The Built, the Unbuilt and the Unbuildable ─ In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning

The pristine, the ruined, the ephemeral, and even the notional are the subject ofRobert Harbison's highly original and admittedly romantic contribution to the literature ofarchitecture. His fresh perceptions open this practical art to new interpretations as he exploresthe means by which buildings, real or imagined, evade or surpass functional necessities whilesometimes satisfying them.What fascinates Harbison in these discussions are the paradoxes andironies of function that give rise to meaning, to a psychological impact that may or may not havebeen intended. He chooses examples from an architectural borderland - of gardens, monuments, idealcities and fortification, ruins, paintings, and unbuildable buildings -where use and symbolismoverlap; he examines the exceptions at the edges of a field that will illuminate itscenter.Harbison's pursuit of man's efforts to "fashion art from nonhuman life" begins with aconsideration of gardens and the organic architecture of the English Arts and Crafts movement and ofGaudi, then turns to monuments (Claes Oldenburg, Christo, the Vietnam Memorial) that are "either thenearest or the furthest thing from gardens." Harbison's discussion of fortification and urbanplanning leads to metaphorical themes (fort-features in churches or prisons or Fascist municipalbuildings) and mocked-up worlds (Williamsburg, Disneyland), and to the subject of fictional space asexpressed in ruins, in painting, in the unbuildable, and finally in the inconceivable as revealed inKafka's sketches.Robert Harbison has lectured widely on architecture at the Museum of Modern Art inNew York, the University of Toronto, Stanford University, Cornell University, and the ArchitecturalAssociation, London. His previous books include Eccentric Spaces, Deliberate Regression, andPharaoh's Dream.