Leopold Kohr
Last weekend, I read a talk given by Ivan Illich on Leopold Kohr, who argued that everything on the planet has implicit limits, which he called their proper proportions. He argued from morphology, which found, for example, that the basic form of a mouse has an upper limit, at which point it can't carry its own weight - its legs are too spindly. I'm writing a paper that applies his idea to urban density. I think that proportionality may be the way to go where the issue is how to transition from one density to another. There's also an absolute limit to consider. In his new book, Design and Truth (Yale, 2010), Robert Grudin describes in passing the shortcuts that were taken in New York's World Trade Center towers to increase their height and floor area without increasing the construction budget. He stops short of saying they were too high, period. Yet a number of buildings now exceed them. Perhaps the true limiting factor is risk, real and imagined.
You might find interesting some of the papers and thoughts available here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wtp.org/oaklandtable.html
This Oakland Table was at Jerry Brown's place, back in the late 1990s. Illich was master of ceremonies, so to speak. And also, this:
http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=53
One of the Oakland participants, Terrance Galvin, an architect, talks about "The Meaning of Proportion."
John, also reading about proportionality and Illich, etc.
These are really useful references. Thank you for sending them! I wrote a longer version of the essay, "Place and Scale" (part of "Common Place" issue 4 - http://complace.j2parman.com) for a compendium put out by a group in NY. It's supposed to appear in November 2010. If you'd like to discuss this topic further, please write me at j2parman@yahoo.com.
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