Armaan Bansal Writing Portfolio Burning the Burning Man, Man. 2020 Why Dont You L(o/i)ve in Your Caravan. 2019 Pedagogy ABC ARC. 2019 Everywhere and Nowhere. 2018
Burning The Burning Man, Man. Hints to Reality
Armaan Bansal
1
Where once these dusty winds blew uninterrupted, there now stands a city. A city, or a settlement rather more precisely as its nature would suggest, for in a week these winds shall blow uninterrupted again. This settlement plays music and lights fires for the gods of September and deserts the rest. It disperses into the individual across the world until next year. This settlement calls to grow and allows everyone, everyone who can afford to be allowed. Where its ideas burn as the man in front of the crowd. Call us the burners, we burn it to the ground, make this community new each year, but not as it was found. Not a festival, but a community of our temporary utopia, but we have misunderstood its implications and cannot differ it from dystopia. However, we burners run along with the stage of a transformation, behind the scenes it is just our flashy vacation. The Burning Man Festival is expected to be a utopian vacation, a recess from the monotonous capitalist route of daily life. Burners call the outside (the festival) world, the “default world.� The festival encourages burners to express a genuine part of themselves that would not be accepted in the default real existing world.
2
The Burning Man Festival started as a bonfire ritual in the summer of 1986. Baker beach saw the union of Larry Harvey, Jerry James with some friends. They together burnt an effigy of a 2.4-metre tall wooden man accompanied by a little wooden dog. This act was one of Radical Self Expression against society. The festival or ritual was stopped because of the crowd that started gathering in the following years and the burning was put to a stop. it was in 1991 that the festival gained its first legal permit through the Bureau of Land Management. It was also this year that the element and gravity of art that the event holds today was hinted when Crimson Rose attended the event. Parallel to the Burning Man Festival ran the Desert Site-works Project. In the Desert Site-Work artists, self-directed entertainment and the events also shared organisers. Therefore it was inevitable that the events were combined in spirit to come to a goal of overall selfexpression. The event bounced between the ever free Desert in the Black Rock Desert and a gated community in Fly Ranch while finally returning to the Black Rock Desert in 1998 to stay there till now. The Black Rock City establishes itself once a year in early September as a result of the Burning Man Festival. The Black Rock City named after the Black Rock Desert in Nevada where the Burning Man Festival is held annually. Pushing all the legalities of the process throughout the years under the carpet, Larry Harvey, the founder of the festival presents the idea and convince of the final location in a bouquet and says, Imagine you are put upon a desert plain, a space that is so vast and blank that only your initiative can make of it a place. Imagine you’re surrounded by thousands of other people, that together you form a city, and that within this teeming city there is nothing that’s for sale. The Black Rock desert is an empty void. It is a place that is no place at all apart from what we choose to make of it. The playa is like an enormous blank canvas. The desert is a blank slate. It is empty when Burning Man begins and it is cleaned up, it is empty again at the end as if it never happened1.
This statement highlights my premise. The Burning Man Festival was started as one idea and morphed into another because of the internet influence and inevitable politics of the world, however, the festival management and attended still advertise it as the utopia that rose from the first 1986 bonfire. Black Rock City took its form as a result of a series of decisions. These decisions were dictated by reason and compulsion. As a result, the architectural composition of the city changed locations and developed into its current shape. When one gets to know about the city, its radical nature is instantly brought to the surface. The Burning Man Festival forms this city and its rituals. It seeks to combine and coincidentally practice an internet version of utopia. It also expects these to be partied by people from different walks of life that were not born into the city nor are its permanent residents. The festivals guiding commandants are as follows: radical inclusion, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, gifting, decommodification, participation, immediacy, and leave no trace2. In theory, these policies serve as the building blocks to be a perfect utopian fantasy, the founders so imagined. However, in reality, these ideas are presented somewhat as bland flamboyant food presented as an aesthetic for Instagram. What I want to achieve in this piece is really to go back to the restaurant and taste this food. This framework contains hypocrisies and leniencies towards these policies which I intend to outline and reason. Let us attend (to) this festival.
1
Harvey. L (2005)
2
Harvey. L (2004) 3
To attend the Burning Man Festival should be relatively easy due to its ‘radical inclusivity’. The first and major goal for the festival is accessibility to anyone and everyone. In translation to this world, the festival fell victim to gentrification, hierarchal concepts and desires. Once celebrated as a destination for hippies and free souls of all walks, the festival has since transformed into a festival for influencers, celebrities, silicon valley elites and white-collar professionals, hinting out to the costs of the so-called barter system festival. This also ridicules the idea of community living, the richest isolating themselves from the rich on the playa. The top of the pyramid at the Burning Man Burners set up exclusive camps with staff, security and chefs. Welcome to the Billionaires Row. Air conditioning in the desert, caviar in the name of survival. The festival personally invites social media influencers that are the furthest thing from the idea of a separated island symbolism, instead creates bridges between the festival and the world. #SponCon. The obvious reason for its ‘hype’ is its popular pseudo-intellectual ideas and the art that adorns the festival. These “artists” that usually arise from the upper-middle-class or sponsorships build massive art for the festivals for a few days, spending thousands of dollars for the materials and assembly teams, which is anti-anti-capitalist. This class of people hence participate in the play of minimal money week survival and liberation only because their pockets allow them to. The very existence of art is a catalyst for gentrification, as the cycle of capitalism turns culture into a commodity. Neighbourhoods that artists made cool are becoming too expensive for them to live and work in. The Black Rock City highlights the demographic change of its womb city which is San Francisco. It experiences a major reduction in the working-class share as the city turns into a branch of the Silicon Valley. Black Rock City, despite fleeting, is the next on the list for this class to gentrify, and the ‘charity organisation’ that sets up the event doesn't really want to put a stop to this. This allows for the charity organisation to pay minimum wage to the workers at the festival who keep the entire function running. This calls to look into the Burning Man Project Economics.
Burners Average Income in 2006 : 100,000 USD Burners Average Income in 2016 : 300,000 USD3
The talk about the festival and the urge to go to it once it had been properly advertised by the right people to the wider world, attracted all sorts of people and money who wanted to be a part of this cult. A countercultural event hence turned into a socialising event for the Silicon Valley. As a mirror of the real world, the wealthier and donators had more influence to mould the landscape for the Burning Man. The Burner Average Income keeps increasing from year to year, which in turn sets off a cycle that affects the ticket prices as less are readily available for poorer burners to buy and next year when the organising charity learns that the tickets still sold out at the skyscraper prices, the next year ticket prices are kept as high as the last ticket sold. This cycle phenomenon hence sets off a curve which intends to infinity. Keeping in mind this curve, the number of attendees also rose from 35 to 80,000.
3
Spencer, K.A. (2018) 4
1994 Burning Man Ticket Price : 35 USD 2015 Burning Man Ticket Price : 390 USD (x16 times rate of inflation) 2019 Burning Man Ticket Price : 475 USD Pre-Sale Burning Man Ticket Price : 1,400 USD Low Income Burning Man Ticket Price : 210 USD
So much for a strict anti-capitalist policy. These ticket prices are like the first domino, which set off several additional dominos. From travel to stocking up and living, these charges add up to a huge sum of money, hence rendering the concept of no commerce a hoax.
Car Passes : 100 USD Bus Tickets : 100 USD Flight Tickets : 380 to 1,200 USD Private Plane Tickets : 14,000 USD Car Rental : 80 USD Additional Cleaning Fee : 150 USD RV Rental : 7,500 USD Tent Camp Fee : 1,300 USD RV Camp Fee : 10,000 USD Food and Survival Supply : 2000 USD Costumes 4
All these charges are “not an official part” of Burning Man. However, you can still buy coffee and ice for 3 USD. Other hypocrisies include donations and their image on stage and behind the scenes. When Pacific Gas & Electric donated felled trees to support a Burning Man installation in 2017, the gift was gratefully accepted. But, when the company issued a press release about the “partnership,” Burning Man denied. There are also blurred lines within the organisation, with extremities of difference between the pay of the managers and the workers. Worker Wage : 15 USD / HOUR Manager Wage : 200,000 USD5
Once one does sort out the monetary side of the festival you get to queue up for inspection in the radically free, expressionist and inclusive city. Each member of the community is interrogated by the festival rangers about drugs and any other kind of restricted items. They check that the vehicle does not violate the “environment” or its “laws” and is then let go, only for the owners to apply what they deny and start their journey with magic mushrooms to find oneself. With no images, the readers might as well assume that I have just been writing about any mundane city with mundane politics and practices.
4
Estimates from Business Insider (2019)
5
Spencer, K.A. (2018) 5
Black Rocky City, Nevada
This is an image6 of the Black City Rock City. Its shape was based on a narrative or a wish. The original form of the first bonfire was a circle, important to note, not particularly decided, but took place naturally as a long tradition and a symbol of equal distribution of the central fire. After this temporary arrangement, the B.L.M. required a drawn official plan to camp. Rod Garrett was given this task and kept with the idea of the circle around The Man. The road went out from the centre with specified street names, in addition to concentric circles of streets to divide the entire plan into sectors. This would help to locate a camp or installation and security. The radial streets represented different times of a day as in a clock and at one point angles in a circle too. However, this perfect plan failed to an extent, not unlike the rest. To implement this huge circular plan, the land was needed, although available, the architect failed to realise the reality of ownership. The area consisted of two private properties. Whilst one allowed the other did not and hence Garrett was forced to fit his circular diagram into a shoehorn instead. The refusal of one owner and political legislation to allow the festival in this land shaped the festival and it possible the most fitting satire for the “literal change in plans” of the Burning Man Festival. However, this was not going to knock down any confidence and as always justifications and reasons were made up. The land that was not available was called “No Man’s Land”. They set up the No Man’s Land as a “Trash Fence” that caught belongings and debris carried by the winds away from the camps, keeping in mind the “Leave No Trace Policy”. The wind however rarely blew in this direction, sometimes even holding an angle directly perpendicular to this. The No Man’s Land was said to be kept intentionally to provide the clearest view of the Burning Man.
6
SI Imaging Services (2017) 6
“This was entirely circumstantial, rather than conceptual, however, it unwittingly became a precursor to our eventual design of Black Rock City.7”
1997 Plan
1995 Plan
2018 Plan
It might be interesting to ask that if The Burning Man Festival does eventually acquire the “No Man’s Land”, would they change the shape of the city? In my opinion, the famous recognisable horseshoe plan could never change keeping in mind that the festival chooses popularity over ideology. Burning Man would not be Burning Man without its Burning ”No Man’s Land”. This claim is evident by the festival’s 1997 Plan in Hualapai Playa, where they were forced to shift for one year. Despite not having the land permissions, the planners did with what they could and kept the shape as close to the Horseshoe as possible. The circle creates its inner definitive boundary and a pentagon hints its outer defensive boundary. The city wants to protect itself from the outside to maintain its island identity, although they have somehow given that away to social media. However, the island identity, even if it is physicality, is essential to reflect the radical idea of separation from the rest in the minds of the Burners. It is only then that the idea of a Utopia can be preached within the island. A Utopia in terms of existing as “a fictional island society 8” with independent “religious, social, and political customs9”. It is an instinct, a boast and quite easy for the privileged few to describe Burning Man as a Utopia. It creates the mystery of a new world, shares the general ideological coincide and shape, even if it is on the surface. The idea of this particular utopia existed within the cloud of minds and was one of the few to be built. The manifestation of it, however, adds to the proof that the idea of a utopia requires more thought than just thought. If it looks like a Utopia, it might not be a utopia, but simply an image of it. Rod Garrett, the city designer, in fact, puts this as a clear difference between the circular utopias, the images the word has been saturated with.
7
Garrett. R (2010)
8
More, T. (2009)
9
More, T. (2009) 7
8
“While there may be similarities between this and some current idealised or utopian cities, Black Rock City has a home, a storied history, and a culture to inhabit it, albeit fleetingly. It is at once a very real and yet extremely ephemeral phenomenon, as it must annually arise from nothing, flourish for a few days, and then vanish completely10.”
Built utopias cannot exist. Not as they were imagined. Even if a Utopia like the Burning Man is born, it shall only work to the extent it does because its initial facts and parameters have been altered. It is not permanent enough as an idea to exist. These parameters have been changed to meet the requirements of social realities rather than what was realised and it seems that existing in whatever form it might be, is the only concern. There are a few other examples that have ended up being altered utopias, just like the Burning Man.
The Royal Saltworks, Arc et Senanss
Dartmoor Prison
The Royal Saltworks at Arc et Senanss by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux was a utopia designed by the architect for an era it did belong in. He ignored traditional rules and hierarchies in his plan for the saltworks city. The monarchy objected to feature that seemed more apt for palaces and not a city for the salt workers. The chapel was moved into a corner and geological constraints were not considered. Ledoux provided two stories for the workers with surrounding gardens to provide the workers with an addition to their earnings. Ledoux also wanted the plan to be a circle representing the Sun. It was the monumental vision that prevented its being. It was a financial failure and the circle only lasted on paper. The sun only rose to the horizon as a semicircle and Ledoux never worked again. This arrangement is also seen in Prisons, which again are as much a part of society as they are away. They exist as perfect dystopias, amazingly in the shape of all utopias. The city manager, Harley Dubois puts it like this, “Burning Man has jumped the shark, at least in the sense that it is now much different than the way it started and how it’s perceived. That is not necessarily a bad thing, Change is inevitable. Our world keeps changing and our event is going to keep changing because our world is changing. Ha Ha, Burning Man is actually different every year.11”
10
Garrett. R (2010)
11
Dubois, H (2017) 9
These list of paradoxes are the connections that the city has to its outside. It's faults highlight where this imagined city its failed to establish itself in physicality. The non - material festival has fallen victim to established material problems of surging prices, vehicle congestion, lack of infrastructure, social divide, excesses security needs, terrorism and drug abuse. By default and ironically, the celebration has duplicated the very issues it aimed to surpass. The Burning Man Project bought a pair of ribbed socks and wear them inside out. However, this was the obvious problem of Reality vs Fantasy and not the problem of the Burning Man Festival. Where a fantasy plants itself in the mind, a reality is built everywhere outside of it. The transition hence of mind to matter is one which requires additional thought about external elements that would mould the fantasy from the original as soon as it comes out of a mind. The Burning Man carried with it an idea of a frictionless Utopia with ten principles, most of which were unrealistic, overambitious or naive. Even if a certain audience is thought about, the entirety of world politics is far away from predictable or imaginable. There can be no perfect system, or utopia, not as it was thought of. The initial idea in this case study changed and became quite the opposite of what it was supposed to be, however still successful. It defeated one of the main objectives of the festival, anti-capitalism and instead gave into it. It was no longer an extended idea but a tiny break and should accept this new fitting title. The Crowd went along with the ideas of the festival as long as it still held relevance in the real world. Whether it was by the measure of popularity, pseudo-capitalist ideas or the financial sector. The Burning Man Festival set out to burn “The Man," but in a way, it has itself become “ The Man �.
10
Bibliography
Vidler, Anthony. “The Ledoux Effect: Emil Kaufmann and the Claims of Kantian Autonomy.” Perspecta, vol. 33, 2002, pp. 16–29. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saltworks_at_Arc-et-Senans https://stevewiegenstein.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/blessed-rage-for-order/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man#cite_note-7 https://www.fastcompany.com/90378291/tech-billionaires-havent-killed-burning-mansanti-capitalist-spirit-but-influencers-might https://burningman.org/culture/history/brc-history/black-rock-city-plan-archive/ https://journal.burningman.org/2010/04/black-rock-city/building-brc/designing-black-rockcity/ https://www.salon.com/2018/08/24/exclusive-burning-man-a-utopia-for-guests-can-be-ahell-for-many-workers/ https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/ https://quadralectics.wordpress.com/4-representation/4-1-form/4-1-4-cities-in-the-mind/ 4-1-4-2-the-future-city/ https://www.businessinsider.in/13-unbelievable-facts-that-show-just-how-much-peopleare-willing-to-spend-on-burning-man-from-425-tickets-to-14000-private-planes/burningman-also-offers-a-low-income-ticket-program-approved-applicants-can-purchase-ticketsfor-210-each-/slideshow/70820194.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/Everything-youve-been-wanting-to-know-about-BurningMan-the-wild-9-day-arts-event-in-the-Nevada-desert-frequented-by-celebs-and-techmoguls/What-is-Billionaires-Row-at-Burning-Man/slideshow/65676261.cms https://www.dezeen.com/2020/03/24/burning-man-2020-preparation-coronaviruspandemic/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/28/burning-man-founders-admit-the-festival-has-jumpedthe-shark-but-thats-okay/ https://www.curbed.com/2019/8/29/20837344/burning-man-urbanism-black-rock-city https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 316625448_Mapping_Utopias_From_New_Babylon_to_Black_Rock_City http://people.lib.ucdavis.edu/~davidm/xcpUrbanFeel/bowditch.html https://journal.burningman.org/2017/10/opinion/serious-stuff/this-is-not-the-utopia-yourelooking-for/ https://www.salon.com/2017/09/02/the-data-behind-the-gentrification-of-burning-man/ 11
WHY DONT YOU L (O/I) VE IN YOUR CARAVAN
The Penthouse Caravan
Armaan Bansal
This essay will discuss the Caravan as an irresolute idea that solves more than it intended to. The Caravan itself is not conscious of these solutions it presents and the routes it has taken over decades iterating from its fundamental form. The Caravan stems from the fascination of a realised utopian dream; The American fascination of mobility and exploration. A concept turned into a concrete object that changed landscapes, systems and routines. The flexibility of the Caravan is what allows for this discussion about adaptation and accessibility. The Caravan can be broken down into its two basic components: Shape and concept. The shape of a caravan is a container or an empty cuboid of human scale. The concept of the caravan is that this ‘container’ can be displaced from point A to point B with absolute ease. The simplicity of the idea and form is the genius that made this unit a very accessible answer. The elasticity of the idea is also what presents it as the irresolute idea. The shape a caravan takes is based on the context the user decides. I want to direct this conversation to fit within the framework of the city and therefore I will be talking about the Caravan as a chaos between the terms: Home and car, or Car and Home. The question of the essay is whether this object leans towards the notion of a Car-home or Home-Car (When hyphenating, the noun is followed by the adjective to act as a single idea). Home-Car: A home as a car, has the potential to move. Car-home: A car as a home, that has the potential to host. The Caravan as a collective organization instead of an object has been around since the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Gypsy Travellers, tribes in the Sahara Desert and tepees used by the American Indians present a similar form of portable dwellings. Even the Vikings, attempted to make ships their temporary shelters. Wagons in West America 1 also followed these portable dwellings with carts and little huts built on. This form of early caravans falls under the Home-Car, where their homes had the ability to move. This move was made using horses or other animals and the objects they moved was ‘home’. This included mainly family and little possessions that made up the sensation of a home. These possessions and family were then set up in the new location as a home. The early times did not have the necessary technology to transport entire tents and therefore I argue the definition of a home in these scenarios. These nomads used to travel in groups from one place to another due to various reasons. Whether it was the exhaustion of resources, the protection of their clans from governments or foreigners or the weather. A significant point to mention here is that this Caravan’s concept was forced and not a choice. These gipsy wagons became more advanced with time and soon were adopted and experimented with by a few motor companies to produce the Caravan we know better today.
The Temporary American Settlement Post-War 1
(Morris and Woods, 1971)
The cycling craze of the 1880s was America’s first love affair with the road and travel 2 . The understanding of the concept of a moving house sparked the idea of a combination of this newly found love of travel and the old love of comfort. There was a new excitement amongst the population about escapist desires and risks of living in the wild. Some of this unorthodox way of living also came as an artistic endeavour to appreciate nature and rebel against all sorts of authority and tax. These beautiful free people naturally consisted of artists, writers, singers, performers and hippies. This move was in perfect synchronization with the peace and psychedelic movement in America. These people made the roadside their home, and their unauthorised use of private land, drugs and attitude towards life itself frequently aroused strong displeasure amongst the rest of the property owners. 3A very small number of these creatives were taken seriously at the time, and that was acceptable to them. The aim was not to be taken seriously and the focus was towards the aspect of individual living; the relationship of a human to himself and the relationship of a human to nature; and the caravan was the perfect instrument for this ideology. In fact, they were against this seriousness and were the type to stick a flower into the barrel of a gun during war. In this movement, the caravan was used as a choice of lifestyle as these creatives were sons of the middle class and could afford regular comfortable housing. The caravan becoming the American Living Room is probably the strongest example of the car-home and the most romantic. A car that is big enough to host the entire family. The focus again was separation from society, even though it was for a shorter period or a vacation. The goal was the journey with the family instead of the actual destination, not unlike the hippie. Instead of a television, you could sit together and see real moving images, focusing on the surrounding. The caravan again proved to be a perfect vessel for this exercise. Drawings and movies have portrayed this as the main caravan movement, probably because it was the most colourful and artistic rendition of a caravan, presenting it in a very humorous and playful manner. Growing up watching such portrayals of a caravan, I always thought of caravans as a gimmick, something which isn't tangible, and it is often used as a prop in movies and pictures. Soon after I watched the hippie caravan in the Cars Movie, Top Gear blew up a caravan for the fun of it. I soon realised the seriousness and importance of the Caravan as it became a status symbol for the rich and helped an entire housing crisis!
The Caravan in CARS MOVIE in Real Life
2
(Morris and Woods, 1971)
3
(White, 2000)
Top Gear Blows up a Caravan
The caravan soon became an object of the collective and one the obvious examples of this was the Caravan Club. It was part of the new cult of the open air and informal travel, and of the well-known eccentricity of the English nobility, who identified as intellectuals and the ‘simple-lifers' and toured England and Scotland with coachman and valet. This noble class when went on their unplanned tours threw away the diary and stopped the watch 4. The Caravan was now a vacation home by choice. There was a muddle of notions associated with the Caravan. Gypsy Vehicle or Noble Vehicle. The notion of travel shifted from a necessity for gipsies to a luxury for the rich. It would not be too farfetched to compare a yacht where the mega-rich spend a majority of their time and move around the globe to a caravan. The caravan had notions attached to it and its position with these group became clear with the American Housing Crisis. These Caravans were supplied to the poor and soon enough became out of fashion for the rich and ‘The image of a yacht is far more glamorous and sexier than that of caravanning5’, although it is the same concept.
The Caravan X being pulled by a Rolls Royce
The Caravan X being Fixed in a Trailer Park
‘Property owners near manufactured housing argue that the houses are ugly or unsafe, a threat to property values. Local communities perceive the mobility of the house as a threat to community commitment. Building officials balk at the idea of "equivalent performance" for houses constructed differently and off the site, even though current safety standards are equivalent to typical building codes. Accusations against chassis-based houses express class bias and concern for conventionality. The manufactured house is not a threat because it is ugly but because it is identifiably different. Since manufactured houses are widely associated with lower-income groups, resisting them effectively excludes poorer people 6’ So, caravanning came first as a necessity, then as a choice and soon went back to a necessity with the American Housing Crisis.
After the Great Depression of 1929, America lost confidence and an economic future. The economic state could not have been worse. The housing market saw soaring loan value ratios, and no one could 4
(Whiteman, 1957)
5
(Jefferies, 2014)
6
(Burns, 2001)
afford a house anymore. There was a huge shortage of dwelling units in the 1950s and 60s after too. The revolution that helped in this crisis was the caravan. Architects had designed a few interior and designs for the caravan as future housings as personal projects, however, this was the first major leap of the caravan into the realm of Architecture. The Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development mentioned that the Mobile Home as having ameliorated the housing crisis. This object has just made its way from a dream world into a harsh economic reality and done well. It adjusted itself to the problems it was supposed to solve, first leisure and now a housing crisis. The location of a caravan depends solely on its purpose, and the way is used depends entirely on the type of employment the user would have. If a person is wealthy and has a stable job, the Caravan would be located in their house, that they would take to the countryside house to vacation. On the other hand, the Great Depression created a class that had no employment and chose to live outside the city in these caravans. Why Caravans would not infiltrate the city and stay in the suburbs is because the city is expensive as it is and without a job, there is no point for this class to even enter the city. There is also no reason for this class to move around. They have found themselves a cheap home which can be put in the most stunning, or faraway places, and could potentially live there collectively. Somehow, this highly resembled the origins of the gipsy settlements, where these were created out of necessity. Another point to add here is about Hollywood and it used the caravan. The work in this industry was always mobile. Therefore, the caravan always followed the user around, whether it was the city or the suburb. It was time to recognizing that the interest in mobile over conventional housing was increasingly an issue of economy rather than mobility. Permanence and mobility were not the major focus, but rather the aspect of costs and efficiency. Beatriz Colomina says, ‘Caravans are the nearest to an expendable architecture that the market has to offer’. They were supposed to be used as a temporary mode, but this concept was totally mirrored with people choosing to settle in the caravans. These settlements started growing in number as communities grew as the word about a cost-efficient, government-free, quick-living spread. There is something very ironic about the word Caravan Settlements. The life of these caravans is usually about eight years, and standards of living were not really high. A caravan is supposed to be used to travel and go around instead of parking at a fixed plot. What was even more ironic was when businesses got involved to buy such plot of lands to give to these caravans soon after taxation on caravans was introduced; there is a profit in everything. The static plot for a caravan was introduced. This killed that. The caravan was never the same, wheels were discarded and made into seating near the caravan plot. The caravan had been broken down into its two aspects and one of them had been totally discarded and thrown away. The American Utopian dream meets the American Reality. Caravans owners were now allowed to rent or buy up little plots for their caravans, worsening further all living standards. The land value of the attached land (home) grew and the value of a plot for a caravan kept deprecating. The Caravan was acting as a Home but still was not treated as one, left somewhere between the Home-Car and Car-Home without the abilities of a car. ‘Home is where I Park’ 7
From 1957, in an article titled Car Parks vs Caravan Sites, G. A. Jellicoe, imagines or fantasises of the caravan, ‘You see the extraordinary vehicle of today going up and down the country. It is someone's house on wheels, and yet those things of extraordinary shape and extraordinary colour are to be seen. If 7
Foster Huntington, 2014
you examine them, they usually have a cream upper half and a green lower half, the colours meeting along a line that ignores the door and any other feature. Presumably, such colours make it inconspicuous in the landscape. In harmony with the shapes and branches of the trees and hedgerows against which it nestles. I am sure if you study the historic caravan you will find beauty. They were beautiful in this intimate relationship between their shape and colour and form, and the background against which they went’ 8. He argues that car parks are very different from a caravan campsite, as the car park is a dull affair where the plot is temporary. With the introduction of lands to rent and the ugly campsite, I am sure Jellicoe would be surprised and this condition would be quite unimaginable to him. The Caravan was meant to roam and with time matured into ‘static plot’. The Home-Car became the Car-Home.
The Fixed Plot of the Caravan
Trailer Park
The residents of the Car Park were ready to pay a small fee for a well-maintained car park, instead of a just a car park. With people living in the same economic and cultural condition, a sense of community prospered and they knew it was going to be somewhat of a permanent scheme for settlement. These cark parks soon took the form and name of a trailer park. This term indicated an area that was meant to occupied as accommodation and contained a green landscape. A number of these trailer parks started flourishing around the globe and grew exponentially in size. Trailer parks shouted community, freedom and economical. Eventually, trailer parks developed around industries or near cities so the residents could get jobs and vice versa. Jobs developed in these trailer parks with the introduction of facilities and caretakers. People were now needed for the upkeeping of these trailer parks and to work in facilities in the trailer park. One of the lowest-rated Trailer Parks, which was given a 1.5 rating out of ten also had a community centre, a health centre and two play areas. This leads me to compare the Trailer park to a small town. They have a similar sense of community if anything stronger, the same ideology about houses, plots and complementary infrastructure. Talking about population, images of trailer parks show them to be bigger than some towns and cities. They work on similar principles, although trailer park might have a lenient government system. This brings me back to the point about notions. The notion of the trailer park being associated with Cars rather than houses is what restricts/saves it from coming under the jurisdiction of a town and as a proper economic and social centre. The flexibility and potential of this designed object is revealed when one thinks about how the caravan was supposed to be a way of individual living and fatefully turned into a major community building block. It was also meant for the middle class and was used by the two other classes. Although it was not 8
(Jellicoe, 1957)
used as its original intention, it was still a successful piece because of its fundamentals. This accidentally found object has been left hanging off a cliff in terms of its identity. I still do not understand or know what the caravan is supposed to look like. There have been iterations where it gravitates more towards a dynamic car and somewhere it is literally a constructed house on four wheels. The caravan is hence an invented typology that has developed over time. The caravan decides whether it wants to be closer to a home or a car based on situations. It is an organised chaos of two routine important objects that work as separate objects as their properties are quite the opposite of each other. A car usually is moved from one plot to another. The caravan as a combination was cheaper, smaller and quicker to produce and t=it is this efficiency that gained the caravan its place in history. The paradoxical status of the mobile home in American housing-both useful and outcast-reflects conflicts within fundamental beliefs about home and community: place-bound community and the mobility of freedom; factory-built and site-built; the conformity of mass production and mass consumption versus individuality. These contradictions become acute when subject to processes of categorization.
Trailer Park sitting on the edge
The mid-1950s saw the actual ‘mobile house’ appear. This house was ten feet wide, making it way larger than the family vehicle. This size grew with technological advancements and reached 30 – 40 feet. The caravan industry started to produce several variations of these mobile houses. The configurations of these newly produced mobile houses were aimed to look less vehicular. The shift from house trailer to mobile home involved a change in attitude as well as use. The two industries split, with travel trailer manufacturers classifying themselves as the recreational vehicle industry, and the other as home designers and architects. 9
9
(Burns, 2001)
TEXT BIBLIOGRAPHY
White, R. (2000). Home on the road. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Morris, E. and Woods, M. (1971). Housing crisis and response: the place of mobile homes in American life. Ithaca: Dept. of Consumer Economics and Public Policy, New York State College of Human Ecology. Burns. A Manufactured Housing Studio: Home/On the Highway. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 55(1), 51-57. Whiteman, W. (1957). THE CARAVAN AND ITS IMPACT ON SOCIETY. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 105(5001), 393-408. Jellicoe, G. (1957). CAR PARKS AND CARAVAN SITES. Landscape Architecture, 47(3), 435-437. Jefferies, C. (2014). Opinion: Why boats and caravans are more similar than you might think - Motor Boat & Yachting. [online] Motor Boat & Yachting. https://www.mby.com
IMAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Penthouse Caravan _ White, R. (2000). Home on the road. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. The Temporary American Settlement Post-War _ Kang, M. (2014). Photos: How Washington lived during the Great Depression | Quirksee. [online] Quirksee.org.
The Caravan in CARS MOVIE in Real Life _ Anon, (n.d.). [online] Available at: http://www.davegruen.com. Top Gear Blows up a Caravan _ Zulu, T. (2013). Slow-motion explosion: Amazing video shows everything from caravans to light bulbs blowing up at an incredible 2,500 frames per second. [online] Mail Online.
The Caravan X being pulled by a Rolls Royce _ Walton, G. (2014). 1976 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow & Carlight Continental caravan - OYW 60R - RREC Annual Rally 2017. [online] Flickr.
The Caravan X being Fixed in a Trailer Park _ Scene from the show: Trailer Park Boys. Trailer Park _ Getty Images. (n.d.). Aerial view of a gigantic 1950s RV trailer park; screen print from a.... [online] Available at: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk
Trailer Park sitting on the edge _ walesonline. (2013). Caravans left hanging over sheer drop after large chunk of cliff falls to beach below. [online] Available at: https://www.walesonline.co.uk.
PEDAGOGY ABC ARC Armaan Bansal
The essay will first establish the meaning of the word “pedagogy”, in a general sense and then in the architectural sense. This essay look at a lot of terms that are often used interchangeably. A scrutinous look proves that each term has its own significance to be used suitably. Education is a broad umbrella that encompasses a vast terminology underneath it. Teaching, institution, pedagogy, methodology, and curriculum are a few letters that construct the word ‘education’. A pedagogy can be defined as the practice of teaching and the interaction between the institution and the student. The spectrum of pedagogy can range from the progress of potential to definite skills. One example would be the Socratic School of Thought. Socrates proposed to teach in an opposite way from the Sophists, who believed in always accepting the speaker's point of view. This alternative method was called the Socratic Method and followers formed the Socrates School of thought. The teaching in pedagogy is structured and thought through but not specific. Therefore, it is not a curriculum or a syllabus but instead a combination of curriculums that assist the idealisation of the pedagogy. The captain at the front of this voyage is the teacher. Therefore it is apt to say that a pedagogy consists of one teacher who inflicts his teachings on a group of students using certain methodologies. The end goal to this pedagogy can be anything from a political statement or informative. The initiation of a pedagogy is influenced by a teacher or a passionate supporter, like that of a religion. Education is not bound. Everyone irrespective of an institution or a teacher receives an education. Education cannot be perfect and does not differentiate between going to a grammar school or working in a shop. Different aims of education apply different pedagogies to achieve them. Education is a slow process of ‘educere’ and self-detection. Pestalozzi constantly affirmed, education is rooted in human nature: It is a matter of head, hand, and heart. 1 The vagueness of the word education draws one to look at architectural education in specific. The history of architectural education goes back to ancient Egypt. Being an architect was a profession amongst the nobility and the rich. A student or member of the family who was to become an architect was sent to an ordinary school for the transcribers2. It was only later within the family that the skill was taught and passed down from one generation to another. Architecture hence was more of a training at home than a school education. The first instance of a proper “Architecture School” with an unconfined but explicit infrastructure started in 1834. Forty young men signed an attendance book to learn about the methods of construction in order to build the first floor of the New Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. George Strickland gave instructions in drawing techniques, technical basics and the details of construction using models. Unknowingly, these men had created the first school of architecture3. Receiving this education formally led by a teacher and signing an attendance sheet, made architectural education into a set of curriculums, or a pedagogy. The ideology of this pedagogy was to build 1
(Brühlmeier 2010) (Nikolaev, 1979) 3 (G. Karsch, 1996) 2
the first floor of the new hall. It is very important to contextualise the word pedagogy, because ‘Architectural Education’ individually, can be considered to be a pedagogy. In its way of teaching, with the requirement of a special type of staff, facilities and learning, or whether one considers the way it started as a school. After the first formal approach to architectural education, there were a number of architecture schools established across the entire world. These schools were obviously started by different people and had different ideologies. Some were dedicated to the church, whilst some taught self-sufficient architecture. Most schools, even if in the slightest, had different approaches to the word architecture, and even today, there are more than one definitions. Most architecture schools hence start as experimental schools, and disciplines change from one institution to another. Some focus on purely the technical part of architecture, whilst some focus on political statements that architecture makes. The combination of subjects within this one discipline can be so eclectic, and the education as of right now is so raw and experimental, that it is free to make and follow its own path. This is where the word radical should be discussed. Radicalism is holding outlandish or marginal views. These views lie differently to or at the extreme of other comparative views. Mentioning the word extreme also calls to separate the word radical’s negative connotations, that is extremism. Extremism occurs when a person or a group of people are ready to resort to violence to change their radicalism ideology into a radical reality. A pedagogy with an undefined objective and a mass following can also be called radical when it is used as a tool against a certain institution. The radical here is obviously dependent on a number of factors such as its effectiveness, mass following, and the ideology. Even the act of instigation of a pedagogy against a system compared to a school of thought, in my opinion, is radical. The intention is to destroy rather than create. Architecture has no predefined subjects and notions and was unlike most systems of its time, by empowering its scholars to an extent that they were highly self-conscious and ironically unstable. As a result, architecture developed an undisputed character in a dynamic world. Architecture is contextual with eras and location and comparative amongst the teachers and pioneers. To some, the idea of an art based architectural pedagogy in a politically led school can be radical and to the others a politically led project in a pure design based architecture school is radical. This internal conflict and subjectivity more than anything makes the definition of architecture, radical. This brings up the question about: What could be categorised as a ‘Radical Pedagogy’ in Architecture. To classify a singular school of thought as a ‘Radical Pedagogy’ within the realm of Architecture, a radical pedagogy itself, it would be easier to overlook the latter for now and focus on the subcategory. Beatriz Colomina heads a multi-collaborative research project about Radical Pedagogies in architecture. The key hypothesis of their Radical Pedagogy projects states that architectural experiments during history can be called radical architectural practices in their own right. Radice, the Latin origin of the word radical, literally means something that relates to its origins. The purpose of radical pedagogies, therefore, is to disturb the basis alongside the conventions rather than strengthening and distributing them. Therefore each pedagogy that is born to be in Architecture is supposed to be called radical and challenge mundane mindsets. Disturbing the base in the time of the Cold War and Vietnam War was obvious by targeting the authorities of the institutional, bureaucratic and capitalist structures. Furthermore, changes in technology
and industry also forced architecture to move with and hence paved the way to many new and radical pedagogies and speculation. The discipline was out to set new aspirations, thoughts, and designs by establishing its positions and relations to the ever-changing and transforming social, political, technological and cultural scenes of that or any other particular scene4.
Italian Radical - Super studio
Architecture Machine Group
In the 1970s for example, Global Tools, the Italian Radicals, coined a school for nonarchitecture. This challenge demolished the official platforms at the time. Negroponte’s Architecture Machine Group hinted at an artificial relationship between humans and hardware by constructing coalitions between the computer and architecture. The Environmental Design Department at Berkeley used an interdisciplinary method to use architecture as a political tool by constructing and experimenting with policies that would change the local framework. The meticulous process of defining terms at the beginning of the essay was essential in order to use them freely after this point. The words pedagogy, education, and learning often get used as synonyms and the word radical is too powerful of a label to give. It should act as a method of proof and prevent one from redefining and relabelling words that already exist.
4
(Colomina, 2012)
The main question that this essay now addresses is “ When does the lifespan of a radical pedagogy end ?”
Brain Anson
To do so, this essay will look at a case study of the ARC (Architects’ Revolutionary Council) started by Brain Anson. By establishing it as a Radical Pedagogy and looking at its timeline, this essay attempts to understand and explore the intricacies in the Death of a Pedagogy. Before the case study itself, it is imperative to take a look at the backstory of its author, Brain Anson and his ideology. Brain Anson was a revolutionary and a public servant, although he started off as an architect. Brian Anson was one of the chief architects for the Greater London Council in the middle 20th Century. The GLC at that time was going through with a plan for the redevelopment of the Covent Garden. The plan was highly controversial as it planned to destroy what Covent Garden stood for, the community. Covent Garden comprised of its famous fruit and vegetable market, its eighteenth-century buildings, its theatres and markets set up by the people. Shop owners set their stalls on the ground floor and lived on the first and second floors. The proposed plan for the redevelopment threatened both their livelihood and their homes. Anson soon became aware of the evil this plan would do to the working class and life of the area compared to the good it would do to his career and the pockets of some landowners. He along with the working class soon became one of the main voices for the protests. This turned into a famous battle fuelled by the media and theatre, where Anson was branded a hero by the people but a traitor by his superiors and sacked from his job. This movement started from a John Toomey in a Methodist Church with six hundred people and eventually transformed into the foundation of a pedagogy. After losing his jobs, the vast bureaucracy and politics prevented Anson from getting a job as a city architect of a teacher at a university. It was Alvin Boyarsky who offered Anson a job as a teacher at the Architectural Association. The Covent Garden struggle was as big of a singularity as the fights of Les Halles in Paris and Nieumarkt in Amsterdam. It involved a huge movement with a mass of people and protestors involved. The scale and size of the movement made it spread across the world and it stood as a symbol for such issues that architecture causes. This, I believe, was Anson’s main concern and out of this very concern was born Intermediate Unit 1 or the ARC (Architects’ Revolutionary Council) in 1971. The unit started with producing manifestos against the RIBA
and held press conferences. Anson believed, the best way to teach students about community architecture would be to work within real-life projects such as the Ealing Alliance and the Pope Street Association of Bootle, where students could have a genuine interaction and contribution. The unit made posters and declarations instead of plans and sections and did as a step against the RIBA instead of doing it for the RIBA. The units produced a set of postulates and ideologies that they were to follow and assess in community architecture issues. ‘Revolutionaries present their Manifesto’. The main philosophy that the manifesto presents is to stop working ‘only for a rich powerful minority or the bureaucratic dictatorship of Central and Local Governments and offer skills and services for the local community5.’ Hence, the RIBA became the prime institution to target as in the ARC’s view they were very obedient to such investments. The RIBA acronym in the ARC stood for “Repressive, Indulgent, Brutal, Arrogant”.
Projects Review Unit 1
ARC’s Poster Against the RIBA
Projects Review Unit 8
Every unit in the AA is a pedagogical function. The way to identify a radical unit is to essentially look at the difference. Looking back at the project’s review books, a majority of unit briefs in the AA in the 1970s focused on building for problems that might arise and constructing imaginations. The projects that were initiated were usually either impossible or too expensive to build. Projects from Zaha Hadid’s unit, who was a patron of the futuristic curve and Peter Cook’s unit, one of the founders of Archigram support this claim. Brian even challenged Cook publicly against Cook’s: An indiscrete architecture of the bourgeoisie. Brian’s unit was one totally against this idea and believed that “the new system of architecture will need to be based on a mass movement”6. Due to the nature of its Radicalism and differences, the AA was not quite supportive of the unit. “The AA was concerned that the work could be seen as inappropriate training for a career designing buildings. The students did pass, not least thanks to Brian's commitment to their avantgarde approach7”. A pedagogy as powerful as Brian’s unit consists of members who were passionate enough for the cause to put their education at risk. Pedagogies die when the support of the members for the ideology dies or when it is forced down.
5
(Bottoms,2010) (Bottoms,2010) 7 (Rogers, 2009) 6
An ARC Conference
1975 saw the creation of the New Architecture Movement / NAM by the ARC. The initiation of NAM was a result of the conclusion of the ARC. “However, by late 1978 ARC seems to have finally lost momentum”8. The NAM was to be more independent of the AA and the unit system, following the idea of disapproving the RIBA. In 1980, Brian Anson quit the school and led to the deterioration of his councils. Brian Anson retaliated by saying that the ARC did not “lose momentum” and the group was terminated deliberately post achieving its larger mass movement by forming the NAM. Anson called ARC an ‘Active service unit’, whose job as a group of activists was to expose the profession of architecture rather than change it9.
Brain Anson’s Grave
8 9
(Bottoms, 2010) (Anson, 2008)
Using this case study, this essay will address the death of a pedagogy, by personifying a pedagogy. The death of a pedagogy can hence be analysed looking respectively at fame, cause, time, will and family. Fame: Can be measured by its impact and effectiveness. The movement for Covent Garden was partly successful, where it managed to save the architecture but did not prevent the displacement of the previous local residents. The ARC, however, was more successful in achieving its goals. ARC had quite an impact from being in the news to saving extinctions of communities. It saved the villages of Bridgtown and Divis in Belfast. A pedagogy’s success can be measured via the number of people who attended its funeral. Surely, given a chance to attend the funeral communities who have been positively affected by the ARC would have attended. Cause and time: The struggle for Covent Garden became still after the fight was over and the purpose of the struggle was lost. Similarly, the ARC’s immediate force in the various projects and cases that students looked into, halts after the goal is either achieved or goes in vain. Therefore the question to ask is not about the immediate force but the ripple effect and what all a pedagogy excites in its aftermath. The NAM was one of these ripple effects, which held a lot of debates and discussions changing, even if in the slightest the way that some architects looked at their professions. The cause of death for pedagogies hence can be the death of a leader, achieving a solution to the problem or sometimes the continuation of the goal if its successors are not yet ready to give up. Family and Will: This pedagogy believed that architecture cannot be separated from its social and political contexts precisely because of its major influence. The will of a pedagogy is the philosophy and how its family/members take it further. Members of the ARC continued their work with the idea of community architecture in mind. Not falling for the greed of global market capitalism, they agree that with the evictions taking place in London, this philosophy is of grave importance. Anson’s philosophy is valid nowadays. In the same city as his first struggle, property has become the subject of unique speculation. Members of the ARC and students who read about and agree with the philosophy of community architecture preached by Anson and his pedagogy focus their careers and projects on such problems.
Pedagogies positively or negatively alter lives. These lives can belong directly to people, the architecture or even an ideology. In its aftermath, a pedagogy leaves impressions in the sands. These impressions are useful to look at, take inspiration from and continue. A pedagogy is risen from a problem, followed by passion executed by a group. If either one of these is changed a pedagogy is bound to weaken and eventually die. In the case of ARC, the problems got eventually solved, the members and leaders left and the only thing remained was the passion for the idea and hence somehow the ideology and its impact still lives. A radical pedagogy is also quite dependent on its need and relevance in its contemporary atmosphere. To conclude, a radical pedagogy doesn’t just die, it takes other forms and when the time is right, sprouts up back as a very relevant group to work for a solution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bottoms, E. (2010). ‘If Crime Doesn’t Pay’: The Architects’ Revolutionary Council. [online] Aaschool.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/AASCHOOL/LIBRARY/ARC.pdf [Accessed 8 Feb. 2019]. Rogers, R. (2009). Brian Anson (1935-2009). [online] Architects Journal. Available at: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/brian-anson-1935-2009/5212234.article [Accessed 17 Feb. 2019].
Brian Anson, letter to Edward Bottoms NOT FOR PUBLICATION, 18 February 2008 Duvillier, A. (2015). Brian Anson's Architectural Revolutionary Council & its relevance today. London: Architectural Association [Accessed 20 Feb. 2019]. Rogers, R. (2016). Brian Anson obituary. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/dec/17/brian-anson-obituary [Accessed 4 Feb. 2019]. G. Karsch, C. (1996). First School for Architects. [online] Ushistory.org. Available http://www.ushistory.org/carpentershall/history/firstschool.htm [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].
at:
A. Segal, R. and Von Stuckrad, K. (2015). [online] Ucl.ac.uk. Available https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/sites/ioe/files/radicalism-vsr-chapter.pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2019].
at:
Colomina, B. (2012). Radical Pedagogies in Architectural Education. [online] Architectural Review. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/today/radical-pedagogies-in-architecturaleducation/8636066.article [Accessed 1 Mar. 2019]. Nikolaev, I. (1979). Architectural Education. [online] TheFreeDictionary.com. Available at: https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Architectural+Education [Accessed 2 Mar. 2019]. K. Smith, M. (2012). What is pedagogy?. [online] infed.org. Available at: http://infed.org/mobi/what-ispedagogy/ [Accessed 3 Mar. 2019].
IMAGES Sweeney, S. (n.d.). Brian Anson – “a revolutionary for social justice” buried in Magheragallon Cemetery, Gweedore, Donegal. [online] Séamus Sweeney. Available at: https://seamussweeney.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/brian-anson-a-revolutionary-for-social-justiceburied-in-magheragallon-cemetery-gweedore-donegal/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019]. Architectural Association Archives Architectural Association : Project Review Books 1971 (Brain Anson Intermediate 1) – 1978
(Brian Anson Diploma 8)
EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE Armaan Bansal
Armaan Bansal : Unit 12 Tutor : Sofia Krimizi HTS Term One
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400 BC [ Sanskrit ] : Window / ramate / A resting place for the female1 ….
Photograph: Alper Yesiltas, Istanbul 2
…. 2018, Amsterdam : Window / putas en véntana / Whores in a window. An honest woman ought not to spend any time at the window.3
The Society has forced a change in the perception of The Window. The Window has forced a change in the perception of The Society. There has occurred, an evident change in the definition of a window throughout different ages. Moulded from a tool of surveillance, security and rest into an element of possession, transparency and fragility. My discussion aims to argue a reinterpretation of an element through a discussion of the window’s presentations.
Everything obeyed our laws and we just went on self-improving till a window gave us pause and there the outside world was, moving.4
Glass House Heather McHugh, 1948
1
Koolhaas, R. (2018). Rem Koolhaas. Köln: Taschen, pp. 704.
2
(Lewis, 2018)
3
Koolhaas, R. (2018). Rem Koolhaas. Köln: Taschen, pp. 704.
4
Glass House, Heather McHugh, 1948.
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The window is an element that studied as a very practical and theoretical element, however, in my opinion it could and should also be studied as a poetic element in architecture. Windows govern religious norms and become spaces of preaching or worship. They control the climate in the room which greatly affects the mood of any being present in it. However, one of the clearer functions of the window is to facilitate the tenants of a building to experience a moving sense of imagination of the world outside and subconsciously immerse oneself in the surrounding. Philosophically, windows are also suggested to be the eyes of the building. In the poem, Glass House, McHugh conveys how the window actually made us stop, think, observe and reflect. She goes on as asserts a question about perspective and perception. Which way to look? 5 When a window is constructed, it changes the attitudes of both organisms, from the outside and from the inside. Earlier in the window timeline, most windows were operable and their purpose was the user to physically interact with the outside, whether it’s rain or a breeze. However, in subsequent years, the physical interaction has been turned to an abstract one in compromise to security, structure and privacy.
Baby Window Cage, London, 19306
Windows can be considered to be one of the primary direct connections for a user of a certain space to the outside world, whilst it acts as a barrier for privacy, climatic regulations and security. Windows ignites thoughts of a paradoxical barrier that offers uninterrupted views of the world but stops physical contact with it, or as a mysterious invisible plane that controls the environment of the space it encloses. Therefore, the window tends to hold an enormous value associated to itself. This value turns into a huge responsibility for the designer of a space, the architect, where he is in a state of absolute control of what is to be shown or hidden, massively influencing interpretations of the outside. Subsequently, the window also proves to offer limitless choices for the designer and hence limitless iterations of space, where every spacial experience tends to be unique.
Before listing the further eminence of windows, I first question, “ What is a window? ”
The term so simply tossed around, must be defined using appropriate terms, adapting to the dynamics of its concept and use, rather than the origin of the term from Old Norse as a combination of ‘wind’ and ‘eye’.7 The window can be identified as an element of architecture that has a story to tell. This statement can be interpreted in different streams. The first being that of the early stained glass that aims to tell a literal story. In the middle ages in Europe, the window turned into a picture, not of the outside but of the Bible, as a means
5
Glass House, Heather McHugh, 1948.
6
(TIME.com, 2018)
7
(En.wikipedia.org, 2018)
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to access the book in a pictorial form. The use of the window as a book, informs greatly about how a window is as public and accessible as the facade of a building itself. Secondly, by simply analysing a window through the tool of sight, the window informs the viewer about its origin and purpose, whether it is the shape of the window, the placement of the window, the size of the window or the material that composes the element and details of it. There also lies, a very interesting origin story behind the window. Very misunderstood, the window in my opinion should not be reduced to a simple two dimensional opening in the facade, but instead should be argued as an element in multiple contexts, whether it is that of the window as a means of convention in drawing and architectural study, a space, an object, a void or a threshold. This discussion aims to highlight these titles through micro-narratives of the window’s details. Each title should argue for a window being a greater part of it than the others and final interpretation can be left to the readers as it is to all viewers. Windows are a necessity to life in the building. A space becomes inhabitable when it acquires openings, whether it is in the form of a door, a window, a shaft or maybe even a hole in the ground. According to an Ancient Chinese geomancy, Feng Shui, which is a pseudoscience that distributes energy forces to harmonise individuals in their surroundings, windows are imperative. The shape, size, placement and overall energy of openings in the edifice such as doors and windows in any given floor plan are all very important for a good an even flow of energy. The relationship between doors and windows defines the Feng Shui properties of the room, as these openings, in a symbolic sense exist to channel energy from one place to another. In this tradition, both doors and windows have powerful cores connected to them. Feng Shui places great importance of a window being located in the kitchen area or the bathroom, apart from the obvious ventilation advantages. There is a phobia that can arise from spaces without openings, called Claustrophobia. A small space with the introduction of an opening can very effectively demolish this fear, which when thought about is quite extreme and mentally challenging to live with. Therefore, life, rather lovable comfortable life is directly related to the Window. The building has also very regularly been personified. Hugo Haring in 1920, wrote about the building as an organism using the words, ‘a responsive architecture’. Buildings have personalities, programs, host other organisms and sometimes also take the form of organic creatures. Therefore, it wouldn't be farfetched to make a claim of the window as a pore of the building. A system through which the building breathes. A pore is a minute opening in a surface or the skin of an organism, through which gases, liquids, or microscopic particles may pass. A window in order to be a window has to move, and hence lying in the realm of kinetic architecture by default a piece of kinetic architecture. Most of such windows at are manually controlled, adjusted by tenants according to what they feel. At a bigger scale, the building somehow adjusts its opening according to weather conditions and feeling very similar to an organism. There has also been research and testing in automatically controlled windows in buildings which make the building a very realistic robotic organism. An analogy to explain the importance of pores in a living organism would be, the greatest kill in the James Bond movie, Goldfinger. The arch-villain, Jill Mastersois is killed after betraying the boss and sleeping with Bond. She is asphyxiated after her entire body was covered in gold paint, closing off all the pores in her body. The symbolic meaning of covering the body in gold was actually understanding the value of the body itself and realising blocking these pores would kill a beautiful organism, quite like the next example.
Jill Mastersois asphyxiated in Goldfinger
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The presence and absence of windows can also be explained as King William II of England did, which a concept that most people might understand better today. Instead of making knowledge claims about value, I present an example of explicit value in its raw form, Money and the Window Tax. King William considered windows to be valuable, so valuable that he decide to tax people according to the number of windows the house had. However, I think His Majesty confused the quality of light for the number of channels. The tax drove people to cover up their windows with bricks and produce Blind Windows, that are still visible around London today. This reduced the quality of space in houses and the overall value of a window. The King somehow managed to flip the purpose of a window, reduce the quality of life to that of a prison cell and block the pores of the ever-growing city of London. The tax was also quite inaccurate as houses in different locations inside Central London and the countryside can have drastically different rates of land. Funnily enough, the law was abolished in 1851. The Crystal Palace was also constructed in 1851 and was at the highest point of development of transparency achieved back in the day.
The Window as an Object The window can be touched and debatably seen, therefore making its argument as an object. The twentieth century brought about an increase in mass production of elements of architecture like home fittings in order to decrease the price of manufacture, waste of production and time the time taken to produce such item by hand. All details of these elements conditions were made consistent, keeping in mind that the major goal was to remove all design thought, focusing only on the necessary. Many such mass-produced items were such that should have actually been thought about in great detail and designed for humans to have a sense of the world. The window was the most mass produced item of them all.8 Windows, however, do not fit with in the boundary of this philosophy. Windows of a space are elements that are custom to their surroundings. They are made to be placed in their interrelation to other architectural factors such as where on earth the space lies, how the sun and winds touch the facade, the temperatures in the area, and preferences in the space, what lies beyond the window or within, affecting how people that are drawn there, look inside or someone inside gazes outside, at other observers walking along the street.
Windows, Elements of Architecture, Venice Biennale, 2014.
The following picture shows. Elements of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas at the 2014 Venice Biennale. The exhibition listed out physically, technical components of architecture, including windows. What the exhibition shows is the wide diversity of styles and methods used for fenestration in this country over the centuries, which are being lost to modern heat conservation. A lot many critics pointed out the fact that Light as an element was missing. Light is usually overlooked because of its invisibility to the eye.9 Light can only be experienced once it is reflected or blocked, as Louis Kahn said, “The sun was not aware of its wonder until it struck the side of a building.” 10 Therefore the window as an object through light passes in many
8
(Tsukamoto, 2011)
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(ArchDaily, 2018)
10
Louis Kahn
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different ways, depending on its style. Windows have also been used as an object of filtration. The window is also a very physical object when it comes to security. Whether it is for means of looking, observing and surveillance or for filtering out objects such as dust particles, insects or even thieves and robbers. A person feels way more powerful and stronger, knowing what is happening on the outside. There also exists today a kind of reflective glass which allows views from one side and blocks them from the other. This intensifies the feeling of power and spying. The last thing about windows as objects is them being used as a political object. Modern shuttered windows in low-cost buildings in the 1940’s gave access to all working classes a new vision to engage in, instead of such views being limited to just the high class, reflecting one of the Fascist goals.
The Window as a Void Sebastiano Serlio’s beautiful drawings of elevations of buildings present windows in a way that defies its theory. Serlio fills up his drawings with charcoal so that the windows look completely black. He turns windows into voids.11 It is quite interesting how Serlio interprets them as empty instead of a physical fence, demolishing even the concept of looking in or out and even the practical environmental use of them. This way of hatching suggests that before actual inhabitation, windows exist as a prospective, to suggest habitation to a blank wall. The window has changed from a small opening in the wall covered by animal skin, to an openable hinged windows to windows that are impossible to open. Glass in the frame makes the window a surface rather than a void, however, 2018 shifts to another argument of a building that is entirely made out of glass. Do we consider the building to have no windows and walls made of glass or do we consider that the building consists of all windows.
Serlio’s Drawing
The Window as a Convention The twentieth century mass production of windows must have been preceded by a drawing. They also must have been succeeded by a mass production of a number of similar looking drawings, whether in plan or section. This gave rise to drawing conventions of windows, and everything to make plans and drawings more practical, understandable and international. These conventions now have books such as the Neufert architect's data. Architects do not consider the detail of a window to be a part of their job anymore. These details are contrasted by professionals in engineering instead. These engineers take into account governmental regulations and material costs. Architects use these blocks and information whilst presenting projects, performance rather than form. The conventionality of windows is helpful and informative in a way that a person can locate the origin and location of a window by simply looking at the frame, design, pattern or even thickness. Window profiles can be grouped as timed conventions every few years show a little change in the conventional window from being very distinct from the facade to being the facade itself. There set of drawing from the twentieth century by Edward R Ford, clearly show this slow change of conventions. 11
Koolhaas, R. (2018). Rem Koolhaas. Köln: Taschen, pp.699 - 860.
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Window profiles, Edward R Ford
Glass was chosen to be the conventional material for windows because of its unique ability to contradict its own materiality and still be used in something as physical as architecture. There needed to be a material that was somehow translucent such as a thin layer of animal skin, but I am sure architects were not expecting something as perfect as glass. Glass came into existence as a discovery rather than invention. In 1550 AD, “The tradition is that a merchant ship laden with Nitrum being moored at this place, the merchants were preparing their meal or the beach, and not having stones to prop up their pots, they used lumps of Nitrum from the ship, which fused and mixed with the sands of the shore, and there flowed streams of a new translucent liquid, and thus was the origin of glass.” 12 This discovery further led to testings and soon became a global competition between countries using different methods and techniques. Countries raced against one another to produce the biggest seamless glass panels that fuelled the big clear glass structure that the land holds.
The Window as a Threshold Scenes of movement through architecture using windows summon up dramatic imaginations whilst telling stories. There is a certain sense of energy and liveliness from such imaginations that are completely different and much more exciting than the traditional classification of a door and a window whose functional difference has been institutionalised. In other words, while this may tend to be forgotten, the act of passing through a wall indicates latent energy that has been hidden. Combined doors and windows known as "Threshold Windows" can be thought of as objects where a part of the window is transformed upon contact by the energy passing through. In other words, this posture is a window gesture that invites people in and expresses respect for a certain liveliness.13 Windows are three dimensional and if exaggerated in the Z plane, and can very easily establish themselves as spaces, like Carlo Scarpa’s Corner Window.
Carlo Scarpa’s Corner Window
12
Georgius Agricola, De re Metallica, Belus River.
13
Tsukamoto, Y. (2011). WindowScape. Singapore: Page One.
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Windows tend to produce a life for themselves, with factors such as the light and wind nurturing a comfortable space to lure people to dwell by windows. Windows account for being spaces, cultural, urban and social spaces that are meant to give rest and relaxation, practice religion or preach and even individual contemplation .They have been used as spaces of work or sleep or sitting. These can be noticed all over the world, such as the bay windows in old English homes or the Jharokhas in the Hawa Mahal.14
Old English Bay Window
Jharokhas Haha Mahal
Writing a few pages about windows, I can confirm that as an element, the window is very interesting and there are limitless possibilities of interpretation. It can be looked at as an object, as a space, as a concept. It can invoke feeling such as that of greed whilst looking at a shop window or the Red Light District, to want to reach out. It controls the house environment, the emotions and mood. They lie in a realm of both public and private, in the context of accessibility or discussing whom the area between two glass frames belongs to. It was a discovery that led to the invention and an element so suited for the dynamic nature of architecture itself. At the end I feel, every different reader’s view on a window would be.
Red Light District, Amsterdam
14
Tsukamoto, Y. (2011). WindowScape. Singapore: Page One.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Koolhaas, R. (2018). Window, Elements. Köln: Taschen, pp.699 - 860.
Tsukamoto, Y. (2011). WindowScape. Singapore: Page One.
Vittorio Lampugnani, M. (1995). The Architecture of the window.
Ingram, D. (1986). Every window tells a story. London: Channel 4 TV.
ArchDaily. (2018). Light Matters: The Missing Element At the Venice Biennale. [online] Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/529552/ light-matters-the-missing-element-at-the-venice-biennale [Accessed 2 Dec. 2018].
En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Window. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window [Accessed 11 Nov. 2018].
En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Window tax. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax [Accessed 2 Dec. 2018].
Glass House, Heather McHugh, 1948 [Accessed 20 Oct. 2018].
Lewis, C. (2018). This Photographer Took Pictures of The Same Window For 12 Years Before The Building Was Demolished - Resource. [online] Resource. Available at: http://resourcemagonline.com/2018/02/this-photographer-took-pictures-of-the-same-window-for-12years-before-the-building-was-demolished/85661/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2018].
007museum.com. (2018). Goldfinger. [online] Available at: http://www.007museum.com/goldfinger.htm [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].
TIME.com. (2018). The 50 Worst Inventions - TIME. [online] Available at: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/ 0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991746,00.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
VICE News. (2018). 'Save Our Windows!': Amsterdam's Plan for the Red Light District Pisses Off Sex Workers. [online] Available at: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ev9gdz/save-our-windows-amsterdams-plan-for-the-red-light-district-pisses-off-sex-workers [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].
Flickr. (2018). Flickr. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/9033808337 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2018].
Anon, (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sebastiano-Serlio-design-for-the-stage-set-of-a-tragedyWoodcut-from-his-Second-Book-on_fig14_233101753 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2018].
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