Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

“The city... was above all a stage, or physical setting, for the complex drama of living.”

Lewis Mumford

The post-war housing crisis of the 1920s presented a crucial moment in urban planning that would attempt to counter the continuity of the metropolis by creating suburban settlements that would in themselves be independent, while creating a network of what Lewis MumfordI described as “social cities.”

These social cities would utilize and project future settlement patterns based off of emerging technologies of transportation and communication in order to improve the “humanism” of living, rather than becoming a by-product of technological advancement.¹ This by-product specifically was associated with the mass produced home that, if implemented without proper planning, would create inhumane living conditions unworthy of Mumford’s regional planning. What resulted from Mumford’s great plan for the regional city was pseudo-utopian pockets such as Sunnyside GardensII of Queens, amongst the densely developed outer limits of the still-centralized New York City metropolis.

At the current state of organicism in urban planning I am less concerned with the planning of new communities as I am with the response and repair of what we have been left with. Unfortunately for Mumford, what began as a number of promising regional cities were soon halted by the Great Depression and consequently the bankruptcy of the association. As a result, builders were left to their own devices and soon, communities like Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn, New JerseyIII were engulfed in banal forms of suburban dwelling. It is clear that the time for regional city planning has long passed, however, elements from Mumford’s social theories and from cities like Sunnyside Gardens can be applied through practices of Urban Acupuncture.

1. BACKGROUND: Robert Wojtowicz, Lewis Mumford and American Modernism: Eutopian Theories for Architecture and Urban Planning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): Ch. 4, “Building the Regional City.”

I. Lewis Mumford was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic.

(1895-1990) II. Sunnyside Gardens was a community development in Queens by architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright constructred in the 1920s.

III. Radburn, New Jersey was another community development done by architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright constructed in the late 1920s.

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IV. Ebenezer Howard founded the Garden City movement in Great Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. (1850-1928) V. Manuel de Solá-Morales was a Catalan born architect and Professor of urbanism at the Escola Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona. (1939-2012)

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Sunnyside Gardens was important for Mumford because it showed a superior urban plan without being pretentious.

Attached housing replaced the single-family dwelling in order to facilitate density and affordability without losing recreational green spaces. Facilitating maximum human interaction was at the forefront of Mumford’s social theory and Sunnyside Gardens did just that with its introverted attitude. These characteristics were likely what Mumford would suggest as the “utility of utopias,” rather than “genuine utopias.” The difference between the two being the sociology between the literary definition of perfection, pertaining to a certain sense of stagnation, and the ever-evolving social condition of “...the complex drama of living.” What Mumford appreciated about genuine utopias was their reflection of “organic wholeness” with the inclusion education, economics, and leisure, but he persists that “Fashions Change in Utopia.”² Although he advocates Ebenezer Howard’sIV Garden City scheme, he concludes that it is one of many ways to approach regionalism and for Mumford, aspects of the Garden City scheme may be better off applied toward the improvement of existing communities rather than an actualized urban plan.³ The attitude that Lewis Mumford had toward the Garden City scheme emulates my own toward Mumford’s critical regionalism. Like I stated earlier, the level of development in the outer city regions of New York has surpased the point where entire regional schemes is appropriate, however, elements of its social aspirations can still be applied using the method of Urban Acupuncture. The term Urban Acupuncture was championed by Manuel de Solá-MoralesV, A Catalan architect, and Professor of Urbanism at the School of Architecture at Barcelona. In A Matter of Things, Morales presents the term as applicable to the metaphor of the “urban skin.” It is with this that interventions within the 2. BACKGROUND: Robert Wojtowicz, Lewis Mumford and American Modernism: Eutopian Theories for Architecture and Urban Planning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): Ch. 4, “Building the Regional City.”

3. Thomas Parke Hughes, Howard P. Segal. Lewis Mumford: Public Intellectual. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): “Mumford’s Alternatives to the Megamachine: Critical Utopianism, Regionalism, and Decentralization

Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

Figure 1.

One of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City plans.

Fig. 1 Ebenzer Howard Garden City 1902

Figure 2.

Sunnyside Gardens plan.

Fig. 2 Clarence Stein and Henry Wright Sunnyside Gardens 1920

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Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

city take on a similar strategy; The ancient oriental practice of acupuncture regards the skin of the human body as the principal energy transport system, with 361 sensitive points scattered over the surface of the body transmitting their sensory impressions to the rest of the organism, exterior and interior, by means of twelve meridians or pathways. The urban skin (‘the epidermis of the earth’ that Jean Tricart studied) also channels qualitative energy. And if acupuncture speaks of ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ energy, the qualities of the urban epidermis are also blunt or sharp, mental or sensorial. ⁴

In this analogy, a sense of scale or urban plan is not as important as locating these sensitive points in need of alleviation. Its application is strategic within a network of urban sensoria, and its articulation is “interdependent” of others amongst this system. For Morales, the scale between the bodily pressure point and the architectural intervention is not the connection to acupuncture but to be understood as network of energy. Those breaks, or “wrinkles” as Morales puts it, determine the location for acupunctural strategies.

Through the lens of Mumford’s regional city, we can detect the wrinkles of an assumed regional city such as Sunnyside Gardens through the framework of Ebeneizer Howard’s Garden City. The major point of such a city was not just implementing a proper amount of green space necessary for humanistic lifestyle but a city that is in itself, selfsufficient. For this to be true, reliance can no longer be placed on the larger Metropolis of New York, for theoretically, the regional city retaliated against the continuous centralization of the growing metropolis. With these socio-geographical agendas came the strict need for certain program appropriate for a specific population and acreage.

4. Manuel de Solà-Morales, A Matter of Things. (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers. 2008): 24.

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Fig. 3 http://www.osovo.com/diagram/accupuncturepointdiagram.htm Figure 3.

Diagram of acupuncture points.

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We can attempt to understand the dilemmas of Sunnyside Garden’s Community District 2 through Howard’s Garden City model and conclude for instance that the amount of industry (purple) for a population of 113,200 is significantly larger than the ideal ratio, meaning other districts have come to depend on District 2 for their industry. This sheer dependence would already be countering the hopes for selfsufficient social cities. However, making this connection doesn’t hold much importance because that particular trend cannot simply be reversed. Instead to take Morales’ approach, We can also understand that the vacant lot (black) creates a pressure point or wrinkle in the urban skin that can physically and psychologically be reversed by implementation of public program evocative of Howards theory.

Urban Acupuncture can be used to implement smaller scaled pieces of Howards design to achieve a more holistic result, socially closer to the regional model.

Delving deeper into these pressure points of vacancy lies an important question within the urban acupuncture model, to start over or adaptively re-use? Projects that deal with urban acupuncture find creative ways to rejuvenate these derelict lots by infusing them once again with life worthy of the term urbanism. By preserving built forms, there continues to be a component of local knowledge that plays into a sense of sentimentalism, therefor, we are constantly reminded of the reasons for its dereliction and local identity isn’t confused by the constant process of starting over. Often times these small scaled interventions may consist of simple methods for improved transportation in order to activate the under-utilized, blur the distinction between art and architecture in order to produce new associations, and reconceive an urbanism that addresses the individual behavior in order to slowly effect the population.

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Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

Figure 4.

Residential land use of Queens Community District 2.

Fig. 4 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/ lucds/qn2profile.pdf Queens Community District 2

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Opposite Fig. 5 Manuel de SolÁ-Morales Saint-Nazaire, Ville-Port

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Morales’ project for Saint-Nazaire, France tackles this issue of urban dereliction and negative associations. During World War II, Saint-Nazaire was occupied by the Germans and became another strategic location for its Atlantic Wall for protection against the Allied Forces. Along its port, a massive 39,000 square foot concrete U-boat pen was built to protect the German submarine fleet from potential bombing. Its tremendous horizontality blocked access to SaintNazaire’s port from the inner city, changing the urban plans orientation to a predominantly east-west configuration.

Morales’ decision to leave the monolith largely intact but provide the simple inclusion of a public ramp to the pens rooftop instantly changes the buildings behavior from a visual blockade to a vantage point to view the city. Included in the plan were a variety of social program consisting of “parking lots, hypermarkets, movie houses, museums and show premises, refreshment stalls and bars, dance venues, special means of transport... housing, hotels, and shops.”⁵ Together, the implemented program represents much of what Howard and Mumford would have characterized as essential to supporting organic communities, while minimally intervening within the urban skin. The derelict U-boat pen was targeted by Morales as the wrinkle within that urban skin, treated acupuncturally with the simple infusion of program, and its effects have changed the network of energy to re-orient the city from its former east-west configuration, all while changing the buildings historical association to maintain Saint-Nazaire’s identity.

Lewis Mumford devised the regional city as a critique of ongoing urban plan practices. It suggested an organic approach to a new suburban style of living, greatly reliant on self-sufficiency and human interaction, to create a network of cities capable of utilizing emergent technologies of transportation and communication to cross-pollinate social

Urban Acupuncture: The Present State of Critical Regionalism

Figure 5.

Images of Manuel de Solá-Morales’ Saint-Nazair Project

5. Manuel de Solà-Morales, A Matter of Things. (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers. 2008): 38.

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culture than would resonate within the region, rather than the centralized metropolis. These regional cities would utilize elements of utopian thought rather than creating genuine utopias because, overall, Mumford believed that the complex drama of living was much more interesting and desirable than perfect utopian society. What we can gain from Mumford’s writing is not the formal qualities of regional plans that he supported, but instances of their genetics that create organic social structure. By using methods of Urban Acupuncture we can assess the present state of urban situations, locate what Manuel de Solá-Morales referred to as “wrinkles” within the “urban skin,” and alleviate these nodes of social discomfort by infusing them with the qualities that Mumford set forth.

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