Apropiaciones del paisaje : artificios topográficos en la obra de Alison y Peter Smithson. | Landscape appropriations : Topographical devices in the work of Alison and Peter Smithson
David Casino. Cuaderno de Notas nº21 (2020)
http://polired.upm.es/index.php/cuadernodenotas/article/view/4475
Alison and Peter Smithson developed a topographical thinking of their own which consists of a particular ability to define the settlement of their buildings by shaping the surface and section of the terrain. Consolidated over time, this operational instinct would form a substantial part of their personal way of appreciating the physical context of their origin: an inclusive look through which the Smithsons assimilated the essence of the most representative artificial manipulations of the local territory. Among these numerous appropriation processes, the one carried out on one of the most decisive topographical devices produced by English Landscape in the eighteenth century stands out: the ha-ha. This ingenious manipulation of the ground plane would also allow them to fully connect with “the English”, through a deliberated rooting in native landscape and the techniques of the Picturesque, which underpin much of their grounding strategies.