6. A STUDY OF PETER EISENMAN’S ARTIFICIAL EXCAVATION 81

7. SMOUT ALLEN: A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE

Peter Eisenman’s concept of ‘The Cities of Artificial Excavation’ follows a decade long investigation regarding the stratification of ground as a surface of memory. History plays an important role in his projects although he doesn’t prefer the concept of an actual archaeological excavation, but rather induces a condition where two to three layers of history, and a formal artificial apparatus (grids) are superposed to generate an entirely new situation on the site. Eisenman also challenges the question of architecture in reality itself. For instance, in Cannaregio, the scaling of the architectural object disjuncts the architecture from its context and human proportion rendering the objects physically uninhabitable. The ground acts as an object itself which holds the architecture as well as the memories of its past.

But what is missing?

While Eisenman successfully navigates the concept of excavation and the ground in his projects, but it still lacks the fundamental connection to the ecological landscapes. The architectural explorations in projects like Berlin where the ground holds artificially reconstructed memories yet it forgets the simple excavation of the soil itself and the vegetal being.

Mark Smout and Laura Allen in their projects delve into a new contemporary design research methodology where their projects envision the ground as an object of establishing an active relationship between the ecological and urban territories. In the projects of ‘Future Assemblies’ and ‘Rescue Lines’, where the hedgerows in the UK which are usually seen as the edges of properties and agricultural fields are also observed as an ecological corridor for the wildlife.44 Following the project of ‘Future Assembly’, ‘Rescue Lines’ (see Fig. 30) carries the work forward to propose a new linear world of vegetation resembling the ‘hedgerow’ in the form of both ancient forest and the modern one restored in ground and connected to one another. This linear landscape provides the wildlife a safe passage between different territories. The idea behind this project was to elaborate ground as new landscapes for endangered plant species to be cultivated and preserved in this natural conservatory and offer a home for the wildlife which reside in the soil and air such as worms, moulds, and birds. 45 Smout and Allen’s interpretation of ground on an ecological stage along with Eisenman’s concept of ‘Artificial Excavation’ which disjuncts architecture from reality and places it into a ground of historical memories provides a unique interpretation of ground for two different philosophies.

Similar to the works of Smout and Allen as well as Eisenman, the thesis situated in the city of Edinburgh traces historical memories of the city as archaeological artifacts artificially reconstructed in the ground and in the process of excavation restore the lost ecological world in association with the architecture of the future. The ground is therefore stratified with layers of urban and ecological territories existing in equilibrium with one another.

‘…The space of appearing as spaces where buildings appear to forest as forest appear to buildings.’ 46

44 Mark Smout and Laura Allen, in ‘Future Assembly: Hedgerows’, in 17th annual Venice Architecture Biennale The Central Pavilion, Giardini. Accessed on July 04, 2021. http://www.smoutallen.com/future-assembly

45 Mark Smout and Laura Allen, In ‘Rescue Lines’ in 17th annual Venice Architecture Biennale The Central Pavilion, Giardini. Accessed on July 04, 2021. http://www.smoutallen.com/rescue-lines 46 Dr. Dorian Wiszniewski, in ‘Project Brief 3 2020-2021’, in PARA-situation [Edinburgh]. p. 5.