Abstract

Abstract: All buildings modify their sites, some radically. There will be other sites from which material came and to which it goes. Carbon and other costs now reward a strategy of incorporating all excavation into the design. The talk will explore the history of this practice, from work by Rem Koolhaas to ancient Indian temples, particularly tracing the connection between Rafael Moneo’s Kursaal at San Sebastian, Jorn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.

Biography: John Sergeant is an Architect, former Lecturer in the Dept. of Architecture and Emeritus Fellow of Robinson College. He was a Visiting Professor at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India in 2009-10 and led a Symposium on Wright at the University of Tokyo in December 2009. His research is best known for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses and his local practice for recycling Adden-Brooke’s Outpatients’ Department into Brown’s Restaurant. His orientation has always been toward organic, or sustainable, architecture. He is currently working on a book on recent Responsive Architecture.