The Material Imagination
by Lucius Burckhardt, edited by Markus Ritter and Martin Schmitz
Birkhäuser, October 2022

Paperback | 5 x 7-1/4 inches | 166 pages | 13 illustrations | English (translated from German by Jill Denton) | ISBN: 9783035625301 | $26.99

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:
Lucius Burckhardt (1925?2003) outlined his theory of the ?smallest possible intervention? back in the early 1980s. The idea of minimal intervention runs through his entire oeuvre, from his critique of urbanism to the science of walking. The ?smallest possible intervention? denotes a planning theory that assumes two ?views? within landscape design: that which is actually visible and that in our mind?s eye. The theory of the minimal intervention means not interfering excessively with the existing landscape, but instead working with the landscape in our minds to develop an aesthetic understanding of the environment. In this book, available for the first time in English, the Swiss sociologist applies this formula to many areas of design. REFERRAL LINKS:
   

REVIEW:
Although I can't recall when I learned about Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt, I can pinpoint the first time I read some of some of his texts to the anthology Relational Theories of Urban Form, released last year and reviewed by me last summer. The excerpted texts by Burckhardt in that book focus on "the science of walking," or what he coined "strollology" ? a great term that this walker and architec...