ALBERT POPE: Ladders - Architecture at Rice 34 (1996)

Reviewed by Honghao Zeng



Primacy of space
The contemporary city is invisible: the process or urban development lacks the conceptual framework that would allow us to understand it. Collective neglect: our perceptions of the city stop us from including the different forms of contemporary urbanism.

Primacy of form
The contemporary city is not an identifiable object: built form does not characterize the contemporary city. The contemporary city is inaccessible to those who live and design it.

An idea of form in a city of space
Built form and the logic of form: urban form and thus the city is always, to some degree, autonomous, for example, the urban grid.

Apparatus of inclusion
As the grid disappears, so does the city. The grid is the city. This relationship is marked by the grid’s ability to generate systems of infinite complexity.
20th century planners' rejection of the grid led to an emergence of an anonymous and dehumanizing urban existence.

Centripetal and centrifugal grid
The grid sustains two divergent organizational characteristics: centripetal and centrifugal. Centrifugal: infinite extension or continuity outward in all directions. Centripetal: a bounded figure, its extent is known.

Grid organization on the surrounding spatial field.
The centripetal grid is cut off from its content - posits an outside to its own inside, an outside that is alien to its own interior. The centrifugal grid has the coordinates of everywhere, there is no such thing as an outside.

Grid transformation: the prewar city has centrifugal organization, postwar city has centripetal organization. Mumford characterized the industrial city as a place of darkness, chaos, and closure, with the Modern Movement promising an open liberated city. Pope claims that as modern building and spaces began to open up, the city itself began to close down.

Marcuse’s 3 phases of grid formations:
1. the precapitalist city.
2. The city of laissez-faire capitalism.
3. the city of mature capitalism. The city was perceived as a process rather than urban plan.

Centripetal vs. closed city
Urban implosion: transition from centrifugal to a centripetal urban order. Catastrophic implosion: a city which undergoes significant population loss. Historical examples of centripetal order: palaces, prisons, schools, monasteries, asylums, forts.

Urban transition
The ladder is the invention of urban reconstruction, it manifests characteristics of centripetal organization. In the ladder, vestiges of traditional urban form survive, yet its spatial qualities are antithetical to those of open centrifugal urbanism.

Urban implosion
There is a closure from the Garden City, to the modern city, directly to the built reality of postwar urban construction.

Grid erosion
The disappearance of the grid coincides with the disappearance of the city, yet it is apparent that this disappearance is never really complete.
A moment in which the city, as it is historically understood, ceases to be – the grid transforms into a ladder. Grid and ladder exist at the same time.

The ladder
The ladder manifests the characteristics of closed centripetal organization.
In contrast with the infinite continuity of the open grid, the ladder is a finite, indivisible, hierarchical structure. Ten grid points: different routes; a variety of itineraries, any number of plans, often at cross-purpose. Ten ladder points: one route; one itinerary, one plan, the virtual suppression of cross-purpose.

Linear cities
Garden cities: they focused on limited-size simulations of provincial towns. Linear cities: they are open-ended, and a limitless extension of the metropolis.
Two broad categories:
1. “band type”: this model was proposed by N.A.Milutin. He proposed 6 parallel zones along the river Volga. Each band had functional criteria. But there was no connection between any of these 6 bands, each band could expand individually.
2. A kind of city organized around a centralized, hierarchical spine. The spine comprised of institutional buildings like schools, hospitals. Since the spine had a direct connection to the path of transportation, there was a scope of formation of new spines.

Hilberseimer
Hilberseimer is the prime theorist of the ladder. He envisaged relentless punched openings in the urban wall with transparent skin structures arrayed on a series of parallel urban spines.
The settlement unit could be divided into 6 zones: industrial zone, freeway, feeder, commercial and administration zone, residential zone and a park zone. The settlement unit was conceived as the catalyst of spatial implosion.

Grid replanning
Four stages of replanning: existing plan; grid demolition, freeway and feeder connection; industrial park constructed; final grid demolition, commercial and parking relocated.
The superurban stage
Early stages of suburban growth—where traditional centrifugal development is primary and “suburban” centripetal development is secondary—move to the present stage, where the two forms of development are somewhat balanced—superurban stage, where centripetal development fully dominates the hierarchical centrifugal core. It is the moment when the space of the open centrifugal “world” implodes.

The ellipsis
It is the agent of imploded urban space; the overlay and underlay of forms such as bridges, freeways and tunnels which Pope explains then creates an ellipses. It is not caused due to delay or uneven development, while it is a result of the centripetal development.

The centripetal city
When centralized poly-nuclear expansion started to fail, the city got trapped into a conflict where neither the traditional urban strategies could die, nor could new urban strategies emerge.

The spiral
By the end of second world war, metropolitan masses became so apparently problematic, so socially and politically dangerous, that it could no longer take on concrete urban form.
The path of the open grid is theoretically infinite in both directions. Unlike the closed figure of the spiral, it can never establish an end point, or “end of the road”. In contrast to this infinite extent, the spiral is closed and singular.

The strip and the mega-structure
Sprawl can be defined as the residuum of exurban corporate nuclei. As the disorganization of the exurban residuum has come to be known as urban “blight”, so the disorganization of the exurban residuum has come to be known as urban sprawl.
Sprawl, like inner city blight, is only a metaphor for the more general qualities found in the residuum of a closed urban system.

The disorganization of space.
Since there is always a dialectic between the urban form and space, the excessive degree of organization in the enclave triggers an excessive degree of disorganization in the residuum. Now the exurban disorganization can be understood better when not in contrast with a highly formed organization of the enclave. It emerges not as an effect of forces surging out of control, but due to lack of structured organization.

Conclusion
Traditional western urban structure is a kind of continuous grid. Modern suburbanization produced a new kind of urban structure and urban experience which can be defined as ladders. It is discontinuous, targeted, linear connections between point to point.
The rapid development of traffic and transportation hierarchy systems interrupted the continuity of grid space, ruled out choice, formed a “super-urban stage”, and this process is called “grid erosion”.
Vehicular circulation systems benefit people through convenience and promote the development of the region. However, city traffic facilities broke the urban texture, burying the characteristics of the city, which led to the degradation of city quality.
In my opinion, with the development of society, the situations and conditions of urban models have changed fast. It is difficult to find a permanent way to lead urbanism, but what we should keep in mind is that there is a possible to modify a direction of improvement and that humanisation is a vital priority.

Albert Pope: Ladders - Architecture at Rice 34 (1996)

Reviewed by Rebecca King

The Primacy of Space In this text, the contemporary city, the city of today, is viewed as under construction and invisible to the naked eye. Pope does not mean this literally of course, but refers to the notion that one cannot see the urban conceptions that the city operates under. The city has dropped in status to something that is simply passed through as people go about their own individual lives. Not forgotten or neglected, just unseen. He also introduces the contemporary city as a parasite; an urban/sub-urban failing in which new developments are not outgrowing the urban host, but becoming a new urban organism. Pope suggests that to better understand the city, we must separate the new parasitic city from its original urban host. It is not the built form which impacts the city most, but the spaces in between such as spaces of urban decay, public parks, high speed roads or car parks. These areas have slipped past designers and we must focus back on these to fix the state of the contemporary urban environment, recreating a dialogue between built form and urban space. Pope proposes that the urban grid is undergoing an autonomous process of transformation, that it is ultimately a grid based on internal logic. This transformation of urban organisation will, henceforth, be referred to as the “ladder”. The Open City There is a powerful link between the urban grid and the urban identity of a city. The grid can be read as an icon of order, a bureaucratic matrix. But beyond this, it is a tool for infinite complexities. It can not only be definitive, but ambiguous at the same time, a problem which caused 20th Century urban reformers to promote its disappearance. Rosalind Krauss’s reading of the centrifugal and centripetal grid is useful in this instance. She sets up the centrifugal reading of the grid as an open system, a fragment of an unlimited field which will never be known in its entirety. The centripetal grid is then the conflicting feature. It is closed and limited system, symbolic of form and order. Due to industrial and demographic explosion in the 19th Century, an autonomous, limitless urban grid was born, such as was seen in Manhattan. It became itself, a process, not an urban plan but an urban metabolism. This would be a centrifugal grid. Cities were rarely created as pure centripetal form. Although they would have a degree of closure, they would still be considered as open systems. The open city allows for a free society, it is society’s urban imagination where anything can happen. Yet it would appear that this view is out of step with the city of contemporary construction. The transition between the two, the emergence of an unknown form from the centripetal grid is the ladder, the skeleton of a unique type of contemporary urban space.

Urban Implosion An alternative theory is that the city is not opening up, but closing down. The erosion of the grid, in turn, causes the erosion of the city. This point, where the city ceases to be, is the point of implosion. It is here that the grid transforms into a ladder. Urban form survives in the ladder, but spatially, it opposes an open, centrifugal urban form. It generates a closed system of operation. If ten points were to be visited in an open grid, the sequence of visitation could be endless. The grid generates multiple routes and interconnections. The ladder, however, eliminates options and allows for only one itinerary, thus suppressing the cross purpose of an urban grid. The ladder could be said to have evolved from the concept of a ‘Linear City’. Many variations of the linear city were proposed, falling into two categories. The first is the “band type” developed by Russian theorist N.A. Milutin. The plan was a series of six parallel zones layered astride a frame for transportation. Each band had its own function and would be capable of infinite extension. The second is organised around a central, hierarchical spine where everything is placed in relation to the path of transportation. A single dominant route dictates the urban circulation and allows for secondary development and a break from the monotony that the bands present. The ladder, therefore, is the linear association in contemporary urban development. Ludwig Hilberseimer can be named as the prime theorist of the ladder. His ‘Settlement Unit’ was proposed as an alternative to the ever-present urban grid. It sustained the flexibility of the grid whilst offering increased adaptability, a coherent form, large urban open spaces and a degree of autonomy. Inundation of Space The ladder is understood as the agent of grid reorganisation and dramatic spatial inversion. It is the agent of imploded urban space, the overlay and underlay of forms such as bridges, freeways and tunnels which Pope explains then creates an ellipsis. These ellipses cannot be part of the hierarchical urban development but are separate entities which can be quantified in the production as a new centripetal labyrinth. The two remain interrelated even though the ellipsis is, by definition, outside of the system that produced it. Here the theories of Fredrick Jameson’s postmodern hyperspace are used to identify this phenomenon.

The Centripetal City Pope now addresses the way that closed urban systems have been allowed to develop in the absence of a strong metropolitan centre, thus causing exclusion and division. As the metropolitan order declines into chaos and disorganisation, these closed urban systems grow and become more extreme, consequentially contributing further to the demise of the metropolis. What emerges from this is a radically dispersed polynuclear order. It never interlocks with metropolitan space, but creates some unity of urban form. Polynuclear expansion has a hierarchical urban core, around which autonomous nuclei gather. Pope states that this is what sustains the present state of metropolitan form. An urban sprawl for which it would appear, society cannot find an alternative. This urban sprawl is kept at a standstill due to old models of the city ineffectively persisting, and new, sustainable models failing to emerge. Therefore, the functions of the urban form must be eliminated before they can be created, to avoid the entropy which has emerged from the closed systems. However, the counter sites of contemporary urban space will continue to evolve regardless. The space in between, the void, is already full of economical, political and cultural meaning. Mass Absence Using the well-known photograph of a mass demonstration in front of Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio, Pope addresses the paradox of architectural spaces and forms having the ability to reference both autonomous form and reference a powerful historical moment in the same instance. The connections persist at every turn, such as they do between built form and urban landscape in the case of the ellipsis. They have not disappeared, but are simply obscured in their form and meaning. It may be neglected by its users, but contemporary urban space persists, and continues to effect the quality and characteristics of its own internal environment. “It is better to suffer the void of abstraction than gratuitous representation, better to be lost than to languish in the ‘objective world’ of closed urban development.”

Albert Pope: Ladders (1996)

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.