Who should manage the layout of my modular UI (WPF context)?

The easy answer is : “the LayoutManager”. Does layout responsibility rest with the view or controller(ref MVC)? Whose business is it to know about the positioning of modular control xxx and whether it should be visible when an element in modular control zzz is clicked.

How do I make the best use of the MVC triad when I need to precisely manage my modular UI layout.

Do I need a view specific layout controller that is pixel and coordinate aware, perhaps a variation of the MVCC? Should the additional C reside in the xaml code behind or can I weave in the layout rules at runtime? When the scope for cross window navigation is severely restricted what pattern can I turn to?

My current problem domain brings these questions to the fore.

GUI layout tends to be orthogonal to the core concerns of application development, yet it is critical to the success and acceptability of the application. To the user, the UI is the application.

I will be prototyping various approaches to this vexatious issue in an attempt to develop a maintainable approach. At present a finite state approach in which the main actors are the view and some layout policy seems likely.