Resolving the City On Heterotopia and Reformation
An essay prepared for Theory of the City [ARCH 600], conducted by Professor Diaz at the University of Kansas
By
Connor Janzen
Author’s Note During preparation for this assignment, I made the decision to focus on an approach of reflection and commentary analysis based upon the readings from class, two primary academic sources and conclusions that I was able to draw from our semester in studying the theory of city organization and development. It is my hope that the reader is exposed more to my personal understanding of these issues rather than sole reliance on citation and imagery. In the topic of resolving the city, I attempt to cover a finite amount of information in an area of discourse that could go on indefinitely.
Perspectives on design have varied greatly since our rudimentary discoveries of perspective, building faรงade and the recognition of form and repetition became mainstays in the emergence of architecture as a profession. With attempts to grasp issues in an abstracted manner, we have encountered great difficulty in culminating our own design capabilities and interpretations of space in any sort of way that has had truly universal intention. Given a propensity to consume and develop architecture selfishly, the development of our cities has given birth to a definition of spatial reality that has relied heavily on preconceived notions and subjective limitation. It is my position that architecture has encountered a time more divisive than ever, and that it is essential to consider that there are specific problems relating to heterotopia and the reformation of the city ideal that are more concerning on principle than many of the other design problems we face today. A Problem of Acknowledgement and Redevelopment The engagement of a city relies on a language of specificity. In moments of scattered perception and varying levels of dissent or praise that are dependent on architectural style and manipulation of forms, we are simultaneously aware and unaware of those mechanisms that propel or disarm the effects of good buildings and their tangent effects on the cities they inhabit. Formed often in place of minutiae, the architectural gaze is one of deterministic value based upon preference of use or aesthetic. These elements are tied in with larger contributions to the vastness of city networking between hubs of civilian and commercial life taking place on a spectrum of real and metaphysical implications. An exploration of these facets of development is contingent upon nurturing an understanding for the manner in which human responses to architecture and infrastructure have been influenced by natures of fragmentation and periods of reconstruction. Without a close look at this dichotomy, we lose both interpretive value s and anticipatory knowledge related to the future of design and building strategy. Cities have long been the focus of much debate with regard to how to tackle the problem of growth, redevelopment or elements of structural integrities that exist within how the city is organized and what aspects are efficient and productive in contrast with those that are becoming impractical; therefore, taking on a condition of abandonment or neglect. We bear witness to how each evolves, or devolves, respectfully. Live in any one city for a decent amount of time and you begin to develop a sense for where the city is headed. Whether obvious in terms of growing outwardly or an area in which special attention has been paid, a citizen can actively choose to ignore or take part in willful engagement.
Fig. 1 - The layering of the London Metro area is a clear depiction of growth from a central hub.
Part of the overall dynamic that requires a specific diagnosis is a question of whether or not our cities have been moving towards a greater or lesser future. With consideration for how the natural metropolis is prone to numerous nodes that are part of its overarching makeup, we are meant to ask whether or not the greater crime happens to be suburbia or solely financial districts. In what directions are people moving? How we respond to the existence of heterotopia now reflects decisions that have both unknown and empirical essences. Are we required to acknowledge these elements as evidence of
organic metamorphosis, or are we intended to designate their purposes within a realm of service or function that may or may not pertain to a grand scheme within the city? In which the architect begins to consider how they have chosen to design, are we condemned to the prescription of fragment, conditions of landscape and urbanity? Reformation in and of itself represents another challenge altogether. Whether intended or not, the city is apt to experience different forms of change that exist to promulgate an idea or notion that takes form in the minds of its inhabitants. Often, these changes come across as temporal, perhaps subject to the sway of an era or considerable paradigm shifts. Political, economic and social atrophy in conjunction with periods of conflict, nomadic tendencies or divine influence have been in command for much of human history and are easily observable components of city composition. From heterotopias we can gather that a city does not remain a dedicated hub of singular purpose, and from the manner in which many cities are rebuilt or reconstructed to resemble the past, we also understand that the timeline in which these developments occur are the resultants of adaptation, changes in ideology, manufactured blindness and an attachment to nostalgia. The architectural response is one of the few that actively dissects the existence of different forms of heterotopia; not to mention, offering a better understanding for decisions made in relation to creating buildings that act as memoirs of the past. Defining Heterotopia The problem of understanding cities of the present relates to how quickly they are changed by nature of extension. Keeping up with a model that constantly reshapes itself in the name of progress or regression are constantly redefining various “actors� within the city, what their purposes are and how they can be evaluated. What we have learned is that it may be better to focus on why these developments occur rather than limiting ourselves to the analysis of every nuance that surfaces. Heterotopias are no grand revelation in terms of how they allow us to categorize different hierarchies within the city; nonetheless, they represent a more mysterious and esoteric problem than we may realize. Furthermore, the existence of the heterotopia is by no means a thing of recent discovery. There is a peculiar confrontation that occurs in terms of how architecture can be evaluated in these evolving schemes that require both active thinking and response. Something that allows us to grasp a somewhat comprehensive understanding of these dynamics can be found in early writings as they pertain to the definition of heterotopias and how we have chosen to analyze them under that terminology. Initial ideas regarding heterotopia take root in the structuralist program of thought, mostly as ruminations on the classifications of other. This attempt to understand space as a function of being rather than a static object tends to skirt the notion that portions of what we understand about the city escapes normal prescriptions of understanding. These spaces are more difficult to analyze than those defined by typical means. These are spaces of abject misinterpretation. They are the manifestation of what occurs within the meta of urbanity. If we look to the writings of Foucault or the drawings of Le Corbusier, there is a relative outline of information that begins to dissect these absences of knowledge. Foucault’s Of Other Spaces acts as a treatise for understanding the dynamics of space that exist in the idyllic world of architecture and urbanism, known as utopia, in tandem with the juxtaposition of heterotopias as ubiquitous, real-world examinations that act as counterpoints to spaces which do not and cannot exist. The irony of this relationship is that the heterotopia is itself observable, yet unseen. It is the
abstract form of the city and of our cultures that finds its place in what we could call the in-between; as if we were analyzing moments on a timeline and dissecting the event horizon not by its most drastic or noticeable instances, but by those that had acted as accessories or occurred behind the scenes. It is fairly difficult to imagine how an idea that relies mostly on reductions of interpretation can exemplify portions of the city that are not only intrinsically common, but vastly important to its functionality. Foucault makes an attempt to clarify the means through which heterotopia can be defined, and in turn, how the city has developed according to specific principles in this regard. The first principle offers two possibilities of explanation. The first argues that there are heterotopias of crisis within the intricacies of society. We learn not only that these occurrences are rather important to the development of “primitive” cultures and practices therein, but that these cultures are subject to radical change within short periods of time.1 Primitive or not, this offers a better understanding for dynamic movements in human history – not only that decisions made by different groups of people are responsible for defining certain aspects of society, but that many of these formations act as starting points for our analysis. Foucault further categorizes this approach by providing what he believes to be the more applicable and relevant terminology for modern societies, in that heterotopias are now models of deviation rather than complete shifts in ideology.1 What we discover is not that the heterotopia creates something new each time, but builds upon previously established nodes or networks that have already been created in the cities where they are developed. The second principle of Foucault’s analysis is meant to create an understanding for the principles by which a heterotopia can incite changes within society and the spaces they inhabit. The idea of function within these spaces becomes largely dictated by the needs of that Fig. 2 – Two extremes collide in New York City where Central Park society and what conditions would competes with urban density. Both represent collective heterotopia. necessitate different forms of adaptation or would require that society to address a specific concern. 1 We can actually relate these occurrences to the observations we make within our own cities. Having lived in a place for a certain amount of time lends itself to witnessing the expansion of different neighborhoods, commercial and industrial additions or subtractions and reformed parts of the city that are real-time adaptations to a climate of both time and locale. Conversely, the third point that Foucault makes is more focused on the “incompatibility” of spaces and how, more often than not, these are the heterotopias that are more difficult to observe. 1 This actually gets to the root of the problem in identifying the organization of a city. This is where we encounter the issue of definition designers are meant to address – especially in a time where technological change is occurring at unfathomable rates and we are responsible for using these tools intelligently. In Foucault’s narrative, the garden represents a rather totalizing example of what heterotopia truly entails – an injection, or “superimposition” of meaning that can seem wildly out of
context, yet is made to be harmonious with its counterparts.1 If every city ever created were collected in a vacuum, we could easily begin to pinpoint areas where the proverbial garden is both successful and likewise malignant. The city flourishes and decays in these areas, respectively. The events and circumstances relating to a heterotopia are, perhaps, easier to understand than the long-standing effects that time can have on different locations throughout the world. This is our fourth principle. Foucault establishes both an argument of “accumulation� and diminishment regarding the layering of cities and how different chronologies have, in turn, influenced the way we view certain spaces.1 He draws contrast to each by exemplifying these forms of space; focusing, for example, on the unique fashion in which many cemeteries are situated in the midst of the living, or the manner in which a museum is responsible for the collection of artifacts that are hosts of both time and geological importance.1 In both examples, we are able to observe relative amounts of temporal displacement. There is no comprehensive timeline in which any of the deceased or varying items of the past can inhabit the same moment in time, just in the way that certain portions of the city may find themselves far removed from surrounding developments. Just in the way that spaces of accumulation are host to innumerable shards of time, we also discover that many places and artifacts are lost or diminished to a state of nonexistence. Such is the relationship of many historical cities born anew, built upon the ruins of a once flourishing empire or having been relocated due to natural phenomenon. Likewise, this relationship is observed in practically any town or city large enough to feature varying periods of construction. Considering the palpable ephemerality associated with most of what we create, it should come as no surprise that the heterotopia of diminishment is one that exists in a state of constant renewal or abandonment altogether. 1 Not only does this explain the geographical tendency of a city to move in one direction or the other (considering the influences of economy and affluence), but it assists our understanding of phasing within the city and offers an explanation for why certain districts and neighborhoods are simply left behind. Though the heterotopia is clearly not static, it is discernable that city-dwellers are largely responsible for how these spaces operate within a certain frame of time. When there is a dedicated purpose for the space, during the time in which it serves that purpose the people who are involved in these designations have considerable power over how a portion of the city is meant to be used. The social implication is that, though these spaces tend to exist as fragments, they do not lack the procedure of more calculated homogeneous areas. In fact, it is more observable than ever that most heterotopic manifestations are likely far more specific in both points of hierarchy and access. The fifth principle in Foucault’s outline seems to address this issue by concerning moments of ceremony or entry into these spaces. The essence of these unique, perhaps displaced, elements of the city is that they are not altogether exclusive, but that they are simultaneously prescriptive, prohibitive or subject to established rules and forms of regulation.1 The oppositional forms of heterotopia that we observe are areas that are completely devoid of these characteristics. Both harness a deeper order that captures either positive or negative structuring with distinct proclamations in regards to what these spaces are, how they are or were used and what may have caused a movement away or towards their current state of being. So far, the aforementioned evaluations of spatial quality leave both the designer and active thinker slightly disengaged from how we are meant to use the heterotopia as an evaluative term and one that allows us to explore the deeper connection of layout and progression within a city. With this in mind, we can approach the final principle that Foucault introduces to this scheme as the one which finally coalesces and unifies each of the tenants we have already explored into a normative definition for the heterotopia and why it is important to our cities. What we learn is that heterotopias in and of themselves
are a means for relating the function of every typology within the city. 1 These typologies are responsible for organization of our cities and how we are meant to exist within them. What we can begin to address specifically by gaining this understanding is summed up by the following excerpt from the text, which stands as an all-encompassing argument for situating heterotopias as a form of spatial programming:
“Either their role is to create a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory. […] Or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled.” 1 What is being conveyed is the idea that the role of the heterotopia is only as apparent as the extent to which we make our attempts to observe and account for their position within the city and society alike. They are manifestations of the greater whole, being wholes themselves, unto which the architect is meant to understand that the interpretation of space is entirely reliant on program as contextual, temporal, otherizing and representative of another thing. 1 The heterotopia demands an undertaking of responsibility for every morsel of accessory information available to the human that attempts to analyze and design within these parameters; and finally, it demands that the city becomes a sentient body that attempts to understand itself first. The heterotopia is the artwork of the city, existing as a means of self-excavation and expression. Agents of Desire and Reformation While understanding the city as a network in the abstract of its own progressions and idiosyncrasies can seem important, it’s also rather fundamental for us to consider why the city has been subject to the creation of so many hinges of connectivity. While the heterotopia has developed to satisfy a need for comprehending these junctures, we are still required to better understand the city in all of its reformations; not only as an ever-changing organism, but also one that attempts preserve and predict its own future. Remarkable as it is that the city has become so amoebic in nature, becoming familiar with that history will make our assessment of change and reformation pivotal in regarding the city for what it truly is – the human psyche incarnate. What we exemplify through our cities are conditions of our own making in an attempt to understand ourselves. With infrastructures at play in the realm of creating places that are meaningful to us, we must ask whether or not we have too often attempted to resist many of the required adaptations for social enrichment. It becomes a question of whether or not we have held ourselves back not only in understanding what the city is to us as a species, but whether or not desire has kept us from truly achieving freedom of form in the exploration of our solutions to political, economic and social upheavals. In times of war we have found ourselves so vastly redefined whether we wanted it or not, and in these moments people have chosen to align or disenfranchise themselves from the establishment of control within spaces of reality. There is more at play here than mere physical destruction. In fact, we may be so hyperaware of our agency in the roles of reconstruction and growth in our cities that we have become detached in association with structural escapism – committing to an ignorance of our own opportunities to change how the city is meant to operate. This becomes the issue of both our nostalgic bonds to architecture and the conception of notions regarding our cities that are meant to facilitate sameness rather than the unknown. For this reason, among others, periods of conflict in the city create a unique condition for us. It requires us to evaluate ourselves in times of utmost urgency and begs
contemplation of the urban environment while we are, perhaps, more wanting than ever. What do we rely on in these moments that are heavy with both emotional and mental confrontations of yearning?
Fig. 3 & 4 – The destruction of Ypres, Belgium during WWI was both catastrophic and widespread throughout the city, being one of the first sites affected by chemical warfare in the course of history. Pictured right, Cloth Hall was an historical monument in the city. After being left in ruins during the war, it was reconstructed to resemble its former grandeur.
Lewis Mumford’s The City in History takes a rather monumental approach to defining trends within the realm of the urban landscape. Employing not only faculties of observation and analysis, Mumford also provides some rather intriguing prescriptions for the city as an entity of fortification, and not simply in the sense of its own medieval establishments of human place. In a consideration for what roles power has in the defining a city, Mumford argues incisively for the idea that war is not simply an influence of destruction, but also of creation. 2 Understanding this dynamic as an urban framework and formgiver offers a more competent model for apprehending the possibilities of cities in subsequent generations of society. Mumford makes his argument for “War as City-Builder” by taking into account the transformations that take place with strife as a primary catalyst – defining our struggle for both humanity and the need for community to be an incredibly basic foundation for the city as a “garrison” and also as an agent for the conditioned senses of both “coercion” and complacency. 2 More than anything, this acts not as a point of negativity regarding the human response to catastrophe; but rather, our tendencies to seek comfort over the unknown. If the city itself is a representation of the psyche both at its most obscure and most primal moments, we begin to see delineations between notions of desire and sameness. It becomes apparent that they are mutually exclusive, depending entirely on a chronological scale rather than one based in an exacting and impenetrable human nature. What Mumford points out in affirmation of this idea, is that we are predisposed to resist change in moments of vulnerability. It is not only the consequence, but the consumption of disaster that leaves us scrambling for what is most known and convenient to us. In this we reach a clarification in regards to how responsive we are to an intellectual sense of interpretation. 2 Most of these ideas have been rooted in an entirely baroque sense of understanding our own longing. Is war really such a concern beyond the millennia? The medieval city may seek to preserve its antiquity out of sheer devotion to what it overcame to exist still today. Desire, in this case, is simply a reduction of artifact. Newer forms of urbanity create an entirely different scheme and paradigm for the gaze of both want and necessity.
The digital and technological revolution has changed every facet of adaptation that we have ever known. The glacis is no longer a literal fortification, but a virtual wall of data and information that rests at our fingertips. We are still somewhat attached to leaving parts of the world estranged from our mentalities regarding livelihood and globalization; nonetheless, we are presently moving beyond the idea of Earthly desire. No longer are we captive to our own cities or regions. In the capacity of this mindset that is moving towards a universal form of desire, our locales are hardly plagued with the antiquated sense of blindness that is associated with constant reconstruction. While this aspect is still quite notable in the maintenance and upkeep of a sprawling metropolis, the idea has become hyper -real; detached from our current psychological state of being. Reconstruction is much less about rebuilding and far more concerned with states of reformation. In this scheme, technology constantly expands, adapts and contorts normative models of understanding and predilection. We are no longer committed to the idea that specificity is the end-all be-all of architecture. We have begun to learn that the agents by which we commit ourselves to the desires of our buildings have been directed almost entirely by our need to move beyond ideas of permanence and into a reality of constant evolution. Fragments, Form and Function While common notions of function used to define the entirety of both architectural and urban purpose, the arrival of conceptual utility has created a convergence and an amalgamation of what was, at one time, defined entirely by purpose and purpose alone. The heterotopia emerges as an opportunity to understand the point at which these lines were blurred. The city became dominated by nodes of captive eccentricities. Now, these places blend and merge as forms that capture a more holistic experience that, more or less, dedicates itself to exposing passage as a unification of human movement and engagement with our surroundings.
Fig. 5 – Guy Debord depicts the city as a network of fragmented nodes.
Modern interpretations of fragment leave us seeking reparation and rediscovery of our most totalizing characteristics. No longer relegated to the obligation of tradition, the architect of today is possibly more responsible for recreating the truth in our cities than ever before. Given that this truth is so incredibly differentiated from former its interpretations, it becomes more important than ever to address both our commitment to and capabilities with technology. It is not only that we are now more innovative than ever, but that we have an opportunity to create new cities with definitions that create moments for never before seen perceptions of space. Mumford uses retrospective to digress on this issue in particular:
“The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. The positive functions of the city cannot be performed without creating new institutional arrangements, capable of coping with the vast energies modern man now commands: arrangements just as bold as those that originally transformed the overgrown village and its stronghold into the nucleated, highly organized city.� 3
In this summation of urban objective, there is a reliance on transforming the city into an organism of unity. Newly formulated concepts of institution will take the place of the former reliances and fallbacks of the medieval city model. While definitive in the discovery of architectural purpose, the opportunity to move away from the city of fragment is as crucial as it is delicate. Though met with a considerable amount of dissent, the controversy that surrounds an expansion of architectural possibility is one that is both ever-important and dictatorial in the revolution of how our cities are meant to operate. This is one ambition that is not to be taken lightly, and the most efficient and progr essive future that can be envisioned is one that allows for consumption of this knowledge as natural fact rather than the unapologetic abandonment of previously known forms and typologies. It is one that is not meant to detach ourselves from the past, but to preserve a future of potentiality. 3 The Object of Closure The city is concurrently defined by the all of its constituent parts. While the heterotopia does not seek to remedy our entire understanding our place, it does supplement a void of knowledge in regards to how we are meant to seek meaning and purpose within the spaces we create. The reformation of our cities is preceded by a reformation of our own mindsets regarding the resolution of the city. Our remaining dedication to defining the city as an object of closure negates an opportunity not only to reimagine the subject of our designs, but the subject of the city, as well. In spaces of otherness we are meant to confront what attempts to exist beyond prescribed purpose. Likewise, the knowledge we hol d in regards to understanding notions of our redevelopment resides within a collective consciousness that is shared by designers and inhabitants alike. If the city manifests humanity, have we given it the tools to help us move beyond the architecture of desire? By investing ourselves in this future, we are meant to lead civilization to an overwhelming question of what defines our architecture and the environments we will use to host new forms of society, culture and infrastructure. By furthering ourselves from conceptions of perfection and the isolation of space, we can begin to resolve those city fragments that have revealed themselves as poor decisions exemplified by a response of complacency. By resolving the city as an all-encompassing entity of human existence, we open ourselves to the possibility of a future that not only responds to the needs of its citizens, but spends less time repairing the fabric of both function and experience.
Notes 1.
Foucault, M. (n.d.). "Des Espace Autres" | Of Other Spaces. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf
2.
Mumford, L. (1961). War as City-Builder. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects (pp. 360-63). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
3.
Mumford, L. (1961). Retrospect and Prospect. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects (pp. 570-73). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
References to class readings exist based upon our discussions in class. They are not directly cited as they are reflective and analytically based upon that discourse alone. Figure Information and Visuals 1.
Cover Graphic: original image generated using MapStack, altered in Photoshop
2.
Figure 1: World Environmental Library. Evolution and contemporary urban issues . Retrieved May 8, 2014, from http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0envl--00-0----0-10-0---0--0direct-10---4-------0-0l--11-en-50---20-help---00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00-0-0-11-10-0utfZz8-00&a=d&c=envl&cl=CL1.1&d=HASHed39e0
3.
Figure 2: Central Park Reservoir. (n.d.). Central Park. Retrieved May 9, 2014, from http://www.centralpark.com/guide/attractions.htm
4.
Figure 3: President Wilson views what is left of Ypres, Belgium, 18 June 1919. (n.d.). Eddie Jackson. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://www.ctevans.net/Versailles/Diplomats/
5.
Figure 4: Ypres Cloth Hall With Belfry ,west Flanders ,belfries Of Belgium. (n.d.). Human and Natural. Retrieved May 16, 2014, from http://humanandnatural.com/img1032.search.htm
6.
Figure 5: Naked City Guy Debord 1959. (n.d.). KSA Community | Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://ksacommunity.osu.edu/image/diagrammatic-seminar/marcela-figueira-naked-city-guydebord-1959