barry ballinger
p a r a d i g m s
a n d
p o w e r
B A R R Y
B A L L I N G E R
b a l l i n g e r b n b @ g m a i l . c o m
forward When I started this portfolio, I looked at online examples and tried to emulate them. I was unhappy with the direction it was going. There were two reasons for this. First, the graphics for my architectural projects are quite dated. I’ve mostly worked as a production architect since earning an undergraduate degree. Doing construction documents in AutoCAD and Revit doesn’t require keeping up with the latest rendering techniques and conventions. Secondly, My PhD studies produced a change in philosophy, and I now reject the assumptions that informed my old projects. As I toiled to legitimize a bank I designed in 2003, I realized I hated the whole idea of that project; both its premise and implementation. I was trying to live in two worlds; to present my past works as important with good processes, while also trying to introduce a critique of the extant architectural process.
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I hoped to use my work to outline the differences between architecture as objects, commodities, or reflections of culture. I spent several weeks on it. It wasn’t working. A portfolio that accurately represents me as an architect would need to focus on my research, which is why this portfolio will look different than other architectural portfolios. Chapter One is a story that exemplifies an overall issue in architecture. Chapter Two describes some unbuilt projects to demonstrate my understanding of the design process. Chapter Three presents two built projects in which I had a major influence on the way they look and function. Chapter Four consists of images that show my use of hand and computer rendering techniques. Chapters Five and Six show my research and teaching. Chapter Seven is a collection of my sketches and artwork.
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2: unbuilt
7: teaching 8: life
1: a story
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4: graphics
3: built
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5: research
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S P L I T T I N G t h e p o w e r o f
M E D I U M S : s e p a r a t i o n
I invite you to listen to a story. In a future that’s closer than we may imagine, the super-structure holding up a hopeful dream buckled under the weight of the world. It held for several centuries, but it was futile. Its only hope was in sameness, order, obedience to the dream, and disobedience to the spirit which dwells in man. The civil order, where the masses transferred their power to others in the name of piety and patriotism, couldn’t withstand the impact loads of deviancy, endless wars, crisis after crisis, and the democratization of information. Nature overtook our cities in unexpected ways. Trees didn’t break through the asphalt of our endless parking lots. Our shopping malls weren’t claimed by the beasts of the fields. Our cities were claimed by human nature, the desire to build and dwell, and the social production of space. Informal shelter overtook the planned, delineated, segregated, comprehendible space that served the powerful in their accumulation of capital. The zoned esplanades dividing the haves and the have-nots filled in with “slums.”
central planning suburbs
fortress transit station drawbridge guard tower
However, the powerful are powerful after all. They would exploit their power as they’ve always done. Throughout history economic and political structures allowed them to manipulate life through crisis, division, and reinvention. This time, for whatever reason, call it the dream’s corroded foundation, none of those mechanisms were available. Their only option was separation. They would maintain power through spatial division. The privileged few would enter under the supervision of one of the looming guard towers surrounding a great gulf. Then cross over the Drawbridge to the Fortress for processing. After being ferried to the Transit Station, they would have freedom to travel between the Suburbs, the Communications Tower, and the Central Planning Administration. The glitzy architecture of the New City contrasts with the organic slums that overtook the Old City. What you will notice; however, is the slums cannot be contained. The “seething forces are rattling the lid of the cauldron of the state and its space.” Informality is quietly encroaching on the elite’s sanitized vision. drawbridge
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communications
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fortress
transit station
suburbs
communications tower
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This imaginary world is called Splitting Mediums. It is an architectural manifestation of paradigms and power. Thomas Kuhn (1996) defines “paradigm” as a theory that attracts adherents and allows the formation of a discursive ecosystem. Paradigms create two phenomena; 1) they allow practitioners within a field to build on existing theories based on shared knowledge and 2) the theories become so entrenched that advancing beyond requires revolution. Foucault (1972) describes how this entrenchment is instrumentalized by the powerful through three mechanisms; surfaces of emergence, authorities of delamination, and grids of specification. Surfaces of emergence are the settings for which truth is named and described, authorities of delimitation are the people codified through law or opinion who are qualified to name and describe, and grids of specification are the systems in which a range of discourse can take place about a phenomenon (p.41-42). The convergence of these conditions forms an object (p.44), or a paradigm. Through paradigms, the powerful can create acceptable narratives, means of methods of social interaction, and the systems of reward and punishment. Architecture schools and offices are surfaces of emergence where the norms of education and practiced are established. Professors, principles, lawyers, associations, and governing boards are the authorities of delimination who determine rules for accreditation and what constitutes reasonable standard of care. Normative architectural theory and practice are the grids of specification that establish how the profession can be discussed. The architectural profession was not a concept or object waiting to be discovered so it could be discussed and knowledge of it could be disseminated. Instead, it formed out of “positive conditions of a complex group of relations” (Foucault, 1972, p.45) that directs scholarship, treatment, and policy dealing with the built environment. For example, Thomas Markus (1993) writes that much of the entire program of public architecture has been directed toward “confining those who.. introduce chaos into the social order,” which includes “physically or mentally ill, those suffering from the moral disease of crime or unable to work as a result of old age or infirmity, the poor, the physically and mentally handicapped, the homeless and vagrant, orphans and deviants of all kinds” (p.95). Each of these categories has an “archeology” whose major formation can be descried in Enlightenment rationalism. These categories gave birth to architecture that serves as mechanisms for social control (p.96). Using the enlightenment paradigm that architecture could save humanity from itself, planners and architects reconfigured entire cities to serve powerful interests (Karakayali, 2010).
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Interestingly, when I created Splitting Mediums in 2005, I rooted for the privileged in their struggle against “human debris” (as I called the millions of humans who didn’t fit the hierarchical pattern of modernity). I created a world where they could escape all the decay and cultural devolution. I pictured myself in the quiet, detached suburban home while security forces maintained the border. I was acting within the paradigm of professional expertise in which the trained elite, the keepers of civilization, were better equipped to mete out truth and justice. This is where I see our profession today. We are kicking against the pricks, using our professional status to help the state hold the cauldron’s lid down. The project itself grew out of frustration that my firm failed to recognize how qualified I was to design the world. I credit this confidence to my education. Nikos Salingaros (2013) writes that ever since the Bauhaus architecture schools have tried to “restructure society for the betterment of all people; whether those welcome this or not,” architecture schools have dismissed “passed methods of design” as sentimental, and rejected the appeal to “human scale” as “an indication of human weakness” (p.29). This may seem overly harsh, but only in terms of degree. The rhetoric of architectural education affirms responsiveness to social and environmental forces while the
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U N B U I L T W O R K d e s i g n p r o c e s s
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system of reward and punishment allows students to thrive without much thought to these. When those forces are considered, the solutions are rarely evidence based. My over confidence wasn’t a problem with my professors, my school, or myself. It’s a problem rooted in the design studio process. For most of human history everyone was “engaged in shaping the environment and [was] thus engaged in design” and this process led to “congruence” between culture, nature, and the built environment (Rapaport, 1976, P.22). Vernacular approaches to settlement and dwelling production maintains a strong relationship with the environment (Rapoport 1976, 1988). Unlike ‘high-style’ designs where architects can generate multiple iterations in a controlled environment, taking months or even years to decide on a solution, vernacular design must respond to immediate needs of the site. Architects can’t produce culturally and environmentally responsive architecture within the current paradigm. However, architects can and do maintain current power structures by and through the current modes of spatial production this paradigm dictates. some of these projects were designed with Brian Hunter or Brian Winterscheidt
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1 0
S P A C E S
s e c o n d
y e a r
We were given a 60-degree grade on which only 10 square feet of structure could touch the site. I stacked the programmed space to limit the footprint. My design is about views, denial, and reward.
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D Y N O
t h i r d
P L E X U S y e a r
Our studio used mostly found computer parts to design a futuristic entertainment complex. Eggs represent a beginning as well as reproduction of time and visually define each layer or strata of the tower.
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All of my projects begin with sketches, doodles and notes. Architecture is a tactile art form. The design process should include a connection between the knowing and doing, the conception and the creation
LIFE IS
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VERY LONG
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P O R T L A N D
f o u r t h
M I X E D y e a r
U S E
I used a sustainable building competition as an opportunity to critique the paradigm in architecture that buildings could function without regard to climate. But I also critiqued the idea that architects could achieve sustainability by implementing a check-list. Instead, I believed sustainability could be an aesthetic style. The Portland Building, as a model of pure formalism, was the perfect subject for reclaiming an architectural response to climate.
the proposed portland building addresses chapman square
portland building
corridors
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removed core
apartments
stairs
elevators
new structure
skin
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M A D I S O N
A R B O R E T U M
f o u r t h
y e a r
The purpose of an arboretum, to preserve an ecosystem, conflicts with architecture. I used figure ground to allow nature to impose itself on the site. The architecture emerges from earth berms and trees manipulate pieces of the facade.
Images from Wisconsin forests disintegrate and blend to form a singer composition. This collage helped me design the arboretum.
bird’s eye from northwest
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entry
exhibit space
A pretend tree in the courtyard affects the buildings on either side of it. This is an example of an object that pretends to incorporate external forces.
green house
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D U N E D I N
U R B A N
f i f t h
y e a r
D E S I G N
My partner and I are Lord of the Rings fans. Because of that, we chose a city in New Zealand for a steel competition. The city is Dunedin, which we liked because it sounds like Dunedane. The center of Dunedin has a formal octagonal layout with the center being an important plaza. However, it’s bisected by a busy street. The middle ring of The Octagon is completely lined with buildings or parks that address the streets except one surface parking lot. We proposed completing the urban fabric, creating a new plaza, and connecting it to the existing plaza. Anchoring the site is a bank. We wanted it to disappear so we embedded the facade with reflective squares. A tower would form landmark to direct people down the path to the plaza. The top of the tower would give people a panoramic view of Dunedin, from the hills to the harbor.
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first floor
second floor
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third floor
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section through the site
designed with Brian Winterscheidt
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I’m excited Baseball Habout A RtheDpossibilities I N G for Harding B A University S E B A L L Facility, excited, but also apprehensive. Excited because every project is a new opportunity to promote Architecture, apprehensive because opportunities lost truly hurt. I’m not sure I can express what Architecture means to me. Though it’s 2 0 1 2 NOT religion for me, it IS what I was created to do and therefore I have a passion to fulfill my purpose. What is the character of baseball? Is it elegant? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. It’s also mechanically haphazard, beautiful and ugly. IIt’s a sport forwant to do. There are two reasons I’m reluctant to write this proposition. One, Writing this isprecise, something I have tofast, do,slow, though not something particularly great athletes and a game for children. It’s a contradiction. Architecture I make myself open to scrutiny, scorn, or disapproval. If I say nothing, Ican don’t have to defend anything and potential for conflict is avoided. Two, nothing materialize asignored. visibly interesting contradictions, howand caninitreturn be specific happens, I’m I share what’s burning mybut heart get atodismissive response intended to divert my attention or postpone my desire (This baseball? The mesh is the essential of baseball. has happened to mebackstop here more times than Iform can count). Then there’s the chance you’ll appreciate it and I’ll be closer to doing what I’m passionate about.
Either way, there’s no going back to the way it was before. I was asked to draw plans for a baseball facility for Harding University. It would include are lockers, batting cages, coaches’ offices,your a training room, and Harding could or should be. Two, I think part of this could be used to influence My intentions twofold. One, I hope to influence decision on what storage. though it wasthis supposed be solely productionmoney project, Harding’sEven decision on what could orto should be. Iaunderstand is an issue and money is tight but I think of it this way. I had an old Razor phone Ithat approached it as a design challenge. I wrote a concept essay, did design I gave away. It made and received calls, it stored contacts, it took grainy pictures, and it had other functions. It had some value. I never gave much options, anda printed presentation boards. thought material to sellingresearch, it for even small amount because I knew no one would buy it. I also had an iPhone, I sold it for $100.00. The person who bought my iPhone would have paid more but would not have even paid 10.00 for my Razor though they functioned similarly. People are willing to pay for high quality. The client wasn’t given the opportunity to see the design options I did, and Since we know that’s true wouldn’t it also be true that people are willing to pay more for quality architecture than for metal a building? Architecture that a metal building sits where a nice building could have been. This helped transcends its circumstances, though still reasonable, should be able to inspire more in donations than a metal building. me realize that many architects view their profession as little else than a business. This is not entirely but has importantmy limitations is easily The commentary below is anbad attempt to articulate concept and for the practice facility. instrumentalized by the powerful. Mesh is What Baseball Looks Like concept sketch of the building’s enty
I’m an architect (unlicensed). I can’t help but do architecture. Space planning is for space planners. I’m interested in how the building is experienced. When a building becomes Architecture shelter becomes music, esoteric manifestation becomes yours, a pre-manufactured building re Architecture has to come from somewhere, have an intended function, or it’s not architecture, it’s art. There’s nothing wrong with art, in fact, architecture’s reliance on function sinks it several rungs lower than the highest art form which is music but it gains some steps when the form is not a leftover surface treatment applied to a function. What architects do is design space starting with how the space will feel given the context of its function. In this way function doesn’t become a dictator shaping the whole building but is a partner with form. The essence of Architecture includes light, views, opacity, texture, compression, anticipation, and release.
“I didn’t show it to him. I know this guy. He won’t understand it.”
Now we have an 800 lb gorilla to deal with. This facility has to be big in order to serve its function but it can’t cost too much. When I see pre-manufactured buildings I think first on how unexceptional they are and second of how monolithic and huge they are. This isn’t a problem for a warehouse or manufacturing facility but is inappropriate for baseball. The fans will have their aesthetic experience of watching baseball weakened by the presence of a bland metal building. The players will have their training for excellence weakened by the banality of a metal building. Yet, the benefit of a pre-manufactured building cannot be ignored. So instead of an opaque, bland, bulky metal building we can have a translucent, vibrant, light metal building.
Below are examples of an athletic facility in France which utilizes chain link fence over cellular polycarbonate. Note the interplay of light and opacity and dynamic, almost skin like layering. concept sketch showing the view of the new building from the stands
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view from the highway
designed at Dewberry Architects
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S T O R E F R O N T
R E B R A N D I N G
2 0 1 3
A Chinese furniture manufacturer and retailer wanted to re-brand, which would begin by remodeling dozens of storefronts throughout China. For option one we turned the companies “M” logos into patterns that could decorate layered panels. These panels would form a light box that would replace the existing signs. The second option was to encase the existing facades in contemporary materials similar to Apple and Louis Vuitton stores.
STOREFRONT BRANDING STUDY
option one
option two
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“Billboard” Option
7.03.2013
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STOREFRONT BRANDING STUDY 6.25.2013
STOREFRONT BRANDING STUDY 6.25.2013
designed with HJM Architects
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S O N G J I A N G
M I X E D - U S E
2 0 1 3
This was to be a mixed-use office and retail building in Songjiang, China near Shanghai. The client also wanted a sculpture garden to display his artwork. The site is energetic with a mixture of light-industrial, warehouse, and residential uses. I was influenced by Morphosis’ “combinatory urbanism” in which the architecture is more than a stand-alone building but a combination of site forces. The design process began with several study models that show various responses to the site.
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PARADIGMS AND POWER
designed with HJM Architects
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B U I L T W O R K w h o s e a r c h i t e c t u r e ?
There are two paradigms in the architecture profession. One is architecture as business/ service. The other is architect as artist/savior of humanity. I was of the latter, and it caused me anxiety and annoyance because firms that valorize architecture as an art are the minority. I wanted architecture to matter beyond budgets, multipliers, billable hours, and properly filed RFIs. What I learned in architecture school, that I was a designer fit to shape the world, conflicted with my role as a service employee serving rich clients and governments. The studio culture in school fostered a creative environment where I designed spatial experiences and pushed aesthetic possibilities. I was experiencing what Tom Spector (2001) calls “the moral dilemmas of building” in which architects “balance between legitimate public concerns and private demands” (p.7). However, I interpreted “legitimate public concerns” as architectural style that clients, whether public or private should accept because I’m the expert. De Carlo (2005) was critical of the notion that “decisions about where and how” of the built environment should be concentrated with architects because they have the artistic and technological expertise (p.13), but I would have welcomed it. I took this photograph from Sapphire Tower, Istanbul in 2016. It shows the Levent District on the left and Gultepe on the right. Levent is home to multi-national corporations and banks. It’s the heart of wealth in Turkey. Several of the buildings were designed by famous, award-winning architects. Gultepe is a middle/lower-class neighborhood that evolved from a squatter slum. Levent is the convergence of architecture as art and business, while Gultepe is an example of architecture without architects. Levent is exclusive because only the wealthy can live, work, and produce more wealth there. Gultepe is inclusive because the small scale allows diverse business and living arrangements. People have risen out of poverty by controlling the spatial production of Gultepe. Gultepe is being overtaken by the same mode of spatial production as Levent. Neither architecture as a business nor architecture as art has a solution for this.
P O R T
O F
C A T O O S A
2 0 1 0
A truck collided with a security building’s roof at the Port of Catoosa. This guard shack is the project I’m most proud of because it’s the only one I could implement my vision from start to finish. I wanted the first building people engage with to represent the Port’s high-tech and nautical character.
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PARADIGMS AND POWER
designed with Dewberry Architects
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V A N D E V E R
E L E M E N T A R Y
2 0 1 1
This project was an important professional lesson: It’s difficult to advocate for a design that goes beyond the style your client is used to. Without internal support, it‘s impossible. We won the proposal to renovate and expand six elementary schools in one of Tulsa’s upscale suburbs. At that time, the firm’s design director was responsible for designing every project. However, six schools being designed simultaneously was too much, so younger interns were brought in. The new designs would guide future projects, so matching the existing architecture was not necessary or desired. I approached the projects as I would in design studio, but some offices are not like design studio. Early concepts would have been more appropriate to the site, more appropriate to our time, and better represent the community. They were not what the client was used to seeing. Reflecting on this project now, I’m not as concerned that architecture-asbusiness prevailed over architecture-as-art. I mostly remember how the design process was led by administrators with teachers having very little input and students having none.
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PARADIGMS AND POWER
designed with Dewberry Architects
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R E P R E S E N T A T I O N h a n d s a n d e y e s
Architects maintain our distance from the public through specialized and often esoteric graphic techniques. Architectural renderings, paraline drawings, sketches, and animations are powerful tools that allow us to convey meaning and intention to the public even if they don’t fully understand them. Our compelling images, coupled with technical expertise and legal codification makes it difficult for the public to gainsay our designs. I was never critical of this phenomenon and still don’t know how to conceptualize it. On the one hand, architects can help the public participate in the design process by helping them visualize the spaces they’re producing. On the other hand, drawing a space is a huge step toward producing it. If this tool is maintained by architects, much of the production of space is in our hands.
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designed with Lawrence Group, Dewberry, and HJM Architects
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G R A P H I C S I was always decent at drawing, but in architecture school I quickly realized my hand rendering was never going to be as good as others. I decided that if I wanted to have excellent graphic presentations, I would need to excel at digital media. However, hand rendering techniques are still important for the design process and communications. The following are examples of hand and digital graphics shown without comment.
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PARADIGMS AND POWER
designed with HJM Architects
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designed with HJM Architects
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designed with HJM Architects
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designed with Dewberry
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Around third year I quit pretending to design buildings because nothing I designed would ever be built. I started designing boards instead.
In school we never designed buildings. We designed boards. Instead communicating the components of a building that will never be built, we should design a board.
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The board below won us first place for “Architectural Graphics” in the 2004 Colorado Young Architects competition.
designed with Seung Ra and Brian Hunter
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designed with Brian Winterscheidt
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Architects have participated in decisions about cities that have lingering negative effects (L’Heureux, 2015), and, since architectural theory is so “amorphous and impalpable” it has been incapable of adequately critiquing itself (De Carlo, 2005, p.4). To avoid past mistakes, we need interdisciplinary theories to guide us in evaluating design decisions. We should begin by engaging theories that reconnect the production of space to culture because the “who and why” of spatial production has serious implications. When the users of space are also the producers, the space serves the users. When the powerful produce space, the space serves the powerful. The first is the “social production of space,” which evolves from a congruence between the built environment and culture. The opposite of this is space produced to validate nationalism, segregate society, maximize exchange value, allow surveillance, or otherwise act upon the user: spaces that produce and maintain power structures. The latter is the dominate mode of spatial production and the one architects are engaged in (De Carlo, 2005, p.6). Understanding the political implications of spatial production will allow us to understand how the producers of informal settlements transgress the dominant modes of spatial production (Dovey, 2013, p.83), which will lead to a more
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R E S E A R C H r e c o n n e c t i n g c u l t u r e
socially responsive architectural profession.
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Architectural theory does not deal with the political implications of spatial configuration (the politics of space). Likewise, sociologists consider space only to describe the setting of political events, but rarely as having an integral role in political activity (Sewell, 2001, p.53). By “politics of space,” I mean the process by which space is produced by political agents and reproduces political processes. In other words, theories of politics of space would consider the events, narratives, and constructs that inform Winston Churchill’s famous quote, “we shape our cities and our cities shape us.” An example of this is the phenomenon of slums. Sociologist Asef Bayat (2013) argues that slums are a social nonmovement, or claim making through “the quiet encroachment of the ordinary.” They are a tactic for accessing amenities of urban life (Perlman 1976; Karpat 1976) and appropriating space that is not attainable within the neoliberal mode of spatial production (Esen, 2008; Kuymulu 2014). Slums’ production processes contrast sharply with neoliberal urban processes in which powerful interests develop spaces through architects; who have mostly been uncritical of this process.
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Turkey is now experiencing the kind of urban transformations that in past decades created social marginalization in other parts of the world; it is also witnessing resistance to that transformation as social movements and nonmovements seek to maintain their “right to the city� (Lefebvre, 1991).
POLITICS OF SPACE IN
ANKARA
The production of space in Turkey provides several case studies for bringing the politics of space into architectural theory because space is produced in Turkey with overtly political agendas. According to Sibel Bozdoğan (1997) modernism in Turkey was the “literal and the metaphorical” emancipation from the outdated Ottoman Empire to the new, Western focused Turkish state (p.138). The critique of modernism, that it was void of culturally meaningful symbols, served the Turkish secularists’ purpose well because Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s progressive agenda was specifically designed to diminish Islam as a cultural force (Çinar, 2005, p.104). This progressive realignment extended to intolerance of traditional knowledge and practice; however, Turkey’s Islamism and its connection to Ottoman heritage never went away (Mardin 1991, p.126-127). Ankara became the seat of central, artificial power of the state, but it never has replaced Istanbul as the cultural capital Turkey (Çinar, 2005, p.100). The nationalists needed a platform from which to fend off challenges to the nation’s sovereignty and their legitimacy as the self-appointed agents of modernization in Turkey, and Ankara provided that in practice and in theory (Kezer, 2015, 23-24). 20th century republicanism throughout the world needed narratives of cultural homogeneity to build collective attachment (Appadurai, 1998). This required the formation of a system of Foucauldian objects that shape and reshape daily activity, which needed a new city form to shape interaction. German urban planner Howard Jansen “introduced a vocabulary of urbanism that differed significantly from Ankara’s established [irregular] settlement patterns” (Kezer, 2015, p.33), Ankara was immortalized through song that all schoolchildren learned (p.25), and architects used careful curation of folk regionalism to put a Turkish face on the transformation (Bozdoğan, 1997 152). This created an untenable paradox in Turkey that persists today where the “irreversible destruction” of Turkish cities by the modernist program, with its lingering reminders of “concrete atrocities” stands in stark contrast to Ottoman buildings (Bozdoğan 1997, p.133). Islamist parties in Turkey are diligent to remind the people that secularist initiated the Cultural Revolution that left behind an ugly residue (Meeker, 1997, Çinar, 2005). Here we find architectural theories, implemented to create shared identity, rejected by a much of society, then used to mobilized against the political party who implemented it. Modernism in Turkey was “compromised from the beginning because
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it was introduced to the country from above” as an explicit program for uncoupling Turks from their culture (Bozdoğan, 1997, p.135). The modern Republican vision balanced on the precarious narrative that Turkey was now a modern state. That narrative was challenged when the folk culture of the villages “invaded” the cities; building informal settlements that clung to the hills of Ankara and Istanbul (Karpat, 1976, p.37). When the neo-liberalism of the 1950’s that gave birth to informal settlements across the world became policy in Turkey, the Nationalists came face-to-face with a part of their identity they wished to eradicate (Erman, 2001, p.985). What came after the Nationalist program faltered would forever change Turkey, but researchers have disagreed on how the change took place. Some claim the rural migrants were natural allies to Islamist parties; others claim the Islamists merely mobilized well (White, 2002). Gecekondu means “built in one night” because legal loopholes allowed people to build on unused land if all construction could be completed in one night (Karpat, 1976). The first gecekondulu (gecekondu dwellers) were often men from rural villages in the Black Sea region who built makeshift homes on state or undeveloped private land mostly in Ankara and Istanbul, began working in the formal or informal sector, brought their families from the villages, and began improving their homes incrementally (Karpat, 1976, White, 2002, p.38). In the late 1960’s Turkish historian Kemal Karpat did extensive ethnographic research in Istanbul’s gecekondular. At a time when Turkish elites, academics, and architects were distraught over this rural invasion (Erman, 2001), Karpat was acquiring knowledge that showed the political and physical complexity of the gecekondu settlements (White, 2002, p.105). The politics of gecekondulu could be observed in the strong social ties and opportunistic construction methods that allowed them to survive attempts to eradicate them (Karpat, 1976, Nalbantoğlu, 1997). When the regime operated on populist principles of greater distribution of land and wealth, gecekondus solved the problem of providing housing for urban migrants; however, after the shift to a neoliberal economy, the land under the gecekondus was too valuable to leave to gecekondu residents (Erman, 2011, p.72). In fact, the gecekondu were a force for social change (Esen, 2008). Bayat (2013) refers to the rural migrations around the world as a
discourse
atatĂźrk
true
newone world 1990s
nation just
well cultural construction government nationalist modernisation
change
informal
society
parties patronage
urban
national
population alternative
also
thus
power
ideology system
policies islamist
theory
ankara
center important
akp
refah
state way
many
ottoman
space
ways
identity
design
turkish party city
religious
created
social politics culturecitiesrole capital
people
rural economic
republic
secular islam buildings country
vernacular
public
islamic authority
turkey
official
clientelism modem interventions large make time local years
increasing western
modern
land
face
secularists modernity modernism square development west arabesk
gecekondu life istanbul political firsttoki housing
administration
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place project
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social nonmovement; which seek out their place in the city and its amenities by establishing their presence in physical space (p.16). The gecekondulu established their space and defended it with architectural tactics (Nalbantoğlu, 1997, p.204). The modernist program of rationalizing and controlling the city through “panoptical transparency” of grand boulevards could not extend into the winding fabric of Ankara’s gecekondu, and residents could use that fabric for resistance against demolition (Nalbantoğlu, 1997, p.204). According to Karpat (1976), what gecekondulu were seeking was an urban lifestyle, upward mobility, and to be associated with urbanity (1976, p.123). However, the established urbanites, including architects did not recognize gecekondu as a legitimate social movement but a problem to be dealt with (Nalbantoğlu, 1997, p. 205). No manner of unslumming seemed to satisfy the urbanites. Even when increased property values allowed gecekondulu to rise into the middle class, the established urbanites referred to them as “haciağa:” a caricature of false piety and wealth without taste (Öncü, p.1999).
MUNDANE R
MOBILIZING STRU
RESISTANCE
UCTURES
IN ZAFERTEPE
Typically, a mobilizing structure is considered a “collective vehicle through which people mobilize and engage in collective action” (McAdams, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996, p. 3). These are usually considered formal institutions like schools, labor unions, churches, and social movements or informal networks like families and social networks. Mobilizing structures should also be considered physical structures such as streets, coffee houses, college campuses, or public spaces. Within both symbolic and physical mobilizing structures, social movements can make connections with other groups through brokerage, find alignment with groups who they thought were distinct through identity shift, or plan demonstrations or performances at one site or several sites, which leads to diffusion. In a mobilizing structure, a social movement can find safety from the state’s demobilization efforts. Depending on the state’s cooptation and repression abilities, brokerage, identity shift, and diffusion may result in realizing claims. Cooptation happens when the government incorporates a previously excluded actor into its center of power to demobilize the movement (McAdams, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996). Repression occurs when the government makes it too costly for the movement to make claims (McAdams, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996) through violence, social isolation, or economic censure. The ability for a mobilization structure to support brokerage, diffusion, and identity shift, while resisting cooptation and repression, is critical to the success of the movement. Brokerage, identity shift, and diffusion are useful concepts for conceptualizing contentious politics of social movements and understanding mobilization and demobilization. For example, a labor union might sustain brokerage and identity shift, but be susceptible to cooptation. While a neighborhood might offer opportunities for diffusion, it may also be vulnerable to repression; both being the case for Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout (Ballinger, 2016). Social nonmovements are different because claims are realized as a part of everyday life and mobilization and demobilization are not as explicit. Often, as in the case of informal housing, the mobilizing structure and the claim are the same. The desire is housing, and the social nonmovement provides housing for themselves. Therefore, though social nonmovements are a form of contentious politics, the commonly understood mechanisms of contentious politics are bypassed. Zafertepe is 1.6 kilometers from Kızılay, Ankara’s central shopping and business district. Kızılay is the central hub for all of Ankara’s
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public transportation. To get anywhere in Ankara, one must go through Kızılay to get there. It is in Çankaya, the most populous of Ankara’s municipalities with a population of nearly one million people. Çankaya is led by Turkey’s secularist, center-left opposition party, The Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) (CHP). It is the largest CHP controlled municipality in Turkey and widely perceived as the home of liberal, progressive, secular and middle to upper middle class Turks who reject the vision of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) (AKP). In the last presidential election, CHP’s candidate won 64% of the vote in Çankaya while only achieving 30% nationwide. Within and between the secular, middle-class neighborhoods in Çankaya are several gecekondus that, despite the state’s effort to eradicate them, still cling to Ankara’s many steep hillsides and fill its low valleys. Zafertepe Mahallesi rests between two nearly demolished gecekondus called Seyranbağları Mah. and Mimar Sinan Mah. It began growing next to the İncesu Stream around 70 years ago as urban migration followed Turkey’s industrialization of labor. It was surrounded by other gecekondus that filled the hills and valleys on every side. İncesu Stream is now covered by İncesu Boulevard, and most of the adjacent gecekondus have been replaced by formal apartment buildings. According to state figures there are 2,600 people living in Zafertepe, down from 3,500 in 2008. This includes those living in newer apartments buildings that line İncesu. There were as many has 9,000 living there in the late 80s. Today there are approximately 80 inhabited houses, which are mostly rentals. As many as 66% of the homes have been demolished in the last five years and almost 20 are empty. The plans for the area include a park where the land is the steepest, and five to seven story middle-class apartment buildings. The municipality is developing these plans, but the process is stalled due to difficulty in establishing ownership of the gecekondu lots. It was thought that by Spring of 2018 all the homes would be gone. However, by Fall of 2018 very few of the remaining homes have been demolished. The houses are in general disrepair and the overall sense is that the neighborhood is in decline, which started with the demolition. Other significant gecekondus in Çankaya are found in Çiğdem, Boztepe, Dikmen Vadisi, and Dilikler, but these are either far from the city center or rabidly being demolished. Though intact gecekondus exist on the fringes of Ankara’s urban environment, especially in the municipalities of Mamak and Altindağ, Zafertepe is
unique because it is near the city-center. What are the people of Zafertepe resisting? First, is the loss of identity. Turks often identify with the city or region their parents or grandparents were born in. For example, my translator tells people he is from Rize (Rizeli), a city on the Black Sea (Karadeniz) near the Georgian border, even though he has lived in Ankara all his life. Most of the residents of Zafertepe are from Trabzon, another Black Sea city not far from Rize. Trabzonlular, as they are called, work hard to maintain this identity by training their kids to root for the Trabzon football club, making frequent trips to Trabzon, and associating with other Trabzonlu at the Kahvehane. They feel that moving to an apartment, where people are from all over Turkey, will cause them to lose this identity. Secondly, they are resisting being servants of the powerful. Zafertepe residents resent being used as tools for Ankara’s urban transformation while being excluded from enjoying the new consumer lifestyle. Over the past 10 years Ankara has become a city of shopping malls and upscale restaurants. Most of these urban projects are built on former gecekondu neighborhoods and built by gecekondu residents, but they cannot afford to shop, eat, or live in the buildings they produced. Thirdly, Zafertepe residents are resisting being uprooted from their social networks. The closeness of Zafertepe residents provides them with emotional, financial, and practical support that they feel is missing in apartment life. Lastly, they are resisting being forced into a lifestyle they did not produce and have no desire for. Gecekondu environments require a lot of maintenance, but they are inexpensive and residents need not work long hours away from home to maintain their lifestyle. However, Ankara’s urban transformation requires workers and consumers to sustain it. I spoke with several academics, activist, and professionals who oppose AKP’s urban transformation. They see it as a transfer of wealth from the poor to politically connected elites and a consolidation of power through spatial production. However, groups from outside Zafertepe make few attempts to mobilize any resistance. They only come and go without “offering any real help.” There is, therefore, very little of what we would call brokerage or identity shift in Zafertepe. Without brokerage and identity shift, the claims of Zafertepe residents have little opportunity for diffusion, though possible because of Zafertepe’s proximity to the city center. With these mechanisms having little application in Zafertepe’s case, Bayat’s (2013) mundane resistance
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provides us an alternative view. He defines mundane resistance as daily practices in the public domain (p. 87). Through these everyday activities, agents transgress external power without bearing the full force of repression because they are not seen as direct threats to the state’s power (Bayat, 2013, p. 87). However, since the gecekondus’ very existence runs counter the state’s goals, every act that maintains the gecekondu lifestyle is an act of resistance. Mundane resistance, in informal settlements, can be considered resistance through habitus. Bourdieu’s (1977) habitus helps us understand there are modes of everyday life, that are “predisposed” to become structures that support resistance; a mobilizing structure. When gecekondus are produced and maintained by their inhabitants, residents have extraordinary power to maintain their lifestyle. Gecekondu residents create spaces that are durable and propagate themselves. Therefore, appropriating and maintaining that space becomes an important mechanism of mundane resistance. These spaces are “objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them” (ibid). Which means theses spaces adapt to regulate behavior toward a specific goal without needing anyone to define that goal. Adaptation happens at multiple scales; however, in Zafertepe only micro adaptation is available in the form of adaptive reuse of materials. Adaptive reuse is a mechanism of mundane resistance when the claim is maintaining one’s way of life. Finally, “being all this, collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor” (p.72), which makes the power of presence and identity important mechanism. One more mechanism of mundane resistance that is hard to find within the definition of habitus, but is present in Zafertepe, is the informal economy. Zafertepe residents are resisting loss of identity through maintain their unique identity. They are resisting being servants of the powerful through maintaining their own space and the informal economy. They resist being servants to the powerful through adaptive reuse. They resist being uprooted from their social networks through appropriation of space and power of presence. These are all supported by physical mobilizing structures in the neighborhood; the houses (evler), streets (yollar), gardens (bahçeler), pigeon areas (güvercin yerleri), and gazebos (çardaklar).
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E V L E R Ankara’s gecekondus have a common morphology with common elements. The exterior walls of the houses are plaster over lathe, which is often made with straw, over structural clay tile. The interior walls are also plaster, floors are concrete with rugs, and ceilings are typically vinyl tile. In Zafertepe, most the homes have indoor toilets (usually alaturka) televisions, electricity, sewage, water, and washing machines. They do not have natural gas. Roofs are hip, sheds, or gables with red clay tiles that cover a flat concrete slab. Often there are several missing tiles and a tarp is used to cover these places. The attic space is often used for storing outdoor tools and firewood. Zafertepe’s houses have several of the characteristics of mundane resistance. Adaptive reuse comes in the form of using materials from demolished houses as well as other found materials for house repairs. It is common to see large political banners used for roofing material, old mattress springs used for security grates, or flattened cheese tins used for cladding. These items stretch the life of the home and give the residents more power to dwell. Adaptive reuse is also found in the use of materials from demolished homes. Old wood is used for burning, which gives Zafertepe residents more financial freedom because they do not have to buy coal. Old structural clay tiles are used for building sheds or walls for gardens. On one street in Zafertepe, building materials salvaged from a demolished house are staged along a retaining wall and covered by old rugs. The adaptive use of materials from demolished homes makes living with the demolition a little easier. Staying in ones’ home usually postpones demolition. In the first phase of Zafertepe’s demolition, people received eviction notices and immediately moved. These days many residents, after receiving eviction notices from the municipality, refuse to leave, citing some hardship or other, and nothing is done to remove them. Eventually, they will all be removed, the state will have their way, but postponing allows the renters in Zafertepe to make the best out of their situation. The residents of Zafertepe use their space through adaptive reuse, appropriation of empty homes, displaying their identity, maintenance, and dwelling. Thus, homes are mobilizing structures for mundane resistance.
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Milliyet Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party) political banners sign is used as fencing
The fence is partially made from salvaged doors
All homes have wood burning stoves for heating and cooking
Garage door is made from tin from cheese cans
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Y O L L A R Generally speaking, the streets in Ankara are for automobiles and not for pedestrians, and pedestrians need to be very careful when crossing streets because motorists have the right of way. In fact, even the sidewalks can be taken over by cars for driving and parking, in which case pedestrians still do not have the right of way. However, in gecekondular children play in the streets, impromptu meetings take place, and people stroll along peacefully. Streets are not the only means of circulating through gecekondu neighborhoods. In Zafertepe, there are steep, narrow stairs and paths that crisscross between houses. These streets and paths are important for gecekondu residents as places to meet and discuss issues from family life, the latest gossip, job opportunities, and politics. According to many Zafertepe residents, the main topic is demolition. Streets in Zafertepe are used primarily as public spaces where identity is maintained through interaction with other Trabzonlu, where space is appropriated for playing football, and where the informal economy allows women to buy milk from the sütçü at much lower prices than in the market. The people in the neighborhood have also repaired the stairs when needed. Continuing to maintain paths, building new stairs, making paths through rubble, and paths between friends’ houses are forms of mundane resistance because it maintains solidarity and community.
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“I’m digging this path because my grandchild’s son tripped here, so I am making it secure, building stairs here. Only I can do this. No one else would bother to do it, and I’m happy to do it anyway.”
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B A H Ç E L E R A majority of homes in Zafertepe are single family with gardens (yards) wedged between them, often terraced because of the steep terrain. They are rarely leftover, open space like American backyards, but are functional with architectural elements like sitting areas, walls, and covered areas. Apartments’ lack of gardens in often cited by Zafertepe residents as a reason they prefer living in a gecekondu. They are used as structures of mundane resistance in several ways. First, the furniture, walls, tiles, and the like are salvaged from demolished houses. Secondly, gardens are often created in spaces appropriated from demolished houses. Third, gardens allow residents to maintain their village identity. Fourth, they support an informal economy where vegetables are grown, honey is harvested, and trash is sorted for recycling. They are continuously maintained through tilling and cleaning. Finally, they are important structures for the power of presence.
“I built this 15 days ago. This wood is from a demolished house. I took the wood, I shared some with the neighbors to burn. I took the more stable ones because I wanted to build someplace to relax.” “I’m very interested in taking care of my garden as well, I planted so many vegetables in my garden, and I still do and look at my hands. I don’t mind my hands being dirty. I’m used to this lifestyle. Someone who lives in an apartment wouldn’t be able to adapt to the gecekondu lifestyle and vice versa.” “I plant vegetables in my garden and we always share our vegetables with each other. Whoever needs any is free to get some. No one minds that.” “I sometimes wake up during night and come out here, watch the view for a while and go back to bed. I enjoy this very much. I usually invite friends and neighbors to come over...”
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G Ü V E R C İ N
Y E R L E R İ
Güvercin Yerleri are peculiar spaces that serve as structures of mundane resistance. There are three locations within Zafertepe and Seyranbağlari. They are built over the ruins of, and using materials from, demolished homes, so they are examples of mundane resistance through appropriation of space and adaptive reuse. Found bricks are used to make a patio to keep the pigeons’ feet from getting muddy. Residents can, when needed, live in them because they are equipped with wood burning stoves (sobalar), electricity, televisions, beds, furniture, and everything needed for making tea. Former gecekondu residents can experience part of the gecekondu lifestyle and maintain a gecekondu identity. They also provide for informal economy as areas for sorting trash.
“Our old gecekondu got demolished, so we’re now renters of another gecekondu near this pigeon area. We usually come here and spend all day here. This is our obsession. We also have dogs. We take care of animals here like that and enjoy our time very much.” “He makes his money by collecting plastic and selling it. He lives in that house with no electricity or water. The prisons are full of people. Why? It’s because they don’t have a choice. The government is creating a desired lifestyle that isn’t possible for everyone. If they were creating jobs, it wouldn’t be a problem.” “It’s my own area and I have friends or relatives coming over to this place often as well. We spend time here together, take care of the pigeons, feed them, etc.”
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A small hut with a wood burning stove for keeping warm and making tea.
“I’m building this patio out of bricks I found so the pigeons don’t get their feet muddy.”
This hut is lived in on occasion
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Ç A R D A K L A R The closest thing we have in the US to çardaklar would be gazebos or pavilions, but these tend to be seldom used, while çardaklar are like a second living room. It is common, even in public parks, to see çardaklar being used for prolonged sittings, and during Ramazan, it is common to see men napping in them. In Zafertepe çardaklar are equipped with stoves for outdoor cooking and making tea, sinks, comfortable seats, pots for growing vegetable, speakers for playing music, and blinds for shading in the morning and evening. They support mundane resistance primarily through the power of presence. Since they are often used, residents find comfort in knowing that not everyone has left. They also help maintain gecekondu identity by provided a place for families to strengthen ties, find support, and family members who have left gecekondu tend to congregate in çardaklar.
“In this space we have relatives and friends over. Including friends who’ve moved out because of demolition.” “Such a useful space. During summer, we cook outside and make cornbread – which is a traditional Black Sea recipe” “We even sleep in here during summer because it might get so hot inside the house sometimes. We bring furniture here from my uncle’s house, he left his house but it’s still furnished. So, we use that as well.” “But we still maintain our habits that we have with our remaining neighbors, we meet and we come together at our places, spend time together etc. During Ramadan, especially, we have so many guests over and we have great time with our friends and relatives.”
A semaver used for making tea
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Enjoying Turkish tea, mıhlama (traditional Black Sea region chease soup), and bread in a çardak.
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C O O P T A T I O N
A N D
R E P R E S S I O N
Through multiple regimes, the gecekondus have persevered. Currently the ruling Justice and Development Party has instated a zero gecekondu policy. The effect has been large scale demolition of gecekondu neighborhoods to be replaced with upscale apartment buildings and social housing. This has been met with some resistance, but that resistance seems to have been pacified throughout Ankara. To document the process of pacifying a social nonmovement, I spent nine months in Ankara, conducted semi-structured and informal interviews, observed daily interactions, and analyzed this data concurrently with spatial analysis. I found that the Turkish state uses counter mobilization mechanisms of cooptation and repression. Cooptation is done by appealing to the ideology of residents, focusing on the exchange value of land, and appealing to local politicians. Repression is accomplished through demolition and suspending services
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“We built the two rooms in 1968 and had to barricade the entry because the municipality wanted to demolish it. We hid in the house.” “That doesn’t work anymore. The state is very strict because this land is worth a lot of money now.” “Our son has serious depression, but we can’t go to the hospital. The demolition is making things very difficult for us.” “The government is creating problems, but not offering solutions.”
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The municipality demolished the homes on this hill, then erected a sign that reads, “Let’s keep our environment clean”
Red are demolished homes, green are occupied, blue are empty
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o f
T E A C H I N G k n o w l e d g e
I In Fall 2018 I taught first year architectural engineering students. I hear complaints about millennials from different sources, but their sensitivities mean they’re not inclined to accept reality as it is: reality often being subjective anyway. They’re going to, unconsciously or not, change society to be the way they think it is (or should be). This goes for professional practice also. The architectural hierarchy’s “my way or the highway” assertions and semi-religious mantra “that’s not how it works in the real world” simply won’t compute with them. This means the “new generation is smart enough to snap out of” both the dominate theories guiding aesthetics (Salingaros, 2013, p.30), and the norms, relations, and processes that govern professional practice (Sadri, 2012).
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While it was difficult; therefore, to impart urgency and ownership to my students, I’m heartened by their unwillingness to unquestioningly “do what I say.” I enjoyed both the challenge of presenting the fundamentals of architecture as critical to their repertoire of knowledge, and the organic structure of our studio. We started with learning the how to draw quality lines and ended with making engaging spaces. The journey wasn’t linear. It was cumulative. We learned how lines, tones, color, and composition are affected by and affect space. We also learned that deadlines can be pushed back. These projects were designed by Anne Patterson and Alejandro Aptilon with minor adjustments by me.
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C U B E 2 0 1 8
We started with a simple cube and set rules for how they could be manipulated through modulation, pushing, pulling, and subtracting. Students began learning how to represent 3d objects in 2 dimensional drawings by constructing colored elevations of all six sides. They also learned how to make 3d representations of their concepts.
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C O N T R A S T
2 0 1 8
S T R I P
Students took photos of their and classmates’ cube projects, made a collage, drew a hardline “plan” of a 10x3.5” strip of the collage, then created a value map. The value map determined the height of planes on their 3d model. The students then had to decide how the model took form: which pieces were solid, which were vertical planes, which were horizontal, how to make them stay up, and what did each tone in the value map represent?
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K I T
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Our final project introduced human dimensions and experience through spatial configuration, framing views, movement, adjacency, spatial differentiation, and composition. They also learned architectural conventions of scaled line drawings and models. Students had a limited number planes, lines, and points to create volumes that responded to human dimensions. I challenged them with developing compelling concepts that show their understanding of the items listed above. We measured the corridor adjacent to our studio. Then, the students selected an opening for their “site.” Each student’s design had to connect to the adjacent design.
5 PLANES
8’-0” x 8’-0”x 8”
9 LINES
8’-0” x 8” x 8”
9 LINES
8’-0” x 1’-4” x 8”
6 PLANEs
8’ x 2’-8” x 8”
4 POINTS
8” x 8” x 8”
1 STAIR
4’-0” wide (8” risers, 16”treads)
1 RAMP
unspecified length x 2’-8” x 8”
1 SCALE FIGURE
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M Y
S T U D I O
When I coordinate a first-year studio, what will it look like? First year studio is typically directed toward introducing students to the extant architectural design process; a process that Christopher Alexander (2012) claims produces environments where human life is stymied, people are excluded from the design process, local adaptation is prohibited, and existing power structures are reproduced. Students are given a problem of space, bring it into a studio, work somewhat autonomously on a solution, and impose that solution onto a site. They’re leaning technical/mechanical expertise and graphic tools that give them power. They’re not learning to be critical of the incongruity between architect/expert/client/powerful, environment, and the public/ marginalized. When we learn to produce space separate from the social, environmental, political, and local forces that comprise cities, we become entrenched in a cycle of form-making and style. That’s why our spaces are getting uglier and more disconnected from reality. A revolution is needed to break us out of this paradigm. My studio will cover the fundamentals of space-making and representation, but the design process will be much different. The paradigm in architecture is like a river, it will continue to flow downstream unless it’s redirected. If we toss first-year students in that river without giving them tools to resist the current, they’ll have no choice but perpetuate the current paradigm. We will not have pretend sites, for pretend people in which students can make up concepts that pretend to solve pretend problems. Even in first year, solutions need to be grounded in data, in partnership with stakeholders, and based on rigorous understanding of cultural and physical site constraints. In addition to these principles, I would also focus on projects that resist marginalizing. There are enough large-scale urban developments that gentrify neighborhoods, entertainment complexes, university campuses, and other closed-loop, panoptic spaces produced by and for the powerful. What marginalized and powerless groups need are small-scale, incremental insertions that “transgress the state and its space.” Examples of these are informal skate parks, squatter settlements, and adaptations of existing buildings.
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I was blessed with the opportunity to visit Cappadocia in Spring of 2018. I’ve wanted to go from the time I first learned it existed almost 20 years ago. As an architect, I needed to see it. It’s the embodiment of what architecture should be: Life, landscape, time, and architecture all aligning. The people who carved their homes from living stone appropriated the landscape and were concealed and protected by it. They survived persecution from the Romans and Ottomans and were sustained over generations. Years later we can see how they lived and what they valued. The image is so powerful that people of Göreme, Uçhisar, Ürgüp, and Ortahisar are still carving their buildings out of the “Fairy Chimney’s.” Cappadocia told me more about Turks than any other place I visited in Turkey. They’re a people who can grow where they’re planted; be shaped by their new landscape while shaping it. They have a strong, almost monolithic Turkish culture, but it’s adaptable to its landscape. It also told me about myself; that Cappadocia has always been a part of me. One of my most intuitive acts is drawing, and my most intuitive drawings have always been architectural forms that grow from, and are shaped by, their natural forces. Not a contrived aesthetic, but an actual confluence of built environment and natural creation. They either emerge from the landscape or express decay and adaptation. Imprecision, uncertainty, the ethereal, the spiritual, qualitative, and the impulsive have always been my allies while the narratives of elites, positivism, control, and the finite have been my nemeses. This explains my fascination with informal settlements. Their producers make infinite decisions in time and space, compelled by natural and cultural forces, to make homes, neighborhoods, and cities that serve their needs. At the same time, they’re adaptable in real time to serve future needs. Everything is spatial, and “the present epoch” is an “epoch of space,… simultaneity… juxtaposition… near and far… side-byside… and the dispersed” (Foucault, 1986, p.22). Think about the questions of culture and politics: how we are to behave within a bound space (borders), what are the laws within that space, who can be present in that space, who is served by that space, what space do we put deviants in? You could say “the anxiety of our era has to do fundamentally with space” (p.23). The struggle to overcome the anxieties of our era is a struggle to produce space. Whoever has the power to produce space will have the power to answer the questions of our time. Will it be a movement of the people, or the hegemony? Architects are locked into a paradigm that necessarily supports the hegemony. How can architects overcome our paradigm toward an architecture that’s congruent with culture and environment? toward an architecture that empowers people instead of the powerful? yet is beautiful and experientially significant? I think we can find the answer to these questions in the informality of both Cappadocia and squatter slums.
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nd though the hippo is more potamus than me
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I picked up a snake I thought was a bee
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Güzelyurt (Unfinished). Acrylic on canvas paper 86
Sources:
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All renderings, photographs, and scans are mine unless otherwise noted and may not be used without permission. Page 2: Photograph by Tess Waggoner Pages 5 and 6: Slums photographs by others Page 8: Photograph by Bridget Ballinger Pages 10 and 11: Landscape photos by others Page 27: Sheshan Hill by others Pages 26 and 27: Photographs by Richard Hu Page 36 and 38: Photograph by Bridget Ballinger Page 48 and 49: Photograph by Ufuk Yazici Pages 72 - 77: Photographs by students Alexander, C., Neis, H., & Alexander, M. M. (2012). The battle for the life and beauty of the earth: a struggle between two worldsystems: Oxford University Press. Appadurai, A. (1998). Full Attachment. Public Culture, 10(2), 443449. Aslam, A. (2010). Building the Good Life: Architecture and Politics. Duke University. Ballinger, B. (2016). Contentious Politics and Urban Design: Toward a new architectural theory. Paper presented at the International Contemporary Urban Issues, Istanbul. Bayat, A. (2013). Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. BozdoÄ&#x;an, S. (1997). The predicament of modernism in
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