Death of Planning by Kieran Hymers

DEATH OF PLANNING

st1958426

urban design thinkers 2019/20

a critical essay

Kier Hymers

Death of Planning | Kier Hymers

Introduction My purpose in this essay is to critically engage with Rem Koolhaas’ statement taken from his writing SMLXL I also intend to draw comparisons between the statement made by Koolhaas to the selected location in Grangetown, Cardiff which is the old Bottleworks site. The emphatic statement that planning is dead is something which can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Through analysing and exploring different writings and academic texts, my goal is to interpret the statement that planning is dead. How can planning be dead? How can something which evidently is still a process be that a very political and large scale process die?

To understand what Rem Koolhaas meant when he said “ The Generic City presents the final death of planning” (Koolhaas 1995, 6.15), we must first look at the broader context of Koolhaas’ writing. He is describing the Generic City. He neither argues for, or against, the Generic City, but rather facetiously mocks the way in which cities today have been and are continuing to be built. He is highly critical of architects; scorning their ineptitude at only being able to produce Generic Cities. “$300 billion worth of architectural education … is working in and producing generic cities at any moment” (Koolhaas 1995, 11.3). The argument put across by Gassner (2020), is that architects have become bondsman to the rich and powerful in their construction of their reflective uniform glass towers that dominate city skylines, as these architects depend heavily on the financing from the wealthy. Koolhaas compares the Generic City to the airport. He draws the comparison that just like all airports in their monotony and indistinguishability,

The idea of starting anew, from nothing: tabula rasa, feeds into Koolhaas’ attack on identity, that Generic cities cannot have history. The notion of tabula rasa is an intrinsic pillar in the bedrock of Modernism, with its beginnings in Le Corbusier’s vision of Paris, La Ville de Radieuse where he intended to demolish an entire region of the historic Marais and replace it with behemoth-like skyscrapers and futuristic floating freeways (Ingersoll, 2012). Koolhaas refutes Modernism in all its miscalculations and blunders in his later writing, Whatever happened to urbanism? He writes:

Urban Design Thinkers 2019/20

Part I

would agree with this. Christopher Alexander argues that there are two types of city, the natural and the artificial, “And I shall call those cities and parts of cities, which have been deliberately created by designers and planners artificial cities”. (Alexander The Architectural Forum, p.g 154). The death of planning has resulted in a conclusive typology, and that is the skyscraper. Its versatility means that this typology can be used in almost any terrain. These perpetual high rises just like Jim Crow laws of the 1960’s have no intention of integration. They stand alone in form of hermetic density. (Koolhaas, 1995, 6.4)

Generic Cities are without quality, with no identity. This argument is echoed by Prouty (2008) who also asserts that the Generic Cities are just like airports in their modernity and sameness lacking any identity, with no past or future. Koolhaas makes the dogmatic statement that the Generic City is inorganic; many

Death of Planning | Kier Hymers

Modernisms alchemistic promise to transform quantity into quality to abstraction and repetition has been a failure, a hoax: magic that didn’t work. It’s ideas aesthetics, strategies are finished. Together, all attempts to make a new beginning have only discredited the idea of a new beginning. A collective shame in the wake of this Fiasco has left a massive crater in our understanding

of modernity and (Koolhaas, 1995)

modernization.

One may present the argument that Koolhaas highlights that planning is dead to link with modernisms enduring grip on planning. There has been a collective debacle on the account of industry professionals to transform the city he argues, but they have failed to propose or produce an alternative. He compared it to facing an automated computer in an online game of chess; constantly outsmarted and defeated. This never ending battle leads to

The location in Grangetown is the old Bottleworks site, located just over the bridge from the remains of disused Brains Brewery site on Taffs Mead Embankment. The site was originally home to the old Bottleworks before changing to the track 2000 warehouse for the last 20 years or so. As highlighted in figure 1.1 the warehouse sits adjacent to neighbouring Edwardian row houses to the north and west with a newer development to the south west. The site was a few years ago purchased by Cardiff based property development company Rightacres who intend on transforming the warehouse into a complex of 74 flats known as ‘ The

Bottleworks’. Once the initial planning application went through, Rightacres wanted an 86 unit development which was over 12 storeys in height. The council rejected this after local opposition. However they approved plans for a 7 storey 74 unit apartment complex, contrary to the many issues raised by local residents. Residents main concerns were to do with infrastructure, parking, the affects the buildings height will have on neighbouring properties but also the design which they saw as not in keeping with the area and concerns that this will lead to more mid to high rise buildings being built in Grangetown.

The speculative free for all we see in today’s economy is defended by many on the right According to Brook & Watkins we as free citizens have the freedom of choice to spurn these types of below par developments “But the free market provides the greatest protection possible from the irrational by leaving people free to avoid, denounce, and boycott those who make poor products and

poor decision.” (Brook & Watkins 2012, p.g. 176) they argue businesses should simply pursue the profit motive and ignore the public good as naturally through the freedom to choose the public good inevitably prevails. This argument is flawed. Even other members of the right like Conservative MP Chris Philip argue against this classical economic model; he highlights that land is finite, and therefore shouldnt be part of normal market mechanisms (Woodcock 2017). The location at the old Bottleworks site is a prime example of the financialisation of land. A large developer has appropriated a site which due to degredation and disuse has fallen to petty crime like prostitution and drug use and are using their wealth and power to leverage that devlopment be aproved. Cardiff Council had originally requested under section 106 of The Town & Country Planning Act 1990 [amended] £1,361,363 from Right Acres. This was to be spent on affordable housing and community regeneration schemes. Developers will regularly contest these sums and through loopholes with usually the threat of withdrawal due to a lack of profitability, Rightacres agreed to pay a measly £30,000 towards a new NextBike station. Cardiff Council conceded (Discombe 2019). An argument may be presented that we can not only look at Koolhaas’ statement as the death of planning but as the death of democracy, as a fundamental pinnacle of a democracy is the notion of legitimacy, that all are equal no matter of extenuating factors like wealth or privilege. Penalosa (2007) touches

Urban Design Thinkers 2019/20

Part 2

I repeat Koolhaas’ statement: “ The Generic City represents the final death of planning” (Koolhaas, 1995, 6.15) That is, Cardiff is becoming a Generic City. Monolithic slab like buildings are being constructed every year many based on the speculative game that developers play, not really based on demand. Gassner (2020) too, argues that the current skyscrapers creeping up around cities are constructed on the notion of market speculation, not on the basis of supply and demand. These buildings come to symbolize the power, wealth and elitism that reside behind their faceless glass facades. It is no coincidence that the death of planning has coincided with the rise of financialisation and commodification of land. In fact, many would argue that it is an intrinsic element of the neoliberal economy; subsequently planning has become obsolete, finished, died. Blakely (2019) debates that financialisation has become a staunch pillar in the economy devised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980’s. “Her reforms to the stock market, the removal of restrictions on capital mobility and the rise of shareholder value ideology had ushered in a new world order for corporate Britain” (Blakeley 2019, p.g. 100).

on this idea and highlights the conflict between corporate interests and the public good. He argues that this type of profit before people arrangement is damaging to a democracy, in fact he states that a core tenet of any democracy is to ensure the public good is put before the needs of private interests. Therefore it is the role of the state to ensure any quarrels between the public and private stakeholders are dealt with, through the promotion of justice and equality. As Jenkins (2016) highlights, the pseudo socialist and former despotic mayor of London Ken Livingston used all in his power to ensure more and more skyscrapers were constructed in London. His aimless successor Boris Johnson continued this legacy of tower speculation. Livingstone and Johnson promoted these towers not because they cared where ordinary Londoners would live, or because they had a coherent vision of how a historic city should look in the 21st century. They knew they were planning ‘dead’ speculations, because plenty of people told them so. They went ahead because powerful men with money and a gift for flattery just asked. It was a

Death of Planning | Kier Hymers

very British sort of corruption. (Jenkins 2016, The Guardian) This is an interesting and relevant quote by journalist Simon Jenkins as he critically touches on several points. Firstly he draws the link between a cities history and its aesthetics. He states clearly that there is a “look” for a historic city. He praises other world cities for having more control over the development and construction of skyscrapers in old historic zones. Modernisms tabula rasa method of knocking down historic buildings which form part of a city’s identity is pursued in the purpose of short term profit for an oligarchy who have an autocratic monopoly on the sale and acquisition of land. Prouty repeats Koolhaas’ arguments on Generic Cities and identity, that they are lacklustre of nihility. “Paris, for instance, has turned itself into a self-parody in an effort to remain Parisian, while London changes constantly, only to become more and more like any other city” (Prouty, 2008). With currently 9 proposed midhigh rise buildings under deliberation or construction (Skyscrapercity), Cardiff like the generic city is “on its way from horizontally to vertically” (Koolhaas 1995, 6.4).

This existential crisis Cardiff faces in this globalised finance driven world we now inhabit is something many cities are confronting. It may be said that the death of planning coincides with a cities inability in defining or having manifest a clear identity. Cardiff must sell itself to the international power of private capital and that means it must become a generic city. One where corporate conglomerates have the whip hand over the interests of the public good. This means the city will consolidate more power and encounter future developments like the Bottleworks site even if it is to the detriment of local communities and historic architecture, creating a burgeoning skyline.

References Blackeley, G. 2019. Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation. London. Repeater Books. Brook, Y & Watkins, D. 2012. Free market revolution : How Ayn Rand’s ideas can help end big government. New York. Palgrave Macmillan. Discombe, M. 2019. The developer of a huge Cardiff flat block will pay just £30,000 to the community out of £1.3m the council asked for. WalesOnline 20 June 2019. Available at: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/ local-news/track-2000-grangetown-cardiff-embankment-16456224 Gassner, G. 2020. Ruined skylines: aesthetics, politics and London’s towering cityscape. London. Routledge. Jenkins, S. 2016. London’s empty towers mark a very British form of corruption. The Guardian 25 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2016/may/25/london-empty-towers-very-british-corruption-tainted-wealth Koolhaas, R. 1995. S, M, L, XL. New York: Monacelli Press. Lewis, M. 2019. Bulldozers move in as work starts on 74 more flats. Available at: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bulldozers+move+in+as+work+star ts+on+74+more+flats.-a0582719002 Penalosa, E. 2007. Politics, Power, Cities. London. Phaidon. Prouty, R. 2008. The Generic City. One Way Street March 4th. Available at: https://onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2008/03/the-generic-cit.html [Accessed: 1 January 2020].

Urban Design Thinkers 2019/20

Death of Planning | Kier Hymers

Richard Ingersoll. 2012. Sprawltown: Looking for the City on Its Edges. New York. Princeton architectural press. SkyscraperCity 2019, Available at: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=161147842 (Accessed: 12 January 2020) Woodcock, A. 2017. Foreign nationals should be banned from buying more than half of houses in new developments, says Tory MP. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/housing-foreign-nationals-purchase-ban-proposal-chris-philp-mp-uk-home-ownership-conservatives-a8107461.html