Figure-ground diagram

[4][5] This treatment of the space is a predominant factor in figure ground theory, which holds that in urban contexts that mostly comprise vertical structures such as apartment blocks and skyscrapers, the most often neglected feature of the design is the ground plan, which figure-ground studies bring to the fore by emphasizing a two-dimensional representation that structures space.

If open space is greater than building mass, buildings become disconnected, and voids lack spatial definition, often becoming surface parking [9] The morphology of the modern city has undergone considerable changes during the past century as manipulations of the figure ground have revealed new fabric types.

[11] Beginning in 1920s, urbanists such as Tony Garnier, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius wished to build new and rid culture of “dead forms”.

[12] Le Corbusier's Ville Contemporaine pour trois million habitants in 1922 featured high-density living concentrated in towers, maximizing open space and fresh air.

[13] During the 1950s and early 1960s, architects did not follow a unified style, but they did share a blind confidence in modern architecture's capacity to improve the public realm.

By the late 1960s and 1970s, architects began to criticize the void condition of the figure ground created by urban renewal for “disregarding human needs, for not blending in, for lacking signs of identity and association, and for being an instrument of class oppression”.

[16] Cullen termed this theory “serial vision” [17] and would require that the figure ground depict a continuous building poche that defined varying manipulated voids.

[21] In 1993, Rem Koolhaas calls for interconnections amongst built architecture, requiring a more continuous poche in the figure ground, in his recognized book S, M, L, XL.