ARCHITECTURE + URBANISM

Mancunian Way

2012-01-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

MA A+U student Tuğhan Toz has proposed a transformation of the Cambridge Street Junction of the Mancunian Way as his contribution to the 'Lost in Space' project. His design provides amelioration of the hostile environmental conditions, and appropriation of the underused public realm as external studio space for the adjacent new home of the Manchester School of Architecture

Pomona Palace

2012-01-25T06:10:00.000-08:00

As part of his project for 'Lost in Space' MA A+U student Edward Patton has reconstructed the legendary but long-vanished Pomona Palace which provided entertainment for Victorian Manchester. The building was destroyed in a chemical explosion which contaminated the surrounding land for decades. You can follow Edward's work here

The Explorer's Manual

2012-01-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce that MA A+U student Damien Woolliscroft has had his work selected for the forthcoming exhibition at The Portico Library in Manchester. The exhibition, entitled Curious Pursuits, has been curated by Porter & Jenkinson and will be open to a discerning public between 3 - 29 February 2012. Follow Damien's work here.

Manuel de Sola Morales: A Matter of Things

2012-01-09T06:41:00.000-08:00

A book review and commentary by Simon Carder

The purpose of this review is to provide a narrative summary of the content of the Manuel de Sola Morales (MSM) work and provide a conclusion regarding its effectiveness, and possible applications
It would seem that the intention of this volume is to provide a helpful work to facilitate a more dynamic, appropriate and informed response to challenges peculiar to that of the urban condition from centre to periphery. In an effort to be as clear as possible the book is split into digestible portions that try to describe Manuel’s comprehension of the city, giving summative subtitles' in an effort to further clarify the point for each section.
Projects are grouped under three headings;
1. To Create a Place (Things Invented)
2. Condensed Form (Things Overlapping)
3. Heterogeneous Accumulation (Things in Conflict)
There are three commentaries that follow each project set;
1. The Strategic Gaze
2. The Compulsive Gaze
3. The Anxious Gaze
These commentaries go some way to encapsulate the methodology, the way we can comprehend, see or look, at the urban fabric.
Sola-Morales compares his actions in the urban fabric to one who practices acupuncture or surgery, making precise moves. He then proceeds to ‘show’ how he has resolved complex challenges with reference to projects that he has tackled.

‘Historical Periphery’ relates to an intervention that connects disparate elements of the city, namely the local town and a disused submarine base from WW2 in Saint Nazaire by connecting the concrete roof of the base to the town over the intervening traffic by the use of a wide elongated bridge and free up the internal space for a number of commercial uses.
‘Strategic Frontality’ relates to a competition to provide a solution for a hard and broad industrialized port facility rubbing shoulders with a successful marina just along the coast. The solution, to bring the frontage of the city up against the coastline in a similar fashion to that in many other European coastal towns with a supporting artery for traffic strengthening motion and increasing access and interest, with obligatory greened areas providing visual relief and much appreciated shade in this Italian extremity bordering with Slovenia.
‘Water Topography’ relates to a similar challenge to that encountered in Saint-Nazaire, that of disparate areas, a public park and sea front to be connected across a large coastal highway in Porto, Portugal. Again a connecting bridge provides transition into an appropriately open building that provides both access to amenity and view of the coast from the urbis and another route flowing under the motorway providing a more level access to the water front.
‘Urban Balcony’, in Genoa Italy, as the name suggests is an attempt to visually unify an element of the cityscape by creating a contiguous element using the coastal road as the basis for a multilayered elevated highway from which the city can be experienced and the vista of the ocean appreciated. This creates a kind of spatial bridge between existing city and water front increasing visual connection and dynamic experience through movement.
‘Size is not Scale’ relates to operations on comparatively restricted part of the urban fabric in Gronigen in the Netherlands. A cross roads of canals provides the setting for a length of curvilinear benches terminating in a blue frame through which one can observe a selection of the view and a viewing platform that allows the participant to stand over the water providing an unencumbered view down the canals or can act as a stage for performers.
‘Unfolding Sections’ in Den Haag involves viewing the periphery of the urban fabric in section and developing a smoother transition from one section to another without losing identities along the changing coastline.
Alcoi - situated on a steep site has its houses remodelled and services simultaneous. 1 make use of topography, 2 separation of traffic (people and vehicles), 3 complexity through standardization (simple interchangeable forms in varied combinations), 4 Standardization of repetitive elements (windows and doors).
The project at Leuven presents a tangled web of paths and nodes developed and complicated over the years by the demands of a growing urban population focused on a large town plaza holding a sizeable monument at its centre. Manuel’s solution is to identify the paths, nodes and needs presented in that space and then proceed to untangle them and resolve the conflicts. The powerful part of this solution is that instead of focusing on the existing surface fabric of the city he creates new levels below ground to create additional layers of space to be used for certain previously conflicting circulation and parking.
In the Sant Adreu project several architects come together to produce their response to social housing within pre-defined parameters' and, as usual, create a variety of unique solutions that enrich the whole. To activate the pavements connecting these blocks Manuel recommends that in place of the communal entrance to individual blocks most commonly used, that a number of doorways connecting fewer apartments be used to increase the foot traffic coming and going to the apartments across the pavements. There have been a number of studies showing that increased foot traffic is key in increasing feelings of security and lowering crime in a city.
In the Arnham project MSM suggests the implementation of a number of blocks that, while using repetitive forms individually, differ in height, fenestration, form and colour providing a visual variety for those passing through the area. Continuity without uniformity or repetition is the phrase used here, the spaces creating the feeling of continuity as much as the buildings around them.
Manuel waxes lyrical in his opening paragraph for ‘The Compulsive Gaze’, by way of explanation of how the urban fabric changes its shape with changes in mass and density.
‘The city is a heavy magma that flows or seeps like a sea or sand bank, rising and falling according to the energy of its own interior mass. Its sensitivity to the gravity of urban forms finds meaning and beauty in the density of events, buildings, open spaces and volumes in the urban landscape.’
To comprehend these flows it is necessary to develop an appreciation for the processes involved in urban development and the changing interactions of those individuals that provide the life blood of the city.
Alexanderplatz in Berlin; In some ways this project is similar to that in Lueven but dealing more with distances rather than paths the point here is to intensify the density and frequency of use in an effort to generate greater activity in a critical space.
Alexanderpolder; Here MSM considers the extent to which one can go with regards to how close buildings can get to each other, the roads that separate them and how their relationship alters with these changes in distance. He terms this, ‘designing the void’ a seeming oxymoron. Yet creating textured ‘space’ is at the core of what architects seek to accomplish as discussed in some depth by Bernard Tschumei. We are basically creating containers that effect and affect the spaces that they encapsulate striving to provide interactive experience for people using and passing through those volumes.
In Het Eijlande MSM deals with this area of Antwerp in a similar way to the old London dock areas during the 1980’s and 90’s; changing the use of old warehouses into offices and apartment bringing life and vibrancy (not to mention money) into the area.
The Operaplein presents an opportunity to demonstrate manipulation of a number of factors to highlight the unique difference of the opera house in a linear facade/space and liberate adjacent spaces to pedestrian traffic by sinking four lanes of traffic below street level. MSM suggests using the full scope of space, subterranean as well as surface techniques, to provide a variety of views and spatial textures to enrich and enhance the area.
Torrnsana addresses the periphery of urban development touching on the possibilities to be exploited there, noting that the ‘urban limit’ is not necessarily where density ends in a wall of greenery. Interpenetration of urban and verdure become vital in generating dynamic space with contrasting views from within to help activate certain spaces within the city and creating mystery and invitation from outside the city looking in.
In the Poble Nou project in Barcelona MSM discusses and demonstrates the importance in accepting and making provision for that which has been, that which is and that which may yet be with the anticipation that from the continuity of this dynamic process that new and varied, promiscuous, relationships become welcomed, even planned, and the resultant transformations received gladly.
In Thessaloniki, a much earlier project, MSM emphasizes the opportunity that presents itself in those open spaces that often occur in the city, how to link them and intensify their use along the naturally occurring bay providing both visual and dimensional connection.
In his summary ‘The Anxious Gaze’ MSM seems to be saying that what is really needed is a compulsion that moves the urban designer to create something to change the current status quo at whatever the cost.
‘In order to operate in the modern city we need to think about adding, complicating, insisting....It is not enough to mix uses and functions'; sometimes it will be necessary to create conflict and congestion....’(p143)
Although seemingly adroit in the application of his particular brand of urban intervention Morales fails to provide a work that engages the reader clearly and concisely, in the same way that Gorden Cullen or Christopher Alexander do. He tries to elucidate critical elements in the city but fails to provide the same level of clarity found in the works of Kevin Lynch.
‘The issues they [his projects] undertake to address are singular, and demonstrate an attention to questions beyond the realm of the usual...questions that...are so alien... these projects are inseparable from my own activities as... a teacher about cities and a combatant against the verbal diarrhoea which consistently trivializes the urban...’ (Morales M 2008 p9)
It is too easy to be a critic. With little knowledge and a modicum of wit one can decry almost anything and any one and that is not my intention here, rather to provide subjective observation.
My initial attitude to what I read was one of scepticism as Morales seemed to be expressing high opinions about himself and indicating what an exceptional architect he considers himself in all extremely challenging urban situations. Several times he suggests that the ‘ordinary’ challenges found within the design of urban architecture are boring to him and he seeks difficult problems to create opportunity to explore the extremities of architectural intervention.
Perhaps this is akin to developing formula one racing cars. At the extremity of any professional endeavour is where we seek and hopefully discover solutions to such specialist problems that when they reoccur later we have already tried and tested our prototypes to a point where the science therein is certain and so becomes commonplace or even routine. This would certainly explain MSM’s presupposition that his target audience is already conversant with many of the founding fathers of urban design, Vitruvius, Sitte, Garnier et al, as he seems to be aiming higher than development of utopian cities.
Having not read all of Morales works I am not in a position to comment with certainty that he has not built upon a foundation of a plethora of past solutions to seemingly ordinary urban challenges. However, there is no doubt that MSM carries considerable professional respect evidenced in the projects that his practice has completed and those that he has been commissioned to fulfil. Several countries have presented him with some of the most difficult areas for an architect to operate in. Morales therefore must be self confident to act in such decisive ways over so many varied situations. Having been successful in so many instances would also serve as a contributory factor in what can come across as arrogance. By contrast Morales seems to have no key signature in his projects which is unlike many architects who develop a particular style that can quite quickly be identified by the public as theirs, this then point to a seemingly contradictory humility.
By way of conclusion then, the book was a little difficult to find useful quickly, it had to be reread. It may well have served better if there were fewer projects presented in more detail and explanations given to increase clarity. I would have liked to have read something along the lines of ‘these were the problems, so we finally decided to do this and this because doing so provided that benefit and this, thus improving what had previously existed there.’.
This approach does not facilitate true learning, which after all, especially in the case of architecture and urbanism, is where the greatest number of individuals may benefit from the expeditious implementation of that learning. It may be that the longer one spends in academia that the excellence of each individual’s vocabulary is merely an instrument to better facilitate effective communication within those circles. In ‘A Matter of Things’, I occasionally found this an obstacle rather than a help.

As with many architectural publications it can be difficult to effect the level of clarity necessary to truly enlighten readers of modest understanding to the remedies applied to an individual project of the type of complexity and difficulty demonstrated in the projects discussed in ‘A Matter of Things’. So to attempt to do so adequately with nearly twenty projects in such a small volume seems, at best, hopeful.
There are points to be drawn from these projects however, that can direct the individual to consider a wider scope of options when looking for a solution to urban conundrums. How to ‘activate’ remote or disjointed spaces throughout a given section of the city, in this publication many along the coast, has in many cases remained the holy grail of urban designers. Many have tried and few have had lasting successes after the novelty of the initial architectural intervention has faded into the commonplace.
One approach, highlighted in the project in Leuven, is to consider designing space below the ground plane when looking for solutions to untangling complex intertwined pathways. Here MSM separates bus lanes, domestic and commercial vehicles from pedestrian pathways reclaiming a monument previously neutered and a space made dead to all but the metal and rubber of vehicles. MSM has successfully reclaimed and re-established the public space, replaced the monument as the dominant structure there and provided increased pedestrian traffic for those businesses that edge the square no doubt improving their financial viability, so important to the vitality of a city.
Not only is this a bold move, but this is one that has been successfully implemented to the benefit of all parties, truly a difficult task to accomplish. It is a comparatively simple task to be creative in solutions for the city yet far more problematic to see idea turn into reality and that work. Examples abound of urban intervention that have critically failed to the chagrin of the architectural profession where our education in such matters should be exemplary in this most public of realms.
Another method that is successfully demonstrated is that of transitional architectural intervention as demonstrated in the project at Porto, Portugal. Here an arid city edge, fronted by a multilane highway against the sea shore, presents an opportunity to increase the local verdure by introducing a newly landscaped park which connects under the freeway whilst an elongated bridge provides transition from urban to coastal via an almost translucent building.
This transitional architectural intervention is designed to be as visually permeable as possible, whilst providing a winding decent/ascent to or from the beach facilitating gradually changing views which enables a kind of visual acclimatization before actually making contact with the starkly different but now linked spaces. The lesson here is rather than a building becoming a demarcation it can become a place of transition, providing an opportunity for visual acclimatization between two very disparate environments, the crowded urban to the uninterrupted view of the sea’s horizon.
Seeming less successful, at least in its presentation as a project in this work, is the conversion of an old world war two submarine base established by the Nazis’ in the port of Saint Nazaire. The port area is hard and poorly connected for the use of visitors and locals alike. Although a new car park and a long transitional ramp, similar to that found at Porto, provided to the roof of the submarine base seek to create an opportunity for some sort of vista it looks like a very bleak outlook and one hardly worth the effort to visit more than once.
By contrast is the cavernous interior of the base that has the benefit of large lengths of water where submarines once sheltered from attack below the monolithic concrete structure that now allows that particular type of light reflecting from the water below to play on the ceilings above. However the interior interventions are lost in the scale of structure, floating as it were, in the spaces in a similar way to its previous tenants. Unless you are a fan of type of oppressive environment beautifully illustrated in the underground lairs of ‘The Matrix’ this space is particularly unattractive. Even MSM seems to be at a loss as to a definitive use for this new space.
In addition to the projects there are a number of narratives that attempt to clarify how MSM has approached his grouped projects. The way in which he sees/comprehends the urban fabric and possible solutions are termed as a ‘Gaze’. So we have the Strategic, Compulsive and Anxious Gaze. These explanations, or overarching narratives, are not sufficiently succinct to provide really useful information or insight into how MSM is operating, and this may be due to the fact that many design decisions are more intuitive rather than scientific in their origin.
In conclusion then, here is a work that does provide some thought provoking material but finding that which is of value is a little like panning for gold. If fewer projects were interrogated in more depth and more material including images were provided this may have helped greatly. Add to this an accompanying narrative to outline the purpose of actions taken in each project and the reader could have an interesting publication for future reference. As it stands ‘A Matter of Things’ provides a showcase for some of Manuel de Sola Morales impressive projects but requires a certain degree of diligence on the part of the reader to extract what useful information he can.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the future'

2012-01-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

A special screening of the film Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the future

The Manchester Modernist Society present a screening of the award-winning Bata-ville at 6pm on 26 January 2012.

Written & directed by Northern Art Prize Winners Karen Guthrie & Nina Pope, Bata-ville (90mins) is a bittersweet record of an English coach trip to the origins of the Bata shoe empire – the Moravian town of Zlin - a place described by Le Corbusier as a "shiny phenomenon". Against the backdrop of economic regeneration in their communities, former employees of two now closed UK Bata factories are led by artist / directors Pope & Guthrie on a unique journey through Bata’s legacy and across a changing Europe.

What begins as a free holiday soon becomes an opportunity for a collective imagining of what Tomas Bata’s inspirational maxim, “We are not afraid of the future” can mean in twenty-first century Britain.

The screening will be preceded by Hush (10mins) by Lynne Pettinger and Will Montgomery.

Register in advance for this free event here

The screening will be in the MMU John Dalton Building on Oxford Road, Manchester. Please use the main entrance on Oxford Road (virtually opposite the old BBC building) and follow the signs.

Public Space: The square in the contemporary city

2011-12-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

International Symposium, 13 and 14 January 2012 UAL Lisbon
Public Space:
The square in the contemporary city

From its origins to the present time, the square has maintained its role as a public space of excellence in citizens' lives, a place where the streams intersect, influencing the more relevant social transformations. Given the awareness that the square is now consolidated as a city's heritage, what are the current trends and the different approaches for the redesign of squares? How do architects and designers respond to this challenge?

The symposium, consisting of one and a half days (Friday and Saturday morning), intends to open a debate on the role of the square in the contemporary city, taking case studies in Portugal, Spain and Italy. We will explore other areas of thought and research, such as history and philosophy.

The conversation model focuses on the exposure of several speakers per panel, followed by debate.

January 13, Friday
Opening of the Symposium
Flavio Barbini (UAL)
Filipa Ramalhete (CEACT UAL)
Paulo Tormenta Pinto (ISCTE IUL)

Panel 1
09h00 to 13h30

The Agora and the Roman Forum
Flavio Barbini (UAL, PT)
-
Middle Ages and Renaissance, the place of the square
Rogério Vieira de Almeida (ISCTE IUL, PT)

Coffee Break
-
The Enlightenment square
Miguel Faria (UAL PT)
-
Squares of the Empire during the Estado Novo
Ana Vaz Milheiro (ISCTE IUL, UAL, U.S.)

Panel 2
15:00 to 18:00

The "anti square"
José Manuel Fernandes (FAUTL, PT)

Public space, Banyoles, Girona
Silvia Brandi (MIAS Josep Mias Architects, Barcelona, ES)

-

The Repugnant Stage
Eamonn Canniffe (Manchester School of Architecture, UK)

Piazza Ugo Dalló and S. Luigi Casiglione delle Stiviere, Mantova
Alberto Ferlenga (Naomi Architetti, IUAV, IT)

Debate moderated by Paulo Tormenta Pinto (ISCTE IUL, PT)

January 14, Saturday

Panel 3
10h00 to 13h00

Public Space
Nuno Crespo (UAL, PT)

The square of the Abbey of Santa Maria de Alcobaça Alcobaça
Gonçalo Sousa Byrne (FCTUC, PT)

-

The Ambivalence of the Public Square
Malcolm Miles (School of Architecture, Design & Environment)
University of Plymouth, UK)

Intervention in the neighborhood and Contumil Pius XII, Porto
Cristina Guedes (FAULP, PT) and Francisco Vieira de Campos (FAUP, PT)

Debate moderated by Ricardo Carvalho (Department of Architecture UAL PT)

Organised DA-UAL - CEACT ISCTE-IUL - CIAAM and dynamic CET

MA A+U Christmas Dinner

2011-12-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

The 2011-12 MA A+U cohort brought Michaelmas Term to a traditional close with a festive Christmas dinner at sandbar, a local venue created in 1996 by its patron 2011 MA A+U graduate Stephen Gingell and current MA A+U student Simon James Gonzalez. Many thanks to Damien Woolliscroft who acted as mein host for the evening.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS AROUND THE WORLD

Graduation

2011-12-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

Ketki Tendolkar, Supriya Pundlik and Natalie Macbride
with Eamonn Canniffe

The first trio of graduates of the 2010-11 MA A+U cohort received their degrees at a ceremony held in the Whitworth Hall at the University of Manchester on Monday 12 December. In his speech the Head of the School of Environment and Development Professor Simon Guy praised the excellent quality of the year's work, and wished them all well for their future careers in the UK and around the world.

Also on the dais and participating in the ceremony were Dr. Albena Yaneva, Head of the Manchester School of Architecture Professor Tom Jefferies, Dr. Leandro Minuchin and Dr. Isabelle Doucet

Alison and Peter Smithson: The Charged Void: Urbanism (2005)

2011-12-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

Discussed by Zoe Mason

Alison and Peter Smithson met at the school of architecture in Newcastle; they then married and set up their own practice in London after winning a competition to design Hunstanton School in (1950 - now a Grade II listed building). After completion of the school, the Smithson’s began to move away from modernism and establish ‘new brutalism’; a style evident in much of their own work, as well as the numerous projects that they have influenced. They disagreed with the ideals of Le Corbusier and the Athens charter; what they felt was lacking was identity, a concept discussed at length throughout the book. ‘The Charged Void: Urbanism’ is one of two volumes by Alison and Peter Smithson, published in 2005, four years after their first book ‘The Charged Void: Architecture’. The book is a series of case studies in roughly chronological order. Each project is thoroughly illustrated and described in relation to a number of themes, which form the 14 chapters of the book. Some of these themes are reiterated in the chapter titles, showing consistency to the principles followed by the Smithsons throughout their working life.

The first chapter considers house types and their context, a result of the studying the Valley Section created by Patrick Geddes; a biologist, sociologist and urban planner who was interested in the relationship between life and its environment. The Smithson’s used Geddes’ Valley Section to devise a range of house types to suit different communities; the hamlet, the village, the town and the city. These designs were hugely influential, with a number of housing schemes taking inspiration from them. The term ‘Cluster’ is used to avoid association with the concept of the ‘street’; a place that the Smithson’s felt was outdated, since the use of cars prevents the street from being a place for a resident to identify with their environment. This led to their project ‘Golden Lane’, designed in 1952, a multi level project with housing occupying one side of wide ‘streets in the sky’, designed to provide residents with direct pedestrian access to activities intended to give the community a strong sense of identity.

The Smithsons' house type designs appear in a number of urban planning schemes, most notably ‘Hamburg Steilshoop’. This project is discussed in one of two chapters entitled ‘Connection allows scatter’, along with ‘Berlin Haupstadt’. Both were large utopian masterplans for development, designed with similar basic concepts; allowance for maximum mobility, which was done by separating pedestrian and vehicular movement as much as possible with pedestrian ‘streets in the sky’; the creation of an inverted profile to allow for open space in the centre; allowance for growth and change and the inclusion of green space. Both schemes are designed with transportation networks forming the primary structure; connections and routes, whether vehicular or pedestrian, are the main focus for much of the Smithsons' urban planning.
‘Connection allows scatter’ is a concept that is also reflected in the projects studied in the chapter ‘Cohesion’; which concerns the ‘poetry of movement, the connection of the city’. In this chapter we see plans for a triangulated net of urban motorways, as well as ‘greenways and land castles’; intended to allow London to develop as a motorised city while maintaining safe, green pedestrian and cycle connections. Similar to the ‘Greenways’ of London are the ‘Wild Ways’ of Berlin; a leisure network of green routes created using the disused railways in Berlin. Alison and Peter Smithson also briefly introduce their ‘ideal city’ as an infrastructure of motorways connecting scattered points of intensity which are three miles apart; the ‘3 mile measure’. These proposals are illustrative of a recurring concept in the book, ‘Pavilion and Route’. The Smithson’s idea was to separate the two, and allow them to develop independently.

A particularly interesting scheme which reflects many of the ideas already discussed is the Kuwait urban study; a project intended to give the city its own Arab identity, which they felt had been destroyed by fragmented Westernised development. The outcome was logical with interesting research and development, which resulted in the design of a low level ‘MAT’ building on stilts across the city. This ‘MAT’ building was to be divided on various gridlines to create a ‘Galleria’, which allowed for sight lines between the ‘fixes’ in the city; the mosques. The design was proposed to create shade across the city for freedom of pedestrian movement in the hot climate. Cars were to be separated from the pedestrian movement and lead to covered car parks, or into the multi-storey car park built along the boundary of the old city, where the earthen rampart once stood.

The book mostly consists of Urban Planning schemes which were designed but never built; however it does also cover the Smithsons' most successful built project, the Economist Building in London, a small cluster of towers with a public plaza (which is now also Grade II listed). This contrasts enormously with the failure of another of their built projects, ‘Robin Hood Gardens’; a housing estate in London built around a central green mound referred to as the ‘stress free zone’, which was to be overlooked by the surrounding flats and their ‘streets in the sky’. This building was a physical representation of the Smithsons' ideals of community, an arena for social interaction with visual and physical connections encouraging expression of identity; but in reality it was vandalised and neglected by its unhappy residents. The project (but not its failures) is discussed briefly in the context of ‘Holes in the cities’.

The book is concluded with a range of much smaller design projects such as the Yellow lookout; a small installation intended to be one of many ‘Signals’; or the leafy arbours over the Verbindungskanal in Berlin, designed as a ‘Minimal Intervention’. These smaller projects perhaps show the damage that the failure of Robin Hood Gardens did to their reputation, which never fully recovered.

Flaminio Film and Book Launch

2011-12-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

Recent MA A+U graduate Kathryn Timmins will be holding a book launch and showing her project film on the Flaminio quarter in Rome at 7.00 pm on Wednesday 7 December in The Castle Hotel, Oldham Street, Manchester.

You can see her film here

You can follow her tumblr on the project here

Interim Review

2011-12-01T12:21:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday 29 November MA A+U held an interim review for full and part time students, a chance to discover to what extent they were still Lost in Space. Guest critics at this event were Isabel Britch (Architects Britch), Gavin Elliott (BDP) and Steve Parnell who contributes regularly to the architectural press.

Camillo Sitte: City Building According To Artistic Principles (1889)

2011-11-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Jack Penford Baker

INTRODUCTION

Written in 1889, Camillo Sitte’s book City Building According to Artistic Principles, is seen as the first publication to discuss the concept of Urban Planning. Cited still to this day, his critical analysis of the then modern planning principles and historical precedents paved the way for a new breed of theoretical practitioners in the art of Urbanism.

The book informally breaks down into three apparent sections. Initially Sitte outlines and documents what he perceives to be worthwhile paradigms of historical public spaces. Next he looks to the present, and systematically reveals the failures of the then modern city planning principals before finally outlining a set of solutions, presented in the form of a case study of Vienna’s own plazas, compiling the first significant documentation on what is now a global practice; Urbanism.

_PAST

The early parts of the book look towards the analysis of Sitte’s depiction of successful urban space. Through decades of travelling across Italy, Germany and other central European countries he discovered what he understood to be the epitome of city planning. Italian cities with Roman and Medieval influences portrayed Sittes’s ideology, an ideology that looked at the personal experience of individuals within the spaces of the city, not of the city as a machine. To him Roman spaces worked and still work, and it is with the past’s understanding of urban space that is fundamental in the understanding of the problem with modern city planning.

Piazza Della Signoria in Firenze, Italy, displays a crucial element of piazza design. Within the square Michelangelo created the infamous statue of David, originally planned to sit upon the cathedral, Michelangelo argued for it to be positioned in the square. Instead of positioning it in the centre for all to experience, Michelangelo insisted for it to sit adjacent to the palazzo entrance. A somewhat odd request, however the choice resembled an element of town planning that Sitte believes is crucial in modern times. By sitting the statue away from the central axis it removes any interference with circulation, and views to the entrances and buildings. The concept is taken further with the principle addressed to the positioning of churches. As an Englishman, one would always assume that churches be isolated and monumental in their context. However Sitte believes that churches within a square should sit not in isolation, rather on the contrary, as part of the perimeter. By referencing Rome he outlines how some 6 out of 255 churches sit on their own, a striking difference. “That the center of plazas be kept free”.
He further progresses to outline other key principles of ancient urban spaces that he believes have been lost in modern planning. With his reiterated reinforcing of the pedestrians experience as the true factor of success, Sitte states how the design of streets in successful precedents always revolves around that of the experience. Their designs follow key formulas, for example he believes that all entrances views into a plaza should not infringe on each other, and should enter from an obscure angle. Other such rules relate to the dimensions of the space, for example the squares width must be greater than that of the focal building’s height, but not be anymore than twice its size in order to create a welcoming space.
Upon all of the guidelines that Sitte mentions through the use of precedents, he emphasises the natural growth of such squares, and the passing of time as a fundamental key to generating the ideal plaza. A natural selection, whereupon cities develop and through time the failing are removed and the successful remain.

_PRESENT

Sitte believed that the approach of the then current town planners was a problem. To him the key shift in modern city planning was from an Artistic led ideology to that of a Service led, technocratic thought of mind. A city designed for machines, not for human beings.
The grid represented a critical failure in town planning. Sitte thought that the use of a grid led to inefficiency and hierarchically placed a critical element of town planning at the bottom of the list, public open space. The ‘grid’ is a service orientated approach. It concentrates on plumbing, hygiene, and the vehicle as the important elements, the public are seen more of a secondary if not tertiary component of the city. The ‘grid’ behaves in plan, but not section. It does not deal too well with difficult topography and land formation. The result leads to unused, unwanted space in the city that is normally deemed as suitable public open space. This idea frustrated Sitte, where the open space does not derive from anything, other than the offcuts, those irregular elements inappropriate for the built form. The open spaces should be around the activity, as in medieval squares, next to public buildings / markets / theatres. People flock to activity, the ‘grid’ eliminates activity.
Artistic principles were missing. It is those principles that generate a greater experience for the pedestrian and lead to the success of open spaces within cities. Sitte saw that the life of the common people has, for centuries, been steadily withdrawing from public squares, especially so in recent times. The lack of art acted as a catalyst for the transformation of the city into a machine.
Sitte saw the importance of the relationship between class and the public space. He outlined that the wealthy will always have other experiences driven by economy, the theatre and concerts for example, regardless of open space. Whereas the lower classes are affected significantly by those open spaces, ungoverned by their wealth. It is the parceling of plots, purely for economical considerations, that has become a problem in modern society and city planning. Sitte believed that the participation of art above all else affected those within a space.

_SOLUTION

Camillo Sitte concludes the book with his methods put into practice. Using the backdrop of his home city of Vienna, he adapts several existing spaces within the city to correspond to his beliefs. The Votive Church in Vienna sits isolated on it’s own, a characteristic deemed unsuccessful. He chooses to populate the plaza that envelops this extraordinary building. The building looks to create a series of smaller openings, looking to emphasise specific façades of the grand church, and concluding by manifesting itself into a comfortable experience for those that visit.
His ‘Artistic Principles’ do not take that of a rudimentary lateral form. There is no list of rules to follow, on the contrary, Sitte’s book, for all of it’s accounts of modern problems, is rather chivalrous to the current state. For all the magnitude his practice today has become, he study was one of modesty. His work is that of the ‘Human Condition’, it utlises the terminology and practice of what we know perceive as Town Planning, to improve the urban form in which he lived. Using the backdrop of his home city of Vienna, he adapts several existing spaces within the city to correspond to his beliefs. The Votive Church in Vienna sits isolated on its own, a characteristic deemed unsuccessful. He chooses to populate the plaza that envelops this extraordinary building. The building looks to create a series of smaller openings, looking to emphasise specific façades of the grand church, and concluding by manifesting itself into a comfortable experience for those that visit.
His ‘Artistic Principles’ do not take that of a rudimentary lateral form. There is no list of rules to follow, on the contrary, Sitte’s book, for all of its accounts of modern problems, is rather chivalrous to the current state. For all the magnitude his practice today has become, the study was one of modesty. His work is that of the ‘Human Condition’, it utlises the terminology and practice of what we now perceive as Town Planning, to improve the urban form in which he lived.

MARC Conference: Multi-Faith Spaces - Symptoms and Agents of Religious and Social Change

2011-11-26T04:18:00.000-08:00

Registration has now opened for the forthcoming conference, eponymously titled: Multi-Faith Spaces: Symptoms & Agents of Religious & Social Change, organised by the Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC). This two day event will bring together a wide range of contributions; from academics, policy experts, architects, designers, theologians, chaplains, and facilities managers. The conference will focus very specifically upon the materiality of multi-faith space – the shared places, buildings, rooms and locations within which dialogue, worship and faith related practice are increasingly taking place.

Increasingly, both public and private organisations are attempting to accommodate religious diversity via the provision of multi-faith spaces (MFS). Some are small and mono-functional (located in airports, universities, hospitals, shopping malls, etc); others take the form of dedicated buildings or complexes, where different religions inhabit and utilise their own sacred space(s), whilst sharing collective ‘secular’ facilities. Here individuals can, notionally, come together to pray, relax, discuss and learn.

Date: 21-22 March 2012

Location: The conference will be held at St Peter's House Chaplaincy & Church (Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester. M13 9GH).

Further details are available from the project website

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935'

2011-11-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935

Royal Academy of Arts, London until 22 January 2012

This exhibition examines Russian avant-garde architecture made during a brief but intense period of design and construction that took place from c.1922 to 1935. Fired by the Constructivist art that emerged in Russia from c.1915, architects transformed this radical artistic language into three dimensions, creating structures whose innovative style embodied the energy and optimism of the new Soviet Socialist state.

Exhibition website

A 1:40 scale recreation of Vladimir Tatlin's 1919 Monument to the Third International is displayed in the courtyard of Burlington House

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Political Textures of the City'

2011-11-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

Political Textures of the City
A Workshop on Word and Bricks in the Global South
Wednesday 23 November 2011

10.00am - 6.00pm
Room 1.69/1.70, Humanities Bridgeford Street Building University of Manchester

Keynote Speaker: Professor Matthew Gandy (UCL)

This interdisciplinary workshop will debate the production of material landscapes as political actions, referring to spatial tactics, architectural and material interventions, and the reassembling of urban imaginaries. Cities of the global south, characterised by acute inequalities, expansive popular urban mobilisations and frequently precarious and inequitable state policies, are particularly fertile spaces for discussing such territorial politics.

We welcome attendees from all disciplines. Places are limited, however, so if you would like to attend please send an email to Dr. James Scorer james.scorer@manchester.ac.uk. Places will be allocated on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Thomas Mawson and Bela Rerrich'

2011-11-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

Dr. Luca Csepely-Knorr (Manchester School of Architecture)
will be speaking on

'URBAN DESIGN AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN THE UK AND HUNGARY: THOMAS MAWSON AND BELA RERRICH'

as part of the prestigious seminar series on The History of Gardens and Landscapes at the Institute of Historical Research Senate House University of London Friday 18 November 5.30pm in the Court Room, South Block (First Floor).

Dr. Csepely-Knorr was the recipient of the 2010 RIBA Goldfinger Scholarship

Raymond Unwin: Town Planning in Practice (1909)

2011-11-14T02:19:00.000-08:00

Raymond Unwin's pioneering book in a précis by Ahlam Sharif

Sir Raymond Unwin lived between 1863 and 1940. He worked with his brother-in-law, Barry Parker and together they formed “First Garden City Ltd” in 1903, after which they were appointed architects of 16 km² of land outside Hitchin, purchased for designing a new garden suburb, Letchworth Garden City. Unwin was then asked to design Hampstead Garden Suburb in 1905, where he utilized the planning principles used at Letchworth. In 1906, he moved from Letchworth and resided in Hampstead and in 1909, five years after the Garden city at Letchworth was completed, he wrote his book of guidance, “Town Planning in Practice”.

Unwin started his book by mentioning the problem of the nineteenth century in England, which witnessed an exceedingly rapid growth, not allowing much time for town planning. This was accompanied by the decision on land usage being made by individuals on economic bases. The result of that was the extensive need for town planning. Although Building bye-laws laid a good foundation for healthy conditions of living, they lacked certain amenities such as art and beauty. It is important to attach art and beauty to town planning, which are expressions of community needs, life and aspirations. Studying old towns is useful for town planning because they provide good examples for works which were well done and visually successful. This study might help us to judge but not to copy what is likely to lead to the best outcomes.
Unwin mentioned individuality as a quality that characterizes and distinguishes each town from the other and provided examples of historic and even prehistoric cities to prove the existence and development of town planning throughout history.

After the nineteenth century, two schools of town planning were developed; the regular or the formal type and the irregular or the informal one, each side having its characteristics and arguments. Both of them had some results of marked beauty that highlighted the necessity of rethinking a combination and balance between them to work in a spirit of appreciation of the informal nature as well as the beauty of the formal human design. Unwin argued that in town planning, the planner needs to understand the beauty of old cities but also the changing conditions of today to ensure his or her design is realistic. They should also consider the requirements of the inhabitants and the circumstances of the site.

As the designer is responsible to find artistic and practical expressions for the requirements and tendencies of the town, without imposing a preconceived idea of his own, a survey is needed to collect and analyze as much information as possible that helps him/ her to have an image in mind of the town before being drawn on paper. This includes the collection of information from different parties, the interpretation of such information and the visualization of the site.

Unwin then discussed the main elements that shape the largely conceived framework of a town which he preferred to be of a size that introduces a sense of scale and proportion in relation with other parts. Those elements include the boundaries and approaches, the centers and the main roads. In order to study each element, he returned to the old towns as good examples that lead us to think of the importance and beauty of such elements, not by copying them but by using their ideas in modern shapes and requirements.
He discussed the main roads as highways for traffic and sites for buildings and emphasized considering them in relation to both these functions and in order of their relative importance. In his point of view, while the curved road is less monotonous and provides ever-changing direction and views, the straight road - besides being more comfortable for traffic - still has the ability to be beautified by either letting it lead to an important element or beautifying its sides by trees or by breaking the lines. Trees and grass can form natural decorations for streets and places forming avenues and adding further elements of beauty. While considering road treatments, street junctions are of extreme importance, as upon them much of the effect of the town depends. This entails trying to secure a terminal to the street picture, enclosure, easy line to traffic and maybe an open view from the building down the road.
After studying town planning, which focused on the general convenience of the town and the arrangement of the main roads, Unwin moved to study site planning as a smaller scale that considers the arrangement of buildings and the development of the site, and within that Unwin mentioned the relation with town planning and emphasized the required alignment between both. He also mentioned most of the treatments, which he applied earlier to town planning, as they were applicable to site planning.

In site planning, the residential roads, plots and the placing of buildings are of importance where Unwin provided different treatments and details, which mostly were applied in Letchworth Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb. His aim was to show how to beautify sites while providing the practical best advantage for inhabitants’ requirements, the local conditions of the site and the collective needs. He provided multiple examples of how to provide a variety of treatments for the street junction and residential building groups around green areas and subsidiary roads; among those treatments he emphasized the necessity of securing a combination and a balance between a sense of enclosure and an extended outlook.
Unwin then moved on to discuss the difference between suburbs in the past and his current time with regards to variety and homogeneity. In his view, earlier suburbs had more homogeneity in material amongst their buildings mixed with a variety in colors that made them distinct. This was later disrupted by the use of cheap rail transport that mixed different building material brought from outside the suburbs.
Setting out from the notion that city identity reflects its people, Unwin believed that the architect needed to plan the site based on the needs and requirements of its residents and by creating relations between groups of buildings. He argued that better development of sites would be done if they were owned by smaller bodies (neither the government nor individuals), as they will focus on building communities rather than focus on the economic aspects of planning.
Unwin concluded by discussing the building bye-laws in England, where he saw that some of such bye-laws were arbitrarily developed and resulted in what he called “bye-law architecture”, which was distorted in form. In his view, to develop realistic building bye-laws, they need to be discussed with a number of concerned parties before they are finalized.

MA A+U in Lisbon

2011-11-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

Several MA A+U students joined MMU Interior Design students for their fieldtrip to Lisbon this week. Here Wanxin Wu and Ahlam Sharif are seen at the workshop introduction. The fieldtrip tumblr is here.

Lost Industrial Manchester

2011-11-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

_LOST_INDUSTRIAL_MANCHESTER from Jack Penford Baker on Vimeo.

MA A+U student Jack Penford Baker has made this short film for his 'Lost in Space' project. You can follow his work via his tumblr which is linked in the sidebar.

PUBLIC SPACE - the square in the contemporary city - Lisbon 13-14 January 2012

2011-11-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Department of Architecture of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa will be hosting an International Symposium on the theme PUBLIC SPACE:”THE SQUARE IN THE CONTEMPORARY CITY” on 13-14 January 2012.
The aims are to celebrate the square as a public space of excellence and understand its value in the contemporary city.

The organisers, who include Dean Flavio Barbini can be contacted at dp.arq@universade-autonoma.pt

Eamonn Canniffe has been invited to deliver a keynote paper at this symposium.
Other speakers include Alberto Ferlenga and Gonçalo Sousa Byrne.

Tumblin' Twice

2011-11-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

MA A+U students Damien Woolliscroft (above) and Jack Penford Baker (below) have both started tumblrs to document their progress during the academic year. Follow their work from the links in the sidebar.

Architecture+Urbanism recommends "Richard W. Hayes - Agency and Activism : The Yale Building Project"

2011-10-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Richard W. Hayes will be discussing his recent book The Yale Building Project: The First Forty Years as part of the MARC lecture series

Date 1 November 2011 2-4 pm
Venue Coupland 1 Pear Lecture Theatre University of Manchester

In the video below Mr. Hayes discusses the book at The Architecture Foundation

Agency and Activism: The Yale Building Project from The Architecture Foundation on Vimeo.

Useless in Lisbon

2011-10-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

A group of MA A+U students will be visiting Lisbon in November, with other students from Manchester School of Art, to participate in a workshop for this autumn's design biennale. Useless is the proposed theme for EXD’11, the international biennale dedicated to design, architecture and creativity. The programme seeks to provide insight and incentive, challenging the audience to discuss and reflect on concepts and preconceptions connected to use and its absence. The theme is provocative and stirring and leads to concrete issues: questioning creative production and consumption from the point of view of usefulness, function and use of resources to answer problems; putting the production process within a framework of contemporary ethical and aesthetical concepts, in an increasingly global world. Likewise, Useless can inspire a more conceptual and symbolic reflection on the importance of things like beauty, dream and invention.

The 6th edition of the Biennale brings to Lisbon some of the most thought-provoking leading figures in graphic design, product design, social design and architecture, among others. The Portuguese capital will once again become the setting for an international multidisciplinary platform where curators propose new, bespoke content in the sphere of design culture and contemporary creativity. Mixing academic theorists and specialist practitioners, EXD addresses not only the creative community but also the audience at large.

While in Lisbon the students have also been charged with scoping out potential speakers for the third MA A+U Symposium due to be held in the spring of 2012.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends "Mario Carpo - The Alphabet and the Algorithm"

2011-10-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

As part of the Manchester Architecture Research Centre Autumn Lecture Series Professor Mario Carpo will be talking about his research and his recent book The Alphabet and the Algorithm.

Date 2-4 pm Monday 24 October
Venue Coupland 1 Pear Lecture Theatre University of Manchester

Here he talks about his recent research

Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by IKKM.

Corridor Manchester Design Competition

2011-10-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

Setting an Agenda for Future Design Proposals for Oxford Road

This is a design competition for collaborating teams of MA students, and professionals to develop innovative and deliverable design proposals for two problem sites on Oxford Road.
Premise –
• Decisions on funding for the bus corridor in Oxford Road will be made in the near future
• Once the decisions are made there is likely to be a tight timetable for delivery and little time for reflection on options for difficult sites.
• There are two such difficult sites that need resolution if Oxford Road is to fulfil its potential.

o the Underpass under the Mancunian Way
o the Gateway area of confused pedestrian walkways, entrances and cycleways between Whitworth Park and Contact Theatre and including the pedestrian walkways both sides of Oxford Road, the entrances to Whitworth Park, the Whitworth Art Gallery, the new Eye Hospital Development and Contact Theatre, and the area in front of the existing shopping parade on Western side of Oxford Road between Denmark Street and Contact Theatre.

• Both of these sites are opinion forming entrance nodes on what should be one of the primary cultural destinations within Manchester.
• At present neither is living up to its potential.
• People are not encouraged to explore.
• The perception is that the area between these nodes is only offering local services rather than hosting such important learning and cultural resources :

Facilitating free and fluid movement towards and between all venues and attractions is a vital part of enabling the Corridor to fulfil its potential.
Once funding decisions are made there may well be an urgent rush to get finance committed and spent and opportunities for innovation may well be lost, hence our interest in progressing proposals now.

Running the City

2011-10-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

New MA A+U student Pablo Estafanell has been running along the Rochdale Canal scoping out his design project

Beit Scholar Nicholson Kumwenda

2011-10-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

One especially welcome new member of the 2011 MA A+U cohort is Nicholson Kumwenda who holds a Beit Scholarship. Nicholson studied previously at the University of Malawi and will be concentrating on issues of sustainability while at the msa. His scholarship was awarded by The Beit Trust.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends "Cities in Transformation ─ Research & Design"

2011-10-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

Cities in Transformation ─ Research & Design
Ideas, Methods, Techniques, Tools, Case Studies

EAAE/ARCC Conference on Architectural Research

Milano 7-12 June 2012 - Politecnico di Milano

The European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE) and the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) are holding their joint 2012 Architectural Research Conference Cities in transformation Research and Design in Milano, Italy.

Politecnico di Milano (University established in 1863) welcomes researchers, educators, practitioners and scholars in architecture, planning and landscape to become involved.

The Conference is to serve as a forum for the dissemination and discussion of architectural research issues, concerns, findings, approaches, philosophies, and potentials arising from the rich and complex themes related to urban Transformations.

Conference website

Architecture + Urbanism recommends '61/11 Continuous Collective'

2011-10-06T00:52:00.000-07:00

BDP's "Continuous Collective" fiftieth anniversary exhibition describes the practice’s ethos and early work, moving on to displaying its top projects over the last 15 years in a series of models, and features its approach to interdisciplinary design and its present and future projects internationally. It will be on show at the CUBE Gallery in Manchester from 8 October to 5 November.

The MA A+U degree show continues on exhibition in the adjacent RIBAhub until October 14.

The BDP exhibition will transfer to the Minster in Preston from 8-20 November - the city where the practice was founded and where they designed the iconic Preston Bus Station

MA Architecture + Urbanism Colloquium 2011

2011-10-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

You are cordially invited to a celebration of the work of the MA Architecture + Urbanism graduating cohort of 2011 on the afternoon of
Thursday 6 October in RIBA hub

2.00 Luke Butcher MA
2.30 Preeya Vadgama MA
3.00 Carrie Bayley MA
3.30 Jack O' Reilly MA
4.00 Kathryn Timmins MA

The MA Show 2011 continues on exhibition until October 14

On with the show ...

2011-09-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

You are cordially invited to the exhibition of the work of our new MA graduates at RIBAhub Manchester. The exhibition features the work of

Robert Aspray MA
Carrie Bayley MA with Distinction
Neven Buric MA
Luke Butcher MA with Distinction
Stephen Gingell MA
Christina Gregoriou MA
Rongxiao Han MA
Angad Kasliwal MA
Anastassia Kolpokova MA
Jonas Komka MA
Meliz Kusadali MA
Natalie Macbride MA
Laleh Mohammad Zadeh Faida Pour MA
Jack O'Reilly MA with Distinction
Supriya Pundlik MA
Ketkibharat Tendolkar MA
Kathryn Timmins MA with Distinction
Preeya Vadgama MA with Distinction
Chen Xu MA

and runs between 29 September and 14 October. There will be an open evening on Tuesday 4 October at RIBAhub and the exhibition is a part of the MMU Faculty of Art and Design MA Show 2011

Lost in space

2011-09-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

The new 2011 cohort for MA A+U begin their year immersing themselves in the forgotten and forgettable urban spaces of Manchester. With the recent award of the Carbuncle Cup to Salford's very own MediaCityUK now is the time to propose new configurations for the public realm.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Forgotten Spaces Sheffield'

2011-09-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

All that media fuss about stars of 'The Wire' reunited in Othello at The Crucible Sheffield shouldn't distract from the exhibition of shortlisted entries for the recent Forgotten Spaces Sheffield competition also on display in the theatre between 15 September and 8 October. Entries exhibited include Pigs Bees and Bells by the equally reunited 'retired group' of David Britch, Eamonn Canniffe and Stephen Martlew.

A press release from competition and exhibition organisers Sheffield Hallam University is available here

MA Architecture + Urbanism 2011 Degree Show

2011-09-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

With the examination process over for another year (and with an 100% success rate) the new graduates of the MA A+U course will be exhibiting their work at RIBA Hub Manchester between 29 September - 14 October. There will be an open evening on Tuesday October 4.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990'

2011-09-01T04:16:00.000-07:00

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990

at the Victoria and Albert Museum London 23 September 2011- 15 January 2012

Of all movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial. This era defies definition, but it is a perfect subject for an exhibition. Postmodernism was an unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical. It was visually thrilling, a multifaceted style that ranged from the colourful to the ruinous, the ludicrous to the luxurious.

What they all had in common was a drastic departure from modernism’s utopian visions, which had been based on clarity and simplicity. The modernists wanted to open a window onto a new world. Postmodernism, by contrast, was more like a broken mirror, a reflecting surface made of many fragments. Its key principles were complexity and contradiction. It was meant to resist authority, yet over the course of two decades, from about 1970 to 1990, it became enmeshed in the very circuits of money and influence that it had initially sought to dismantle.

Postmodernism shattered established ideas about style. It brought a radical freedom to art and design, through gestures that were often funny, sometimes confrontational and occasionally absurd. Most of all, postmodernism brought a new self-awareness about style itself.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'Designing Place'

2011-08-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

Designing Place - International Urban Design Conference

5th & 6th April 2012

Designing Place is an International Urban Design Conference organised by the Urban Design Research Group at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Nottingham.

Over the past twenty years, place has emerged as the key concept for urban design. The concept of place is loosely defined as the interrelationship between the formal and spatial organisation of buildings, groups of buildings, streets, spaces and landscapes; the activities taking place within it and the meaning associated with it. The agency assigned to each of these components of place varies according to different traditions of thought and design theory. By definition, the triad of space, activity and meaning cannot be captured in a fixed theoretical framework.

The conference seeks to revisit and clarify place as a concept for current urban design theory and practice. It invites papers that examine the definition, scope and instrumentality of place as a tool for design.

Keynote Speakers:

Amanda Reynolds, Chair of the Urban Design Group

Ali Madanipour, Professor of Urban Design, Newcastle University

Themes:

• Theoretical definitions and the conceptual components of place

• Methodological studies that suggest a form of analysis or pedagogy

• Case studies that examine the specificities of place

Contributions will be organised in thematic sessions. Selected texts will be published in an accompanying book.

Submissions:

Abstracts should not be longer than 400 words, and sent by e-mail as Word (doc) or Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files to katharina.borsi@nottingham.ac.uk by 30th September 2011. Abstract proposals will be reviewed by the conference advisory board. Abstracts need to indicate:

Paper Title
Name, Surname and Affiliation of all authors
150 words biography of all authors
Email address for corresponding author
Keywords

Architecture + Urbanism recommends 'City Futures: New Perspectives on Placemaking'

2011-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sheffield Hallam University is hosting a conference on 22 September 2011 entitled

City Futures: New Perspectives on Placemaking

The conference is being held in conjunction with the award ceremony for the RIBA Forgotten Spaces of Sheffield competition

Rome: Observing Flaminio

2011-07-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

MA A+U student Kathryn Timmins has produced a new film as a part of her thesis study. This is an experiment to see how we can bridge the gap between the global building and the local area and consequently, create a missing relationship between the local indigenous people and global tourists who visit Zaha Hadid's MAXXI.

MAXXI Gallery Rome: Global V Local from Kathryn Timmins on Vimeo.

Graduation

2011-07-13T04:57:00.000-07:00

MA A+U graduates Parvinder Marwaha and Peteris Kokins received their degrees from the Chancellor of the University of Manchester Tom Bloxham MBE at a degree ceremony on Monday 11 July. Parvinder and Peteris were awarded Bachelor of Architecture degrees also.

Home from home

2011-06-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

During the interregnum following the manchester school of architecture's departure from its former home (an event forever to be known to history as 'The Defenestration of Chatham'), and before our temporary relocation to the John Dalton Shed MA A+U will be meeting in the new RIBA Hub on Portland Street Manchester. Come along and see what we are up to on 30 June, and the following Thursdays in July.

All Publicity is Good Publicity

2011-06-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

MA A+U made it into The Architects' Journal last week (9 June 2011 page 45)

The Symposium documentary footage will appear on the GET OVER IT! blog shortly but meanwhile here is the trailer and the organisers' report

In a time of economic austerity, political uncertainty and social crisis, how can a city move forward? GET OVER IT! brought together a range of speakers from diverse disciplines to investigate methods for extracting potential from the current recession. Instigated by the MA Architecture and Urbanism students at the Manchester School of Architecture, the aim of the symposium was to address new creative opportunities for the built environment. Architecture, technology, sociology, politics, economics, culture and education all have a role to play in the reconfiguration of the city and speakers were invited to discuss these possibilities.

The second of these annual symposia was held on 12 May at sandbar in Manchester, a well known gathering place for academics and ‘creatives’, the use of which was kindly donated by MA A+U student Stephen Gingell.

Author and journalist Owen Hatherley chaired the event and began the day with an outline of the social and economic context of the last few years, including the well-documented regeneration efforts in Manchester.

The first speaker was Dr. Mark Jayne, an urban geographer at the University of Manchester. Appropriately enough given the venue, Mark's presentation explored the relationship between drink and British urban life, representing what is often portrayed by the media to be a problematic activity instead as one through which life is enjoyed as a communal activity in the public sphere.

The second presentation of the day was by Mark Lemanski of muf architects who discussed a number of the practice’s public realm projects in London including their award-winning Barking Town Square. He gave particular attention to the opportunities available to architects through engagement with local communities but also stressed that with these opportunities came particular responsibilities. With a certain amount of gallows humour, comic interventions from George Osborne were introduced into the presentation to highlight the difficulties creative groups face in providing anything for the communities that they seek to serve.

A brief debate with interventions from the floor preceded lunch. Hatherley and Lemanski fielded questions from the audience, covering the place of branding in design, nostalgia, localism, self-censorship by architects and how they can challenge stereotypes and perceptions of public space.

After lunch Rose Marley spoke about The Sharp Project in Manchester, a large scale digital facility intended both to help regenerate New East Manchester and provide for the creative digital industry in the wider city. Rose claimed the creatives view that “there are always opportunities in difficult situations” and The Sharp Project’s “geekonomics” approach provided the right environment. This presentation raised the issue of new educational and employment patterns, which would create profound change in the life prospects of some of Manchester's most marginalised citizens.

Mid afternoon was anchored by Geoff Denton of Stockholm-based White Architects who talked about their competition-winning project for Salford House 4 Life. Against the trend of anonymous apartment blocks the project proposes low-rise, robust family housing around communal spaces which offer a utopian prospect for future urban wellbeing. The project is an explicit rejection of greedy economic housing models visible on adjacent sites where new forms of anti social behaviour have already been fostered. He stressed the importance of context in the use of materials, the longevity of the typology and the sustainability of the lifestyle in a non-precious framework.

The day was concluded by Elizabeth Varley from techhub an enterprise at the heart of 'Silicon Roundabout' who emphasised the global potential of the digital economy in turning the urban situation around. She discussed the importance of collaborative spaces and the need for openness in future, flexible, work environments. Social networking, viewed as a facilitator and enabler by Varley, will be very important if companies are to embrace “openness and collaboration”.

The day brought together an eclectic and apparently random mix of people but out of that shared experience and brainstorming new connections were forged. It provided a potential point of departure for new research ideas about the city. As Mark Lemanski pointed out, while ‘pop-ups’ do provide encouragement, the temporary uses that have filled the debate in recent years offer only limited potential to overturn the situation long term. At this point in the economic cycle when London is already picking up where it left off in 2007 Manchester continues to be open for a variety of innovative possibilities. Despite the economic power of the south east this event proved that regional centres have a great deal of expertise to offer in the field of creative regeneration … so … GET OVER IT!

Luke Butcher, Jack O’Reilly, Matthew Pilling, Preeya Vadgama, Supriya Pundlik,Ketki Tendolkar, Angad Kasliwal, Natalie MacBride, Christina Gregoriou, Meliz Kusadali, Charlotte Gildart-Butler, Rongxiao Han, Laleh M.Fadaipour, Chen Xu, Carrie Bayley, Kathryn Timmins, Stephen Gingell, Jonas Komka, Anastassia Kolpakova, Angela Heaney, Rob Aspray
MA A+U 2011

Exposure

2011-06-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

As a contribution to the msa degree show for b.a. and b.arch degrees ma a+u will be showing some footage from the current academic year in 712 Chatham on the open evening 17 June. Everyone is welcome to join us getting over it.

RIBA Building Futures Debate 'The Future for Architects?'

2011-06-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

MA A+U student Luke Butcher is participating in this forthcoming event

RIBA Building Futures Debate
22nd June, 6.30pm, RIBA Hub Manchester

Building Futures presents a panel debate to discuss its latest publication ‘The Future for Architects?’ - a report that explores the future role of architects. The debate will explore the ideas, vision and services of practitioners in the context of a rapidly changing profession, asking - who will design our buildings in 2025; what roles will those trained in architecture be doing then and how will architectural practice have changed as a result?

This event is FREE but booking is essential. To reserve your place, email: BuildingFutures@inst.riba.org

Featuring:
Dickon Robinson – Chair, Building Futures
Gavin Elliott – BDP
Cristina Cerulli – Studio Polpo
Ben Davies – The Neighbourhood
Luke Butcher – Student, Manchester School of Architecture
And others, tbc.

Architecture + Urbanism recommends: Stirling and the North

2011-06-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

At the time of his death in 1992, James Stirling was widely regarded as the leading architect of his generation, not just in Britain but worldwide. Born in Glasgow, he spent much of his childhood in Liverpool and trained at the Liverpool School of Architecture. The rich urban fabric of Liverpool and the North, combining industrial and vernacular buildings with some of Europe's grandest neoclassical monuments, exerted a powerful fascination for Stirling and had a profound influence on the rich architectural language that he was to develop.
Held in Stirling's only Liverpool building - Tate Liverpool, located in the Albert Dock - this panel discussion and debate will re-consider the role of the North in Stirling's development and oeuvre, from his thesis design for Newton Aycliffe to late projects like the Lowry at Salford.
Organised by RIBA NW in association with the University of Liverpool and Tate Liverpool, the event will be chaired by Mark Swenarton, James Stirling professor at Liverpool University.
Speakers:
Robert Maxwell (Emeritus Professor, Princeton University) - 'Stirling the Northerner'
Elain Harwood (English Heritage) - 'The Housing at Preston and Runcorn'
Brian Hatton (Liverpool John Moores University/Architectural Association) - 'Stirling as photographer of Liverpool'.

The event forms part of Architecture Festival 2011 and takes place on Saturday 25 June 2pm-4pm . Tickets cost £5/£3

A brief review of the current exhibition James Stirling: Notes form the Archive at Tate Britain appears here

Hepworth Wakefield

2011-05-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

MA A+U had an expedition to Wakefield yesterday to visit David Chipperfield's new gallery dedicated to the work of Barbara Hepworth. Despite the unpromising weather spirits were brightened by fleeting sunshine as we crossed the Pennines into Yorkshire. The new building, which features a cluster of top-lit and individually expressed galleries stands adjacent to a weir on the River Calder

Craig thought it was contextually contrasting in terms of location and materials

Natalie was reminded of the work of Tadao Ando

Bill appreciated the relationship with the water

Angad thought the reflective quality of of the water added to the monumentality of the gallery"s scale

Supriya liked the free flowing organisation of spaces, the big windows and top lighting in the galleries

Meliz thought the lighting system was very sophisticated

Chen liked the combination of blocks and the siting and connections across the water

Laleh liked the relationship established from the contemporary gallery with the medieval chantry chapel

Ketki preferred the subtlety of the circulation here to that of Zaha Hadid's MAXXI in Rome

Preeya liked the way the building sits on the site and the clean way it meets the water

Kathryn thought it was very welcoming and open

Luke was impressed with the complex and dynamic form of the building

Carrie thought the windows created interesting relationships with the gallery rooms

Christina thought the building was integrated well in its riverside context

Jack thought the bridge created a sense of journey across the different qualities of water

GET OVER IT! An MA A+U Symposium

2011-05-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

The second annual student-led MA A+U Symposium was held on 12 May at sandbar in Manchester. The venue was kindly donated by MA A+U student Stephen Gingell.

This year's theme concerned the ways by which British cities might overcome the current economic downturn and reinvent themselves.

The event was chaired by author and journalist Owen Hatherley who outlined the the social and economic context of the last few years before introducing the first speaker Dr. Mark Jayne, an urban geographer at the University of Manchester. Appropriately enough given the venue Mark's presentation was the relationship between drink and British urban life representing what is often problematic as a negative aspect of the contemporary condition as an activity through which social life is constructed.

The second presentation of the day was by Mark Lemanski of muf architects who discussed a number of the practices's public realm projects in London including their award-winning Barking Town Square.

A brief debate with interventions from the floor preceded lunch when entertainment was provided by MA A+U student Xu Chen at the sandbar's piano.

After lunch Rose Marley spoke about The Sharp Project in Manchester, a large scale digital facility intended to help regenerate New East Manchester. This presentation raised the issue of new educational and employment patterns which would create profound change in the life prospects of some of Manchester's most marginalised citizens.

Mid afternoon was anchored by Geoff Denton of Stockholm-based White Architects who talked about their competition winning project for Salford House 4 Life. Against the trend of anonymous apartment blocks the project proposes low-rise, robust family housing around communal spaces which offer a utopian prospect for future urban wellbeing.

The day was concluded by Elizabeth Varley from techhub an enterprise at the heart of 'Silicon Roundabout' who emphasised the global potential of the digital economy in turning the urban situation around.

The day provided a great opportunity for groups from different backgrounds and disciplines to debate the problems and possibilities of british cities in quite a tangible way. New connections were made and new ideas fostered ...

MA A+U Symposium preparations completed

2011-05-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

To register for the Symposium email kathryn.timmins@stu.mmu.ac.uk

Do architects have a role in shaping 21st century cities?

2011-05-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

MA A+U student Luke Butcher would like you to answer the above question? His survey is available on his blog

Symposium attire ...

2011-05-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

All welcome to this event - May 12 sandbar

GET OVER IT! MA A+U Symposium May 12 2011

2011-05-05T03:47:00.000-07:00

illustration: Salford House 4 Life winner White Architects, Stockholm

The schedule for the symposium has now been published on the GET OVER IT! blog

Schedule

10:00 START - INTRODUCTION by OWEN HATHERLEY

10:15 DR MARK JAYNE - University of Manchester

11:00 MARK LEMANSKI - MUF Architecture/art

12:00 DEBATE - THE PRESENT

13:00 LUNCH

14:00 WELCOME BACK by OWEN HATHERLEY

14:15 ROSE MARLEY - The Sharp Project

15:00 GEOFF DENTON - White Arkitekter

15:45 BREAK - Talk by Professor Tom Jeffries, head of Manchester School of Architecture talks about the new RIBA Hub

16:00 ELIZABETH VARLEY - TechHub

17:00 DEBATE - THE FUTURE

18:00 END

To register for this free event contact kathryn.timmins@stu.mmu.ac.uk

International Student Funding Opportunities

2011-04-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

Postgraduate VC International Scholarships MMU is delighted to be making available a number of scholarships - each to the value of £3,000 to overseas students who enrol on our full time postgraduate taught programmes. Who can apply? You can apply for an award if you: are an international student (classified as ‘overseas’ for tuition fee purposes) AND have an offer of a place on a postgraduate taught course at MMU for September 2011 entry or January 2012 entry AND are not currently registered on a postgraduate course at MMU How to apply Download the application form here and email your completed application to vcscholarships@mmu.ac.uk.

Deadline 30 June 2011

Albert Pope: Ladders (1996)

2011-04-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Ketki Tendolkar

THE PRIMACY OF SPACE
The contemporary city, the city that is, at this moment under construction, is invisible. But the contemporary city has not been forgotten or deliberately ignored as it has remained unseen. It is wisely said that “it is not the built form which characterizes the contemporary city, but the immense space over which the built form has little or no control”. There has always been a considerable doubt as to where an abstract urban form has ever existed. Hence the grid transformation has not only bought about the primacy of space, but a separate and distinct form of urban organisation which will be identified as ladder
THE OPEN CITY
The grid is assumed to have a formal simplicity. It is considered as a bureaucratic matrix, a network of territorial control or even a literal mesh of cage. It can be considered as a predictable as well as indeterminate, prescriptive as well as ambiguous. Hence a grid is considered as “strong as well as weak”. But it is seen that due to the urban pressure, the 20th century planners promoted the disappearance of the grid. The reformers defined the grid as an “ instrument of reductivity” of social organisation. But the analysis of the built form suggest that the link between the simplicity of the grid and complexity of the urban environment is beyond debate.
CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL GRID
The grid can be defined by the polarities of icon and apparatus, its order and complexities, strong and weak suggesting its two different organisational characteristic. Rosalind krauss’ defines both the grids with respect to LARGER SPATIAL FIELD.
The centrifugal grid shows an infinite and unlimited expansion in all the directions. It is basically termed as an open system and assumed to not be or have a form of itself. It has an explosive character. It is considered to be a fragment of an vast expansion and can never be understood entirely. According to krauss it is termed as a staircase to the universal.
On the other hand, centripetal grid is explained as a enclosed figure. The limits of this grids are known and has an implosive character. The main characteristic of this grid is that has boundries and has an symbolic form and hence is interpreted as a strong icon.
MANHATTEN 1811
In the 19th century , the characteristics of a lot of western cities were centrifugal organisation dominated. One of the finest example was the newyork city which showed urban transformation due to industrial development. Peter Marcus analysed the grid transformation and categorised it in the following
1.) Precapitalist city
2.) Laissez-faire capitalism
3.) Mature capitalism
URBAN TRANSITION
The city which we imagine today is an open city, but this city is out of synch. The gridded space which is assumed as centrifugal, is rather closed. Hence the centripetal urban grid would be reffered to as turning into something else. This something else would be reffered to as LADDERS – the centripetal reconstruction of the postwar city.
THE LADDER
After the 19th century city collapsed, the characteristics of the contemporary city began to emerge. Fragmented grid was produced which was was the residue of the spatial displacement. Due to the erosion a discontinuity of urban grid happens, hence an exterior condition is produced. In the ladder, certain characteristics of urban form exist, but the spatial qualities are different.
Lets take a demonstration:
When these 10 points are placed on a open grid, several routes can be worked out to interconnect each point. Multiple options are available. The grid opens out to a lot of possibilities of iternaries. But when the same 10 points are placed on a ladder, only one route works out which interconnect all the points. The ladder generates a feeling of closed system.
LINEAR CITY
The linear city occupies a significant position in the development of the modern city. The expansion of garden city was limited but the linear city was considered as open ended limitless expansion. Linear city can fall into two broad categories. First is the band type. This model was proposed by N.A.Miluten. he proposed 6 parallel zones along the river Volga. Each band had a functional criteria. But there was no connection between any of these 6 bands. Each band could expand individually. But the one proposed by ivan leonidov was addressed as an important model.
The second type was organised along a centralised hierarchical spine. The spine comprised of institutional buildings like schools, hospitals etc. Since the spine had a direct connection to the path of transportation, there was a scope of formation of new spines.
HILBERSEIMER
HILBERSEIMER can be called as the prime theorist of the ladder. He had a great deal of study on urban cell and its effect on mass deployment which led him to form the german zeilenban(row houses). But then in his new phase, he abandoned the cellular inscription with urban inscription having transparent skin structures in a series of parallel spines. He developed a configuration called “settlement unit” which later became the primary unit of all his urban proposals.
THE ELLIPSES
To distinguish the characteristics of the imploded space and relating it with the contemporary urban form, the space is termed as an ellipses. It is not caused due to delay or uneven development or fluctuations in land market value. It is a result of the centripetal development. Due to the formation of the elaborate skywalks and tunnels, a virtual second city is formed over and below the existing city. As the remapping of the city centre happens, the grid implodes and collapses into space and 2 conditions are formed : the ladder and the ellipses.
A SPATIAL DOMINANT
According to jamesons, postmodernism was not just a style, but an actual manifestation of economic development. It comprised of the binding of the superstructure with the infrastructure. He says it is the collapse of the temporal. According to him, when the modernisation succeeds in eliminating the premodern organisation, and only the modern exist, then it is already postmodernism.

THE CENTRIPETAL CITY
The centralised polynuclear expansion when first implemented was both innovative and traditional. But when this model started to fail, the city got trapped into a conflict where neither the traditional urban strategies could die, nor new urban strategies could emerge. These weak metropolitan form gives rise to ladder. It is important to understand how exactly the centripetal expansion happened. The replacement of the universal continumm by the binary inside/outside of centripetal development was the main reason for urban development.
CENTRALISED POLYNUCLEAR EXPANSION
The centralised polynuclear expansion was invented by Ebenezer howard aout a 100 years ago. This structure consist of a centralised core around which new nucliee gather in dispersed but centralised form. This is how the expansion happens. Although this model did not survive long, but it gave an idea of contemporary metropolitan organisation. Due to the weakning of the centralised polynuclear expansion, a polycentric mode started being accepted widely. But even these exurban nucliee failed giving a thought to find an alternative and stronger metropolitan model.
THE SPIRAL
IT IS QUITE INTERESTING TO THINK HOW THE METROPOLITAN would be, had it not been weakned by centripetal expansion. After the world war 2, the metropolitan masses became so problematic and dangerous, that it could no longer take a concrete form. The greater consequence of centripetal expansion was that it affected the dissappearence of an emmence metropolitan crowd.
From the figure, one can observe the pattern of movement through the space leading directly to the centre. This pattern traces the figure of a discrete spiral through a succession of overlaid uran armatures. The spiral begins with a primary urban freeway to the feeder to the collector to the development spine to driveway. Each segment devolves into the next smaller development. The path of the open grid is theoretically infinite in both the directions. Unlike the spiral, it can never have an endpoint. But a spiral is closed and singular and is obtained due to its form.
THE DISORGANISATION OF SPACE
The ease with which the critiques of the contemporary city are made are for the cities present condition and not the potential of its original form. Since there is always a dialectic between the urban form and space, the excessive degree of organisation in the enclave triggers an excessive degree of disorganisation in the residuum. Now the exurban disorganisation can be understood better when put in contrtast with a highly formed organisation of the enclave. It emerges not as an effect of forces surging out of control, but due to lack of structured organisation.
CONCLUSION
REYNER BANHAM once stated that “the second world war was fought to make the world safe for modernism. Modernism was nothing if not an historist reaction to culture of architecture. When oserved it can be seen that it had an autonomy to architectural artefact and to reveal its formal, cultural intentions. It had an ability to both, reference autonomous form and powerful historical moment. The unoccupied and the neglected space like the parking lots, undeveloped lands, buffer zones are considered as absences or empty centres, but truely speaking these are the spaces with a lot of potential.

Eric Mumford: The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism 1928-1960 (2002)

2011-03-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

Discussed by Matthew Pilling

It has already been shown that much of the CIAM approach to urbanism was derived from earlier planning concepts, Eric Mumford’s intent was to instead trace the development of CIAMs urbanistic discourse.

The main focus of the CIAM was to create an Avante-Garde within the newly emerging anti-traditionalist architecture of the early twentieth century. Instead of simply accepting or rejecting CIAMs polemics, Eric Mumford reveals how CIAM defined new and perhaps overly ambitious socially transformative roles for architects and architecture, by combining certain design strategies with a passionately held conviction that architecture should serve the many and not the few.

CIAM 1, 1928 - 1930 (Chateau of La Sarraz, Switzerland)

The first CIAM Congress was the result of efforts from several directions, most significantly including the international campaign in favor of Le Corbusier’s League of Nations design, and the Weissenhof meetings, involving members of the Berlin Ring and the Swiss Werkbund in 1927. From its inception, CIAM was conceived as an instrument of propaganda to advance the cause of the new architecture that was developing in Europe in the 1920’s.

Giedion the CIAM secretary wrote that the goals of CIAM were:

a) to formulate the contemporary program of architecture

b) to advocate the idea of modern architecture

c) to forcefully introduce this idea into technical, economic and social circles

d) to see to the resolution of architectural problems

The congress concluded that the future, whether as capitalist or a communist technocracy, was to be organized from above along the lines thought to be best for the general welfare of industrial societies everywhere.

CIAM 2, 1929 (Frankfurt, “Die Wohnung fur das Existenzminimum”)

The intent throughout Frankfurt was to demonstrate the use of assembly-line methods for socialist (or at least social democratic) ends. In the midst of this, the proposed second CIAM Congress was given the theme “the Minimum Subsistence Dwelling" the focus being on design solutions to the problem of high rents for low wage earners.

The organs of CIAM were defined as the “Congress” itself, the “General Assembly” that would meet every year or two, as called together by the president; and the CIRPAC, which had been proposed by Le Corbusier and created at La Sarraz. The CIRPAC members were to be called “Delegates,” with at least one from each CIAM national group. The CIRPAC was to plan each Congress and to carry out the decisions of the congress, though the later proved to be difficult.

CIAM 3, 1930: (Brussels “Rationelle Bebauungsweisen”)

The real theme of CIAM 3 was a discussion of Gropius’ question, “Low-, Mid- or High-Rise Building?” an investigation which paralleled Le Corbusiers views. Following findings from Bohemia and Kaufman however, Gropius and Giedion shifted the debate over building heights away from the strictly economic justifications toward the collective social and spiritual advantages of each type. So Groipius’ lecture “Low-, Mid- or High-Rise Building?” which could be considered the keynote address of the congress, began with the argument that reasoning in city planning should not be strictly economic but also should take into account “Psychological and Social Demands.”

The Functional City 1931 - 1939 - This was the most significant theoretical approach of CIAM, and began to dominate its discourse immediately following the Brussels Congress. The underlying concept was a simple one, Cornelius van Easteren asserted that “districts for the masses, with their high population densities, suffer the consequences of incorrect development.” He declared that the “many disadvantages” of these districts based on the mediaeval “block form of street walls and lot lines, were unnecessary.” The CIAM “Die Wohung fur das Existenzminimum” had demonstrated the fundamental importance of favorable solar orientation in low - cost apartments with their “intensely used rooms.” Consequently arguing that the best position for sunlight for a particular housing type should ensure the “direction of the whole apartment series.” He concluded that what are needed are not axial city plans, but new national development methods that could be extended to the planning of entire cities.

CIAM 4, 1933: (Athens: “The Functional City”)

Le Corbusier gave an address containing the most concise statement of his position on the idea of the Functional City. As he saw it, CIAM's task was to create forms, human truths and certainties, and to establish a prism to judge them. He insisted on the fundamental principle that urbanism was a three-dimensional science, and stressed that height was an important one of those dimensions. Through the bodily movement the three dimensions imply the notion of time, and our lives are regulated by the “solar regime” of twenty-four hours and the year, which “commands distances and heights.” The urbanist, he continued, must choose between two tendencies, to extend or to contract the city. If the latter was chosen, concrete and steel must be used to preserve the “essential joys” of the sky, trees and light. He emphasized that CIAMs judgements must be “Dwelling,” the first of a hierarchy of four functions; Dwelling, Work, Leisure and Circulation.

While the Garden City pattern satisfies the individual, he argued that it loses the advantages of collective organization. The Concentrated City, favored with modern techniques, assures the liberty of the individual within the housing fabric and organizes the collective life in relation to recreation.

After 1933 CIAM began to define itself as an international “building movement” with its own ideology of the Functional City. Rejected by both National and Socialism in Germany and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, the ideology was available to any modernizing “Authority” willing to risk its application.

CIAM 5, 1937: (Paris: “Logis et loisirs”)

Conditions for CIAM had changed dramatically for the worse since the first La Sarraz meeting eight years previously. National socialism had ended most of the new architectural directions in Germany, Le Corbusier had not been able to see his urbanistic ideas adapted in France, and the members who had gone to the Soviet Union in 1930 to apply CIAM methods there, were beginning to leave.

The program for CIAM 5 consisted of three talks, by Le Corbusier, on “Theoretical Solutions,” Sert, on “Application Case: Cities” and Szymon Syrkus, on “Application Case: Rural Areas.” The twenty other “Interventions and communications” at CIAM 5 were a mixture of reports by CIAM members and national groups, syndicalist friends of Le Corbusier, and other French political and intellectual figures.

CIAM 6, 1947: (Bridgewater, England: “Reunion Congress”)

MARs (Modern Architectural Research) after 1945 was a very different group than its prewar namesake. No longer a small Avante-Garde group, it had become a large club like institution with many prominent members well within the new mainstream of British Architecture and Town Planning. It was felt that MARs should not be primarily concerned with publicizing the principles of the ‘Athens Charter,‘ but should instead move on to examine “the impact of contemporary conditions upon architectural expression. This was proposed as a possible theme for the first congress to be held after the war.

At the Zurich CIRPAC meeting it was formerly declared that “the final aim of CIAM is to facilitate the practical application of its principles in each represented country,” to “give to communities a truly human aspect,” but added “we intend to enlarge the subject to include ideological and aesthetic problems.”

CIAM 7, 1949: (Bergamo, Italy)

In contrast to the ambitious hopes for CIAM expressed at Bridgewater, the Bargamo Congress revealed that CIAM was not going to regain its prewar elan as an avante-garde organization, owing to internal conflicts within.

Officially CIAM 7 issued a resolution, whose 7 points concerned:

1. The Dwelling, which should be orientated to the sun, quiet and efficiently organized

2. Laboratories for research in new construction techniques

3. Scale, which should always be indicated [on drawings]

4. Land-use Legislation

5. Unity of visual groups

6. Necessity of punctual Automobile and pedestrian circulation

7. Free disposition of the ground plane

CIAM 8, 1951: (Hoddesdon, England: “The Heart of the City”)

The MARs group established commissions to prepare for the congress which mirrored those of the CIAM itself:

I. Town Planning

II. Visual Art

III. New Building Techniques

IV. Social Background of the Core

Of the talks presented at CIAM 8, the most significant was Serts opening talk entitled “the Theme of the Congress: The Core.” He argued that in developing countries, the cores could be places where new technologies such as television screens would soon be available, and this could “put these people in immediate contact with the world.” People without access to radios could “listen to the old speaker on the public square,” and “could see the images on the television screen,” which would enhance the importance of these places.

Such civic centers would consolidate [democratic] governments; for the lack of them and the dependence of the people on controlled means of information makes them more easily governable by the rule of the few. The creation of these centers is a government job (Federal, State or Municipal). These elements cannot be established on a business basis. They are necessary for the city as a whole and even for the nation, and they should be publicly financed.”

CIAM 9, 1953: (Aix-en-Provence, France: “The Charter of Habitat”)

The work program for CIAM 9 stated that “CIAM 9 will not resume the study of.... [the] four functions but will concentrate upon Living and everything that man plans and constructs for living.”

CIAM 10, 1953: (Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia: “The Charter of Habitat”)

The group comprising of Howells, Smithsons and John Voelcker concluded that the lack of a definite conclusion from Aix was the fault of the administration of CIAM, and that “the accepted definitions and methods of work within CIAM are not adequate for dealing with the problems with which we are faced today.”

They acknowledged that the Athens Charter was of great historical importance, but also stated, “it is clear that the contents of charter are no longer instruments for creative development.” Nor did they find the titles of the permanent commissions “relevant to the problem with which we are concerned.” rather than these “analytic” categories, the group proposed new “synthetic” categories, based on the terminology of Patrick Geddes’s Valley Section.

The CIAM 10 Program, Commission Structure, and Schedule were finally set at a last minute meeting in Padua. The group in attendance agreed that CIAM 10 had three tasks:

I. To prepare the Charter of Habitat

II. To Extract New Material on Relationships from the New Grids for the Charter

III. To determine the Future of CIAM

Sert opened the Congress proceedings by reading a “message of Le Corbusier” to CIAM 10, It posed the question of “crisis or evolution?” for CIAM and contrasted the “generation of 1928” which had formulated the Athens Charter, with the “generation of 1956” which will now “take command.” this generation should now enter into “practical action” taking account of “urgent world-wide needs... To design, express and even predict” the future. He concluded, “Act so that the CIAM continue in their creative passion, in disinterest, reject the opportunists or hot head. Good luck, long live the SECOND - CIAM! Your friend LE CORBUSIER”

The final CIAM meeting was held in September of 1959 in Otterlo where it was announced the name CIAM would longer be used. No further meetings where ever held or publications ever issued, however due to the lack of clarity concerning CIAM's fate it is quite difficult to say precisely where CIAM ends and Team 10 (officially formed in 1945) begins.

The conclusion of CIAM:

By researching and reviewing not just the congress meetings themselves, but also the preparatory meetings, Eric Mumford affords us a greater understanding of the groups complexities.

The CIAM delegates were often working in ever changing political environments and came from vastly contrasting cultural backgrounds. Despite a large number of highly successful collaborations between delegates from varying national groups, it often proved difficult focusing their collective efforts towards a single goal. This was further hindered, on numerous occasions, by individual members attempting to steer the CIAM to suit their own agenda.

Although highly influential, the majority of CIAM's proposals remain unrealised or incomplete and a number of publications based on their collaborative works failed to even materialise. Whilst highly successful in its formative and early years, the CIAM seemingly lost its focus in later years and became impeded by bureaucracy, culminating in the disintegration of CIAM.

Reclaiming Delhi

2011-03-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

MA A+U student Supriya Pundlik is seeking thoughts about Connaught Place in New Delhi via her new blog

Supriya says 'If you have any data,images or any information please share it!'

The following film from 1938 shows a vanished world of self-assured imperialism. Connaught Place features at about 6.40

Rob Krier: Urban Space (1979)

2011-03-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Meliz Kusadali

Introduction

The author of the Urban Space, Robert Krier was born in 1938 in Luxemburg. He ranks as one of the most influential urban planners and architects of post modernism. As it is also clear in his book ‘Urban Space’, he has always taken the historic repertoire seriously. For him, continuity and aestheticism are ways of reviving what he regards as the art of architecture that lost its way in modernism. The aim of the book ‘Urban Space’ is to search how the traditional understanding of urban space has been lost within the modern cities. By explaining the terms of urban space and its structure, he has examined whether the concept of urban space retains some validity in contemporary town planning and on what grounds.

Chapter 1 analyzes the typological and morphological elements of the urban space. The term ‘urban space’ can be simply described as external space in town. It is seen as open, unobstructed space for movement in the open air, with public, semi public and private zones. Furthermore, the ‘concept of urban space’ is to designate all types of space between buildings in towns and other localities as urban space. If we take the aesthetic criteria into consideration, every urban space has been organized according to its socio-political and cultural attitudes.

Urban space has been structured in similar laws to interior space. For example, in the category of interior space, we would be talking about the corridor and the room. Similarly, square and the street are the basic elements of the urban space. The only difference is the dimensions of walls which bound them and by the patterns of function and circulation which characterise them. In brief descriptions, square is produced by the grouping of houses around an open space and the street is a product of the spread of a settlement once houses have been built along the available space.

The Arrangement of Krier’s Typology for Urban Space

The spatial forms of urban space derive from the three basic geometric shapes: (square, circle and triangle). These three shapes are affected by modulating factors which are angling, segmentation, addition, merging, overlapping and distortion. These factors can produce regular and irregular results on all three spatial types. In addition, the large number of building sections influences the quality of the space at all these stages of modulation. Moreover, space that is completely surrounded by buildings produces ‘closed’ space and the partially surrounded produces ‘open’ space. Finally, the differentiation of scale plays an enormous role in all spatial forms, such as the effect of various architectural styles on urban space.

Morphological Series of Urban Space

The author gives various examples for a morphology of urban space within this chapter, there being an almost inexhaustible range of possible forms exists that are mostly from our historic town.

For example Hanover Square in London from the18th Century is an example for orthogonal regular ground plan with four central intersections. Piazza Navona in Rome is an example for a geometrically complex form. It is a combination of several spatial forms and many streets enter the square. Place Dauphine in Paris is a regular triangular square that is extremely rare in the history of town planning. These are usually formed by two roads forking. Although these forms are clearly obvious in town planning history, in our modern cities they are criminally neglected in the author's view.

Chapter 2 examines the erosion of urban space in the 20th century. The erosion of urban space is an ongoing process which has been with us for the last fifty years in the guise of technological progress. This era has started with the invention of new military technology. New weaponry neutralized the defensive systems of cities. Consequently, city walls were demolished and allowed armies to simply walk through the city. The need of protection had imposed a new discipline on every town: its construction, rebuilding and expansion. However, the colossal pressure for expansion of cities led planners over rapid decision making on town planning which has resulted with unstructured developments. Architecture was a low priority. Functional, constructional and capital concerns were being the most important issues of the day. Additionally, the influence of industrial building on the urban planning is another catastrophe. It leads to numerous misconceived developments which caused the impoverishment of present-day architecture. For example: The movements towards a purely functional or constructional orientation. The developing proposals of planners for new ideal cities during the 20th Century and 19th Century industrial building has taken away the control of the concept of urban space and architecture. Krier finalized this chapter by showing his illustrations to support his thesis that modern town planning dominates over the concept of urban space which has largely fallen into disuse.

From a distant view, the spatial continuum of a cohesive traditional urban structure can be compared to the barriers which channel pedestrian movement. If there is a gap in the barrier, it should cope with the shortcomings in the system of orientation. The spatial arrangement of the modern city is composed of forlorn and isolated sections of barrier, battered on all sides by every conceivable stream of activity and with no margin left for meaningful activity or orientation.

The aim of Chapter 3 is to understand the author’s viewpoint for redeveloping a city. Krier has suggested possible approaches to reconstruction for various parts of Stuttgart. The former coherent urban structure of Stuttgart was destroyed to a catastrophic extent during the Second World War. The heart of the city was broken up into a large number of small islands battered by waves of heavy traffic. In Rob Krier’s schemes for Stuttgart, he tried to win back downtown of the city for pedestrians, without excluding the car in the process. In practical terms, this means using redevelopment to weld together seamlessly the isolated areas at those critical points, whose significance for the pedestrian’s spatial awareness was eroded during the post war years because of costly civil engineering programmes. Particular attention is paid in these studies to restoring the continuity of spatial experience within an urban context. Additionally, he designed streets and squares for pedestrians, harmonised as closely as possible with the existing structure and showing the utmost consideration for the legacy of the past.

Conclusion
The book is very useful to understand the town planning achievements of the present and the past. It is also a well-structured book which gives an historical summary of town planning and how it has been a miserable failure in the contemporary town planning.

The following conclusion can be drawn from the review; the rush of rebuilding and the priority which is given to the traffic and to the other technologies rather than the people’s need resulted with scattered buildings with no proper spatial planning. This has proved the thesis of author that the traditional concept of urban space and its structure has been lost within modern cities.

Peter Katz: The New Urbanism - Towards an Architecture of Community

2011-03-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

A review of the 1994 book by Angela Heaney.

The author, Peter Katz, is a design and marketing consultant based in California, San Francisco and Seattle, Washington.
He studied architecture and graphic design at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York and now lectures frequently on urban issues to universities and citizen’s groups.

The aim of the book, and the New Urbanism movement, is to address many of the critical issues of our time: the decline of America’s cities, the rebuilding of its disintegrated infrastructure, housing affordability, and crime and traffic congestion, while trying to return to a “cherished American icon: that of a compact, close-knit community.”

For the majority of human history, people have gathered together for mutual security and to be close to critical resources, however, Katz believes that with the introduction of the automobile and a host of other factors, it provided an opportunity for people to disperse and in the post war era, suburbia became the lifestyle choice for most Americans.

He believes this new way of living fragmented America’s society – separating friends and relatives and “breaking down the bonds of community,” of which the devastating consequences were disregarded for some time.

This book is structured by essays and 24 case- study projects, put forward by the leading figures of the New Urbanism movement that emerged in the United States in the late 1970’s. The intention of the New Urbanism is to suggest alternatives to the present sprawl and isolation that they view as a consequence of decades of poorly planned suburban growth.

The designs of the New Urbanism integrate workplaces, shops, housing, parks and civic facilities into close-knit communities that are both “charming and functional.” The ability to walk is most important, however, cars aren’t excluded. Public places are the central core for these designs which can be made up of sites for parks, schools, churches, meeting halls and other civic uses. Affordability is a significant consideration in the design process-a wide range of housing types are intended to meet the needs of all levels of society. Most of these neighbourhood communities are planned to comprise an efficient connection with the larger metropolitan region, through the use of transit, both bus and rail.

The New Urbanism is concerned with both the pieces and the whole, and according to Peter Calthorpe, one of the founding members of this movement, there are two principles of urban design to the region. Firstly, urbanism should be applied regardless of location- in suburbs, new growth areas and the city. The second principle acknowledges that the entire region should be treated as a whole- socially, economically and ecologically.
With regards to a growing region, Calthorpe rejects any attempt to limit overall growth or allow it to expand uncontrollably, maintaining that both actions would result in either further sprawl or disagreeable traffic, congestion and a loss of identity. As an alternative, he suggests that growth at the region should be accommodated first in infill and redevelopment, to utilize existing infrastructure and preserve open space, and then in new growth areas and satellite towns that are within transit proximity to the city centre.
Peter Calthorpe’s work is centred on TOD- Transit Oriented Development, “an attempt to regroup the suburb into a density which makes public transit feasible.”

Each of these strategies is central to the thesis of a New Urbanism:

“…that a regional system of open space and transit complemented with pedestrian friendly development patterns can help revitalise an urban centre at the same time it helps to order suburban growth.”

An additional focus of the New Urbanism movement is TND – Traditional Neighbourhood Development; proposing a model of urbanism that is limited in area and structured around a defined centre. This composition was first implemented by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, directors of the architecture and town planning practice DPZ, in Miami, Florida.
They state that the fundamental organizing elements of the New Urbanism are the neighbourhood, the district and the corridor. Neighbourhoods are urbanized areas with a balanced mix of human activity- such as dwelling, shopping, working, schooling, worshipping and recreating, structured on a fine network of interconnecting streets that give priority to public space. Districts are similar to neighbourhoods, however are dominated by a single activity. Districts rely on a connection to transit and interconnected circulation that supports the pedestrian and creates a ‘sense of place.’ The corridor is the connector and separator of neighbourhoods and districts and it is characterized by its visual continuity. Its location and type are determined by its technological intensity and nearby densities.

“The New Urbanism offers an alternative future for the building and re-building of regions. Neighbourhoods that are compact, mixed-use and pedestrian friendly; districts of appropriate location and character; and corridors that are functional and beautiful can integrate natural environments and man-made communities into a sustainable whole.”

The form of the New Urbanism is realized by the deliberate assembly of streets, blocks and buildings. “Buildings, blocks and streets are interdependent. Each one contains to some degree the ingredients of all the others.” Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides apply this strategy to the New Urbanism; they believe the building of the public realm has been handled with little regard for those it actually serves and the quality of life it generates and so, they aim to focus on, “a shared space in society which brings people together, to relate to one another and/or to be separate.”
Streets are not to be the dividing lines within the city; they are to be the communal rooms and passages within a network of connectedness and continuity to encourage a mix of uses. A variety of streets will exist on a hierarchy based on their vehicular and pedestrian loads and their architectural character will be based on their arrangement on plan and section.
The block unfolds both the building fabric and the public realm of the city and allows a mutually beneficial relationship between people and vehicles. Ultimately, they should be designed and configured to prioritise the pedestrian.
The building follows three key principles; use, density and form. They are to be designed by reference to their type, not solely their function, to allow for multiple adaptations over time. Buildings should form the public realm, express the importance of public shared institutions and improve the daily working and home life of the citizenry.
Furthermore, each street, block and building shall be typically designed and presented in the form of a code to follow the “American tradition of safeguarding the public realm.”

“The judicious application of codes is to result in a diverse, beautiful and predictable fabric of buildings, open space and landscape that can structure villages, towns, cities and the metropolitan region.”

The New Urbanism advocates an ambitious agenda for the building and rebuilding of our neighbourhoods, towns and cities and it is a clear step in diminishing the present sprawl and isolation in many poorly planned suburban growth areas throughout America, yet, how influential will the New Urbanists be? It is evident that public sentiment is gathering behind them; local government and planning institutes are following New Urbanists ideas to reconsider land use patterns that generate excessive automobile use and countless firms and planning agencies are embracing the New Urbanist strategies in redevelopment plans, design review guidelines and zoning laws. However, many new developments are adopting these ideas only superficially, as motifs to enhance their marketing strategies and a number of critics argue that the New Urbanist projects emphasize visual style over planning substance.
The concept of the New Urbanism seeks to revive the public realm, which is being increasingly privatised, and revitalise cities and communities that have deteriorated over time, mainly due to the excessive use of the automobile and the consequences that it left. Nevertheless, the types of communities the New Urbanists envision are unlikely to emerge from design initiatives alone. Once a project is completed, layers of community organisation will develop.
Toward an Architecture of Community, the book’s subtitle, is what this book is primarily about. Yet, there are questions to consider; will the beautifully drawn neighbourhood open space truly be public or will it be controlled by a private home owner’s association? And will community facilities such as day care centres, churches and meeting rooms be available to all?
The New Urbanism is a noteworthy step forward; however it is only a step. At best, it has significantly refocused the public’s attention more strongly on how the design of our communities has a very real impact on our lives.

Is Rome a Modern City?

2011-03-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

Is Rome a Modern City? - MA Architecture and Urbanism 2011 from Kathryn Timmins on Vimeo.

The final film prepared as a contribution to the University of Warwick conference THE POSTMODERN PALIMPSEST: NARRATING CONTEMPORARY ROME. The film was made by MA A+U students Preeya Vadgama, Kathryn Timmins, Angela Heaney and Chen Xu.

Dive // Contaminated Estimations

2011-03-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

A further film prepared for the recent University of Warwick conference THE POSTMODERN PALIMPSEST: NARRATING CONTEMPORARY ROME. This film was made by Carrie Bayley, Luke Butcher and Rongxiao Han.

Tricolore

2011-02-25T02:12:00.000-08:00

Tricolore_faces of Rome from Jonas Komka on Vimeo.

Another film for THE POSTMODERN PALIMPSEST: NARRATING CONTEMPORARY ROME conference at the University of Warwick. This film was made by Natalie MacBride, Jonas Komka, Christina Gregoriou and Jack O' Reilly

Lost in Rome

2011-02-22T09:46:00.001-08:00

A film about contemporary Rome made by MA A+U students Laleh Fadaipour, Meliz Kusadali, Ketki Tendolkar, Supriya Pundlik and Angad Kasliwal for THE POSTMODERN PALIMPSEST: NARRATING CONTEMPORARY ROME conference at the University of Warwick

Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space

2011-02-18T03:52:00.000-08:00

In preparation for his participation in the 2nd Caribbean Winter School in Havana Luke Butcher has been reading the influential text The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre. Read Luke's summary on his blog here.

Fellow MA A+U student Carrie Bayley is also participating in the winter school.

GET OVER IT!

2011-02-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

GET OVER IT!

Recession. Creative Opportunity?

A symposium organised by the MA Architecture + Urbanism

at the Manchester School of Architecture MAY 12 2011

In a time of economic austerity, political uncertainty and social crisis, how can the city move forward? GET OVER IT! will bring together a range of speakers from diverse disciplines to investigate methods for extracting potential from the current recession. Architecture, technology, sociology, politics, economics, culture and education all have a role to play in the reconfiguration of the city. Instigated by the MA Architecture and Urbanism students at the Manchester School of Architecture, the aim of the symposium is to address new creative opportunities for redundant city spaces and the broader built environment.

Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York: A Retrospective Manifesto for Manhattan (1978)

2011-02-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Carrie Bayley

“Manhattan is the arena for the terminal stage of western civilisation... a mountain range of evidence without manifesto”, Koolhaas observes, and so begins his retroactive manifesto, a scripted chronology of the stages of Manhattanism, its’ permutations and lasting legacies; notably the culture of congestion, Manhattans own “metropolitan urbanism” and revolutionary lifestyle. Through his optimistic narrative “Delirious New York”, Koolhaas, a former screenwriter, sets about investigating the underlying and ironic truths of Manhattan, from the first signs of architecturally applicable technologies, through the great crash and to the present day, 1978. Through a pragmatic approach in understanding external factors and a series of case studies, he documents the reoccurring elements and themes in New York’s development and decline that make it “a theatre of progress” and “the capital of perpetual crisis”. This focuses in particular on the skyscraper as a product of the physical manifestation of Manhattanism on the grid, along with the relationship between this density-focused architecture and the culture of congestion.

At a time where New York had gained a reputation as “a graffiti-covered, crime-ridden relic of history”, Koolhaas, then the recent founder of OMA and visiting lecturer at Eisenman’s Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, begins to assess and promote what it took to make the capital of invention the ideal precedent and, therefore, what it would take to regain its rightful place on the world stage. He is reconstructing the “perfect Manhattan” so that it’s monumental successes and failures become more evident and it is by selecting New York as the focus of his first major work that Koolhaas sets a foundation for his career.

Split into five distinct “blocks”, an anthology covering “Coney Island, The Skyscraper, Rockefeller Center … Europeans ” and a fictional appendix, each with further component parts, the book acknowledges its affiliation with the Manhattan grid as “a collection of blocks whose proximity and juxtaposition reinforce their separate meanings”. In 1807-1811 “the final and conclusive” plan for Manhattan was made, resulting in the 2028 blocks of the grid to which Koolhaas pays a particular critical focus, labelling it an “artificial domain planned for nonexistent clients in anticipation”, a negative symbol of the short-sightedness of commercial interests with no regard for interaction between fragments or spontaneity. It is with an ever-growing population in a “metropolis of rigid chaos” that the skyscraper then becomes inevitable, forcing an upward extrusion of the grid to maximise profit, often without regard for the art of designing buildings. With the introduction of the 1916 zoning law comes a level of control on the cities scale explosion, without being too restrictive and therefore unintentionally providing a basis for intelligent architectural invention. “The metropolis needs/deserves its own specialized architecture”. When, through his work and with several other architects, Hugh Ferris investigates, but doesn’t solve, the true issues of Manhattan, focusing on the unexplored potential of zoning law, he famously creates the first concrete image of the “mega village” and later the “Ferrisian Void”. “Manhattanism is conceived in Ferriss’ womb”.

From Manhatta to Manhattan, the continuous experiment begins with its discovery by the Dutch in 1609, a link with the Europeans that continues through the rise and fall of the enterprise. “Manhattan is a theater of progress...the cyclical restatement of a single theme: creation and destruction irrevocably interlocked”, a quote which applies to many other scenarios throughout the text. An overview of Manhattans answer to the Crystal Palace introduces the reader to invention as a public spectacle, isolated from direct confrontation with reality. This is further explored in the section “Coney island: the technology of the fantastic”, a resort for the testing of ideas, social experimentation and surrealism in the form of reality. “ A resort implies the presence, not too far away, of a reservoir of people existing under conditions that require to escape occasionally to recover their equilibrium” and to survive as a place offering contrast from the reality shortage in the city, Coney contrasts the natural with the supernatural. To give an idea of scale, the infrastructure and communications networks contained within Luna Park are far superior and more energy consuming that most contemporary American cities. When the centennial tower arrives “it also offers an additional direction of escape: mass ascension”.

Through the accidental and planned inventions of its three parks, infrastructure is created to meet the demands of it’s overtaxed system and, becoming less popular the more people it attracts, Coney island develops bizarre and outrageous technologies, concepts and urban scenarios that eventually become applied in a normal context as the focus shifts to Manhattan. This establishes an urbanism based on the technology of the fantastic- defining completely new relationships between site, program, form and technology. As it is sent crashing back to reality after fire, that even its well-practised fire-fighter cast can’t extinguish, Coney meets its downfall. More ironically, it is proposed that the land should be turned into a public park, becoming a model for the modern Manhattan of grass, exactly what it was providing an alternative to. But the precedent doesn’t work second time around, the testing ground has to adapt with the times. Where Coney Island is the testing ground for the skyscraper, Manhattan then continues to be a testing ground for urbanism. And who is to argue that Manhattan wasn’t the inventor of these things? If not, Koolhaas is very convincing.

The inception of the culture of congestion and the technologies developed, notably the elevator and steel, facilitate the rise of the Manhattan skyscraper, “born in instalments between 1900 and 1910”. This represents the meeting of three breakthroughs, “the reproduction of the world”, “the annexation of the tower” and “the block alone”, each defined separately by Koolhaas “before they were integrated into a ‘glorious whole’”. As the demand for office space rises in an emerging metropolis with a restrictive grid, created there is a need for the production of an unlimited number of virgin sites in a single location, each with it’s own destiny outside of the control of the architect. Koolhaas describes the “ideal performance of the skyscraper” in its initial stages as a concept, existing in 1909, as 84 disconnected virgin sites stacked on top of each other- “a new form of unknowable urbanism”. As models of this descent manifest themselves within the grid, so presents itself one of Manhattans most intense themes- “a city in a building”. As the concept of the 100th floor approaches and the skyscraper becomes even more the product of an architecture by economy and with it comes what Koolhaas terms “Lobotomy”, that is, “less and less surface has to represent more and more interior activity”, a container for undetermined interior activity rather than the expression of that externally, a still relevant scenario characterising today’s urban fabric. At the point where the 1916 zoning law is introduced, the culture of congestion becomes an enterprise, an indication of the culture of the 21st century. “Congestion itself is the essential condition for realising each of these metaphors in the reality of the grid”.

Koolhaas explains a “summary of the phases of Manhattans urbanism, featuring all the strategies, theorems, paradigms and ambitions that sustain the inexorable progress of Manhattanism”. Portrayed in the creation of the Waldorf Astoria hotel and the Empire State building, “a skyscraper surpassing in height anything ever constructed by man”, is the conversion from virgin site to skyscraper in 150 years, an example of what he terms an auto monument. The problem at the beginning is simply that it isn’t a skyscraper and should become one in order to reap the financial harvest permitted by the 1916 law. There is no room for nostalgia. The Empire State is the last manifestation of Manhattanism as pure and thoughtless process, the climax of subconscious Manhattan and the first example of what was to come.

Through a description of the life of the Rockefeller Center we begin to understand Koolhaas’ intentions. By this point, he has introduced key characters and themes which are optimised in the creation of the Rockefeller Center, a city within a city exemplifying the financial viability of the skyscraper and representing congestion on all possible levels. As a hybrid building, the building isn’t assigned a hierarchy, nor does it follow a specific typology, but parts of the mountain are assigned to necessary functions, what Koolhaas terms the “the vertical schism, which creates the freedom to stack such disparate activities directly on top of each other without any concern for their symbolic compatibility”. To fit a brief “the center must combine the maximum of congestion with the maximum of light and space”, an achievable target given the great depression of the 1930’s which represented time to think, “an enforced break in the frenzy of production”, and for the principals of the center to become more idealistic than commercial. It is described as “a masterpiece without a genius”, a result of the work of the associated architects, formed in part during the crash and proof for Koolhaas of the advantages of architecture by committee. “There is at least one idea for each of its 250million dollars”. “Rockefeller Center is the fulfilment of the promise of Manhattan. All paradoxes have been resolved. From now on the metropolis is perfect.”. It promises a significant contribution to the city planning of an unfolding future.

The end is marked with the invasion of the Europeans who come to “reclaim” Manhattan and adapt it to their own needs. “A tourist returns from foreign unrecognisable” and so did the skyscraper once it had been to Europe”. Through a bizarre cross fertilization of misunderstood rhetoric, American pragmatism and European idealism have exchanged ethos”. A particular emphasis on Dali and Le Corbusier represents Koolhaas’ apparent aversion to Le Corbusier. Where Dali does not attempt to tamper “with its physique”, Le Corbusier “proposes literally to destroy it” and in doing so first attempts to disprove the existence of the city as machine before he can create his own alternative where there is no place for the technology of the fantastic only business, the result being the anti skyscraper. After a “worldwide journey of paranoia” Corbusier brings the Radiant city, a theoretical metropolis in search of location and the anti Manhattan, to New York. But the scheme possesses no metaphor and by proposing to literally solves congestion and kills it, so creating the urban non event New York’s own planners have always avoided, a result of excluding of the factors that have built the Ferissian mountain. In the late thirties Manhattanism is waning. Post-war architecture is the accountants’ revenge on pre-war businessmen’s dreams. The formula “technology + cardboard = reality” created in the early days of Coney Island has retuned to haunt Manhattan, the result being not “peeling white paint but disintegrating curtain walls of the cheap skyscraper”. “Through its amnesia, Manhattan no longer supports an infinite number of superimposed and unpredictable activates on a single site; it has regressed back to the clarity and predictability of univalence- to the known.”

In a fictional conclusion, Koolhaas demonstrates a series of four ironic, speculative and hypothetical projects for New York which encompass all the themes in the book and are “an interpretation of the same material”. With the story of the pool, the last metaphor raises its head, representing the new influx of designers escaping to the freedom of New York but who will inevitably find it destroyed when they present themselves as scriptwriters for the New York stage.

Tallinn Trip

2011-02-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

Estonian MA A+U student Anastassia Kolpakova returned to Tallinn recently to scope out the site for her thesis project in the district of Lasnamäe

Aldo Rossi (1931-97): The Architecture of the City

2011-01-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by ANGAD KASLIWAL

Introduction

The architecture of the city is a significant departure from the past models of urbanism in the contemporary context of Italy . The first version of the book was published in 1966. Rossi in his writings has tried to redefine the ‘architecture of the city’ with a concentration on ‘urban artefacts’, the catalysing monuments from the past.

Daedalus, the architect of mythology, in his creation of labrynth explains the corelation of the book with its cover page; the form is interpreted in two ways, one, spiral as mausoleum, symbolically a place of death. In case of book unconsiously on his part – death of humanism and two, spiral as labrynth which is symbolic to transformation. The spiral has further message for Rossi which symbolizes his own right of passage – his role as a part of generation progressively more distanced from the positivism of modern architecture by the collapse of historical time and left drifting to an uncertain present.

Urban artifacts and Theory of the city

According to Rossi, costruction is a process that is inseparable in value to time. Ever from its evolution, mankind has built favorable surroundings with its roots in its civilization. These built forms transform themselves over the years overlapping the theme of its own development and thus there is a contrast in the existence of the structure over time. The change of nature of the ‘urban artifact’ may diminish the value of the evolution, overriding the rational design of ‘locus’. Singularity of one region of the city is what characterizes them as locus solus. Urban singularity has to take care of these artifacts. The development of the city about these artifacts or a group of them in a certain locality constitutes the nature and morphology of the city and this frame of reference helps Rossi to define ‘Urbanism’.

Individuality of urban artifacts

The form of the city can be studied with respect to the works of engineering and massive structures, and structures characterized by their own history. The mis-corelation of these two entities imples the complex reality which needs to be addressed for an urban future. Richness of the history is the characterstic of an urban artifact, its auspicious character and omnious moments of life makes it an indispensable part of the city. An urban artifact is a work of art. A city is always seen as a piece of human achievement over the years and this piece of art holds the major contribution for the collective individuality of the city.

Typological questions and critique of naive functionalism

Since architecture is distinct with reasons of its own; typology, classification and their characterstics influencing the city are important features of urban perspective. The individual classicism to lowest classifications initiates the theory of typology. The loweset featured element that is co-product in different constructions is a vital basic element of the city. Type is thus constant and manifests itself with the character of necessity. Even though it is pre-determined it reacts dialectically with technique, function and style.

The term function is not being discussed for typology considered with urban artifacts. For urban artifacts the function changes with time and its typology may become uncertain for the instance. If cities were classified on a broader perspective, it would delimit its typology to the commercial, cultural, military etc. Rossi questions the change of function for urban artifacts. The change of its naive function may obstruct the transfer of culture, of which the city is an important element. Urban artifacts are not the elements of consumption for the city, till considered in the domain of architectural and moral value. Typology and functions contradict if they are studied from the urban artifact point of view, hence the naive functionalism of the structure in time is considered.

Complexity of Urban Artifacts and the Theory of Permanence

After discussing Milizia’s work which explains the perception of building as private and public based on its streets and architecture. In other words the description of function is easy to verify which goes beyond naive functionalism. Rossi was often asked for his considerations o why only a historian can give a complete picture of city, to which Rossi replies, it is only the historians who are in totality concerned with the defining of urban artifacts and their evolution in different eras.

To think of urban science as historical science is a mistake, history contributes to urban science and hence is very important. This statement concerns the theory of permanence. The city is always considered as a man-made object and the past will always be partly experienced and gives meaning to permanence. This permanence can be experienced in terms of the existence of form and a direction that the city is directed to with ‘propelling’ elements and ‘pathological’ elements. Rossi explains that there is nothing new about these analogies but is an attempt to formulate the theory of urban artifacts.

Primary elements and dynamics of urban elements

Rossi defines urban artifacts as primary elements because their existence has contributed to the morphological and cultural evolution of the city. Any element capable of accelerating the process of urbanization in the city is a primary element, including an empty space.

At the end of the pax romana cities had marked boundaries by erecting walls around them, at times well furnished items were abandoned and cities enclosed a smaller surface area, but the potential of the urban artifacts helped develop the new cities in their current form. For example the amphitheatre at Nimes was transformed to a fortress and became a small functional city of two thousand inhabitants. The city beyond the wall grew with the form of the amphitheatre as a major element.

Monuments, Geography and History

Rossi advancing this theory for urban artifacts and with a novel vision for urbanism says that a city is a collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is locus of collective memory. This relationship between locus and citizenry then becomes a city’s predominant image, a great shape history moulds its future to. A related example of the roman forum will explain the co-relation between the parameters talked about here.

The Latins and the Sabines lived near the forum valley. The principal city was formed by tribes which scattered throughout the hills. The fifth century forum ceased as a market place and changes its function to a place of worship. The dynamism of these urban artifacts played an important role in the development of the space.

Conclusion

In his attempt to evolve the city with the perspective of urban artifacts, Aldo Rossi has convincingly proposed his theory. Not only considering the hypothetical idea of developing a city in words, Rossi also tries to incorporate the facts of politics and other socio-economic issues, citing Athens and its strong theoretical base for its existence, he concludes his idea of this manmade object as an achievement to mankind and its existence. The architecture of the city is a physical sign in man’s biography, indulged beyond the meanings and feelings with which we may recognize it.

Kevin Lynch: The Image of the City (1960)

2011-01-17T04:32:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Natalie MacBride

Introduction

Born in Chicago in 1918, Kevin Lynch’s studious desire for city design commenced in 1935 at Yale University where he studied Architecture. In addition to his studies, he worked at Taliesin (1937-1939) which was the winter home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and was the place where some of Wright’s much-published designs were conceived including Falling Water in Pennsylvania and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Subsequently, Lynch attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1939-1940) and following this, he attained a degree (1947) in City Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is a world leading institute for research.

After completion of his studies, his passion and enthusiasm for urban design was richly rewarded when he was appointed Instructor of Urban Planning at MIT (1948), Assistant Professor (1949), Associate Professor (1955) and Professor (1963).

After thirty years at MIT, he left to form a joint practice with Stephen Carr and it was during this time that he was commissioned to work on various city projects across America and the world over. Some of his more notable work included Boston’s Government Centre, Waterfront Park, art institutions in Dallas plus numerous other urban design projects in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In addition to his practice, he made a huge impact on the industry and made prolific contributions to the field of city planning using experimental research which he compiled over a period of five years. His study involved understanding the perception and control of movement amongst local residents of three American cities, the conclusions of which offered urban designers a new perspective for city design.

After his death in 1984, it is highly probable that his legacy has been etched onto many urban landscapes by planners as a direct and positive result of his most recognised, credible and much-publicised piece of work ‘The Image of the City’. The book was written under the guidance of Professor Gyorgy Kepes at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at MIT and was published in 1960 by the MIT Press.

Three Cities and Imageability

The main essence of the book examines the visual quality of the environment which is observed by Lynch as he investigates the “mental images” held by its citizens. He achieves this by focusing on the most focal and central areas within three American Cities; Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles.

His objective was to expand upon, as well as assess his idea of “imageability” (defined as a “character or quality held by a physical object”) to find out what forms trigger lucid images in the observer. To accomplish this, he directed two types of analysis. The first entailed a field survey of the relevant areas of each city which was produced by an experienced observer who recorded the various elements and their visual impact of image frailty or strength. In parallel to the field survey, he also engaged in long interviews held with a small proportion of citizens to help establish their own personal images of the physical landscape.

Amongst his findings, he revealed that Boston was unique in character compared with other American cities, but on the other hand, there was no sense of direction, which meant it was full of orientation difficulties. It was noted that Jersey City was “formless” and indistinct in character whilst Los Angeles had a youthful arrangement that was expressed in its “grid iron layout”.

From his investigations, he proposed formulas that he hoped would begin to help designers visualise the forms that encompass them at an urban scale and offer them some fundamental principles for urban design.

Legibility

In addition to the concept of “imageability”, another integral and critical aspect of the urban structure is “legibility” of the city. By this he means “the ease with which its parts can be recognised” and assembled into a logical and systematic setup. He suggests that this structured arrangement is one of the requisite components of the city’s landscape, especially in specific cases where environments are of immeasurable scale, not only in terms of area, but also in terms of “time and complexity”.

The many “cues” that are already utilised in structuring and identifying the environment comprise of “visual sensations of colour, shape, motion, or polarisation of light.” In addition to these, other senses like smell, sound and touch equally serve as vital aids in helping citizens to become more acquainted to their surroundings.

In addition to these perceptible tools, he describes the employment of other “way finding” mechanisms that also help guide the way; “the presence of others”, topographical depictions, symbols and signs. He implies that these tools have essentially helped to counteract the problem of “disorientation” and the usual feelings of panic or distress that occurs with this. However, he doesn’t completely rule out the question of “disorientation” as he links it to the “value in mystification” and the feeling of wonder that this can bring. He uses the example of the House of Mirrors and the allure that may be experienced from this. However, it must be acknowledged that “mystification” can only be an enjoyable experience under the circumstances that there must be no possibility of “losing basic form” or sense of direction and a feeling of “never coming out”. Essentially, the confusion must occur only in small areas but in a “visible whole”.

However, in addition to his account of what guiding mechanisms were available during his research, other technology has evolved and other “way finding” devices now exist. For instance, mobile phones containing mapping applications such as Google Maps and satellite navigation equipment with Global Positioning System software are just a few of many, relatively recent and modern forms of technological instruments that are accessible to the majority of people. Both these technologies have consequently altered the dynamics of how citizens are able to navigate their environment.

Identity, Structure and Meaning

Lynch breaks down the “environmental image” into three separate components of “identity, structure & meaning” and verifies that “in reality they always appear together”. Firstly, he implies that image identity requires the recognition which can only be conveyed if the object has a clear distinction and difference from the presence of other elements. Secondly, the structure must express a “spatial or pattern relation of the object to the observer and to other objects” around it. Finally, the structure must have some sentimental value and “emotional” meaning to the viewer.

He also signifies that “meaning” is also a “relation” to the object, however, “spatial or pattern relation” are much different from the “relation” of “meaning”. For an example of this, he refers to “an image that is useful for making an exit must require the recognition of a door as the distinct entity, of its spatial relation to the observer and its meaning as a hole for getting out”. He suggests that these components are inseparable and that the visual recognition of the door is fused with its meaning as a door.

The City Image and its Elements

Lynch also focuses our attention on the effects of “physical” and “perceptible objects” which are fundamental forms in evoking a strong environmental image. His five years of solid research spent on this subject allowed him to acquire sufficient information in order for him to be able to offer urban designers various techniques for optimising and creating the perfect city using these specific forms. His forms are defined as physical attributes and are distinguished as “five elements”; “paths”, “edges”, “districts”, “nodes” and “landmarks”.

For example, the definition of a path is an element which acts as a channel through which an observer can move and a node is an element which may be a point of concentration where people can meet up like Piazza del Popolo or the Trevi in Fountain Rome. These are just a brief description of two of his elements, however, there are many other examples he uses for these and each of the remaining elements.

The definitions he provides for each of these five elements can perhaps be understood as a set of disconnected elementary definitions. However, what they individually and more importantly stand for is possibly disregarded and is due to the fact that citizens normally perceive these elements as interconnected parts that create a whole city form.

Lynch’s clear and apparent rationalisation of each element is explained in such a concise way that perhaps he wanted these elements to represent a set of design-like implements for urban designers to use so that the creation of harmonious environments could be accomplished and be read as legible whole forms by its inhabitants.

According to his study, these individual elements are what help to create a sense of “identity and structure” so that the observer can effortlessly navigate their environment. However, in conclusion to his proposal for creating a lucid and apprehensible environmental image of the city by using these specific elements, he also wants them to be interpreted as forms that depend upon each other; consequently they can then create a unified and complete setup so that a legible environment can be presented to the observer.

Form Qualities

With regards to providing an alternative way for understanding the roles, as well as the physical characteristic of these five components, he produced some intuitive and diagrammatic representations of them which were labelled “singularity”, “form simplicity”, “continuity”, “dominance”, “clarity of joint”, “directional differentiation”, “visual scope”, “motion awareness”, “time series” as well as “names and meanings”. These were also considered as a means to visually communicate the definitions that he proposed for creating powerful and visual experiences of the city image.

Conclusion

Although the majority of his study focused on the “identity and structure” of elements and their “patterning”, it was perhaps intended that these elements were to be perceived as only a guide to help structure over time the prospective city as a whole pattern so that it can a achieve a visible and all-embracing image.

He also suggests that “the spatial organisation of contemporary life, the speed of movement, and the speed and scale of new construction all make it” necessary and achievable to create “large-scale imageable environments.”

The book was an accomplishment at its time of release in the sense that for some urban designers it was a convenient and useful instrument for composing the ideal city. However, some of its content may be left open to some critical scrutiny and concern because he seemingly addressed city design in a rather linear way and placed little emphasis on the complexities that surround the sociological aspects of city life.

The contemplation he does give to the social aspect of design is addressed in a more abstract and subtle manner when he concludes that a vivid image is the stimulus for elevating the experience of a city to an advanced new level for the observer. In addition, he believes the city should not only be “organised,” but “it should speak of the individuals and their complex society”. And finally, it must carry some “'poetic and symbolic” meaning and be able to retain as much of its historical past.

Vidler on Stirling

2011-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Anthony Vidler, Dean of the Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York discusses his exhibition James Stirling: Notes from the Archive which will be on display at Tate Britain between 5 April and 21 August 2011.

New Year Start

2011-01-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

As one of his first engagements the new head of the manchester school of architecture Professor Tom Jefferies will be presenting a seminar entitled 3 X BEETHAM: THE BANALITY OF LUXURY for the MA A+U students at 10.30 on Thursday 13 January in 712 Chatham.

The Postmodern Palimpsest: Narrating Contemporary Rome

2011-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

The Postmodern Palimpsest:

Narrating Contemporary Rome

Saturday 26^th February 2011

A one-day interdisciplinary conference

University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Rome is privileged in its relationship with Western history, constructed over layer after layer, from Roman to Fascist ‘empires’: in this sense the city constitutes the urban palimpsest. In postmodernity, the sprawl, the latest metamorphosis of Rome, overlaps with historical images of the capital to form a shapeless and fragmentary identity. The aim of this conference is to probe this latest level of the city, to discern the new and the old, and the links and reflections of one onto the other

Keynote Speakers:

Eamonn Canniffe (Manchester)

Dr. John David Rhodes (Sussex)

For further information and to register: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/pmp/

Provisional Programme

Saturday 26^th February 2011

Humanities Building, University of Warwick

09.00 – 09.20 Registration and Coffee

09.20 – 09.30 Conference Welcome and Introduction

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09.30 – 10.30 Panel One: Re-Mapping the Ecclesiastical City

Chair: (tbc)

James Robertson (Manchester) – ‘Ecclesiastical Icons: Defining Rome through Architectural Exchange’

Marco Cavietti (Rome) – ‘Roma intra muros, Roma extra muros’

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10.30-10.45 Tea/Coffee Break

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10.45-11.45 Panel Two: Landmarks of Modernity

Chair: (tbc)

Allison Cooper (Colby College) – ‘Builiding a Symbolic Capital: The Monumental Planning of Modern Rome’

Keala Jewell (Dartmouth College) – ‘A Postmodern Gaze on the Gazometro’

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11.45-12.00 Tea/Coffee Break

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12.00-13.00 Keynote 1: Eamonn Canniffe (Manchester School of Architecture)

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13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

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14.00 – 15.30 Panel Three: Representations of Fragmented Cityscapes

Chair: (tbc)

Fabio Benincasa (Duquesne) – ‘L’odore del sangue da Parise a Martone. La mappa assente della Città Eterna’

Carmelo Princiotta (Rome) – ‘Dario Bellezza e la Roma dei poeti’

Marina Vargau (Montreal) – ‘Raccontare Roma dopo Fellini’

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15.30-15.45 Tea/Coffee Break

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15.45 – 16.45 Panel Four: Reinterpreting the Urban Map

Léa-Catherine Szacka (UCL) – ‘Roma Interrotta: A comparative historical analysis of the 18th century urban project on display (1978 to 2008)’

Richard Hayes (Cambridge) – ‘Las Vegas by Way of Rome: the Eternal City and American Postmodernism’

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16.45-17.00 Tea/Coffee Break

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17.00-18.00 Keynote 2: John David Rhodes (Sussex)

18.00-18.30 Roundtable Discussion

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18.30-19.30 Wine Reception and Buffet

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The conference is organised by Dominic Holdaway and Filippo Trentin

MA A+U will be contributing four short films on contemporary Rome to the conference

Larry Busbea: Topologies - The Urban Utopia in France 1960-1970 (2007)

2011-01-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Jonas Komka

During the final decade of the period of massive postwar transformation known as the trente glorieuses, an imaginary city appeared in the writings and designs of a number of French theorists, architects, and artists. In a series of critical texts, architectural drawings, models, and works of art, visions of a “spatial” city of the future emerged: “a luminous city that was to float above the ground, all of its parts (and inhabitants) circulating in a smooth, synchronous rhythm” (p. 3).
In this study, art historian Larry Busbea excavates the urban utopianism of the 1960s in France, examining its aesthetic and ideological significance and reading its prospective imaginary “more as a symptom of its historical moment than as the revolutionary force it considered itself” (p. 7).

Immigration into cities caused immediate, cheap, downgraded, squarish ensembles, fast projects and building culture. Cities required reconstruction - there was an abundance of state architectural commissions - great opportunities for architects to develop vast and new territories. Spatial urbanism emerged within the context of a crisis of modernism in France and an era of unprecedented linkages between the public (state), the private, and the avant-garde in terms of architecture and planning.

The “spatial culture” of the 1960s in France was shaped by the tremendous economic expansion and technological innovation of the postwar period. Cultural theorists and architects in France responded to these changes with projects and images of a new urban society. The social and cultural environments they perceived and imagined were spaces of movement and energy in which the relationships between nature, technology, and humanity would be redefined. Artists were convinced that radical urban infrastructure change would be needed to cope with the post-war population boom and the onset of a full-blown consumer society.

The spatial city proposed an urban “megastructure” (housing, industry, agriculture, cultural units) suspended above the ground, and displayed an interest in achieving a synthesis or integration of the arts (bringing together architecture and painting or sculpture, for example), an emphasis on movement and mobility, a faith in technology and its possibilities, and a responsiveness to the new society of leisure combined with a suspicion of mass culture. Its most famous spatialist was Yona Friedman, the Hungarian born French architect, urban planner and designer.

His space frame/city/agglomeration:
-holds several layers
-horizontal and vertical movement
• -50-60% of structure occupied my modules (25-30 sq.m.) can provide air and light circulation for lower level
• -prefabricated modules for modular voids
• -mobility and adaptation: multiple and changeable configurations for social needs.
• -accomodates increasing population, provides second layer for urban pedestrian flow, preserves heritage in lower level
• -architect acts as a from giver (a similarity to situationism)
• -ground occupying foundation is outdated
• -space as structured substance, technical formulation of ideal infrastructure.  

The proposal may span over  
• -certain unavailable sites,
• -areas where building is not possible or permitted (expanses of water, marshland),
• -areas that have already been built upon (an existing city),
• -farmland.

In 1958, Yona Friedman published his first manifesto : "Mobile architecture". It described a new kind of mobility not of the buildings, but for the inhabitants, who are given a new freedom.
Mobile architecture embodies an architecture available for a "mobile society". To deal with it, the classical architect invented "the Average Man". The projects of architects in the 1950s were undertaken, according to Friedman, to meet the needs of this make-believe entity, and not as an attempt to meet the needs of the actual members of this mobile society. The spatial city, which is a materialization of this theory, makes it possible for everyone to develop his or her own hypothesis. This is why, in the mobile city, buildings should :
1. touch the ground over a minimum area
2. be capable of being dismantled and moved
3. and be alterable as required by the individual occupant.

Friedman was a GIAP member and founder of GEAM (Groupe d'études de architecture mobile). In 1964 he designed his most developed scheme for Spatial Paris: a project for structure suspended above the Gare Saint-Lazare train station and branching over it’s tracks. In 1970 he developed the text for Spatial Paris which showed the city as a machine, flat-gridded, with directional arrows indicating the area and circulation relationship proposed by transformation of the Metro and roadways.

Paul Maymont, also a member of GIAP, developed a more systematic approach to megastructures. His most famous projects were Spatial Paris and Paris under Seine. He started his career with Tokyo Bay project(1959). The first stage of the Spatial Paris project was developed after 1960, with mushroom shaped structures, each housing 15-30k inhabitants, located in the wetlands area of Paris, regular and symmetrically shaped. In 1965 this concept got bigger- became a vast network of organically conceived cells, each made of a central round building and surrounded by mushroom towers, each cell can take 100k inhabitants. Paris under Seine consisted of an underground 14 lane highway, parking for 500k cars, public and private spaces, and a circulation route to link the city centre and west highways.

GIAP (Groupe International d’Architecture Prospective)- short-lived (1965-1970), founded by M. Ragon, the small group never developed a coherent program or shared vision, bringing together only briefly architects and artists with differing aesthetic and ideological perspectives on the nature and future of a utopian urban landscape. The group brought together architects, artists, engineers, urbanists, photographers, sociologists, biologists, critics, theorists, and researched new urban and architectural solutions. Its members included Ionel Schein, N. Schoffer, V. Vasarely, M. Ragon, Y. Friedman, G. Patrix, Walter Jonas.

Ragon believed that utopian and visionary projects should have been adopted by the government for the replanning of Paris and other cities. He created the term “spatial urbanism”. He wanted to shape spatial culture by providing a single reference point for prospective cities that could develop and disseminate models for environment, technology, art of tomorrow. He did it through exhibitions, publications, symposiums. After some years other theorists such as Abraham Moles and H. van Lier and the critic Pierre Restany entered spatialist scene.

V. Vasarely used a “planetary folklore” system of limited selection of geometric shapes and colors, which were used for prototype developing for facades.

Walter Jonas- famous for project “Intrapolis”, inverted the form of Maymont’s mushroom cities. They were conceived in groups linked together, representing closed social and economic space, designed for maximum density and privacy and had private gardens on each others roof.

N. Schoffer- participant in both GIAP and Groupe Espace. His most famous project- “Cybernetic city”- was a gigantic computer, the main function of which was the production of ambient space for variety of functions within separately distinguished interconnected buildings for work, leisure, shopping, pleasure.

Andre Bloc- was a French architect, sculptor, editor, and founder of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui and the Groupe Espace in 1949. In 1951, in company with several artists, Bloc formed the group Espace. Its goal was to bring the ideals of constructivism and neo-plasticism to urbanism and the social arena. Artists and urbanists such as Jean Dewasne, Etienne Bóthy, Jean Gorin, Félix Del Marle, Edgard Pillet, Victor Vasarely and Nicolas Schöffer were members of the group, which considered architecture, painting, sculpture and art in general as a social phenomenon.

Schulze-Fielitz in 1961 was a member of the Groupe d'étude d'architecture mobile (GEAM). In 1962 / 63 he collaborated with Friedman in the project of a city bridge over the English Channel, a multi-level space structure that combined train and car routes between France and England with aerial residential areas: a megastructure following-up the linear cities.      
GEAM consisted also of Friedman, W. Ruhnan, G. Gunchel, C. Friemen, D. G. Emmerich.

Why was the spatial frame such a strong motif?

From the 19th century prefabricated systems were used to eliminate distinctions between art and science in architecture, synthesizing the organic and the man-made using structural principles from microscopic images of organic materials like leaves or bones.
Architecture Principe was formed in 1963 by the architect Claude Parent and the theorist Paul Virilio. They were joined by painter Michel Carrade and sculptor Morice Lipsi. The group had a major commission - the church of Sainte Bernadette in Nevers, brutalist, rounded and opaque, was a nihilist manifesto against the lightness and mobility of spatialists. Certain floor surfaces were inclined, adopting the main AP concept “function of oblique". The oblique plane was the main device for AP in architecture and urbanism, representing a return to bodily interaction with architecture that confronts inhabitants - one would be required to combat imbalance and climb and descend the inclines, and “habitable circulation”. Man was being put in action, made kinetic by the place it contains, his comfort with orthogonal surfaces was disrupted.

Another important project was “Conical City”, 1960. This project was based on classical megastructural devices: maximum liberation of ground and total sun exposure. Stepped sloping sides of the structures formed garden decks. Resisting the spatial logic of networks and integration into the landscape, self-contained, immovable objects were common for AP.

Consumer society was never visually embraced in France unlike Archigram, Hans Hollein in Austria or Superstudio. Archigram represented the distinct Americanisation of modernist discourse and structure itself. The French however were more concerned about man himself, while structure were made to be abstract. Similar projects and concepts were developed by Frei Otto, Rudolf Dornach, which were like those of the Metabolists or Spatialists, stacking prefab pods and setting cities afloat.

As a conclusion of this period, Piano and Rogers's Pompidou Centre (1977) was built and can be seen as a memorial to these megastructural aspirations, the emblem of all the French school did not achieve. They had a profound faith in technology, a flaw that blinded them to the changes implemented by mass culture. Their modernism was slow and lacked the speed of progress compared to the social sciences, and developed into a sense of isolation from architectural developments in other countries as well as an interior isolation that defined architecture’s distance from other intellectual enterprises.

Below is a short film on the Centre Pompidou made by Year 3 msa students

Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)

2010-12-20T00:39:00.000-08:00

A precis by Chen Xu

Jane Jacobs was an American-born Canadian writer and activist with a primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States. The book has been credited with reaching beyond planning issues to influence the spirit of the times.

When I first read this book, to my surprise I found that the writer Jane Jacobs had a non-professional background in urban planning and architecture. She studied at Columbia University's extension school for two years, taking courses in geology, zoology, law, political science, and economics. However, this Book is considered a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century.

In my opinion Jacobs observes cities and she is a very careful observer. She watches the cities from a normal person’s perspective. She analyses what she sees. She has the enthusiasm and sense of responsibility. She believes that people should be responsible for watching their own surroundings, thereby bringing safety and helping to make the area vibrant.

For example, Jacobs talks about sidewalks, neighborhood parks and city neighbors, and how these elements form a the peculiar nature of cities. How important are these elements? We are familiar with the things which Jane Jacobs talks about because they are around us. We can see them in our daily life, such as sidewalks, parks, neighbors and so on.

Opposing expressways and supporting neighborhoods were common themes in her life. In 1962, she was the chairperson of the "Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway", when the downtown expressway plan was stopped. She was arrested during a demonstration on April 10, 1968. In the same year, Jacobs moved to Toronto, where she lived until her death. She quickly became a leading figure in her new city and helped stop the proposed Spadina Expressway. A frequent theme of her work was to ask whether we are building cities for people or for cars.

Personally, I believe Jane Jacobs has become someone more than a writer as well as a fighter. She was already been a public leader and people trusted her more than governments. The book's purpose was to criticize the values of American urban planning from the 1950s and 1960s, when in many cities in North America the problem facing the decline of downtown areas, the former prosperity of downtown slums, and massive postwar urban renewal was under way. This was the era of the rise of modernist planning, of Le Corbusier's dream in the progressive realization of the city.

Jane Jacobs's critique is that this kind of urban planning and lifestyle, will make the city lose its vitality, resulting in a loss of pleasure. She believed the city is an organism, detailed and diversified, so that economic and social activities mixed with each other produce vibrant city, so it should be seen in the context of life science urban rehabilitation, rather than cold figures, scientific planning razed to the name of a large-scale urban redevelopment. A great city values the diversity, and this diversity is the need to maintain a certain environment, such as street life, the importance of neighborhood life is to control the car and refuse repetition of the urban landscape.

The street itself does not actually exist, it only refers to the use of building edges. But the "street" is when you think of a first impression of the city. Cities and suburbs' or towns' biggest difference lies not in size, but in the city "full of strangers." The most basic elements of the city is safety in the streets you can trust to make contact with strangers.

Jane Jacobs thinks the first thing to understand is that the public peace - the sidewalk and street of the cities - is not primarily kept by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious network of voluntary controls and standards among people themselves.

Some people think that the middle-class or upper-class family build good neighborhoods and poor families fail to. That is wrong. For example,within the poverty of the North End of Boston, or within the poverty of the West Greenwich Village waterfront neighborhoods, good neighborhoods were created. In the meantimes, within the upper-class Boston ‘s South End, bad neighborhoods were created, neighborhoods which internal failure grew greater with time instead of less.

Throughout the 1950s, the cost of building rose. There is a simple fact that no matter how steady the construction costs are. a old building requires less income that one which has not yet paid off its capital costs. Among the most admirable and enjoyable sights to be found along the sidewalks of big cities are the ingenious adaptations of old quarters to news uses. The town-house parlor that becomes a craftsman’s showroom, the stable that becomes a house, the basement becomes an immigrants’ club. the garage that becomes a theatre, the warehouse becomes a factory. These are the signs of life and are forever ocourring where a city has vitality.

Fifth Avenue in New York is an example has been mentioned many times in Jacobs’ book. She thinks this is good area for preserving the aged buildings that makes this area vibrant. It shows how good a city can be. Between 40th Street and 59th Street it is tremendously diverse in its large and small shops, bank buildings, office buildings, churches and institutions. Its architecture express these differences in use, and differences accrue from the varying ages of the buildings, difference in technology and the history of taste. But 5th Avenue does not look disorganized.They are sensible and natural contrasts and differences. The whole hangs together remarkably well.

In contrast railway tracks, waterfronts, campuses, expressways, large parking areas, and large parks have much in common with each other, insofar their tendency to create vacuums. As many city elements as possible must be used to build a lively, mixed territory, and as few as possible must be used to create unnecessary boundaries.

Automobiles are hardly destroyers of cities. The fact is that there are too many cars on the roads! Today, cars and cities should have been allies, however, they seem to be enemies.

When life science developed quickly, people hoped that they would find a new method to analyse the city. As to whether there is some connection between science and urban planning, Jane Jacobs does not confirm her attitude. Personally, I believe Cities are different from nature. cities include economy, society, social activities. Urban planning can simply copy from life science.

Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to overcome problems and needs outside themselves.

Graduation

2010-12-13T13:03:00.001-08:00

Emma Watson, Nima Dibazar, Gaia Zamburlini, Pardip Bansal and Marwa Al-Nahlawi

The first graduation ceremony featuring the 2009-10 MA A+U cohort took place today 13 December at the Whitworth Hall. The graduates received their awards from the Chancellor of the University of Manchester, Tom Bloxham MBE.

Nima Dibazar modelling his academic dress before the ceremony. Nima, Pardip and Marwa all featured in the brief video about the course available here

Teresa Stoppani

2010-12-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

Dr. Teresa Stoppani (University of Greenwich) will be leading a seminar for MA A+U at 10,30 am on Thursday 9 December.

Her new book Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice, Discourses on the City has just been published by Routledge.

Concerning architecture and the city, built, imagined and narrated, this book focuses on Manhattan and Venice, but considers architecture as an intellectual and spatial process rather than a product. A critical look at the making of Manhattan and Venice provides a background to addressing the dynamic redefinition and making of space today. The gradual processes of adjustment, the making of a constantly changing dense space, the emphasis on forming rather than on figure, the incorporation of new forms and languages through their adaptation and transformation, make both Manhattan and Venice, in different ways, the ideal places to contextualize and address the issue of an architecture of the dynamic.

On the previous day Wednesday 8 December Dr. Stoppani will be speaking at a seminar at the University of Manchester on Piranesi's Erasures in G19 Mansfield Cooper Building at 4.00 pm

Snowed Off

2010-12-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

Today's scheduled fraternal visit by MA A+U to the University of Sheffield MA in Urban Design course has had to be cancelled. Snow on both sides of the Pennines, the closure of university campuses and the cancellation of trains have all been against this particular innovation in the calendar.

Eamonn Canniffe's lecture Park Hill: It is what it is ... has also fallen victim to the adverse weather.

Both events will be rescheduled for the New Year.

Simon Sadler: The Situationist City (1999)

2010-11-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

Discussed by Christina Gregoriou

The author of the Situationist City, Simon Sadler was born in 1969 West Midlands. He is a Proffessor in Architecture and Urban History at the Universtiy of California, Davis and formerly a lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Nottingham. This book was intended to extract the Situationist architectural theory from a revolutionary program that attempted to confront the ideological totality of the Western world. The aim of the book was to search for the situationist city among the manifestoes, and works of art that the Situationists have left behind. Sadler focused on the early situationist program to try and save it as he says ’from the obscurity to which it was later on banished by the Situationist International.’

The Situationists were a group of revolutionaries influenced by the artistic avant-garde groups of the time. Early situationism was formed in 1957. The principle group and journals that formed Situationist International originated from two main lines: The expressionist groups of COBRA, and the International Movement of an Imaginist Bauhaus (IMIB) and the conceptual groups of the Lettrist and Lettrist International.

The Naked City

At the first part of the book, The Naked City, Sadler take us through the Situationisms’ critique of the environment as it currently existed. The Situationists were affected by the writings of thinkers like Henri Lefebre and Michael De Certeau who explored the principle of everydayness. They developed an awareness of the social structuring of the city into self-contained distinct quarters, of the city based on class occupation and function, but yet reliant on other components of the urban machine. Sociology implied this traditional planning that had grown under a rationalist umbrella, had reduced city structuring into a misleading, simplistic level.

Their experiments and case studies, analyzing the psychogeographical factors, influencing their mood, behavior and their choice of route as they were having their “drift” around the city. Each case study of the redevelopment of the naked city illustrated the situationist claims that urbanism represented a drive to rationalize, homogenize and commercialize Paris

An example of that is Debord’s and Jorn’s psychogeographical map where they cut up city street maps of Paris in a process of studying indigenous working class-zones. The map mourns the loss of old Paris, represents the city of the future, and explores the cities structures and use.
It serves as guides to areas of central Paris threatened for redevelopment, retaining those parts worth visiting, disposing of all those parts that they thought had been spoiled by capitalism.

Formulary for a New Urbanism

In the second part, Formulary for a New Urbanism, Sadler examines situationist principles for the city and city living The situationist city was a constant play of contrasts, between confined and open spaces, darkness and illumination, circulation and isolation. They described their drifts as radical rereadings of the city. They uncovered the social body of the naked city by ‘becoming streetwise’. They would explore discreet public gardens. The passages of the drifts were lined with cheap-shops and cafes; the guettos offered not only a different ambience, but also a non-bourgeois cost of living. Situationists would use their experience of language as a way of revolutionizing our consciousness of the city. Graffiti became regarded as a sign of the primitive energy of the everyday life of the masses. They even suggested the abolition of museums and the distribution of masterpieces to bars; believing that this would completely undermine cultural imperialism and elitism

New Babylon

In the third part, A New Babylon, Sadler described the closed situationists reached in making their ideas into reality; and that was through their proposal of the New Babylon. They ultimate goal was to reconstruct the city through a series of constructed situations. They assumed there was a ‘formulary’ that existed that would permit situations to be produced on demand. They claimed that each constructed situation would provide décor and ambience of such power that it would stimulate new sorts of behaviour, a glimpse into an improved future social life based upon human encounter and play. Sadler describes the Situationists' ideas of the Unitary Urbanism where it would no longer be driven by capital and bureaucracy, but by participation. It would be a unitary organism with different organs, dependent and inter-dependent on each other. In each experimental city, unitary urbanism was to act by way of a certain number of force fields, quarters. Each quarter would tend towards a specific harmony, divided off from neighbouring harmonies.

The Situationist International began to feel that unitary urbanism should not abandon the existing city in flavor of a virgin ground. That is why Constant’s New Babylon is shown suspended over entire cities and countries making literal Situationist International members', Debord and Jorn's, invocation in the pages of their Memoires of a ‘floating city’. In the structures that he proposed he would house some of the multiple functions that the traditional city accommodates individually. A typical sector in New Babylon could handle leisure, transport and shelter, addressing some of the situationist worries about the separation of activities by rational urbanism.

For the New Babylonians fun would not be a break from work and social normality. The principal activity of the inhabitants would be continuous drifts. They wanted to create that sort of disorientation, with changing landscapes from one hour to the next. The taste of the drift tends to promote all sorts of new forms of labyrinths made possible by modern techniques of production. Situationism tried to explore the concept that the accelerated movement and change of the city in the 20th century were incapable of relation to the pattern of a preexisting fabric. New Babylonians could physically rearrange the street they stood in. Every space is temporary, nothing is recognizable, everything changes, and nothing can serve as a landmark; the sense of labyrinth and disorientation that Constant wanted to emphasize that it could work supremely well as social space

At a later stage card holding members of the Situationist International comforted themselves that it was they, not ‘the technichian’ Constant who held the key to the effective use of those situationist ideas merely represented in New Babylon. After Constant left, he was denounced as a 'public relations man…integrating the massed into capitalist technological civilization’ with his ‘models of factories’.

After a few editions of the Situationist Interantional, they took an intensive critical turn that soon terminated their direct interest in Art & Urbanism, which also put Constant’s view of the Situationist City as the New Babylon out in the cold.

Tony Garnier: Une Cite Industrielle (1917)

2010-11-15T04:02:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Supriya Pundlik

Tony Garnier's Une Cite Industrialle is one of the most comprehensive ideal plans of all time.Published in 1917, it is not only an outstanding contribution to architectural and planning theories but also a sensitive expression of thought and cultural conditions of its day. Dora Wiebenson's framing of the book focused on the Cite’ s lesser-known role as a product of its cultural context, and as a bridge between nineteenth and twentieth century planning and between academic and non-academic theories and techniques.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN EUROPE
The end of the nineteenth century was a time of great change throughout Europe. The advent of industrialisation altered the landscape of the city forever. Many of the changes were not for the better and living conditions in industrial cities steadily deteriorated. The Industrial Revolution had the effect of bringing more and more people from the countryside into the heart of the city looking for work. Such dramatic over-population and unrestricted urban growth led to slum housing, dirt, disease and a lack of communal green spaces within the city landscape. Modern urban planning arose in response to this disorde. Reformation of these areas was the objective of the early city planners, who began to impose regulatory laws establishing housing standards for housing, sanitation etc. Urban planners also introduced parks, playground in city neighbourhoods, for recreation as well as visual relief. The notion of zoning was a major concept of urban planning at this time.

WHO WAS TONY GARNIER?
Tony Garnier was a French architect born in Lyons in 1869 and it is clear that the city and surroundings had a great influence on him. Whilst growing up Lyons was an industrial centre for textiles and metallurgy, the two industries catered for by Garnier s proposal for his industrial city. Garnier studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1901 won the prix de Rome competition and was sent to the French Academy at the Villa Medici. It was here where Garnier started to formulate his proposal for the Cité and in 1901 Garnier sent back the proposal to the École. However, the École refused to exhibit the work and instead insisted that Garnier produce the work on classical and renaissance architecture. Garnier continued to work on his proposal alongside more traditional work and was eventually able to exhibit his work in 1904. Afterwards, Garnier continued to develop his plan culminating a two-volume work published in 1917.

REGIONALISM
By the end of 19th century the theory of urbanism had expanded far beyond the unitarian and geographical concerns to include the total regional context in which the city was situated. Major reports on municipal reforms in the last part of the 19th century were made by individuals like Albert Shaw, who basically stressed the organic relation of the city to the country and predicted their eventual integration. These theories of regionalism attained their greatest popularity in England. Chief among them was Pattrick Geddes (1854-1932). Garnier's philosophy in the Cite Indutrielle was similar to that of Geddes in the emphasis on city decentralization, it being developed in relation to the industries, occupants and customs of the surrounding region.
Geddes's theories were considered similar to those expressed by Ebenezer Howard with regard to his Garden City. Two of Howard's basic assumptions were also stressed by Garnier: the emancipation of man from the monotony of his labour in order to take on more fruitful occupations and the view that all men are inherently cooperative and equal. The schemes are also related in such details as the inclusion of electric energy, the emphasis on planting within the city and widely accepted 19 th century ideal of a house and garden for each family.

In his preface to Une Cite Industrialle, Garnier specifically included most of the major elements of contemporary regionalist theory; the Cite was to represent one of a federation of cities, among which a bond would be created through emphasis on communication and exchange of goods. Local historical and botanical museums for regional expositions and a school of arts and industries were to be included in this project. Local crafts were to be taught. Nearby water power was to be used.
Deliberate proximity of the Railway Station to the old town to make it easy for the visitors, should be understood as an interpretation of the regionalist theory of preserving and promoting an interest in local monuments. However regionalism was never associated with socialism, and thus in this major philosophical tenet the Cite industrialle doesn't conform to the regionalist thought. Individual imitative is not stressed in the City, property is owned in common and public conveniences are maintained for benefit of all. Garnier had worked in the workers quarte of the city, some of his later planning may reflect social doctrines to which he was exposed while there. In his city employment services and free hostels as well as meeting rooms were created for workers' syndicates that a socialist government is presupposed. Many public facilities were provided like slaughter houses, flour mills etc, and equality to both sexes in education etc.

SOCIAL UTOPIAN CONCEPTS
At the end of the 19th century it was believed that many social reforms could be achieved gradually through moral and intellectual education leading to a future ideal state. Garnier believed in the basic goodness of man :when asked why his city contained no law courts, police force stations, jail or church he is said to have replied that the new society governed by socialist law would have no need of churches as capitalism would be suppressed.
In the Utopias of this period, fundamental, natural and primitive conditions were stressed; the emphasis on exercise, health, and physical well-being was a corollary to the awakening interest in natural life. Garnier‘s inclusion of a large public area for sports and spectacles in his city related to early utopian philosophy, pagan antiquity and love for games.

LYONS BACKGROUND

Lyons had undergone extensive urban remodelling from mid 19 century. Here public schools began, syndicates were formed, a new industrial quarter was planned. Reinforced concrete was used for industries as well as housing. In 1894 the 15 th congress of the Societe Francaise Geographique met in Lyons and established a program for the region, including construction of public utilities and dams. He was emphatic about separating the functions of the city from each other in order to allow for independent expansion, functional convenience and ease of transportation. Garnier stated in his preface that the siting of the city was determined by the location of water, the source of power.

THE CONCEPT
Garnier ‘s proposal was an industrial city for approx 35,000 inhabitants situated on a area in southeast France on a plateau with high land and a lake to the north, a valley and river to the south. Une Cite industrialle is a well coordinated and monumentally conceived plan placed in a park like setting where both the classical spirit of the academic tradition and the primitive simplicity of utopian ideas is demonstrated. In his proposal, Garnier tried to take into account all aspects of the city including governmental, residential, manufacturing and agricultural practices. The various functions of the city were clearly related, but separated from each other by location and patterns.

The public area at the heart of the city was grouped into 3 sections: administrative services and assembly halls, muesum collections and sports facilities.

The residential area is made up of rectangular blocks running east-west which gives the city its characteristic elongated form. The residential districts are the first attempt towards passive solar architecture. Garnier had energy efficiency in mind as the city was to be powered by a hydroelectric station with a dam which was located in the mountains along with the hospital.
The city was completed by a railroad d station to the east.

THE INFLUENCE OF JULIEN GAUDET
Garnier found a sympathetic point of view in the teaching of Julien Gaudet, a professor of architectural theory at the Ecole. Guadet's concern with rational planning, based on axiality and clear articulation of the separate parts of the building and his interest in the relationship of architecture to contemporary functions. The programme for the Cite hospital is close to Gaudet’s analysis of hospital planning. Gaudet favoured an arrangement of separate pavilions including separate building blocks for different functions.

ZONING
The main factory is located in the valley at the confluence of the stream and river. A railway passes between the factory and the city, which is on a plateau, and further up are the medical facilities.

In the homes, the rooms should have at least one large window oriented south for the entry of sunlight The land for the construction of the residential homes, are initially divided into 150 meters from east to west and 30 meters from north to south, dividing into lots of 15 by 15 meters, with one side facing the street.

Primary schools are scattered throughout neighbourhoods and in the northeast corner are the secondary schools.

CONCLUSIONS
Garnier’s Cité Industrielle was never built but echoes of his vision can be seen in Lyon where the mayor appointed him the city architect in 1905, a position he held until 1919. The most important work to emerge from his Cité Industrielle was the large stockyards complex, the stadium, the Grange Blanche Hospital and the housing project known as Les États Unis. The most important connection of Garnier with later planners is definitely through Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier was the first well-known architect to discuss Garnier's work and possibly the reason why Garnier became known as a pioneer of modern architecture and urban planning.
This is not to say that Garnier's vision of urban utopia is neither important nor successful. Much of what he proposed is at the least relevant today and there is no doubt that at the time someone with Garnier's vision was required to propose what he saw as a solution to the problems that faced society at that time.
This brings me back to the start, a utopia by its very nature is impossible to realise. Without people proposing their visions of a Utopia there can be no progress as out of generous dreams come beneficial realities.

In his praise, Edouard Herriot said:
“This builder, this realistic person, was spontaneously human. His sensitivity was only equal to his modesty. His culture proved to be often surprising. Indeed, Tony Garnier was a master, with all the nobleness and intelligence included in this word. A master, which means a guide and an example… But the Man was as admirable as the scholar; his moral qualities were equal to his genius.”

So what did you really think about MAXXI?

2010-11-08T03:00:00.000-08:00

During their excursion to Rome MA A+U visited Zaha Hadid's MAXXI. Here's what they thought about it.

Jonas thought it was a brave intervention that represented a new era for Rome.

Angela liked the use of the light

Supriya found that there was a lot of unutilised space

Luke thought it was a generic place that could be anywhere in the world

Jack felt the experience was dominated by the personality of the architect

Craig detected a surprising discontinuity of route which detracted from the experience of the building

Bill said it was untraditional - but didn't like it

Kathryn thought the building had a confusing layout but that is not necessarily a bad thing

Meliz liked the exterior but couldn't find her way round

Carrie thought the big window was an anti- climax

Chen thought that the building had tremendous meaning for the future of Rome
Preeya found the building disorienting

Natalie thought the artworks were overpowered by the building

Angad felt it was an adorable experience of unconventional spaces

Christina thought it was self-centred and out of context

Ketki observed that the look of the structure was out of context with what Rome is all about

MA A+U @ BSR

2010-11-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

MA A+U paid a visit to the British School at Rome on November 3 to meet Dominic Holdaway (pictured centre) and discuss their film projects in connection with the conference The Postmodern Palimpsest: Narrating Contemporary Rome to be held on 26 February 2011 at the University of Warwick and jointly organised by Dominic and Filippo Trentin.