Figure-Ground

Definition

Figure-ground names the representational and theoretical convention of urban order in which built mass (figure, solid) is distinguished from open space (ground, void) — the plan convention through which Western and Eastern cities alike have been read as figures (buildings) placed on grounds (streets, squares, courtyards), and through which public space acquires its traditional order: "axis, edge, or center… fabric." The wiki carries the concept through its Hong Kong negation: Jonathan D. Solomon's chapter states that the city's "density, topography, and economy create an urbanism that lacks any of the figure-ground relationships that traditionally bring order to public space in either Western or Eastern tradition: there is no axis, edge, or center. Even the ground itself is elusive: streets, courtyards, and squares are replaced by multilevel walkways connecting shopping malls and transit terminals." Cities Without Ground (Frampton, Solomon & Wong, 2012) states the thesis in its most condensed form: "Without a ground, there can be no figure either. In fact, Hong Kong lacks any of the traditional figure-ground relationships that shape urban space: axis, edge, center, even fabric. Density obliterates figure-ground in the city, and in turn re-defines public-private spatial relationships." The chapter's Figure 48.2 completes the inversion representationally — "The continuous interiors of Hong Kong's pedestrian network represented as a solid figure": massing as inverse, the interior network drawn as figure, the outdoor remainder as ground.

The concept's analytical payload is hierarchical: "Unlike traditional figure-ground hierarchies in which program and ownership are fixed to spatial configuration, interior urbanism can make public life easier to snuff out, but at the same time allows it to waft" — figure-ground fixes program and ownership to solids and voids; its absence (an "interior urbanism") detaches both, allocating occupation by atmosphere instead (interior-urbanism, atmosphere).

Key Thinkers

• Jonathan D. Solomon — the concept's Hong Kong anatomist: the no-ground thesis ("there is no axis, edge, or center"), the ground's elusiveness, and the solid-figure massing of the pedestrian network (with Adam Frampton and Clara Wong).
• Adam Frampton — co-author of Cities Without Ground: "Density obliterates figure-ground in the city"; the microclimatic hierarchy as figure-ground's replacement (not yet paged — see log).
• Rem Koolhaas — the junkspace/bigness backdrop to the figure-less interior (see junkspace); the Manhattan dataset (Delirious New York) whose figure-ground city Hong Kong negates.
• Baron Haussmann — the figure-ground order's great engineer: the axial, edged, centered Paris against which Solomon's Gissen citation ("a circulatory vision of an urban streetscape") reads.

Related Concepts

• poche — the plan-theory sibling: poché is the solid filled in plan; figure-ground is its urban-scale grammar. Hong Kong's pedestrian network is poché inverted — the circulation drawn as solid.
• interior-urbanism — the condition figure-ground's absence defines: "an urbanism of continuous 'interiority' that does not always correlate to the 'indoors.'"
• urbanism — the discipline whose primary representation figure-ground is.
• terrain-vague — the ground's residual category; Hong Kong's ground is not vacant terrain but absent ground.
• atmosphere — the replacement hierarchy: "Boundaries determined by sound or smell… can ultimately provide more substantive spatial boundaries than a ground" (Cities Without Ground, via ORO).
• boundaries — the sensory boundaries that succeed the ground: flower vendors' and bird keepers' streets as boundaries "more substantive… than a ground."
• interiority — the continuous condition the missing ground produces.
• metropolitan-hybrids — Luna's programming-centred alternative to fixed spatial configuration.
• urban-systems — the networked organization that replaces the figure-ground fabric.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Public spheres: Hong Kong's interior urbanism (Solomon 2018) — the concept's negation and inversion: "lacks any of the figure-ground relationships that traditionally bring order to public space… there is no axis, edge, or center"; "Even the ground itself is elusive"; Figure 48.2's solid-figure massing; "traditional figure-ground hierarchies in which program and ownership are fixed to spatial configuration" as the hierarchy interior urbanism replaces.

Open Questions

• Is the no-ground thesis generalizable beyond Hong Kong's topography-plus-density compound, or is it a regional condition? Solomon names "fast-growing cities and privatized suburban campuses alike" as interior urbanism's other hosts (interior-urbanism).
• What is the status of the drawing in the concept: can figure-ground convention be reformed (atmospheric field maps, temperature gradients as figure) or must it be abandoned (the solid-figure massing)?
• The chapter's Figure 48.1, "Central Temperatures. Temperature and humidity gradients define the Public 'Spheres of Hong Kong'" — is atmospheric figure-ground a replacement or a redrawing of the same analytic?
• Does figure-ground's absence dissolve the public/private distinction or merely relocate it from plan to air? Solomon holds the latter ("all space has equal potential to become part of a public or private sphere based on its occupation").