Essay- "The concept of place"

PLACE, can be defined in different words. It can be said as a habitat for human as a city, house or a country. An area that could not be moved or instable. In architecture terms, it is very important in our life as we need place to stay, to work and to rest as well.

Now, human tends to move on and evolved to a better place which not just to stay or work, but has more function and to live a more mobile life. The concept of place has 2 meanings: place of action and point of departure. Which means, a place can be said meaning to the path, such as from one point departure to one point of arrival, like the terms of "behind" and "before". Besides, 2 dimensional space including interior and exterior can be defined as space, for example, from one zone to another different zone, it is indicated by the terms of "inside" and "outside".

As what Rudolf Schwarz said, "To become a home, a domain has to be small. The settlement must possess a livable scale." The American Robert Venturi had tried intentionally to create contrast and contradiction between interior and exterior. The importance Venturi gives to the wall is enhanced when it is curved. This shows that the relationship of convexity and concavity is fundamental importance to architecture. It can be used to define zones of varying directions and density.

Free plan, as what Le Corbusier and Mies Van de Rohe, defined that place is where the space-defining element are separated from the load bearing structure. Architectural space may comprise a great number of different spatial organizations, besides, it may comprise mobile elements, which includes degrees of "freedom". Somehow, there were some people show that a mobile world would limit man to mere egocentric scheme.

In conclusion, place can be defined in many different ways, including mobile element or interior and exterior zones. As long humans are comfortable with the place they are staying in and able to have function such as house, city or country.