Polemik #10

POLEMIK

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POLEMIK 10 MAY 2017 AARHUS INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION RUN—100 PRINTED BY PLOTTERIET POLEMIKPOLEMIK@GMAIL.COM WWW. POLEMIKPOLEMIK.TUMBLR.COM EDITORIAL: JEANETTE AMBY, JENS VIUM SKAARUP, JOHAN EG NØRGAARD, KRISTOFFER CODAM, MATHIAS KRUSE JACOBSEN, MATHIAS SKAFTE ANDERSEN, NIELS ELI KJÆR THOMSEN, SARA EMILIE NILSSON, TROELS HEIBERG FRANDSEN

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Introduktion 4 Jens Pedersen Post digital(ism?)

6 Naima Callenberg & Agnes Gidenstam Studio NOCK 10 Juhani Palaasmaa Interview 18 Jeanette Amby Opråb 22 Farvelæg 24 Sami Rintala Educating towards critical Design of Spaces 28 Jubilæumsskrift 34

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Introdu ktion

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Kære læser,

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I 1981, efter 3 år med udgivelser og en stadig voksende gæld, spurgte “Blød By” sig selv, “Kan det lade sig gøre at udgive et tidsskrift, der ikke betaler honorar for artikler, der redigeres og fremstilles af frivillig og ulønnet arbejdskraft, og som ikke har annoncer?”

Vi synes til stadighed det er et aktuelt spørgsmål. For det er vigtigt for de studerende såvel som faget, at have et sted, at have et sted til hverdagsdiskussionenerne, og hvor debatten kan tages op. Deres umiddelbare konklusion var nej, mens den endelige lød; “at det skal kunne lade sig gøre at producere Blød By. På trods af økonomiske vanskeligheder er redaktionen optimistisk og har mod på at producere mange flere blade.”

I Polemik er vi fulde af forhåbninger, trods økonomiske kvaler, og håber på, at vi kan blive ved i 3 år, så vi kan gøre status igen, små 40 år efter Blød By, og spørge om det stadig kan lade sig gøre?

I dette nummer af Polemik er vi beærede over at have snakket med den finske arkitekt Juhani Pallasmaa, som i midten af april gav en forelæsning i det store auditorium. Vi tog en snak med ham om hvorvidt den nordiske tradition stadig har en berettigelse, og hvordan vi, som studerende, fastholder den.

Derudover giver Jens Pedersen en rapport fra skolens digitale front, eller rettere sagt den post-digitale front. For hvis alt er digitalt, er vi så ikke videre? Og i så fald, hvad er næste skridt? Læs med!

Studio NOCK er et nyopstartet arkitektur studio i Göteborg som i deres flotte nye lokaler præsenterer “A PRINT;” et åbent arkiv over arkitektur publikationer, hvor Polemik også er præsenteret. Men hvad er den underliggende agenda for dette nyoprettede studio? Naima Callenberg og Agnes Gidenstam, udfolder dét spørgsmål.

Jeanette Amby kaster lys over debatten omkring nedrivningen af Bruuns bro og vandrehallen ved Aarhus banegård, der står overfor en potentiel nedrivning pga. nye elektrisk toge, der skal have mere plads. Men hvem er det der bestemmer skæbnen for byens kulturarv og arkitektur?

Sidst men ikke mindst bliver vi nostalgiske, og bringer et tilbageblik på de første 9 numre af Polemik i form af et kort jubilæumsskrift.

Tak fordi i læser med!

Jens Pe dersen

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Post—di gital (ism?)6

“Face it—the Digital Revolution is over” Nicholas Ne groponte This statement was made in 1999 in a Wired article called “Beyond Digital” where it describes how the “digital” is everywhere and will continue to seep into our everyday; “Like air and drinking water, being digital will be noticed only by its absence, not its presence.”

Nicholas Negroponte

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And when you think about it, Negroponte is right. Our everyday is riddled with digital actions and processes; because being digital is to use something that either uses or communicates through digits, particular binary digits (operates through 0’s and 1’s.) I would therefore argue that the simple act of turning on your lights is inherently digital since you turn something on(1) or off(0).This chain of thought accompanied

by Negroponte’s statements makes it ambiguous to refer to something as being “digital,” since most things today can be turned on or off.

In everyday terms the “digital” generally refers to the use of computers, and in recent years these have turned a lot of industries upside down, and architecture, or the production of architecture, hasn’t been left untouched.

This has been felt by a shift in tools used in the design process where the majority of architects 20-30 years ago would sketch/draw a project, to now where bombeenigmamach CAD-software is the norm and photorealistic renders ines.jpg has taken the place of water colours or perspective drawings. Some say this is a bad thing, but is it really?

Let’s consider this question in a historical context; think of the introduction of the “perspective” in paintings, and the monumental effect this must have had on numerous professions. However it didn't change the tools or medias used in painters processes, whereas today the tools have shifted as well. This shift in tooling is what I assume have caused a polemic against computers in architecture, but is it justified? I wouldn't say so. We still have the same creative process and we still produce representative models or imagery to explain projects - so in a way you might argue that the use of computers now could be seen as “architectural drawing 2.0”or “pen 2.0” if you will.

To follow up on the above I would like to ask the question; should computers only be used to make representations or could we utilize other potentials of the computer? I would say we could and should; if you read the article from 2002 by Kim Cascone “the aesthetics of failure: “post-digital” tendencies in contemporary computer music,” you will understand what I mean. In it Cascone explains how a group of musicians through their understanding of a technique or process were able to explore it and create a new musical genre: “glitch.”

They did so by creating digital/analog hybrids; for instance some modified the music on CD’s by drawing on them with black markers, or that it is possible to use computer errors/glitches to make sounds. In summation, they affect digital process by analog ones or have pushed the use of computers passed the idea of a representative tool to one of production and exploration.

This notion of the post-digital a digital/analog hybrid

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is appealing to me, but how is it relevant to architectural practice or making?

I can only answer this from my own perspective, I am an architect and I assume many would consider me to be (overly?) “digital,” since I use techniques such as programming or parametrics as part of my design process. The only way I can answer my own question is to suggest a couple of initiatives, that would change the way in which we use computers today and would potentially make the idea of “glitch” relevant to architects: • • • •

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We stop talking about something as being digital.

We start to use computers as a tool for exploration rather than representation.

We start to use CNC techniques to explore construction not representation.

We start to inform our computational process by physical/analog ones and vice versa.

Naima Cal lenberg + Agnes Gidenstam

Studio NOCK

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Visit the “A Print” exhibition by Studio NOCK at Södre Larmgatan 7 in Gothenburg, Sweden— between the 10th and 28th of May. -> studionock.com

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Studio NOCK is an independent gallery project initiated by Agnes Gidenstam and Naima Callenberg, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. NOCK functions as a architecture platform, with the ambition to showcase great ideas and work that can influence and inspire the architectural discourse.

A PRINT is NOCKs first exhibition: an open archive of independent architecture publications and zines.

The ambition is to promote and showcase alternative publications for innovative commentary and criticism on architecture.

These publications are an important contribution to the architectural discourse, allowing for independent, mainly non-profit, editors to cover a broader range of topics than what is custom in conventional architectural magazines.

The titles showcased in A PRINT represent more than ten different countries. Some focuses on one single phenomena or person, others are a collection of thoughts on larger themes. No matter what the subject of the print is, they all have something in common, that being, that they are striving to bring something new to the discipline.

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Juhani Pall asmaa J: Juhani Pallasmaa

P: Polemik

Interview part 1

April 2017

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P

In the end of the lecture yesterday, it seemed like you stepped on the toes on some of the non-Nordic professors. Traveling as much as you do, is that something that happens to you a lot?

J

I don’t see what the disagreement really was, I’m just simply critical of today when the same architects are designing everywhere around the world, and everything becomes just formalist and superficial.

There are two alternatives when you build in another culture. Either you do your own thing, or then you try to adapt to the local culture, and as I said with Alvar Aalto, he always did his own thing, regardless of where he built, yet with sensitivity to the site and location. I think that was more successful than the foreign architects who try to build i.e. Chinese architecture in China. I think it is always doomed to fail.

That was what I wanted to say—nothing else.

P

At the same time you said, maybe we should take a look at Glenn Murcutt, to understand how we should build in the North?

J

Well yes, in the sense that he is one of the architects, who takes location really seriously.

For every project he studies the water levels, water table, wind, rain, sun angles, vegetation, everything. The Nordic tradition does not go into the specific qualities of the place like Glenn Murcutt, so I simply suggested that maybe we should learn something from him and begin to develop an interest for all the local specificities and conditions.

I think this is a problem with modernity altogether. With our technology, we are able to standardize situations. With air-conditioning, we eliminate the climatic differences.

P

But that is not specific to Nordic architecture?

J

No it is not, it takes place everywhere. But Nordic architecture has a good position to be exemplary as it has in many ways been in social regard, but also ecologically to be realistic and refined. The whole ecological issue has become rather formalist sales talk in most cases.

P

When we spoke to Mari Hvattum, she suggested in order to really redefine or rediscover what is Nordic, we should stop talking about the Nordic altogether. It seems like she had grown very tired of concept of the Nordic.

J

That is what I asked in the beginning, weather it makes sense. But I answered immediately—yes it does!

Everything can be misused for manipulative purposes, it is part of our time, but I do not think that is a reason to abandon our Nordic identity. As I said, I have tested my Nordic identity more than most people, by going 103 times around the world. The fact that our world is going towards globalization and stylized aestheticization, and increasingly universal values does not make it imperative that everyone should

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“ The new Danish architecture as it appears in journals today is often just another variation of globalization” go the same way. I think it is the reverse, because of that negative development the ones who have a possibility—like the Nordic architects—should create a cultural resistance. I think that Nordic countries are a kind of unspoken resistance in the defense of democracy anyway, in a world that seems to be going crazy.

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P

So in this regard, how do you view the sudden attention for instance the new wave of Danish architecture have gotten in the world?

J

I must say that what is sold or presented as new Nordic architecture today, is often the least Nordic. Simply because it is part of the commercial competition in the field of

architecture, which I think is a problem also in all the Nordic countries today. I have also written about this already 8–10 years ago— that Danish architecture was losing its sense of place and sense of authentic culture. So the new Danish architecture as it appears in journals today is often just another variation of globalization, in my mind.

P

Where should we look to?

J

Into the tradition, and that is why I quoted T. S. Elliot, because he writes so beautifully and strongly about the importance of tradition. I am of the belief myself that any real quality in the artistic world and architecture is bound to somehow echo tradition, it cannot be an individual invention, as it has to be somehow a continuation of something. I am of the generation when, during the studies, history was not much respected. I have learned much later the importance of history, and now I am really interested in history. I believe in groundedness—being grounded in time and history, in the continuum of arts. That is why I advise my students everywhere to read, to go back to the books, and not read architectural books mainly but other books.

P

Yesterday you also talked about dwelling—that we have simply forgotten how to.

J

It is actually Heideggers idea. He says we cannot build if we cannot dwell. When an architect does not have an empathic capacity for peoples dwelling how can he or she design a house? I think there is two origins for architecture—dwelling and mythology or celebration, so as a principle there are two authentic tasks; the house and the church.

Everything else is a variation of those two, and also the aspect of celebration is often forgotten, when architecture turns into aestheticized utility. When

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it does that then something is missing - the mental, spiritual dimension.

P

When Heidegger reminds us that building and dwelling are interwoven, that in order to dwell we must have an understanding of the built environment and vice versa. In a world where building components are increasingly industrialized, can we still maintain an understanding of how it all came together?

J

At least we have to understand the continuum of architecture. That is my point, architecture cannot just be taken here and now as a momentary opportunity, it has to have a longer perspective and I think that longer perspective is missing in todays commercialized architecture. The commercialization makes architecture a matter of formal invention, but architecture is much deeper than form, or even invention. As I said, I do not think vision is the most important sense in architecture, our existential sense is much more important,

“Architects should again be trained deliberately as generalists instead of specialists� 20

but in order to get back that broad and thick understanding of our task, our attitudes have to change. Our existential position and understanding has to become stronger, instead of just visual skills.

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Is it enough that architects enhance their existential sense?

Of course not, because architects cannot change the culture, but I think architects have to take a culturally leading position again in building. Until the 60’s, architects—in the Nordic countries and elsewhere—were respected thinkers and widely civilized persons.

Now architecture is just a profession. That is a much thinner and less respectable position.

I think architects should again be trained deliberately as generalists instead of specialists.

Our generation is referred to as the “Archdaily generation.” Where new projects are popping up in a high speed, and the impressions seems to go into nothing.

One needs to become more selective. We simply need to defend ourselves, and our autonomy against the absurd availability of everything everywhere at once. It becomes totally meaningless and I often say that education has become too much distribution of facts or knowledge, it should be a development of wisdom. The lowest level is facts, then comes knowledge and the highest level is wisdom—and I think education should aspire for wisdom.

Jeanet te Amby

Opr åb!

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En af de få yderst vellykket arkitektoniske bygningsværker, opført i Aarhus inden for de seneste tyve år, er Bruuns Arkaden tegnet af Exner i 2003. Ikke kun skaber den en god sammenhæng mellem midtbyen og Frederiksbjerg, den gør også en ellers kold og vindblæst overgang til en human oplevelse. Smukt står den, med flotte materialesammensætninger og en detaljerigdom udover det sædvanlige.

En anden vellykket overgang er den historiske vandrehal inde i Aarhus Hovedbanegård. Vandrehallen er opført i 1927 og byder de mange tog trafikanter velkommen til et historisk Aarhus.

Begge overgange, disse smukke bygningsværker, vil Banedanmark nu rive ned. Nye elektriske tog kræver mere plads til køreledninger. Den plads kan man finde ved at grave skinnerne ½ m længere ned eller ved at rive Bruuns Bro, Arkaden og vandrehallen ned, for at bygge en ny bro.

Nyt nyt nyt.

Byrådet anbefaler Banedanmark det sidste alternativ, at rive de arkitektoniske perler ned.

“Byg og smid væk kulturen” blomstrer i fuld flor i Århus. Historiske, smukke, kvalitetsfulde byggerier rives ned og bliver erstattet med nye beton-bygninger, som fx i Ceres byen. Hvor er visionerne for at bevare de arkitektoniske kvaliteter i Århus og transformere de smukke bygninger til nye brugbare bygninger? Det vil både give flere lag til byen og skabe unik arkitektur.

Som Danmarks næststørste by har man ansvar for at udvikle byens historie, ikke fjerne den!

Argumentet for at rive ned i stedet for at bevare Bruuns Bro er, at togtrafikken i anlægsperioden vil blive forstyrret.

Men hvilken forstyrrelse vil trafikken i midtbyen ikke få ved nedrivelsen af Bruuns Bro. Det virker som et meget

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kortsigtet beslutningsgrundlag. Der må da være muligheder for at skabe en midlertidig togstation, eller at udføre arbejdet i etaper, for at mindske forstyrrelserne.

Men Bruuns Bro, Arkaden og Vandrehallen står der endnu. Vi kan stadigvæk nå at redde det, hvis vi råber op nu. I sidste ende er det Banedanmark (ejet af staten) og transportministeren, der skal tage den endelige beslutning Støt 77 årige Lissi Kok, der står ved Bruuns Bro for at om Vandrehallen og samle underskrifter Brunns Bro’s fremtid. Mine forhåbninger om, at Ole Birk skulle vælge ikke at følger byrådets anbefalinger, er lave. Men hvis vi råber højt, kan vi måske stoppe nedrivningen af Bruuns Bro og stoppe ødelæggelsen af flere arkitektoniske perler i Århus.

FarvelĂŚg

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Sami Rin tala

Educ ating tow ards criti cal Design of Spaces28

Part 2/2 Part 1 published in Polemik 7.

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INTUITIVE PLURALISM AND LEARNING BY MAKING Human being is a psycho-physical creature, although the boundaries of these two sides are becoming increasingly blurred. It is by now widely accepted that we may communicate or exchange moods with hormonal particles through air, and that our “thinking”does not take place physically solely in our brains, but is a more shared experience by the whole body.

In education this means both respecting the physical and psychological development needs, yet understanding the limitations of this artificial division. In other words, the theory and practice are a more blended phenomena, and should be that in education as well. Lecture hall and construction site should come closer together.

To explain this I would like to use one quote that I do believe in, from Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher (551 BC–479 BC): “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

While this proverb raises the making of things to the highest position as a form of learning, I maintain we need to inspire the making and understanding part with a great deal of hearing, that is lectures by chosen specialists; artists, thinkers, makers etc., and seeing, meaning reading, watching films, making excursions.

So I propose a learning strategy supported by two main pillars: Conceptual Exercises—learning to work

with ideas, and Workshops—testing with materials in real life. Here one supports the other thematically and offers feedback, also unexpected.

CONCEPTUAL EXERCISES THE STUDY OF IDEAS In Jainist religion, I find one of the main principles, non-absolutism, very viable philosophically. According to it, the truth and the reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, no single one of which is complete. In other words, truth is evenly hidden everywhere and in everything. To know the truth, one has to appreciate pluralism and be tolerant even to opposing ideas.

At the same time, on a purely practical level, my experience from work life is that every single architecture project is a discussion in itself, with its own physical reality, participants, themes and eventual solutions. As follows, teaching generalizations and strategies of how to make good architecture become largely meaningless.

Due to these observations, I would rather try to enhance the understanding of pluralistic values and the recognition of cultural contexts, signs and symbols. This means to learn how to work with ideas, both in context to the given situation and in context to everything else. And it is here that reading becomes paramount: Literature is the collected memory of the human kind, making us understand both the vastness of possibilities and the distances and positions of things and ideas to each other. Therefore the reading list prepared for the students should not include just basic literature sergei-eisen of architecture and art, (for example Perez-Gomez, stein-main-ima Pallasmaa) but life phenomena in general. Framing ge-potemkin.jpg architecture as human activity in particular, the focus should be also in social anthropology (f.ex J. Diamond, W. Davis), behavioral biology (f.ex E.O Wilson), sociology (f.ex R. Sennet) and philosophy (f.ex G. Bachelard, M. Merleau-Ponty).

Students should also study and experience other forms of art as fruitful source of information and inspiration to their creativity, both in contemporary and historic form, for instance: 1. Poetry, as condensed information and description of beauty and truth, usually avoiding definitions at will; 2. Land Art , an interesting cultural performance since the 70’s, Land Art reminds us of

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the beginning of the making of dwellings, the start of the phenomena of architecture when the landscape was molded towards a shelter. The sensitive artist brings us back in time to the moment when soil and building separated; 3. Cinema, collage of light, form and color over time, coming very close to architectural experience with carefully articulated scenography where atmosphere is created with light and materiality.

THE WORKSHOP METHOD THE STUDY OF THINGS Academic Design-build workshops were started in U.S. Universities with Yale Building Project in 1967 and continued by Rural Studio, Steve Badanes and Dan Rockhill among others and have spread far and wide after that. The result has been some good examples of socially responsible architecture, practical solutions and inspiration for the design community. At the same time, the student-run method has produced a generation of active young architects, although yet a small group. Despite the growing popularity, the impact of the resulting projects on both clients and the students are not yet well enough recorded. My own experience, however, from around 110 workshops around the world so far is only positive in these regards. In fact, there are several good reasons to continue developing this form of education: Firstly, my experience is that young people today are not able to do much with their hands. This is the result of automated production of all goods and a strong specialization process of each individual to master only a tiny area of expertise. What the workshop method does well is to demystify the world of putting things together.

On the other hand, the design part of the workshop is done always in the presence of the local conditions, the constraints, the obligations, the possibilities, and opportunities that are there. For instance, the question of temporality/permanence of the building and the need for service afterwards are easier to understand and include in the design when one has to also build the structure. Furthermore, during a start seminar more thematic and specialized information is communicated to the students. Additionally, an environmental assessment is made to reveal the bio-

logical facts of the site ecosystem. This all will bring about a more tangible and lasting learning outcome of the process than a mere paper design task inside a classroom. Workshop method is about developing a different kind of creativity that solves problems instead of creating them.

Secondly, the students will not only work with the design and the tools. The fact that they work in a group and need to come quickly to conclusions together will result to skills learning on communication, decision making, team work planning, documenting, publishing and reflecting on the results.

Thirdly; workshop is a precise tool in case the educational institution in question is committed to sustainable transformation. This method is creating an alternative platform where transformative learning can take place, assisted by an experience of meaningful, functional and beautiful architecture and atmosphere of change, hope and environmental consciousness. In other words: Starting a physical change that allows a mental change to take place. Final and primal goal is that the institution becomes a “transition school.�

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, there are some educational research results that seem to support directly the method of designing and building together.

Generally it is easy to become overwhelmed facing the current planetary challenges, and the endless debating of possible good and bad outcomes of different possible strategies can seem as a hopeless and too slow tool for the situation. But to act together with testing and prototypes, as a form of action research, with an informed and meaningful goal-setting is a far faster and more precise tool. At the same time, it empowers the participants with the feeling they can influence the physical world and steer it at least one project at the time.

The criticism inside academy towards the time and resources used in workshops revolves usually around the themes of new form of tourism, or as a childish way of playing construction site. These statements become a paradox when one regards what the free movement of people has done already to understanding of other cultures during last decades, helping us to create more pluralistic and inclusive societies everywhere in the

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world. Additionally, another clear result tells us that the lowest educational outcome of any given method is from lecturing, where people sit still and listen, while the best is from the type used in kindergarten, where people play and do things together under guidance, regardless the age. “Education for sustainability above all means the creation of space for transformative social learning. Such space includes: space for alternative paths of development, space for new ways of thinking, valuing and doing, space for participation minimally distorted by power relations, space for pluralism, diversity and minority perspectives, space for deep consensus, but also for respectful disagreement (Lijmbach et al., 2002) and differences (Olson and Eoyang, 2001), space for counter-hegemonic thinking, space for self-determination, and, finally, space for contextual differences.

A better understanding of educational processes that help cultivate a learning environment that strengthens these qualities in individuals and groups is needed.� 1 This all said, I still need to raise two central themes in my educational view. Firstly, as is fitting to the Jainist remark in the beginning. I believe that a teacher has to level to a certain extent with the students: in order to show that we are in the same boat, not exactly knowing always the direction and finding new things together, making discoveries. This commonly shared positive tension is easily recognized by the students, and they feel they have as much responsibility over the shape the future will take. Secondly, I think a teacher has to earn his or hers position exactly this way, by working within the group without a pre-conceived status.

In other words, to demystify and thus shorten the distance to professional life the students knowingly have ahead of them.

1 Arjen E.J. Wals, Mirroring, Gestaltswitching and transformative social learning—Stepping stones for developing sustainability competence, (Wageningen: Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

Polem ik

JubilĂŚums skrift 34

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Polemik udgav sit første nummer i februar 2016, og denne maj udkommer Polemik med den tiende udgivelse. Men historien strækker sig faktisk længere end som så. Polemik blev født i sommeren 2015, hvor morgenlyset i en aarhusiansk solopgang frembragte en undren over hvor den kritiske arkitekturdebat var blevet af, og hvad man kunne gøre for at fremme den igen. Herefter fulgte et helt efterår, med diskussioner frem og tilbage,

om hvordan, hvorledes og hvorfor det kunne lade sig gøre. På et tidspunkt skred Polemik fra ord til handling, fik et navn og udgav første nummer.

Polemik har siden dannet ramme for kritiske indlæg i arkitekurdebatten.

Omkring dette jubilæumsskrift svæver udvalgte nedslag fra Polemiks bagkatalog. Bladene kan læses eller genlæses på internettet, hos dine venner eller ved at købe den snarligt udgivne opslamling. Polemik tror på, at det er vigtigt at diskutere for diskussionens skyld, og vil altid allerede invitere alle til at diskutere med,

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og endu mere! Det understreges, ligesom i Polemiks første udgivelse, at Polemik ikke er et “vi,” men en åben platform for arkitekturdebatten. Så endnu engang, velkommen til, og godt jubilæum!

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Notes.

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39 3-2 1 tevignvanU

Unavngivet 1 2-3