ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY ATHESISABOUTTHECITY By Federico Lepre Tommaso Cancelli
UNTITLED INFERENCES
*$_$*
* What ? -----------About the City
Federico Lepre
|-_-|
!^_^!
Univeristy of Strathclyde Department of Architecture MArch in Advance Architectural Design
months year june-july-august 2016
|~_~|
@_@
+ Tommaso Cancelli
work done \\Federico Lepre publication drawings chapters \ 1.6-1.8 \ 2a \ 3 (Grid) \ 4
Ombretta Romice
\\Tommaso Cancelli publication drawings chapters \ 1.1-1.5 \ 2b \3 (Urban Form) \4
UNTITLED INFERENCES
mentor
INDEX
•
19_22
23_24
0 Abstract -----------List of Figuresv
1 Intro 1.1 City? 1.2 Origin of City 1.3 The Case of the Polis 1.4 Two different systems 1.5 Something on the Arts 1.6 A Theatre 1.7 Three Similar Point of View 1.8 Two Contrasting Point of View
2a There Will Not Be Design 2b There Will Be Five Topics
28_32
33_37
38_42
43_47
48_52
3.1 The Limit
3.2 The Identity
3.3 The Residual Space
3.4 The Politics
3.5 The Infrastructure
3.1.1(Grid) 3.1.2 (Urban Form)
3.2.1 (Grid) 3.2.2 (Urban Form)
3.3.1 (Grid) 3.3.2 (Urban Form)
3.4.1 (Grid) 3.4.2 (Urban Form)
3.5.1 (Grid) 3.5.2 (Urban Form)
(of Economy)
3 The Grid and The Urban Form
65_77
79_**
4 Conclusion 4.1 The Limit 4.2 The Identity 4.3 The Residual Space 4.4 The Politics of Economy 4.5 The Infrastructure
5 Untitled#0,0
Bibliography
INDEX
55_62
ABSTRACT
This thesis aims to study the vast subject of the City. It is a document that will try to focus on specific topics instead of studying the City in its whole. Specific topics were identify at the beginning thought the analysis of dedicated literature. They were analysed further with in specific using the subtopics of the Grid and Urban Form as a filter for the simplifying, again, the complexity of the subject. Historical reviews were avoided in order to address specific cases that the authors, through the literature review found relevant for the understanding of the subject. This thesis in this sense cannot be considered revelatory of any kind of axiom or principle. Furthermore, both authors discourage an interpretation of this piece of work under this sense. At the end a proposal for a City model in relation to the literature review and the cases studied was done.
ABSTRACT 4
LIST OF FIGURES
Mohenjo-Daro PLan, tumblr.com
p 31
f 01
Plan of the Great Mosque of Kufa, Dar al-Jumhuriyah (1967)
f 02
Tell_el_Amarna-Workmen’s_Quarters The house (mosque) of Muhammad in Medina, Hamed Khosravi (The City as Project)
f 03
Chicago PLan of the City Showing the GEneral Systm of Boulevards, 1909 Hippodamus, Plan of Miletus
f 04 p 37
f 05 f 06
Palace of Italian Civilization,. Guerini G, La Padula A., Romano M. (1942)
f 07
Reich Chancellery, Albert Speer (1939)
f 08
View of the Palace of Soviets, Boris Iofan (1934) Allegoria ed effetti del Buono e del Cattivo Governo, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338-1339
f 09 p 41
f 10
Carousel, Place Royale, Paris. Claude Chastillon (1612)
f 11
O.M. Ungers, Berlin as a Green Archipelago, 1977
f 12
OMA, Exposition Universelle, 1982
f 13
Partie du Plan General de Paris, Pierre Patte, 1765
f 14 f 15
Rem-Koolhaas-The-Berlin-wall-as-architecture-’Field-Trip’-SMLXL-p-229 vIldefons Cerda, Plan for Barcelona, 1867
p 46
f 17
Le Corbusier, Maison Dom-ino, 1914
f 18
Plan de Paris, avec indication des rues nouvelles et des travaux en cours d’exécution
f 19
Grid samples from Athens, Platon Issaias (The City as a Project)View of central Athens. Dimitris Philippides (personal archive) 2000 Archizoom, Non Stop City, 1969, paavo.tumblr.com/post/37329005054
f 16
f 20 p 51
f 21
John Stezaker, Pair IV, 2007. Collage, 7 11/16 x 9 7/8”. Private Collection. © John Stezaker. Courtesy of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
f 22
Le Corbusier, Plan of the City of Tomorrow (The City of Tomorrow and its planning)
f 24
f 23
Milk River, detail. (Photo- Bill Jacobson.), 2007 Agnes Martin, DACS-01
f 25
Sebastiano Serlio, Comic Scene. ( Five Book of Architecture)
f 26
Sebastiano Serlio, Satyric Scene. ( Five Book of Architecture)
f 27
B-15, Satellite Picture, Source Wikipedia
p 55
f 28
ol LeWitt, Serial Project #1 (ABCDJ, 1966, baked enamel on aluminium, 50.8 x 414 x 414 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. t 2005 Sol LeWitt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
p 61
f 29
Sol LeWitt, Untitled, 1967, printed announcement, 35.6 x 35.6cm. LeWitt Collection. t t 2005 Sol LeWitt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.jpg
f 30
LIST OF FIGURES 5
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
“I can’t imagine a life wi that I have to create new r
It is a kind of technique o Inventing new rules, constr it can be restrictive, creat I think that is the best wa I can’t imagine any other
ithout structure, I’m sure rules to escape from other rules. of living. raints, despite the fact that ting one’s own constrains, ay, way.” Absalon
INTRODUCTION CITY? Is it possible to declare an exhaustive definition of the city? This is a question that still have not found a so clear answer through human history. In fact, the complexity and the multitude of elements appear always arduous to determine in their entirety. “No single definition will apply to all its manifestations and no single description will cover all its transformation”. This sentence written by L. Mumford in the incipit of “What is City?” clearly declares the impossibility of “depicting” the totality of meanings hidden in a city. In fact, complex relationships between physical and conceptual forces have played a key role in order to produce a multitude of contents. For this reason, this inability in an absolute definition of the city is not just referred to the writing sense of the act, but in all possible instrument of representation. Starting from this awareness, a possible way to understand (and still not define) this “mystic object” is “to go back to the beginning of the city” and study its origin and reasons.
ORIGIN OF “CITY” The term “city” rises from the Latin word “civitas”, which was used to indicate a specific gathering of people that had the same condition of “cives” in the Roman State and after in the Empire. This finds its etymology in the linguistic root “ki” (laid or sit). The meaning of civitas does not refer to the physical conglomerate of buildings, monuments, streets and walls, for which was used urbs or castra. Indeed, the term civitas and, subsequently, its descendent city defines the political and social “condition of citizenship or right to citizenship”. After the loss of power by Rome, the term civitas absorbs the meaning related to urbs and it becomes the only word used in order to call and define this object.
THE CASE OF THE POLIS Following Aristotle’s book “Politics”, the origins of the city can be found in the archetypal social structure of the family, which represents “the association established by nature for the supply of man’s everyday wants”. After a period of incubation of the natural basic group, the family had started to develop itself in a more complex structure in order to improve its subsistence economy. Thus, it began to assemble its unit with a small number of others in a permanent place. With this action, the village was established. This was organized with the aim of taking advantage using the specific peculiarities of the individual inside the community. The final aim of the village was related to the necessity of having “more the supply of daily needs”. Thanks to this complex structure, the village, as Aristotle continued, can be considered such as “the first society to be formed”. The following step of the human evolution is the process with which a series of villages unified themselves in a single community in order to improve their economy and defensive strength. This represents the essential and the final stage in the establishment of the city: “the state comes into existence”. The polis, or in a bad translation city-state, represents the prototype and, at the same time, the finished result of the social evolution process described by Aristotle. The term origins from “pie” (citadel) to indicates its attitude of being a fortress. Later, polis had changed its meaning referring “a community
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organized in the form of a state”. Indeed, the polis was not “just” a city, but a complete and self- sufficing system. The condition of having a series of city-states descends from “historical, geographical and economic reasons”. Indeed, as the British classical scholar Humphrey Davey Findley Kitto (1897 – 1982) remarked in its review of the Polis system, the natural morphology of Greece “made the transport of goods difficult, except by sea, and the sea was not yes used with any confidence”. Thus, the effect of this condition forced each polis to develop itself with strict limits. Because of this autarchic economy, these were referred not just to physical elements, such as the number of buildings. In fact, this peculiarity of restriction had affected also thr demographical sphere. Thus, as Plato mentioned describing his ideal city in the book “Republic”, the ultimate dimension of a polis should have been no more than 5.000 citizens. Each polis was regulated by its own “nomos”, the law. This was a means innate in the natural structure of people and polis. “The nomos limits actions and prevents them from dissipating into an unforeseeable, constantly expanding system of relationships” (Hannah Arendt). Thus, the nomos, following its natural principles, had the role of regulator of the civic life in the public space of the polis.
TWO DIFFERENT SYSTEM
20
As it was mentioned above, the polis, such as a cultural and politic frame, represents the prototype of the contemporary Western city. Its ideas and ideals were continuously studied and took as examples of a perfect society through the centuries. However, as it described at the beginning, the etymology of the word city is not originating from the Greek term, but from the Latin “civitas”. The intrinsic relationship between civitas and city has different origins; on the one hand, this can be found in a series of complex reasons related to linguistic derivations. On the other hand, the politic and economic structure of the civitas/urbis had several logics that have constantly remained and acted in the contemporary Western system city/state. As it was described in the analysis of the polis, the structure of the ancient Greece was a multitude of independent structures “spread” on an indented and “grim” territory. These had their own economic and political structure that was completely self-sufficient from the other settlements. As P.V. Aureli remarked in the introduction of the book “The possibility of an Absolute Architecture”, being part of the polis meant being “people who come from the same place”. In fact, foreigners that lived in the polis did not have the rights of participate in the public debate. Contrariwise, the Roman Empire was an extended structure in which the Urbs of Rome was the political and ideal head and the other civitas depicted the rest of the “body”. The expansive policy of the State required the possibility of conquering new community and cultures or establishing new castra. For this reason, the Empire needed to programme its stability around the socio-political identity. Thus, in order to achieve this aim, the status of cives was defined not in relationship to the membership of the original community of Rome. In fact, as was described by Aureli showing the etymology of the word, “the civitas is the gathering of free individuals who come together by recognizing and sharing a public sphere, the existence of which makes them citizens”. In opposition to the Greek culture, in which the “nomos” was not related to the membership of the community, but predetermined in order to “frame the unfolding of political life”, the Roman “lex” was the means used by the politics in order to define a social bond between the central power and the subjugated territories. To the fragmentation of the Greece, defined with an analogy by Aureli and in similar terms also by Kitto, such as an archipelago
with a multitude of different structure, it was opposed the totality of the Empire. In fact, here the power of law was recognizable in the idealistic and far Rome and simultaneously shared in the everyday principles of urban interactions in each singular district.
SOMETHING ON THE “ARTS” The different approach in the framework of the State in the Greek and Roman societies had a relevant impact on the relationship between what Aristotle defined as “technè politike” and “technè oikonomikè”. In the polis, the role of the politic was to manage the public space in order to allow the peaceful coexistence between the individual and the community. Politic, following the nomos and the fact that “man is a political animal”, comes as a natural statement of the polis. This defined and organized the space in between the limits of the city (walls) and the limits of the private space (houses). The technè politike is the instrument with which, according to the principles showed by the nomos, politic was able to “turn possible conflict into coexistence”. An important aspect of the Greek society is related to the relationship between public and private realm. Indeed, politics, defender of the nomos, was completely detached from the economic sphere, the so-called technè oikonomikè. This was developed in the oikos, the house, that, as Aristotle defined, is an independent complex organism in which the structure is divided into three possible relationships: despotic (master-slave), paternal (parent-children) and marriage (husbandwife). The oikonomikè, that defines the management of the house and its relationships, followed several own principles, even far from the politics ones. In fact, “the house is distinguished from the polis”, a substructure located in the boundaries of the city. If in the Greek polis the distinction between the politikè and the oikonomikè was so marked, in the Roman Empire it reached a different balance. In fact, the public space, the infra, was still defined as the one in between houses; but, in this case, was a conscious system that organized and connected spaces: the infrastructure. The role of politics was to plan and manage this element in order to connect all the edges of the Empire under Rome. Moreover, at the same time, this action allowed the central power to define the proper space in which the private economy was able to act. Thus, the role of the politics, still related to the technè politike, was also linked to the management of the technè oikonomikè, placing the bases of the modern society.
A THEATRE “The city fosters art and is art; the city creates the theatre and is the theatre”. This passage comes from a talk by L. Mumford. The year was 1937 and he was addressing an audience of urban planners in a quest to define the term City. “What is a City?” was both the title and the question. What creates the theatre and the theatre was the answer. The city is the simultaneous coexistence of both form and content and in this particular condition form and content are almost congruent. His speech starts with an invective towards “those who undertaken the work” of building and planning cities. For Mumford, those urban planners have delivered handicapped city planning, and the reason had to be found in their illiteracy toward the term City and its social functions. Mumford states that, during the years, the city, as a purely physical fact, has been deeply investigated, but that, what’s missing, is an understanding of the social institution that it represents. Furthermore, the interpretation given by Aristotle, Plato, and the Utopian writers is more comprehensive in his view and their vision has to be taken into consideration as a more plausible starting point. He continues quoting the historian from the 16th century, Jonh Stow, and using his definition, considered the “soundest” above all, to structure his speech. Stow pulls together the City with the Commonwealth and asserts that in those two men seek honesty and utility’s sake, it is inside the city that education, humanity and justice develops. Moreover, the term urbanitas means Good Behaviour and cities in all of that functions as hosts. Mumford embraces this idea and, in addition, divides the city in two instances, the essential physical means and the essential social means of a city. The first one consists of fixed sites, durable shelter, the material, physical presence of the city, while the second is the formed by the social division of labour, the economic life, and cultural process together. In reaction to that, those two means are congruent and, simultaneously, able to influence the creation of each other. The city is a theatre that creates itself and host what Mumford describes as the necessary social drama. Here social drama has to be intended as the “focusing and intensification of group activity”, the propellant where conflict resides and that cities host. The protagonist is the city dweller, the actor who takes part in this theatre and gets influenced by the latter in multiple ways. This dyad between actors and environment is crucial in Mumford’s view, he states in fact that social facts are primary and the physical character “must be subservient” to its social need. He continues his statement by clarifying that all the technical improvement over city planning are not to be underestimated. Mumford does not condemn the importance of progress in city planning, all the improvements brought by standardisation and implements of new technologies are a consistent part of the future of cities and the creation of new functional environments. His warning addresses more into manifesting an unconditioned trustiness towards progress, like, he recognises, had happened in the past. The bond between social and physical means is recognised and the critics moved in his speech are due mostly in reaction to a trend he identifies in the recent past. The new challenge is to find a balance between all the new possibilities brought by progress and to implement those with the social means of the city, to dramatise them.
THREE SIMILAR POINT OF VIEW In the key of Mumford physical means can affect the social ones, can obstruct the theatre and instead of creating, block the necessary social drama from arising. In 1845 Friedrich Engels, at the age of 25, published The Condition of the Working Class. The book was the outcome of his experience in a North England deeply affected by the advent of the Industrial Revolution. The young Engels describes what he saw by crossing those environments, focusing in particular on the social aspect and overwhelming despair of these new realities where he is only able to see the “dissolution of mankind into monads”, the “utmost extreme” of what he calls the “World of Atoms”. His descriptive approach towards the city, the economic progress and the consequent social disadvantage which spread all over society was based mostly on physical observations. This particular way of debating the city leads his book to be one of the earliest treatises of urban sociopolitics. Engels walks through Manchester and describes the city in its subdivision and its structure. He noticed how the route of communication, roads, public transportations, the construction quality of dwellings and the hygienic conditions are affected by what neighbourhood served, what social class gets affected by it. The general discriminating factor is, in fact, the wealth possessed by each social class. Furthermore, he noticed how this segregation led to a social daily threat for certain social classes. The lack of rights led workers to fear of failure and the consequence that Engels recognised in his travel through North England: starvation. The city is divided, the humankind as well, social inequality and segregation created a “World of Atoms,” where individuals have to look for themselves in order to survive. In a similar way, hundred-fifty years later, Mike Davis described a different scenario but with similar implication. The year was 1998, Davis published City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. The chapter Fortress L.A. described a Los Angeles segregated by freeways where class division and social conflict are implicitly part of an urban structure that impends access to public space and improves life conditions of some at expenses of others. In Fortress L.A. the comparison is done with the typology of the fortress as a metaphor or this obstructed and, almost, protected spaces. Davis states that the American City had been “turned inside out - or, rather, outside in”. He means that the perception towards public space had changed and the outside, streets, parks, public realm, in general, became the host and generator of a certain “danger”. Security became a good for middle and upper classes while for the poor ones a sort of threat to public order. Fast communication such highways allows wealth classes to move freely and safely in the city, avoiding contact with sensible areas where criminal rates are higher. Those areas are, as a consequence segregated, and forced to become ghettos, secluded from the rest of the city, “genuinely democratic space is all but extinct”. Another aspect he stated was the Privatisation of the Architectural Public Realm, referring to the advent of a new kind of public space like malls or megastructures, under a private control. This particular instance has been addressed also by David Harvey in The Right to the City (New Left Review, 2008), where the author recognises that the politics of capitalism have influenced and changed the interaction between city and citizen. Capitalism in an almost “Autonomous” way (P.V. Aureli) affected the development of cities due to its “perpetual need to find profitable terrains for capital surplus production and absorption”. Furthermore, this condition leads capitalism towards an intrinsic expansion that is able to star what Harvey refers to as a Process of Displacement. He means that the Urbanism had developed this culture of “absorption of
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capital surplus” and, gradually, through history, this “behaviour” brought to an “accumulation by dispossession”. In his view, those who are marginalised from political power have no say in the matter regarding the development of the city, and usually, they are a forced to underpin and suffer from decisions taken by others. His conclusion vert specifically on this aspect, Harvey asserts the shaping of an urban environment should pass by a democratic process and that each citizen should be able to influence, express his/her opinion and have the ability to act inside, shaping the city’s future.
TWO CONTRASTING POINT OF VIEW
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This peculiar and constant presence of duality inside the urban realm had led to multiple readings over the future and the condition of the contemporary city. Lewis Mumford in declaring that the interpretations given by Aristotle or Plato were still valid, and actually a reasonable point of reflection to start with, was right. The presence, congruity and collision between the public/political realm with the private/economical one is thus a key interpretation of what intrinsically constitute a city and a recognisable element in contemporary treatises. In fact, it is possible not only to perceive the presence in various different positions, but also to discern, and even catalog, those interpretations based on which character might have been taken in consideration (or what “side” might have been “preferred”). In an attempt to carelessly polarise this duality, one might recognise two different approaches; on one side, the ones more willing to be focused on the public/political and, on the other side, those related to the private/economical realm. Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard with their Towards an Urban Design Manifesto could be considered part of the first pole. In their manifest is possible to find traces of the democratic process Harvey wished for. The paper was published in 1987 and was the outcome of their thoughts based on all their impressions, studies and researches over the city. Deeply influenced by Kevin Lynch, as they were both students of him, they wrote a manifesto on what kind of values and characteristics the act of city planning should follow in order to guarantee the quality of living and a fair development. They declared above all the possible physical characteristics present in an urban environment five essentials: a set of liveable streets and neighbourhoods, minimum density of residential development and intensity of land use, guaranteed proximity and integration of activities, and above all, a manmade environment which could be translated into a development and a esteem of public space, defined and not seized by buildings. They specify that the reality they hope for is urban and that their manifesto does not consist in a coming back or praise of “living sanctuaries”, their view is focused on a fair design in respect to the human scale and the development of the urban realm. Their point of view could be traced back as something in between the CIAM ideology on urban planning and the Garden City of Howard. Their scope is towards the human scale and the quality of living a city must provide to its citizens. On the other side, more focused on general aspect, one can find Rem Koolhaas with his Generic City. The essay was published in 1994 and it is a treatise where Koolhaas recognises the presence of a new kind of city, the Generic one. In the Generic City identity is “like a mousetrap,” and development and efficiency are the goals and even more values. The City relative is the airport, the elasticity is the bond. In his view, this city is the post-city. An entity able and free to try proposals without a fear of failure, because history is not part of this city, public space consists in
the residual. Urbanism is original inside the Generic City due only to its will of simply abandoning what does not work. To adapt, to serve and host new functions and new goals. Koolhaas described this new kind of city referring in particular to the middle east, Asian cities. Looking at their rapid and massive development, he builds the theory that this new kind of city will proliferate and, moved by economic means, will develop itself anyway. Indeed, European cities are not exempt by this theory, in his view, Barcelona became one too by oversimplifying its identity. The private/ economic realm is recognised has a major factor. It looks almost that the absorption of surplus that Harvey recognised became a mean of development and in a certain way gained control over the decisional process. On the other side, the city viewed and proposed by Jacobs and Appleyard is almost at the opposite of the Generic one, their focus is more towards the social means and the establishment of certain humanitarian qualities is the goal. Both manifestos express completely the complexity proper of the urban realm and moreover, due to that, the validity of each position and each interpretation.
THERE WILL BE NO DESIGN
The aim of this thesis is not to only research on the topic of the City and its inner structure and socio-political-economical means. The corpus of sources, historical analysis, comparisons and conclusion will be functional to justify a proposal that would be built at the end taking advantages of all the background knowledge collected during this journey. The research has been divided into two different chapters, followed by relevant case studies, in order to explain the theory previously articulated. Each chapter was developed separately and by a different author with the purpose of leaving enough space for an internal debate as well. The thematics treated are going to be, on one side, a historical review of the development of Urban Form, and on the other side, the physical structure of Grids intended as basic components of the City. Both scopes follow guidelines derived by a list of characteristics delineated while collecting sources. Differently from the research, the final proposal consists of a series of descriptive illustration regarding the City and the conclusions made. In this instance a focus on etymology is necessary. This set of drawings will not consist and has not to be written as a defined project. The gesture that was done has not be mistaken as a contemporary act of Designing but rather as its etymology of Designare. Design is commonly referred as the act of “decide upon the look and functioning of � an object or in another acceptation as the act of shaping and defining details (Oxford Dictionary). Designare, on the other hand, means to discover a limit. In this view, the act of drawing is the project itself and the limit reached is not the objective, the objective is to draw, to synthesise boundaries over a certain topic. This attitude comprises the real purpose of this thesis, as well as the quest covered, and in order to achieve this goal its final outcome will be express majorly by drawings, by descriptive specific graphic contents regarding the City.
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THERE WILL BE FIVE TOPICS
• \\ The Limit • \\The Identity • \\ The Residual Space • \\ The Politics • \\ The Infrastructure
}
of the city
Six prototypes for an individual inhabitable space was a project conceived by the Israeli artist Absalon from 1980 to 1997, the year when he died. It was a project of six houses he designed for himself to inhabit six different cities he used to visit frequently. The space in this houses is means of his desire to pursue a specific behaviour he wanted to achieve. Born in Ashdod, he attended the military service at an early age. After that, he decided to withdraw and live by the sea in a small wooden house. Unsatisfied by the experience he moved to Paris where he started to work as an artist. In his sculptures, the thematic of architecture is deeply remarkable, his first projects were in fact model of possible architectural objects. He lived for a certain period of his life in Maison Lipchitz, designed by Le Corbusier, and not by chance, his art manifests an approach with the purity of shapes close to the sensibility of the swiss architect. In six prototypes for an individual inhabitable space, his attitude towards architecture and this quest for an inhabitable space where fulfil his desired lifestyle are manifested clearly. Because of his premature death by HIV at the age 28, he was not able to complete this project. What is left are six models, in scale 1:1, built entirely of wood painted white. Their shapes manifest clearly the intent of the artist in their minimal and absolute approach. He, in fact, had the intent to design these houses only for himself. This spaces would have hosted, formed and shaped his now life in a new form, the idiorhythmic he desired to achieve. He saw them as a structure for himself, a new set of rules he would have applied to himself to achieve a new balance. In a similar way the city can be seen as a series of structures, can be even summed as only one structure. Its density and complexity are usually overwhelming. Nevertheless, it is possible, following the various interpretation through history to list some of the most influential elements. In order, like Absalon, to acquire this structure, this introduction had used a specific but ample scope over the term of city. Looking forward to the intention of defining, in specific, designare a city several predominant structures have been selected.
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THE GRID AND URBAN FORM
According to the themes expressed in the introduction, the city can be seen as an entity created by the bond of two different elements: matter and social drama. As it was clear in the final section of the introduction, these two forces, tied by an obsessive relationship, build several structures in order to outline and organise the inner city complexity. Limit, identity, politics of economy, residual space and infrastructure represent the five principles chosen as predominant ones in the establishment of a city. Assumed this incipit, the chapter wants to describe meanings and actions of these five aspects. To achieve this, the treatise analysis is separated in two macro-themes in order to identify a wider list of possible explanations for the relationship that occurred between them. The first is identified in the urban element of the grid. This can be seen as “an act- or a project- that defines a political intentionality� (Aureli, 2012: 10). The grid represents the instrument imposed by the economic and political realm with the aim of promoting a specific idea of society. Thus, it has played the direct and indirect role of the generator in the management and evolution of the city. The second theme referred to punctual objects located on it: the urban forms. These affect the visible perception of the city and, at the same time, they clearly declare the socio, economic and political meaning behind them. The advantage of divided the analysis into two distinguished themes offers the possibility of collecting a larger number of information regarding the several historical approaches taken in the employment of the five city elements chosen. The different perspective helps to discover hidden reasons and effects on the scene and the social drama. The approach used in the analysis refers at the same time both the inductive and deductive methods. The use of specific situations, mixed with the theory, helps to define possible points of view in the explanation of contents. The final aim of the chapter, as it was already declared in the introduction, is not to define an absolute truth around the elements chosen. The idea is to find concepts that can be discussed, mixed in the conclusion and integrated into the final act of Designare.
27
THE LIMIT OF A CIY GRID “Now, I would also say that he might, on his own, deal with his surroundings without a word; just moving within the forces of nature— sunup, gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear fusion—like the squirrels do, all without a word. He would taste fear and ecstasy, but without a word. As Gertrude Stein says, the great moment of the book, the moment that makes it a masterpiece, is not Crusoe’s naming of the parts but his sudden, lonely discovery of another human footprint! Not his own! Which catapults him into a society just like that.With his hair standing on end with anticipation— and other human being! Now he needs those names. How else will they communicate?” Paul Shepheard, What is Architecture?, p.33 In this passage from What is Architecture? by Paul Shepheard, the author is giving an interpretation to the question of what constitutes civilisation, what might be the basis of it. Communication occurs in this passage due to the need of exchange information with others. All alone Crusoe would have been fine in not labelling and just experiencing a reality for what it is. It is the presence of another human being that changes everything. Even the other human being present on the island himself. Interestingly, communication obtained a major role in the shaping and developing of gridded urban systems during the Middle Kingdom (1991-1785 BCE) of Egypt. Urban plans before, during the Old Kingdom (2695-2160 BCE), showed already a tendency towards a gridded layout but the grid there, instead of being conceived as a planning tool was more the outcome of an alignment to the boundaries of the city(Hanna B Higgins, The Grid Book, p.46). Cities were surrounded and enclosed by walls and those walls were placed orthogonally in the field. This condition affected the inner developing of the city and shaped its form in a sort of gridded plan. This peculiar arrangement can be found, for example, in the plan of Hierakonopolis. The grid plan there was the result of the alignment of streets to the walled boundaries of the city. The building was following this effect but, devoid of an overall, predetermined overall plan (ibid, p.50), were, in turn, arranged basically by filling the gaps between the wall and the streets. This tendency of “filling” the remaining space with a “cluster of rectangular shapes that mirrored the right angles of the exterior walls”(ibid, p.50) can be also found in another architectural object like the Gaza tomb of Queen Khentkawes or the Valley Temple of Menkaura. Far from implying that the city was lacking planning, there was, in fact, a specific division of the urban fabric in areas hosting specific functions like, for example, sacred ones or residential areas divided by social and political classes. The shift from this sort of hybrid to a real grid-based plan happened during the Middle Kingdom, coming from the planners of the provincial pyramid towns and the figure of the scribe. The development of literary culture and the possibility of recording, documenting and leave a set of expertise to the posterity introduced the possibility to a new kind of development and approach over the city planning.
28
In fact, as described by Barry Kemp in his The Early Development
of Town in Egypt(Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a
of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, where politics were based more on
Civilisation, p.141), an important role of this evolution consisted
demagoguery than religion in order to establish connection and
in the usage of papyrus as an instrument of communication and
trade with neighbour states. In both Kahun and el-Amarna the
preservation of knowledge and, in the result, to the advent of
grid plan could be read as a tool used in an attempt to organise
a structured bureaucracy. The gridded plan might be read as a
and promote a certain kind of society. In this sense the limit, that
consequence of that, as an “expression of a highly regulated and
the grid represents, is an institutionalised one, the grid is applied
tightly administered culture(Hanna B Higgins, The Grid Book, p.52).”
in order to translate social, economic and political boundaries
In this instance the grid is a tool that acquires means of both those
over the urban fabric. This specific use of the grid was not new in
two tendencies and can be translated in a desire to set limits, to
history, as stated by Dan Stanislawski in The Origin and Spread of
organise the city. The need to administrate human and natural
the Grid-Pattern Town, the origin of this tendency could be traced
resources is, in fact, present in plans like the one of the pyramid
even before in the city of Mohenjo-Daro (ibid, p110).
town of Kahun where the scribes who designed it planned two
Placed in India this city developed on a gridded plan and was the
different typologies of housing units, larger and smaller ones, in
Stanislawski define as “a well-rounded concept designed to fit
order to divide different social classes. In Kahun the usage of the
the needs of a highly organised, highly urbanised people”. Streets
grid is more conscious and the orthogonal, linear, distribution of
presented a linear and clear layout and buildings were the results
streets is functional to the housing units with the primal function
of a planning that aimed to an organic city with parts dialoguing
of organising society. Furthermore, this tendency can also be
with the whole. Also in Mohenjo-Daro the trading was a prevalent
seen in the distribution of resources. The granaries, in fact, were
part of the economy, the city itself was a fulcrum of “men of skills
positioned close to the areas inhabited by the wealthy part of
with a long background of training and organisation”. Stanislawski
society, in the northern section of the city. The plan itself evaluated
asserts that the city was the result of a legacy of a highly organised
the status of the elite and tried to translate this condition
society that might have been influenced by Oriental culture and,
communicating it through the plan and the physical distribution.
furthermore, by the connection established by market exchanges
The size of the granaries was also remarkable, in fact, their design
(ibid, p 112).
suggested that the plan was built for a fixed number of inhabitants, in Kahun’s case a total of 9000 (Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt:
“Jean-Luc went back to his room and packed his bag, his little, traveling
Anatomy of a Civilisation, p.142). As Kemp stated, Kahun represents
collection of things that had been made in France. By the time he had
a step further towards an innovative use of grids even though its
arrived on the Mediterranean coast, he knew what he thought. It was
plan has to be considered still a hybrid. It is true in fact that the
that this liberty he had—this freedom, this halfway house, democracy—
plan showed the intent of organising the social, economic and
it’s not a civilisation at all. It’s not civilisation, it’s a mechanism. A
political realm by the usage of a gridded system, but this division,
machine for living in. A way for us all to get along while accommodating
Kemp says, came through an oversimplified model, a two-fold
the differences between us.The beauty of a machine is that it’s neutral,
division of society which did not take in count the real structure
it has no value, except in use. A civilisation says who’s in charge, who’s
and complexity of society itself (ibid, p142). In fact, the plan did
slave, sets out what to think of holy books. It makes mountains out of
only propose two different kinds of housing units. Furthermore,
differences.The mechanism, on the other hand, prescribes little, in order
it developed only in one direction, north-south, with high classes
to keep a lot possible.”
at north and middle, low at the south. In this sense, the plan itself
Paul Shepheard, What is Architecture?, p.65
could be read as an interesting attempt but not a real achievement in organising society trough a gridded plan. Besides that, the importance of the figure of the scribes towards the planning and shaping of the cultural and physical aspects of the Egyptian cities is remarkable. The advent of records, official documentation and bureaucracy and, more in general, of writing lead to the beginning of a development of the gridded plan that reached a more stable configuration in the New Kingdom. The city of el-Amarna was designed in 1353 BCE; its plan was well organised but more flexible that Kahun. A wider range of housing typology was present and well distributed in clusters where large residences were mixed with smaller ones. The city’s maintenance was controlled by the state involving official labours. The economic model was based on “liberal distribution of trading practices among all classes” (Hanna B Higgins, The Grid Book, p.54) which implied a less intrusive bureaucracy organisation that allowed expansion also on the outside of el-Amarna. Hannah Higgins stated that this adaptive design has to be interpreted as a consequence of the kingship
Paul Shepheard, while writing about the notorious slogan of Le Corbusier, a machine for living in, gives a personal interpretation of the meaning of those words by using the story of Jean-Luc, a sculptor friend of himself who before being such was selling photocopiers in Africa. The story is a pretext to address the metaphor of machine suggested by Le Corbusier. Jean-Luc, while selling his product to a local family, got to assist to the public punishment of a man guilty of having offended the holy books. In his eyes and western sensibility that treatment was interpreted as barbaric and highly uncivilised and, in an attempt to understand the reasons behind that gesture, he asked why. The answer received was that he did not own civilisation and that laws under God belonging gave them a more civilised society than he would ever imagine. Shepheard uses this story to explain his interpretation that civilisation, for us democratic society, is not universal but in a wider sense, a machine. This machine is able to set valuable limits in order for society to rule itself. In a similar way, the development
29
of literary in Egyptian society made possible the improvement
the Umma, the community of believers.” (p.20)The structure of
of grid plans by setting new boundaries. Furthermore, those
Islamic city and the use of the wall to generate it follows several
boundaries have been translated into those plans and the grid in
principles derived from the first Islamic “camp”. This, as it is
all of that was the expression of that highly civilised society that
carefully described by the English architectural historian
Stanislawski writes about. The society developed the grid plan in
K.A.C. Creswell (1879-1974) in the book Early Muslim Architecture,
order to express its accomplishment and improve and the grid
was established by the Prophet Muhammad in an area called
plan, like in a feedback loop, functioned as a limit in order for the
Yathrib (and now Medina) in AD 622. The Prophet based the new
city to be the host of this society.
city erecting an enclosure called the Mosque of Muhammad. This space was originated by a squared of 100 cubits defined by the element of the wall (Creswell, 1979: 7). The area, created by two
URBAN FORM
components, the barrier, and the void, represents the archetype of the Islamic city. Mosque, that remained in the cities based by the four Caliphs after the death of Muhammad, had a different meaning
“Do you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in
compared to the contemporary building of faith. Indeed, it was
you” (1 Cor 3:16)
“a physical manifestation of the Islamic political ideology inherent
Since the origin of the civilization, the religious sphere and, related
in the concept of Ummah” (Khosravi H, Camp of Faith, p. 86). The
to this, the physical symbolism of the temple has had a crucial
mosque did not represent the specific place of prayers, but it
role in the determination and development of the city. From East
contained all the functions and activities related to the needs of
to West, examples like Teotihuacan’s temples in Mexico or the
the community (political, economic and religious). The unnecessity
Athens’s Acropolis show how this aspect of the social and physical
of a specific building for the prayers can find its origin in the aspect
city life was the central principle as a binder for the community.
related to the deep meaning of the Islamic religion from which
In fact, religions had conditioned politics decisions and ethics of
“a masjid (mosque) exist wherever one prays” (Grabar O., The
societies; in other cases, it was used by the political power as
Architecture of the Middle Eastern City, p.26-46). From this primitive
evidence of choices or laws.
layout, the structure started to become more complex following
In the Islamic city and society, in which “the religion reconstructed
the needs of the community. Thus, from the framework of the wall,
the concept of the city through the medina”, the twine between
a roof was built in the direction of the Mecca in order to create a
these two mystic and political power had found its most evident
covered space for religious rites. Moreover, several dwelling were
development, thanks to the archetype element of the “wall”
added to the wall hosting the Prophet family and all the community
(Khosravi H., Camp of Faith, p.73)
of faithful. Thus, thanks to its character of “inhabitable” element, it
The term “medina” descends from the Akkadian “dinu”, which was
increased its depth and, at the same time, its symbolic meaning of
used to define “law” and “judgment”. The root, that in Aramaic
alienation and physical separation between the inner community
become “din” was used with the different acceptation of religion
and the outside.
in the Persian society. Thus, medina, that in Arabic refers to city,
After this first step, the urban society started to grow outside its
contains three different meaning, such as “legal, political and
boundaries. Indeed, “locals who had just accepted Islam settled
religious”. The definition clearly underlines the settlement of the
in a ring around the wall of the early enclosure, while another
prototypical Islamic city, “defined and controlled by theological
surrounded the entire camp” (Khosravi H, Camp of Faith, p.77).
power” (Khosravi H., Camp of Faith, p.75). The medina, described
This passage emphasizes two important points in the definition
as the terrestrial paradise, was circumscribed by the use of the wall.
of the Islamic culture. Firstly, the role of the wall as the symbolic
This represents not just a common architectural element, but
instrument used to circumscribe and defend the inner social order.
the symbol and the meaning of the Islamic society. Indeed, as it
In fact, this was employed in order to protect also the new
is clearly described by the Ph.D. student Hamed Khosravi in the
congregation outside the original system. Secondly, the essential
chapter Camp of Faith of the book The City as a Project, the wall of
difference between the definition of city and “camp”. The new
the medina had a twofold reason. On the one hand, it defined the
element delimited the entire urban settlement without re-defining
boundary of the so-called “community of faithful”, described in the
the city meaning. This was still considered as the inner space
Quran as the group of people, “which follows the Islamic ideology
marked by the original wall, that still declare the realm of the
and its political expression”. On the other hand, the wall hosted
politico-religious structure of the community of faithful.
their everyday life in all its expressions. The aspect of the limit, as
The prototype system of the Medina represented the basic
the division between two different parts of the society, represents
structure adopted in the establishment of the new Muslim cities
a relevant difference compare to the other contemporary
in the Middle-East. These, developed under the supervision of the
societies. Indeed, following the passage of George Marcais in the
four Caliphs, continued to expand the complexity of the original
book L’urbanisme musulmane the Muslim city “does not confer
framework, following the principles dictated by Muhammad in
on its inhabitants, like our medieval city, a privileged status which
Yathrib. One of the most important examples of this process is
distinguishes them (the city dwellers) from the surrounding
the city of Kufa. According to the description given in the “Journal
30people. Muslim law detests privileges of exception; it only knows
of the American Oriental Society” (Brown A., p.455), the camp
f 01
f 03
f 02
f 04
31
town, established in AD 638, was organized around the symbolic
framework, which determined the boundaries, the community of
layout of the mosque, that later “evolved into the political center
faithful could not bear and develop following the precepts of the
of the entire Islamic empire” (Khosravi H, Camp of Faith, p.83).
Quran. The wall was not just the “trunk” of the Islamic state. In
The founding framework was arranged through the relationship
fact, it was also able to adapt and transform itself in order to host
between this and the governor’s residence. These were placed into
the different need of the community (from the religious spaces to
two squares embraced by walls in the new construction in AD
dwellings for the citizens). Thus, the inhabitable wall “arises from
670. This element has not just the functions already mentioned. In
the evolution of single archetypes to the entire city” (Khosravi H.,
fact, it also assumed the meaning of connection between the two
Camp of Faith, p.100). Extracted the physical character, the limit
political and religious system. “The mosque and palace were noted
can be defined not “just” as the space of separation between two
centrally aligned […] but instead connected to the house of Ali,
elements. In fact, following the example of the Islamic city model,
who did not choose to live in the palace” (Khosravi H., Camp of
it can assume the role of the generator of social structures. The
Faith, p.83) The structure became more complex, but it allowed
limit can be defined as the proper essential instrument in order
to emphasize the sense of the wall as the “trunk” of the religious
to declare the physical, political and economic framework of a
teaching and the dwelling of the “community of faithful”. The
community.
element of the mosque and, in the detail, of the wall became not “just the center of the city, but actually the city itself” (Aureli P.V, The City as a Project, p.86) In fact, the development of the “camp” was radically connected with its “paradise”. Indeed, as it was supposed in the plan of Kufa drawing by Creswell, the process of expansion was to “laying out” the element of the mosque in order to regulate the structure around several archetypes. “I own a castle. That’s where l live and that is the facade l present to the outside world. The facade says: I am, I can, I want in other words, whatever the owner and his architect wanted when they built it. The facade also says: but l am not going to show you everything. Sure, there are things inside – but you go and mind your own business” P. Zumthor, Atmospheres, p.47 According to the quote taken from the book Atmosphere, the limit can be defined as the element, the barrier, which divided what is inside and what is outside. This can be a physical component, such as the wall of the castle or of the Islamic city. In other cases, it does not have a material characteristic and it can be just a mark on a paper or a verbal declaration. As it was clear from the section above, in the city, the limit is often related to a specific element: the wall. This archetype determines the border between houses and the public spaces, between properties, or communities. Thus, it is possible to describe the wall as the instrument that defines the transition from a situation to another one. This is not used to create a relationship between the two part. In fact, the wall is an element of protection. It defends from the enemy and hides what it cannot be shown from the outside. In other terms, it is possible to describe the limit (in the figure of the wall) as a symbol that clearly defines what is “safety” (from the point of view of the one that built it) from what is a potential danger. The use of the Islamic society to find a possible definition for the term limit, related to the city forms, is essential to understand another and different meaning of it. In fact, in the examples described the role of the wall was not just to divide and protect the Muslim community from strangers. The limit was used to generate that specific type of city and society. Without the
32
THE IDENTITY OF A CITY GRID “The grid existed in the long, skinny plot that housed Mrs. O’Learly’s cottage and shed and in the maps that brought Irish Catholic immigrants liker her to America.The grid was there in every hymnal with musical notation, in the ledger books in every shop she entered, every printed sign she encountered, every newspaper she read or didn’t read.The grid existed on the surface of every block wall and every building facade dotted with regularly space windows and their planes” Hannah B. Higgins, The Grid Book, p.8 This passage from the Grid Book by Hannah B Higgins occurs during the introduction on the topic of grids. In order to address the complexity of this subject and give a general scope on what she means by that term, the author uses the myth of Mrs. O’Learly and the Chicago fire. The myth goes that the cause of the fire has to be found in a cow living in byre, a sort of gridded system to host animals, which, at the same time, is included in another set of “supra-grids,” the cottage of Mrs. O’Learly, the city block, the district, Chicago itself and so on, in a similar way as a matryoshka doll. By chance, the Great Fire started due to a kick from that cow which broke an oil lamp that burned some hay and consequentially the bier, the block, the city in the opposite direction from the list of before. Ironically Higgins considers the cow as a rebel, fighting back against the constrictions that this system, this matryoshka doll of grids, is applying over her. In a very personal reprisal, she then rebels herself to grids causing the destruction of an existing system which consequentially lead the city to, ironically again, a new era and a new set of Grids. Higgins addresses this event to what she describes as the persistency of the grid, once a grid is invented it will never disappear. The pre-existing grid will last and possess the ability to influence any future one. Moreover, this new system will be part of the old one, will be in fact host by it. In her interpretation Chicago’s old system leads to the destruction of itself and allows the possibility to have a new program, a gridded plan where the citizens, referring to the central point (0,0) of State and Madison Street, would be able to locate themselves on the space, the plan or the plane, through a cartesian cardinal system. An acknowledgement of this condition is visible intrinsically in the description of the new Chicago grid. The central point and the development from that of an orthogonal grid are the prevalent structure. A further, deeper, reading of this series of acts might is then described by Higgins in the chapter regarding the gridiron. What she intends by that term is the definition and origin of the grid urban plan (ibid, p.49) . The gridiron is a lattice, it is a shape, a tool, which was used since ancient time to define urban plans. This image is used by Higgins to address the misconception that the grid plan belongs primarily to the modern era and the development of plans like the Chicago one. The grid urban plan in fact, as stated in the previous chapter is an ancient tool with dubious origins. A bound between the modern one and the previous that came before can be found in the Greek gridded plans and, in particular, in the
33
plan of Miletus. The important difference between the plans from
no other word other than the ones from Stanislawski historical
Egypt and India from the Miletus one is the aim to control and
analysis on the development of grid would be more helpful:
to reach to society in a comprehensive way and, moreover, in the connection that this plans had towards organising society by
“By this time all of the factors favoring the grid had come into being: (1)
spatial means. The plan was made by Hipppodamus of Miletus, a
There was centralized control, and a background of town planning. (2)
greek planner that has been described by Aristotle as the one who
Totally new units were being founded, with dependent—“colonial”—
“invented the art of planning cities”. The reason for that has to be
status. … (4) Desirability of the grid as a general plan would have been
found, according to Aristotle’s writing, in the awareness that the
apparent, especially with regard to the distribution of land, which was
plan showed towards the attempt of organising society. Moreover,
important to the land-hungry Greeks.”
Hippodamus is described as a planner “adept in the knowledge
(Dan Stanislawski, The Origin and Spread of the Grid-Pattern Town,
of nature,” and as a consequence of that, the first person who
p.115)
started implementing inquiries on the form of government in relation to a plan. Lewis Mumford also describes the plan as “the first historical example of a deliberately fabricated neighbourhood unit”. The plan of Miletus was a plan for a city of 10.000 citizens, who were split into three different categories: artisan, husbandmen (farmers), and armed defender of the state. In relation to that, the land was also divided into three parts, one sacred, one public and last one private. The sacred land was set apart to “maintained the customary worship of the gods,” to host religious functions and rituals, the second division aimed to host military facility and constituted the place where the army was located and the third one was the property of the farmers and open to cultivation and development of the economy (ibid, p.58). Each of this
Stanislawski is listing the main reasons why the grid plan was chosen by the Greek planner, but it is possible to underline some key elements that will help the comparison between the modern and ancient plan with all their similarities proper of the persistency Higgins writes about. Moreover, the definition of the term “grid” gave by Rem Koolhaas fits this similarity. He defined the term in Delirious New York stating that: “The Grid — or any other subdivision of the metropolitan territory into maximum increment of control — describes an “Archipelago of Cities within Cities.”The more each “island”celebrates different values, the more the unity of the archipelago as system is reinforced. Because “change” is contained on the component of “islands,” such a system will
34
neighbourhood’s plan was based on an orthogonal grid. Every plan shared a similar orientation and distribution over the landscape but a clear tendency to not conform and adapt the grid to the
natural surroundings. This peculiar condition was common in the Greek plans and was due primarily to the Greeks philosopher’s,
intellectual and mathematicians’ fascination with mathematics and
pure geometry. Moreover, this cultural background and propensity have been seen as one of the reasons that made the possible the acceptance of this kind of plan by Greek planners. Aristotle, in his writings, adds more observations over the figure of Miletus,
presenting him as a “visionary, capable of combining abstract social political, philosophical, religious and natural principles in the form of a single plan” (Aristotle, The Basic Works of Aristotle, p.1161). By this terms, the plan of Miletus is a plan that rises from the act of addressing the social realm of Greek society. It takes into account a series of structures and combines them together by given an order and a specific placement onto the land. In the plan of Mileto the subdivision achieved by the grid is both physical and ideal, the grid is not only a tool able to divide the land into different areas but a tool of connection that host society and, in Aristotle view, a particular kind of collision between politics - the public sphere - and economics - the private sphere. This distinction is made by Aristotle’s writings, the reality for him is divided in two techne, two arts, the techne politiké and techne oikonomiké, politics, and economy. This condition is then present in the city realm and other influential intellectuals, like Lewis Mumford, have recognised the same status. The grid can be interpreted as one tool able to translate and organise these two realms onto the land following the series of actions listed before.
34 The grid was chosen by Greek planners for specific reasons and
never to be revised.” (OMA, S,M,L,XL, p.592) In both quotes, the importance of acquiring control over a territory can be recognised as the main reason that justify the application of a gridded system. The grid plan entails then a division of the land into smaller parts, the city will get divided into a series of units, or island. Furthermore, this division in the interpretation of Koolhaas will not weaken the entire system but, on the contrary, will reinforce its composition and give a mechanism of preservability by assuring the independence of each unit but still the belonging of those to the entire system. The persistency that Higgins introduces with a wider scope of the topic of grid becomes a clue in the comparison between the two quotes. The identity of grids could be recognised in that. Furthermore, the division of lands and appliance of a system capable of set the basic for the development of a city can be seen as one of the main character proper of the grid in history. The metaphor used by Higgins of the gridiron fits perfectly this character gives a bound
between the two conditions of the grid in this interpretations. The condition of the grid as a tool can be seen both on the ideal side of a physical object suggesting a layout and as a virtual object proper used in order to set the basic structure of a city. The grid in this sense becomes an object proper of history in a wider meaning and, at the same time, means of civilised societies, like in the studies of Stanislawski.
traditional styles, were especially shown in those buildings that symbolized the political power. These, for their dimension and symbolic role, were the new order landmarks of the old cities.
URBAN FORM
After the final assumption of the power in 1934 and the Anschluss (annexation of the Austria into Germany) in 1938, Hitler needed
When the Israeli writer Amos Oz tried to identify relationships
to build the symbol of not just his personal power, but of the
between the individual and his/her society in the book How to
“grandeur” of his nation. In fact, as he had already declared at the
cure a Fanatic, the author analysed the first part of a poem written
beginning of his political rise in 1920 “a strong Germany must have
by the English poet John Donne in the XVI century: “No man is
a great architecture since architecture is a vital index of national
an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a
power and strength”. This represents the physical instrument used
part of the main”. According to Oz, this passage is able to clearly
by Hitler in order to define a national identity and characterize
describe the bond between the individual and the society. Indeed,
the new State “vigour”, promoting symbolic public buildings. In fact,
instead of being islands, women and men can be seen such as
as he claimed in his speech on the steps of Les Invalides in 1940,
peninsulas “half attached to the mainland, half facing the ocean”
“Even in the splendour of late Rome, first place was not taken
(Oz A., p.54). The part of land “joined to the continent” identifies
by the villas and palace of individual people, but by the temple
those characters that create and defines the social attendance,
and baths […] of the state and hence of the whole people”. The
the sense of community and unity. These, as Oz continued in
intentions expressed were achieved between 1938 and 1939 in
his analysis, are related to different spheres, such as emotional,
the design of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. In fact, the young
physical and verbal (Oz A., How to cure a Fanatic, p.54). In particular,
architect Albert Speer decided to implement in the project the
the last aspect mentioned finds its instrument in the language that
rigorous classic language. This choice, supported by Hitler, was
is identified in its relevance by the philosopher Heidegger as “the
assumed in order to declare the role of the building, situated on
house of Being”. In fact, it assumes a crucial role in the definition
a narrow plot, such as the symbol and landmark of the Germany
of the personal and social identity, inasmuch “everything that is,
power. The Chancellery showed itself to the public space with a
is known through language, and everything remains in language”
fa ade in which the four level of the edifice were designed to look
35
(Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p.11). Thus, in a sense, language can be
three from outside. The reasons were to make clear its status of
seen as the linchpin of the society, since it allows to interact with
“a place reserved for giant” (Sudjic D., The Edifice Complex, p. 25).
others and, at the same time, it stores the World (Shirazi R., The
The rest of the internal composition was a sequence of theatrical
Edifice Complex).
scenes, characterized by the symbolic use of dimensions and styles,
A similar role can be recognized in architecture. In fact, “as
in order to prepare the end of the “journey”: the Hitler’s desk
such it keeps the spatiality of the World” (Norberg-Schulz, New
(Stern, 1998: 49).
World Architecture, p.153). Thus, as Norberg-Schulz continued,
“Germany was not the most powerful state in the World. Hitler
Architecture is a language, based on invariants, through time and
was not Caesar August. Speer’s building pretended they were”
place: archetypes. These, such as the relationship between language
(Sudjic D., The Edifice Complex, p. 23). After a first phase, in which
and dialect, interacts with two other peculiarities, “style” and
Hitler promoted few projects that followed the modern style
“tradition”, that refers to a temporal choice and local adaptions of
(such as Reich’s aircraft factory), with the Chancellery and the
them (Shirazi R., The Edifice Complex). Thus, for instance, “a Gothic
successive project of the Dome, the Nazi leader clearly declared
tower is a tower, but at the same time, it is “Gothic”, unifying thus
his intentions. In fact, as it was already mentioned, the classical
archetypes and temporal intentions” (Norberg-Schulz, New World
rigor allowed him to depict the proper cultural and political
Architecture, p. 155).
identity of the new German Empire.
Thanks to its 3 characteristics, Architecture assumes the role
A similar strategy was used by Stalin and the Soviet nation. Indeed,
of “messenger” of social identity. Through human history, it was
as it was described in the Hitler’s approach, also the Communist
used by the political power representing the perfect instrument
regime in its first phase (1917-1930) promoted the avantgarde
in order to define a cultural legacy and create a national unity
architecture of Constructivism. This, that funded its attention in
(Vale L., Architecture, Power and National Identity, p.49). More than in
social issues such as housing types, represented the “appropriate
contemporary democracy, this aspect can be immediately clarified
dress for a revolutionary style” in order to react to the “old”
describing the process of the dictatorships’ emancipation during
Romanov’s art-nouveau language (Sudjic D., The Edifice Complex,
the 1930’s. In fact, the German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Russian
p. 76). After these 15 years, at the beginning of the 1930s, the
Communism were able to use and manipulate architecture such
competition for the Palace of Soviets declared the new political
as the instrument of legitimateness and support for a renewed
intention in the definition of the national architectural language.
national identity. Thus, as Hitler declared in his party day speech
The idea of the party was to abandon the Constructivism in favour
in 1937, “the great building programme is a tonic against the
of the classical language of the academia (Cimadono G., Il potere
inferiority complex of German folk. […] This is not to show off
dell’architettura, p.16). This was immediately clear in the words used
but to give self-confidence to the nation.”
by Stalin to introduce the project. In fact, according to the leader,
The assumptions of archetypes, declined following specific and
the new landmark in the historical Moscow’s city centre should
35
have shown “the best of the past, with modern technology” (Sudjic
and geometrical form in a modern lecture of it defined the so-
D., The Edifice Complex, p. 78). Thanks to the ideological relevance
called “E42 style”.
of the project, most of the contemporary modern architects, such
“Identity is not an interior quality of each individual, but an
as Le Corbusier, participated in the competition with modern
interiorizing of understanding things” (Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci,
and futuristic proposes. However, the winner was the Ukrainian
p.19). As it was described in the political programme mentioned
architect Boris Iofan, that “had already constructed a series of
above, this can be “absorbed” thanks to a dialogue between the
landmarks that served to define the new Moscow” (Sudjic D., The
three elements generating architecture. In fact, on the one hand,
Edifice Complex, p. 75). Thus, the Communist symbolic building was
archetypes “remind” those fixed peculiarities that identify a sense
an enormous tower declined in the classic “grandeur”. The tower
of “solidity” through time (Delsante I., Rinnovo urbano, identitˆ, p.
represented a gigantic pedestal in which, on the top, a majestic
34). As for instance, vernacular elements of the Greek and Roman
sculpture of Stalin should have pointed the way to the new and
architecture for the Western Countries. On the other hand, the
mature society.
binomial tradition-style locates these constant languages in specific
In the same years, in Italy, Mussolini was fortifying the power
times and spaces. Thus, the architecture can assume the role of
of Fascist party and the national identity around it, thanks to a
harbinger of a recognizable, shared and contextualized meaning
strong cultural propaganda. This was organized in all the singular
of the city (this is clearly described in the Fascist propaganda).
social levels, from the childhood education to the use of the
In particular, a sense of cultural and social connection can be
contemporary “media”. All these were bonded with a series of
identified from the “generic” symbolic landmark to the specific
public buildings that symbolized and hosted the community life of
“anonymous” urban element.
the Fascist society (Mazzatosta T., Il regime fascista tra educazione e propaganda, p.11). After a first phase (1922-1925) in which the regime just continued projects developed by the previous Government, the decade between 1925-1935 represented the period in which Fascism assumed the modern style as the language of its architecture (Bertolazzi A., Modernismi litici 1920-1940, p. 46). Thus, young architects, such as Terragni, Piacentini or Pagano, became crucial figures in the development of the propaganda. In fact, they were “employed” in order to design a series of projects for the regime, as for instance the Casa del Fascio in Como. In its last phase (1935-1945), Fascism declared and promoted the cycle of the urban interventions. These, planned by the “regime architect” Piacentini, were essential in the development of the propaganda in order to establish its mark in the Italian history (Bertolazzi A., Modernismi litici 1920-1940, p.46). As Mussolini already declared in 1924, this needed a connection with the “glorious past”. In fact, the aim was to “clear Rome from the mediocre architectures” in order to “create the monumental Rome of the XX century” (Missiroli M., Cosa deve l’Italia a Mussolini, p.62-63). This programme found its peak in the project for Expo in 1942. In fact, the complex, which was not ended because of the War, clearly declared the target value of Mussolini, defining the mature Fascist architectural language. This was immediately visible in in the symbol of the intervention: the Palace of Italian Civilization, well known as the Square Colosseum. The building, a modern temple, is located on the top of a staircase, at the end the south-north axes. The Palace, design by G. Guerini, A. La Padula and M. Romano, is a squared “stone box”, gutted thanks to “six layers of Roman arches” that exhibit the inner glass framework (Sudjic D., The Edifice Complex, p. 94). The result is a “travertine mountain” that follows the so-called “ritorno all’ordine” (return to order), a mix between the origins and the contemporary times (Cimadono G., Il potere dell’architettura, p. 15). In fact, on the one hand, the regime showed its direct ancestry from the Roman Empire (with the use of classical elements). On
36the other hand, this classic language was reduced to its essential
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37
THE RESIDUAL SPACE OF A CITY GRID In 1982 OMA was invited by Vittorio Gregotti and Renzo Piano in Paris to participate in a competition regarding the Expo 89. Among them, other architects who participated were I. M. Pei, Oswald Mathias Ungers, Jean Nouvel and Ricardo Bofill. As Koolhaas remembers in his writings, the occasion was quite remarkable, it was the first world fair to be organised in a city centre as dense as Paris since the war (OMA, S,M,L,XL, p.942). There were two sites, the first on in the west, the area that nowadays host the Parc Citroen Cevennes, and the second one east, were the Biblioteque de France now rises. The proposal was addressed taking in account the economic condition of both the France State and the other participants, in specific countries from the Third World that might not have been able to support the design of a standard pavilion. Koolhaas describes the proposed plan as a scheme of ultimate minimalism, an extended square based grid applied over the site which will allow a fair division in plots assigned to each country. Interestingly the proposal lacks a designed circulation, “There would be no public circulation, no hierarchy of accommodation, no investment for the French State.” The aim was to achieve a completely individual and random circulation between each plot, giving also total freedom of access to the site from all the direction (ibid, p. 944). The set of material proposed consisted of a plan, perspective views and a model with a different option and emblematic objects placed on each plot. The plan is openly influenced by the study that Ungers conducted in the city of Berlin in the seventies, commonly known as “Berlin as a Green Archipelago” (Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, p194). Berlin in the 1970s was facing the division of the West/East, a condition of tangible and political division, East Berlin as the capital of the Democratic Republic of Germany and West Berlin as the eleventh state of West Germany. The various issues regarding the fragmented reality of the city were addressed by reading the urban tissue with the usage of a new model found in the concept of “city within the city” or, as Ungers used to refer to, of “city made by islands”. West Berlin was facing a dramatic drop in population and common approaches to urbanism were impossible to use due to the political and practical condition. What Ungers proposed was to read the urban field as an archipelago and to turn the project of the city into the project of the architecture of the city (Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, p180). In riflection to that, the plan proposed by Ungers was a square subdivided by an orthogonal grid, containing both the perimeter of Berlin and all the prevalent architecture, the significant and irreducible parts of the city. Pier Vittorio Aureli asserts that the attitude shown by Ungers has to be address as one of the very first attempt in the history of seeing the city and the problem of urbanisation in different terms. He states that this interpretation of the city is firstly the result of the acceptance of Berlin’s condition and its process of depopulation
38
(ibid, p.186). This key passage does not mean that Ungers’s project
aims to “desurbanisation,” but as a “way to reinforce its form”.
implications and can be, in fact, be seen as the starting point in the
Furthermore, the project must be read in its totality and its
development of Koolhass thinking (Pier Vittorio Aureli, The
evolution starting from the first proposals from 1960 to 1970
Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, p.196). As described by
moved by Ungers. Another important aspect in the evolution of his
Aureli(ibid, p.193), by looking at the outcome produced by
research consists of the intellectual exchange between the german
Ungers’s students for “Berlin as a Green Archipelago”, the layers of
architect and OMA, both with the aim of defining the
objects proper of the public realm are addressed, not only as
characteristics of “metropolitan architecture”. In this sense, the
“urban data”, but as in term of their “architectural consequences”.
plan for the proposal of Paris 89 shows similarities with even less
What Aureli means saying that is that the public spaces were
surprise. Interestingly this collaboration with Ungers will be deeply
interpreted as disruptive forms, present in the city and affecting its
influential the S,M,L,XL’s dictionary when the term “grids” will be
space. The public realm in this sense was the sum of several
defined. This definition has been quoted in the previous chapter
elements like the highways, the parks, the canals, the U-Bahn, the
and corresponds to what Koolhaas writes about the grid in
streets, and that the union of those objects was dividing the city
Delirious New York. The grid is seen as a display of control, an
into several fragments. The result of this operation was a series of
instrument of the division of the land, seeking the ability to
blank voids, spaces left to architecture. The aim of architecture,
interact with itself, a sort of research for a factor able to bring
then, was not to change the city, to solve the issues of the city, but
clearness in order to experience unity regarding the whole (Rem
to adapt and take advantages of the existing conditions, of this
Koolhaas, Delirious New York, p.58). The meaning that Grids gained
objects placed on the urban fabric. The influence of this attitude
describes comprehensively also the intention of Paris 89. By
over the study of the city gets very close to the one from
dividing the site into a grid the first consequence is to subdivide
Koolhaas and his residual. This composition and distribution of
the latter in the smaller portion that will then transform the site in
elements proper of the public realm affects and held together the
smaller plots, and give more control over the territory. The Islands
development of architecture. Furthermore, the important shift has
created then will be developed freely and in total harmony with
to be found is the change of subject. The city and the proper
the whole because the whole in its minimal act of subdivision will
existing condition of itself have not seen anymore as problems to
set the basics rules and boundaries for a perpetual exchange of
be solved but as states of the art. The architecture in all of this
definition between the two. The absence of a planned circulation
becomes a punctual intervention with the aim to interact and
will then address the issue of what both Ungers and OMA
address them. A bond between the studies of this two architects
recognise as residual space. The term residual (OMA, S,M,L,XL,
can be found in Koolhass visit to Berlin in 1971 to describe the
p.1252) is introduced by Koolhaas to addressed the condition of
Berlin Wall. During this trip, the dutch architect addressed the Wall
the public realm while describing the characteristics proper of
not add a single linear element but instead as a “linear sequence of
Urbanism inside the Generic City. The Generic City was published in
different architectural events”. The Wall is treated as a fact and
1994 by the dutch architect, in an attempt to describe the
what Koolhaas described instead were all the different
contemporary condition and future development of the
environments it was affecting and the different outcome that was
metropolitan cities. In the Generic City, the public space is
created (. The focus was on the political manifestation of the Wall
translated into the residual one. Koolhaas states that this space in
and in how these politics of closure have developed different
the model of the moderns was merely green, caring means of a
episodes on their paths. The ordinary was the main subject, the
“moralistic assertion of good intention”, and that became and
architecture built, and that was a direct consequence of the Wall
Edenic Residue in the Generic City. A holy portion of space that
itself. The punctual interventions proposed by Ungers here are
manifests and carries the identity of the place, a “hybrid of politics
represented by the punctual outcomes that are being addressed in
and landscape”, mostly inorganic due to its intensive design in
the description of the Wall and its physicality. In this condition,
order to project an organic feel (ibid, p.1252). In Koolhaas writings
architecture becomes both the creator of residual space and the
on urbanism in the Generic City, the street gets also addressed. As
residual space itself. The wall is the object who at the same time is
a planning tool, the street for him is dead, pedestrianisation has
able to host itself and create space by its action of the division
substituted it. Moreover, this does not mean that new street will
(OMA, S,M,L,XL, p.212). Architecture is the wall and architecture
not be developed, he is referring to the existing ones, who, at
are residual in the means of a space able to acquire multiple
most, will get transformed in the pedestrian road with political
nuances. In this view, the studies of Ungers manifests their
means similar to the green residual. In Koolhaas’s Generic City, the
potential in reading the city and rendering a substantial
objects proper of the public realm have changed their means, they
interpretation of the image of the city. The interesting bound
have acquired new political ones. Is description is deeply influenced
between Architecture and City was also is clearly expressed in the
by observing the developing of metropolitan reality in Asia and
studies of Mario Gandelsonas and in his article The City as the
Middle East where the public realm is not anymore “over-
Object of Architecture. He states that the connection between City
demanded” but instead a tool which “held together” the spaces
and Architecture can be found in the connection that characterises
that develop in between, and in another term, precisely, the
the condition of the interrelation of both extremities. The
residual. This interpretation of the public realm can be recognised
Architecture is composed of Gandelsonas in two main elements
also in Ungers’s research on Berlin, with slightly different
he calls fantasy, the artistic and the urban one. The first has to be
39
intended as the condition of Architecture of being both a product
it can be noticed in the perspective representation, the common
of the aim of an architect’s mind and, at the same time, a product
language is related to the entire structure of the complex (each
of the built the world, a manmade object proper of reality. On the
3d dimension and details). This singular element in the design of
other hand, the urban fantasy has to be intended as the will of
this space suggests the introduction of a new relationship in the
architecture to establish a various relationship with the City, trying
private/public sphere planning. This conjecture finds a proof in
to domesticate the city’s economic and political forces that reside
the second key element of the composition: the crowd. In fact, as
in the urban body (ibid, p.132). The condition of the City in
it is described in the book How Paris Became Paris:The Invention
relation to that is to be constituted by two extremities
of the Modern City, the idea of the author was to focus the scene
Gandelsonas addresses as city of memory and city of constant change.
“on the spectators who turned out for the event as much as on
In all of that Architecture and City manifest a perpetual condition
the demonstration of the royal power” (Aureli P.V., The City as a
of dependence and collision. The author defines it in this term:
Project, p.52). The attention in the description of the crowd and its relationship with the power support the suggestion illustrated
“There is no place for architecture either in the city of memory (which
above. In fact, the Place (void and buildings) is designed in order
would be a dead city, a museum, a tableau, and where articulation is
to create a new interaction between the characters of the city. It
impossible) or in the city of constant change (where nothing remains).
assumes the role of the space planned and managed by the politics
In fact, these extremes designate the limits of the different conditions
and given to the community.
imposed by the “writing surfaces” of different cities:while the European
Thus, it can be possible to express that the “Grand Carrousel”
city is less erasable at the level of buildings, it has undergone major
records a change of the urban form, the birth of “a new category
changes in its plan, which is supposed to be the most resistant to
of the urban: public space” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.
change; the American city’s buildings have been deleted many times
141). This symbolizes the meaning of a new type of power and its
in the long duration, while its plan resists change. It is in the space
different approach to the city and inhabitants. Moreover, the public
where these two levels are reconciled that architecture finds the site
space, or “specific space”, defined the new urban layout and the
for its articulation with the city, the site where architecture can produce
passage between the Medieval society to the Modern Paris.
changes that inscribe permanent traces in the urban realm.”
During the Middle Age, cities were based following three
Mario Gandelsonas, The City as the Object of Architecture, p.136) The correlation between Architecture and City float between this different nuances proper of both. In this peculiar condition space can be called residual, where it becomes the margin of action for coexisting future developments of themselves or the result of this process of collision between extremities. Moreover, the correlation, as seen before, can be manifested on different levels. It can be understood and, in an attempt, controlled by a square based gridded plan, like in OMA’s proposal for Paris 89, or can reside inside the Architecture itself and show its condition in the interaction that occur while colliding.
different powers: religion, politics and private realm. The first one represented the creator and the arbiter of the other two. In fact, “in Western Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the one powerful and universal association was the Church” (Mumford L., The City in History, p.265). The symbol of its hegemony was located in the figure of the majestic Cathedral. Side by side to this, in the Medieval city, the State placed the town-hall. The significant of this action was to underline the natural relationship between the two “structures”. In fact, religion symbolized the means of the definition and legitimateness of the “earthly power”. Politics, from a certain point of view, followed the original meaning of the Greek “nomos”. In fact, it was considered such as a natural framework, with the difference that derived from the divinity instead of the
URBAN FORM In 1612, Claude Chastillon, a French architect, engineer, and topographer engraved the Place Royal in Paris. The scene shows the moment in which the plaza was inaugurated with a royal ceremony. As it can be noticed, the space of the Place is defined by two elements. On the one hand, the void in which the ceremony takes place and, on the other hand, the scenery composed by the system of buildings embracing the inhabitants. This last aspect, which in the composition occupies the almost entirety of the view, depicts one of the key elements of the document. In fact, as it can be immediately noticed, the framework of buildings that embraces the Place is characterized by a common language, detectable in its singular parts. This “detail”, in contrast with the Gothic city in the background, presumes not “just” the use of a congruent style for the facades, as it occurred in the Renaissance Florence. In fact, as
40
human nature. Politics role was to manage the social structure of the State and especially of the city. In particular, this “simply implied a general state of prosperity, not the actual construction of a shared public domain” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.148). For this reason, apart from the two exceptions of the Cathedral and the Town-hall, the city was auto-generated by the third power: the private realm. This was moulded following the principle of the ownership of a dwelling, which represented the economic base system and the prerequisite needed in order to be defined, citizen. (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.142). Thus, the result is an urban complexity that can be summarized and depicted with this metaphor used by Mumford: “aesthetically, a medieval town is like medieval tapestry: the eye challenged by the rich intricacy of the design, roams back and forth over the entire fabric, captivated by a flower, an animal, ahead, lingering where it pleases, retracing its path, taking in the whole only by assimilating the parts, not commanding the design at a single glance” (Mumford L., The City
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in History, p.306). The typical city was defined by several groups
the imposition of few possible typologies, in order to improve the
of houses that formed self-sufficiency systems, like “islands”
efficiency of the city. The result of the two elements, the void, and
embraced in the rigid boundary of the city-wall. From this
the architecture d’accompagnament, is a theatrical scene that defines
structure, the circulation element of the street was originated. This
and organizes the space in which citizens act their economical
was defined as the residual space in between buildings. In fact, its
performances.
morphology was directly “designed” by the shape of each singular property around it and by specific “agreement probably came the
“The bastard estheticism of a single uniform style, set within a rigid town
face-to-face discussions of interested parties” (Mumford L., The
plan, arbitrarily freezing the historic process at a given moment, was left
City in History, p.311). Thus, as it is visible from medieval paintings
for a later period, which valued uniformity more than universality, and
that depicted cities, the result was an “organic” composition in
visible power more than the invisible processes of life”
which the element of the fa ade “became the interface between
(Mumford L., The City in History, p.312)
the citizen and the civitas […] representing their status and identity” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.142). At the end of the XVI century, as it was described in the introduction, France started the construction of its modern nation. This was related to the change in the meaning of the political power and its relationships with the other that characterized the previous Medieval society. This structural program attached not just the framework of the community but also the physical aspect of the city. The idea of Henri IV, become king in 1589, was to define a new settlement for the State in order to create “a common framework that would compose and subsume the conflicts” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.140). To achieve this, Henri IV declared a new “location” of the political power in the structure of the kingdom. Thus, “he separated religion and politics and refined the monarchy as an abstract guardian of civil peace”. The passage between the natural power to the artificial one defined the State as a machine or, as it was defined later by Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan, the “apparatus”. From that moment on, the role of the politics was not just related to the management of the social defence, but also to the regulation of the physical space in order to “turn the society into a well-functioning machine” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.152). People became number so as to depict the kingdom with the use of maths and statistic and prevent from “qualitative issues” (Aureli P.V., The City as a Project, p.152). Following this strategy, the action promoted in the city defined the big transformation described in the first section of the chapter. Thus, with the birth of the “specific spaces” (such as the Place Royal), the France politics was able to organize the public realm, escaping from the Medieval randomness. At the same time, this allowed to interact and dictate the guidelines for the private sphere. In fact, on the one hand, the void defines itself as the “scene” for the “bloom” of the business of the citizens, depicted the attention of the State on the economic realm. On the other hand, it generates the “architecture d’accompagnament”. The structural organization of the buildings enclosing the Place contains in itself several meaning and intentions. In fact, firstly, it represents the attempt of the politics power to re-organize the chaotic medieval private space in a regular structure (according to a series of fixed principles). Thus, with the use of principles in order to define a horizontal linearity the politics power was able to organize a “shared framework”, defeating the “hegemony” of the Medieval ornament. Secondly, the architecture d’accompagnament shows the
42“interference” of the political power in the private realm, through
The passage from the Medieval town to the Modern city represents the key moment in the “fight” between politics and private realms (and between public and private fields). The hegemony of the ownership and its role as creator of the public space was destroyed by the apparatus. The “irregular sea” in which medieval islands acted became a fixed grid of canals. This guided and standardized processes was made in the name of the productivity. “Specific spaces” represent the result of this process and the auto-celebration of the artificial public machine. To the system of the ostensible and natural organic chaos, the modernity defines rules and typologies with the intention of control and avoid possible issues. The process, described in the sections above, represents the key passage in the evolution of the planning. The form of public space, seen as the “residual field” of the private necessity, was forced and transformed into a rigid framework. The economy of the single, as a generator of the space around it, was absorbed in the modern idea of the State as manager of the private capital. Rethinking the last sentence of the passage of Mumford, the space of hidden infinity became the celebration of the political standardization.
THE RESIDUAL SPACE OF A CITY GRID “Let us look more closely at what capitalists do.They begin the day with a certain amount of money and end the day with more of it.The next day they wake up and have to decide what to do with the extra money they gained the day before.” (City Reader, p.273) David Harvey in his The Right to the City describes the cycle of capitalism in this terms. He addresses the condition that cities face in the capitalist model of economy stating that the development of cities is more controlled by the reinvestment of capitals instead that by the citizens who actually live and utilise the urban realm. In his view, the way a surplus is managed consists in one of the most influential factors in the process of shaping and channelling the city. His thoughts are addressing, in particular, a very common state proper of most of the urban realm in a capitalistic system. In the conclusion, the issue and wish for Harvey are that this process should be more open and accessible by the citizens, by the actual users of public space. He defines this concept as the politics of economy. The way that economy should be controlled and will at the end affect the urban development. (City Reader, p.273) Development and improvement of urban realm in Harvey’s view are deeply connected with the economy and political power. The laws of competition in a capitalist guide this process with a self-centred care focused only on the perpetuation and growth of surplus and its thereafter reinvestment. Furthermore, to host this process the first necessary condition is the availability of profitable terrain which the author recognises, at the same time, as barriers, an obstacle, for free-developments and expansion. In addition to that, other very influential obstacles/conditions are, the constant research of efficiency in terms of production and managing of labour forces, the discovery of new means of production and new natural resources and, in general, the purchasing power that affect the expansion or shift in the market worldwide. All those elements are able to bring the impossibility to reinvest capital which leads to the phenomena of capital accumulation, a condition of crisis for capitalism and capitalists (City Reader, p.275). This accumulation leads to a devaluation of the capital and Harvey argues that urbanism in history had the function to absorb that in a various way. To prove his point, he introduces the example of the Haussmann’s plan for Paris and the general investments that Napoleon made in all France. The ascent of Napoleon III in France was due in part to the economic crisis the country faced in 1848 which lead the to the coup of 1851 (ibid, p.275). In Harvey interpretation this economic crisis left the country with issues regarding the capital surplus. Napoleon solved that by proposing a vast program of infrastructural investments both in France, Europe and in Fench colonies. In Europe, this will be translated in the construction of a railroad system reaching the Orient, and in the colonies with a series of investment on grand works, like the Suez Canal. In France, the railway network was
43
improved but the most iconic and remarkable operation in this
part of the grouping of buildings, for all matters referring to the
series of programs was the renewal Paris. It basically consisted
inhabitants used the word civis, from which they derived all the terms
in the appliance of a new grid over the dense urban fabric of
intended to express things, objects, happenstance, and qualities
the city. The project had not only economical means, the new
concerning dwellers.The word urbanus referred to matters concerning
image of the capital or the empire had to carry new images of
the material organisation of the urbs: so it was that citizens never called
great political power and an adaptation of the city to increase
themselves urban, because the root word did not allow for such an
control over possible insurrection. Harvey states that Haussmann
application.”
understood the needs and objectives his plan needed to fulfil. The
(Ibid, p.79-80)
main goal was to “solve the surplus capital and unemployment problem by means of urbanisation.” In order to achieve this
In this quote Aureli sees one of the prevalent elements of Cerda’s
targets, the plan considered changing Paris in its whole. The new
plan, the new focus is in the city in its materiality. He, successively,
grid applied over the existing urban fabric enable a process of
addresses this trait with means close to the one that Harvey
reconstruction of specific sections that lead Paris to absorb a
points out with the Parisian example. The similarities with the
“huge quantity of labour and of capital” (ibid, p.276). Moreover,
Parisian plan, in fact, can be found in the fact that both plans are
this new set of infrastructure and new public spaces introduces
effectuating, and aim to, an act that Aureli defines as controllable
a new urban way of life, an all-new urban identity for Paris. This
redistribution. In his view, Cerda aimed, in fact, to a controllable
example of urbanisation dealt with multiple aims and, following
redistribution of social wealth. The Spanish engineer in his opinion
Harvey’s analysis, the economy was one on the prevalent one. It
understood the inevitability of having to accept the capitalistic
induced, in fact, actual changes over the planning process. The first
system and, ultimately, the importance of embracing this system
proposal for the boulevard, for example, consisted of streets wide
he himself defined as a “vast swirling ocean of person, of things,
40 meters in section, a length that later on got increased to 120
of interests of every sort, of a thousand diverse elements” (ibid,
meters in order to maximise the effect of the plan. The Parisian
p.79). In this interpretation the plan acquired the aim to acquire
new plan is not the only one that showed an appliance of a gridded
an “economic control of the social class”, so in some sense a
system over and in relation to an existing one.
development of a plan able to guarantee the security of urban
With similar means, the plan of Ildefons Cerda for Barcelona
space through efficiency and at the same time the hosting of a
has been interpreted as an attempt to translate the capitalistic
new economic system. In this sense, the Parisian plan does not
system over an urban fabric. It showed slightly different means
differ from the Barcelona’s one. The plan of Haussmann in Harvey’s
compared to the Haussmannian one but a similar process and
perspective, in fact, was focusing its attention on the juxtaposition
focus on the economy, as well as implications towards society. As
of a grid plan over the old fabric for mostly the same reasons (City
Lewis Mumford states, “the grid plan answered, as no other plan
Reader, p.274). On the contrary, differences can be found in the
did, the shifting values, the accelerated expansion, the multiplying
way the concept of the grid is applied. Cerda uses the grid with
population, required by the capitalist regime”(Lewis Mumford, The
means close to the roman castra, the physical expansion of the city
City in History: Its Origins, Its Trasformation, and Its Prospect, p.193), an
was the goal to be reached with limitless border and developing of
interpretation that Pier Vittorio Aureli in his Possibility of an Absolute
urban blocks outside the old centre. In the Parisian case, the plan
Architecture also shares while analysing the plan (Pier Vittorio
consisted in the collision of the preexisting urban realm with a
Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, p.13). He states that
new grid applied over the previous one in order to adapt it to new
the key aspect of the entire plan can be found in the introduction
necessities.
of the word urbanisation, and, moreover, in Cerda’s publication for
These differences are due to the unlike conditions the two cities
the plan, Teoria general de la urbanizaci—n, and the words of Cerda
were facing. Apart for that, both plans work with the application
while explaining its reasons for the usage of such term. The book
of a grid form in relation to existing urban centre. The similarities
was the first one to introduce the word urbanizaci—n in history.
that can be found are located in the comprehensive method the
The reflection of Aureli is focused principally on the construction
two plans proposed in relation to the economy. Both Haussmann
of this term and the means that Cerda wanted to translate it.
and Cerda, in fact, addressed capitalism showing, firstly and
As Soria y Puig writes in his Cerda:The Five Bases of the General
understanding, and furthermore, clear intention to implement
Theory of Urbanisation that Cerda initially thought about using the
economy in the planning. In this sense, the words of Mumford
term Ciudad to describe his theory. He was using, in fact, the term
describing the plan of Cerda, in an extended interpretation, fit
city but as he wrote a year later in his introduction to the Teoria
perfectly both plans. The grid in urban planning in his modern
general de la urbanizaci—n he needed a different term, a new one,
application, as stated in the previous analysis, does not differ much
as he was facing the “dilemma of either inventing a word or failing to
from ancient ones but it is the radical change that the modern era
write about a subject” (Cerda:The Five Bases of the General Theory of
faced and the subsequent adaptation of the latter that makes them
Urbanisation, 79). The switch and invention of this new term are
“modern” and, in a sense, distant.
justified by Cerda in this way:
44“Since the genuine sense of urbs referred principally to the material
common technique and similar motives. The re-thinking of the Dom-ino archetype was based on a political
URBAN FORM
programme that funded its origin at the beginning of the XX century ant it wanted to define a socio-economic system built
“An archetype is not a type. As a generic condition, as a limit, it can
around the private ownership. Thus, the instrument defined in the
inspire very different types of buildings”
1983 by A. Clementi and F. Perego as the “abusivismo territoriale”
Antoine Picon, Dom-Ino: Archetype and Fiction, p.172
(territorial abusiveness) and the Greek abuse in the practice
In 1914, Le Corbusier designed a new prototype of house, that found its origin in the industrial production. The Dom-ino (originated from the Latin “dooms” and the contraction of the term innovation) is “a simple structural concrete framework” (Aureli. P.V., Less in Enough, p.32) generated by prefabricated elements. The idea was to design a basic structure, that has been defined later as the archetype of the “infill architecture”, in which the house is reduced to a flexible framework customized by the inhabitants (Giudici M., From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia). As it was described by the architectural historic Adolf Max Vogt, the project found its structural origin in the Turkish tradition of the wooden pillar building (Vogt, Le Corbusier, the Noble Savage). The research of vernacular structures was used by Le Corbusier’s system “in order to shorten the
of the “antiparochi” (a private agreement between landlords) represented two non-written agreements used in order to build an “illegal” expansion of the two capitals. These assumed different forms considering the relationship with the central power. Indeed, on the one hand, the Italian situation was characterized by a lack of proper regulations and a tendency of an urban expansion based on corruption and private interests (Mazzarelli, Fondamenti di Diritto Urbanistico, p.96). One the other hand, in Athens, it is possible to individuate a similar system “supported by the State in the form of a general building regulation and a property law” (Giudici M., From Domino to Polykatoikia). The Rome history of the last century was characterized by a territorial “wild expansion”; in particular, this took place in the suburb, thanks to the development of the borgate and borghetti. The consistent increment of the population (from 1 to 3 million)
distance between architecture and everyday building processes”
in the XX century, and especially from the fascist “ventennio”
(Giudici M., From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia).). This was made possible
to the beginning of the 70s, forced a radical transformation of
thanks to the rereading of these traditional schemes in an
the city (Clementi A., 1983: 323-337). The absence of specific
industrial logic. This mix originated the two principal characteristic
laws regarding the urban regulations, that just “appeared” after
mentioned of materials
the Second War World, promoted an urban expansion “left” to
(reinforced concrete) and repeatability (prefabricated
personal interests and corruption (Ficacci. 2014: 140). In fact, the
components). Thus, thanks to its character, the Dom-ino “could
only instruments available for the government were two local
be built by the inhabitants themselves” (Aureli. P.V., Less in Enough, p.32) or by “non-specialized builder”, using low-cost raw materials. The approach used by Le Corbusier in the design and definition of the framework find its explanation in the declared and not declared aims of this project. Indeed, the structure was thought in order to define “a conception of a system of construction which envisaged the problems of postwar reconstruction” (Foundation Le Corbusier, 2012). In parallel, the project had another strong intention in order to support and manage the western socioeconomic system. In fact, as Aureli explained in his essay Less in Enough, “the very goal of the Dom-ino model was to provide the lower classes with a minimum property that would allow them to become entrepreneurs of their own household condition” (Aureli. P.V., Less in Enough, p.32). Thus, the Dom-ino can be assimilated into the capitalist system and used as an efficient instrument in order to develop and transform the lower classes from labourers to “micro-entrepreneurs of their own minimal economy” (Aureli. P.V., Less in Enough, p.33) Since the post-war period, the meanings expressed in the structure the Maison Dom-ino and its aims had contributed to establish an important role of it in the development of many European cities. In particular, the socio-economic elements promoted by this system “has been applied on a mass scale” (Aureli, 2014: 32) in the two “classic” city, Rome and Athens, with
regulations related to generic rules regarding the constructions and to the guidelines for an expansion policy (“Regolamento generale edilizio” and “Regolamento special edilizio di ampliamento della cittˆ”). These resulted immediately insufficient to manage the whole territory and its system. In fact, on the one hand, the first one (“Regolamento generale edilizio”) was inappropriate to supervise the common practice of the “accordi formali” (formal agreements) stipulated directly between the municipality and privates. In fact, since 1870, these agreements had defined the roles in the urban framework; the city represented just the “police” that had to verify privates, that was allowed to act in order to generate the maximum profit (Mazzarelli V., Roma, p.77-78). On the other, the regulation related to the urban expansion had a fundamental limitation that caused its failure. In fact, this did not includeral lands at the edges of the city, indirectly promoting the trade and the speculation of these areas (Bortolotti: Roma Fuori le Mura, p.164). This fragile system caused the proliferation of the “abusiveness practice” and, in a sense,“liberalize” the devastation of the territory. In particular, as the sociologist Franco Ferrarotti declared, the insufficient regulations produced an imbalance between the roles of public and private powers with the result of “the violent asymmetric character” of the city development. This aspect can be clarified in the example of the typological “borghetto” structure. The district, established on a rural land, was usually quickly built by several privates in order to originate new
45
f 18
f 16
f 19
f 17
46
f 20
settlements. These, composed by an abusive variety of similar
p.704). The development and success of this economic system
Maison Dom-ino (which allows a fast construction), were lacking
were possible thanks a specific building typology, that, in a sense,
basic systems and connections. Thus, the State and the civic politic
took the “legacy” of Le Corbusier’s Maisons Domino: the Poly-
power of the city were forced to intervene adapting a consecutive
katoikia. The term composed of two words: “poly” and “katoikia
“planning” of infrasucture and services in order to solve issues
can be translated with the meaning of “multistorey apartment
of this “illegal” substructure (Fusco, Ai Margini di Roma Capitale,
building”. After the “Civil War”, the Poly-katoikia, born such as
p.70). In this way, this economic system based on the “illegal”
a bourgeois building, “was able to absorb all classes and allow
private ownership had determined the morphology and political
any kind of infill and thus became a type suitable for all sorts of
decisions of the city.
urban densities” (Giudici M., From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia). This was
A similar development affected the other capital mentioned,
possible thanks to the generic framework and its low cost related
Athens. Here, the private ownership economy and the “planning
to a fast construction. The result of this process was a city with
from the base” was not the result of a lack of regulations, but a
one of the highest density in the Europe, in which the expansion
conscious political strategy. The policy of dwelling ownership and
of the Poly-katoikia defined a concrete metropolis in which “with
the use of general building regulations, mentioned above, were
its small scale and lack of collective spaces, has developed an
adopted in order to answer two different issue: immigration and
urban ethos completely locked within its extreme individualism”
internal conflict. In fact, in two centuries, thanks to migration flows,
(Giudici M., From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia). This structure, on the one
Athens’s population increased from the 6,000 inhabitants of the
hand, absolved the capitalist society wanted by the central power.
Ottoman town to a high-density metropolis of more than 3 million
On the other hand, it defined a city in which private buildings
of people. This process was characterized by intense periods of
followed the rules dictated by their own business. Thus, this
expansion, as for instance, in the 20’s in which the capital grew
process generated a chaotic framework in which, the presence of
“from 453,000 in 1920 to 802,000 in 1928, following the arrival
a multitude of scale and grids, restricted any possible development
of refugees from Asia Minor” (Dragonas, The Birth of Polykatoikia,
of an infrastructural planning.
p.84). In addition, in the 40’s, the Country was racked by a Civil war, that “was fought on and off between 1943 and 1949” (Kalyvas,
“the Dom-ino has become an ever-present ghost in the contemporary
The Greek Civil War in Retrospect, p.10). This opposed two different
city – it seems to be everywhere.”
ideologies: on the one hand the Communist party and its Russian’s
P.V. Aureli, The city as a Project
influence, on the other hand, the government close to the Britain and a capitalist vision. At the end of the conflict, the government
The western city of the first half of XIX century represents
developed a political program in order to organize the State in
the origin of a structure base on the capitalistic system. The
a capitalistic structure, with “the implementation of the Truman
promotion of this, consciously and not, had changed the balance
Doctrine” (Kalyvas, The Greek Civil War in Retrospect, p.10-11),
between public and private organization. Thus, the relationship
and to become a model for the Mediterranean region. To achieve
between politics and private power is based on the private
this, the politics founded its plan in the “small building economy”
economic system and in particular in the instrument of the small-
(Giudici M., From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia). Thus, in the entire
scale ownership. This strategy, born of the will of the political
Greece and in particular in Athens, the authorities, developed “a
power in order to assimilate all the social groups in the same
violent urbanization and proletarianization of what was, by a vast
economical machine, determinates the physical framework of
majority, the left-wing rural population” and a series of generic
the city. In fact, the capitalistic aim, grounded in the “religion of
regulations in order to allow “a certain amount of tolerance” in
the profit”, generates the expansion of the modern community.
the construction practices (Tsavdaroglou, Athens: Urban Space
The role of managing assumed by the politics, in the capitalistic
Riots, p.24). This was promoted, on the one hand, thanks to the
city it is transferred to the fragmented infinity of private realms.
specific Law 3741/1929, “on Horizontal Property”, that defined the
Planning their own lands, these indirectly draws the whole city. In
limits of the ownership and of the buildings. On the other hand, a
this system, described as “informal” (generated “from the bottom
generic plan was generated in order to define areas of expansion
to the top”), the role of the administration is “to put a patch” in
and vague infrastructure. The result of this voluntary actions was
order to solve and increase private productivities and profits. Thus,
the development of the specific tendency of the “antiparochi”. The
the self-determination of the own business (house) and its density
term refers to a non-regulated substructure in which “this system
decides the framework and regulations of the entire metropolis.
brought together in single-operation joint ventures a landowner and a (small) building contractor who divided the built property produced by the latter on the former’s parcel” (Maloutas T., Vertical Social Differentiation in Athens, p.704). It expansion referred not “just” in the politics disregard, but also a direct promotion of it. In fact, the Antiparochi structure “was preferentially treated with tax deductions and profited from the general increase in construction coefficients” (Maloutas T., Vertical Social Differentiation in Athens,
47
THE RESIDUAL SPACE OF A CITY GRID “The lines began as points in space” (Ann Wilson, Linear Webs, p.47) Agnes Martin, in an interview with Ann Wilson, described the way she began to approach the grid form at the beginning of her career using this words. She refers to the technic she was experimenting on canvases, the application of nail hammered on it. She was making clusters of nails and this action of pinning them on the canvas suggested her, presumably, a more linear composition. This tendency, later on, leads her to the formation and encounter of grid forms(ibid, p 49). Brendan Prendeville, in his The Meanings of Acts: Agnes Martin and the Making of Americans, analyses the character of Martin and her art. Specifically, regarding the topic of the grid he writes that the regularity of the subjects itself commonly suggest some general norm or axiom, a goal set to achieving a certain logic. In the author opinion, this position is fallacious, and he addresses the issue stating that it is a common one when referred to key structural invariants. Martin’s grids are not axiomatic structures in any way, each line gets translated on the canvas as a constitutive act where the grid is the array of those acts. This peculiar characters of Martin’s grid are well explained in the comprehensive analysis Rosalind Krauss gave in her essay Grids on the usage of this tool in art. She describes grid as an antinatural, antimimetic, antireal object. The grid in her words is “the means of crowding out the dimensions of the real and replacing them with the lateral spread of a single surface” (Rosalind E. Krauss,The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths, 9). She addresses the subject of the grid in the realm of art and demonstrates the implicit contradiction held by this forms. This contradiction has to be searched in the dichotomy that grid showed in the 20th century, the coexisting of two characters: spatial and temporal(ibid, p 11). The grid developed in the spatial side presents a cold and scientific tone. This character is effectively recognisable in painting like Untiltled from 1965 of Martin. The flat surface of the canvas is divided with regularity, blank from everything apart from the grid itself. The canvas apparently carries this axiomatic element recognised by Prendeville. In this sense, one could say the grid manifests a sort of purity and anti-natural tone, the painting at the end shows a grid for what it is for its geometrical properties only. With similar means, other appropriate example could be found in the publication Grid Index from 2008 by Carsten Nicolai. His book consists in a dictionary of grids and tilings, or as he declares of surface subdivision (Carsten Nicolai, Grid Index, 1), ordered form the most simple and orthogonal grid made by repetition of squares to more complex, non-periodic and unpredictable ones. Each grid listed was generated from equations and listed by complexity and relation to space. The other element in Krauss analysis, the temporal character is to be intended as everything that resides over the grid, everything that diverges the grid from its pure geometric meaning. This is the character that made possible for art to declare itself as
48
“present” at the beginning of the century (Rosalind E. Krauss,The
Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths, 13). The
City fit perfectly this dyad, the city itself becomes a machine
intent of Krauss is to describe the state of the art in the 20th
serving reproduction of labour and its cycle of production
centuries in relation to the form of the grid and to the mythical
and consumption. Lefebvre also recognises that infrastructural
means, it was able to carry, this ability to host harmoniously the
elements of a city had changed their field of action. To justify his
coexistence of elements in contrast between each other. She
point of view he starts his argumentation with the idea that the
wrote: “The grid’s mythic power is that it makes us able to think
expansion of capitalism brought the need to rethink the concept of
we are dealing with materialism while at the same time it provides
fixed capital and that the same definition, Marx gave, of it being as
us with a release into belief.”(ibid, 12) In this sense, the description
the measure of social weight leads to include the infrastructure in
by Prendeville addressing the subject of the grid in Martin’s work
that category (ibid, 343). Ha adds that this condition externalised
could not be more appropriate. Similarly and in relation to that,
the one proper of variable capital. Moreover, infrastructural
a work of architecture that could face the very same condition
elements, like highways or airports, gave a relief to capitalism
is the No Stop City from the Italian collective Archizoom. It was
filling the impossibility of reproduction of variable capital. This is
presented in 1967 under the title of “a bathroom every 50 meters”
due to the mobilisation of labour that the networks bring with its
which was sarcastically referring to the inner structure of the city.
creation. The transportation grids, in this sense, are an element
In fact, the plan was basically constituted by a limitless grid, a sort
that in the contemporary city can be seen as an enzyme able, at
of city reaching what nowadays might be addressed as Global City
the same time to generate and consume. As Lefebvre explains
in its most extreme expression (Neil Brenner and Roger Keil,
this is a shift that occurred in history and it is a crucial one in
From Global Cities to Globalised Urbanisation, City Reader, p.666). Like
the shaping of the urban space(ibid, 341). In this shift the author
Martin’s paintings the plan came firstly from a physical action. It
recognises two main consequences, on one hand, the effect that
was in fact invented by using a typewriter, due to the orthogonal
the multiple networks of communication had on the division of
grid, already integrated into the standard layout of the machine,
labour and, on the second hand, the effect that this new set of
which constituted at the end the basic grammar of the project.
communication had on flows with, consequently, the coordination
The “X” became a code for representing a column while the other
of these latter on the urban fabric. The different division of labour
letter elements of the plan. The project itself was a metaphor to
affects the space created and developed(ibid, 341). A consequence
address the condition of urbanism inside the capitalistic economic
of this is that infrastructures possess a sort of power over the
model, its main reference, in fact, was the supermarket, the mall.
shaping of the urban environment, which are able to modify both
The reasons behind choosing the mall as module of reference
physically and on a structural level. This view is partially shared
is clarified by the writings of Andrea Branzi when he stated
way by Michel Foucault while addressing the topic of the road in
that it was, in fact, “the only place where the factory model and the
his Equipment of Power. The road is described as a system able
consumption model came together” in his Cittˆ, catena di montaggio del
to influence and norm the urban realm. Moreover, It is addressed
social: ideologia e teoria della metropolis (p. 173), published together
as an equipment of power in extremis that, inside an urban realm,
with Archizoom. The meeting of the two condition was one of the
is able to define what’s legal or illegal. Foucault states that the
major point addressed inside the project. Furthermore, this lead
road has three different functions (Michel Foucault, Foucault
to the abandoned of architecture and in the result of limits, of
Live: Interviews, 1961-84, p106-111). The first function consists in
walls. In relation to that architecture was substituted by industrial
ensuring a profit or a surplus of production, which it accomplishes
design, furniture, in an attempt to create a sort of collision point
by staging a dangerous face-off between two characters. Those two
between society and capitalism (Pier Vittorio Aureli, More and
characters are, on one side, the agent of power, the tax collector,
More about Less and Less, p9). The limitless reproducibility of the
payment agent or fiscal agent, while the second is the bandit or
plan was carrying the metaphor of reproduction of labour power
someone who subtract fees and which is placed against the agent
and the intrinsic aim of capitalism to expand it to the infinite (Pier
of power. The second function of the road is to produce maximum
Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy, p73). In this sense, the lack
demand in response to the surplus of production. The network
of a real urban realm, architecture, and infrastructure acquires a
connects consumers with products and gives them the possibility
deeper meaning in relation to the metaphor of city/capitalism. All
to act as they are supposed to do. All the rules of sale for Foucault
those elements are in fact merged on a neutral surface that hosts
are connected to this function: the location of the sale, the prices
its geometric purity only the objectives of the economy. The lack
of commodities, and most importantly, what can be bought and
of infrastructure, in particular, can be read in an interesting way if
sold. Two main characters are present also in this function, “the
compared to the analysis of Henri Lefebvre regarding the meaning
inspector, the controller, the customs and tollbooth agent,” and “on the
of the latter in urban realm and in the reproduction of labour. He
other side, the smuggler of contraband goods, the peddler”. The third
states that “transportation grids exemplify productive consumption, in
function is to “normalize subjects” in order to control production
the first place because they serve to move people and things through
and demand. Foucault says that “the highway ‘consumes’ the cars
the circuits of exchange, and secondly because they constitute a
whose production it ensures”. At the end, the road for Foucault is an
worldwide investment of knowledge in social reality” (The Production of
equipment that defines normality against abnormality. This view
Space, 345).
is shared by Koolhaas in his Generic City where infrastructures
In this sense the merged condition present in the No Stop
acquire means of control the city. He states that they changed
49
from being a delayed response to an urgent need to a strategic
framework (Hilberseimer, The Modern Metropolis, p.93). In fact,
weapon, a tool to set future development, to shape the urban fabric
as Hilberseimer continued, a new layout was essential in those
and predict its evolution (OMA, S,M,L,XL, p1264). The development
contexts in which the urban realm needs to answer and support
of a network of infrastructures in both Koolhaas and Lefebvre is
a rapid development. Thus, the so-called geometric city, that
able to determine which part of the city will be served better and
was already used during the classic age in relation to the Greek
will, in result, become more accessible or the contrary.In addition
colonial towns or the new foundation Roman Castra, became
to that those elements increases demand for labour force and give
the standard structure used from the Baroque Age to modern
the possibility to reinvest capital inside by the improvement and
times. Streets became “straight and broad, which carries the air of
adaptation of new flows and outside the city with the creation
greatness and majesty” (Alberti, Urban Design, p.133). This physical
of new kind of networks, both material or immaterial (Hannah B
characteristic was employed in most of the European cities in
Higgins, Grid Book. p76). Their scope is focused on macro-effect
order to organize the new socio-economical life. In fact, on the
of the city while in Foucault’s analysis the same element acts
one hand, as it was mentioned in the Paris of the XVI century,
on a smaller level, by focusing on the power the street carries
streets and public spaces were transformed by the political power
with its application over the land. In all of the three analysis the
to declare its “artificial manager” role in the contemporary society
infrastructure gets described as an element part of the urban
(see public/private space section). On the other hand, thanks to
environment with one physical manifestation able to carry multiple
the heavy increment of wheeled vehicles used in transports, the
nuances. In this sense the parallel with the grids of Agnes Martin or
city needed linear infrastructure in order to manage and optimise
the grid of the No Stop City fits the condition of the element.
the contemporary congestion. In fact, “the ways will be short and convenient if planned in a straight line” (pag.95). With the geometric city, streets lost their singularities and identity in order
URBAN FORM
to come back to the role of the infrastructural network, already expressed during the Roman Empire (P.V. Aureli, 2011).
“There are three kinds of scenes, one called tragic, second, the comic,
The relevance of street continued to grow in relationship to
third the satyric.Their decorations are different and unlike each other
the evolution of the economic system and of the technological
50
in the scheme.Tragic scenes are delineated with columns, pediments,
innovation. Thus, in its different declinations, this has become
statues, and other objects suited to kings; comic scenes exhibit private
the urban element that generates projects and, essentially, new
dwellings, with balconies and views representing rows of windows […]
modern cities (metropolis).
satyric scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains.”
“The existing congestion in the centre must be eliminated” (Larice,
Vitruvius, De Architectura
M.,The urban design reader p. 337). Whit this sentence, in 1929, Le Corbusier introduced his plan for a “Contemporary City of Three
Streets organize connections, divide and define spaces; they
Million people”. The project wanted to show the programmatic
“are the arteries of the entire organism” (Hilberseimer, The
plan whit which the Swiss architect was intended to build the
Modern Metropolis, p.90). These, as it is suggested by Vitruvius,
modern city. Le Corbusier’s aim was to design a new structure
assume different meaning according to their peculiarities and,
that could properly host the industrial life and its society. In fact,
simultaneously, time and space placements. However, streets
his aim was to replace the contemporary chaotic “old city”, based
hold their archetypal significance of being, “both path and place”
on its Medieval organic and natural origins, with a modern system
(Moughtin, Urban Design, p.133). Through the centuries cities have
based on geometric order. In fact, “the house, the street, the town,
developed and determined their forms following two different
are points to which human energy is directed […] if they are not
“urban types”. In this characterization, in which the two models
ordered, they oppose themselves to us” (Le Corbusier, Towards a
have influenced one another, streets have assumed several
New Architecture, p.33).
meanings and functionalities in relation to the different urban
The city is located on an ideal level site, that allows an easier
complexity. The first type, the “natural city”, identifies the Medieval
planning and organization of urban issues, in particular, those
settlement. Developed around a centre in which paths “radiate
regarding transportations. In fact, “where traffic become over-
out” (Hilberseimer, The Modern Metropolis, p.92), this was defined
intensified the level site gives a chance on a normal solution to
by the hegemony of the private realm. Thus, according to the
the problem”. On it, “a perfectly symmetrical grid of streets” is
analysis of the previous section, the micro-economical system
set down in order to provide the frame of the urban plan. “The
directly influenced the public space. In particular, as Serlio depicted
modern street in the true sense of the word is a new type of
in his interpretation of the Vitruvius’s “comic scene”, streets were
organism” (Larice, M.,The urban design reader p.339). On the one
“designed” by the forms of the individual house. These create a
hand, it contains and hides inside itself all the technical elements,
sinuous and fragmented framework (Sitte C., L’arte di costruire
such as water, electric and gas pipes in order to provide all the
le cittˆ), that completely fulfilled the mentioned self-sufficient
basic services to the community. On the other hand, it is divided
structure of the Medieval Island. This system, resulted from a “slow
into three different layers (or levels), allocating specific ways
and organic evolution”, was “shelved” by the politico-economic
of transport. This is in response to the non-classified traffic of
50structure in order to organise the city with a more efficient
the tradition city, that “is like dynamic flung at hazard into the
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street” (Larice, M.,The urban design reader p.339). In fact, the
plan, streets assume different forms, as for instance railways
levels partition, related to the different typologies of vehicles and
or highways. This peculiarity is not just related to the different
intensities of traffic, is able to define the suitable infrastructural
categories of flows. Indeed, street proportions and dimensions
space for each category. Thus, the system achieves the aim to
allow the city to define the right balance between the other
prevent the “wild” congestion observed in the city center of the
elements, as for examples the distance between buildings. Thus, in
“old” contemporary metropolis. Moreover, the vertical division of
a sense, it is possible to identify, in the figure of the street, not just
the different circulations, located under the ground level, allows
the “connector” and “generator” of the city, but also the “mediator”
the development of the “green pedestrian space”. The complexity
of all the elements that compose it. Thus, on all levels (social,
of this infrastructural layout determinates a fast circulation in
economic and politic) “the path system affects communication
which a quick access from the open country to the city center is
between
provided (Hilberseimer, The Modern Metropolis, p.74). The Streets
people” (Lynch, Site Planning, 131).
networks, in which “the right angle reigns supreme” (Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century, p.190), connects the different districts organized by the planning of mono-function areas. In particular, this is made possible thanks to the design of “two great superhighways (one running east-west, the other north-south) that run from the central axes; they intersect at the exact center of the city”. Here, instead of having the old urban building up area, the contemporary city locates its symbol: the central station (Larice, M.,The urban design reader p.117). “The right angle reigns supreme” (Fishman, 1977:190) on the composition; simultaneously, it ties and allocates the fundamental functions of the city. Around the central station, also called the “hub of the wheel”, the business district is located, following the use of the high-rise building typology (Larice, M.,The urban design reader p.2012: 340). Such as the infrastructure framework, these buildings show the power of the “massproduction system” (Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture). “Without the ability to enter, leave and move within it, to receive and transmit information or goods, space is of no value, however vast or rich in resources” Lynch K., Site Planning, p.118 In urban settlements, streets represent the physical object that, following the passage written by K. Lynch, creates the value of the space around it. In fact, this ties and connects all the elements that compose the city, organizing the urban flows and “binding together the social order” (Moughtin, Urban Design, p.131). To achieve this, a street works in two different scales, neighbourhood, and urban ones. This duality, as it was described above, can immediately be identified in the historical passage between the Medieval framework to the Baroque system. In fact, if in the Middle Age urban streets were mainly considered as the local space created by several private properties, with the beginning of the modernity, they have become the principal instrument used to organize the whole urban structure. Thus, thanks to the economic, politic and technological reasons described above, streets were planned not as “just” single entities, but as a structural network (usually arranged in a regular grid). In particular, this last aspect is essential in a situation in with the city has to manage a high congestion of flows. In fact, when the channels (streets) are organized into networks, these “distribute the flows over large areas” (Lynch, Site Planning, p.121). The infrastructural system needs to organize this amount of traffic diversifying itself, according to the different
52type of transportations. Thus, as it is clear in the Le Corbusier
CONCLUSION
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So here I'm sitting in this lovely warm lab and just outside is the environment that Scott and Shackleton first faced when they came here about 100 years ago. Unlike Scott and Shackleton, who viewed the ice as this sort of static monster that had to be crossed to get to the South Pole, we scientists now are able to see the ice as a dynamic living entity that is sort of producing change, like the icebergs that I study. For me, it’s been a wild ride. First of all, I found out that the iceberg that I came down to study not only was larger than the iceberg that sank the Titanic, it was not only larger than the Titanic itself, but it was larger than the country that built the Titanic. That’s pretty big.
15:06 15:11 15:15 15:18 15:23 15:28 15:32 15:34 15:38 15:42 15:47 15:51 15:57 16:02
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1 lead to fragmentation of the urban environment. Bigger networks The B-15 is one of the biggest icebergs in Antarctica. It was meaare destroying smaller local realities (City Reader, p.666).The fluxes sured 295 kilometres in length and it is 37 wide, from the level of they serve are too fast and overwhelming to care about smaller the sea it measures 46 meters, it’s total height is 305 meters. In ones. Is this an issue? Is this bad? No, it is not. It is different, not the documentary Encounters at the End of the World (2007), Werbad. Or better, this is not the space for nostalgic judgements. It is ner Herzog during his journey in Antarctica interviews Douglas different systems on different levels that are connected to reality MacAyeal, a glaciologist who is researching the B-15 and its moveand will always be. They will affect each other and our interested ments while drifting towards the North. The iceberg movement, was to watch this interaction, trying to analyse it and, possibly to for his size and the total content of water it is made of, could have understand something more. It might definitely be too pretentious a serious possible effect on the global environment. MacAyeal is to compare us to Werner Herzog going in Antarctica seeking for clearly fascinated by that, by the size of this objects and its increan understanding, some answer, but in some way, we could be dible size. Its incredible bigness and mass similar. Not capable or, even smart, as him. make it look like an entity in the eyes of We only travelled a similar journey. In a the researcher. The poetry of this objects vast environment, bigger than us and too is fascinating beyond any doubt. The B-15 complex in its whole to be understood is not a simple massive piece of ice floating and sealed in a single comprehensive defion the sea. It is a dynamic living entity. nition. We stumble upon this vastness and Despite its mass it moves, it suffers chanwe tried to follow a path. That space was ges, yet it still remains enormous and huge. Like the global city almost. keeps quietly drifting. It is enormous but we can only see its top, most of it is un3 derwater. And we cannot see it but we can Is this big scale of the global city impossiperceive it.We can study it but we will not ble to reach? Maybe yes, maybe no. Again, be able to control it, not in its totality. In this is not the issue. The subject was stumany sense, it is like a city. A city as well died following two different perspectives is a dynamic living entity. It is always theand questioned inside a series of topics re and always will be. It will suffer from that helped discern the subject and the changes, major one sometimes, but its understanding of the latter. A series of aninner structure, its identity will remain. It swers have been found but they are not can vary in sizes, and when it is big enouaxiomatic and they’re not intended to be. gh it will be uncontrollable in its totality. More than answers, in fact, it would be Some might have the ability to control it more correct to say that what was found in, maybe, certain portion but most of its was a series of suggestions regarding the citizens will not. They will live its spaces city. Each topic was analysed without the and inhabit inside its residential areas and intention of finding an absolute character, work in its business districts. The city will but with the aim to achieve an understannot move but it may expand and or shift ding of it. Both analyses took into considevery slowly, leaving on the land a set of ration specific opinions and case studies abandoned neighbours. It will expand that were helped recognise some peculiar gaining territories against the landscape character between the lines. Different against the wild. It might not be a physical scopes were used too, and they lead often expansion, maybe not anymore, maybe a to different assertions at the end. We did regional one. Or maybe it will expand its seek a wide spectrum of answers that will d1 networks, even the immaterial ones. The net will cover everything be compared and summarise in the following paragraphs. and it will become a city or the opposite. It will all be a heterogeneous machine, body or any other metaphor one could use to 4.1 The Limit describe it in its totality. The starting point was to study the topic of the limit in relation to an urban environment. The topic was addressed in two separate 2 ways lead the topic to a similar conclusion. The limit in relation How big will it be? Is there a scale? And if so, which one could be to the urban form addressed by the usage of perimetrical walls in right? We will not answer this question, not that we do not want the Islamic city. This architectural element defined the boundaries to, we simply do not have an idea. We could take the global city for that circumscribed the city both physically and metaphysically. Apexample.The global city is pretty big, it sounds at least, but as stated plying those borders on the land set the basics to the definition by Brenner and Keil, it is also able to break up local realities and of a social, political and religious identity and gave the possibility
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for further develop those latter. The grid, on the other hand, was addressed by the connection that some theory underlined between the development of writing and the evolution and, subsequent, application of the grid in a more comprehensive way. The aim that both analyses highlighted was that those elements, wall, and grid, shared similar goals recognisable in the definition of a political and economic identity. Furthermore, the control and regulation of the latter was, also, part of the shared aim. This similarity was also found in the importance of communication. The limit acquired the objective to translate this aim onto the land first and the city later. It is an enclosure that aims to determine a space. This enclosure, at first, could be read as an obstacle that will not allow further expansion but this impression is faulty. The case studied, in fact, showed that even when the limit got translated into a wall, a physical border this limit was not an obstacle but more like an enzyme able to convey certain wills to a specify result. The limits, in fact, gives the ability to acquire control over a determined situation and set the boundaries to future development. In the diagram d1, the limit is represented visually for what we imagined it to be a border enclosing a certain portion of space and because of that establishing relationships with both the inner and the outer. This limit is so translated into a squared shape. This spare manifests an interaction with the space that is concentrated on his perimeter. There are to action that the sure is able to host, the effect towards the inside and the one towards the outside. Both phenomena happen simultaneously, they are not equivalent neither different. They can be one of the two but this concerns the specific case one might take into consideration. It is possible to visualise this effects as tensions, normal vectors on the perimeter acting simultaneously in both directions.
in particular, the peculiarity expressed by Higgins of persistency. In fact, this creates a constant, an element of continuity in the alteration of the urban tissue. Thus, the grid has become the structural symbol of civilization, the means with which the society was organized and controlled. Moreover, it represents an essential element of the historical evolution. In fact, such as in the myth of Mrs. O’Learly and the Chicago fire, it was constantly used and replaced by a new one in order to define habits and characteristics of the latest society. Ones located, the original grid never disappears, it remains in the “background town planning” as the base with which new elements have to relate to in the urban stratification. A similar aspect can be identified in those punctual objects located on city plots, with or without the use of a framework. These, belonging to a public or private realm, define with their language a cultural message. This can be translated and, in some cases, used in order to create a sense of identity. Thus, as it happened with the architecture of totalitarianism, the employment of archetypes became the first passage in order to organize a shared culture. The term indicates those physical elements or forms that have remained constants through time, as for instance Greek classic canons. Moreover, they define a sense of community-related to the stratification process of the human memory. Nevertheless, as Norberg-Schulz mentioned, archetypes need to interact with other two characteristics, the style, and tradition, in order to clearly declare its identity role. In fact, these two extra elements allow to allocate the unvaried architectural language in a specific time and space (hic et nunc). Thus, as it was promoted by the Fascist regime, public buildings need to show their duality between idealistic forms and the contemporary trends in order to outline a grammar that is able to produce a cultural identity. In a more abstract and generic sense, identity can be seen as a shape. A geometric form that is universally recognizable, inasmuch it creates and embraces the human environment. This, in the vision of the Russian ard2 4.2 The Identity tist Kazimir Malevich in the painting “Black Constants represent essential elements in the complex morphoSquare” (1915), is depicted, in a two-dimensional space, such as a logy expressed by urban systems. These reflect into several difsquare. That essential element, used to express the supremacy of ferent elements, those that act in the background and those that the abstract art (Suprematism), has in its “pure non-objectivity” a show themselves as cultural and civic symbols. The first type is complex significant. In fact, from one point of view, it defines the represented by urban entities that had created the original form ethereal and eternal form, stable in its perfection. However, its of the city. Moreover, they constantly remain in the urban system purity and constancy cannot just be seen as a static forma mentis. and continue to act in order to define the guidelines for the deveIn fact, through its movement in the space, it becomes a generator lopment of the tissue. In this sense can be described the grid and, of new forms.Thus, as the scheme shows, a vertical and horizontal
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translations create the cross. Moreover, starting from a vertex, the square can depict a circle. These two new elements describe additional geometrical situations that define new variables and creators. Thus, a single and essential element, as for instance a line, can mutate its appearance in something new and more complex identifying a different composition. From that, a new unity is created in which the most complex figure contained its personal visual and geometrical meanings and, at the same time, a “memory” of its ancestor. Thus, regarding the city, identity is recognizable in those elements, physical and abstract, punctual or spread, that are able to influence, thanks to the duality just described, the surrounding environment. In fact, they affect the memory of inhabitants with a structure that defines in itself the universal archetypical origin and, at the same time, its variation caused by time and space.
one, one built in an environment.Those conditions are merging together in the city affecting each other anymore importantly the negative space they left. Another starting point that was used was the analysis of a peculiar project form OMA in relation to this topic, the Esposition Universelle of 1982. The project for the Expo Paris 89 used the grid with urban means to organise the site of the project by dividing it in equal plots in a minimal act.The project gave the possibility to start a review of the thinking of Koolhaas and Oswald Mathias Ungers ad the evolution of the term of residual space. On the other hand, the urban form gave the possibility to acquitter awareness of the historic evolution that urban space had in relation to power and economy.The example of Paris was taken into account and the shift from a medieval to a modern sense of urban space. The evolution undertook changed the meaning of urban space in the sense that the control over its shape increased and the political and economical went translated over the urban fabric. The change could be seen as a shift from a chaotic condition towards one more regulated. Furthermore, the standardisation of urban space was a consequence of private necessities that had been translated in the urban fabric. The diagram d3 shows how the residual space in relation to architecture developed from the condition of being chaotic and causal for the certain extent and how this process evolved in a more organise setting consequence of economical and political changes.The sequence is concluded by the union of both latter and the creation of a new kind of model. This condition is recognised by Koolhaas in the Generic City that recognised horizontal development of slums as a new form of city that answer to pure economic needs. The diagram, in fact, tries to summarise this evolution from a chaotic condition to a regulated one, both follow by the union between the previous two or the coming back of a more chaotic one.
4.3 The Residual Space Residual is a kind of space that was firstly introduced by Rem Koolhaas while describing the Generic City. The condition of the residual in its analysis addressed the evolution of the structural condition this space underwent during history. In Koolhaas view, this space is mostly the green one, parks and green oasis that from an almost neutral state evolved in a more mystical, edenic one. In the inevitable evolution and profit-seeking realm that the city became this space is like a rare metal, it is the public, un-profitable, space. Using this term helped in addressing the topic of public space and connect multiple sources that, at the end, enable the analysis to expand the meaning of residual in the more abstract way. The residual became the condition of overlapping grids proper on one side of the architectural, and on the other of the urban realm. The coexistence of various grids on multiple levels of action creates the residual and the reason has to be found in the inner structure of both the Architecture and the City. In this sense, the studies of Mario Gandeld3 sonas made possible to reach a correla4.4 The Politics of Economy tion between City and Architecture while extending the definition The city, requoting the words used by Mumford from “What is a from Koolhaas. Both the City and the Architecture manifested an City?”, can be described as theatre setting in two elements: the inner dyad. Regarding the City they are the city of memory and city physical framework that represents the scene, and the sociality of constant change, while for Architecture the fantasy and urban that identifies the actors. The point of connection between the characters. The City can live in the extremity of constant stability two entities is observed in the act, the performance. This, which and preservation or, on the contrary, manifests a perpetual change finds its embodiment in the economy, on the one hand, defines the continuously adapting to new needs. The Architecture is divided routine that has to be acted by the society; on the other hand, it in the condition of being an ideal project instead of a realistic requires the proper scene in which can be performed. Thus, the
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expression politic of economy, used by David Harvey in The Right to the two capitals of Rome and Athens. In particular, if in the Italian the City, can be clearly understood. Indeed, it consists in the manisystem the appearance of the abusivismo was directly related to festation of the economic interest in the city. In the last centuries, a lack of regulations, the Greek framework was more structured. the politics of economy has been usually related to the capitalism, The example shows a policy that wanted to build the entire sothat represents the prevalent economic system employed in most ciety around the meaning of the small capitalism. Thus, providing of the State in the World.This finds its creed in the meaning of the only a general infrastructural planning, the morphology of the city accumulation and its relative reinvestment. Basically, this afflicts was defined by the private ownership that has imposed its scathe city in its need of endless expansion and the relative issues le and own grid in the space in which it interacts. In opposition connected to the rigidity of the urban structure.The process with with the regularity ad geometry of the Parisian and Catalan urban which the city tries to answer and indulgrids, the result is the organic city. Out ge the economic realm is controlled by of the considerations around the means different actors. On the one hand, by the employed by politics, the constant is that political power that “can be viewed as the these actions take places in order to acfirst product of the technical age”. In fact, the complish the capitalistic aims. In fact, in all so-called apparatus (T. Hobbes) has to mathe cases, the morphology of the city is afnage the framework in order to originate fected by the economic impositions.These and organize a “well-functioning machine”. are related to the meaning of surplus and On the other hand, the private interests its reinvestment. This action, innate in the that forced urban decisions and changes capitalistic structure, cannot be stopped in the name of the capitalistic profit. In this without change this economic model. In act, the starting point is the city, descrifact, without reinvestment, the system colbed in its complexity as a circle, and the lapses. Thus, as long as the capitalism will conclusion is represented still by the city. be “alive”, the city has to provide a proper In fact, the changes required by the capitaplace in which economy can develop itself. lism do not affect the status of the urban system. Instead, permutations modify the 4.5 The Infrastructure internal structure and its appearance. The The grid aspect of infrastructure led to a operation, imposed by capitalism, can be general analysis on the topic of network achieved thanks to different means and and their potential ability to carry mulstrategies. One of these is the grid, that tiple meaning. The topic was addressed depict a common solution applied by the using a very wide scope and starting by political realm through the modern times. the analysis done by Rosalind Krauss on In fact, this defines a regulated framework the topic of grids and their ability to host with which the city is able to answer the very mixed and distant characters. This constant research of efficiency. This element part was related to the work of the paincan work thanks to several possible reter Agnes Martin and the collective Archilations with the original city. On the one zoom with their project hand, with the superimposition, such as No Stop City. the Hausmannian plan for Paris shown. The commonalities found between the Here the ancient system cannot fit anytwo while using the analysis of Krauss as more in the capitalistic society.Thus, it was a scope allowed in first pale a compariused as a “laboratory” in order to exceed son and an abstraction of the grid in both the contemporary economic crisis. On the works. The grids were then taken into other hand, the relationship is non-deconsideration as structures and their mastructive. As it is visible in the Cerda’s plan nifested dualism as a constant ability to d4 for Barcelona, the grid is used around the carry discordant messages. The grid was city center answering the accelerated expansion. Nevertheless, the then addressed as infrastructure and by adding the studios of meaning of the grid application is always the same as it refers to Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, and Rem Koolhaas, analysed as a the “economic control of the social class”. tool able to translate on the urban fabric the need of production In opposition to the strong imposition of the grid, a similar ecoand consumption of capital. All the three authors gave also the nomic result can be achieved with the non-action, a conscious possibility to understand the social implication of this structure non-planning. This is established thanks to general and inapproand cycle that occurs anytime the infrastructure collide with an priate rules in order to vacate the urban land to the capitalistic existing realm. interest. This strategy was the one developed and promoted in The infrastructure was then summarised as a tool able to embra-
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ce both economic, political and social means and to apply them to the city with both positive and negative effects depending on the interaction of this three components. The urban form, on the other hand, gave the possibility to compare previous historical conditions with more recent ones. By using the definition from Ludwig Hilberseimer of natural city and geometric city, the topic was analysed in his physical structure manifested within the urban field. The definition of Hilberseimer allowed also the comparison between the two systems and their historical value and meaning. The natural city is the one that manifested a radial expansion in relation to a centre while, on the contrary, the geometric one is the one closer to contemporary conditions and which manifested itself by the development of infrastructure with the aim of serve a faster communication and a rapid development. Furthermore, thanks to the analysis of examples like the Contemporary City for Three Million People of Le Corbusier this condition in the geometric city was clarified and addressed in its utopian and more pure condition. The infrastructures in relation to the urban form were then analysed by the study of Kevin Lynch in his Site Planning. Under his theory, the infrastructure was then read as a unmissable constant inside the urban field assuming the character of a connector, generator and mediator of all the other elements of the City. The diagram d5 shows the relationship between the evolution of the infrastructure, translated as an horizontal line evolving exponentially trough time and acquiring, reaching the status of City itself following the interpretations that Koolhaas, Lefebvre, and Foucault gave of the importance of this element and its ability to deeply affect the planning and future development of the City. 5 “The world is going to hell in a toboggan, and I’m putting these boxes together … . But, you know, that’s not the point.The point is …[ the idea ] is followed absolutely to its conclusion, which is mechanistic. It has no validity as anything except a process in itself. It has nothing to do with that world at all” Sol LeWitt, 1969 In 1967 Sol LeWitt announced an exhibition of his work inn the Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles. The piece was proposed to the public with a drawing of a plan for it. It was a set of nine pieces described both graphically by a gridded form and both by written
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language. The grid consisted of a division of a square in nine equivalent parts, hosting each of them nine separated pieces isolated from each other and number from one to nine. The pieces apparently are separated, more distinct one from each other. Eva Meltzer in The Dream of the Information World, compares them to a previous work from Lewitt, Serial Project #1 (ABCD) from 1966. Each piece with this comparison, she states, can be seen as distinct by the uniqueness in its variation. But like in Serial Project each portion rely on a grid and each field of this grid is host a cubic form that rises to incremental heights, in a way similar to an “urban landscape” or an “architectural model”. Meltzer specifies that this analogy does not have to be intended literally but it allows to see both projects as structural pieces, a term that LeWitt used to address his sculptures too. In 1968, Jean Piaget, in his Structuralism defines the term structure in this sense, “a structure is not a mere collection of elements and their properties”, but rather, “involves laws: the structure is preserved or enriched by the interplay of its transformation laws, which never yield results external to the system or employ elements that are external to it”. Piaget continues addressing the elements on this structure which “do not exist in isolation from one another, nor were they discovered one by one in some accidental sequence and then, finally, united into a whole. They do not come upon the scene except as order” (Piaget, Structuralism, p7). 6 In this definition of structures, the analogy with the City plan is quite revelatory. Can the City be seen as a structure? Yes, why not. Maybe more realistically as a series of structures layered by time on each other. A series of pieces interacting among themselves and influencing their composition their rules they once were setting upon the field they were placed. It could be just that, but maybe it is not.We cannot simplify the City that much. A City is not a sculpture, or better just a structure. It is more complex than that. This is maybe due to the richness of the structures that compose it at the end. The City is not only a squared based grid filled with set and static rules for each portion. It is like the B-15, a dynamic living entity. A City, in the end, is the structure to host life. Aristotle divides it in Political and Economic and that’s what it is. Those two techné constitute the minimal module and their development in all the different branches we can observe or imagine will then split them
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into smaller pieces and develop separately various scenarios. All of this will affect the structure they rely on, chaining it, adding new structures, destroying some others, extending or enclosing other ones, and so on. 7 Did we reach something? Maybe yes or maybe no. We did chase some answers. Answers to a series of very complex questions that lead us to even more complex ones. Facing this complexity is scary but exciting. Is there an Answer out there? Again, maybe yes or maybe no. We feel like Marvin Pontiac right now. Or better like John Lurie.
“Well I'm walking because I don't feel like myself I feel out of sorts and confused and I’m out of balance So I'm walking and I'm trying to get some kind of answers Because I wannawannawannawannawannawannawanna know why I really wannawannawannawannawannawannawanna know why Wannawannawannawannawannawannawanna know why I really wannawannawannawannawannawannawanna know why” (John Lurie, Wanna Wanna,The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits, 1977)
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UNTITLED#0,0 John Hurt is an average middle-aged man, neither tall nor short, with brown hair and eyes. He does not have any kind of peculiarities, except for the few wrinkles, recently appeared on his faces. As most of the inhabitants of Mars, he is the owner of the acre in which later on his dwelling was built. Since the beginning of the recolonization of the planet, this action has represented the indispensable pass in order to put a mark and start to be part of the Martian society. Compare to the latecomers, John is considerable quite lucky. In fact, his grand-grand-grandfather had recognized immediately the potentiality of buying land on the “hostile” and uninhabited planet. For this reason, John’s acre is located on the coordinates x005; y000, just five blocks far from the so-called Red Point. This was the first land bought and built. In its square perimeter of 60 meters by 60, it is possible to identify all the essential peculiarities and the intrinsic nature of the megalopolis. In fact, the Red Point had defined the grid from which everything was developed and, at the same times, it represents the archetypal standard from which the other blocks were deduced. Before going to work, John uses to spend few minutes on watching that old building. Although in the contemporary city this edifice appears such as an abstract anonymous entity, for our “hero”, the red (yes, buildings can use just site materials) 5 stories block infuses on him a sense of completeness. Observing the Red Point, John is able to understand and get used to the life around it and be prepared for his working routine. Instead of going directly to the Circle#47, John loves to walk for few blocks, with the purpose of feeling the ordinary morning city’s tumult, and why not, also briefing some “fresh air”. Thus, with a certain rigor, he dresses his black suit, takes his bag and leaves the acre x005; y000. The space between buildings is not scanned by streets like happened on Earth. In fact, this capitalist view, in which transports need to go fast in the name of the productivity, is built on the air, in between blocks and the unlimited transparent covering. This huge and complex network is able to bind, under its control, all the elements of the city. As economic tentacles, the infrastructure connected all the individual blocks (that physically supported it) to the heart of productivity: the Circle#47. The complexity of the network, in which all the streets are located, is able to leave the action free on the ground level. This, also described such as the space in between buildings, is the path on which our John is walking above. It identifies the place in which the generic individual is able to move and lose himself, apparently, without any capitalistic logic. Unfortunately for John and his compatriots, this was just a pure illusion. In fact, the grid and the acre define the units of the capitalistic development and, at the same time, they generate this public path. The space, the land of freedom, is just another “tile” of the economic realm in which John is “drowned”. In other words, the path is just the result of a capitalistic
environment. Walking randomly on it allows our protagonist to focus on two interesting aspects of the city structure. In fact, with a spasmodic research of differences, John annotates in his mind all the additions and variations in the language of building, creating a critical comparison with his acre and, in particular, the near Red Point. In fact, especially in the newest, he is always surprised to discover new constants in the style, something far from his old unit. At the same time, thanks to the time passed in the “veneration” of the Point, he recognizes in the contemporary mix of forms, the shared “taste” that was so discussed at work. Secondly, he likes to discover those small activities that organize the life outside the Circle#47. In his mind, they appear so different and curious to the pure capitalism of the center. “Small businesses that follow regulations, something so attractively crazy” he usually thinks walking around them. After this bucolic trip, John always loses the perception of time. So, without any exception, also this time, he runs to the nearest train access in order to not arrive in late at work. This is located at the top of a quite new building. Because of its modern majesty, the complex is physically permeated by the infrastructure, defining an interesting balance between powers. One rose, instead of hearing discussions between colleagues, John is more interested in something else. In fact, from this overhead system, he is able to watch the complex vastness of the metropolis and at the same time the structure of the transparent roof. He uses to be so proud of himself, watching the unit of the covering and knowing the reason of its dimension. “This was related to the Red Point, that 60x60 that I have the honor to watch every morning”. After an unidentified period of time, the train goes underground and, almost immediately, stops its run: he is finally in. Circle#47 is a difficult entity to describe. In fact, it changes so fast that every day represents a new challenge for John and his colleagues to find their workplaces. “Streets” switch names and directions with new buildings that dominate the old ones. Materials, methodically set aside, are ready to be employed. To identify his building, John uses the only constant element located there: the external wall. This limits this strange space in which, which in the name of capitalism, no rules are applied. Everything is built and destroy in order to define and create profit. Buildings climb the wall as if they want to escape from this enclosure and conquer the entire territory. Finished his work shift, John hardy finds the new way for the underground gates, the symbol of his apparent freedom. In fact, once crossed it, he can come back to his thoughts and personal hobbies. This short story was the Martian everyday life of John, an average middle-aged man, neither tall nor short, with brown hair and eyes.
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Satellite View 1km
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The Original deed of the Red Point
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Leaving Planet Earth Red Point, Sketch
Building the Capitalist Circle Play with the Grid First Proposal for the City
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THE PLAN OF UNTITLED CITY
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THE PLAN OF UNTITLED CITY
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PORTIONS OF UNTITLED CITY
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PORTIONS OF UNTITLED CITY
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CUBES OF UNTITLED CITY
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CUBES OF UNTITLED CITY
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PEOPLE OF UNTITLED CITY
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