ASPHALT
SKATE BOARD RD A DIFFERENT USE OF SPACE
ALL SKATEBOARDING IS PUTTING IDEAS INTO ACTION. Marc Johnson
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SIDEWALK SURFING LOS ANGELES CADILLAC WHEELS DOGTOWN THE QUARTERLY SKATEBOARDER WHY SKATEBOARD METTERS TO ARCHITECTURE TIME AND SPEED USERS OF THE CITY WET DREAMS TOUR PORTRAITS 6 SKATEBOARD FRIENDLY CITIES AROUND THE WORLD ASPHALT °WINTER '19 LOOKBOOK SKATE SHOPS
ISSUE 1
ONE DAY IN SKATEBOARDING
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CONTENTS
1940 lk surfing a Sidew
1950 geles n Losa A
1960 s l e e h cw a l l i d a C
1970 s k r a p e Skat
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r u t c e t Archi 1980 n w Dogto
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it c f o s User
1990 rly e t r a u The Q
SIDEWALK The first skateboards started with wooden boxes, or boards, with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom. Crate scooters preceded skateboards, having a wooden crate attached to the nose, which formed rudimentary handlebars. The boxes turned into planks, similar to the skateboard decks of today. An American WAC, Betty Magnuson, reported seeing French children in the Montmartre section of Paris riding on boards with roller skate wheels attached to them in late 1944. Skateboarding, as we know it, was probably born sometime in the late 1940s, or early 1950s, when surfers in California wanted something to do when the waves were flat.
This was called "sidewalk surfing", it was a new wave of surfing on the sidewalk as the sport of surfing became highly popular. No one knows who made the first board; it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at around the same time. The first manufactured skateboards were ordered by a Los Angeles, California surf shop, meant to be used by surfers in their downtime. The shop owner, Bill Richard, made a deal with the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels, which they attached to square wooden boards. This sport was originally denoted as a "sidewalk surfing" and early skaters emulated surfing style and performed barefoot.
K SURFING By the 1960s a small number of surfing manufacturers in Southern California such as Jack's, Kips', Hobie, Bing's and Makaha started building skateboards that resembled small surfboards, and assembled teams to promote their products. One of the earliest Skateboard exhibitions was sponsored by Makaha's founder, Larry Stevenson, in 1963 and held at the Pier Avenue Junior High School in Hermosa Beach, California.
“THERE IS NO HISTORY IN SKATEBOARDING, ITS BEING MADE NOW, BY YOU”
LOS ANGELES As the popularity of skateboarding began expanding, the first skateboarding magazine, The Quarterly Skateboarder was published in 1964. John Junior Severson, who published the magazine, wrote in his first editorial: “Today’s skateboarders are founders in this sport, they’re pioneers, they are the first.
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CADILLAC WHEELS
In the early 1970s, Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane, calling his company Cadillac Wheels.Prior to this new material, skateboards wheels were metal or "clay" wheels. The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that from the wheel's release in 1972 the popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, causing companies to invest more in product development. Nasworthy commissioned artist Jim Evans to do a series of paintings promoting Cadillac Wheels, they were featured as ads and posters in the resurrected Skateboarder magazine, and proved immensely popular in promoting the new style of skateboarding.
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In the early 1970s skateparks hadn't been invented yet, so skateboarders would flock and skateboard in such urban places as The Escondido reservoir in San Diego, California. Skateboarding magazine would publish the location and Skateboarders made up nicknames for each location such as the Tea Bowl, the Fruit Bowl, Bellagio, the Rabbit Hole. Some of the development concepts in the terrain of skateparks were actually taken from the Escondido reservoir. As the equipment became more maneuverable, the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches and over, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. A banana board is a skinny, flexible skateboard made of polypropylene with ribs on the underside for structural support.
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Today, Dogtown nostalgia is still alive on the streets of Venice Beach, a new generation of skateboarders continue to create their own community and their own mark on West Los Angeles. As a neighborhood spanning all ages seeks out ways to push the limits of the sport, they finally found a home worthy of their talent. In 2009, a 3.5 million dollar skatepark opened in the heart of Venice, and is now a hotbed of talent and community, honoring the Dogtown legacy preceding it.
DOGTOWN
THE QUARTERLY SKATEBOARDER
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This period was fueled by skateboard companies that were run by skateboarders. The focus was initially on vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the no-hands aerial (later known as the ollie) by Alan Gelfand in Florida in 1976, and the almost parallel development of the grabbed aerial by George Orton and Tony Alva in California, made it possible for skaters to perform airs on vertical ramps. While this wave of skateboarding was sparked by commercialized vert ramp skating, a majority of people who skateboarded during this period didn't ride vert ramps. As most people could not afford to build vert ramps, or did not have access to nearby ramps, street skating increased in popularity.
WHY SKATEBOARDING MATTERS TO ARCHITECTURE
CATEGORY 1: RETHINKING SPACES Skateboarding as a process for rethinking architectures manifold possibilities.
My interest in skateboarding began well before my interest in architecture. It is not architecture history or theory but skateboarding that influences my social, spatial and conceptual understanding of architecture. My appreciation of the city is through the intimate desire to find new possibilities of representing, imagining and experiencing architecture. The followings investigates skateboarding as a legitimate means of architecture criticism and spatial appropriation. Traditional architecture theory conceptualises the city as an absolute; it is recognised as an object that is not only static but also grounded by regulation. Through the values of skateboarding however, the city is reconceptualised as an amorphous space in constant transition, a space for the flow of ideas, events and activities. French Sociologist Henri Lefebvre argued that ‘in addition to being a means of production and reproduction, space must serve as a tool for thought and action.’
CATEGORY 2: REJECTING CAPTALISM Skateboarding is the freedom of movement, it does not produce a commodity.
In Sydney, skateboarding emerged in the late 1980s. It was legislated against. Innately, such laws add to the anarchic character of skateboarding, as well as struggle against, the modern city. Architects have often worked alongside the city to deter skateboarders from using public or private space. The danger that skateboarders possesses to the city goes beyond physical considerations and legalities; it is about what they symbolise.
Space is neither stable nor fixed, but is constituted by the discourses and practices of social life. Architecture should be understood beyond the construction of built space; and through the practice of skateboarding, architecture can be defined to be the tools, compositional processes and social relations that pertain in space.
CATEGORY 3: SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACL The spectacle has created a passive society and aims to isolate the individual and reality itself becomes replaced only by images. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle of society everything is prohibited.'
Marxist theorist and Situationist Guy Debord (1983) describes the capitalist experience of the city as the ‘Society of the Spectacle’. Architecture contributes by creating part of the spectacle. Debord states ‘The spectacle has created a passive society and aims to isolate the individual and reality itself becomes replaced only by images. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle of society everything is prohibited.' The Situationists responded to the ‘Society of the Spectacle’ by bodily movements of derive and détournement. The skateboarder actively moves through space using the same Situationist desire lines. Skateboarding is a true form of urban derive that refutes the reduction of activity solely to the spectacle of the image. Skateboarders say almost nothing as codified statements, yet present an extraordinary range of implicit enunciations and meanings. Skateboarding’s critique of capitalism is through the negative dialectic that denies exchange and through the positive dialectic that restlessly searches for new possibilities of representing, imagining and experiencing the city.
Skateboarding is a critique upon the product of architecture and the role of the architect. Skateboarding describes the need for architecture to consider social value, to be productive of things, and to encourage activities that are not explicitly commoditised. The skateboarder undermines the ordered and commercial atmosphere of the city. The value of skateboarding requires the architect to question the city in its conventional arrangement of floors, walls and stairs – to re-evaluate the importance of spatial experience.
CATEGORY 5: REPRESENTATION The skateboarder does not stay within the boundaries of the site and explores within the private properties of the commercial buildings.
CATEGORY 4: IMAGINATION Skateboarding is also a form of architecture criticism entirely different to writing, drawing or theorising.
Architecture criticism is traditionally conveyed through writing. However, skateboarding is also a form of architecture criticism entirely different to writing, drawing or theorising. In the participatory movement of the skateboarder’s body across urban space lies the central critique of the city. It also forms a critique on architecture criticism and considers the need for criticism when concerned with experience to extend beyond the realm of writing.
In each instance, the architect touches no more than two objects and there is no repetition in their movement. It is possible to trace the direction of their path and, at all times, the architect critiques within the boundaries of the site. In contrast, in each instance, the skateboarder touches more than 30 objects, whether it be a wall, handrail, seat, stair or floor. The movement of the skateboarder is fast and repetitive and it is difficult to trace the direction of their movement due the irregularity of their path, which intersects and overlaps. The skateboarder does not stay within the boundaries of the site and explores within the private properties of the commercial buildings.
CATEGORY 6: CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT Architecture is fundamentally limited to the conception of the building-as-object: a theoretical and historical fixation that erases the social and political experiences of the city.
By doing so, it neglects the reproduction and experience of architecture. Lefebvre argues that ‘architecture must produce activities and experiences of social and cultural importance.' Skateboarding uses the left over objects of architecture to produce experience and meaning: ‘Two hundred years of technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of unlimited potential.’ Architecture rarely considers buildings as the facilitators of social and cultural autonomy. Architect Lebbeus Woods responded by creating moments of ‘freespace’: a space with no commodity or pre-determined use that allows pedestrians to use the space socially and culturally however they choose. The skateboarder applies the ideas of ‘freespace’ throughout the entire city and has therefore developed an unorthodox appreciation and ability to seek out potential social relations. Architecture is limited to the conception of the building-as-object, that erases the experiences of the city.
The below images are extracted from video documentation that records the social reaction of three different skateboarders and architects as they approach a constructed conversation. The top 3 images are that of the architect, the 3 below images are that of the skateboarder.
CATEGORY 7: ARCHITECTURE ‘Surely it is the supreme illusion to defer to architects, urbanists or planners as being experts or ultimate authorities in matters with relation to space.'
Skateboarders are among the most social and spatially aggressive group to reclaim the city for their own appropriation and as such, deny architects, urbanists and urban planners as ultimate authorities. Ian Borden proposes, that skateboarding actually becomes architecture, not as the object, but as the production and reproduction of space. Without licence, authority or professional obligations, the skateboarder creates personal space with intimate and subjective meaning. Architecture can be described as the tools, experiences, mappings, compositional processes and social relations that pertain within space. Architecture ‘reproduces itself within those who use the space in question, within their lived experience.'
TIME AND SPEED
25 Production is not seen as the production of things but of desires and actions, the purpose of space is for use rather than exchange, richness is social wealth not ownership, place is composed of time and speed, and the city is the interrogator rather than the determinant of the self.
USERS OF THE CITY Skateboarding has a deep appreciation and understanding of architecture, regardless of how unconventional or subversive it may be.
Deconstructive Architect Bernard Tschumi (1991) describes the need for architecture to focus on the events and actions that must be facilitated within space. Tschumi describes his work as ‘anti-form, anti-hierarchy, antistructure—the opposite of all that architecture stands for and it is precisely for that reason.’ If architects were to consider the activity of reproducing space, architecture might develop in a manner that allows the pedestrian, like the skateboarder, to appropriate space as they desire. Throughout the course of architecture’s history, social theorists including Debord (1983) and Lefebvre (1991a) have argued the social and cultural application of architecture. Architects often focus on the production of the object as opposed to the production of experience and therefore fail to truly understand the way in which space may be understood and appropriated by the various users of the city. Skateboarding has a deep appreciation and understanding of architecture, regardless of how unconventional or subversive it may be.
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OLLIE
E S**T
Asphalt Winter '18 Wet Dreams Tour Photographs by Ale Cogollo
VOL - 1
NEW YORK 2018
WET DREAMS TOUR
LES SKATEPARK 62 Monroe St & Pike St. New York, NY 10002
VOL - 1
COOPER SKATEPARK Cooper Park Sharon St. & Olive St. Brooklyn, NY 11211
TRIBECA SKATEPARK 100 N Moore St, New York, NY 10013
WET DREAMS TOUR
ASPH
VOL - 1
HALT
WET DREAMS TOUR
PORTRAITS
TIMMY LANE
ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC SKATEBOARDERS OF ALL TIME, TONY HAWK, WAS TOURING THE WORLD AS A PROFESSIONAL SKATEBOARDER, MAKING SIX FIGURES, WITH SPONSORS AND FANS WHEN HE WAS STILL IN HIS TEENS. IN AN INTERVIEW WITH CNBC, HE EMPHASIZES HOW HE STUCK WITH SKATEBOARDING IN THE 1990S WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD DID NOT. HE STATES, “I ALWAYS FELT SKATING WAS SO SACRED TO ME AND THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT, ESPECIALLY IN THE DAYS WHERE IT WASN’T COOL AND IT WAS JUST WHAT WE HAD TO DO” (EDWIN 2012). IN SPEAKING ABOUT SKATING IN THIS WAY, HE ENSURES THAT HIS MOTIVATION IS KNOWN TO BE PURE AND INTRINSIC, BASED ON HIS LOVE FOR SKATEBOARDING AND NOT FOR EXTERNAL MOTIVES SUCH AS MONEY OR FAME. ANOTHER FAMOUS SKATER, RODNEY MULLEN, HELPED GIVE THE OLLIE A LOT OF ITS FAME AS WELL AS INVENTING ANOTHER POPULAR SKATEBOARDING TRICK CALLED THE ‘KICK FLIP’. WHEREAS TONY HAWK IS FAMOUS FOR HIS VERTICAL SKATING, RODNEY MULLEN IS FAMOUS FOR STREET SKATING. THE TWO PROFESSIONALS SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER IN A VIDEO, DEMONSTRATING MANY VALUES OF SKATER CULTURE IN JUST A SHORT INTERACTION. HAWK STATES, “YOU AND I BOUNCED TRICKS OFF OF EACH OTHER. I REMEMBER YOU WATCHED ME DO AN AIRWALK AND THEN YOU WERE LIKE OH PSH I GOTTA LEARN THAT AND THEN YOU GO AND DO IT ON THE FLAT”.
INTERVIEW BY LARRY BARRITLORE
INTERVIEW BY LARRY BARRITLORE
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6 SKATEBOARD FRIENDLY CITIES AROUND THE WORLD A useful guide to most skateboard firendly cities from locals, higlighting some of their favourites skateparks.
1. BARCELONA - THE MECCA Macba remains one of the most iconic skate spots.
4. SAN FRANCISCO - HISTORY Skate history was made here.
2. BERLIN - A SUMMER'S MUST Do not miss the Kulturforum.
5. MELBOURNE - HOTHOUSE Melbs is the skateboarding hothouse scene of Australia.
3. LOS ANGELES - THE FIRST J-Kwon is a must on Sundays.
6. COPENHAGEN - FRIENDLY The spots here are pretty futuristic.
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ASPHALT °WINTER '19 LOOKBOOK
ASPHALT ° FOR WOMEN
ASPHALT ° FOR MEN
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SKATE SHOPS ALASKA: 4th Coast Outfiters
NEW MEXICO: Microwave, Filter
ARKANSAS: Boardertown
NEW YORK: Seasons, Labor Blades, BC
CALIFORNIA: FTC, DLX, Mission Lotties, SF Skate Club Lighthouse Bill's Wheels COLORADO: Emage DC: Bureau
NORTH CAROLINA: Exodus NORTH DAKOTA: This OHIO: Embassy
INDIANA: Rhett, Blacklist
PENNSYLVANIA: Homebase, Holistic, Ignition, Revival, Sk8 Supply, Ambler, Plank Eye, Nocturnal, Fairmans, One up, Dogwood, Zembo
IOWA: Eduskate
RHODE ISLAND: Civil
KENTUCKY: Home
TEXAS: Southside
LOUISIANA: Humidity
VIRGINIA: Cardinal, Venue
ILLINOIS: Groundfloor
MARYLAND: Vu MASSACHUSSETTS: Orchard MICHIGAN: Premier NEW JERSEY: NH Hoboken, Curbside, Prime
INTERNATIONAL: Birling (Ontario) Worksout (Seoul) Rulez, Prov, Shelter (Japan) SamuraiSuicide (Italy) Titus (Germany)
CREDITS Free University of Bolzano - Bozen Faculty of Design and Art Bachelor in Design and Art - Major in Design WUP 18/19 | 1st semester foundation course Project Modul: Editorial Design Design by: Teresa Carretta Magazine | Skateboard Supervision: Project leader Prof. Antonino Benincasa Project assistants Maximilian Boiger, Gian Marco Favretto Photography: Alessandro Cogollo, Alexander LondoĂąo, Anna Gasparella, Ari He, Hamish Duncan, Jarod Wang, John Verhoestra, Julien Lanoy, Leio McLaren, Liene Vitamante, Matthew Cooksey, Nicholas Andersen, Parker Gibbson, Sam Trotman, Sean Stratton, Shangyou Shi, Shea Salisbury, Teresa Carretta, Tim Marshall, Tim Mossholder, Travis Yewell Paper: Coated Silk 170 gr. Coated Glossy 250 gr. Satin Translucent 112 gr. Fonts: Toppan Bunkyu Mida Toppan Bunkyu Gothic
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