Touching the City: Thoughts on Urban Scale - AD Primer

6On Scale, Skeletons and Surface

‘… to explain a building, the upper story of which was erected in the nineteenth century; the ground floor dates from the sixteenth century, and a careful examination of the masonry discloses the fact that it was reconstructed from a dwelling tower of the eleventh century. In the cellar we discover Roman foundation walls, and under the cellar a filled-in cave, in the floor of which stone tools are found and remnants of glacial fauna in the layers below.’

CG Jung, ‘Mind and the Earth’, Contributions to Analytical Psychology, 1927¹

When walking through Kew Gardens in west London, among countless magnificent trees, with beautiful shapes, leaves, colours and smells, it is difficult not to be struck by the Stone Pine;² why? It not only has a wonderful bone structure but you can also read the surface of its bark from a distance. It draws you towards it, revealing more as you approach. It has a ‘tangible’ texture from a distance and on getting closer, there are textures within textures. It is irresistible to touch when close but one feels one can touch it even from a distance; not only its finely balanced limbs but its surface also. This is intermediary scale at its best.

The Stone Pine, Kew Gardens, LondonThe scale and texture of its bark can be read at a distance. This is intermediary scale.

The Stone Pine, Kew Gardens, LondonOn drawing closer, ...