Place of Architecture in the Landscape

Finding the Place of Architecture in the Landscape: Book Launch with Peter Gisolfi

Wednesday, 04/15/2009, 6:00–8:00pm (RSVP)

In his new book Finding the Place of Architecture in the Landscape, Peter Gisolfi asserts that the most successful architecture relates clearly to setting – to landscape. Landscape can be “natural,” “vernacular,” or “designed,” but it is the basis for all architectural and landscape architectural endeavors. The book examines 40 of the firm’s projects, large and small, with site plans, building plans, renderings, and photographs. Unlike traditional monographs which are organized by project types, Mr. Gisolfi has chosen to organize the book by settings, based on the types of landscapes encountered:

• Townscape is the landscape of cities, towns, and villages. 
• Campus addresses the interdependence between buildings and 
open space that creates a composite designed place, a designed landscape. 
• Landscapes and Buildings addresses exurban settings, open green landscapes – designed, vernacular, or natural. 
• Gardens and Houses embraces the Italian villa idea and the Romantic landscape tradition. 
• Transformation is the adventure of changing a building or a designed landscape that already exists.

“His buildings adjust their style to the place, always unemphatically enhancing the landscape and disciplined by it. This book is filled with examples of the shaping of places, the physical development of architecture’s holistic realm.” - from the Introduction by Vincent J. Scully, Jr.

Peter Gisolfi’s lecture at The Center for Architecture will explain the settings described in the book and will illustrate them with examples. In addition, he will discuss recent sustainable projects based on the same ideas.

Speaker: Peter Gisolfi is an architect, landscape architect, and teacher whose built work reconciles the influences of context and program. His concern for the relationship of architecture to its setting translates into graceful connections between buildings and landscapes. His analytical approach to design was inspired by studies in music theory and composition as an undergraduate at Yale, and his graduate training in architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Gisolfi founded the firm of Peter Gisolfi Associates, architects, landscape architects, and interior architects, in 1976 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. He is principal-in-charge of design. He is also a Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the City University of New York, where he is Chairman of the School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture. He was previously an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University for 12 years. The work of Peter Gisolfi Associates has received many design awards and has been featured in national magazines, newspapers and numerous books.

Organized by: New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter

Sponsored by: New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects

Location: Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place (Directions)

Member Price: Free for AIA and ASLA members

Nonmember Price: $10