Urban Catalysts

AR2DSD820 Architecture Theory Thesis (2011-2012 Q3) Tutor: Heidi Sohn June/2012

Urban Catalysts Towards an New Environment

Max Fabris #4191021 info@maxfabris.com www.maxfabris.com

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

ABSTRACT Multi-program buildings nowadays are commonly under the name ‘Hybrid Buildings’. Those constructions have become a trend and an architectural object under speculation. The need for branding things in our society is even more present and denominations are given just for the sake of selling things out, no matter what is the real meaning of some given names. Due to their constant presence in architectural means even more people are trying to understand the role of those buildings.

Many theories have been written over those multi-program buildings.

A variety of classification had been made. Probably the two most remarkable works about this topic are the theory of ‘Bigness’, from the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, and ‘Hybrid Buildings’ by Joseph Fenton. They become very important when they get together because they encompass the biggest amount of multi-program buildings known as possible. One deals with the consolidated city or the historical city, while the other deals with the sprawl.

This thesis has the ambitious to analyse them and verify in which points they have failed or succeed. Firstly, both deny the city as a whole. Secondly, Fenton’s theory gives a name to those buildings, which embodies some properties that can be questioned, while Koolhaas claims that beyond a certain critical mass or scale, a building acquires the properties of ‘Bigness’, in other words, it can not have any relationship with the context anymore due its size.

The relationship between society and city has increased within the last decades. A lot of disciplines have been studying them together.

It seems very loose to analyse architecture, just through architecture, denying the city as a whole and its society.

This thesis is an attempt to analyse those buildings, as architectural works, within the city as a whole. No segregation within it is allowed from now. Cities have very distinguished parts, but they still

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compound the city itself. What if those buildings don’t dwell just the historical city or the sprawl anymore, but the city as a whole? Can they be together under only one major name?

Those questions are the frame work for this thesis.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

INDEX INTRODUCTION...................................................................... 7 THE WORD HYBRID: MEANING AND USES .......................... 13 Origin ................................................................................. 15 Biology ................................................................................ 15 Architecture ......................................................................... 18 TAXONOMY ........................................................................... 21 Types.................................................................................. 24 Typology ............................................................................. 26 Typicality ............................................................................. 26 PS ...................................................................................... 27 OPPOSITION......................................................................... 29 Hybrid Building: calling a spade a spade ................................. 31 Bigness, or the problem of Large: Revisited............................. 38 UNDER MY UMBRELLA .......................................................... 45 Architecture ......................................................................... 47 Urban Catalysts .................................................................... 50 Why the Need of Urban Catalysts? ......................................... 55 CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 59 REFERENCES ......................................................................... 65 Books ................................................................................. 65 Articles ................................................................................ 66 Magazines ........................................................................... 67

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INTRODUCTION

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning―the first day.”(Genesis I) And a long time later, in order to solve all our problems, Joseph Fenton said “Let there be the Hybrid Building”, as a new chance for the offspring of Adam and Eve. This would be a very easy way to understand and explain hybrid buildings. Bad news, this is not so simple.

It seems that there is a misunderstanding or a misuse of the word hybrid in our days, especially in architecture. This word has become a trend, in order to brand new developments which comprises different kind of programs, even if against Fenton’s ideas, that these buildings should not be in the sprawl. Our society still has not seen a hybrid building in the pure meaning of the word, which derives from genetics. What we have seen so far are multi-program buildings, with disparate qualities within different contexts.

What is hybridization in architecture? Can we achieve nowadays a certain level of hybridization that would fit properly into this term?

To proclaim a building as hybrid or not, there are, before, some specific features which the object must have.

In nature hybrids are always one single animal or plant, generated by a one-way process, that means, once is done, it is done, it can never go back. As an example there is the mule. The mule is just a mule. It is not a male donkey plus a female horse, even though it has some characteristics inherited from parental species. One can not separate this animal back into its two original species again.

Meanwhile, in architecture, in terms of buildings, there is no example which can be compared to nature, where the term hybrid comes from. Take for instance Museum Plaza, Louisville, US by REX. This building is compound by a set of programs, which are well defined

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inside the major structure. This definition allows to go back in the originating process, and get back the original ‘species’ (in this case the programs) back separately. All in all, there is the mule, a one single animal, and there is Museum Plaza, a set of programs sheltered under one structure.

What is so called ‘Hybrid Buildings’ today have many features in common with other multi-program buildings. It is clear that this denomination was given in order to distinguish this type of buildings found in the consolidated or historical city, specially according to Fenton in the American cities, from the ones in the sprawl. But this statement, or excuse, seems to fail. Off course cities have very distinguished parts, but in the end, all of them together make the city. Those differences are dealt in the design process, not in the classification method. In this thesis the city is consider as one single unity, despite the major differences within it.

Programs have been placed together to promote new events in order to meet new demands. For example, nowadays one can buy credits or send a letter inside supermarkets. The supermarket is not anymore the place where you can do just your groceries. But due to the physical presence of a building, things must be revisited in another perspective.

Those multi-program buildings have one, among others, very peculiar characteristic in common. They are conceived as a response to our post-modern life-style and to speed up the urbanization process, consequently accelerating society’s transformation. In this thesis all of those building are under one denomination, the Urban Catalysts.

In order to understand what Urban Catalysts are and their role within the city, a question over ‘typology’, ‘types’ and ‘typicality’ should be raised. Through the first two items, the conditions in where those buildings are conceived and what they really are can have a clear understanding. Through ‘typicality’ it becomes possible to understand what kind of events are them promoting. To put everything together

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is to understand their relation with their contexts, within the cities.

As mentioned before, one main feature of the hybridization process is that it is a one-way process. In architecture, the cities contain this feature. They are always evolving. No matter if they fail or not. All the structures combined make the city. Buildings, roads, trees, people, parks, airports, and more. In this perspective, as a one-way process, one can not separate them into singular entities. They work all together, in symbiosis. A network of roads can not exists if there is nothing for them to connect. An airport can not be there if there is no people traveling. Probably this is the closest we can get to hybrid in architecture, the city itself. A Urban Catalyst has an important role in this ‘game’. They are a key element in order to unify the city back again.

Urban Catalysts are drawing now, in the contemporary city, the future city. We are witnessing just the first steps of them, and consequently, maybe, a new notion of what is a city. Can one say that Urban Catalysts are the ultimate architectural type conceived in what our society understand as city? Are them the starting point of a new understanding of what is a city?

The ultimate type is, maybe in the end, not just one building, as common sense proclaim, and not even a set of buildings. It could be both scenarios together, plus the structures or systems that is part of it. The overlap and later the merging of physical conditions and events must exist as one single entity to allow some hybridization in architecture.

From now, I invite you to have a look at the city as whole, and understand why those buildings are remodelling it.

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THE WORD HYBRID: MEANING AND USES

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Origin Etymologically the word ‘hybrid’ in English is known since 1601, but rarely associated to something before 1850. It comes from the Latin word ‘hybrida’, a variant of ‘ibrida’, a mongrel, specifically, the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar, under influence of Ancient Greek ὕβρις (hubris, “outrage”). Cognate to Latin ‘iber’ and ‘imbrum’.1 The term entered into popular use in English in the 19th century.

Biology The term ‘hybrid’ since it was coined in biology has been used in a wide range of sciences, academic disciplines and in the popular culture. In general it can be understood as the blending of different things which become one single unity, in its most basic sense to mixture.

In biology and specifically in genetics the term hybrid has several meanings, but all refer to the offspring of sexual reproduction resulting from cross-breeding, which means the breeding between two animals or plants of different species. 2 Depending on the type of parents, different types of hybrids can be traced in biology. Here they are known as single cross hybrids, double cross hybrids, three-way cross hybrids, triple cross hybrids, population hybrids and hybrid species. For this work a further explanation on each type is not necessary. What matters now is to understand that new denominations for hybrids emerge in Biology from the different types of cross-breeding of parents.

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“ibrido” in 'L'etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana'. according to 'Glossary of Genetics and Cytogenetics: Classical and Molecular', p256.

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In order to give name to a new hybrid specie the use of the Portmanteau method3 is the most common. Normally the first half of the word is extracted from the father’s name, than, for the second part, the mother’s name. For example liger which is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger.

Through a process called natural selection4 wild species of plants and animals have evolved naturally over time. On the other hand artificial selection, which means human controlled selective breeding, allows humans to break down the ‘rules’ of natural selection in order to get desirable traits in new species.

Hybridization process is much more common found in plants than animals. Plants hybridize more readily than animals, and their resulting hybrids are more often fertile. Since plants hybridize easily without the need of putting too much effort, humans make use of this characteristic in order to produce improved plants.

Hybridized species may not be genetically strong as their naturally evolved ancestors. Very often they have less immunity to natural diseases. On the other hand some hybrids can be much stronger than their parents. This scenario is more commonly seen in hybrid plants, which is known as ‘hybrid vigour’ (heterosis) or ‘heterozygote advantage’.

Hybridization between two closely related species is actually a common occurrence in nature but is also being greatly influenced by anthropogenic changes as well.5 Hybrids in nature can occur naturally. It is a genetic process where genetically different individuals mate.

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a Portmanteau word is a combination of two or more words into one new word.

4 Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 1859, sets out his theory of evolution by natural selection as an explanation for adaptation and speciation. He defined natural selection as the principle by which each slight variation of a trait, if useful, is preserved. p61.

5 'The problems with hybrids: setting conservation guidelines', pp613-622.

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The main concern about hybridization in nature has less to deal with extinction than how to manage the resulting hybrids. If a population experience hybridization through the movement of a gene from one specie to another gene pool by repeated backcrossing between a hybrid its original parental generation, which is called as ‘introgression’, there still can be found parent types of each set of individuals. In some cases all the individuals become hybrids, but just after the hybrid swarm6 is created. When populations of species hybridize, normally the first generation of hybrids are very uniform.

In every generation that succeeds the first one, the hybrids individuals will become more variable, this means with less similar characteristics than the first species which had originated consecutives hybrids, due to the crossbreeding that can occur with different individuals.

It is quite impossible via policy regulate hybridization. Hybridization can occur naturally and there is the concern of protecting those hybrid swarms, because they are the only remaining evidence of past species.7 In certain species, hybridization is a very important tool for the natural evolution. New hybrid species can appear with a beneficial combination of traits, which allow them to explore new habitats, something that was impossible in the previous generations. Hybrids will become the dominant form when changes in environmental conditions are too aggressive that their parental species can not survive. If the environmental changes are reversed, the parental species will re-establish themselves, and hybrids will become a minor group.

Hybridization process generates multiple variations across genes or gene combinations, unlike mutation, which affects only one gene.

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a hybrid swarm is a population of hybrids that has survived beyond the initial hybrid generation.

7 'The problems with hybrids: setting conservation guidelines', pp613-622.

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The great genetic diversity is the most prominent among a great number of conditions that restrict the success of hybridization. Some of other conditions, in terms of plants and animals, can include different periods of fertility, physiological sperm cells’ rejection, individual’s mating behaviour, and others.

Architecture In Pamphlet Architecture 11 Kenneth L. Kaplan made a short explanation about ‘Hybridity’, where he says “HYBRIDITY, as a genetic concept, can be traced back to Aristotle and his sophistic conjectures upon the origin of certain species as the result of spontaneous crossbreeding,…”.8 At the same time that this notion is totally related to Biology, a priori in genetics, he claims that “BUILDINGS, in a sense, have also been ‘crossed’, like plants and animals, to produce Hybrid Architecture. …Each example, no matter which of its formal, functional or urbanistic elements might predominate, ascends to a richer, more elemental wholeness, invigorated by a poetic union of its minor parts.” 9 In his words, that means, all the examples have in common the idea of ‘Hybrid Vigour’.10 Their performance has increased over that of pure breeds.

The combination of different programs within the same structure has been produce for a long time in architecture. Past societies had also provided the history of architecture with buildings that could be read as multifunctional apparatus, in the pure sense of the term. At the same series Joseph Fenton says that “The house over the store, the apartment above the bridge and the Roman bath are examples of the tradition of combining two or more functions within the walls of a single structure.”11

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Kenneth L. Kaplan, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p4.

Kenneth L. Kaplan, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p4.

10 when hybrids are much stronger than their parents.

11 Joseph Fenton, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11'.

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It is remarkable that the performance of different programs merged together has increased within the same structure. But, and here the word BUT must be really emphasized, that does not mean that they have been exposed or they have suffered a hybridization process.

They are still unique programs. Single programs, as an unmarried guy looking for his couple, which finds a really good night of sex enough for his own satisfaction, and forgets about the rest of the time that he still have to live and perpetuate his specie. One can separate those programs back and even without the same performance level they will exist. This scenario is just about symbiosis, not about hybridization. It is all about mutualistic relationship where all parts can benefit from others. Maybe those buildings could be called ‘Symbiotic Buildings’ instead of ‘Hybrid Buildings’.

For sure hybridization process that one can verify in nature has some features that undoubtedly occur in architecture, even as a metaphor that was brought to ‘Praxis’. Events can be hybrids, for example.

Buildings, as physical objects, are another story. For some people, a fairy tale.

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TAXONOMY

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Taxonomy is the science or technique of classification. Commonly this word is expressed in Biology, which, within it is the science that deals with the description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms.

“To raise the question of typology in architecture is to raise a question of the nature of the architectural work itself.”12 For Rafael Moneo ‘typology’ as being a discourse on ‘type’ is a question of what kind of object is a work of architecture. Typology is not something touchable as a building. It is a way, through theory, to try to understand what we produce today, what we did produce, and maybe what we will produce. This notion of typology intends to connect the shape of the building with its purpose, with its function, but beyond than relating only symbolic purposes, typology should be demonstrated through the functional and formal context of the architectural work itself. The question of typology is a way to understand society through architecture.

The concept of ‘type’ in architecture has its function connected to the language. It is a way to name and describe the objects, or a set of them within the city. “…the very act of naming the architectural object is a process that from the nature of language, is forced to typify.”13 This can be understood also as a manner to give meaning to objects by locating them inside a context of relationships with other objects. In other words, to understand those objects through ‘type’, co-relations with different objects are need. Vidler says, “While a simple notion of type of progress might aspire to the perfectibility of each type, only an internal understanding of the constructive laws of types, and the dynamic transformations of these laws under the threat of external change or internal demands, could open the way to a comprehension of a kind of evolution in architecture.”14

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Rafael Moneo, 'On Typology', 1978.

Rafael Moneo, 'On.Typology', 1978.

14 Anthony Vidler, 'The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal, 1750-1830', 1977, p108.

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Because types are conceived by different point of views, different ways of thinking and producing architecture, ”…the notion of type, in its various meanings, has played an effective critical role in the confrontations between architecture and the city.”15

Types The word ‘type’ can be related to two origins. The Greek one ‘typos’ (derived from tuptein) means ‘a model (for imitation) or instance for warning), a matrix, an impression, a stamp or scar, a shape by analogy, style or resemblance, and a sampler. From the late Latin word typus (which is derived from the Greek one) means kind, form, image, figure, bas-relief, ground plan, type, and character.

The common sense understands ‘type’ as a kind, class, category, and an object or an artifact that belongs to a class or group which the constituents share similar characteristics. In architecture type is commonly understood as a group of buildings classified in one category by their uses (this include programmatic and formal aspects), such as churches, hospitals, cinemas, shopping malls, prisons, and others. In this sense, this tendency to organize buildings groups by theirs uses, can be related to Nicholas Pevsner, in his Architectural Guides, published from 1951 until 1975.16 We can relate to Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (17551849)17the definition of the word ‘type’ in the architectural discourse, or better, in the architectural theory. For him ‘type’ is abstract and 15

Marina Lathouri, 'The city as a project – types, typical objects and typologies', 2011, p24.

16 "The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. Begun in the 1940's by art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the Buildings of England series were published between 1951 and 1975. The series was then extended to Scotland and Wales, and in the 1990's the Buildings of Ireland series was begun. The Scottish, Welsh and Irish guides were incomplete as of spring 2008." (source Wikipedia) 17 a French armchair archaeologist and architectural theorist, a Freemason, and an effective arts administrator and influential writer on art.

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conceptual, is an idea. It is the pure symbolic meaning embodied in something. ‘Type’ also implies that the characteristic form allows a building to be read as its main purpose. “The word ‘type’ presents less the image of a thing to copy or imitate completely than the idea of an element which ought itself to serve as a rule for the model.” 18 In order to displace Quatremère de Quincy’s idealist position towards the notion of ‘type’ to a materialist and practical approach Gottfried Semper (1803-79)19defines it “… as the idea that must be understood through the potentials of four building techniques: terracing (mansory), roofing (carpentry), the heart (ceramics) and walling (textiles).”20 Giulio Carlo Argan 21 (1909-92) came up with another meaning for ‘type’ based, again, on Quatremère de Quincy’s idea, but in opposition to it, in the sense that he neglected nature as ideal. Argan says that ‘type’ “is an idea no longer residing in nature but in building precedents and therefore in the history of architecture. This value is thus relative, not an ideal nor immutable. …The birth of a ‘type’ is therefore dependent on the existence of a series of buildings having between them an obvious formal and functional analogy.” 22 It is a fact that the Italian architect Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) was influenced by the Argan’s ideas at ‘On the Typology of Architecture’.

Rossi says that ‘type’ is “…the very idea of architecture, that which is closest to its essence. In spite of changes, it has always imposed itself on the feelings and reason as the principle of architecture and

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Papadakis Publisher, 'The Historical Dicitionary of Architecture of Quatremère de Quincy', 2000.

19 a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, which wrote extensively about the origins of architecture, especially in his book 'The Four Elements of Architecture' from 1851.

20 'Gottfried Semper, 'Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 6', 1983, pp5-31.

21 an Italian art historian and politician.

22 Giulio Carlo Argan, 'On the Typology of Architecture', Architectural Design 33.12, 1963, pp564-65.

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of the city.”23 According to Rossi, ‘type’ is the principle that can be found in the urban artifact. He also says that the urban artifact is more than just a building. It is a small part of the city. It is part of a whole. “...they are not just physical thing in the city, but all of its history, geography, structure and connection with the general life of the city.”24

Typology The suffix –logy derives from the Greek logos, which in a very short way, can be described as theory or science. Consequently, ‘typology’ means the science or theory of the ‘type’.

According to Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834)25 the notion of ‘type’ has been associated to ‘typology’ as a method of design.

Durand tried to find a systematic method in which he could classify different kinds of buildings and to separate them by their most typical parts.

His ambition was to systematize archictectural knowledge and find out a rational method in designing buildings. In order to make it happen, he conceived a systematic method of analysing ‘type’ and this science becomes what is so called nowadays ‘typology’.

Typicality The first attempt to distinguish ‘type’ from ‘typicality’ was drawn by Dalibor Veseley. Peter Carl on his article in Architectural Design 81.1, 2001, called ‘Type, Field, Culture, Praxis’ put forward this distinction, refering to ‘typicality’ as conventions or frameworks of understanding that relies on common situations and typical elements.

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Aldo Rossi, 'The Architecture of the City', 1982, p41.

Aldo Rossi, 'The Architecture of the City', 1982, p22.

25 "a French author, teacher and architect. He was an important figure in Neoclassicism, and his system of design using simple modular elements anticipated modern industrialized building components." (source Wikipedia) 24

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As Carl understands ‘type’ as formal variations or models, one can say that ‘type’ for him is a subset to ‘typicality’. His distinction between them is illustrated with the example of a bedroom. The ‘type’ bedroom refers to a medium size room with a bed, side table, window, closet and an access to a WC. The ‘typical situation’ related with the bedroom refers to a different interpretation, that includes sleep, illness, death, sex and others actions. Thus the main difference between ‘type’ and ‘typicality’ is that the first one relies on objects, while the second on situations.

‘Typicalities’ operates in language as a framework of understanding, and an element of recognition is required for mutual understanding.

This language shows ‘typicalities’ in layers. 26 On the other hand, recognition can be possible just through the common elements embodied by ‘typicalities’. One can not exist without other.

PS All definitions and concepts mentioned until now, give us a better background to understand the chapter ‘Under my Umbrella’, once they deal with the notion of ‘type’ in an evolutionary way and in a huge dimension of scale, in other words, from an idealistic position (the ‘idea’, the ideal in nature) to a materialist position (the urban artifact and the city).

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different from the structuralism of French linguistics that aims to translate all language into a grammar of message or codes.

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OPPOSITION

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Hybrid Building: calling a spade a spade In the ‘Foreword’ on the series Pamphlet Architecture #11, published in September 1st, 1985, the American architect Steven Holl described, in a few words, the idea of a ‘Hybrid Building’. Those definitions were drawn in order to establish a framework for Joseph Fenton’s classification27 in the following pages of that catalogue, described as a “…collection of buildings within the dynamic of modern culture and technological production.” 28 From this publication the term ‘Hybrid Building’ was coined.

It is very important to emphasize that, when the term ‘Hybrid Building’ is used in this chapter, it represents the definitions announced on Pamphlet Architecture #11. The author may not agree with all concepts presented there, but this will be explained in the following paragraphs.

Nowadays it is common to call a building ‘Hybrid’ in order the multi-variety of programs in which one is contained, are structures able to combine different programmes and the interaction of a disparate sequence of urban uses, private activities with the public realm.”29

to express “…as they encourage combining

For Holl certain forms of association, which were neglected in the past, now in the contemporary city, have been blended together, generating new varieties of buildings. The combination of different programs within the same structure has been produce for a long time in architecture. Past societies had also provided architecture’s history 27

“Fenton's catalogue presented a selection of American examples (and he argues that they have evolved out of the conditions of the American metropolis) grouping them into: Fabric Hybrids-volumetric infill of the city's grids fabric; Graft Hybrids-which express each programme in the resultant form of the hybrid building; and Monolith Hybrids-programmatic elements being subsumed into a continuous envelope.”, Martin Musiatowicz, 'a+t Hybrids I - High-Rise and Mixed-Use Buildings', p9.

28 Steven Holl, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p3.

29 'a+t Hybrids I - High-Rise and Mixed-Use Buildings', p3.

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with buildings that could be read as multifunctional apparatus, in the pure sense of the term. “The house over the store, the apartment above the bridge and the Roman bath are examples of the tradition of combining two or more functions within the walls of a single structure.”30 Even though there are some examples in the past, those objects called ‘Hybrid Building’ had never developed so fast and produced such an enormous diversity as in the last century.

Undoubtedly Holl contextualize himself in space and time, within the rapidly growth of the American Cities, which now can be understood as a worldwide trend.

In order to draw a relation of those buildings with the contemporary American city, a differentiation between ‘Mixed-use’ and ‘Hybrid Building’ had to be traced by him. In programmatic terms, they are all the same. A ‘casco’ flooded and congested with different programs and events coexisting. The main difference among them is their relationship with the existing city, the context. The “…‘mixeduse’ designation (is) frequently used to describe the sprawling mega structures of the middle of this century.” 31 For ‘Hybrid Building’, they “…are undeniably fruits of modernity, being inherently connected to the development of the elevator32, steel frame and concrete construction techniques. Rather than concentrating on technique or new arguments for the expression of function. …Each of these structures has an individual form supporting the underlying pattern of the city grid.”33 The former denies the city, becoming an autonomous entity, whereas the latter can be read as part of the city, dealing in the collective act.

Another important issue to point out at Holl’s ‘FOREWORD’ is the clarification of the Urban and Rural as an urgent task. In our current cities, buildings are being built as autonomous entities, in what used 30

Joseph Fenton, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p5.

Steven Holl, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p3.

32 Rem Koolhaas, 'Delirious New York: A retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan', 1978.

33 Steven Holl, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p3.

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to be the rural countryside. Some problems, just now, have been clearly identified, such as the “… the dissipated centers of towns, drained of activity, call for revitalization.”34 This clarification should be positioned against the destruction of natural environment, what one can called, ‘eco-friendly’. And also be used as programmatic and physical tool for rebuilding the consolidated, and in most of the cases outdated, cities.

On Pamphlet Architecture #11 the definitions about ‘Hybrid Building’ are very clear as conceptual terms. One can call it as the metaphysical means. To translate all of them to the world of Praxis 35 is a very challenging task. This last world requires a quality that is abstracted in the previous one. That is the scale of the objects. As mention before, undoubtedly the catalogue refers to the big structures conceived in the rapidly growing American cities. On the other hand, according to the dictionary, a ‘building’ (noun) is a relatively permanent enclosed construction over a plot of land; anything built or constructed. Something to become a building, do not need to bring together a ‘certificate of grandeur’.36 Can a small size pavilion place in a historical square be considered a ‘Hybrid Building’? Can a single-family house? What about the city as a whole? What the hell, they are all buildings. The first one maybe is too small to acquire, to contain, the qualities, as described on the published issue, to become a ‘Hybrid Building’. The second one maybe do not deals with the public realm and the city fabric as expected to be considered a ‘Hybrid Building’. Meanwhile the third one maybe is too big to be considered a building in this classification, but it is for sure ‘hybrid’, or maybe not 37. The only certitude, they are 34

Steven Holl, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p3.

Praxis as opposite from theory, application or use, as of knowledge or skills.

36 This certificate of grandeur generates Bigness, “beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a Big Building. Such a mass can no longer be controlled by a single architectural gesture or even by any combination of architectural gestures”. Rem Koolhaas, 'S,M,L,XL', 1998, p499.

37 In the Cannaregio project, Peter Eisenman raises some questions about the relationship between scale and the name of the objects. “While all the objects have the same form, the form of a house, they appear at three different 35

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all buildings, no matter their size. For analytical purposes, the catalogue calls for certain mass of the object before proclaiming it ‘Hybrid Building’. In other words, for it, ‘hybridization’ in architecture is extremely conditioned to size of the object.

When the question what is a ‘Hybrid Building’, is fully understood, one can perceive that new qualities were given to the word ‘hybrid’, in order to make this denomination useful in the catalogue. The word had acquired the qualities of the buildings instead of the buildings acquiring the sheer meaning of the word. 38 ‘Hybrid’, as we have seen in the first part of this thesis, has to deal just with the final product from the breeding between two animals or plants of different species, not with the context. A+B in any given context generates ‘ab’ in any given context. What generates a ‘Hybrid Building’ are scales. The first object is smaller than a house, the second is the size of a house, and the third is larger than a house. The three different scales change not only the way man possesses objects in terms of their physical presence but even in the way they are named. The first object is about five feet high. It is smaller than a man, but it is usable to the extent that someone can crouch in it and it provides shelter. But is it a house or a model of a house? The second object is the size of a house. But inside it contains the shell of the first object and nothing else. The first object is a replica of the exterior of the second object. Is it a house, or is it a tomb for itself, or for a model of itself, or for a real object? If it is a mausoleum, than the first object, the five-foot “house”, is no longer a model of something real, but a reality itself, no longer a model of something else but something in itself. The fact of the change in name, from house to mausoleum, changes the reality of the first objet from model to house. The third object is twice the size of the second object and nothing else. How is it named? It is not the scale of a model, a house, or a mausoleum. Can it be a museum of houses, or a museum of mausoleums?

The question is, which object is the house, if in fact one of them is a house?

Which one is the correct size? Which one is the real object? Since both of the larger objects contain a smaller version of themselves, is the smallest object the real object, ad are the larger objects merely containers for the smaller?

The three objects together stand at the the limits of architecture, in terms both of their scale and of theirs naming.” Jean-François Bédard, 'Cities of Artificial Excavation - The Work of Peter Eisenman, 1978-1988', 1994, pp4748.

38 In marketing, categories are created for people to identify themselves, recognize the name of the product and desire to buy it. The name of the product is pure branding and do not embodied all the qualities of the product.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

forces from the outside, stemmed from the post-modern context and conditions. Their ‘transprogramming’39 and ‘mixed-use’ programs are not the offspring of two or more types. 40 They are new ones, the offspring of a post-modern condition.

In this sense, a ‘mixed-use’ building can also be considered hybrid and a building for sure. The denomination ‘Hybrid Building’ implies too many qualities, which go far beyond the words. One can understand that it was important to separate ‘mixed-use’ buildings from this new one kind, in order to understand and catalogue this emergent form of building in our contemporary city. The fact is that their relationship with the city, by its own, should tell the story.

Following this thoughts a ‘mixed-use’ building should become a ‘type’ with its sub-categories, or ‘typologies’. From this point the ‘mixed-use type’ has, a priori, two typologies. They consist in ‘X’ and ‘Y’, where the first one is part of the city as a whole and the last one is not.

Fenton has corrupted etymologically the word hybrid when choosing it to distinguish this sort of building. Moreover, his ‘zoological history of hybrids’ deals more with the formal aspects, with a different approach.

Hybridization is always a one-way process. Once is done, you can never go back. In architecture, things can be undone all the time. A building which comprises houses, retail and cinema, for example, can become a building which comprises a hotel, parking lot and a 39

”Transprogramming: two programs, regardless of their incompatibilities, together with their respective spatial configurations. Reference: planetarium + rollercoaster.” “Crossprogramming: using a given spatial configuration for a program not intended for it, that is using a church building for a bowling.

Similar to typological displacement: a town hall inside the spatial configuration of a prison or a museum inside a car park structure. Reference: crossdressing.” Bernard Tschumi, 'Event-Cities 3: Concept vs. Context vs.

Content', 2004.

40 In biology, where the term hybrid was coined, taking the mule for example, one cannot have back the male donkey and the female horse from it. The hybrid is always is the final product at the process. There is no reverse engineering.

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theater. On the other hand, a mule can not be again a male donkey and a female horse.

Hybridization, in the true meaning of the word, in architecture can not occur in the scale of the building. But it can occur in the scale of the city. A city is an evolutionary process. A one way-process. The same as hybrids in nature. Buildings are just one part of the whole.

Small or big, it does not matter. A ‘Hybrid Building’ is a blending of city and building, according to Fenton and Holl. If the city fails or decays, the building, at least physically, will still be holding there.

Some changes and improvements can be made on it, in order to revitalize the city.41 It does not embody completely any vital element of the city. They become pure ‘breed’ again, which means that the ‘hybridization’ process had been reversed, in other words there is no ‘hybridity’ anymore. If the building fails, the city will still remain there, with a scar, but reparable. In this sense one can say, for example, if the infra-structure of the city fails, nothing can be placed there, unless a new infra-structural system. Every major system that compounds a city, lays on the existence of the whole. That means, the only thing hybrid in architecture is the city itself.

The main concern in this part of the thesis so far is with the use of the term ‘Hybrid Building’ rather than the qualities described on them. A blooming of a new kind of building can be verified in the contemporary city, and for sure its qualities are the fruits of its context. The term ‘Hybrid Buildings’ had never been revised before.

It now has become a trademark full of fake connotations rather than the qualities embodied on it.

Due the rapidly development of those buildings, Fenton’s first attempts to classify them must be reviewed. On recently publications such as, three magazines and one book about ‘Hybrid Building’ by A+T, new classifications of ‘Hybrids Building’ have been done. Martin Musiatowicz says that many of current projects and recent buildings fit very well into Fenton’s catalogue, “…however these rely heavily on 41

Some examples can be verified in Detroit.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

retrospective classification based on the final outcome and less so on design tactics.”42 Based on this he sets up 5 new typologies. 43 With no doubt, Fenton has made an important addition to architecture. Even if his ideas about ‘hybridization in architecture’ and the manner he classified those buildings seem, nowadays, naive and vague. He was the first one who dares to classify those buildings within a different perspective, in order to take a look towards the city from a non-orthodox angle. He was not interested in estipulate new typologies, but he was very interested in the sub-products or the products generated by the American cities. “The empirical evidence of this catalogue is put forward to challenge contemporary views of the city.”44 ‘Hybrid Buildings’ are here to stay. One can not deny their existence.

The term proposed can not support or contain that amount of load, read it as meanings, carried by them, even though it sounds a really ‘cool’ name that fits perfectly for our contemporary society. Today I have a hybrid cell phone, a hybrid car, hybrid foods, hybrid clothes, even my dog is hybrid. For sure hybridization is a current trend in all fields, dealing with the meanings of the words and the qualities of the objects. All in all, we need to be aware when blending words and objects, if not, one will acquire false properties. We need to know how to ‘call a spade a spade’.

42 43

'Pamphlet Architecture 11', Concluding Notes, 1985.

“Monolithic and Hybrid Form - an inclination towards formal solutions which diminish the expression of individual programs; Cities within cities – combine the programs of an entire town or city, to allow a certain level of selfsufficiency in response to a dislocated location; Coalesced Structures – to deform the core and skin to triangulate forces, to coalesce many elements, combining them to form a single system; Sectional Juxtaposition and Spatial Indeterminacy – there appears to be a general tendency to subjugate ‘program’ as brief and to re-evaluate requirements and use, pushing for a level of indeterminacy and creating overlaps and juxtaposition of spaces; and Integrated Landscapes – public space and landscape become hybridized with other programmatic elements of the building.” Martin Musiatowicz, 'a+t Hybrids I - High-Rise and Mixed-Use Buildings', pp13,15,17.

44 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', Concluding Notes, 1985.

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Bigness, or the problem of Large: Revisited “To explain the impact of mass culture on the city and architecture... the only forces addressed are those that mold the modern world, namely technology and economics... Koolhaas is interested in a more crude reality... the reality that developers build. It is they who use reason in their work, much more than architects who like to call themselves rationalists.” 45 "…He challenges the existing by calling it 'nothingness', but instead of investigating the rich potential of sprawl as the source for new kind of urbanity, he replaces it with an idealized view of the city and its indeterminacy. …Koolhaas' urban theory plays the game of naive socialism, but fails to account for socialism's failure." 46 S,M,L,XL is a 1995 book written by Rem Koolhaas (O.M.A.) together with Bruce Mau. The title of this 1376 pages book is also its framework: projects and essays are arranged according to scale. This part of this thesis deals with the architecture of Bigness, which can be found on the chapter ‘Large’ of this book, specifically throughout the lines of the text ‘Bigness or the problem of Large’.

For sure there is nothing new about Bigness. “The Egyptians knew all about it, so did the Romans, the cathedral builders, the Victorians and particularly the utopian modernists who attempted to rebuild whole cities using their theories. But it has not always been a success. While many admire the colossal scale of the pyramids or St Peter’s, the end of absolutism and slavery made things tougher for bigness. On the other hand Manhattan, which became the blueprint for the contemporary city, reinvigorate it with its adoption of the skyscraper.”47

45

Rafael Moneo, 'Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies - In the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects', 2004.

46 Jorge Otero-Pailos, ' 'Bigness' in context: some regressive tendencies in Rem Koolhaas' urban theory', 2000.

47 Edwin Heathcote, 'Why bigness is here to stay', 2006.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

In his theory of Bigness, Koolhaas claims that urban planning and context are both things from the past.48 The importance of the context is to try to understand and explain the contemporary world through outdated conceptual structures. His Bigness goes with the idea that forces such as history, specificity and context, as are concealing reality.

The reason behind the development of this theory is in order to elaborate new tools that would give new possibilities to understand and solve the problems of the contemporary metropolis. At the same time, the Bigness’ theory is not scientific, and Koolhaas have never described the research methodology behind it, that guides him to the conclusions. He never demonstrated through any precise cases his believes about the contemporary metropolis.

Koolhaas' fascination to the advance of the contemporary metropolis over the classical 'closed' city, made him consider the expansion on the classical urban fabric as a 'void', instead of reading it as a vibrant part of the city. His point of view, his thoughts, over this current situation, segregates the cities even more, at least conceptually. 49 Through this, Bigness becomes a very strong, dangerous and also risky conceptual tool for contemporary projects. "Bigness is its 48

“Beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a Big Building. Such a mass can no longer be controlled by a single architectural gesture, or even by any combination of architectural gestures. This impossibility triggers the autonomy of its parts, but that is not the same as fragmentation: the parts remain committed to the whole. …The elevator and its family of related inventions render null and void the classical repertoire of architecture. Issues of composition, scale, proportion, detail are now moot. … In Bigness, the distance between core and envelope increases to the point where the façade can no longer reveal what happens inside. … Together, all these breaks – with scale, with architectural composition, with tradition, with transparency, with ethics – imply the final, most radical break: Bigness is no longer part of any urban tissue. It exists; at most, it coexists. Its subtext is fuck context.”

Rem Koolhaas, 'S,M,L,XL', 1998, p499.

49 Koolhaas and the Athens Charter separate functions just for analytical purposes, a priori. The understanding of this action is clearly perceived in their both final designs. The modernists kept this separation in theirs designs, while Koolhaas did not.

39

potential to reconstruct the Whole, resurrect the Real, reinvent the collective, reclaim maximum possibility." 50 Koolhaas ideas are related with the size of the contemporary buildings. They are getting everyday bigger and bigger. Big, biggest and bigger are under the same theme: Bigness. Their functions can not be conveyed anymore through their architecture. One can say that the new vernacular, in the Asian new metropolises, is the ‘big-box’ skyscraper.

Koolhaas reads the constantly changing of form over time in the surroundings, read as peripheral, metropolitan areas as the nonformal presence in the urban sprawl. It does not matter if the 'void' 51 is the sprawl, some infrastructure, a park or something else. One can read his ‘voids’ as a negation of them all before. In his theory he sets up a relation, or a non-relation between them. From now they are all equal. On the other hand Koolhaas says that the traditional city and the ‘voids’ need each other in order to survive. He emphasizes both, through a binary opposition system. “Not only is Bigness incapable of establishing relationships with the classical city – at most, it coexists – but in the quantity and complexity of the facilities it offers, it is itself urban. Bigness no longer needs the city: it competes with the city; it represents the city; it pre-empts the city; or better still, it is the city.”52 "Koolhaas runs through the canonical list of reasons popularly understood to be the cause of these conditions: rising world population, higher dependency on communications technologies, the impact of late capitalist forms of production and consumption on social structures, and the 'sabotaging' of the classical city by

50

Rem Koolhaas, 'S,M,L,XL', 1998, p510.

The 'void' can be understood also as what Koolhaas calls 'nothingness'.

Through these concepts he eliminates the urban sprawl. Inside 'nothingness' one can find encapsulated urban islands. He describes Central Park simply as a 'void' or as 'nothingness'.

52 Rem Koolhaas, 'S,M,L,XL', 1998, p515.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

modernization." 53 When replacing the authenticity of the city and its movements, life and flows, by the existence of life strictly inside this new totality called Bigness, totally independent from the outside forces, 54 Koolhaas discards any chance of discovering the reality of the modern metropolis and all the forces that shape and form it. Bigness can be read also as 'sameness', or even as the 'generic'. There is a lack of specificity and history on it. The only way to survive is becoming the same, becoming generic.

"Bigness is a broad metaphysical view about history and about how society works, which is derived from vulgar Marxism, and which depicts society as a bad system that must be overthrown by attacking the language, values, culture, history and ideology of bourgeois culture."55 Those new scenarios, proposed by Bigness, redeem us from the exterior world and from the forces that shape it. They become, and even more they, with capital ‘A’ 56, ’Are’, the context themselves. As the walled cities, on their interior the chaos remains, but at the same time, physical limits contain it. For Bigness, we are facing now, behind a new kind of fortress, a complete internalization of urbanity and contemporary life in our cities, towards to a ‘un-city’. Inside Bigness there is a program of the classical city that has been madeup, hidden behind the curtains of 'ornamentality' and fakeness. The freedom claimed by Koolhaas with Bigness at attempts to free us from the traditional city, excluding ourselves from it.

53

Jorge Otero-Pailos, ' 'Bigness' in context: some regressive tendencies in Rem Koolhaas' urban theory', 2000.

54 The final product could be something totally contextless, in the sense that denies the context, but no one can deny that its development process takes place within previews conditions, called context.

55 Jorge Otero-Pailos, ' 'Bigness' in context: some regressive tendencies in Rem Koolhaas' urban theory', 2000.

56 Capital letter in the same sense as God is spelled in the Holy Bible, as the supreme.

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Bigness is an ‘anti-septic’. Bigness is skeptical. Bigness totally disconsiders. Bigness washes away, the contemporary city. Instead of facing problems of ‘this’ 57 city, it prefers to ignore them and restart from a blank paper. The idea of ‘Fuck the Context’ is literally applied, not even as a joke, but as a radical action. Bigness is a ‘rebel teenager’58. Bigness totally refuses the notion of natural evolution, a step-by-step process which leaves no lacks behind. Bigness is supermodernist. Bigness is hyper-modernist. Its ambitious lays on the creation of a new world, within an existing rejected one. It arrived later and claims for the seat by the window, with the best view.

Bigness jumps the line.

Bigness is a kind of an ideal idealistic ‘blank paper’, a ‘germ-free’ tabula rasa that is not infected by the world outside. It is the purity, placed in the nothing. Bigness is eminent. It flies above reality. It is a different world. Bigness allows praxis to be free. Now the motto of the film is ‘Do whatever you want!’ "Bigness no longer needs the city: it competes with the city; it represents the city; it pre-empts the city; or better still, it is the city. ...Bigness = urbanism vs. architecture."59 The great irony behind Bigness lays on the future of the cities.

Fastest growing cities are being swelled by slums and shanties.60 In this sense, their future is most likely to be horizontal than vertical, spread out than together, but even more dense. Skyscrapers remain for just the wealthy, small, part of society. Bigness, in a near future, will never become the city itself, as it can claim. It can survive just because the fact that has been around since humans had started 57

‘this' can be hackneyed as a merely condition of the environment, something with no importance.

58 The rebel teenagers always complain about the real situations, everything goes against their perceptions. For them life sucks and they have the answers to solve any problem. They believe that they can live as isolated islands, especially away from the care of their parents.

59 Rem Koolhaas, 'S,M,L,XL', 1998, p515.

60 "...the absolute number of slum dwellers around the world is still rising."

Emmanuelle Bournay, 'UNEP/GRID - Arendal on Environment and Poverty Time #3: Disaster issue', 2006.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

building, architecture is also an instrument to denote power and presence, and as being used as a symbol.

For sure, Bigness is no more than one-dimensional view of reality.

Maybe paraphrasing Nietzsche, a hundred profound solitudes together, that is its charm.

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UNDER MY UMBRELLA

45

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

The title of this chapter has nothing to do with Rhianna’s world famous pop music. It has to do with the necessity of putting different denominations, or ‘types’ of buildings under one single ‘type’, in order to understand this current architectural kind of work, that seems to be a trend nowadays.

“In ‘Hybrid Buildings’, the ordering is urban, programmatic and necessarily formal. These buildings offer hope for the understanding of architecture in terms of its programmatic regale, reinstating a diversity of activities, concentrating, rather than scattering, the most essential ingredients of the city.” 61 "...all architecture is inextricably linked to our urban condition..." 62 Due to the discredit over the meaning of the term ‘Hybrid Building’, proposed by Fenton, and the conviction that the urban sprawl, or ‘generic city’ are lively and vibrant parts of the city, an attempt to put all of those categories of buildings (hybrid buildings, mixed-use, bigness, urban generators, strategic buildings, and others) under one single term and theory, should be expected in this work.

Architecture It becomes clear that the word ‘hybrid’, which was taken from biology, to be more precise, from genetics, embodied some features that, at least until our present days, can not be found in buildings.

Hybridization, a priori, can only be perceived in biological species, thus, animals and plants. It is a one-way process. Once is done, it can never go back. The mule, which is a hybrid animal, will be forever a mule, or at least during its life’s period, and it will never become the male donkey and the female horse again. Hybrid individuals maintain some characteristics of their parents, but at the same time they are unique new species, let’s say, unique new individuals.

61 62

Steven Holl, 'Pamphlet Architecture 11', 1985, p3.

Bernard Tschumi, 'Event-Cities: praxis', 1994, p11.

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So far in architecture a building with those characteristics has not been produced. The closest a building can get to hybridism is the fact that different programs (species) have a relationship and get together. This can be verified in the very first steps of hybridization process in nature, until the first difference appears. In nature different species mate. In architecture they get together. But the results of this process are not equal in both cases. In the first an individual, which specie is different from its parents, is generated, while in the second one no new individual is generated, but nothing more than the junction of the progenitors under one major structure.

In architecture to have a hybrid individual, programs should be combined to generate a new one. One could say that hybridization in this discipline is a priori, a matter of merging different geometrical volumes. It is very hard to disagree with this opinion once the understanding of architecture is very subjective. There are a huge variety of points of view over the discipline that somehow can not be demonstrated scientifically all the time. This thesis doesn’t believe that architecture is just about shaping. It believes that the power of architecture resides on the events that its objects can activate and promote.

Due to the clear spatial definition of programs and uses in a ‘Hybrid Building’, the basic notion of hybridism, which is to generate a new specie from two different ones, falls apart. In nature we have the mating. In architecture is the wedding. It is like the marriage of a man and a female monkey. They won’t have sex, at least this is expected, and proliferate. But they will live under the same roof. This means that the ‘parental species’ are always present within this new structure, with the same basic characteristics that they used to have before, without compromising their basic qualities. This proximity of programs can promote new events, situations and conditions, but do not merge the parental programs into one single new program.

‘Hybrid Buildings’ are not new ‘species’ as someone would expect to get from the hybridization process. They are nothing more than a set

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

of primary or parental programs sheltered under one structure, where events can be shared. More over the explanation or the excuse given by Fenton on why to call those buildings as hybrids seems to be very loose. He claims that the difference between a ‘Hybrid Building’ and any other multi-program building is that the first one is located in the consolidated city, the historical city, while the second one in the sprawl. No doubt that the location of a building in the city is extremely relevant. It affects directly the design process, the uses, the post-occupancy and can be a classification factor in order to distinguish buildings. But this condition has not to do with the sheer meaning of the word ‘hybrid’.

Under those conditions it seems contradictory Fenton’s discourse, specially, in the relation between what is a ‘hybrid building’ and the categorization proposed to them. On one hand he explains his hybrids through programs merging under the same structure in a mutualistic situation. On the other hand he classifies them due to the nature of their forms. Here they are: fabric hybrids are those which their forms relegate the program; graft hybrids are those which have a clear expression of their programs in their shapes; and lastly, monolith hybrids are those which their forms are monumental. Forms or shapes in his classification are the primary factors.

Despite the attempts of different authors and their own analytical strategies to find a very clear classification for all those categories of buildings, it is clearly perceived that those architectural objects share some really strong characteristics in common, that could unify them under one major category. One must look at those buildings as objects within the city. One can not take them out of the context, or ignore it, just for the sake of analytical purposes. What similarities do they have? What is their role in the city? Some of those buildings can not deny the consolidated city, some can not deny the sprawl, where they are ‘amalgamated’. How can those buildings become a conjugated theory under one single term? Or even autonomous theories? The key guide line for all those answer is the relation between those objects and the city.

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Urban Catalysts Societies have been producing buildings, of any kind, for one primordial issue, to improve life conditions. No matter if the purposes of those constructions are for sheltering, spirituality, faith or religion, commercial, industrial and others. The main ambition of societies is to get better and better responding to the context they are related, adapting and consequently surviving. Among others disciplines, Architecture is used as an important tool to develop them. "...architecture's importance resides in its ability to accelerate society's transformation through a careful agencing of spaces and events."63 Improving society directly means that the urban environment which we live in must be improved also. No doubts that humanity are going through a time which is remarkable in human history. A time where most of world’s population are living in urbanized areas. A time where our dependence from the city has increased a lot, but much more than just our dependence, today city and society depends on each other. Just as a fact, on May 23, 2007 the world celebrated the beginning of the Urban Millennium. On this date there are more people living in cities than in rural areas: 3.3 billion people on 3% of the earth's surface. In 2050, 75% of the world's population will be living in the urban areas. Even for the population which lives in rural areas, architecture plays an important tool to make their lives better.

The notion of speed in today’s society, which by just one click on the computer’s mouse can ‘travel’ to the other side of the globe, even though virtually, has changed dramatically. The ‘very normal’ pace has become ‘very slow’. To respond to the needs for velocity, ‘faster’ buildings must be designed, in order to transcend the natural pace of evolution, transform society and improve cities even faster. An answer for that can be found on buildings which comprises a variety 63

Bernard Tschumi, 'Event-Cities: praxis', 1994, p11.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

of programs, no mattering if they are simple or sophisticated. No matter if they are placed in the consolidated city, in the sprawl or in the rural. No matter if programs are inside one structure or belong to a major network.

When dealing with cities, every building has an important role within it. A single-family house, a monument, a public building, an airport, and others, each one has its own ambitious and vocation. It is understandable that a building, which comprises more than one program and has a strong relation with the city plays a different role than the single-program ones, even autonomous or not.

Buildings don’t need to contain a variety of programs within the same major structure, even though this condition can be an advantage in some cases, to be acclaimed as multi-program. For example, the designing of museum in a given plot within or by a public park. The museum can be conceived to be not just a museum, but the museum of the park. Its design strategy can be smart enough to suppress some functions on the project that are given by the city. This means that its relation with the park will be stronger. In this case even the building that has just one program, a museum, within it can be considered multi-program. The notion of ‘multi-program’ is much more related to the number of events that some building has the power to activate, than what the same shelters physically.

No matter how each theory categorizes those ‘multi-program’ buildings. No matter if they have distinct qualities embedded. No matter if they dwell different parts of the city. They have one characteristic in common, in their genes, which distinguishes them from other kinds of construction. They are conceived to speed up the urbanization process, consequently accelerating society’s transformation. This feature allows them to be placed under one category. From now, in this thesis, they all will be called as Urban Catalysts.

The question that raises from now is the following. If in order to understand the architectural work a question on ‘typologies’ shall

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raises, what should it be for Urban Catalysts? First of all, to give a proper answer to that, a understanding of ‘type’ and ‘typology’ is needed, than verify in which one Urban Catalyst fits.

So far in this thesis, all given categories for those buildings are now under one single denomination. More important than the characteristics in which distinguish them, are the ones in which bring them all together. Here they are presented as, to maintain a strong relationship with the context, to not be autonomous architectural objects, to promote a variety of events through spaces and programs, to speed up society’s transformation and to interconnect isolated fragments scattered in the city with the city.

Under those specific conditions Urban Catalysts can be considered a ‘type’ and not a ‘typology’. ‘Typology’ tends to classify objects through their differences, meanwhile a ‘type’ tries to understand and unify them by their similarities, the ‘genetic code’ embedded in them.

In other words, Urban Catalyst is seen as a ‘type’ because it is the parental category which contains the basic genes, or qualities, for further variations.

One could try to identify ‘typologies’ under this ‘type’. Urban Catalysts are really connect to the context, they emerge from it basically, whether social, economic, physical, and others. From the very local to the global context, they deal with all scales. This means that every Urban Catalyst is unique, different from the others.

Shapes, programs, materials, site location, design strategies and others aspects in common can be found on them, but when all those aspects are translated into a matrix there will be tons of variations, almost infinite.

In order to find ‘typologies’ under a ‘type’ some basic elements in common must be found in different examples. The notion of ‘typology’ is too much selfish to carry the main genes of a Urban Catalyst. A ‘typology’ a priori cares much more with its own wellbeing, than the collective. A ‘typology’ can be reproduced almost everywhere, than, if needed, adjustments can be made to deal with

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

the present conditions. In Urban Catalysts the order is the opposite.

First context, than, their own desires. Urban Catalysts are not there for their own purpose, but for the collective one.

If a Urban Catalyst can be reproduced in different locations, for sure some ‘typologies’ will be found. But from this point they will not be under the Urban Catalyst ‘type’, because the major request to be part of this selected group is to respond to the local necessities, local context., firstly, be unique.

Similarities are often found in Urban Catalysts. They don’t emerge due typological reasons. They are nothing more than coincidences, once every Urban Catalyst is conceived, is born, from the conditions and forces of the context where it is located. This is the major reason which makes them unique buildings.

Similarities that can be perceived exist. One can not take them in account in order to compare those buildings, in order to classify them by ‘typology’. A similar issue, in one context is found due very specific reason. This reason can be totally different for the same similarity in another context.

To clarify the idea presented in the past paragraph an example must be given. This example will be drawn through a comparison between two buildings that have in common one similarity. They both are considered towers. Curious or not, both buildings got the title of tallest building in the world in their respective times. Here they are, the Empire State Building in New York, by the architect William F. Lamb and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, by the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merril (SOM).

The first example in New York was shaped by some major forces such as constraints given by New York’s orthogonal urban grid and building codes from that time. The second example in Dubai has it shape not influenced at all the urban grid and a few by building codes. The forces that really shaped Burj Khalifa are, firstly, the Dubai’s ambition to have the tallest building in the world, and

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secondly, technical issues, such as structure, logistics, safety, and others.

All in all, even if both examples are considered towers, that in my understanding for these cases, is the ‘type’ tower, the forces that conceived them are totally different. Both, under the ‘type’ Urban Catalysts become unique architectural objects. There is no space put them under some specific ‘typology’, due to the fact that they were designed in totally different contexts. They are just Urban Catalysts with peculiarities regarding the conditions they were made. They can not be reproduced in another place, and work the same way or even closely in their original conditions.

‘Typicality’ in common can be found on them. Different from ‘typology’ or ‘types’, they deal with the events and not with the physical means. For example, we have the ‘type’ bedroom, which represents the bed, the circulation, connection to other rooms, the wardrobe and so on. The ‘typicality’ would be the act of sleep, have sex, read a book, and others.

But ‘typicality’ can not be taken as a factor of classification. On the other hand by verifying them one can interpret better the relation between spaces and the events promoted by them. Through ‘typicality’, realising why some unexpected event happens from the union or proximity of different programs becomes easier. So, ‘typicality’ is a tool to understand events and their main promoters.

Above ‘type’ there is one category that prevails over the other ones, the ‘dominant type’. The basic elements for further variations are in the ‘type’. Urban Catalyst type contains the most primary ‘genes’ that are required to be claimed a ‘type’. But, what prevails over those ‘genes’? In what circumstances are they created? The most prevailing is, at the same time, the most typical which is also common to all. In the end no sphere is more common among them all than the city. The city becomes the ‘dominant type’. Only because the city a Urban Catalyst can exist.

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

The Urban Catalysts importance dwells in their ability to speed up society’s transformation, through spaces and events. They become catalysts for every kind of activity, no matter what form they may have. “…functions and programs combine and intersect in an endless "disprogramming" or "crossprogramming". ...each organizes the city in space and time. ... in which the notion of multiple and heterogeneous programs inevitably substitutes for a homogeneous and unitary one.”64 No one expects from a Urban Catalyst to contain all the qualities of a public space or even to be a city within a city. But it is expected from them to be inserted in this major network that compounds the urban environment. They are not autonomous entities, as Koolhaas’ Bigness. Even their size don’t matter anymore. They don’t segregate the city as historical or consolidated part and sprawl. No problem if the humanist expectation of honesty is doomed. They are not here to be judge as merely physical architectural objects. They are here to be judge by their role in the city. While Bigness judges the object itself, Urban Catalysts theory judges the architectural work in the cities.

For Urban Catalysts the issue is always the urban effect. As Tschumi says “The city, ...is presented here as synonymous with architecture. …there is no architecture without the city, no city without architecture."65

Why the Need of Urban Catalysts?

This thesis don’t aim to be a tool for designing buildings. Its ambitious lays on the understanding through questioning the role of this kind of project in the city. No rules are set for design here. No rules are set for the nature of the questions. What matters is to realise why and what for are Urban Catalysts present in our cities.

64 65

Bernard Tschumi, 'Event-Cities: praxis', 1994, p12.

Bernard Tschumi, 'Event-Cities: praxis', 1994, p12.

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Already in ancient history there were very large cities, but only during the industrial revolution the great growth of the cities could begin. Thanks to developments in transport, the cities were less dependent on their immediate environment, because the food for the growing population could be delivered from long distances. At the same time the factories were demanding more and more workers.

Urbanization was thus simultaneously the result and the cause of the industrial revolution.

Before de CIAMs, the city block in historical centers had harmoniously conjugated housing, theaters, bars, cafĂŠs, business and other programs within a single square. Meanwhile new types of technologies and ways of thinking were arising and changing the face of city and even more the life of its citizens.

The Modern Movement came to be propose a new model of life-style for the man of that time. The Athens Charter, developed during the IV CIAM, Paris 1933, was a manifesto where people involved separeted all types of programs that were occurring in the city for analytical purposes. To analyse each one separately. The idea behind this purpose were misunderstood and accordingly these analysis became diagrams, architecture, and cities.

In this new scenario, a new society arised and cities transformed.

People immigrate even more from rural to urban areas. These urban areas and the urbanization ratio increased a that moment. New infrastructural systems were applied to this new city. During that time the segregation of programs within the city, proposed at the IV CIAM, was working well. There was no problem on, for example, traveling 5, 10, 15km inside the city, to go from your home to your work.

But things dramatically changed. With this enormous increase of people inhabiting the modern city, those infra-structural systems implemented could not support anymore the segregation of programs within the city. The time traveling between programs increased circumstantially. The size of the urban areas increased in a ratio much lower than the amount of people coming to them. The

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

infra-structures of the city were at that point overloaded.

So, ‘Why the need of Urban Catalysts?’. The cities need to adapt themselves to this new society that has been arising. Cities need their unity back. They can not work anymore as a ‘patchwork’ made out of isolated entities. Urban Catalysts offer a opportunity to deal with those questions in a faster way.

We are living in a time, where there is a need of a closer look back to the past. To learn something from it, and than, to articulate it in our contemporary world. This is crucial for the future of society.

There is a huge variety of opportunities with and within a urban catalyst. Those new buildings are not arising to be an autonomous entity. They are very related to the context, the site-specific issues, in a multidisciplinary way. They has not just anymore a relation with architecture, urban planning, landscape, design, or desires. Now they have much more to do with people.

Urban Catalysts have the power of densification, pluralization, make distances shorter, change societies and cities faster. They have the power to bring back unity for the city. Infra-structures, buildings, landscape, people and others now under one big umbrella, called city. We live in a era that almost everything could be done without leaving our homes. The Urban Catalyst offers a unique opportunity to do the same type of things in a single place, and adds also to our lives the experience of public space and social interaction.

To design a Urban Catalyst is to design the city. Piece by piece, endless, bottom-up.

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CONCLUSION

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Urban Catalysts: Towards an Optimized Environment

This thesis has a speculative character. Due to this fact, conclusions drawn before can not be entirely proved through scientific methods.

A speculative work opens up new horizons. Free our minds to transcend what is told as truth. It allows people to create hypothesis.

It gives the opportunity to answer questions with other questions. It deals with the imaginary. The word ‘IF’ becomes really important. It allows the work to take any direction, and the most important, to try different perspectives. ‘IF’ opens up new horizons. This means that subjective points of view lead this thesis to the conclusions, nevertheless, it has strong basis supporting it.

Architectural theory is speculative. There is no truth, as one can find in architectural history. The role of theory, more than giving proper answers, is to raise proper questions. Hypothesis over more hypothesis. On the attempt to find answers for them, new discoveries are made. A simple thing can easily become a Pandora box. As stated in the dictionary a ‘theory is a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation’. A theory is susceptible to questions and reviews. Even Einstein’s theory of relativity is being questioned in our days, a century later.

After some excuses, a conclusion about my theory thesis’ topic must be drawn.

No doubts that naming new things is really a difficult task.

Architecture as being multi-disciplinary tends to incorporate notions and concepts from other fields. This can be tricky sometimes.

Fenton made use of the word ‘hybrid’, which comes from biology, in his work. Even if this word, in the common sense, is related to the union of different things, a further research on that reveals its own potentials and qualities. In other words, what Fenton called as ‘hybrid’ don’t embed the characteristics of this word, in its purest meaning. Fenton also added new features to his ‘hybrids’ that has nothing to do with the notion of hybridism. For example, the type of context where they are located.

Even if Fenton seems to be contradictory in some points, this don’t

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take out the credits of his amazing work. On this attempt to classify those buildings, he found out important differences between them, which help us to understand the architectural work nowadays.

Raising a question over the meaning and the use of the word ‘hybrid’

by Fenton in architecture, made me realise that those buildings have some quality in common, stronger than the ones which distinguish them. Fenton separated them. This thesis put them together.

Urban Catalysts’ theory doesn’t have the ambition to ignore everything that was said before. Its main goal is to be a complementary work, in order to achieve a higher-class theory for this kind of architectural object.

Questioning ‘types’, ‘typology’ and ‘typicality’ was an important tool to understand those buildings from a different perspective. When speculating ‘type’, it was found that, besides the clear differences in those constructions, common ‘genes’ can be found. Meanwhile, questioning ‘typology’ revealed that every single one is a unique architectural object, and the similarities found on them, in most of the cases, are no more than coincidences and can not be taken as a classification factor. By analysing ‘typicality’ I came across that when programs and spaces get together they don’t create a new one, but they have the power to promote unexpected or expected new events.

Koolhaas on his theory of Bigness says that the ideology behind those buildings, conceived in the urban sprawl, is “Fuck the context”.

By doing this, he claims that they don’t maintain any relationship with the context, and can be considered as autonomous buildings. It is understandable that in order to call them as autonomous entities, he had to deny the context. In Urban Catalysts’ theory the issue is always the urban effect. There is no way, in any circumstances, whether analytical or not, to deny the city. The understanding of “Fuck the context” in Urban Catalysts’ theory can be read as ‘fuck with the context’, but never denying it.

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The major difference between the presented theory with Fenton’s or Koolhaas’ is the acceptance of the city as whole, and not a patchwork of independent parts.

As Urban Catalysts have the power to speed up the urbanization process, consequently accelerating society’s transformation and changing the city, this thesis allows myself to put forward a new question. What’s next?

We are witnessing a dramatically change in our cities and life-style nowadays. For sure Urban Catalysts are responsible for some modifications. In our days cities still have their parts very scattered and disconnected. In many cases no relations between parts can be seen. Urban Catalysts, in this scenario, can be seen as tailors. Even if they don’t stitch all pats together at once, they are doing it by very small pieces.

What if all those parts would be stitched together someday, and the city will be working as a single unity. Every part is dependent on the others?

This scenario maybe will never come to reality. But this thesis gives us the opportunity to think about it, about the future city. And if we still can call it as city? Will it be just a building? Maybe a city within a building? Neither?

Imagine a city with no streets, but different types of connections. A city with no man made landscape, but inserted in the purest form of nature. A city with no public and no private, from now they are the same, sharing space. A city with no archaeology, but its history carved on Yottabyte (2^60 megabyte). A city with no master plan.

Why would it be useful? A city that constantly changes, adapts itself to new conditions, with no left-over spaces left behind. A city where problems can be understood as possibilities. A city that could be read as a city, as a unity.

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