A NC EST R A L
C I TI ES
Cases in undeveloped countries st il l li vi ng ver na c ul a r a rc hi tect ure
Amanda Rivera
Universidad del Bío Bío, Concepción/Chile
2009 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Dedicated to the people of the World. We can all learn from our History. We can all change the World.
Dedicado a los pueblos del mundo. Todos podemos aprender de nuestra historia. Todos podemos cambiar el mundo.
2009 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholaship
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The basis of my proposal is to think about the future with our past. This idea and my journey and research would not have been possible without the help of many people around me; family, friends, architects, professionals, and people of the world that helped me on the way in different ways. First I would like to thank my family, especially my mother, Mrs. Gloria Vidal, my sisters, Ms Tania Rivera and Ms Rayen Rivera and my grandmother, Mrs Dolores Saez, for their unconditional support, for teaching me a critical vision of the world and for giving me the direction and willingness to change our world and make it better. I also thank my father, Mr Eugenio Rivera, for giving me an adventurous spirit and for his support. I am especially grateful to the RIBA and Lord Norman Foster for this opportunity – it has been a once in a lifetime experience. I must thank my University “Universidad del Bio Bio” and the teachers that made the validation of the RIBA possible, without them this journey would not have been possible. I thank Ms Alex Nelia and Mr John-Paul Nunes from the RIBA and Ms Sarah Simpkin from Foster + Partners who helped me along the way. I also thank Mr Spencer de Grey for his important and flattering words about my work in the final presentation at Foster + Partners office in London. I thank Mr Cristian Muñoz for his unconditional support and production and post-production of the audio visual work of the research. I also thank Carlos Dominguez from Hewmedia that made it possible for me to share my trip online through the website. Many people helped me on the way, hosted me in their countries and sometimes even took me to their homes. I am especially thankful to Prof. Jorge de la Zerda from The University Mayor de San Andres from La Paz, Bolivia who helped me and gave me his book about the Chipayas’ Architecture “Chipayas: Modeladores del espacio” and who went with me all the way to Chipaya in the Bolivian Altiplano. Mr Cesar Ríos, the teacher at the fishing village of Puerto Miguel who welcomed me into his house and the town’s life. I also thank the architects Patricia Marchante, Mathilde Chamodot, Basile Cloquet and Philippe Garnier from CRAterre at École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble, France who helped me with many contacts around the world and who gave me their thesis “Mémoire du Dipôme de Spécialisation et d’Approfondissement: Modes d’habiter, cultures constructives et habitat de demain au Pays Dogon”. I thank the architect Onur Karahan from Turkey who welcomed me into his house, showed me the culture of his country and made contacts for me on site. I thank the architects Ali Mohammadi and Zoha Nadimi who received me into their wonderful house in Yazd, Iran and showed me their culture. I thank the architect Miranti Gumayan, who helped me arrange everything in Indonesia, made contacts and welcomed me into her house. I thank Valetinius Heri that hosted me in Pontianak and introduced me into his culture, the Iban culture, and helped me arrange the trip in Borneo Island.
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I also want to show my gratitude to friends that have stood by me along this journey in different ways, some welcoming me in their lives, in their culture, sharing their point of view; other from Chile or different parts of the world that have encouraged me and supported me at all times: Ms Marcela Pinto. Santiago, Chile Ms Emelina San Martin. Concepción, Chile. Ms Carolina Acuña. Concepción, Chile. Ms Francisca Gomez. Santiago, Chile. Mr Marcelo Cortez. Santiago, Chile. Mr Jesus Rodriguez. La Paz, Bolivia. Mr Ivan Cartes. Concepción, Chile. Ms Flora. Chipayas, Bolivia. Mr German. Chipayas, Bolivia. Mrs Aida. Puerto Miguel, Peru. Ms Laure Cornet. Grenoble, France. Mr Tribault Mathevet. Grenoble, France. Ms Birgit Fecher. Bandiagara, Mali. Mr Manuel Mora. Bamako, Mali. Mr Sebastien Rieussec. Bamako, Mali. Mr Carlos Alegria. Boston, USA. Mr Ignacio Irachet. New York, USA. Ms Bilge Isik. Istanbul, Turkey. Mr Ekrem Korkmaz. Istanbul, Turkey. Ms Çiğdem karahan and the Karahan family. Istanbul, Turkey Ms Ayse Celık and family. Uçhisar, Turkey Mr Mikael Özcan. Uçhisar, Turkey Mr Sina Estaky. Tehran, Iran Mr Behzad Hassanzadeh. Yazd, Iran Mr Pedram Mirzaie. Yazd, Iran. Mr Yasser Moosapour. Yazd, Iran. Mr Heri. Pontioanak, Indonesia. Ms Dona Dorina. Putussibau, Indonesia. Mr Apai Janggut. Sungai Utik, Indonesia. Mr Dave Lumenta. Jakarta, Indonesia. Mr Roberto Acevedo, Chile. Mrs Faizan Jawed, India
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CONTENTS
1.
Acknowledgements
05
2.
Proposal
09
3.
On the way
11
4.
Ancestral Cities Ancestral Sustainability.
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Cases of developing countries still living vernacular architecture
Motivation
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Ancestral Cities: An Ancestral Vision
15
Ancestral Settlements: The Practice of the Ancestral Ideology
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7
America Africa Middle East Asia
21 27 31 37
Ancestral Worldview: Ideology for the Future
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Ksar de Ait-Benhaddon
Aerial view of an Amazon town
Indonesian village, Borneo Island
A N C E S T R A L
Togo Village
Kalimantar, Indonesia
C I T I E S
AN C E S T RAL S U S TAI NAB I L I T Y C a se s in third world countries sti l l l iving vernacular architecture Ç
Village in the Amazonas
Amanda Rivera, Universidad del BioBio, Concepción/Chile 5th Year
Gyantse, Tibet
Nowadays the world, our cities, the places where we live, are collapsing. The actual crisis in all of these matters is obviously affecting us in our everyday life. The cost of living, paying for our cities gets harder by the day. We have to learn from the past, from our cultures. Aim I would like to research about ancient cultures and their way of living in the cities and towns in order to understand their relationship with geography and climate; their relationship with nature. I believe it is necessary to learn from the past in order to assure the survival of our future cities and towns. In order to assure the quality of the places in which we live. Many cultures in the past have developed several ways of sustainable urbanism and architecture, where the use of natural resources was determinant for their survival.
Yazd, Iran
Village North of Togo
Engagement In most of third world countries these ancient cultures still exist. Normally they are being extinct and had not been paid attention. I, as an inhabitant of a third world country, would like to explore our still living vernacular urbanism and architecture, to research their relationship with nature and their sustainable strategies. I plan to travel for two and a half months through South America, Africa, Middle East and Asia.
America Chipayas are an ancient American culture located in the south of Bolivia. They live in the altiplano at 4,000 meter above sea level in a very dry area where changes of temperatures during the day are huge. They have developed communitarian ways of building their towns with roots and earth. Puerto Miguel in de Peruvian Amazonia is a fishing village next to the Yarapa River. They have developed ways of association mostly because of the inundations and others climate conditions, the village expands through the river. Africa The villages in the north of Togo have an especial way of organization, developing a way of controlling the heat and shelter from the sun; towns grow in order of this protection. The Dogon Towns in Mali where built into the stone. They have been growing perforating them. They get to control the temperature and shadows building inside the hill; this town kips growing according to the geography. Middle East Ksar de Ait-Benhaddon in Turkey is a city that has grown from an ancient stone settlement. There are still people that live in the old houses, protected from the hot weather. Yazd is “the second most ancient and historic city in the world”. This Iranian city is an example of sustainable technology; the entire city is built with wind towers in order to control temperatures inside the houses and the city. Asia Kalimantar is in the Borneo Island. This ‘sparely populated landmass’ is built above the river. They have ways of communication and circulate through the houses with bridges and boats. They prepare for the river growths in a communitarian way. Gyantse is a city in the Tibet region of China. The leak of rain allows them to inhabit the roofs in a permanent way. It has grown between the high mountains of the region, taking advantage of their presence.
Chipayas Village, Bolivia
Dogon Village, Mali
Turkey Context It is an urgent need for the planet to improve the sustainable way of building our cities and town; global warming is not stopping and our cities are the main reason for this. There is an imperative need for a change in our way of seeing and living our lives. Methods I believe that an architect has to know about so many things to be able to create space for people and traveling is a fundamental way of achieving this, which is what we are working for. In order to understand their world vision and way of living and building, I believe one of the mayor ways of tackling my investigation is through talking to people. I would like to know their reasons to live like that and how they see nature. Photography should be a way of representing the reality and to record what I’ll see. Drawing and writing should be a way to analyze in order to help me understand this cultures and their way to built. ORTAHISAR YAZD GYANGSE
DOGON DAPANGO
KALIMANTAR
PUERTO MIGUEL CHIPAYAS
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ON THE WAY An important part of the project is to share the experience and the worldview of all the different cultures I came into contact with. To be able to share while travelling is the reason for this web page, as an intermediary between the journey experience and the world, where I could write my first impressions while travelling and people could not only see, but also comment and learn from cultures on the other side of the world. Many times it happened that people who were part of the research, people that still live in an ancient way, could see themselves here and could recognise the importance and the contribution they could make to the world.
www.amandarivera.cl
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A NC EST R A L C I T I ES ANCESTRAL SUSTAI NABILITY Cases living
of
developing vernacular
countries still architecture
MOTIVATION Modern City When anyone thinks about development and the future they think about the western world. The big cities and their advanced techniques and science. The vast, dense future cities, their movement, pollution and noise. Modern life is characterised by its fast rhythm and constant noise. We think that is modernity, we think that is the future. When we do that, when we think our life has to be like that to be modern, we are accepting all that comes with it. Modern cities grow by themselves and don’t look forwards or backwards. Buildings grow according to the needs or demands of the market, not people. And the don’t always consider the environment. When building modern cities it seems that we don’t mind how the world will be in 100 years’ time because we are using all the resources we can to heat or cool what we have built. We don’t know how people used to cool or heat themselves before us and we don’t mind, we just turn on our fan or heater. We don’t mind if we have to fill in a river or a wetland to build if it is cheaper. But we are surprised when our cities are flooded and our animals are extinct. We don’t even think about ourselves, about our own lives, about the present. We don’t care how far people will have to drive or walk or ride public transport to get to their jobs because of the constant growth of our cities. Undeveloped World In developing countries like mine we would like to be modern. We would like to be developed. And we think that to be all that we have to be western, that we have to build cities like that. So in America we find concentrated, polluted, noisy and fast-moving cities. But we are still undeveloped. It is in these countries, countries like mine, where these big cities coexist with the native cities – with native and sometimes
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indigenous settlements, with this vernacular way of building. It is in these developing countries, where western influences are mixed with native ways of living, that my interest for the ancestral cities began. Here, where we can see how people grow with nature and not over it, where “modernity” has forgotten about that which already exists. Where what we understand as “modernity” is valued above nature and native knowledge. This journey is an attempt to understand what was before us and our modernity. To re-evaluate it so that we can build a better future for humanity - a future with our past.
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ANCESTRAL CITIES: AN ANCESTRAL VISION
When we think about the ancestral we think about the old and the dead. All the cultures that founded our current civilisation, or those who are simply extinct. In America we think of the Incas, the Mayas and the Aztecs as the great ancient cultures. But these great empires no longer exist, they were made extinct by their own way of life or by outsiders. They are gone. The Ancestral Today We forget about a part of the world that is ancient but alive. A part of the world that was here before we felt the effects of modernity. We forget them only because they are being left behind. But they exist. They are alive and we have much to learn about them. Ancient cultures are all over the world, but mostly in developing countries. It is in these countries where modernity has arrived late. These old cultures are mainly in rural areas where they can still live in the same way. But they are mixed into our cities too; they are beside us, with us. But their buildings, their culture, is being demolished or is in ruins, and we build for modernity on top of them. We place “development” over the old. Nature + Man: World vision Ancestral cultures have an identity, they respond to a history and work to preserve it. Even if these groups are not indigenous and are not identified by a single tribe or ethnic group, they recognise that they have the same roots. These roots tie them together. When they refer to their roots they don’t just talk about their ancestors, the people before them, but also about the earth before them. Ancient cultures lived with nature, with the earth and the soil. Because all they needed to survive: food, clothes and shel-
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ter, came directly from there. That was clear to them, so they took good care of it. This made it possible for them to see humankind as a part of the world, as a part of everything and not as humanity isolated and above all else. Understanding this is the essence of their world and is fundamental to how they build with the earth. It means understanding people as a part of the wider planet – a place full of different cultures, each with its own way of life. They are just here for a small amount of time and the world will continue turning where they are dead, as it did when their parents died. But they take care of their children, they work for their future, and they value their parents’ efforts. They take care of the earth. They comprehend the complexity of the world: with man as a part of nature; with their culture as a part of the cultures of the world; with their current generation as a part of the time of man, with a past and a future. That is a sustainable vision, a way of seeing the universe: an ideology for a sustainable tomorrow.
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ANCESTRAL SETTLEMENTS THE PRACTICE OF THE ANCESTRAL IDEOLOGY
The ancestral cultures are a part of the earth and they know it. All the manifestations of their culture are a part of the earth and a part of nature. There is where architecture and urbanism is in harmony with nature, as a part of the landscape. When understanding the world and the place of human beings within it, they have to understand nature. They have to get to know the wind, the cold, the sun, the rain, the water, humidity; everything that surrounds them, to be able to live and to protect themselves if necessary. Ancestral buildings are standing, in the centre of the world, with the soil, with the water, with the earth. The purpose of my journey is to understand how ancestral cultures have built their cities and settlements. These are the manifestations of the ideology that built their cultures and towns. These are seven case studies of different cultures around the planet, through four different regions: America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Seven cultures that could be thought completely different and have opposite conditions, but are united by the same vision. Here we see how the same ideology can be manifest in so many different ways in a variety of landscapes and we can begin to understand human ingenuity and wisdom.
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UÇHISAR, Turkey YAZD, Iran GYANTSE, China
YOUGA DUGOURU, Mali
SUINGAI UTIK, Indonesia PUERTO MIGUEL, Peru
CHIPAYA, Bolivia
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AMERICA
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CHIPAYA / Bolivian Altiplano
August, 2009
It wasn’t easy to get to Chipaya. This small town lies in the middle of the Bolivian Altiplano and there is no public transport apart from a truck that goes every Thursday and returns on Monday. It carries everything they might need, from animals to people and their provisions. These conditions determine their lifestyle and, of course, their culture. Once I got into the Chipaya territory, I started to see round constructions in the countryside, the rural part of the territory. Most of the Chipaya people live in both places: in the town, which is called the reunion point, where the different “Ayllus” come together, and in the countryside. But most people still live the old way in the rural province. It is in this last part that we can see the origins of this people. Here the wind blows and the salt is everywhere. They cultivate white potatoes and quinoa. They take care of sheep and llamas. They cleaned the land from the salt so it could be fertile. Most of the buildings here are made in the traditional way with “tepe” and they all face east, welcoming the morning sun and protecting themselves from the westerly winds. The Chipayas are an example of co-existence with nature, with the place they say their ancestors left for them.
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Chipaya is located above a salt desert in the high lands of the Andes. It is a hard land to live on. Here, where the soil is not even good enough to make adobe, they have managed to build and have survived here for a long time. The view for the Chipayas is an almost infinite horizon, with the wind blowing constantly day and night. This wind transforms into a frozen breeze when the sun sets. That’s why the chipayas have their back to the wind and welcome the first sunbeam. The chipaya village is organised and oriented with their entrances to east (where the sun rises), protecting it from the aggressive west wind; erecting “wall housing” that stops the west to east winds, creating interior micro climates in the settlement.
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PUERTO MIGUEL / Peruvian Amazonia
August, 2009
The only way to get to the town is by boat. When I left the boat at the port of Puerto Miguel, I walked between the Yarapa river and the building in front. Now it is August and summer there – they call it the dry time of year. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t rain - it rained every evening I was there. It means the river level is low, about 100 meters from the houses. In winter the houses are over the river and the community boat that goes to the biggest city near (Nauta, 2 hours away) goes from house to house looking for people. The town is understood with the river, they have got an intense relationship. The town follows the line of the river, its riverbed. Every family has their seeds in the area just next to the river, because those areas are more humid for the rice fields. Then there is a street and then the houses looking out the river. These lands are low but they take advantage of it and are prepared. Every house has is at least one meter from the ground and everyone has “canoes”, small boats that allow them to leave the house during winter time. Now, in summer, the relationship with water is not the same. While it is physically a greater distance, in everyday life it is close. The daily trek to the river is necessary for everyone and everything: for cooking, to fish, to wash, to shower. The river’s water is always needed. Several times a day people go to the rafts floating over the Yarapara where every family save their “canoes.” This year has been a very rainy year, with more water than usual. That has made some products grow more slowly. But the inhabitants of Puerto Miguel couldn’t live with out the water of this river. They say it has “everything” they need.
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Puerto Miguel is a fishing village between the Ucayali and the Yarapa rivers, at the origin of the Amazon River. It lies in the largest basin area of the world. The people of Puerto Miguel live from the water, either because they take fish out of the river or because the daily rice is planted on the lands that are flooded during the rainy season. During that time of the year the Yarapa and the Ucayali River are united through the village and it changes absolutely: the geography, the village’s aesthetic, people’s food, the relationship between neighbours, transportation. The town adapts to both situations: during the wet season the town lets the river go through, raised above the ground, ground that will be fertilised by the river flood. That’s why the settlement is organised around the river’s shape, giving every house a floodplain. This fertile land will be worked during the dry season when, where before there was water there will be rice fields. At this time people walk, they don’t have to take the boat to go from house to house as in the rainy season, but they will have to take it to go outside the village, as that is the only way.
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AFRICA
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YO U G A-D O U G O U R O U
/
Pays
D ogo n
September, 2009
Youga Dougourou is not that far and it is not that inaccessible. It’s just that people normally walk. There are no cars, not many motorcycles, not many cows or donkey cars either, just people walking everywhere. And that can be a long way when you have to carry a big saucepan on the top of you head and your child on your back. Youga Dougourou is at the top of the cliff in the Bandiagara escarpment. Even if you are 10 meters from the entrance to the town you can’t see it, it is camouflaged between the rocks and the hill. You might hear a lot of sounds before you see a house. You could hear music amplified by the echo. Music from their long greetings that are like music to me or the sound of the girls and women smashing herbs and other vegetables. People look happy and calm. They live just out side their houses where they can find shade and a good space to work or rest in the community. And that is how the town is built, between the water source at the top of the cliff where the town ends and the milts fields down the mountain. Houses are built where they can’t sow seeds, so they can use all the fertile land to grow millet and beans. They say they have everything they need to live and they live well. They only wish for more water in the hot season.
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Youga Dougourou is one of the small villages in Dogon Country. It is built on the cliff on the Bandiagara escarpment. When looking out their houses, the Dogon’s view is over the plane and the fertile land that provides them with millets (their main food). This town is built beneath the escarpment to protect them and their houses from the strong sun for most of the year and the rain for two months a year. The settlement is the result of the addition of small buildings adapted to the pendent and the rocks, which creates spaces of different sizes where the community gets together, whether under the shade of the houses or some lonely tree (baobab). The main concern of the Dogon people is the lack of water, because of the long dry season on the zone. That’s why they take very good care of it and use it as much as they can, mostly for the millet field, to be able to feed themselves.
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MIDDLE EAST
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uÇHISAR / CAPADOCCIA
September, 2009
Turkey is a very modern country and Capadoccia is place you must see. Modernity is in Capadoccia in all kinds of ways. Transport is very good, which makes it easy to get there and see the area quickly. Sadly, at some point modernity forced the inhabitants of these lands to change their homes, the “troglodyte” houses, for conventional houses. But the weather in this zone is not easy and not all houses bear it. “Troglodyte” houses help to keep the warmth inside in winter and outside in summer. Nowadays, there are some people who have returned to their roots. There are also people who have inherited from their parents. Sadly the relationship between the homes is almost gone. But we can still learn from the last few remaining and from the many ruins, which look like cemeteries of old settlements in the cone and rocks of Capadoccia. 33
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Uรงhisar is a small city in the region of Cappadocia in the centre of Anatolia. This part of Turkey is known for its particular landscape and geological formation. Here the valleys have been sculpted by the wind, rain and temperature changes. The cones, or troglodyte houses of the region, have their historical importance, but most of all they work in the climate of the region. Because of their big stone mass, the rock accumulates the temperature inside of it and brings it into the space when needed. Sadly most of these houses are unused and today are just in ruins; but these great masses of unused houses, the way they all receive sunlight and warmth at some time of the day, makes them work very well.
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YA Z D / iran desert
October, 2009
The ancient city of Yazd is made of countless amazing alleys that takes you to another world. Walking between the graffiti in Farsi on the walls and hearing the call for prayer from the mosques tells you that you are in Middle East. Yazd is one of the most traditional cities in Iran, in its culture and above all its religion. Women appear as shadows, walking around its labyrinths in their long black clothes. In the same way that women cover their body, the houses do not allow themselves to be seen from the outside. The only opening they have to the outside is the door, everything else happened inside with the family. The city retains its mysteries about what is going on in the inside, and the inside is another world. These labyrinths and small alleys break the strong wind of the desert and, with their tall walls, shade the streets during the day. Yazd also has “wind catchers”, which are an important symbol of the city. Sadly, not many of the “wind catchers” are working any more. In times gone by, they trapped the winds of the desert and brought them to the house, keeping the spaces fresh. The “wind catchers” worked with an amazing system of canals that brought fresh water trough the underground and made it possible to live in a city like Yazd in the middle of the desert.
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Yazd, in the heart of Iran, stands on an oasis where the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut deserts meet. It is thought to be one of the oldest cities on earth and developed unbelievable modern systems to make it possible to survive in such an harsh land. The ancient inhabitants of these cities created a large underground water system, which provides a reliable supply of fresh water to most of the houses and was collected in big spaces or “qanat”. This system worked together with the wind catchers or “bargir”, which carried the air or wind from outside the buildings and cooled it with the fresh water that constantly passed through the underground. The buildings themselves do not face directly outside because of the extremely hot weather and over all because of the concentration of the sun. All of them are “inward looking” - they created outside spaces in the middle of the house that bring fresh air into the rooms but protect them from the external heat. This means that the outside spaces, the public spaces, are surrounded by huge walls (3-5 metres tall) that limit them. The small alleys never run straight, instead they twist around the building as a barrier to the strong winds. This combination of large walls and thin alleys creates a very pleasant shade most of the day.
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ASIA
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SUINGAI UTIK / Borneo Island
October, 2009
This is a small community deep in the heart of Borneo Island, or Kalimantan as it is called by the Indonesians. Suingai Utik is an Iban settlement based on a “Long House�, which was the first building to be constructed in the village and has a mystic significance and law for the Iban people. The long timber-made house is a shared structure. it remains as it was built, as part in community. Every day; at night, in the morning, people gather together in front of their doors to chat, to work or to share with their kids. They celebrate together and discuss the future of the village. The house and the village are structured in a similar way to their relationships. They have space for each person individually but all the spaces are for everyone. So they all have to take care of the everyone else, they have to look after each other to look after themselves. And to look after the future they have to take care of what they have now. They take care of the river and the forest and the paddy field as they will be inherited by their children. They are the future for their children. The future for their culture. 39
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Suingai utik is hidden in the middle of the jungle in Borneo Island. This a small Iban community that is based on a “Long House” that rises at lease 1.5 meters above the humid tropical ground. The Iban people are sustained by the forest, they get everything they need from it to live and that is the main reason why they take such a good care of it. They say that they see the past and the future in it and to forget about nature is to poison themselves and their children. The Iban construction depends on nature not only for materials for their wooden houses, but also for ventilation and comfortable living conditions. All of their communities are oriented depending on the river: “the long house” faces the water source for two reasons: to take water to eat, take a bath or cook with and; to benefit from its cooling breezes. All constructions must be built facing north so they don’t get such strong sunlight in the community spaces. These community areas face the private spaces - here the community spends most time during the morning or evening, so it needs to be fresh when most of the time it is humid and hot, and it has to be in the shade and protected from the constant rain.
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October, 2009
GYANTSE / Tibetan plateau
The climate is not easy in Tibet. Mornings and evenings are freezing cold and at midday it can easily get up to 20 or more degrees Celsius. Its people have to fight against the weather and protect themselves from its extremes. When walking through the village, it looks like the buildings have their backs to you - they face backwards on the outside and the open themselves to the inside. On the inside, you see backgrounds and roofs. There are not many windows in the Tibetan house, because they don’t mind looking at the view from the house. They go to the roof every day to work, as the view is better from there. They take advantage of the time the sun shines to dry the fuel and heat their water and themselves, but they get inside their houses and don’t look outside when the sun is gone. Tibetan people are a little bit like their houses. A bit shy from the out side, but very warm when they let you in.
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ON THE WAY
ANCESTRAL CITIES ANCESTRAL SUSTAINABILITY
2009 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholaship
The city is approximately 4000 meters above sea level in the middle of the highest plateau in the world. Here, where there are not even trees for fuel to warm themselves, the Tibetans manage to survive - and do much more than that. Gyantse is said to be the city least influenced by the Chinese, but this doesn’t always appear to be the case. A straight main street cuts the original, not octagonal, Tibetan geometry. But the streets in the old part of the town, in the real Tibetan town, are wavy. They avoid the strong, cold wind of this land without trees to prevent it blowing forcefully against their houses. The life of the community took place inside the houses, in their community backyard spaces inside or on the roof. They even transformed the private spaces that form part of the house into an integrated system with their neighbours roofs and backyards. They work in there together, whether drying a little wood, some food or cattle dung for fuel. That way they can use the strength of the sun during the day, without exposing the interior of their shelter to the freezing morning and evening winds.
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ANCESTRAL CITIES ANCESTRAL SUSTAINABILITY
2009 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholaship
ANCESTRAL WORLDVIEW: IDEOLOGY FOR THE FUTURE
Cities today are adding parts that don’t get to form a system; they are a living being that only grows with the control of the market, a transnational economic order that has no view of the world except for the view of the owners of the planet. An order that has no sense of any time but today. Cities are getting as far from humanity as they can, because there is no intention to think beyond ourselves and our time. Our duty is to overcome that thought, that ideology. When we look backwards we see how things were done well in the past, but what was made before cannot be made in the same way in the future. We must understand the main concepts to be able to improve them. We cannot limit ourselves, our modern society and go back to the ancient building and towns; we must improve it, going forward with our past. We must grow up and take the past of the world as part of the present. When there was no electricity, no treated water, no computer or satellites, old civilisation knew about astrology and could even predict cycles in nature. Today we have much more advanced technology, we have many others tools to understand and change the world. We have to know how to use them. This is not a power to be used in a selfish way, because it is inherited from all cultures to todays and it is our inheritance from nature. If we respect our past even a little bit we should be humble enough to recognise we are not on top of everything, but we are a part of it. Today the power is in mercenary hands that do not want to share anything, not even the future, and it is destroying our world. We have to change the power from where we are. We have to change ourselves to change our cities, our politics, our leaders and our world. We could take the ancient legacy literally and build our cities just the same way they always have been: in the ri-
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ANCESTRAL CITIES ANCESTRAL SUSTAINABILITY
2009 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholaship
ver jungle zone we would build over piles, when there is too much wind we will turn our back to it, where it is too hot we will build shade, in the desert we will build with soil. And we should. But we should use our minds and our modern technology to improve these techniques, surpass this worldview into a revolutionary way of building cities, with all that is beyond man and with mankind’s future. As architects we have skills, abilities and we have duties. We have the skill of shaping spaces for humanity. We have the duty to build the best cities and buildings that we can and we must do our duty. If we change our minds we will change the world. We just have to make the decision and go forward with determination.
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ANCESTRAL CITIES ANCESTRAL SUSTAINABILITY
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