The Choreographed Place vs The Panoramic Place

While in motion, the idea of place cannot be defined as a case in present time.  The highway creates a situation where landscape is perceived, not as a picturesque panorama, but rather as a sequence of images much like that of a viewfinder.  Furthermore the setting of the car presents an even more extreme condition.  The landscape is framed in four distinct lenses—the windshield, the passenger side window, the driver side window, and the rearview mirror.  While the driver is indeed surrounded by landscape as if it were a panorama, there is never a point in time where the driver has the capability to view the landscape in that manner.  In lieu of both safety and speed, the driver cannot simply watch the landscape pass by because the sequence of perceptions is just as opportunistic as it is choreographed.  Due to this condition, the traditional idea of place is slightly altered.  The scope of place vastly increases while the level clarity vastly decreases.  One is capable of grasping the general composition of a landscape over a 400 mile stretch; however, since the understanding of landscape within a car is only through the sense of the visual, one’s true knowledge of that composition is very shallow. 

This seems to present itself as being paradoxical because to understand the landscape through the lens of a car one is sacrificing the experiences that mankind has long depended on to become familiar with place.  However, the idea of a choreographed viewfinder is simply a different way of constructing place.  In fact, the two are never truly linked.  When one pulls over at a highway rest stop, the choreographed place is lost and the panoramic place dominates.  When one gets back in the car and onto the highway the two are switched once again. 

The exploration of choreographed place demands an understanding of how a sequence of events or images are compressed in a way that constructs a narrative much like the effort to construct a narrative from the sequence of events from a dream.

Landscape Conditions

Turnpike Plan

Abandoned Tunnels of the PA Turnpike

Sideling Hill Tunnel

Blue Ridge Mountain

Fulton County, Pennsylvania

Rays Hill Tunnel

Rays Hill

Bedford/Fulton Counties

Laurel Hill Tunnel

Laurel Hill

Westmoreland/Somerset Counties

Thesis Statement (revised)

1 + Architectural sensibilities such as contextual and programatic responsiveness have the ability to redefine the nature and function of American highway construction.

3 + The purpose of this thesis is to ask a "what if" question about interstate travel based on a societal development which constantly encourages more speed and more efficiency.  In responding to an extreme case--high speed vehicle travel--where speed severely outweighs attentiveness, a new typology of Architecture may be necessary.  It would serve as a catalyst for future development which could potentially rethink the way we mobilize through space from the scale of the local to the global.

9 = The case study for this catalyst will be the Pennsylvania Turnpike which, when built over 60 years ago, carried design standards that exceeded other interstate systems and loosely resembled the American version of the Autobahn.  Certain design standards remain relevant but the turnpike is no longer treated as a luxury.  The turnpike failed to become the American Autobahn so the luxury of speed is obsolete, especially when other means of travel, such as by plane, are often cheaper and faster.  The mood of the average driver now is best defined by impatience.  In an attempt to preserve the will to travel by land, the new luxury of interstate travel might be geared towards experience.  An experience which runs many of the original design approaches of interstate construction through and architectural filter in order to create a mode of travel defined more specifically by space, time and context.  Looking at the turnpike within two major destinations--Pittsburgh and Philadelphia--there already exists a framework on which an architectural narrative can be constructed.  The research will include a thorough analysis of interstate design but an even more thorough analysis of the landscape to which the architecture must respond.  Developing a full understanding of urban, suburban, and, most importantly, rural Pennsylvania is both the challenge and the crutch to the success of the project.  The architectural problem focuses directly on the potentials of contextual responsiveness and the final product ought to reflect that entirely.

Research Methodology

Thesis Statement and Research Method

1 + Architecture's sensibility toward contextual programmatic responsiveness gives way to an opportunity to redefine the indifferent, out-dated construction of the American highway infrastructure.

3 + Vehicle travelers are desensitized to the subtleties of the American landscape due not only to a brutal nature of highway construction but also to a societal development which encourages speed and efficiency.  In responding to an extreme case where speed severely outweighs attentiveness, a new typology of Architecture may be necessary.  It would serve as a catalyst for future development which could potentially rethink the way we mobilize through space from the scale of the local to the global.

9 = The case study for this catalyst will be the Pennsylvania Turnpike which, when built over 60 years ago, carried design standards that exceeded other interstate systems and loosely resembled the American version of the Autobahn.  Certain design standards remain relevant but the turnpike is no longer treated as a luxury.  The turnpike failed to become the American Autobahn so the luxury of speed is obsolete, especially when one can travel to from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia in 1/5 the time, and often cheaper, by plane.  The mood of the average driver now is best defined by impatience.  In an attempt to preserve the will to travel by land, the new luxury of interstate travel must be geared towards experience.  An experience which runs many of the original design approaches of interstate construction through and architectural filter in order to create a mode of travel defined more specifically by space, time and context.  The research will include a thorough analysis of interstate design but an even more thorough analysis of the landscape to which the architecture must respond, which is predominantly rural Pennsylvania.  In order to narrow the scope of the project, the entire road will be personally documented from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and several locations will be realized as case studies and eventually developed into the final product(s).  The case studies will be samples of unique conditions that occur on the turnpike and in the landscape and will define the overall conceptual approach to a strategy that can be adapted on a national scale.