A pattern language

A public space without a middle is quite likely to stay empty.

We have discussed the fact that people tend to take up positions from which they are protected, partly, at their backs—hierarchy of open space (114), and the way this fact tends to make the action grow around the edge of public squares—activity pockets (124), stair seats (125). If the space is a tiny one, there is no need for anything beyond an edge. But if there is a reasonable area in the middle, intended for public use, it will be wasted unless there are trees, monuments, scats, fountains—a place where people can protect their backs, as easily as they can around the edge. This reason for setting something roughly in the middle of a square is obvious and practical. But perhaps there is an even more primitive instinct at work.

Imagine a bare table in your house. Think of the power of the instinct which tells you to put a candle or a bowl of flowers in the middle. And think of the power of the effect once you have done it. Obviously, it is an act of great significance; yet clearly it has nothing to do with activities at the edge or in the center.

Apparently the effect is purely geometrical. Perhaps it is the sheer fact that the space of the table is given a center, and the point at the center then organizes the space around it, and makes it clear, and puts it roughly at rest. The same thing happens in a courtyard or a public square. It is perhaps related to the man-

dala instinct, which finds in any centrally symmetric figure a powerful receptacle for dreams and images and for conjugations of the self.

We believe that this instinct is at work in every courtyard and every square. Even in the Piazza San Marco, one of the few squares without an obvious center piece, the campanile juts out and creates an off beat center to the two plazas together.

The caynpanile forms a rough center to the two -piazzas.

Camillo Sitte, the great Italian planner, describes the evolution of such focal points and their functional significance in his book City Planning According to Artistic Principles (New York: Random House, 1965, pp. 20-31). But interestingly, he claims that the impulse to center something perfectly in a square is an “affliction” of modern times.

Imagine the open square of a small market town in the country, covered with deep snow and criss-crossed by several roads and paths that, shaped by the traffic, form the natural lines of communication. Between them are left irregularly distributed patches untouched by traffic. . . .

On exactly such spots, undisturbed by the flow of vehicles, rose the fountains and monuments of old communities. . . .

Therefore:

Between the natural paths which cross a public square or courtyard or a piece of common land choose something to stand roughly in the middle: a fountain, a tree, a statue, a clock-tower with seats, a windmill, a bandstand. Make

BUILDINGS

it something which gives a strong and steady pulse to the square, drawing people in toward the center. Leave it exactly where it falls between the paths; resist the impulse to put it exactly in the middle.

Connect the different “somethings” to one another with the path system—paths and goals (120). They may include HIGH PLACES (62), DANCING IN THE STREETS (63), POOLS AND STREAMS (64), PUBLIC OUTDOOR ROOM (69), STILL WATER (71), tree places (171) > make sure that each one has a sitting wall (243) around it. . . .

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Now_} with the paths fixed_; we come back to the building: Within the various wings of any one building> work out the fundamental gradients of space_} and decide how the movement will connect the spaces in the gradients;

127. INTIMACY GRADIENT

128. INDOOR SUNLIGHT

129. COMMON AREAS AT THE HEART

130. ENTRANCE ROOM

13 I. THE FLOW THROUGH ROOMS

132. SHORT PASSAGES

133. STAIRCASE AS A STAGE

134. ZEN VIEW

135. TAPESTRY OF LIGHT AND DARK

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