Great Ships in Full Sail

Great Ships in Full Sail.

The Ship as an architectural metaphor in the modernist housing of 1930s to 1960s.

Elena Fadeeva March 2013/14

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‘A true architecture of our time will have to redefine itself and to expand its means. Many areas outside traditional building will enter the realm of architecture, as architecture and “architects” will have to enter new fields. All are architects. Everything is architecture’ 1

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Holliens, Hans. ‘Everything is Architchture’ Bau, Schrift für Architektur und Städtebau, 23, 1/2 (1968): 2

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11 Introduction 17 Battleship Potemkin Narkomfin house in Moscow

by Moisey Ginsburg 31 Cruise Liner Le Corbusier and the Marseille UnitĂŠ 49 Great Ship in full sail Hutchesontown C, Gorbals

by Basil Spence 63 Towards a Brave New World Ship metaphor in the modernist world: Why was it so important?

72 End notes & Image references 74 Bibliography 7

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Introduction ‘In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up.’ 2

2 Foucault, Michel. ”Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias” Architecture, Mouvement, Continuite 5.

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The metaphor of the ship has been used in architecture since ancient times. The Bible - the oldest and most important book in the history of humanity contains description of only two buildings: the Temple and Noah’s Ark, which is described and subsequently portrayed as a hybrid of an apartment house and ship.

Whatever époque we might consider - Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment – in the architecture of any of them we may find references with the ship image, but it becomes truly obvious if we will take a look at the Modernist architecture.

If we would think about the ship metaphor in the 20th century architecture it would be hard to ignore such project as Het Ship, which has been built in Amsterdam, in 1919, in the area Spaarndammerbuurt by Michiel de Klerk – one of the founders of the Amsterdam School of Architecture. One hundred and two apartments for workers, small meeting room and a post office form some kind of iconic architectural monument that once laid the foundation for a dream of the new type of housing for laborers.

Also worth considering the whole experience of construction in 1970 – 1990s: sequence of slab ship-houses in the USSR; mega structures, such as Hans Hollein’s Aircraft Carrier City in the Landscape (1964); Paper Architect’s projects in Russia – for example the Ship of Fools skyscraper project by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin (1992 ); as well as ‘lessons from Las Vegas’ - the literal use of the ship, cruise liner image in the architecture of hotels around the world (South Korea Sun Cruise Resort and Yacht, Turkey – Titanic Hotel, Singapore – Marina Bay Sands) and the aesthetics of the high-tech architecture that explored the next step – the image of the spaceship – it’s difficult to stop once you’ve started thinking around this theme.

However, for my research I chose three buildings constructed between 1930s and the end of 1950s. It was the time of the global research, of the new experiments, of extreme and provocative manifestos, particularly in the area of housing. This attempt can be explained by several reasons and circumstances prevailing in the end of XIXth - early XXth centuries, which altogether can be formulated as a single need: society in the cities 13

of that time needed large amounts of new, affordable housing in a relatively short period of time.

Buildings that I chose for my research: a house for Narkomfin employees in Moscow, Marseilles Unite and Hutchesontown block C in Gorbals, Glasgow – all of them are iconic for their time and location. They are structurally similar and even people who are not in the architectural discourse notice the close resemblance of these three structures. I find it interesting, that they have been implemented with a difference of about ten years, in different parts of the world, but they share not only physical resemblance but they also have much deeper references.

These three buildings, or rather their architects, continuously quoted each other, the image of the ship passed in these projects as the baton in relay-race, changing and adapting each time to a new time and a new environment. Setting aside the differences, it becomes apparent surprising fact - despite the differences in backgrounds, under the different conditions in the socio-political and ideological paradigms, the idea of the ship, striving towards a brighter tomorrow fits every project.

What is the reason for this astonishing vitality and adaptability of this metaphor? Varying from the revolutionary battleship to the cruise liner, and then to the ship with sails why it remains so stable and is mentioned not only by architects and critics but also becomes (and stays) popular among the citizens, becomes some kind of toponym? How did it happen that one and the same ideological projection worked in different modes at different times? These are the questions I will try to answer in my essay.

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Battleship Potemkin Narkomfin house in Moscow by Moisey Ginsburg ‘The static architecture of the Egyptian pyramids has been superseded – our architecture revolves, swims, flies.’ 3

3 Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie. “El Lissitzky Life.

Letter. Texts” (1980): 24

In 1925, in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the uprising on the Battleship Potemkin the film with the same name made by Sergei Eisenstein appears on the Soviet screens. Later on critics wrote about the film that it was ‘a revelation’. Eisenstein showed ‘the revolutionary event, the protest against bloody violence and the power of a universal brotherhood’ [4], and revealed ‘the unprecedented opportunities of young art of the cinema’. This film was significant not only as a cultural event , but also as a symbol of the whole era. The whole sequence of the dramatic revolutionary events of 1917 could be seen in the metaphor of the rebellious ship. And the metaphor of the brave team on the ship, which railed in the face of a common enemy and overthrew its oppressor, could be interpreted as the new-born Soviet society, with radical and avant-garde art and culture.

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Three years later, in 1928, world-famous architect Le Corbusier visited Moscow to participate in competitions for the construction of the Palace of Soviets and Tsentrosoyuz building. He meets with representatives of the avant-garde of that time, most of which are already familiar with his theoretical works and perceive him as some kind of a soul-mate. Architect Alexander Burov helps him as his translator and guide; Sergei Eisenstein shows him films, which impresses Le Corbusier.

“It seems to me that in my creative work I am thinking the way Eisenstein is thinking as he creates his movies” [5] – that’s what he writes in his letter to Mr. Eisenstein from France, few month after his return from USSR.

During his stay in Moscow, Le Corbusier visits Narkomfin building, which was in the process of construction, and meets Nikolay Miliutin, who just recently finished his book Sotsgorod, which was largely consonant with the ideas of Le Corbusier. Later Le Corbusier returns to France, he is inspired with the things he have seen in the Soviet Union and starts working on the project of a residential Unit Unite that is destined to be realized only in 1947.

Moisey Ginsburg was the one of the leaders of the Soviet architectural life in those years: he was theorist, co-editor in chief of the magazine “Modern Architecture”, and head of the group Modern Architects Association (OSA). His co-author Ignatiy Milinis to the moment of Narkomfin project also already designed the club for the workers of the “Hammer and Sickle” plant.

They decided to work together on the Narkomfin project – the apartment block for the Soviet Ministry of Finance employees (Nicolay Milutin, who’s book I already mentioned was the Comissar – the head of that ministry at the time).

Soon after realization Muscovites started calling this house ‘ship’ — probably due to its elongated shape, pillars and poles, or maybe due to the flat roof and structure resembling the wheelhouse, or - because of the location near the river. This nickname was very tenacious and remained with the house forever.

The project was very was very exotic for Moscow at that time.

Apartments had very unusual configuration: basically it was a two storey residential units comprising bathroom, a small bedroom facing east - so that the rays of the morning sun fell in through the huge windows in the wall and a living room, which had a height of two stories and also a

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large window which in its turn came out to the west — the tenants were able to enjoy views of the Moscow River and the sunsets.

The special charm of the Ginsburg’s house, which was standing on the edge of the undeveloped gentle slope, was created by the sunset views. All large living rooms with their huge windows were facing west (the bedrooms, on the contrary had the opportunity to get the morning light). Perhaps it was the reason why of Commissar Milutin wanted to arrange his apartment on the roof.

The idea of ‘penthouse‘ on the roof occurred after the project was completed, and since the house was built in austerity mode and lifts were not provided, the People’s Commissar first time had to climb up the stairs. [6]

The main volume was the part of a residential complex, in addition to it was also built a food plant which was to serve as canteen and the sports complex; the library, the club (the space for public lectures and meetings) and a small service building with garage and laundry room. Subsequently it was also intended to build the kindergarten for residents, but it was never implemented.

Also there were two empty large apartments in the house, where nobody lived permanently — they were allocated on demand to the residents who were waiting for relatives or guests. During the summer ‘the solarium’ the flat roof served as a huge common space.

All those planning decisions were very unusual for architects of Moscow, where in the 1930s gradually the model of pre-fabricated building started to become a priority model, while the majority of the population still lived in communal apartments in the very crowded conditions. Initially Moisey Ginsburg and Ignatiy Milinis faced the challenge to design a house that would personify the idea of a new socialist way of life. Which would rid the tenants from the everyday household routine and give them new opportunities for communication and personal development.

All the rooms and spaces provided should assume that a person will eat in the public dining room, make his laundry in the communal laundry building, and put his children in the nursery garden every day. That will help him to completely surrender to the labor process, which will lead to the Brave New Tomorrow in the Communist World.

With this arrangement, people did not need any separate children’s rooms - children have spent most of their time away from their

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parents; or in the kitchen (instead the ‘normal’ kitchen it was a kitchenette, dedicated to do basic cooking operations) and even any doors.

All the space of the apartment was generally one ‘flowing space’. This floating, double height space, as well as the successful orientation of the building created according to the first inhabitants of the ‘feeling of spaciousness’. Obviously, all the mentioned planning decisions could find its theoretic references can be found in the book of Nicholas Milutin Sotsgorod: “Creating public canteens, nurseries, kindergartens, boarding schools, laundries and other services we will really, truly, radically tear with existing property relations in the family and that will create economic conditions for the destruction of the family as an economic unit. This fact gives us the right in deciding on living cell in the new homes to treat these cells as housing individuals connected in the community, in which the family, if it exists, not as an economic unit, but as a free association of people connected with personal, relative or similar relationship.” [7] However, both Ginsburg and Milutin understood that a direct shift to a totally new ‘socialist housing’ could be painful for people who never had such an experience before, therefore, in addition to the ‘experimental’ apartments designed for young and flexible people there was a number of ‘normal’ two-bedroom apartments with a large bathroom.

Also there were few one-bedroom apartments for singles.

If we consider the Narkomfin project in the context of housing experiments of the 1930-s it can called ‘house of transition-type’, in contrast for example from the Commune House of the Textile Institute designed by Ivan Nikolaev and built in 1929, in which all life processes were not just defined by function but also were strictly scheduled: “Functional diagram of the building has been focused on the creation of the hard daily routine schedule for the residents: student wakes up in the morning in a two-bed cabin, which accommodates only beds and stools (total amount of cabins: 1008) — and then he is sent to the Sanitary Building, where he passes through the sequence of ‘morning activities spaces’ such as showers, fitness rooms, changing rooms, etc. From this build-

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ing student takes stairs or ramp down to low public housing and enters the dining room, then he goes to college or to other areas of the housing complex. In the evening, the student returns to the main building, where he leaves his things in the dressing room and in underwear goes into the bedroom cabin. During the night, sleeping cabin is ventilated using ozonized air, as well there is a possibility of adding some relaxing and calming matters.” [8]

Narkomfin project was very loud for its time, Le Corbusier was not the only architect who visited it. For example a group of Bauhaus architects developed a color scheme for apartments and public spaces. Some residents today with nostalgia reveal images of the blue ceilings in their bedrooms and unusual colors of the long ‘naval’ corridor walls.

The extravagance of the project that was dictated by the desire of the architect to create a new model of life, was not always perceived correctly by tenants. Communal spaces were not used, and not everyone was happy to share all the details of his private life with the neighbors. Lack of the full kitchen was seen as a huge disadvantage, and public dining eventually stopped responding to consumers’ demands and was abolished. Residents began to try to arrange the stoves in the kitchenette niches or transferred them into the bathrooms. They ‘decorated’ their homes in accordance with their ideas of beauty and comfort, brought in apartments bulky furniture, changed the rooms’ functions.

One of the tenants recalls that he told his classmates: “We don’t have bathroom, bathroom is used as a kitchen”. [9]

In his theoretical constructions Nikolay Milutin did not considered human nature, he relied on the ‘socialist man’ whose nature was far better in comparison with ordinary middle-class bourgeois, who couldn’t understand the beauty of simplicity and light: “Any kind of moldings, carvings, open shelves, etc. must be resolutely erased as outbreaks of dust and infections. Piers in exterior walls should be expelled likewise, as they senselessly rob the sunlight. The same can be said about all sorts of rags and curtains with which our every man loves to ‘decorate’ his home,

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turning it into a dusty warehouse of useless junk. As much as possible of light, air, cheerful joy, simplicity — that’s the competition brief for the modern architect.” [10] Materials used can also seem very interesting. For example, it was decided to use an experimental type of concrete called ‘ksilite’ in which straws and sawdust were used as filling. The undoubted advantage of this material was that it had the perfect ability to conserve heat, but eventually it turned out that also that material was a good conductor of sound, therefore each tenant was aware of all the details of his neighbors’ lives.

Sliding windows and walls used to slide not on the rollers, but on a bearskin rug (bear fur). The window frames were made from solid oak, as well as flooring. Such exotic solutions were due to the fact that the architects simply used all the available materials and risked often, experimenting with new ideas. Today the outputs of these experiments constitute a dilemma for restorers: how to keep a monument of architecture, is it really necessary to recreate the materials exactly and how to do so — all these questions remain unanswered.

Generally speaking, the metaphor of the Battleship Potemkin was very consonant with the whole idea of the Soviet system: the image of the strong and brave people who were not afraid to perform the most global experiment in human history.

In the cohesive team on the ship it was developed a feeling of comradeship, the rebellion attempts have been suppressed quickly and decisively because nobody wanted to rock the boat. Despite the sense of equality it was a rigid hierarchy established on the ship, the vertical power - which was headed by the captain - the Great Leader.

Looking forward, using the terminology of Roland Barthes: the ‘myth’ of the ship, which fitted so good in the layout of the Soviet Union and gave rise to the structure of the Narkomfin building mutated over time. However, it is surprising and amusing that the structure of the building, which was created by this myth, actually perfectly fits into the realities of today’s capitalist Russia.

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Cruise Liner Le Corbusier and the Marseille Unité ‘When I suffered from the pangs of unrequited love I immediately got on an ocean liner.’ [11]

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Maughtam, Somerset. The Razor’s edge (1944)

The relationships between Le Corbusier and the Soviet architects were truly exceptional. History knows little evidence when architects, winning the competition refused to accept the victory and handed it to their ‘rival’ for the implementation of the development of his innovative ideas. This is what happened with the contest for building of Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow (Cooperative Union Headquarters) in 1934. There were three steps in the contest, and in the end jury allocated group Soviet architects’ projects. But they decided to write an open letter to Le Corbusier, in which they rejected to accept the project and offered the possibility to work on it to their ‘foreign colleague’:

“We welcome the idea to entrust the final draft of the Tsentrosoyuz building to Mr. Corbusier, as we believe that his project will be bright and will represent the latest architectural trends.” [12]

Case with Tsentrosoyuz illustrates the close relationship arose between Le Corbusier and Soviet Constructivists of the early 1930s.

This influence was mutual, and it is not surprising that architect’s first visit to Moscow in 1928 was profoundly inspirational, which lately imprinted on his ideas and projects in those years. Returning from Moscow Le Corbusier continues his work on the book la Ville Radieuse, where he forms the principles, the theoretical basis of his ideas. Those ideas would be realized only in 1947, in the project of the first Unite, in Marseille.

The main metaphor that Le Corbusier quotes in his book, the main source of inspiration - is the cruise liner. The architect himself has been a passenger on a multiple cruise liners such as Normandie and Luteria. Le Corbusier was so fascinated with the image of the cruise liner because it envisaged the technical innovations of the XXth century, the effectiveness of the space organization, luxury and convenience coupled with rationality and reasonableness. This great invention basically fed, housed and entertained hundreds of passengers, using the very restricted space. Therefore it could be considered as a design paradigm of the new concept if the social housing. Corbusier undertook many of the liner features, from the organization of internals spaces to the peoples’ everyday life rationalization, and tried to involve it in his high-rise, tight-scale projects. He described it in his book La Ville Radieuse:

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“It worked within astonishing physical limitations because its communal services are rigorously organized, because the living quarters are stripped elements, and because life aboard…is governed by an intelligent use of innovations that permit a solution of the space problem, on the one hand, and reject all waste, on the other.” [13] All this was a part of the world famous mystification, which, in a nutshell, stated that there was some kind of combination, of the secret code of space organization, which can create the perfect housing scheme, the machine for living. Ocean liners, in the architect’s mind, combined in themselves the beauty of form and function, technology and attractive design, the balance of private and public spaces - the balance of humanity and machinery. In the same chapter of the book La Ville Radieuse, which I have already quoted, Le Corbusier wrote: “Inside this floating city where all ought to be confusion and chaos, everything functions, on the contrary, with amazing discipline. The four main services (A. engineers; B. crew; C. stores; D. catering) are all separately located. Why should a city apartment house not attempt to provide us with the same comfort as ship?” [14]

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Fig. 12

This cross-section can be very interesting for an attentive reader. First of all its on the pages of La Ville Radieuse is very significant. This method of representing the complexity of the inner life on the cruise through its cross-section became a sort of icon, reception, appeared in the 1930-s, a kind of personification of time and progress. wwIt has been quoted unaccountably often in the media and art in the later years.

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But, in the same time we have to pay attention to the interior details provided on the cut. Despite the technological and romantic image behind it, the cruise liner in the beginning of the XX century was the mood of transport for the limited class of wealthy people.

Therefore its interior layout was designed to correspond to their aesthetic views and it can be clearly seen on the cross section.

Interestingly, Le Corbusier in his book shows not the outer appearance of the liner, which can reveal dreams and thoughts about technology and progress, but the very inner structure: rooms with posh furniture, curtains; corridors with luxurious carpets. This cross-section literally shows us the collision between two aesthetic paradigms: of the oldfashioned ‘bourgeois chick’ and the newborn technicism of the ‘machine for living’.

Like an ocean liner, Unite is a small self-contained structure consisting of twelve floors, which accommodate shops, nurseries, hairdressers, cinemas and other different functions. In the diagram with the plans we can see the layout of the standard apartment: a central corridor ‘interior street’ leads to the apartments; on the left, we pass through the kitchen and dining room to get into the living room. Stairs in the parents and children bedrooms are behind the living room. Apartment on the right hand is slightly different in configuration but the composition of the spaces stays the same. [15]

Looking at these layouts, we can say that, to some extent, in its drafts of the Unite d’Habitation Marseille le Corbusier achieved a harmonious balance of public and private spheres, which he admired so much in cruise liners.

If we would focus on the interiors and details, we could also find theoretical issues describing them in La Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier places the photos of the second-class cabins as examples of

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“the results of strictly observed economy”. [16] In his project, he strives to create the comfortable cell, which would contain everything human could need for a comfortable life, but nothing excessive at the same time. To some extent, this concept overlaps with Mr. Ginsburg’s aims and the whole Constructivist’s discourse of the 1920 - 1930s: “a human unit, a cell, that is biologically good in itself in conformity with the individual needs.” [17] For the modular size author was adopted the module of 14 square meters per person, which was discussed already on the CIAM in Brussels in 1930.

After this Congress Le Corbusier worked out series of calculations (with the help of Charlotte Perraud), in which he designed the living spaces, the apartments using the 14-square-meters standard.

In his book La Ville Radieuse, author raises the question, and then answers it, referring to the iconic picture of the ocean liner: “Will it be possible to live comfortably on the proposed basis of 14m of floor space per occupant?” [18] On the great ocean liners passengers were confined and cabined for period of from 10 to 15 days (though they were provided with the amenities of promenade desks, deck games, libraries and bars). Le Corbusier points out that the luxury suites, which were intended only for exceptionally wealthy passengers, measured only 56 square meters for 5 to 7 persons. Through similar description architect draws attention to the issue of the rational space division in the ‘machine for living’. He mentioned as well that the radiant city offers all the amenities provided on the cruise liner ‘on a far larger scale even in its most modest neighborhoods’. [19]

As in the Narkomfin building in Moscow, in Le Corbusier’s Unite the roof terrace was designed as one of the most important public spaces, a space where all citizens regardless of their social status can enjoy ‘the joys of light, space and greenery’. This space is very significant for the house, it has same importance as ship deck — it brings all the tenants together, improving the collective spirit and feeling of implication.

Construction on the roof, its fence, numerous small elements constantly evoke the image of the ship in the citizen’s mind. Stairs inside the apartments, connecting different levels of cell resembled

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internal staircase of the ship, as well as stairs in the endless corridors.

Those corridors obviously refer to the ‘inner streets’ of la Ville Radieuse, which lead passengers to their cabins. Windows looking onto the city, pillars ‘pilotis’ revealing ship standing in dock – every element of the house is imbued with the idea of shipbuilding.

If we would try to think about the popularity of the cruise liner metaphors among citizens of Marseille, we should obviously take in account that Marseille was always maritime city, port. Its Mediterranean paysage and rocky landscape overlap and integrate with the extended volume and the raw brown ‘beton brut’ texture of the building, revealing the image of the big trade ships or luxurious cruise liners.

Today Le Corbusier’s project remains in good condition; it is recognized in a status of a star architecture and is taken under protection of the government. Part of the building functions as a hotel in another part inhabited by les Marsellais, who admire Le Corbusier’s talent. Some people live there from moment of construction and describe time spent there as very delightful experience:

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“Each visitor has suddenly found immersed in a totally new housing framework that resembles nothing that can not be compared to anything. It was only the impression of being on a board of a huge ship motionless and silent. The compartment door was closed; the father-mother-children were freed from any constraint, easement, any promiscuity which is brought sometimes by the presence of the neighbors.” [20] Looking at the photos of the Unite today, we can observe that it still looks attractive and has experienced very small changes since it was built. In maritime, Mediterranean city with its sunny landscapes the whole building looks friendly despite its futuristic structure and minimalistic details. It is easy to believe those residents who say that they feel in this house as on a cruise liner. It can be concluded that Le Corbusier achieved in this project everything that he aimed: every detail of this building was created in order to make life more enjoyable, more similar to a romantic journey on a cruise liner: “Railroads and ocean liners are relevantly different from the state coach and from the sailing ship, not merely in construction and efficiency but in the very feel of the user, making travel a different experience altogether, something one may do for its own sake. Airplanes finally, leave behind any similarity with former conveyances, except the purpose of getting from here to there, with no experience of what lies in between.” [21] Cruise on the ocean liner is an experience which is pleasant in itself, and not the movement towards the destination makes it so appealing, but the idea of traveling, a journey through life, the experience of living.

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Great Ship in full sail Hutchesontown C, Gorbals by Basil Spence ‘But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter: Sharp love has swollen me up with heady langours. O let my keel split! O let me sink to the bottom!’ [22]

22 Rimbaud, Arthur “Le Bateau Ivre” (“The Drunken Boat”) 1871

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Ten years have passed since the realization of the first Unite in Marseilles. The project has received worldwide recognition. Many architects visited Marseille to see that housing unit, that ‘machine for living’ personally. But not only architects were interested in the ‘Marseille Miracle’, but also the big post-war cities municipalities – after the end of World War II, many European cities faced the problem of lack of the adequate housing.

For example Glasgow — its rapid growth and development in the era of industrial revolution eventually led to the fact that the city became overpopulated; old houses - tenements were in terrible condition, people lived in very uneasy conditions and have been often indulged in even the simplest of household amenities. After the war, the situation has only worsened; therefore it was not surprising that officials from Glasgow Corporation housing Committee also made several trips to Marseille to adopt foreign experience. Le Corbusier’s proposal seemed so tempting and so appropriate for Glasgow; a city, which like Marseille had a great history, relevant upon the shipyards and ships.

Therefore the focus of new development has been recognized as ‘new ideological intensity’, as municipality representative William Power wrote about that: “National planning is no longer a utopian fantasy. It’s an urgent and admitted necessity to which the state has implicitly pledged itself.” [23] In 1957 the strategy for City Redevelopment have been launched, and 29 Comprehensive Development Areas (CDA) have been defined. The east part of the Gorbals district – Hutchesontown was previously named one of worst slums in the city and became one of the key elements of that strategy. Basically the paradigm of compact, high-rise housing suited ideally to the Glasgow conditions – at that time the ratio of the amount of people on the square kilometer was unacceptable.

The ideas of mass market production, of standardization as a key to solving the housing problem came not only from Le Corbusier.

However, the project was unique and Unite was so impressive for the whole generation of young architects in 1950-1960-s not only because it offered the model of an effective design of an apartment

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house, but also because it showed how interestingly organized can the social life be in a human habitat, within the scale of a single project.

As part of the CDA policy Glasgow municipality invited few young architects and divided Hutchesontown districts in the zones between them. Architect Basil Spence, who became already recognizable for his project of Coventry Cathedral received the site in the area C. Later journalists will write about him: “Known famously for Coventry Cathedral, and infamously for Glasgow’s ill-fated Hutchesontown C housing block” [24] It should be taken in account, that the construction conditions at the site were very complicated, the ground was waterlogged, which required extensive piling for every building higher than four storeys. [25]

Basil Spence started his work on this project together in Mischael Blee in April 1961; and the project have been implemented four years later, in 1965. The project represented the two giant (for Glasgow in those days) residential slab blocks, 20 floors in height, located oneby-other, one short and one long. This project was unusual for the city, not only because of the height, but also due to an unusual design - while in Glasgow at that time the most popular design was the repetitive towers.

The first floor has been raised over the land, referencing to the

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five principles of the modern architecture by Le Corbusier. Initially it was supposed that the house will be supported by a single column, but due to the qualities of the ground further calculations revealed that the proportions of the columns in that case would become very cumbersome. Therefore Basil Spence decided to support the building with twin pillars — ‘buttresses’, which referred both to Le Corbusier’s design and as several researchers have noticed — to Harumi Slab tower block by Kunio Maekawa built in Tokyo in 1958 (which in its turn had also very close connections with the Corbusier’s Unite) and to the image of a ship standing in dock.

“Basil’s original idea was to support each of these ten ‘towers’, which are about 40 feet square, on one leg in the center, and cantilever the tower out from that one leg. This however pointed out by the engineers at Arup – would need a floor slab about six feet thick, so that was dropped in favor of [twin legs in] a shaped form” [26]

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Queen towers constituted of two reinforced concrete slab blocks, with long shared balconies on the facades. It was assumed that those balconies will function in similar way, as roofs in Ginsburg and Le Corbusier projects — will serve as public spaces for residents. In the case of Glasgow, there also existed a great tradition of the life in tenements.

Every tenement had a backyard garden, in which tenants gardened and their children had the opportunity to play. The Hutchesontown balconies idea was some kind of classic tenements quote – balconies represented ‘hanging gardens’, the communal spirit of 19th century Glasgow in the high-rise context.

“Slabs would give a space for some tubs of flowers, and to hang out the washing, to give the baby an airing, and to provide a garden fence to gossip over. The height between the garden floor and ceiling was 18 ft. The height of the marionette. Whether this will provide sufficient sun and rain, and exclude sufficient wind, to provide the conditions in which these pursuits will flourish, will depend on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the architect. We hope he succeeds in his enterprising attempt to civilize the tenement.” [27] That was the moment when the most widely known expression about Hutchesontown C was born: Glasgow’s Depute Housing Architect, James Kernohan, recalled that ‘Spence told them’, “on Tuesdays, when all the washing’s out, it’ll be like a great ship in full sail!”. [28]

This comparison stuck to the building forever. Interestingly, in contrast with Le Corbusier’s liner, Basil Spence never compared his design directly with the ship. That ship-quote appeared accidently but it has become a kind of symbol, metaphor for that project, its recognizable characteristic.

However, despite the absence of direct comparisons, some naval and ship-themed objects, similar to which I’ve spoken in previous chapters, could be found in the Basil Spence’s tower blocks. Partly it could be explained by the city shipbuilding heritage, partly as a consequence of the Spence-Corbusier-Ginsburg cross quoting. For example, in addition to balconies, whose functions can be compared with the functions of the rooftop public spaces, there are such things as apartment (cell) structures and usage of pilotis - which were direct references from Le Corbusier’s works.

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Hutchesontown had the same long corridors, revealing hips decks. All the details: roof fences, stairs, and windows — everything reminded about sea again, the glorious naval past of the city.

Despite all those references with the successful Unite project, unfortunately, Queens’ towers further destiny has developed quite differently. Over time it has been defined a great number of reasons of its decline. Critics have said that the problem was in the original design, the details haven’t been properly developed, and then they have been poorly executed. For example window frames have been made of lowquality wood and broke down very quickly; the seams between slabs haven’t been properly finished and the water penetrated inside the building, which resulted in further troubles.

Others say that the main reason was a financial issue. That the city municipality simply miscalculated its forces and architects had to choose the cheapest possible variations, and after all the city was not able to maintain (and repair) the whole thing in good condition.

Due to the deteriorating living conditions the house community also started to decline eventually; the middle class who inhabited it in the first years tried to move to more prosperous areas of the city and as a result the level of criminality constantly increased. Tenants themselves were unable to take care of their house and public space of ‘Hanging Gardens’ turned into junk warehouse, which also provoked criminal activities.

Reasons for the decline were numerous, as opinions about the future of the building. At first glance to this story may it seem that the decision was obvious. For example Councillor Lally, leader of the Glasgow District Council 1190 stated: “Probably they should never have been built in the first place…

The blocks at Queen Elizabeth Square are a monumental monstrosity. They are an eyesore. They are in a bad state of repair, they are unpopular and unsatisfactory.” [29] But actually it was not such an obvious thing. John Grindrod in his book Concretopia publishes an interview with a resident of the house, in which he speaks of the time spent in Hutchesontown C quite positively:

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“It was like going into Buckingham palace, bearing in mind where you’d come from. For us to go into those flats was a total transformation. And another thing as well, we had under-floor heating… This was like walking on coals, walking it in bare feet. It was a great experience. I loved it… The veranda was one of the most startling aspects of the Queen Elizabeth flats. Rather than the poky individual balconies of Robert Matthew’s blocks, four flats shared a single large outside space — the area Spence had expected to see in ‘full sail’ on wash day… I learned to ride my bike on there — a racing bike! I used to take a snooker table out there, set it up. Used to take a couch there — a settee — and have a party, have fun with the radio on.” [30] In reality, the building was too expensive to maintain, and the urban community was insufficiently prepared (and perhaps motivated enough) to prevent its demolition. Twenty-eight years after its construction in 1993, the city administration had decided to demolish it.

“Do we keep it as an architectural monument? In which case, you might as well fill it with concrete and leave it as a huge piece of sculpture! Do we keep it simply as a monument to Spence as an architect? It ha good architectural form, but it has not performed very well.” [31] Hutchesontown C block fell victim to circumstances of changing trends and attitudes among architects. The ship was abandoned by the city to fend for itself and, like Drunken Boat it began its journey into the depths.

Destruction of the building in 1993 became a truly historic event and, in fact, put an end to a great era of ships and sailings.

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Fig. 26

59

60

Fig. 27

61

62

Towards a Brave New World Ship metaphor in the modernist world: Why was it so important? ‘Being set on the idea Of getting to Atlantis, You have discovered of course Only the Ship of Fools is Making the voyage this year, As gales of abnormal force Are predicted, and that you Must therefore be ready to Behave absurdly enough To pass for one of The Boys, At least appearing to love Hard liquor, horseplay and noise.’ 32

32

Wystan Hugh Auden, Atlantis, 1941

Fig. 28

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In my essay, I analyzed three iconic buildings that have been compared with the ships by their authors and the people who inhabited them.

For each of them their journey ended differently.

The first, in the status of the monument remained afloat. It’s not swimming anywhere, it is moored near the shore and it is visited by tourists, it brings the revenue to the city.

Another is drowning at the moment; it miraculously survived the storm of 1970 - 1990’s. Its team it tired and not that happy anymore, but they love their ship and they try to repair it. The third could not resist a storm and sank twelve years ago.

Now the wind ceased and there is an opportunity to reflect, to answer the question that I set myself in the beginning of this essay: why was this image, this metaphor of the ship so important to the ideology of modernist architecture in the context of residential housing?

First we need to understand that this idea was accepted globally everywhere because there was a request for housing everywhere. Cities were bloated during the Industrial Revolution; they were in a deplorable state. Cities have been destroyed during World War II, they needed lodging even more urgently. High-rise slab block, which were so consonant with the image of the huge ships seemed like the perfect solution to all the problems.

However, besides the fact that the image of a multi-storey building is structurally and functionally very common with the image of the ship, it seems to me that even deeper connection could be found in this issue. I will set as an example the words of Roland Barhtes in his book Mythologies. In a nutshell, he writes that the metaphor of the ship carries two sets of meanings. On the one side there is the image of the enclosed space of the cave, and Nautilus is an idealized embodiment of this image: “An inclination for ships always means the joy of perfectly enclosing oneself, of having at hand the greatest possible number of objects, and having at one’s disposal an absolutely finite space.”

The author tell us that, to like ships is first and foremost to like a house, a superlative one since it is unremittingly closed, and not at all vague sailings into the unknown: a ship is a habitat before being a means of transport. And sure enough, all the ships in Jules Verne

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are perfect cubby holes, and the vastness of their circumnavigation further increases the bliss of their closure, the perfection of their inner humanity. ‘The Nautilus, in this regard, is the most desirable of all caves: the enjoyment of being enclosed reaches its paroxysm when, from the bosom of this unbroken inwardness, it is possible to watch, through a large window pane, the outside vagueness of the waters, and this define, in a single act, the inside by means of its opposite.’ [33]

This may explain the popularity of the metaphor of the ship in the architecture of housing. Ship forms a closed, intimate space in which the close, ‘relative’ community appears.

This myth was also very convenient for the authorities to use, in all the three cases. It formed the feeling of the collectiveness in the Soviet society; and in the post-war society it was consonant to the moods of the nation, feeling proud after the end of Second World War.

Soviet society have been often compared with the ship: the helm have been hold by a great leader — Joseph Stalin. Any other organization in the Soviet Union essentially repeated this structure, as a fractal: the team that works for the common good, in which everyone is equal and each has its own place, but at the same time in which a clear hierarchy exists.

On the other hand, if we look at Hutchesontown C blocks command, which was untied at the beginning — declined, people felt alienated from their neighbors. Ship-block itself became deserted; it has lost its motion vector: “The island is what the sea surrounds and what we travel around.

It is like an egg. An egg of the sea it is round. It is as through the island has pushed its desert outside. What is deserted is the ocean around it…The island is deserted more than it is a desert.” [34] The second meaning for the ship metaphor is a journey. Journey, which continues regardless of the will of the man, the journey as an element, as a process. Roland Barthes compares this metaphor with the image of a drunken boat: “In this mythology of seafaring, there is only one means to exorcise the possessive nature of the man on a ship; it is to eliminate the man and to leave the ship on it own. The ship then is no longer

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a box, a habitat, an object that is owned; it becomes a travelling eye, which comes close to the infinite; it constantly begets departures. The object that is the true opposite of Verne’s Nautilus is Rimbaud’s Drunken Boat, the boat which says ‘I’ and, freed from concavity, can make man proceed from a psycho-analysis of the cave to a genuine poetics of exploration.” [35] Hutchesontown C block was that drunken boat. Shortly after it was built the wind changed, and it has become not so obvious as it was in 1930s, that the high-rise blocks is a panacea for all the cities. A negative experience appeared, outlined in the book Defensible Space

by Oscar Newman, and the first signs of this discourse emerged in the other part of the world in 1961 with the release of The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Ship-block became abandoned; it has to find its way by itself.

Of course the Marseille’s Unite case is not so contrasted and dramatic, but in the same time is also illustrates a general trend. The Corbusier’s ship (liner) does not sail anywhere anymore; it is moored to the shore and used as a tourist attraction in the seaside town.

Despite the fact that the metaphor of the ship has been used in architecture throughout the whole history of mankind, bit it have been especially popular during the first half of the XX century. This ‘myth’ is very consonant to the ideas Roland Barthes was reflecting on in his book. At some point each of the three ‘myths about the ships’ appeared as a reaction to the political and social situation; it rooted in citizens minds with time and became some sort of symbol.

Fig. 29

Adapting to different conditions and political system it constantly carried the main message, the whole beauty of the modernist utopia — the idea of a linear movement to the beautiful shores, which obviously require a huge team effort. Before the Second World War, the hope for a brighter tomorrow have been alive in the artist’s minds, and after it continued to be quoted by inertia for a while.

With the development of new trends in philosophy and ideology that many researchers called ‘the post-modern era’, the notion of going to a single target have been lost. It became obvious that such a goal does not exist, but there are a lot of identical equivalent aims. In some sense linear replace vertical, freedom replaced hierarchy, and individualism replaced collectivism — everyone sails in its own boat.

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Architects do not build slab high-rise blocks anymore and they do not call them ships.

Fig. 30

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Fig. 31

70

Fig. 32

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End Notes

1

Foucault, Michel. ”Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias” Architecture, Mouvement, Continuite 5.

2

Foucault, Michel. ”Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias” Architecture, Mouvement, Continuite 5.

3

Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie. “El Lissitzky Life. Letter. Texts” (1980): 24

4

“Battlehip”, Soviet Cinema, Sovetskoe Kino magazine, No 54, 1928, p.2

5

“Novaya klientura gospodina Corbusier” (“New clients of mr.

Corbusier”), Sovetskii ekran, No46 (1928), p.5

6

Anna Bronovitskaya. “And the ship sails...How I wanted to live in the Narkomfin house”, Bolshoi Stolichny Magazine, (2006): 7

7

Milutin, Nikolay. Stosgorod (1930): 45

8

“Commune-House of the Textile Institute” Stroitelstvo Moskvi magazine, (1929): 12-13

9

Anna Bronovitskaya. “And the ship sails...How I wanted to live in the Narkomfin house”, Bolshoi Stolichny Magazine, (2006): 4

10

Milutin, Nikolay. Stosgorod (1930): 66-67

11

Maughtam, Somerset. The Razor’s edge (1944)

12

From the ‘Open letter of Soviet Architects to mr. Corbusier’ 1938

13

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 113

14

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 118

15

“Through prism of Le Corbusier”, Foundation Le Corbusier a Moscou, (2013): 230

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16

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 115

17

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 115

18

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 114

19

Le Corbusier. “To Live! (To Inhabit)” Radiant City (1930): 114

20

“Chaque visiteur s’est trouve soudain plonge dans un cadre d’habitation totalement nouveau qui ne resemble a rien qui ne peut etre compare a rien. On a seulement l’impression d’etre a bort d’un immense navire immobile et silencieux. La porte du logement fermee, a quelque etage que ce soit, le pere la mere les enfants se trouvent liberes de toute contraibte, de toute servitude, de toute promiscuite qu’apporte parfois la presence des voisisns.”

“Lors l’Innaguration”. Le journal populaire de l’Ouest, March 1955

21

Callanan, Luke. “What is Technology” in Shaping Self and the World.

Technology and the Structure of Space (2007):38

22

Rimbaud, Arthur “Le Bateau Ivre” (“The Drunken Boat”) 1871

23

Powers, A.,” Architect of his own success’, Country life, June 18, 2008, p.160

24

Gillespie N., “Sketches of Spence”, Architects Journal, November 1, 2007, p, 49

25

Basil Spence. Buildings and projects. ed. by Campbell, L.; Glendinning, M.; Thomas, J. RIBA publishing, 2012, p. 217

26

Glendinning, Rebuilding Scotland, p. 100

27

“Hanging Gardens of the Gorbals”, Architects’ Journal, 4 September 1958, p. 326

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28

Basil Spence. Buildings and projects. ed. by Campbell, L.; Glendinning, M.; Thomas, J. RIBA publishing, 2012, p. 219

29

Basil Spence. Buildings and projects. ed. by Campbell, L.; Glendinning, M.; Thomas, J. RIBA publishing, 2012, p. 219

30

Grindrod, John. Concretopia, p. 158

31

Glendinning, M, Rebuilding Scotland, p.100

32

Wystan Hugh Auden, Atlantis, 1941

33

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies, p. 66

34

Deleuze, Gilles. Desert Islands, p. 11

35

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies, p. 67

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Image References

Pieter van der Heyden (after Hieronymus Bosch), Merrymakers in a Mussel at Sea, 1562

fig.1

Collage: Unite in Marseilles, Le Corbusier, 1947-1952; Ivan Aivazovsky, the Wrath of the Sea, 1886; Collage: Unite in Marseilles

fig. 2

fig. 3

Edward Hicks, Noah’s Arc, 1846

fig. 4

fig. 5

Narkomfin, Moscow; Unite d’Habitation, Marseille; Hutchsontown C, Glasgow

fig.6

Collage: Narkomfin, Moscow; Sergei Eisenshtein’s Battleship Potemkin movie poster

fig.7

Narkomfin interiors in the 1930’s, photos from Moisey Ginsburg’s family archive

fig.8

Narkomfin interiors in 2013, photos by Artemy Lebedev

fig. 9

As above

fig.10

Unite in Marseille, Le Corbusier

fig.11

Le Corbusier, Sergey Eisenstein and Andrey Burov in Moscow, 1928

fig.12

Collage: Unite - Cruise liner Normandie

fig.13

Criuse liner cross-section, From the book La Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier

fig.14

Collage: Unite interiors, Cruise liner; Larry Rivers, House of Cards - Blue, 1990

75

fig.15

Interiors of the ocean liner cabin, from the book La Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier

fig.16

Details: stairs, from the Unite d’Habitation Marseille by Alban Janson

fig.17

Collage: Weigh the anchor

fig.18

Unite in Marseille, interior and exterior pillars

fig.19

Stills from ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ Directed by Howard Hawks, 1953

fig.20

Hutchesontown C, aerial view in 1956 and 1965

fig.21

12.09.1993 Hutchesontown C demolition

fig.22

Hutchesontown C exterior view

fig.23

As above

fig.24

‘Hardly a garden’ & ‘Roof details’ – photos from Elaine Sommerville’s work “60’s housing utopia – 90’s urban reality”, 1993

fig.25

fig.26

Collage: Alcatraz Collage: 12th of September

fig.27

Collage: Hutchesontown C

fig.28

Collage: Unite

fig.29

The Flying Dutchman

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fig.30

Costa Concordia, 2013

fig.31

Collage: Hutchesontown C

fig.32

Collage: Narkomfin

fig.33

Collage: Noah’s Arc

fig.34

Collage: The Flying Dutchman

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Fig. 33

78

Fig. 34

79

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Frampton, K. Modern Architecture: a Critical History. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2007 Gillespie, N. “Sketches of Spence”, Architects Journal, November 1, 2007, p.49 Glendinning, M. Rebuilding Scotland: The Postwar Vision, 1945-1975. East Linton: Tuckwell, 1997 Glendinning, M., Muthesius, S. Tower Block. Yale: Yale University Press, 1994 Gold, J.R. The Experience of Modernism. Modern architects and the Future City. Cambridge: The University Press, 1997 Grindrod, J. Concretopia: A Jorney Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain.

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Basil Spence: Architect. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2007 Low, R. “The vanishing voters of Queen’s Park, Glasgow”, The Observer, 28 November 1982, p. 4 Murray, G. “Fury over Gorbals tribute to man who designed ‘Alcatraz’, Evening Times, 16 January 2008.

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