and the architect. As you once wrote, Nolli's map reveals the
sensitive and eomplex connections between public :md privatc space.
DSB: The relationship between public and private has always
been very important in our work. This topic has perhaps different
ramifications in American urban planning from those in Europe,
M FILES 56
because American culture tends to avoid the use of government
support or acdon in favour of the private sector. This brings up
questions for urbanists and architectS regarding the relation bet.....een
the public and private sectors. the opportunities for action within
each and, for activists in the public sector, the public le\'erage
possible on private-secror decisions. All of this .....ould still have been
important .....ithout the notion of mapping. ho.....e\·er Nolli's map is
influenrial and relevant in our work because it provides a method of
sho.....ing physical relarions between the public and the private city.
In campus planning. in panKular, we rely on the Nolli ~"Stem. adapted
for today (there were few grassy areas and no parking lots in his Rome).
We map Nolli's variables. showing the fNXAl of all public buildings
and of major public spaces in private buildings. On these we juxtapose
the system of pedestrian pathways that cross the campus. It fOnTIs
a nervous p:lUern of movement, resembling maCl'.l.me. and running
continuously between exterior and interior spaces. This pattern
subtends the campus open spaces, which we differentiate by type
giving special prominence to those we feel arc highly symbolic.
A Nolli map for a university campus, in this way, portrays its overall
public system and the relation between its public and private uses.
It shows whcre the capacitY of pedestrian ways is not related to
the demand on them, and where gaps exist because ncw buildings
werc erected but the pathway system was not adapted to them.
The Nolli map has taught us a great deal about the character of
public architecture, including the architectufC of the street through the
building. The map is all about the processional. Why wouldn't it be?
It "'as conceived as an information ~"Stem for religious pilgrims. Rome's
winding and sinuous street pattern stands OUt in marked contrast
to its formal piazzas. for example the Piazza Navona. But the buildings.
with their Sllong black plans, arc panicularly suggesrive of the
difference between the public architecture of suc:ets and institutions
and the private tissue of the city. The fact that the plans arc baroque
does nOt indicate that public space should be baroque. The plans of
modem architectS, panicularly Ah-ar Aalto, lend themselves to a similar
analysis. But we han: cenainly learned from Nolli to think of the
street through the building as if it were an exterior street. Therefore in
our National Gallery Sainsbury Wing the main lobby and stairway
spaces arc clad in rusticated stone. as arc rhe facades of buildings on an
Italian Renaissance street. The entry area and main lobby arc sinuous.
raking the shape of the crowd that uses them. We planned a widened
sidewalk and sheltered portico whcre visitors could wait for the
museum to open, befote proceeding through a narrow door into a larger
space beyond. Here a crowd of people might all stop at once, while
deciding where to go next. Our entryway is therefore pretzel-shaped.
Similarly, in our lab and classroom buildings, seating occurs in eddy
areas off the main circulation. These arc designed as widenings of
corridors, n()( rooms. Siuing beside the continuing space of the street
should feel like a pause IKl( a commitment. It should be possible,
while moving, to glance in and make a quick decision to enter for a
chat or to pass by. But sometimes the safety requiremenrs for fire dOOB
on major corridors are a restraint. Then we must specify hinge
mechanisms to allow these doors to remain open unless there is a fire.
So urban design concerns a door hinge as well as a reg)on.
litH: Today's design guidelines cover accessibiliry and various public
qualities, but designers could srilliearn from Nolli: the churches he
mapped were seen as both a retreat from daily life and a centre of the
society, and designing their interiors was considered a privilege.
7'
Takingsueh an approach to our more secular interiors could change
the discourse on future public space.
DSB: Of course, the churches shown by Nolli weren't public. Today
we might call them NGOs (non-go\'ernmenral organisations),
bm the streets and plazas C't't't public, and we consider the churches
as stand-ins for the public buildings that we study in our urban
analyses. The churches could also represent a pri\'ate sector that
'feels' public. We tried using other mapping techniques as well
to suggest different types of public-private relationship, panicularly
kinetic ones - for example. to show how an investment by
gO\'ernment in urban development could lead to a reaction by the
private sector. The opponunities lie in both sectors.
tlIH: In learning from Beijing, Newark, Philadelphia or Toulouse you
began by studying Rome and Las Vegas. It is generally known that
you first travelled to Las Vegas in 11)65, but whcn and where did you
discover the Nolli Plan? Was it perhaps when you visitcd Fruraz's
exhibition in 1<}62 in Rome, or did you simply come across the catalogue?
DSB: Bob believes he came across Nolli's map in Rome at the
American Academy in the mid 19505, when he was a Fellow there.
I think I first saw it in the early rl)6os at rhe University of
Pennsylvania where it was much in evidence around the school of
architCClUre. Perhaps somc faculty member there, possibly Aldo
Giurgola, had visited Rome in lC}6z. David Crane had been in Rome
in the mid 19505 and in his studio we applied the idea of the
capital web 10 the design of a new city. Our maps resembled Nolli's
in that they showed the buildings. open spaces and circulation
~'stems of the public secror differently from those of the private sector,
but in making them I don't remember using Nolli as a guide. In
planning school .....e learned to pore over maps and aerial photographs,
crying to discern in them .....hat was happening in the city. It was
great to discover in a land-use map or photograph that something you
were considering recommending was already happening. Later,
when we studied aerial phOt:ographs of the Las Vegas Strip, the parallels
between it and Nolli's map of Rome were obvious.
:liN: You begin Arrltit«turt! ns Sigtl.S {mdSystn/I.S with an acknowledgment
of evolution as well as revolution. 'Viva pragmatic/evolutionary
over heroic/revolutionary!' Bob writes in the introduction. ecl10ing
sentiments you had expressed in Las Vegas in 1<)68. But given
our growing recognition today that interior public space can be a
constituent part of the public city, where would you place what you
wrote in IC)68? As evolution or revolution? Perhaps your formulations
on Las Vegas and Le Piante di Roma were not. in themselves.
revolutionary, bm did bringing them together cause a revolution?
DSB: Perhaps. We like the paradox that juxtaposing evolutions can
cause revolution. The Il}6os was an era of paradox, when fCvolution
was stood on its head for good reason and anti-re\'olution became the
new revolution. At that time, the real revolutionaries were those
who embraced the paradox and stood for evolution in architCClure and
against the stultified revolution of late modernism. Today, architects
and urbanists arc similarly challenged by the conundrum of public
spaces within private buildings. But this, tOO, is a paradox that we
can embrace. History shows how richly the public interiors of private
buildings can extend and enhance the ciry's public offering.