Master's Thesis

ARCH753: Emerging Research in Architecture | Nikolaos Theodoros Stagkos | 10511384 | Word count: 5,130

Re-thinking the Tenement Block via ‘Ownership’ and ‘Porosity’

ABSTRACT This essay sets to investigate ways of achieving a socially and economically sustainable community by re-thinking the tenement block typology, in Słupsk, Poland. The town will be treated as a signifier of any degraded Polish post-communist rural town. The majority of the towns’ architecture is consisted of semi-inhabited tenement blocks, a typology that derived at the dawn of the 20th century and its historical and architectural evolution is evident particularly in the ex-countries of the Eastern Bloc. The re-thinking of this typology will be addressed through Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘porosity’, whereby the concept, will be treated as a variable to discuss ‘ownership’ retrospectively in relation to economy, society and architecture in pre WWII times (1900s-1940s), the years under communist regime (1940s-1980s), and modern times (1980s-present). The tenement block will be the means to understand the socio-spatial structure of ‘ownership’, by critically examining the historical development, use and appropriation of the typology. Questions dealing with utilitarianism and socio-economics will be brought to the foreground to address the underlying and less visible disciplinary domains of architecture and urbanism. Moreover, alongside the historical unpacking of this typology, the paper’s agenda will be underpinned by closely examining the economic and political context in the Eastern Bloc during the 20th century (Berend), the ‘Right to the City’ (Harvey) and the politicisation and disciplinary domains of architecture (Polo).

CONTENTS Introduction 06 Quote by D. Harvey 09 Ownership and the Right to the City 10 Historical Developments 10 Tenement Block Typology 18 Politics of Ownership 24 Porosity and Ownership 30 Quote by A. Benjamin 32 Tenement Block Typology as a Catalyst 36 Quote by A. Zaera-Polo 38 Conclusion 40 Bibliography 42

MAIN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benjamin, Andrew. 2005. ‘Porosity At The Edge:’. Architectural Theory Review 10.1: 33-43. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

Benjamin, Walter, and Rolf Tiedemann. 1999. The Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press) Berend, Iván T. 1986. “The historical evolution of Eastern Europe as a region”, International Organization, 40: 329-346 Blencowe, C. 2008. “Destroying Duration: The Critical Situation of Bergsonism in Benjamin’s Analysis of Modern Experience”, Theory, Culture & Society, 25: 139-158 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276408091988> Hanssen, Beatrice. 2006. Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project (London: Continuum), pp. 245-250 page 42

Harvey, David. 2010. ‘The Future Of The Commons’. Radical History Review 2011.109: 101-107. Web. Harvey, David. 2008. ‘The Right To The City’. New Left Review 53: 23-40. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

Hatherley, Owen. 2015. ‘Housing In The Eastern Bloc’. Architectural-review.com. N.p. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Rolleston, James L. 1989. ‘The Politics Of Quotation: Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project’. PMLA 104.1: 1327. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.

Zaera-Polo, Alejandro. 2008. ‘Politics Of The Envelope’. C-Lab 17: Content Management: 76-105. Print.