To paraphrase philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, humans are either tree dwellers or cave dwellers. For the former, it is the love of the sky that counts; for the latter, the love of the earth. 

From the hut to the temple and the tenement to the skyscraper, we have gradually distanced ourselves from the ground. This elevating of life was seen as a civilising act, removing us from animals, dirt and danger, and represented a new ideal, creating skylines that are now ubiquitous across all major cities. If the tower is the architectural manifestation of this love of the sky, how could contemporary architecture equally express a love of the ground?

One such example is Michael Heizer’s lifelong project City (1970–2022) in the desert of Nevada, US. This monumental architectural sculpture is a vast complex of shaped mounds, depressions and interiors. It is a massive exercise in working hyper-locally, in reshaping the formless earth into something profoundly architectural. Although reminiscent of many ancient ceremonial constructions, this project also anticipates the future and hints at a new language for a grounded architecture. 

Heizer’s city suggests a new tectonic approach, sculpting geology, space and environment as one. This can be read as an evolution or inversion of Koolhaasian ‘bigness’, where the massivity of the ground regains its role as a social surface and where architecture has the capacity to impact and unify people. If such an earthbound architecture is a viable alternative to that of concrete and steel which currently dominates the profession, what would this earthbound architecture look like and how would it impact the world in which we live. 

Today, the ground is increasingly highlighted as something to be owned and extracted from. Might we instead see it as a plastic material which can shape the spaces, structures and surfaces that allow 21st-century life to become radically grounded?