A Journey of
From a Social Utopia through the Promised Land of Capitalist Society. Juan Gurrea Rumeu
Only those who know sehnsucht Know what sorrows me! Alone and separated From all joy, I behold the firmament From yonder side.
Ah! the one who loves and knows me Is in the vast unknown. It dizzies me, it burns my guts. Only those who know sehnsucht Know how I suffer!
Goethe
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I would like to thank my tutor, Barry Curtis, for his support and inspiration; My mother, Teresa, for helping me see what I had ignored; My brother, Alvaro, for the photographies; Lourdes and Javier for their time and for opening their house for me and Serena Vergano for her time and the information provided at the Taller de Arquitectura.
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Š Juguru 2015 Tutor: Barry Curtis Word Count: 10,426
Note: the text in blue represents the subjective part of the thesis, written in the form of a short novel. It encloses personal reflections, real and imagined experiences and first hand interviews.
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CONTENTS 1. Introduction 6
2. Sehnsucht, The Birth of Utopia 12
3. The Positive Failure of Utopia 22
4. Communal Idealism: Building From Fiction 26
5. Promi$ed Land: A Neo-Liberal Paradise 47
6. Comparisons for a Re-Evolution 69
Bibliography 78
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1
Introduction
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This dissertation goes -though rather accidentally- in line with the story of my life. I spent my whole youth in a house just a few minutes walk from Walden7, Ricardo Bofill’s questionably successful utopian community on the outskirts of Barcelona. I actually lived there very briefly, as a child, while the construction of our new house was being finalised. I barely keep any memories of my time at the building, and for all the later years I would only see it as a strange, gigantic red construction with plenty of entrances and mysterious corners. The ideal labyrinth to hide and get dizzy smoking our first cigarettes at the age of 14 with a friend who lived there. Never, until recently, was I familiar with the utopian connotations of Walden7, ambitiously planned by Ricardo Bofill and his team during the last years of the Spanish fascist dictatorship (1970-1975). That building was one of the countless spatial experiences that would unconsciously influence my growing interest in architecture, which has eventually brought me to the Royal College of Art in London. The second case study is in my new city; a building -in a category of many- that I see as another type of utopia, one could say a much more selfish one; the Richard Roger’s designed One Hyde Park apartment complex for the super-rich. These two completely opposite types of urban utopia have ironically been at walking distance from my houses in Barcelona and later in London. However, the selection is far from being arbitrary; they embody crucial issues of contemporary society that expand much beyond architecture. They were both planned by well-known architects, though each being a product of radically different programs and social demands and seeking highly dissimilar objectives. We could classify them, as a point of departure, as a socialist utopia (Walden7) and a Neo Liberal one (One Hyde Park);
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both inevitably condemned to fail by their own existential condition. Ever since I started my studies in architecture I have been deeply intrigued by utopia. Not just because I consider it to be a fascinating and much needed failure of humanity –for it can never be achieved- but because I have always felt a strong thirst for it myself –incorporating it into my architectural designs- through the manifestation of a feeling best described by a German word: Sehnsucht. …
The term Sehnsucht comes from the German vocabulary and it is as unique as the meaning it encloses, not having an accurate translation into any other language. The nearest approximation in English (Longing) does not fully represent the complex connotations of the word which gives a representative title to this thesis. Likewise, it is challenging to suggest an objective definition as it relates to a highly personal and subjective feeling, a particular type of nostalgia that can either be individual or shared. Perhaps one of the most illustrative descriptions according to my own understanding of Sehnsucht, is found in CS Lewis book Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”1 The term deals with a profound discontent of either a single subject or a community with their existing situation, and a simultaneous longing for a perfect –unknown- world. This psychological concept manifests itself in an intense desire for alternative states and realisations of life.2 It is, thus, a recurrent feeling that has travelled through individual and collective souls along the course of history, push-
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ing us to worry and speculate about the fate of mankind while seeking radical actions to transform it. Giving birth, as a result, to the remarkable phenomenon of Utopia. Following this direction, it has been frequent to man to envision the future as a separate entity of reality that almost does not belong to a gradual modelling of the present. A made-up image instantly born somewhere in forthcoming time based on an analysis of present circumstances and a prediction of –more or less substantiated- upcoming events. From early times and more pertinently from the end of the industrial revolution and the beginning of the “urban society”, numerous thinkers have devoted to visualize conceptual futures within different fields. Ranging from Art, Politics, Science Fiction or Architecture, an idealistic hope for a “perfect world” has repeatedly emerged, always influenced by the social, political and economic contexts of each period. Parallel to these, speculations have frequently dealt with dystopias instigated by the imposition of imminent “threats” ranging from urban growth to the power of technology. Many of which, though secular, have coincided in sharing apocalyptic visions that trace back to religion.3 With more or less chances of success, a number of these theories have been coined by their authors with a real intention to change the world we live in. As impossible as they might have looked, Utopian dreamers have often believed in the actual implementation of their policies to break or reconfigure the established rules of society. In this paper, the objects of study are two contradictory architectural cases of utopia that share the ingredient of Sehnsucht; Walden7, an ambitious, socially committed enterprise weakened by its idealistic naivety; and One Hyde Park, a profit utopia which is both a residential paradise and a symbol of rampant materialism and social exclusion.
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Images Top: Walden 7 (Courtesy of the Taller de Arquitectura) Bottom: One Hyde Park (http://www.thegoodpropertyguide. com/index.php/the-most-exclusive-address-in-the-world/)
1. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 2. Susanne Scheibe, Alexandra M. Freund, Paul B. Baltes, Toward a Developmental Psychology of Sehnsucht (Life Longings): The Optimal (Utopian) Life, p. 778 3. John Gray, Black Mass, p.8
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2
Sehnsucht: The Birth of Utopia
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I do not hear, smell, or see anything; I do not feel my heartbeat nor the air caressing my skin. I am not fully aware of my presence yet I feel the present moment with clarity. Where am I? I cannot identify a place in this darkness. I only see a thin white spot of light that somehow connects me to a certain truth. How did I possibly get here? My mind stays a tabula rasa, I recall no journey nor memories. No clock is ticking and time does no longer appear to exist. I do not feel pain, not fear anything; my primary instincts are gone. Failing to answer the questions of where and when I am, I try to analyse the meaning of my current situation. I cannot find mundane responses to what I feel, stuck in an unrecognizable state of mind where time and place do not seem to matter. All I know is although everything is uncertain, my soul is swimming in an ocean of harmony. I am convinced that I could rest in this shell forever, in absolute peace. Something awakens me and unveils the truth hidden in the thin white spot of light. I was trapped in the bare present, utterly uncontaminated from ghosts of the past or anxious visions of the future. Dwelling a new reality that had always been there, polluted by further conditions of time. The present had come in front of my eyes as it is, naked, freed from all previous experience and worry.
The white spot suddenly becomes immense, flooding the space around me with light and blinding me almost instantaneously. The peace and harmony of my soul transform into restlessness and impatience. The blank canvas of my mind is splattered with countless traces of information that I cannot yet identify. I discover my hands, trembling and sweating, and I immediately cover my face with them; trying to gain more consciousness of my body. My heart is beating
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really fast, reverberating in each and every other one of my organs. As I become more aware of myself I notice I am exposed to a spatial immensity. I gradually gain enough confidence to start walking forward; struggling in every step towards a mystery I truly want to resolve. My mind dictates a path that I follow; hesitating at first, then with determination, crossing the threshold towards a realm of uncertainty.
I find myself in a room of incalculable dimensions. A new beginning, it appears. Even though I cannot remember who I am and where I come from, I feel a profound state of nostalgia, longing and hope. I see nothing but an isolated door which I am approaching decisively, trying to get away from this psychological prison. The more I walk in its direction, the further it is. I run faster and faster without success, not knowing what I am going to find beyond that door, and yet so desperate to reach it. An inexplicable sensation drives me towards it, telling me that out there I will find all the answers I am looking for. A world of perfection where my dreams will become reality. I do not stop running, almost fainting, and the door does not come any closer. My vision is so blurred that I do not see the precipice. All of a sudden, my feet lose contact with the ground and I find myself suspended in the air, slowly falling into a deep dark hole. ‌
If we want to understand the fundamental motives of Utopia we have to observe its roots within the human intellect. To start identifying the foundations which support the greatest utopian worlds, it is essential to go back into the cognitive mechanisms of individual subjects, with their associated psychological conflicts and motivations.
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There is a particular type of bittersweet nostalgia, Sehnsucht, which enables us to envision and imagine the realisation of ideal life states within our mind. It arises primarily as a consequence of our own perception of time, making the most improbable dreams seem possible and significantly rising the expectations on our own life and the society we live in. According to E.R. Clay, whose principles were further developed by the notable psychologist William James; as human beings we apprehend time in four parts: the obvious past, the specious present, the real present and the future. The Real Present is in fact the only true condition of time, although being imperceptible in the course of an active daily routine unless intentionally approached through meditation. This chronological dimension alone could never provide us with more knowledge except that of the present instant, making impossible the acquisition of experience. Clay states “Time; Omitting the specious present, consists of three nonentities: the past, which does not exist, the future, which does not exist, and their conterminous, the present; the faculty from which it proceeds lies to us in the fiction of the specious present�.1 Therefore, in our day to day life we actually operate within a –specious- present always altered by illusions of past and future; never being fully immersed in the pureness of the now. Within this mental context is where the feeling of Sehnsucht finds the tools for its origination. A sentiment born in the present necessarily moved by roots of the past and aspirations for the future. Generating at the same time a strong nostalgia, discontent with the present and vivid ambitions for a distant future. According to a comprehensive study on Sehnsucht carried out by the University of Virginia in collaboration with the University of Zurich, the term is characterised by 6 points
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derived from both existing psychological and humanist literature and Life span theory. These can be summarised in thoughts, desires and emotions associated with the search for a utopian life; a sense of incompleteness and perfection; emotional ambivalence of simultaneous gains and losses relative to the longed-for reality; Self-critical reflections on the past, present and expected future and a symbolic richness that puts together the intellectual and emotional depictions related with the longed-for condition, with a wider network of judgements and feelings concerning one’s actual life progress. 2 All these arguments share the characteristic that Life Longings have to do with the wholeness of life; retrospection, concurrent evaluation and prospection operate together in creating the psychological experience. 3 Sehnsucht as such only represents an empty stage set where Utopian plays find the right framework for their performance, but there are additional intellectual structures that help orchestrate their elaborate scripts. Although every plan towards world perfection is affected by different contexts and objectives, the rational analysis of contemporary facts has a limited repercussion on utopias of the mind. Their principles originate in a world that does not exist outside imagination but beyond history and society, inexorably crashing with the status quo of the physical instant. 4 Karl Manheim considers a state of mind to be utopian when it is “incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs.� That is, when it is oriented towards realities which transcend our current condition, ambitioning objects unavailable in the existing order of things.5 Which are, thus, the other components that build up this imaginary world of the mind? where everything is possible so long as it is not brought down to the flesh.
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It has been seen that all utopias share essential similarities which are a result of well-established cognitive basis, differentiating them from other ideological forms of thought. An interesting approach is the one found in John Gray’s book Black Mass, Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia. From his point of view all Utopias are, more or less consciously, affected by religious tradition; “Although being framed in secular terms that deny the truth of religion (they) are in fact vehicles for religious myths�.6 He finds in the characteristics of all modern utopias an evident similarity with the imminent End-Time first envisioned by Jesus and his followers; that turning point that would annihilate all evils of the world while wiping away all existing tragedies. Those visions of apocalypse, although reinterpreted as a metaphor for spiritual renovation by later influential figures in the Christian world, have been haunting western life ever since those early beginnings. This statements, in fact, come apparent if we look into various cases of utopian and dystopian fictions over time. One of the most visible characteristics of such fantasies is the need for a new start usually derived from a disaster, which instantly destroys all elements of the past and lays down a radically new reality. Sir Thomas More, the creator of the term that gave rise to a whole literary genre, developed the principles of his dreamed up commonwealth in a time of violence and chaos; Utopia was aimed to be a link between the medieval old order and the renovated interests and organisations of the renaissance.7 He however did not attempt to locate his ideal society in a reborn European state, rather starting from scratch by transporting the earthly heaven to a remote imaginary island. That instant application of policies in virgin territories where the past history has been destroyed,
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forgotten, or it simply has never existed, has proven to be a recurrent fact in literary utopias. More’s novel, published in 1516, was followed by a countless sequence of fictions located in “post-apocalyptic” realms that has reached out to our days. One of the commonly used metaphors is that in which the character awakes after a long period of sleep, to find a world drastically modified. Julian West, the protagonist of Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, falls asleep for 130 years in Boston and wakes up to a socialist paradise exactly in the same place. Same thing happens, with different consequences, to the main character of the ridiculously dystopian movie Idiocracy, an average American man who becomes the brightest citizen in the country after a progressive dumbing down of the population during his sleep. These and many other examples come from that world inside our mind that continuously seeks to transcend the limitations of our material environment. One might choose to hold on to the small bubble of reality that surround us or, alternatively, to travel far into the unknown, embarking a journey of sehnsucht towards the fascinating world of Utopia. “People who will not venture out into the open sea pay the penalty of never having looked into the bright eyes of danger; and at best they know but half of life.”8
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1. William James, “The Perception of Time” in Principles of Psychology, p. 564 2. Susanne Scheibe, Alexandra M. Freund, Paul B. Baltes, Toward a Developmental Psychology of Sehnsucht (Life Longings): The Optimal (Utopian) Life, p. 779 3. M.C. Vogt, The Antropological Relationship between Longing and Addiction, p. 64 4. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia p. 173 5. Ibid p.173 6. John Gray, Black Mass, p. 7. Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias, p. 14 8. Ibid p.22
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Images Top Left: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Victor Vasnetsov Botton Left: Map of Thomas More’s Utopia Bottom Right: Screenshot of the movie Idiocracy (Mike Judge)
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3
The Positive Failure of Utopia
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Sehnsucht makes us long for a better world that we can only attempt to imagine in our minds. For its idealistic nature, it is not achievable by a slow progression of events but rather a total imposition of radical policies that are inevitably determined to wipe out the existing personal or social structures. We have seen that by this mental process we give birth to Utopias, obscure phenomena that still attract attention although having proven to fail repeatedly. From early attempts such as the theocratic-communist regime installed by John of Leyden in the town of Münster, Germany, in the XVI c. aiming to build a terrestrial heaven that ended with his execution;1 to the more recent European totalitarian regimes such as Nazism or Stalinism. The repeated efforts to experiment with utopias in the human context have often ended in dangerous, dystopian results. Is that, mainly, because the success of utopias can only happen briefly within the boundaries of our intellect? Indubitably the idea of a communist society was a complete success in Marx’s brain. He sure knew blood would have to be spilled to achieve the ultimate goals of the movement, but after the struggle, he envisioned the birth of a peaceful equal society that had little or nothing to do with the hell of Stalinist Russia. From these tested examples, we could easily conclude that utopias look better on paper than implemented on the streets. Is, thus, their development necessary? Karl Mannheim claimed that “With the relinquishment of Utopias, man would lose his will to shape history, and therewith his ability to understand it.”2 This means, we are not merely following the rainbow to exhaust ourselves without results. With every failure we are getting a step closer to the realisation of our personal or collective dreams. That –almost instinctive- thirst to achieve the unachievable, as part our permanent quest for perfec-
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tion, comes from a conflict between the world of ideas and the physical world. From these premises, Lewis Mumford classifies utopias between those in which we build impossible castles in the air, and the ones were we build houses which satisfy our needs.3 The first ones represent the ultimate ideal which can only exist within, the second, the nearest approximation that can be erected without. Following this directions, Architecture has commonly been in charge of materialising utopian dreams, or at least, of failing by trying. The following chapters analyse two architectural ideals that reflect and accentuate the tension between two utopian visions of our time. One seeks communal happiness while the other individual satisfaction. As we will see, they are formulated by similar principles though they satisfy highly dissimilar doctrines. Their analysis and subsequent comparison aims to highlight major issues in contemporary social values, opening up new questions of where sehnsucht is taking us and what can architecture do to help us find the way towards the optimal society.
1. 2. 3.
John Gray, Black Mass, p.35 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, p.8 Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias, p.22
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Images Top: John of Leyden (http:// www.diomedia.com) Bottom: Adolf Hitler (www. elrobotpescador.com)
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4
Communal Idealism: Building from Fiction
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I am not plummeting but rather floating outside of gravity; descending joyfully until I reach solid land again. I realise that I am on top of a building which stands much higher than its neighbours. Looking up I find a blue sky and three or four solitary clouds. Further away, small mountains and dozens of industrial warehouses, some plain looking residential buildings and a bunch of houses appear as I look closer to where I stand. I do not know where I have travelled to, but I take some moments to enjoy the pleasant view. I decide to move around the rooftop, which is far from being conventional. There are steps going up and down. In between, benches, podiums and green spaces where three people share a conversation. I try to hide from them by going in another direction. I notice there are two swimming pools, next to one of them a sign that says “nudist area�. The title seems to be successful, for two women are shamelessly basking naked. They see me looking but they do not appear to care, then I find an open door which leads me towards a staircase. Once downstairs I find several corridors, bridges and open atriums full of balconies that look like they are staring at each other. In order to have a better glimpse of them, I go closer to the balustrade from one of the cantilevered corridors, pulling my head out towards the enormous void. A tremendous fear of height invades me and forces me to take a big step back. I feel the impulse of holding on to something. The corridor where I am standing must be no wider than a metre; erected between a wall and a free fall of some 60 metres. I move towards a place where I feel safer and keep staring at the void for a moment longer. As I examine the space, the balconies, windows, bridges and corridors with their undulating social spaces start to become more personal. I see a woman shaking a tablecloth from one of the balconies,
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a couple looking up while he takes pictures, accompanied by a lady who seems to be a casual tour guide. A young man passes right behind me and says hi as I turn around, seemingly surprised by my presence. He arrives at his house and looks at me once again while he opens the door. I continue walking around, exploring the elements I had seen from a distance, now down-scaled into some cosy corners filled with outdoor chairs, flowers and various personal objects. The corridors take me to the outer façade of the edifice, where vertigo gets even worse. There is a bizarre relationship between cosy little balconies where one could enjoy lunch under the sun, just centimetres away from frightening precipices that inevitably bring death in front of one’s eyes. The ideal place for suicide, I think, while I look for a staircase that will take me to lower, less disturbing floors. The way down is dark and dull. I observe that, while some of the apartments have nice views and orientation, others are only entitled to inert dark corners. However they all seem to be equally incorporated in the wider organism of the building. I arrive in the first floor and the view up is impressive. The two atriums not only form an interesting composition yet again, each window telling a different story, but they also frame the sky above. I get the impression that this building works essentially in introspection. It is not concerned with what happens outside its limits, but rather with the energy within. Echoes travel from one end to the other. Kids playing, families talking, sounds from the TV, there is a general sense of democracy that travels freely throughout the building in the form of sounds. Immersed in my thoughts, I realise a woman is staring at me with a welcoming expression. I smile at her and after a brief conversation, she invites me into her house. It is a cosy duplex apartment that certainly feels like a home. Decently
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sized and tastefully furnished. Intrigued and curious for answers, I start interrogating her over a cup of tea which she has kindly offered me. -The first years of the community this all seemed like a success. I have been living here for 38 years, you know? Almost from the beginning. I was amongst the first Waldenites; that is how they call us, the ones that have enjoyed it and suffered it the most. At the beginning you could find everything you needed within the building. There was a grocery store, a bakery, a pharmacy, a bar... You did not have to leave Walden7 if you did not wish to. Plus the ones who moved in first all knew each other. There were notorious architects, intellectuals, poets, musicians, fashion entrepreneurs‌ Some were attracted by the low prices but most were just following the trend. We were all seduced by a revolutionary way of living in those times where everything was so conventional and old-fashioned. Here there was a great deal of social energy, our kids were playing downstairs while we the mothers socialised. We spent so many hours doing that, I made some of my best friends in this building. That was obviously a result of the architecture that facilitated and encouraged all these encounters. Oh and those paella meetings and parties on the rooftop. We all collaborated, like a big family. That is all gone now, those years‌ Her husband walks into the house and kindly greets me, later joining the conversation. He adds: -Those early years this felt more like a village than an urban residential complex. Like those summers we used to spend with all my cousins in Argentona (A small village in Catalonia). We had little connection with the outside, there was in fact nothing around, everything happened inside this labyrinth. We could have easily been in the midst of the desert. But with time it all changed. First came the structural prob-
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lems, tiles falling from the walls. Then the humidities caused by poor construction methods. That scared away many of the well educated people, but we stayed because of our kids. They loved it here, they could not imagine growing up elsewhere. I ask: -So, how did all those changes affect the community? What remains of that early spirit? Lourdes, the friendly lady, concludes with a visible air of nostalgia in her eyes: -Not much, son. The exodus of waldenites in the mid 80’s produced a significant reduction of rent prices. The town around us expanded and big supermarkets forced the local shops to close. Now the new tenants neither share nor care about the initial philosophy. They do not even respect the recycling policies, you see? Is it too much to ask? But they speak another language. People in the board still try to organise events, every now and then; but it is nothing like it used to be‌ I leave the teacup on the table and gradually lose consciousness with her last words. I think that there must have been something inside the infusion, seconds before falling into a deep sleep. ...
The conception of utopias is directly associated with an undesired context which is indispensable to escape from. In the case of Walden7, The plans to build it started in 1970 under the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco (18921975). They were, however, the latest years of the dictatorship and a spirit of change could be seen in Catalonia. Government policies were getting softer and the old fashioned
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ideas increasingly being questioned by the people. Free thinking was spreading out in the twilight years of a long repression.1 The Ricardo Bofill of that time was an idealist; a convinced communist willing to take risks to achieve vast changes in society through the power of architecture. After failed attempts to build the City in Space near Madrid (A similar project to Walden7), the Taller decided that Barcelona would be a better option than the capital, described by the architect as “a city more European than Madrid, with an intellectual elite—bourgeois, to be sure, but able to accept new elements, to change its way of living.”2 The Taller de Arquitectura was formed in the late ‘60s (Walden7 was one of their first projects) at a time when Spain was facing a considerable housing crisis. Thousands of workers were migrating to Spain’s major urban areas from less developed rural regions such as Andalucia or Extremadura, generating as a result an urgent need for living space in cities. Thus, the first years of Ricardo Bofill’s studio were primarily focused on housing that could provide an answer for urban growth. A strong social consciousness was reflected on the projects, demonstrating a true concern for reinventing the traditional affordable ways of living. This context had a strong influence on the architectural philosophy of the first years of the Taller, deeply involved in progressive development and capable of adapting to changing conditions.3 These ambitions encouraged the studio to develop policies which were not welcomed by a highly conservative government. Therefore, the initial plan for walden 7 was not approved, forcing them to reject one of the most innovative principles: the system of common ownership of the urban space. That was a clear limitation that lead to adjustments
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on certain aspects of the project. In order to request public funds for the construction, it was required by the authorities to use a “sociedad promotora” (building society) and, in this case, CEEDx3 –which would be forced to declare itself bankrupt in the later years- was specifically created for Walden7.4 The chosen site was an unlikely yet strategic setting for a utopian venture; alongside a recently abandoned cement factory in the suburban and, at the time, highly undeveloped town of Sant Just Desvern, on the outskirts of Barcelona.5 This location would allow the building to be independent and more or less self-sufficient, becoming an isolated community that would intentionally rely as much as possible on itself. Igual que en cueva o castillo mágico todo iba a cambiar en aquel sitio, todo iba a cambiar porque en el sueño las cosas imposibles ocurren fácilmente.
Like in a magical cave or castle Everything was going to change in that place, Everything was going to change because in dreams Impossible things happen easily.6
José Agustín Goytisolo
The first Walden was a novel by the transcendentalist author Henry David Thoreu (1817-62) about his own experience of isolation for two years, two months and two days in the woods. A journey of personal retrospection with the objective of gaining a more objective understanding of society.7 Although this book might have been influential for
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the planning of Walden 7 -reflected in the importance of the individual opposed to the traditional family model- the real source of inspiration for Bofill and his studio was BF Skinner’s Walden2. This second literary work starts with two young men returning from World War Two -representing the tragic inflection point needed in all utopias- seeking for alternatives to the shallow American capitalist lifestyle. Through their old professor they have access to the W2 community, being guided throughout several days by the uncharismatic T.E. Frazier, its founder. What the visitors find is a remote micro-society that lives within a bubble of peaceful harmony and happiness, where every individual can accomplish their major objectives in life. This is achieved through an application of empirically tested behavioural psychology methodologies. Reduced contact with the outside world, communal property, rejection of activities involving large crowds or equally distributed jobs that allow for a great deal of free time, are some of the successful procedures applied to W2.8 The fictional community of Skinner seduced Bofill and his team so deeply that he chose to cross the forbidden border of utopia and test some of the ideas in the real world. Although the name of Walden7 is perhaps more symbolic than accurate, strong links can be drawn between the American novel and the Spanish edifice. The conceptual development of the project started away from the influences and disturbances of the city. A team of sociologists, poets, philosophers and mathematicians travelled to the Algerian desert pursuing a ground-breaking answer for the modern housing estate. Each one of those thinkers put their own personal stamp on the final piece according to their field of expertise.9 They departed from the principles written in El Taller’s initial manifesto: Hacia
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una formalizacion de la ciudad en el espacio (Towards a Formalisation of the City in Space); which, motivated by their disappointment with the slow progress implemented by contemporary architects in the built environment, intended to confront fundamental issues of social housing not just considering the needs of the present but also those of the future.10 The text shows an interest in finding a middle ground between realistic architecture and utopian architecture. The first, permanently conditioned by the need of satisfying the requirements and demands of the client, turning it into a consumer architecture under the strict guidance of powerful groups; presenting no alternative tendencies to modify existing social problems. The second, with a posture of rebellion and disconformity in regards to urban planning; proposing disproportioned, artificial and therefore unbuildable solutions for inexistent metropolises of the future. Having neither a connection with facts nor a working plan for real solutions.11 What El Taller suggested through that publication was a unified new work system that shared the moral stance of the utopians but at the same time incorporated the practical efficiency of the realists.12 Walden7 was to be the testing ground for that experimental combination. In other words, a humanised version of the impractical utopias of that time such as those by archigram, archizoom or superstudio. One that, although still intrinsically utopian, would find its place in the standing human context. They wanted their residential complex to become an icon of social inclusion and class integration; a place where the relatively poor and the very wealthy could equally coexist within a context of spatial justice.13 Therefore, they sold the project to the potential buyers, specifically targeting a young
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intellectual bourgeoisie, through a careful production of art and propaganda that supported the studio’s ideals. It was intended for the community to transform the daily habits of its tenants through the physical conditions of the space; innovative living units and exceptional importance of collective spaces. Something that may remind us of the “social condensers” of the early Soviet Union such as the Narkomfin Communal House. A new icon of the recently established regime which, inspired by Charles Fourier’s Phalansteries, aimed to lead citizens towards the “communist lifestyle”.14 For El Taller, the form of Walden7 had to reflect its unconventional connotations. It was designed to frame an avant-garde, individualistic, erotically liberated form of living,15 and its unusual form –accentuated by its low profile location- was later justified by Bofill by calling it a “monument to the suburb”. It was the architectural epitome of those times of change. Henry Lefebvre –who moved by his interest in an architecture of communal solidarity collaborated with Bofill’s studio before Walden716- once stated: “What is an ideology without a space to which it refers, a space which it describes, whose vocabulary and kinks it makes use of, and whose code it embodies?” “What would remain of the Church if there were no churches?”17 The physical presence of the building, therefore, had to become an embodiment of a new ideology; a materialisation of the utopian dreams of a generation. The complex was meant to be much bigger, containing three connected blocks and almost becoming a village on its own, with an estimated population of more than 3000 people. However economic limitations only made possible the construction of the first block, which would house up to 1000 people.
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The scheme was programmed to grow from individualisation to collectivism. Thus, the megastructure was to be a superposition of 30sqm blocks that represented the individual. One block meant one person, two: a couple, three: a small family and so on. By doing this, the architects wanted to emphasise the importance of individualisation rather than treating families as indivisible units -one of the intentions of the conservative government- while establishing a wider entity: the community. However, far from leaving the overall form of the building open for further additions, similarly to Archigram’s Plug-In City, El Taller were mostly preoccupied with the formal result of their monument. This is why the form of Walden7 does not give the impression of ‘unfinished’ but rather a formally controlled and completed aggregation proposal.18 In order to achieve spatial justice within the modern village, the repeatable blocks (28sqm residential units) are organised along a double axis and four open atria,19 following the rules of the City in Space that disregard all laws of hierarchy. Creating, thus, a flexible organisation system that permits vertical and horizontal circulation, easy growth and accommodation of new forms of life and personal relationships.20
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1. Liam Aldous, Lost in Space (Monocle 75) p. 230 2. Ricardo Bofill, L’Architecture d’un Homme, p.86 3. Anna Puigjaner, Guillermo Lopez; Revisiting Systems: Ricardo Bofill and Waldenmania (The Avery Review) 4. Mark Warren, From the Cell to the City: The Early Housing Designs and Urbanism of Ricardo Bofill and the Taller de Arquitectura, 1960-1975, p.22 5. Liam Aldous, Lost in Space (Monocle 75) p. 232 6. José Agustín Goytisolo dedicated this and other poems to the building. 7. Henry David Thoreau, Walden 8. B.F. Skinner, Walden2 9. Liam Aldous, Lost in Space (Monocle 75) p. 232 10. Mark Warren, From the Cell to the City, p. 34 11. R. Bofill and others, Towards a Formalisation of the City in Space. 12. Ibid 13. Ana Bofill in “Comando Actualidad” (Documentary) 14. Jean Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture since 1889, p. 168 15. Richard J. Williams, The Anxious City, p.92 16. Personal Interview with Serena Vergano 17. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p. 44 18. Pedro Garcia Hernandez, La agregación modular como mecanismo proyectual residencial en España: El Taller de Arquitectura, p. 107 19. Anna Puigjaner, Guillermo Lopez; Revisiting Systems: Ricardo Bofill and Waldenmania (The Avery Review) 20. R. Bofill and others, Towards a Formalisation of the City in Space.
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Images Courtesy of El Taller de Arquitectura
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Photographies by Alvaro Gurrea Rumeu
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Image Courtesy of El Taller de Arquitectura
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Images Left: Photographies taken by Alvaro Gurrea Rumeu Right: Lourdes and Javier’s Apartment, Photographies by the author
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5
Promi$ed Land: a Neo-Liberal Paradise
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The room I see when I open my eyes is nothing like the one I fell asleep at, not a single object reminds me of my previous journey. The bed where I am laying is so comfortable that it makes me want to rest for a moment longer, covered by silk sheets and a soft fur blanket and surrounded by feather cushions. There is a large window in front of me that goes from the floor to the ceiling. Behind it, a balcony and a majestic view of the city. I get back on my feet and decide to snoop around the gigantic room. I go out on the small terrace and stare at the densely constructed neighbourhood around me. Buildings, shops, multitudes of people and cars. It is all movement and noises. Everything becomes quiet when I go back into the room and shut the door. Once inside I still have a strong visual connection with the city that surrounds me, and yet I feel emotionally detached from it. I feel comfortable inside this space, as if an unbreakable threshold is separating me from the proximate urban chaos. I take a few moments to examine the room; every single detail is so impeccably decorated, the unnecessary excess of ornamentation soon becomes overwhelming. An imposing king sized bed, leather sofas, glass coffee tables, silver chandeliers, flowers, a big and tasteless metallic statue of what seems to be a man-fish and animal fur rugs rest on an exquisite wooden floor. Impatient to continue my inspection of the apartment, I exit the room and continue waking through the wide corridor. I open all the doors that I find along my way, counting up to four more bedrooms, smaller than the previous one but still decently sized; perfectly furnished, organised and tidy, but seemingly untouched and impersonal at the same time. Then I pass in front of what appears to be the main entrance of the apartment, enriched by a splendid reception hall. Some steps further I open another door; I am in the kitchen,
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which is as immense and modern as everything else in the residence. All of a sudden, the voice of a man surprises me from behind: -Good morning sir, your breakfast is ready in the dining room. I turn around and I see a little man with a perfectly trimmed moustache, wearing white clothes, white gloves and a white bandana covering his head. As disoriented as I am, I pretend to understand the situation. -Oh, good morning. And thank you. He nods, and I walk towards the dining room. I have my delicious breakfast in a long table that can accommodate 12 people, although now it is elegantly set exclusively for myself. Everything around me is similarly decorated than the rest of the quarters. There are mirrors, flamboyant lamps and paintings on the walls. When I finish eating I move onto the living room, the most spectacular part of the house. The first thing that strikes me is the outstanding view of the park, framed like a life painting by the tall fully glazed faรงade. I sit down on a comfortable armchair facing the landscape outside; an urban forest with trees, a lake and a small number of pavilions leaves me astonished for a few minutes. I am not certain of the reason why I have appeared here; it seems to have everything a man can ask for and yet I get a sense of coldness. On a final and thorough inspection of the place, I find another smaller living room and a highly secured chamber where, it seems, one could survive the apocalypse. This last finding makes me feel unsafe, wondering if am a target of possible threats. I decide to leave the apartment through the main door. Oh, perhaps my neighbours can explain me more about the meaning of this place, like that lady from Walden7 did be-
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fore she drugged me with a cup of tea and I ended here. I know I am here for a reason, and I want to find which one it is. I knock on several doors on my way down, always surveyed by the security cameras and the iris scanners that again make me paranoid about the dangers of the outside world. I insist, but nobody is home. I continue descending until the basement, which seems to have a lot to offer; the experience of this place continues much beyond the walls of the apartment. Down here there is a swimming pool, a spa, a gym, squash courts, a cinema, a golf simulator and event rooms. Why would someone need to leave this place? I ask myself. But the thought of staying here, imprisoned between these walls, overwhelms me. There is no real life, no one to talk to more than the occasional suck-ups that work here, and make an effort to make you feel superior. I go back up to the ground floor and walk towards a big reception where two people greet me with a wide smile. One of them, a young man in a suit, addresses me: -Good morning, Mr. Nadie, it is good to see you. How can I help you? I am not sure what to say; how can he help me? He is calling me by a name, meaning he has seen me before. -Good morning, I was‌ Before I finish my sentence, a muscular man in a suit interrupts me to say my car is ready. He seems to work for me so I follow him down to the underground carpark. I seat at the back of my car, which white and golden design reminds of everything else in this place. My chauffeur drives towards the exit and, when the gates open, everything around me becomes invisible. Instead of entering the city, as I expected, my eyes close and I come to realise everything was an illusion.
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...
The Victorian building boom left an important legacy in Knightsbridge. Elegant mansions with their distinctive white or cream painted walls, high ceilings, black iron railings and sophisticated stone steps leading to the entrances.1 However in recent decades, the identity of this central neighbourhood, the home of One Hyde Park, Richard Rogers’ designed billionaire’s dreamland, has turned towards the power of foreign wealth. It has increasingly become London’s ultimate destination for excessive luxury, making it the epicentre of a utopia only available for the biggest bank accounts in the world. Building the World’s Best Address, a documentary about One Hyde Park, presents the neighbourhood as “A synonym of luxury”.2 Although others see the transformation as an un-English activity which has replaced the former aristocratic elite with a mad kind of tasteless overseas wealth, incarnated in tacky sports cars and bodyguards.3 With Hyde Park to the north and some of the world’s most lavish shopping destinations, including Harrod’s and Harvey Nichols to the south, the location of the project represents a crucial asset in itself. The previous building on site, the unpopular brutalist office block Bowater House,4 was seen by future developers as a missed opportunity that had to be addressed. The incredible potential seen by Guernsey Ltd. –A joint venture between the Candy brothers and the prime minister of Qatar5 made them pay 150M Pounds for a land actually valued in 90M. They believed the dream they were about to realise was far beyond the realistic expectations of market value, and therefore the surplus was a risk worth taking. It was, thus, a golden occasion to provide the luxury-thirsty
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Middle Eastern and post-soviet fortunes with the most heavenly and exclusive experience cash could buy. The quintessential billionaire’s paradise had found the ideal place for its materialisation, a bubble within a bubble.
One Hyde Park: The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, London, is the most exclusive address in the world; a residential scheme whose beauty, luxury and service place it in a class of its own on a global scale. The exceptional collaboration between leading architects, designers, artists and hoteliers ensures that One Hyde Park delivers ultimate perfection and a unique experience on every level. One Hyde Park Website6
Sehnsucht can often be translated into material ambition; seeing money as the only means for the realisation of our deepest wishes and desires, and therefore elevating its rank to that of an ideology. Man, due to his nature and the powerful influence of the consumer society upon him, prefers objects which will provide him with the highest pleasures. Since he is, nonetheless, never satisfied, the same story is repeated over and over, never closing the loop of insatiable longing.7 Within this psychological scenario the two main figures of this neo-liberal utopia, Christian and Nick Candy, started playing their cards. The two brothers began their career in 1995, with a lot of ambition and a 6,000 pounds loan from their grandmother; which allowed them to buy, renovate and sell for a profit an apartment in Earls Court.8 They progressively became one of the biggest references in the London’s high end residential market, familiarised like no other
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with the demanding tastes and extravagances –which they eventually acquired- of the foreign billionaires. Although they had been selling multimillion pound properties to rich oligarchs for quite some years, One Hyde Park was to become the promised land of the religion of money, whose pilgrims where increasingly coming to the English capital. An unprecedented venture aiming to create a utopian bubble of exclusivity capable of impressing even the richest tax dodging itinerants. Every religion aspires to a certain liberation or enlightenment, we are mortals prior to entering the heavens but become divine after crossing the celestial gate. Same thing happens in the oligarch’s paradise of One Hyde Park. Although Knightsbridge is a bubble on its own, having boutiques, hotels and restaurants not affordable for most of the general public, anyone can walk freely through its streets and enter its exclusive department stores. They shall, nonetheless, try accessing the dominions of OHP to meet the secure limits of a smaller bubble within. In a more mundane comparison; if Knightsbridge represents just another extension of the Christian world, One Hyde Park is the Vatican. The figure of the Candy brothers, and everything that surrounded them, was therefore crucial for the success of such an ambitious enterprise. In the words of Henry Pryor, a luxury property buying agent “They understood the marketing and selling of a property, they sold people a dream.”9 The duo adopted the roll of predicators of the faith of opulence, in order to capture the imagination of the global elite. For doing this, they carried out a strategically planned procedure which started much before the opening of the building. The first marketing campaign involved their personal image. In order to be successful predicators of rampant materialism, they had to live by its rules. Their own lifestyle
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became very much like that of their potential buyers: tax exiles; living between London, Monaco and LA; travelling in private jets and superyachts and wearing luxury watches and handmade shoes.10 Their extravagant routine, thus, caught the attention of likeminded magnates who started believing in the venture. The unusual dream of the Candies put the project in the eye of media, filling newspaper columns and TV programmes. Even with more intensity after the financial crash of 2007, when the developers had to reduce their number of projects and fully commit to their most beloved one,11 while many were predicting –and hoping for- an imminent failure.12 Amongst rumours and controversy –many intentionally infiltrated by the developers themselves- the doors of the complex tactically remained closed until the very end; building up myths and rising the expectations. When the right day had come, a launch party was thrown by the Candies at the neighbouring Mandarin Oriental. The already existing gossip, plus the attendance of celebrities and a catering by top chef Heston Blumenthal, earned the event the cover of The Times. The “new beginning” had arrived; from that moment the “chosen ones” could own a slice of heaven ready to be inhabited. “Ultimate apartment. Ultimate location. Ultimate living.”13
In order to sell an unparalleled level of perfection to some of the wealthiest and more ostentatious people in the world, the architecture and the services offered by PGGC’s oligarch’s fortress had to exceed even their high standards of luxury. The best construction materials and methods, interior finishes, technologies, facilities and personal services were achieved by a team that included some of the most
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respected professionals in every field; carefully selected by the Candy brothers. In the One Hyde Park website, they advertise the ingredients of this utopian recipe as: Iconic Architecture, Exclusive Design, Legendary Services, Acclaimed Art, Leisure Facilities and Security.14 “The design of One Hyde Park responds to a fantastic and unique location. Each apartment has its own particular relationship with its inmediate environment creating a highly individual living experience.” Richard Rogers15
The responsible for the planning of this monument to wealth could not be someone unknown, who would fail to impress the demanding audience. His name rather had to become an asset and contribute to the whole sophistication of the scheme. This explains the appointment of Pritzker prize laureate, starchitect Richard Rogers. Refering to Henri Lefebvre once again: “What would remain of the church if there were no churches?”16 in this case the monumentality of Lord Rogers design was required to embody an “ideology” otherwise hidden in tax havens around the world. Ugland House, a building in the Cayman Islands which supposedly houses 12,000 corporations, including some of those responsible for buying property at OHP, was once described by president Obama as “Either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam on record.”17 Whilst, However, Ugland house was nothing but a hidden and somewhat fictitious edifice, One Hyde Park provided this widespread religion with a true icon in a prime location. Described by Cambridge University Professor Gavin Stamp as “a vulgar symbol of the hegemony of excessive wealth, an over-sized gated community for people with more money
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than sense, arrogantly plonked down in the heart of London.”18 His design consisted of four diamond-shaped pavilions, varying up to two stories in height and purposively oriented to provide views of the park and the city. For being able to offer these exclusive views, the façades had to be fully glazed. That opened up a new issue of intimacy, an aspect of high relevance for the targeted clients. The solution was found by adding privacy screens to the tripled glazed windows, controlling the views in an out of the apartments. The architect developed the scale of the construction according to the neighbouring Victorian and Edwardian buildings,19 although many have criticised the complex for breaking the urban continuity of Knightsbridge and representing a new era that does not respect the local heritage. The acclaimed artist James Turrell was in charge of lighting, creating a system that would assure the building would not only be a landmark during the day, but also at night.20 “One Hyde Park has changed perceptions of what defines true luxury. It has set a new benchmark for residential schemes not just in London but around the world.” Nick Candy, CEO Candy and Candy21
The interior design by the Candy brothers’ in-house design firm, Candy and Candy, intended to create statement residences. An overdose of ornament and bad taste much needed to target the foreign noveau riche. Italian marbles and other precious stones from around the world, snake and crocodile covered furniture, precious carpets, hand painted walls, remote control lights and curtains, super-power toilets and other indispensables22 to create the perfect “junior
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arab dictator’s home”.23 To test if the quality of the interior design was up to utopian expectations, they even built an entire 4 bedroom mock apartment in a warehouse, assuring there would be no disappointments in the final construction.24
“To stay and be cared for by Mandarin Oriental’s indulgence is a pleasure; to experience it daily is a privilege only available to a few.” Edouard Ettedgui, Group Chief Executive, Mandarin Oriental25
Inviting the next door Mandarin Oriental Hotel to participate in the project was a wise move that resulted in a double benefit for the Candy brothers: On the one hand, they were assuring that the hoteliers –who had a final say in the design of the building and had the power to reject it- would not represent further complications since they shared the same interests. On the other hand, the well-established name of the luxury hotel chain was adding yet another golden piece to the utopian puzzle. They branded the development as the only Mandarin Oriental serviced accommodation in Europe; counting with 60 dedicated members of staff and offering Michelin-starred food, valets, maids and spa treatments. These services and other amenities such as an indoor swimming pool, a gym, squash courts, a private cinema, wine cellars, event rooms and a library, make the secure boundaries of the building somewhat self-sufficient, a bubble in which one could technically stay forever, away from the mediocracy of the world outside. This self-sufficiency is symbolically completed by the retail spaces within the building: A luxury sports car shop
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(McLaren), a luxury watch shop (Rolex) and a branch of the Abu Dhabi Islamic bank are there to cover some extra basic needs.26 As it would be expected, this billionaire’s retreat is safeguarded by security systems worthy of a military base. The average buyer at OHP is extremely wealthy and the origin of his fortune is not necessarily transparent, thus one of their main concerns is protection from the threats of the outside world. Luckily for them, they can drive their sports cars into an elevator that takes them down to the garage, from where they can access their apartments without being seen. Once upstairs, they may calmly enjoy the views of either the city or the park, knowing that the windows are bullet-proof and their doors will not let anyone in before scanning their iris.27 If these measures and the 24h presence of SAS trained guards are not sufficient to keep the threats away, the residents can always choose to lock themselves up in their private panic rooms28 with a sofa and a home cinema. In One Hyde Park, one seems to finds secluded utopias even in the midst of the worst dystopias.
1. Nicholas Shaxson, A Tale of Two Londons (http://www. vanityfair.com) 2. Building the World’s Best Address (Documentary) 3. Nicholas Shaxson, A Tale of Two Londons, http://www. vanityfair.com 4. Jonathan Brown, Charlie Cooper, Who’d want to be a Knightsbridge billionaire (http://www.independent.co.uk)
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5. Stephen Moss, One Hyde Park: how the Candy men created a billionaire’s ideal home (http://www.theguardian.com) 6. (http://www.onehydepark.com) 7. Jean Baudrilard, The Consumer Society, p. 69 8. Rowan Moore, One Hyde Park – review (http://www. theguardian.com) 9. Rupert Neate, Candy brothers (http://www.theguardian. com) 10. Ibid 11. Ibid 12. Building the World’s Best Address (Documentary) 13. (http://www.ultimateresidence.co.uk) 14. (http://www.onehydepark.com) 15. Richard Rogers (http://www.onehydepark.com) 16. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p. 44 17. Mark Shields, Barack Obama’s vs. the Cayman Islands (http://www.creators.com) 18. Nicholas Shaxson, A Tale of Two Londons (http://www. vanityfair.com) 19. (http://www.rsh-p.com/projects/one-hyde-park) 20. Building the World’s Best Address (Documentary) 21. Nick Candy (http://www.onehydepark.com) 22. Mark Hollingsworth, How London turned into Richistan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk) 23. Peter York cited in Mark Hollingsworth, How London turned into Richistan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk) 24. Building the World’s Best Address (Documentary) 25. Edouard Ettedgui (http://www.onehydepark.com) 26. Rowan Moore, One Hyde Park – review (http://www. theguardian.com) 27. Mark Hollingsworth, How London turned into Richistan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk) 28. Stephen Moss, One Hyde Park: how the Candy men created a billionaire’s ideal home (http://www.theguardian.com)
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Images Left: Old and New Knightsbridge (oldchelseapostcards.com) and (www.gistmania.com) Top Right: The Candy Brothers at the launch party (www.dailymail.co.uk) Bottom right: Ugland House (http://www.nationalreview. com)
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Images Left: The Candies with Richard Rogers (www.building.co.uk) Right: A typical One Hyde Park Buyer (Screenshot of Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie The Dictator. )
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One Hyde Park (www.majesticshowers.com)
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Images Model, Interior and Plan (www.onehydepark.com)
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6
Comparisons for a Re-Evolution
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This room looks familiar for the first time, I was here not long ago. I look at myself in the mirror and finally I remember who I am, where I come from… I am progressively coming back into that reality I had left, before embarking a very realistic journey of dreams. I start remembering from the beginning of the new beginning. That door that I never managed to reach. I should have tried harder, I regret. What would have happened if I had opened it? I could feel that the answers I was so deeply looking for were beyond that door. And instead I fell into a trap, which ended in an incoherent journey of mediocracy. But I will keep trying. The next time that I see that door, I will run until I open it. I will not let it get away from me again, I promise I will not. …
There is frequently a strong mix of ego and philanthropy hidden behind utopian entrepreneurs. Their conviction that they can change the world we live in, offering people a state of perfection that they have never seen before, is associated with the extraordinary powers they possess to achieve it. Everyone, with more or less intensity, is exposed to the bittersweetness of Sehnsucht; but only a few take the courage to embrace it and make it possible. A good example of such characters is the fictional founder of Walden Two, T.E. Frazier. A man who, although bearer of good purposes, admits to be corrupted by greed, envy, and other vices of the outside world. He is responsible for creating a perfect society that he supervises and manipulates from a close distance, which almost elevates him to the level of a god. It is coherent, then, that both Bofill and Christian Candy decided to stay close to the “communities” they had
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created; this time, though, no longer within the safety of a fictional tale. Bofill did not actually move into Walden7, instead he built his house and studio in the adjacent abandoned cement factory which overlooks it. Candy, on the other hand, acquired a 60 million pound apartment at the top of his very own dreamland. One might highlight the contradictory principles and objectives of the two projects, but the roll both Bofill and Candy adopted by staying and looking after their creation, is exactly the same. For Bofill it might have been slightly painful to see the slow decline of his longed-for utopia. With the structural problems, first, and the following dismemberment of the social community. There was, though, a brief success in its early years; and most importantly he had made a brave statement in times when many were frightened to speak up. An achievement worth being proud of. Nevertheless, and quite sadly, in recent public appearances Bofill has categorically rejected all his early idealism1 -which me and many admire him for-, having visibly fallen on his knees for the generous hands of that capitalism he heavily criticised in his early years. It is perhaps too early for Candy to see the fall of his paradise; but as all other utopias, the truth of conflict and the unattainability of perfection sets a written destiny. Failure, in this case, will almost certainly not come in the form of structural or material problems, due to the high specifications of the construction, but deciding to remain a tenant of one’s realised dream implies accepting inevitable disappointments. Perhaps the eventual dystopia will not happen within the lifeless quarters of the fortress, rather extending onto the ignored world beyond the safeguarded gates. As a matter of fact, the connotations of the building have already proven to
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be detested by many, making it the target of demonstrations in more than one occasion despite its short life.2 The task of Richard Rogers in OHP has, for the purposes of this investigation, been overshadowed by that of the Candy brothers. Not being given an equal significance to Bofill in Walden7. The reason for this is the British architect’s little impact on the social implications of the scheme. He merely performed an architecture of service, following the guidance of the developers, which is not particularly relevant for this dissertation. Bofill, on the other hand, performed a self-driven architecture of investigation.3 The fact that the leftist Lord Rogers put his stamp on such neo-liberal enterprise, added to (also leftist) Bofill’s previously mentioned rejection of ideals, speaks about the current stance of the -theoretically progressive- big names in architecture. Have they given up, to embrace the only faith that seems to be walking forward with determination? Leaving this possible debate aside, architectural utopias are not a party of one or two. Dreamers are both the ones who plan and “sell” the utopia and those who fall for it and “buy” it. Architectural utopias would not be able to be tested if they did not count with large groups of followers who supported them. For doing this -as we have observed in the two previously described-, they do not only sell an apartment or a house, but rather a holistic experience that fulfils several aspects of life far beyond the mere supply of shelter. This is why they tend to rely on self-sufficiency and certain isolation. For Walden7 this meant having an on-site bakery and grocery store, and plenty of communal spaces for interaction. For OHP, having the uninterrupted service from Mandarin Oriental and all the other amenities for self-indulgence. Even though buyers at Walden7 and One Hyde Park were
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following clearly different dreams, they were both pursuing the total experience proposed by the scheme. Call it a village-like, erotically liberated and pseudo-communal lifestyle or a super-secure, exclusive and luxurious one; but both transcend the intentions of conventional dwelling buyers. Utopian consumers are equally moved by the power of sehnsucht, with the additional nourishing of well-played, mind intruding marketing strategies. The difference is that, far from trying to design their own paradise, they let Bofill and Candy do it for them. Once these followers inhabit the monuments of their correspondent utopias, they are expected to preserve and continue the fundamental principles of their ideology. This is why both the physical presence of such monuments and their location, is never arbitrary. The success of Walden7, like its fictional inspiration Walden2, was strongly dependant on the concept of detachment. In order to engineer the behaviour of people, creating a strong sense of community and common ownership, they need to be as far as possible from the contamination of external stimuli. In fact, its failure was very much related to the expansion of Sant Just Desvern, the town where it was built, which interfered in the solitude of the community. From these presumptions, One Hyde Park could not have found a better site than Knightsbridge. Guarded by its cameras and security agents, assuring a symbolic isolation of the bubble of exclusivity from the public realm; yet still wisely placed where it can continue feeding and being fed from the system that keeps it alive. ‌
The same feeling can at times lead us in opposing direc-
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tions. Our intrinsic human nature, our personal motivations and social circumstances influenced by our context have a powerful say in the orientation of our deepest emotions. Through establishing Sehnsucht as the psychological root of all utopias, a cognitive starting point; the fictional/realistic journey has diverged into two conflicted directions, which I believe exemplify some of the biggest contemporary issues of humanity: Firstly, our stubborn conviction that an equal and conflict-less form of living can be imposed upon us by drastic, instant policies. Secondly, our stubborn conviction that individual satisfaction through accumulation of wealth and power is a divine goal to follow; thus rejecting the former. Through this lines I have not intended to provide the definitive answer for communal happiness, a rather ambitious quest worth centuries of study. My aim is to understand where these dreams are coming from, and how they manifest themselves in the urban context; hoping to open a further line of reflection for future architectural projects.
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1. Ricardo Bofill at the Architectural Association (http:// www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2745) 2. Keir Mudie, Bedroom Tax protests in the shadow of flats that cost ÂŁ68million EACH (http://www.mirror.co.uk) 3. R. Bofill and others, Towards a Formalisation of the City in Space.
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View of Walden7 from Bofill’s Studio (Courtesy of El Taller de Arquitectura)
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Protest outside One Hyde Park (www.demotix. com)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Edward Rothstein, Herbert Muschamp, Martin Marty, Visions of Utopia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (London: Sage, 1998)
H.G. Wells, When the Sleeper Awakes (E-book: United Holdings Group Classics)
William Morris, News From Nowhere (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908)
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan Pub. Co., 1952) Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: Study of the Popular Mind (New York: Cosimo Inc., 2006) William James, The Principles of Psychology (New York: Cosimo Inc., 2007) Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (2006)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London: Penguin Classics, 2002)
Malcolm Miles, Urban Utopias, the Built and Social Architectures of Alternative Settlements (Oxon: Routledge, 2008
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Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1991)
Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003) Thomas More, Utopia (E-book: Cassel & Co., 1901)
John Gray, Black Mass, Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (London: Penguin Books, 2008) Herbert Wright, Instant Cities (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2008) Jean-Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture Since 1889, a Worldwide History (New York, Phaidon, 2012) Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia, Design and Capitalist Development (Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1976)
George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999) Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922)
Nathaniel Coleman, Utopias and Architecture (Oxon: Routledge, 2005) Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London: Routledge, 2002)
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Ricardo Bofill, José Agustín Goytisolo, Hacia una formalización de la ciudad en el espacio “Towards a Formalisation of the City in Space” (Barcelona: Blume, 1968)
Ricardo Bofill, François Hébert-Stevens, L’Architecture d’un homme (Paris: Arthaud, 1978)
Susanne Scheibe, Alexandra M. Freund, Paul B. Baltes, Toward a Developmental Psychology of Sehnsucht (Life Longings): The Optimal (Utopian) Life (Richmond: American Psychological Association, 2007)
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Chicago: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008) B.F. Skinner, Walden Two (Chicago: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009)
Richard J. Williams, The Anxious City (Oxon: Routledge, 2004)
Iain Hay, Geographies of the Super-Rich (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2013)
Robert Hughes, Barcelona (New York: Vintage Books, 1993) ARTICLES AND WEBSITES
Rogers Stirk Harbour Official Website (ttp://www.rsh-p. com/projects/one-hyde-park)
Catherine Warmann, One Hyde Park (http://www.dezeen. com)
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One Hyde Park Website, http://www.onehydepark.com
Jonathan Brown, Charlie Cooper, Who’d want to be a Knightsbridge billionaire (http://www.independent.co.uk)
Stephen Moss, One Hyde Park: how the Candy men created a billionaire’s ideal home (http://www.theguardian.com) Nicholas Shaxson, A Tale of Two Londons (http://www.vanityfair.com)
Rupert Neate, Candy brothers (http://www.theguardian. com) Mark Hollingsworth, How London turned into Richistan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk)
Mark Shields, Barack Obama’s vs. the Cayman Islands (http://www.creators.com) One Hyde Park Apartment Website (http://www.ultimateresidence.co.uk) Real Estate Advert for One Hyde Park (http://search.knightfrank.co.uk/gb0203)
Rowan Moore, One Hyde Park – review (http://www.theguardian.com)
Anna Puigjaner, Guillermo Lopez; Revisiting Systems: Ricardo Bofill and Waldenmania (The Avery Review) (http:// www.averyreview.com/issues/7/revisiting-systems)
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Liam Aldous, Lost in Space (Monocle Magazine, Volume 75) DISSERTATIONS
Garcia Hernandez, P. (2012). La agregación modular como mecanismo proyectual residencial en España: El Taller de Arquitectura. PhD. La Salle, Universidad Ramon Llull. Warren, M. (2013). From the Cell to the City: The Early Housing Designs and Urbanism of Ricardo Bofill and the Taller de Arquitectura, 1960-1975. Undergraduate. Harvard University. DOCUMENTARIES
30 Minuts, Waldenites, (1997). [TV programme] TV3: Televisio de Catalunya. Comando Actualidad, (2010). [TV programme] TV1.
Building the World’s Best Address (http://www.onehydepark.
com)
FILMS Idiocracy. (2006). [DVD] Hollywood: Mike Judge. LECTURES
Ricardo Bofill, Lecture at the AA (http://www.aaschool. ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2745)
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