Rossi started and finished out his introduction to the American edition of “The Architecture of the City” by saying that “this is the meaning of the architecture of the city…everyone reads it in a different way” (Rossi 19). I liked this observation because I agree that everyone experiences architecture differently. This reinforces that each student will have a different answer to the question Professor Han posed during the first lecture; “What is architecture?”
On the other hand, he dos spell out what architecture is physically by saying “by architecture I mean not only the visible image of the city…but architecture as construction, the construction of the city over time” (Rossi 21). Despite this, I still feel as though he allows the reader to decide what architecture is to them. Every individual has a different experience with architecture and “all these experiences…constitute the city” which is what in turn adds character and meaning to the architecture of the city for people (Rossi 29).
I also found it interesting that Rossi seemed to not like the word “organic” being used to describe architecture as seen on page 56. This stood out to me because multiple architects we have already studied love/embody this terminology, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese Metabolist architects such as Fumihiko Maki.
Citation:
Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press, 1982.