Guillem Pons, The Administrative City: Brussels and the Architecture of Bureaucracy by AA Projective Cities

The Administrative City Brussels and the Architecture of Bureaucracy

Dissertation Proposal July 2014

Guillem Pons MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design, Projective Cities Architectural Association School of Architecture, London

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION D I S S E R T AT I O N P R O P O S A L

DESING PROPOSAL

CASE STUDIES

BIBLIOGRAPHY 90 APPENDIX 96

The Manneken Pis, one of the most emblematic images of Brussels. It symbolizes the independent spirit of its habitants.

INTRODUCTION

Brussels is currently carrying the burden of Europe by having become its capital. However, far from being a collective and cohesive project, the European government has decentralized its institutions and agencies by locating them in cities other than Brussels. Yet the on-going concentration of staff and offices in Brussels has created the need for the Belgian government to provide a setting for the European administration, which recognizes Brussels as a European capital. As a result, the contradiction between a widespread European network of administrative functions and a representative capital city has lead to the project of a problematic administrative district. A project that should have animated a civic and collective domain, but was given over to the interests of private developers: the European Union and its urban formation of Brussels has surrendered to the uncompromising interests of private capital.

The Berlaymont building, the European Commission Headquarters since 1969.

INTRODUCTION

The ‘Eurodistrict’ in Brussels can be called a bilateral reality that is ‘political’ and ‘economical’. The former is a governing, symbolic and abstract status, whereas the latter is a managerial, market-driven and physical condition. Both are present in the same place, however, the ‘economic’ is the one responsible for development and gives form to the otherwise formless dimension of the ‘political’. We can thus say that real estate development has come to dominate the project of the European district and, ironically, we can even easily imagine the disappearance of the EU. Today the public sector increasingly relies on private capital to achieve large-scale developments. It is from this complicity that a contradictory belief has emerged: even though we expect that public institutions should undertake these developments, private intervention has gained control over the process. Thus, the role of the EU as a political institution should be to reclaim and propose its own space for the city, and to submit private interests to public demands. The ‘administrative city’ should belong to civic and public infrastructures, in the same way as education, health and public facilities. A new formulation of the role of these urban developments is needed, one that reverses the current condition in which private stakeholders have diminished the state’s responsibilities.The questions at stake that the research will pursue are therefore: How do public institutions and their constituencies differ if they are built by private capital? And how should the state strategize these developments in order to acquire or maintain control over the process?

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Extension towers of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, 2008.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

Real estate speculation and economic priority policies have created disconnected and dysfunctional administrative districts. This statement entails that the administrative city has become a ‘post-political’ city in which development has been left to self-regulation by the market. However, this does not release the state from its responsibilities to the city and its constituencies - it should claim an exemplary position regarding its own architectural and urban manifestation. Based on this critique, the research will explore the administrative district through the case study of the European Union in Brussels. In particular, the study will focus on how the architecture of administration can be rethought to oppose the current model of development controlled by private capital. The European district in Brussels will be thus the context for a new architectural and urban project for an European government. Although the EU is a rare political organization, it nonetheless provides an exemplary case of how economic values have changed the urban domain and, especially, the perhaps most symbolic civic space of the city: its government. The study of the formation of Brussels along with its European analogues (Strasbourg, Luxembourg, etc.) will therefore inform the current conflict between private and public interests when developing civic infrastructures. The area of research will be framed through the architectural and urban formation of political institutions in the city during the last century. It looks at the city-formation in relation to public and private development as defined by three topics. First, Public Institutions as Civic Infrastructure will look at their evolution and role in the city. Second, Administrative Buildings will study their contribution to the urban formation, from the inside ‘generic’ space to the ‘symbolic’ outside. And third, the state’s role is considered in Institutional Developments, which looks at how the state can affect the privatized model. In order to develop these topics, the historical formation of the EU and its buildings in Brussels will be examined to provide a critical reading of the European project and the city that it has created. Complementary, the dissertation will study comparative case studies that reinforce or counteract the EU model. These case studies are selected to provide a survey from an urban scale to the architectural scale of the room. Hence, the discourse will attempt to formulate a multi-scalar argument from the territorial implications of the administrative city to the productive domain of its interior spaces.

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Top: Headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main. Bottom: 1st wing of the European Parliament in Brussels during its construction, 1993.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

This classification aims to establish three entry points through which to clarify the dissertation. They are complementary despite each one having its own particularity. The first one, ‘civic infrastructure’, aims to address the problem from an urban level, whereas the second, ‘the administrative building’, pursues a more architectonic approach through the discussion of its typology. The third one emerges from the question at stake, which is how governments develop their institutions and how they implicitly become a matter of politics and economics. The object of research is the EU and its premises in the city. The EU is the so-called government of Europe, responsible for policies and regulations that concern the majority of European countries. Its main institutions are seated in Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Brussels, but it is the latter that is considered to be the ‘capital’. For Brussels, this status is manifest in the city through a large administrative district with offices and governmental buildings. Although it has been formed since 1958, the city did not produce a complete plan for the district until 2008. Some former attempts to ameliorate and control the growth of the European institutions were abandoned for different reasons. In 1979, for instance, a law was enacted to modify the ‘Plan de Secteur’, leading to the preservation of housing in several blocks that were earmarked for European expansion; but was never realized as the Commission convinced the state to receive investment for further developments.1 Eventually, the area followed the ‘rules’ of opportunity and economy, creating a Eurodistrict characterized by the spontaneity of ad hoc developments. As a matter of fact, the European Commission was a mere tenant until it built its own premises, simply as a reaction to the high rents that private owners demanded.2 Thus, the research will study the history of the European district in Brussels, a process that conveys an unplanned and market-driven development.

1 Carola Hein, The Capital of Europe: Architecture and planning for the European Union (Westport CT: Praeger publisher, 2004) p. 148

Even if we look at the most representative buildings of the district such as the Parliament, the Commission seat or the Council, they were all developed not following a strategic urban plan but a constant back and forth between ‘Europe’ and the Belgian state. The Justus Lipsius building (the European Council), for instance, was developed following lengthy discussions after which the state, eager to receive funding for infrastructural development, provided a site for the building.3 The result was a disastrous collaboration between the architects who participated in the competition.4 This can be compared to its other European projects: Luxembourg and Strasbourg. These three locations and their projects will be compared to a typical commercial development. This comparison aims to clarify how the administrative district has been formed by a logic similar to that of any other private office district, and poses the question of what its current urban role is.

3 Pier Vittorio Aureli et al, Brussels – A Manifesto. Towards the Capital of Europe (Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2007) p. 126

2 For comments on the first building purchased by the EC 120, Rue de la Loi, see: “Limiter les charges immobilières: la Cour des Comptes de la C.E.E. prône une politique d’acquisition,” Le Soir, 19 September 1979; and Benedicte Vaes, “Pour la première fois, la C.E.E. devient propriétaire, et c’est á Bruxelles,” Le Soir, 4 October 1983.

4 Justus Lipsius Building (top figure p. 19)

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5 Cacciari, Massimo. La Cittá. Pazzini: Verrucchio, 2004. 6 Sonne, Wolfgang. Representing the State: Capital City Planning in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Prestel, 2003.

Inevitably, the particular urban formation this logic of development has created also relates to a set of architectural questions. Since the site has been formed by market-driven decisions, a disregard towards the city exists that has produced mono-functional areas and ultimately segregation. By studying the attributes of commercial developments, the research will attempt to define the pathologies and benefits that these developments have for the administrative city. In addition, the study will give special attention to a consideration of the ‘administrative building’ as an architectural type that belongs to the group of ‘civic infrastructure’.5 This distinction is key to the argument that the administrative building should act as a contributor and enhancer of the city.6 This ‘contribution’ will be defined through an analysis of the current status of the European Union, and developed through a design proposal for the city.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

The setting for this particular project will be informed by the definition of terms central to the administrative city. The following terms present an essential ‘vocabulary’ of the administrative city. They convey the fundamental qualities that arise in the case of the EU. These terms will be further developed in the dissertation as themes or chapters identifying the different layers or scales of the project for the administrative city. This operational framework will connect the different case studies with the three main topics proposed above: ‘civic infrastructure’, ‘administrative buildings’ and ‘institutional developments’.

Civic City (project) Looking at the genealogy of administrative buildings (town halls, congresses, etc.), the provision of a civic space for the city was always an implicit aim. Hence, the objective is to ensure that projects are built for the public and the common good. Yet, when political power shifts towards a bureaucratic organization, the civic space that it produces turns into a merely efficient plateau for management. The definition of this spaces has to account for a specific public, and has to be addressed in a different way today. Since the administrative district is perceived as dysfunctional and a disruptive space for the city, its development sits on the crossroad between becoming a civic space and surrendering to economic will.

Illusion (representation) The European district suffers from a misperception of reality. It struggles to find and represent its own identity as a political ‘capital’, while trying to prevent to appear as an administrative district. Thus the current masterplan for the European quarter at the Rue de la Loi by Atelier Portzamparc, reveals the ambiguity of a plan that cannot avoid a representational staging of its institutions, while attempting to provide an eco-friendly environment for the citizens of Brussels. This double agenda only partially fulfils each objective, producing a mediocre proposal. At the same time, monumentalisation has been since the 19th century a popular means of representing governmental power.6 However, the symbolism of monuments has been through a different interpretations ever since. Yet monumentalisation is only one way to convey the idea of government in architectural form.

The archetype of an administrative building

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Top: The Justus Lipius, European Council, seen from above in front of the Berlaymont Building, the European Commission HQ (1995). Bottom: Aerial view of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

Political (typology I) The European district is defined by a twofold economic and political approach. While the political claims all attention and is misleadingly perceived as responsible for the malfunctions of the city district, the other driver operates almost imperceptible on the actual development. Ironically, the political can be removed without rendering the economic inoperative. In other words, the city it produces is not reliant on the form of political institution but on the form of the buildings themselves. Understanding the process and mechanisms that drive development raises the question of the responsibilities for the development of an administrative district, and ultimately the need for a ‘form’ that addresses the needs of the public, or at least, the possibility for the public to express its needs.

Economic (typology II) Starting with King Leopold I, a shareholder of a private company that built the first urban extension of Brussels, urban development and construction of large-scale projects have been financed by private capital. However, the fact that Brussels is the capital of Belgium, in addition to the capital of Europe, has meant that the development of large-scale plans is an especially difficult administrative undertaking. Therefore, relying on private capital is the predominant and currently most operative driver to develop large-scale urban projects, thus, the challenge is to define the mechanisms and limits that the state still can perform in order to control the process. Brasilia, for instance, shows a particular procedure in which, far from subverting the process, an ‘economical’ logic was embedded into it: the ministries were built in the most generic, even cheap quality standards, but nonetheless produced a larger-scale and representative figure for the city plan.

The archetype of an administrative building

Multi-scalar (architectural type) Today the European district is seen, within the city, as a dysfunctional element that consumes major spaces of the city. In addition, it does not add any value or contribution to the surroundings, and the occupiers, namely a group of office buildings, remain closed after working hours. Nonetheless the broadcasting of the district in the media, during manifestations or political announcements, uses it as a specific political backdrop that is instrumental for the perception of the institution in the outer world. This double scale requires different approaches within the plan, and in fact draws out the conflicts that arise between the stakeholders: the state’s interest to improve the urban condition, and at the same time, satisfy both the hidden interests of the EU and the market-driven interests of private investors.

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View from the Schumman Square towards the Rue de la Loi. The site is framed by the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;singularâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; facades of the Council (left) and the Commission (right).

QUESTIONS

The following questions attempt to establish the different lines of enquiry that the dissertation pursues. The main research question the dissertation will explore is that of the administrative city by considering not only ‘what’ has been developed but ‘how’, and what would be alternatives considering the problems currently arising from it.

What defines the administrative city, and how do public institutions and their premises differ if they are built by private capital? Consequently, the research will focus on the administrative district as a unique urban element, whose role and importance among other civic infrastructures, is instrumental for a multi-scalar project for the city. Hence, challenging the notion of a simple representative and symbolic figure for the city, the research sets up a new approach to the development of institutional quarters, and therefore asks:

What is the role of large-scale plans for administrative buildings, especially as civic infrastructures, within the city; how can they respond to a city-national scale and still act and contribute to the smaller one? In order to address this idea of a multi-scalar type, a new architectural typology of the administrative and office building will be developed. Both feature the ‘typical’ open plan of the office space, which is commonly perceived as the paradigm of ‘generic’ space. However, the specificities that usually administrative and also corporate buildings produce are paradoxically non-generic but singular or even ‘iconic’. The architectural question, therefore, explores this conflict between the ‘specific’ and the ‘generic’ that contradicts the current administrative building. The question at stake is:

What is the specificity that administrative architecture can heighten to move away from the ‘genericness’ of the open office plan; how can then differ from or contribute to commercial office buildings? The former looks at the way in which an architectural type is formed by different models, while the latter establishes a more projective question that deals with the following design questions. Ultimately, the architectural concern is in regards to the definition of forms. Therefore: what is the form of a political institution in a city? The design will attempt to provide an answer to this by confronting questions such as: how is the building entered, how do users interact, and how does its relation to the urban context relate to the values associated with a civic infrastructure? 21

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METHODOLOGY

In this dissertation, the EU and its buildings in Brussels are the main object of research in order to rethink and define the administrative city. Even though the topic aims to address a much wider and general context, the case of the EU, although unique, mirrors the status of contemporary administrative institutions and their role within the city. So far, the EU can be understood through the chronological events that have eventually defined today’s European nationhood. It is an unprecedented governing power that had to adapt and transform throughout its short life. The dissertation intents to explore these transformations, the policies that defined them, and the larger relation to the built environment. The methodology adopted in the dissertation will trace the history that formed the current EU during the last half century. The first step will be to recognize the architectural projects, the reasons and policies behind them, and how all together shaped Brussel’s European district. This history will be looked at through a contemporary theoretical framework that explores and defines the role of the public and private sector when developing largescale plans for public institutions. The reading and positioning in regards to notions such as ‘bio-politics’, by Michel Foucault, or ‘post-politics’, by Jacques Rancière or Slavoj Žižek, will inform an argument against the current practice. The aim to introduce these theories on ‘politics’ is to define a critical position when establishing the main drivers for an urban and architectural project of the administrative city. Complementary, the historical and theoretical framework will be evaluated through the analysis of different case studies. The method will follow a top-down research from the masterplans of the EU in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, to the architecture of administration. The former will inform the process by which they have been built, mostly by the intervention of private stakeholders. The later will pinpoint the specificities emerging from the ubiquitous ‘generic plan’. Since this model of development has transformed administrative buildings into ordinary commercial offices, the typological study will draw attention to these specificities and how they have produced a potential or meaningful element for the city. Two categories of architectural case studies will be gathered and appraised: administrative and corporate buildings. They will be classified according to three operational groups: buildings in relation to the context or a larger entity, externalized features in relation to the exterior, and 23

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Graphics showing the correlative increase with European functions: buildings on top, and functionaris on the bottom.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

specific interior spaces. Accordingly, the systematic production of plans regarding the three implicit scales: architecture, street and city, will lead to a typological definition of the architecture at stake: the administrative building. All in all, the proposed methodology for the dissertation will operate at three different levels; the main theoretical discourse on the role of public institutions when developing its own administrative building; the assessment of the object of research, the Eurodistrict in Brussels; and the definition of the ‘type’ underling the architecture of administration. Finally, the body of research will be complemented and synthesized through a set of design proposals. These proposals aim to test, corroborate and even confront the outcomes of the dissertation.

So far, administrative cities have few bibliographic references that directly address the question of its architectural formation and its socio-economic and political background. Some of the most related subjects, from the architectural point of view, are those that deal, on the one hand, with the projection or manifestation of the nation’s power, in the form of a capital city; and on the other, with mechanisms of city-formation whether they are public or private. Hence, the research firstly aims to bridge this gap, in which the issue of the state’s manifestation in the city is addressed through the specific architectural types that are generated depending on the context. From a disciplinary point of view, once the research has defined the framework of discussion, complementary topics will be developed. To name a few, issues such as ‘dysfunctional entities of the city’, ‘heritage preservation’, ‘insertion of programmes in existing city fabric’ or ‘public spaces’, will become relevant to the main discourse. At the level of architecture, the research will be significant when addressing the widespread office building type in relation to administrative institutions. The identification of a typology that emerges from private development (i.e. commercial offices, iconic buildings, etc.) and yet belongs to the group of civic infrastructures, is also an argument for a new range of explicit influence from city planning to architectural design. The typological discourse, therefore, takes a critical position against the urban environment produced by governmental institutions, and in particular, the one by the European Union. Hence, the research will trace 25

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Image of the Rue de la Loi, the main street of the Eurodistrict in Brussels, desolated after working hours.

L I T E R AT U R E R E V I E W

the events of the Eurodistrict and will equate them to a typical commercial development. This position will draw attention to current procurement systems, questioning their effectiveness and showing their contradictions.

The literature review aims to inform the three main topics to develop: ‘civic infrastructure’, ‘administrative buildings’ and ‘institutional developments’. Hence, these topics operate at three different levels, namely: ‘civic infrastructure’ at the urban level, ‘administrative buildings’ pursuing the architectural scale, and ‘institutional developments’ to explore a more ontological view of the process. Brussels and the EU will be central to the research as the main case study, so the first group of readings will be those concerning the urban formation of Brussels, as the current capital of the EU (and Europe). Complementary, literature regarding ‘capital cities’ will ground the main concerns around these particular cities. The second group of references will be looking mainly at the office building, since it is the paradigm of administrative and institutional buildings. Finally, the third group underpins a contemporary point of view of the role of the state in regards to economy andto private investments. This will be looked at how it informs the policies of public institutions and their procurement of projects, which currently fail to address the interests of the city.

1. Brussels and its institutional civic infrastructure (urban) Brussels is a relatively new city, since Belgium became only an independent country in 1830. After that, the former medieval city opened its walls to expand and become the capital of the country. Almost a century later, after the first expansions by King Leopold II and the establishment of the ECSC after Second World War, the city entered into a relentless urban transformation to become a ‘capital city’ in Europe. In the so-called Brussels Manifesto, the idea that was once fostered by the Belgian state to locate Brussels on the map as ‘the crossroad of Europe’, is today continued by a multitude of projects that embrace the European government. By understanding the need of an administrative centralized capital, the book proposes a specific form for the city to represent the status of that government. Through a mediated and, paradoxically, decentralized group of islands, the different manifestations of the European sovereignty spread throughout the city in forms that evokes that of a political national entity. The question of ‘how to give form to a political power’, and ultimately to a capital, is further analysed in Representing the State: Capital City 27

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Planning in the Early Twentieth Century. The book sustains the argument that the iconography of the city can be ‘symbolic’ or ‘symptomatic’. The latter is the consequence of a particular action: pragmatic, politic, economic, etc. Whereas the former is the embodiment of a particular ideology into an urban form. Hence, the question of how to read the ‘landmarks’ of the city is further explored in Berlin—Washington 1800-2000. The book introduces two instrumental ideas. The first one proposes a reading of the landmarks based on the theory of semiotics by Roland Barthes. The second, makes a clear distinction of the state’s main functions and identifies four different grounds: political, economic, social and cultural. This differentiation enables a discourse in which the political and the economic, the two problems at stake, can be addressed independently. As a counterpoint to the first thesis, that stands for a single and centralized capital, Carola Hein proposes in The Capital of Europe a political institution that operates according to its economic reality: a globalized network of polycentric institutions. From a more morphological point of view, Spiro Kostof provides a detailed analysis of different urban formations, regarding its socio-political background. Thus, different kinds of city forms are classified in his book The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings through History. Finally, a more pragmatic approach to elucidate different mechanisms of cityformation, and hence the reasons why some forms of the city have become what they are, comes from Grand Urban Rules by Alex Lehnerer.

2. The administrative Building (architectural). The literature around ‘administrative buildings’ is vast. Since the research is setting up a typological approach towards this kind of architecture, the most relevant readings are mainly those concerning the office building, since it is the architectural paradigm for administrative labour. That ‘paradigm’ has been commonly accepted since it was introduced by Rem Koolhaas in his essay the ‘Typical Plan’. The idea of the generic plan, able to accommodate any programme, has been ever since a topic of many discussions. One that challenges that particular view is the book A-Typical Plan by Jeanette Kuo. It vindicates the potential of the deep plan, as a typology that is yet unexplored in Europe because of the common European constrains of light and ventilation. The possibilities that the open plan unfold will submit inevitably to revision some of the ideas raised in the 1970s No-Stop City by Archizoom Associati. The inevitable confrontation between interior and exterior, that the project suggested, are somehow taken up by Slavoj Zizek in Architectural Parallax. In his claim to provide a particular insight on the phenomenon of ‘class division’, Zizek provides an insight on the paragon of the interior ‘open space’. Highlighting the potential of an exacerbated expression of the 28

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interior, he claims that it can represent a case of ‘zero-institution’, a place in which social antagonism is removed and all members of society can be recognized themselves. From this ontological view of the space created by Koolhaas’ typical plan, Ali Madanipour contributes in his Public and Private Spaces of the City, providing a reading of the spatial sequence that occurs when moving from the ‘private’ to the ‘public’ space of the city. Hence, a clearer position in relation to the character of administrative buildings towards the city, whether they belong to a public or private realm, should be developed in relation to the main topic of the dissertation.

3. The role of public institutions (political). Starting with the essay ‘The Idea of Europe’, George Steiner provides the socio-cultural backdrop against which Europe was founded. One of his main arguments is the burden of history that Europe has inevitably had to carry. As Gilles Ivain put it: ‘All cities are geological and cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts, armed with all the prestige of their legends. We operate in a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past’. From this perspective of a rich and also constraining historical background, Guy Baeten confronts the current conservative policies in Brussels that are failing to recognise and encompass the emerging hybridized cultural expressions. In his article ‘2001: The Europeanization of Brussels and the Urbanization of “Europe”’, Baeten claims that these ‘informal’ social groups are forming ‘the base of a new modus vivendi of community, citizenship, economy and politics’. Along with this discourse of a city that is able to embrace its plurality, the Open City, by Richard Sennett, remarks on the importance of a city to resist the current trend of ‘post-politics’ in favour of the market, and recalls Jane Jacobs’ thesis of the ‘dense’ and ‘diverse’ city. Along the same line, Massimo Cacciari defines the conflict arising from the dichotomies that the city presents. In La Cittá, he argues that the contradictions we demand from the city, cannot be resolved by trying to overcome them, but on the contrary, by giving form to these contradictions. As he mentions: ‘the city, in its history, is the experiment to give form to contradiction, to conflict.’

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The illusion of the European capital renders the district in Brussels as a mere idea that never confronts its true reality.

CONCLUSION

So far the dissertation proposal has dealt with the general research problem of ‘how public institutions can pursue a development that is not solely defined by private interests’. Since the case studies provide an angle from which we can understand similarities between administrative buildings and private corporate offices, the challenge is to define what is precise meant by ‘public development’ and how it differs from private interests. That means, a better definition of what the role of public institutions is in the city and more specifically, that of the European insitutions. The topic of the dissertation is timely and original since the way in which public buildings are developed today through private capital has become sine qua non and accepted as default. In this context, the current proposal for the Rue de la Loi, in Brussels, has been rejected due to its height of buildings, the problem of preservation of the existing urban form, or the quality of its urban spaces. However, it has not been questioned how this masterplan differs from real estate speculation. Even if we admit that today private funding is the common way of enabling large-scale development, the dissertation aims to pose the question ‘how can we rethink the current model of development?’ The thesis seems especially relevant, since these developments threaten the city with segregation, and, if we consider that public administrative buildings belong to civic institutions, they precisely undermine the interest of the city. Hence, clarifying the role of public stakeholders is important to better define the object of research. The dissertation should also consider the persistent problem of an ‘European identity’ and the relevance of a European capital or district for its European constituencies. Who are the people that this project stands for, and what is the role of a supra-national power? What does an European institution stand for; and what is the relationship of a particular institution to the city? What is an institution that is administrative, bureaucratic and economic, and that operates at a supranational (non-territorial) level, how is it able to adapt and respond to problems that emerge in a specific location?

DESIGN PROPOSAL

The European district relying on infrastructure to descentralize its premises to the Delta site.

BRIEF

In 2008, the Brussels-Capital Region launched in partnership with the European Commission and the City of Brussels a competition to establish a new urban design for the Rue de la Loi (RDL). The programme required an increase of 100% of office spaces and an improvement of the urban qualities of the streets. In addition, during the commissioning of that project, the EU and the local government signed up to a joint declaration for the future development of the Delta triangle. The ambition was to create a second â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;poleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the Commissions while facilitating the improvements of the RDL. In 2012 however, the plans were officially dismissed, since the feasibility studies and negotiations failed to agree on the required accommodation and accessibility. Meanwhile, the probem of how the EU as a central government could find a suitable representation in the city, was increasingly answered by its actual role based on bureaucracy and administrative institutions of policy-making. Hence, the decentralisation of the Commission in a new site is perhaps the first step to acknowledge this reality and recognize the fact of less representational institution, which entails the real attributes of its urban development: a polycentric institution (networked across Europe and without a representative capital). An institution and urban entity that is currently developed by private stakeholders. Yet, the role of the EU is to reclaim and propose a meaningful space for the city given the limitations and disregards that private real estate speculation has for the city. The institution, although becoming a mere bureaucratic machinery, is the last chance to submit the private will to public demands, and to enter, as a Trojan horse, into the process of real estate speculation. Hence, the project seeks a new development of an administrative district that, instead of producing a mono-functional, fragmented district, is able to articulate both the internal programmatic demands and enhance the external urban conditions.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Railway network scheme. Arrows pointing the strategic sites for the development of the EUROCAPRAIL.

OBJECTIVES

In opposition to the current argument of ‘integration’ in the RDL, which relies on the injection of housing as a way to ameliorate the urban condition, the proposal seeks another kind of integration focused on the potentials of the existing site. Hence, the project emerges from the advantage of the connection to the larger scale, through the rail network, and from recognizing its ‘hidden’ condition. A new administrative cloister is confronted by a logistic park. Combined, these two ‘productive’ programmes attempt to create a counter-pole for the Rue de la Loi, by proposing a different kind of interaction within the urban fabric. Since the ‘street’ is the typical space of connection and management in the city, the main driver of the project challenges this space of confrontation by introducing these two programmes. The friction between the demands of a logistic park and the office district are aiming to create a space of highly intensive use. The guidelines to achieve that goal are as follows: 1. Create a streamlined cluster of office buildings. 1/3 of it will target any commercial client allowing the 2/3 remaining found the project. The main premise is to create a dense complex with a building ratio of 10 (higher than the current in the Rue de la Loi of 8). 2. Facilities are encouraged to emerge from non-privatized spaces, so that they don’t belong to the buildings with other uses. Therefore they are provided by the state. 3. The logistic park will come with demanding spatial requirements, however, it can take advantage of operating in shared, open and undefined spaces. The negotiation of a temporary space can become a rule of occupation. 4. Design a space of interaction that mediates between both programmes. In addition, the challenge pursues a twofold objective; a space of relation that attracts clients, in a similar way as a corporate building (skyline, entrance, lobby, square, etc.); a representational space for the EU that ultimately recreates the urban ideal underpinning a civic building: collective, dynamic, non-institutional, neutral, etc. The outcome of the design should create not only a counter-argument to reassess the current plan of the RDL, but also a model able to be deployed in other locations. Since it is a project to redefine the relationship between the EU and its urban formation, or the city, it is also a project that wants to critically address the current strategy that advocates the creation of identity through a ‘landmark’ and the ‘integration’ with the surrounding, through the use of public open spaces.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Top: The Delta seen from the Ixelles corridor. The site, surrounded by trees and bounded by railway tracks, emerges only if it stands upon its boundaries. It is located in a junction of the landscape. Bottom: The surrounding patterns encounter the site with the same density from which they come. Nonetheless, the site is a meeting point for the different range of low-dense suburbias.

SITE

Top: European railway network. The EUROCAPRAIL in dashed lines. Bottom: Images around the Delta site, still hidden by a slope, or by a retaining wall.

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DESIGN PROPOSAL

Previous spread: Plan of the Delta Site, scale 1:5000. Above: Context and opportunity of the site.

250

SITE

a. Cemetery b. University campus ULB-VUB c. Slope d. Train maintenance warehouse e. Delta Station f. Ixelles office corridor g. Chirec Hospital h. Beaulieu EU offices

The site is located at the periphery of Brussels. It is bounded by railway tracks in a triangular area of 42.990 m². It sits south-east from the centre and the European quarter and is surrounded by the following elements of interest and potential: The University Campus (ULB-VUB), the Delta Station Train maintenance, Federal Police Headquarters, Hospital Chirec 80.000 m², Ixelles office corridor (124.000 m²), and the Beaulieu EU Offices (72.000 m²). The site is connected to one side to the Metro line and on the other to the Belgian rail network. The site will become a strategic connection point to the ‘Eurocaprail’, a high-speed train that will connect Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg (the 3 EU capitals). The low land value of the site and the connection with the large infrastructure are characteristics that reinforce the decision to locate the EU offices, so that it will release the tensions over the RDL and draw attention to both sites.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Site

Building

Commercial/Facilities 10%

Circulation

15%

Institutional

55%

Administrative

20%

Common

Logistics

Offices Functional Unit 40.000 m2

GA 42.900 m2 TFA 400.000 m2

Percentage programme graphics. Left: Total Floor Area of the site. Right: Standards for a functional unit.

PROGRAMME

The office space to be provided is estimated by a density equal to 10.0 of the total gross area. It corresponds to half of the proposed area in the RDL of 710.000 sqm, and therefore provides 1/3 of the overall EU buildings in Brussels. This amount of office spaces is complemented by a programme of logistics, which will bridge the connection with the rail network and the common grounds. The total floor area of the site will be further complemented by a set of commercial facilities that enhance programmatic interaction and stress the need to foster other activities from without the office cluster. The areas are subdivided as follows: Site gross area 42.900 m² (ref. RDL 106.475 m²) Total floor area 400.000 Office 350.000 (300.000 EU + 50.000 Other Office) Logistics 50.000 Shops and facilities 7.500 Station (*) The programme needs to meet the demand of internal usage, but also propose an argument for an expanding relation with the surroundings. Special attention to the limits of the site should provide a strategy to mediate with the immediate context and also with the city at large, i.e. the creation of a new train station, a raised platform, an underground passage, etc. Further a potential relationship with some faculties of the nearby university. Hence, the mix-used programme focuses on the creation of a district that provides a platform for urban interaction, access and multifunctionality. In regards to the buildings for the EU, the ‘functional units’ that the commission proposes require around 40.000 sqm. Considering the typical programme of an administrative building, the main functions are therefore divided in three parts: 1. Access and common space; 2. Office space; 3. Institutional space. The objective to transform the cluster into a more cohesive and collective project aims to rethink the typical distribution of building programmes.

(*) The station for the Eurocaprail is located next to the site, yet inside the perimeter of the railway tracks. The programme should rely on the existence of, if not projecting, a train station.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

How to make an institutional building â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;non-representationalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;? Instead of denying the issue of representation, instrumentalizes it in order to produce a transformation: the shared lobby, the lobby thast represents them all.

PROPOSAL

The proposal departs from a very specific premise: understanding that the EU is an institution that is increasingly becoming more and more polycentric. Thus the project has to address the fact that the EU can no longer claim the status of a representative capital, at least, in terms of the old image of a centralized, monumental ‘capital’. Nonetheless what Brussels can initiate is the creation of a model for a polycentric capital, ready to be ‘deployed’ throughout its different locations. This model should have the ability to adapt and promote, rather than to impose, a new reading of the European government. It is perhaps an ‘ideological’ model instead of a ‘representational’ one. The project becomes a matter of large scale, and how to achieve this scale through a model that can be implemented elsewhere. The problem of representation is then one formed in relation to a general character and identifiable model but also its relation to different locations. Thus, the project will have to be able to adapt to different sites. The idea of Europe as a country of walkable distances and as a lieu de mémoire, that George Steiner mentions, come together as the common ground to address this problem. The buildings of the EU will create in the Delta, and any other site, a space that provides access, liveability, heritage preservation and introduces an idea of large-scale through infrastructure. Avoiding any commercial purpose; i.e. heritage as a commodity to exploit tourism, liveability to real estate speculation, etc.; the proposal aims to relate these principles through a unified form, a form that will build a ‘void’. Since in the European city squares have been historically the space that release the street and produce a space of encounter, the creation of a ‘void’ will follow the typical manifestation of a space for the city. The void will become strategic from two points of view. At the level of the urban it will produce a recognizable yet shared space for the European district. At the level of architecture, it will transform the typology of standard office buildings by rethinking one of its fundamental spaces: the lobby. Through this typological transformation, the space of access, connection, and also representation (of corporation, power, etc.) will be subsumed by the proposed void. This will strategize the following assets: 1. Following the typical model of the European square, it will increment the intensity at the ground level between buildings. 49

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Corporative cutout. Removing the space of access highlights the generic and functional part of the building.

PROPOSAL

2. Acting as an open lobby, it will promote the interaction between different users: pedestrians, occupiers, visitors, etc. 3. The lobby as a void will become the space of political institution, instead of resembling the commercial or the corporative. To summarize, the proposal is a project of large scale addressing the polycentric condition of the European Union. It aims to create a repeatable model pursuing the following assets: • The small scale as a requisite for the reproduction of the European territory, according to Steiner, a geography of walkable distance. • On the other hand, the civic and open space, the place where one finds collectiveness and the representation of history. From the point of view of the typology, the project explores the specificities of the administrative building versus the corporative and private office. Assuming that the buildings will be developed by private stakeholders, the proposal attempts to answer ‘how the state is able to drive a fundamental change on the private developed administrative buildings’. Hence, the key and significant space of the office building, the lobby, is utilized as the main generator of collectiveness avoiding the usual symbolism of corporative power. Thus, the state subverts the representational side of these buildings by producing the following features: 1. The possibilities of private development to manifest its singularity through a ‘skyline’, ‘façade’ or ‘form’ remain free. 2. (Nevertheless) the shared space generated by the ‘single lobby’ transforms the singularity by unifying the buildings. 3. The character of this space turns from semi-private to semi-public fostering new frictions within the space of access and circulation. 4. The typical programmes addressing corporate users expand to a more varied alternatives. 5. The collectiveness of the space generates added value and fosters shared participation (or exploitation).

DESIGN PROPOSAL

No lobby in the Brunswick building (Chicago).

SHARED LOBBY

Specific (green) Institutional (turquoise) Office (blue) Entrance/Lobby (red) Public/Entrance space (yellow)

Administrative Building

Office Building

Strategy. The proposal consists on a space that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;erasesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the specific representative spaces of the building, by providing a shared and collective space that links the outside space with the institutional working spaces through a new collective one.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Programme Section. The representational, corporative, space upgrades to the position of a ‘all/non-institutional’ space.

SHARED LOBBY

Typical section of the shared lobby. The creation of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;spatialâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lobby fosters a new interrelation between the buildings, permitting or restricting the access to certain levels, nonetheless all under the same roof.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

The shared lobby operates through a cellular loigc; a. Space addapting to the existing context; b. Form generating a new one.

SHARED LOBBY

Scenario confronting an existing context. The building can only be developed by the ‘lobby device’. The strategy to connect different pieces is capable of intervening into an existing scenario: in which office building decide to join the ‘European Complex’. Or to produce a new one: the creation of an ‘empty’ preceds the creation of a new space for the city.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Plan implemented on the site: 0. First arrivals. 1. Accommodation and negotiation. 2. Expansion beyond the site area.

200

Previous images in order of appearance: 1. The shared lobby 2. Interior facade 3. Working space

CASE STUDIES

The European district relying on infrastructure to descentralize its premises to the Delta site.

INTRODUCTION

The following case studies are organized under three main groups that follow the lines of enquiry of the dissertation. The first one include the different projects from the EU attempting to create a constellation of the urban projects surrounding the European institutions.1 This group has been categorized by three chronological moments: the initial projects since the 1950s, the contemporary masterplan since the first reports in 2001, and the speculative projects arisen from the dissertation, after the current masterplan for La Rue de la Loi. Since the projects vary from scale and objectives, the outcome will built up a chronological time in which the plans and data of each project will be superposed to trace the significant changes along the historical record. The second group will regard to commercial case studies that will be instrumental to compare the latter. Three different commercial estates will provide an insight to support and elaborate the conclusions extracted from the European ones. Two major case studies, The Broadway Estate in London and La Défense in Paris, will be complemented with the North Quartier in Brussels. The redraw of the areas, ground floor and programmes will generate a comparative chart from which trace further conclusions. Finally, the third group will pursue the identification of a larger architectural typology defining the administrative district. Through the study of ‘types’ coming from administrative and corporate buildings, the specificities observed will be confronted with the typical ‘genericness’ of the open office plan.2 The three groups of case studies, ultimately, aim to construct an argument for the mentioned ‘larger typology’, identifying the multiple scales that the administrative building generates as such.

1 2

The majority of the projects have been collected in Hein, Carola, The Capital of Europe See Koolhaas, Rem, “Typical Plan” in S,M,L,XL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995) 69

CASE STUDIES

European Union Since the first line of enquiry will be looking at the formation and analysis of the buildings in the European quarter, the case studies aim to formulate a set of urban and architectural projects that convey the characteristic architecture of the EU. As a preliminary timeline, the following projects trace a line of action with specific objectives and mechanisms when producing the European urban environment. These case studies will be further complemented with their analogous in Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

Timeline since the birth of the European institutions, period before la Rue de la Loiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project.

A. EUROPEAN UNION

Henri-Jean Calsat, proposal for a European headquarters in Oberhausbergen, near Strasbourg, 1958.

René A. Coulon and André Crivelli, model of a European district on the tip of the Kirchberg plateau, 1958.

Proposal for a European district in Etterbeeek, in the Brussels urban area. This site was presented by the Belgian government as part of the city’s 1958 application to host the European organizations.

Robert Camelot, Jean de Mailly, and Bernard Zehrfuss, proposal for a European headquarters in the La Défense area near Paris, 1958. 71

CASE STUDIES

Rue de la Loi

Timeline including the precedents to ‘la Rue de la Loi’ and main events during that time.

A. EUROPEAN UNION

Scheme of a headquarters for the Council on a 6.4-hectare site with a platform over the ChausĂŠe dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Etterbeek, 1974.

The facade of the Council building envisioned on the Rue de la Loi in a counter-project by the Brussels citizen initiative Inter-Environnment Bruxelles (IEB), 1980.

ARAU, IEB, and AAM, proposal for a European district on the abandoned Josaphalt railway station, 1980.

Proposal for la Rue de la Loi by Atelier de Portzamparc, commissioned after the competition in 2008. 73

CASE STUDIES

Commercial Estates Secondly, in order to inform and formulate the argument, in which public institutions ultimately create similar urbanities like commercial estates do, three different case studies will be compared. First from the redraw of its masterplan, following data gathering of its parameters of development. Secondly the architecture that gets produced in relation to its clients and also the urban planning. The analytical comparison of corporate buildings will underlie the typological question of: How the specificities of office and administrative buildings address the project of the city?

B . C O M M E R C I A L E S T AT E S

SHOREDITCH HIGH STREET

WOR

SHIP

STRE

SNOWD EN STREET FOLGA TE STREE

SHOREDITCH EARL HIGH STREET STREET

WOR

ROS

E STREE

STRE SHOREDITCH ET HIGH STREET

EXCHANGE HOUSE ET

SHIP

STRE

WOR

N STR

EET

SNOWD EN STREET

FOLGA TE STREE

EET

SNOWD EN STREET

EET

MIDD

LESE

X STRE

ATE

LIVERPOOL STREET STATION

MOORGATE

TION

RSE

ERY LANE

ERY LANE ARTILL

LESE

X STRE

EET

HIR

E RO W

MIDD

LESE

X STRE

CON

COU

STA TION

COU

LIVED STREET BRUSHFIEL RPO OL ST

MIDD

STR

STA TION

CON

D STREET SPITALFIELDS BRUSHFIEL

ARTILL

SUN SUN

STR

EET

SPITALFIELDS STA

BISH BISH BISH OPSG OPSG OPSG ATE ATE

LIVERPOOL STREET STATION

SUN STRE STRE STRE ET ET ET PASS PASS PASS AGE AGE AGE

FINS FINS FINS BURY BURY BURY AVEN AVEN AVEN UE UE UE

ELD

ERY LANE

ARTILL

STR

The quality and scale of Broadgate’s retail and leisure amenities and open spaces make it a unique and vibrant environment. In addition, its year-round events programme brings animation TOILET and interest, creating a place in which people work at their best. ELD

D STREET

SUN

MOORGATE

SPITALFIELDS BRUSHFIEL

ELD

MOORGATE

LIVERPOOL STREET STATION

STRE

ST PO

Its ability to attract and retain business professionals and financial services organisations is the result of meticulously planned investment, expansion and enhancement. WIL WIL WIL SON SON SON STR STR STR EET EET EET

ST ST RE RE ET ET

EET

FOLGA TE STREE E STREE

PRIM

ROS EXCHANGE E STREE T HOUSE

EXCHANGE HOUSE

EET

ROS

OPSG ATE

AVEN UE

SUN STR

PRIM

WIL

R ST

PASS AGE

BURY

SON

EARL STREET

N STR

STR

EARL STREET

BISH

Broadgate comprises 4 million sq ft of world class office, retail and leisure accommodation and includes Liverpool Street Station, London’s busiest transport interchange.

FINS

0706

PRIM

SHIP

LOCATION

RSE

CON

COU

RSE

LIVE

RPO

LIVE

RPO

BISHOPSGATE

DISABLED ACCESS

OL ST

BROADGATE CIRCLE

NS HIR LONDON UNDERGROUND STATION E RO W

DEVO

FINSBURY AVENUE SQUARE

NS HIR MAIN LINE STATION E RO

BUS STOP

KEY

BROADGATE PLAZA

Bishopsgate

TOILET Toilet

BARCLAYS CYCLE HIRE BISHOPSGATE Barclays Cycle Hire CYCLERack RACKBISHOPSGATE Cycle BROADGATE CIRCLE TAXIRank RANK Taxi BROADGATE CIRCLE FINSBURY AVENUE SQUARE CARParking PARKING Car FINSBURY AVENUE SQUARE BROADGATE PLAZA Crossrail from 2018

Broadgate Circle

DISABLED Access ACCESS TOILET Disabled

Finsbury Avenue Square

LONDON Underground UNDERGROUND STATION DISABLED ACCESS London

Broadgate Plaza

MAIN LINE STATION LONDON UNDERGROUND STATION London Overground

Exchange Square

BUS STOP MAIN LINE STATION Main Line Station BARCLAYS BUS STOP CYCLE HIRE Bus Stop

BROADGATE PLAZA EXCHANGE SQUARE

CYCLE HIRE CYCLE RACK BARCLAYS

EXCHANGE SQUARE

RACK TAXI RANK CYCLE

TRAVEL

TAXI RANK CAR PARKING

8 minutes

SHOREDITCH HIGH STREET

WORSH

CAR PARKING

IP STR

EET

SNOW DEN STREE T

walk to Moorgate

FOLG

ATE STRE

3 minutes

ND AR

walk to Liverpool Street Station

PRIMR

4 minutes

STRE

EXCHANGE HOUSE

N ST

walk to Shoreditch High Street

OSE

EARL STREET

REE

OPS

LIVERPOOL STREET STATION

SPITALFIELDS BRUSHFIELD

STREET

SUN

STR

EET

within a five minute walk

BISH

FIN

PAS SAG

SBU

12 bus routes

GAT

AVE

NUE

LSON

STRE

2 minutes walk to four Barclays Cycle Hire docking stations

Airport Travel Times

MOORGATE

LERY

ARTIL

N ST

LANE

MID

DLE

City Heathrow Gatwick Stansted Luton

32 minutes 59 minutes* 50 minutes 51 minutes 59 minutes

SEX

STR

EET

STA TIO

N CO

NCOU

RSE

LIV

ERP

L ST

Source: Transport for London

TOILET DISABLED ACCESS LONDON UNDERGROUND STATION MAIN LINE STATION BUS STOP BARCLAYS CYCLE HIRE CYCLE RACK

HIRE

RO W

BISHOPSGATE BROADGATE CIRCLE FINSBURY AVENUE SQUARE BROADGATE PLAZA EXCHANGE SQUARE

TAXI RANK CAR PARKING

Exchange House, Broadgate estate. Commercial brochure aiming potential clients.

EXCHANGE SQUARE

CASE STUDIES

City plan of the estate, surrounding the train station and creating private inner streets and squares.

B . C O M M E R C I A L E S T AT E S

Different layouts targeting potential clients. From top to bottom: US legal layout, UK legal layout and corporate layout.

CASE STUDIES

Office Buildings These case studies have been selected and apprised by different design aims: landmarks, stratifications, corporate spaces, structural logics, membranes, atriums and articulations. Thus, the following list is to be thoroughly refined by expanding the most relevant, and dismissing the irrelevant ones. Corporate and Administrative buildings have been indistinctively chosen in this case, to trace common specificities on the final buildings. Nevertheless, moving from one extreme to the other, office case studies go from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;signatureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and idiosyncratic spaces, typical from corporate buildings, to public and civic spaces, especially created by administrative buildings.

Concert on the square in front of the Exchange House II, in Broadgate Estate, London.

C. OFFICE BUILDINGS

Landmark (1) Poly Corporation SOM Beijing (CN) 2007

The signature space appears on the inside. A large atrium on the uper floors generates a raised lobby for the residential programme. Offices on the bottom and a hotel on top.

Landmark (3) National Commerical Bank SOM (G. Bunshaft) Jeddah (SA) 1987 The building maximizes the angled floor plant, by including a highlighted body in the internal void. It is featured by a suspended box that houses the main meeting areas, while liberating the rest with generic office spaces. It is overall an iconic, signature, high-tech element that aims to capture an end user.

Landmark (2) Jin Mao SOM Shanghai (CN) 1999

The tower explodes the deep parcel by producing a very compact tower. Ventilation and views are produced through a large hole raised from the bottom part. The cavity connects the interior with the exterior acting as a visual reference.

Stratified tower (1) Shenzen stock exchange OMA Schengen (CN) 2013

In addition to a formal stratification of programmes; the base, the raised plynth and tower; the building radically segregates the relation between the exterior public space and the interior shared space by raising the latter from the ground level. Effectively the ground gets covered by the projection of the horizontal volume. Additionaly, the scale of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;coverdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; space reaches the surrounding space rather thant the inmediate small scale.

Stratified tower (2) Conjunto Nacional David Libeskind Sao Paulo (BR) 1950

The most significant ensemble of mix-used building and semipublic spaces on Av. 79

CASE STUDIES

Miroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sculpture on the interstitial space between the Brunswick tower and the Chicago Temple.

C. OFFICE BUILDINGS

Paulista. Envisioned as a ‘city inside the city’. Design base on a functional separation of forms. Main features; the programme is split by a raised plaza above Av. Paulista; the plynth has commercial open use, whereas the tower has more privatized spaces.

Stratified tower (3) Alcoa Building SOM San Francisco (US) 1967

since it featured a well known artwork by Picasso. The square acts as a hinge articulating the surrounding grid and enreaching its bidirectionality.

The emblematic building that revised the normative since it produced an exceptional space from private ground. Main features; the building compromises the maximization of sqm by steping back and providing an open plaza; the ‘public’ space belongs to the private.

Corporate Space (2) Chicago Civic Centre SOM Chicago (US) 1965 The building sets up a platform to maximize the block scale. It raises a common ground from which to enter the main tower. Different programmes are related from the plynth that confronts the desne street by an opacque and rough facade.

Corporate Space (1) Seagram Building Mies Van der Rohe New York (US) 1957

In this case, the ‘Mieasian formula’ of the setback was used in a centric block with no dominant street. However, the saquare became emblematic

Corporate Space (3) Exchange House SOM London (UK) 1990

In this case, the public space is provided by a twofold figure of the building: first, the access to the interior square is allowed only by the access through the ground floor. This is completely raised by physicaly connecting the street with the inner square. At the same time, this ‘gesture’ is allowed by the same structure of the building which recalls the arched structure of a bridge. The space under this bridge not only connects the ‘public’ with the ‘semi-private’ side, but generates a platform of interaction between the users of the building and the pedestrians. 81

CASE STUDIES

Structural Logic (1) Central Beheer Herman Hertzberger Apledoom (NL) 1967

The building is a settlement, consisting of a larger number of equal spatial units. They are comparatively small and can accommodate the different programme components (or ‘functions’), because their dimensions as well as their form and spatial organization are geared to that purpose. Main features; small scale spaces generate a complex large netwroked space; no hierarchy between elements; free circulation.

Structural Logic (2) Inland Steel Building SOM Chicago (US) 1958

The Inland building was designed to display the performance of the material that the Inland Steel Company was trading with. The structure and also the service elements, such as elevators, toilets and facilities, were taken to the outside to create an open free plan. It also became representative of an efficient and flexible plant, since the space of work was surrounded by 4 facades and no interior columns.

Structural Logic (3) Sears Tower Chicago (US) 1974

One of the early examples in which cor-ten steel is used in structure and exterior finishes to resist weather conditions. The building is in the center of a planned seting surrounded by a garden. All buildings are connected by a glass-covered bridge.

Membrane Novartis-Fabrik Str. 4 SANAA Basel (CH) 2006 82

The exeptional narrow width of the floor plan encompasses an architectural concept of membrane or perimeter. The office spaces therefore is pushed to the facade, that having a minimum thickness, areaches a great level of transparency and peremeability. The inner courtyard is left empty as the void that the ‘envelope’ building generates.

Large atrium (1) Ford Fundation Kevin Roche New York (US) 1968

The project proposes a central space that puts in relation the internal office spaces. This

C. OFFICE BUILDINGS

spaces recreates an enclosed garden that articulates the interior with the exterior. The high heigth of this element acts as a gateway that recognizes the park beyond the building. Main features; large scale and permeable facade to the street; indoor space of interelation.

Large atrium (3) Willis Faber Dumas Foster & Partners Ipswich (UK) 1975

Large atrium (2) Bank of London Clorindo Testa Buenosaires (AR) 1959

The inner organization of the building produces two contributions to the street. First, the entrance generates a small square on the corner that brakes the typical width of the street, creating a gathering space. Secondly, the interior void expands the depth of the narrow street incorporating the inner space to the outside. Main features; facade as a membrane of different layers; the internal slabs are indemendent from the envelope.

The building follows the the previous ideas of a central space that organizes the rest but, in this case, the space is kept on the interior preventing its manifestation with the exterior. The void organizes vertical circulation proposing a kind of promenade towards the roof: a garden terrace. The space on top becomes a collective space of meeting with shared and leisure activities that relate only with the larger context through the private views.

This scheme was initiated in the 1920s by the mayor of Villeurbanne, at that time a fast-growing but neglected industrial suburb of Lyon. Although its based on a real need for a new town hall, a theatre and social housing, its major purpose was spatial and symbolic: the impressive bulk was meant to define the emancipation of a political power, formerly overshadowed by the wealthier neighbour of Lyon.

Town Hall (2) Tokyo Metropolitan Government Kenzo Tange Tokyo (JP) 1988

Town Hall (1) Villeurbanne Town Hall and New Centre Morice Leroux Lyon (FR) 1934 83

CASE STUDIES

Michael Moran, photograph of the Seagram Building plaza.

C. OFFICE BUILDINGS

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government features Tokyoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tallest tower as its central element. Typically, it creates a public civic space presided by its tower. It also creates a clear urban form but highlt unusual due to its circular inner facade. It challenges the grid layout of the Nishi-Shinjuku business centre.

Town Hall (3) Government Office Kenzo Tange Kagawa (JP) 1958

This building was designed as an expansion wing of the former town hall. The main idea of the expansion proposal was to provide a public space freely accessible by local residents and to expand the office wing in multi-stories as a high- rise, by resolving the difficult conditions of the already occupied site. The most frequently shared facilities, the conference and assembly hall, are allocated at the most accessible side of the site, facing to a public street.

Town Hall (4) City Hall Kallmann, McKinel Boston (US) 1962

The building was proposed against the tipical architecture of bureaucracy, as being a simple volume clad with curtain walls. Instead, the building introduces an articulated structure to project the internal function in shadowed and cantilevered forms to wrap up the exterior.

city fabric addressing three different scales: the street, the highway and the river. Three different pieces allow this interaction that expands the former medieval building. Secondly the different volumes create typological diversity in favour of the mixity of programmes. Main features: raised block over the highway reaching the riverside an creating a reference point on the facade before the shore.

Articulation (2) Rockefeller Center Reinhard & Hofmeister New York (US) 1930

Articulation (1) Bercy, Ministry Paris (FR) 1982

The size of the complex allows an effective and pro-active articulation of the surrounding. First, the buidling is connected with the

Despite being one of the largest high-rise clusters in the world, it also creates one of the most exemplary semipublic spaces. It achieves a status of equal confrontation between the ideals of urban coherence and the capitalist gain for profits. Although it is embedded into Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic grid, it nonetheless creates a successful plaza around its tall buildings. 85

CASE STUDIES

The efficient offie layout proposed by Albert Kahn resembles the production line in a factory.

C. OFFICE BUILDINGS

Town Hall (5) Civil Government Alejandro de la Sota Tarragona (ES) 1987

This building includes two different programmes: the usual facilities of a town hall: reception, attention to the citizen, administration, etc. And also a residence for the elected Governor. Although one is on the bottom and the other is on top, both share the representative facade that dominates the square before it.

Open Plan Administrative Building Abalos & Herreros Merida (ES) 2001

A simple volume that maximizes the floor plan up to its operational and functional best. The spaces of every plate are redistributed at will, allowing a high degree of flexibility. Complementary, the facade plays an institutional role by providing a continuous envelope that creates unity to the whole, while being a tranquil system of shutters that control the light. The building reinforces its stillness by creating a symmetric entrance on the central section of the volume. 87

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Aureli, Pier Vittorio, et al. Brussels – A Manifesto. Towards the Capital of Europe. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007. Aureli, Pier Vittorio. “Towards the Archipelago.” Log 11 (2007): 107. Baeten, Guy. “2001: The Europeanization of Brussels and the urbanization of ‘Europe’: hybridizing the city, empowerment and disempowerment in the EU District.” European Urban and Regional Studies 8. London: SAGE (1994) Berlage Instituut. Bureaucracy [edited by Salomon Frausto]. Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2009. Branzi, Andrea. No-Stop City: Archizoom Associati. Orleans: Editions HYX, 2006. Carton, Vincent. Cinq ans de coopération et d’affrontement entre les acteurs nationaux, régionaux et locaux (1994-2004). Brussels: La Lettre Volée, 2006. Choay, François. The Modern City: Planning in the 19th Century. New York: Braziller, 1969. Cacciari, Massimo. La Cittá. Pazzini: Verrucchio, 2004. Daum, Andreas W. Christof Mauch, Berlin–Wasington, 1800-2000. Washington DC: German Historical Institute, 2005. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: lectures at the Collége de France. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010. Giedion, Sifried. Space, Time and Architecture. London: Oxford University Press, 1952. Green Cowles, Maria, James A. Caporaso, Thomas Risse-Kappen. Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Harvey, David. 1985: The urbanization of capital. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985 ——. Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Hein, Carola. The Capital of Europe. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004. Hollier, Denis. Against architecture: the writings of George Bataille. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. Ivain, Gilles. “From a New Urbanism.” Situationist International Journal 1: (1958) 92

P R I M A RY S O U R C E S

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961. Kesteloot, Christian, Pieter Saey. “Brussels, a truncated metropolis.” GeoJournal vol. 58. Wiesbaden: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft (1977) Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974. Lefort, Claude. The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism. Cambridge: Polity, 1986. Madanipour, Ali. Public and Private Spaces of the City. London: Routledge, 2003. Martin, Reinhold. Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. Perrow, Charles. Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay. Glenview, ILL: Scott, Foresman, 1979. Rogers, Ernesto Nathan. “Continuità.” Casabella Continuità 199: (1954) Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City, translated by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. Sennet, Richard. “The Open City.” Accessed June 19, 2014. http://www. richardsennett.com/site/SENN/UploadedResources/The%20Open%20City. pdf Solà-Morales, Manuel. A Matter of Things. Barcelona: Nai Publishers, 2008. Sonne, Wolfgang. Representing the State: Capital City Planning in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Prestel, 2003. Steiner, George. The idea of Europe = La idea de Europa. Anzos: Siruela, 2010. Sutcliffe, Anthony. Metropolis 1890-1940. London: Mansell Publishing Ltd, 1984. Tafuri, Manfredo. Architecture and Utopia. Design and Capitalist Development. trans. Barbara Luigia La Penta. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976. Ungers, Oswald Mathias. The Dialectic City. Milan: Skira Editore, 1997. ——. Architecture as Theme. Milan: Electa, 1983. Vaes, Benedicte. “Pour la première fois, la C.E.E. devient propriétaire, et c’est á Bruxelles.” Le Soir October-4 (1983) Zizek, Slavoj. “Against the Populist Temptation.” Accessed July 20, 2014. http://www.lacan.com/zizpopulism.htm ——. The Tichlish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 1999. ——. “The Architectural Parallax.” In The Political Unconcious of Architecture: re-opening Jameson’s Narrative, edited by Nadir Lahiji, 25597. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. 93

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Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The city as a project. Berlin: Ruby Press, 2014. Banham, Reyner. Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Firley, Erik and Julie Gimbal. The Urban Towers Handbook. Trento: Jonh Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2011. Forty, Adrian. Words and Buildings. A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Frampton, Kenneth. Megaform as Urban Landscaps. Michigan: University of Michigan, 1999. Futagawa, Yukio. Theater. Tokyo: ADA Edita, 2006. ——. Office 1-2. Tokyo: ADA Edita, 2006. ——. Public. Tokyo: ADA Edita, 2006. Korea (South). Haengjŏng Chungsim Pokhap Tosi Kŏnsŏlch’ŏng. International urban ideas competition for the new multi-functional administrative city in the Republic of Korea = Haengjŏng chungsim pokhap tosi tosi kaenyŏm kukche kongmo chakp’umjip. Yon’gi, Korea: Presidential Committee on Multifunctional Administrative City Construction / Multifunctional Administrative City Construction Agency, 2006. Kostof, Spiro. City shaped: urban patterns and meanings through history. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. Kuo, Jeannette. A-Typical Plan. Zurich: Park Books, 2013. Maki, Fumihiko. ‘Some Thoughts on Collective Form’, in Structure in Art and in Science, ed. by Gyorgy Kepes. New York: George Braziller, 1965. Lehnerer, Alex. Grand Urban Rules. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2009. Miller, Naomi. Mapping Cities. Seatle: University of Washington Press, 2000. Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis. “Exodus: or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture,” in Martin van Schaik and Oraker Mácel, ed., Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations 1956–1976. MUnich: Prestel, 2005. Schaik, Martin van. Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76. Munich: Prestel, 2005. Solà-Morales, Manuel. “Space, Time and City.” in Lotus International, n.51 (1986) 95

APPENDIX

T Y P O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S THESIS STRUCTURE RESEARCH TIMLINE A N N O T AT E D B I B L I O G R A P H Y

APPENDIX I

Typological Analysis The purpose of the case studies is to provide an extensive and comprehensive collection of examples that identify and convey a specific ‘type’ or ‘typology’. In that sense, the architecture will include and respond to the different levels of demand that ideally arise in a specific building, in this case, the administrative buildings: i.e. from the functional layout up to the urban level. Therefore, the following analysis tries to tackle simultaneously some of the questions stated so far. ‘Representation’, ‘mediation’ and ‘flexibility’, are explored from the previous case studies and assembled in a complementary design proposal.

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Different agents and layers intervening in the development process of a masterplan. Rue de la Loi, Brussels, 2008. From top to bottom: a. building, b. constructor, c. architect, d. investor, e. occupant, f. owner, g. planning.

APPENDIX I

The proposal addresses the staging of clustered buildings, and thus, how to strategize its growth by maintaining a consistent and cohesive project throughout the whole process. In order to do that, the strategy of using a ‘single building’ assumes the possibility of a constant yet controlled growth. It is presented as a minimum infrastructural device that will be expanded through the logic of functioning rules. A grid of cores, which are separated by the minimum distance for firescape, produces an expansive matrix that allows variations of layout and independency of access. Instead of the infinite grid of Archizoom’s No-stop city, the project merges the possibility to build different ‘buildings’, as units with its own envelopes, and at the same time, belong to the same complex. Instead of an infinite space, the project proposes a constantly defined ‘finite’ space, subject to eventual changes on every added layer. In short, it is not a vertically stratified platform, but a horizontal layered building.

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T Y P O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S

Clockwise: Final layout of the urban plan; Different possibilities of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;idiosincraticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; masterplans: the managerial, the representative, the vernacular and the programmatic; The central spine that sets up the basic connections.

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APPENDIX I

Public / Civic Acces and circulation Office space Institutional Specific

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Case studies. Access and circulation (red) is the predominantly shared space of the typology, since ‘office spaces’ are by definition undefined. ‘Access and circulation’ is the space that claims most potential, in terms of its possibility to connect, expand, and segregate the different parts of the building.

T Y P O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S

Scheme 0. The logic of expansions is subject to the grid defined by the cores. The plan expands towards the empty space, comming from the initial central spine.

Scheme 1. The logic of the ‘core’ and the ‘building’ creates an interstitial space that separates the different buildings, yet it joins them through a shared staircase. (ref. Urumea Residential Building, R. Moneo)

Scheme 2. The boundary, or ‘envelope’, will result from the negotiation of space, increased or released by the new or growing tenants. The resulting facade will generate an intricate succession of folds that will attend the immediate scale by generating smaller entrances or spaces of shelter.

Layout strategy schemes.

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APPENDIX I

104

Visualization of the 3D model. (1)

T Y P O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S

2th floor

10th floor

Floor plans: ‘Height’ can still become an argument of value: the most exclusive spaces on top. However, the position whether is on one side or another, doesn’t get manifested on the outside. The skyline becomes neutral and ‘non-institutional’.

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APPENDIX I

106

Visualization of the 3D model. (2)

T Y P O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S

Axonometry. The building becomes a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;complexâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; a megaform built-up by other buildings.

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APPENDIX II

Thesis Structure The following table of contents is a preliminary structure of the dissertation. Each chapter is based on a bottom-up development of each of the five terms, or hypothesis, proposed before: ‘civic city’, ‘illusion’, political’, ‘economic’ and multi-scalar’. These five main chapters will crossover their particular issues with the three main topic and expand its relation to the others through case studies, literature and design.

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Previous image: Exterior image of the complex, resembling a membrane that exposes the different occupiers of the building.

THESIS STRUCTURE

I. The Civic City I.1 Administrative buildings and civic infrastructure I.2 Case Studies of capital/administrative cities I.3 Critical analysis to the current masterplan in Brussels II: Illusion II.1 Brussels city scape: urban analysis of the administrative district and its role II.2 Survey of the area (drawings, photographies, analysis of the site, etc.) II.2.a Architecture-Exterior: spaces of the city II.2.b Architecture-Interior: spaces of work II.2.c Outer image: media III. Political III.1 Historiography and facts that built the current Eurodistrict in Brussels III.1.a The EU and its relation to its premises III.1.b Brussels III.1.c Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and others III.2 Case Studies of administrative buildings IV. Economic IV.1 Case Studies of commercial office buildings IV.2 Case Studies of larger commercial developments IV.3 Typological analysis IV.3.a Matrixes IV.3.b Design questions V. Multi-scalar V.1 European reality: analysis and definition of the polycentric institution V.2 Design iterations record V.3 Proposal

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APPENDIX III

Research Timeline From October 2014 to June 2015 (9 months) work will be distributed according to the following timeline.

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RESEARCH TIMELINE

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Material gathering, literature reviews, pre-drawings, etc. October 2014—Rewrite dissertation proposal, refine case studies selection. November—Formulation argument, edit table of contents. December—Design brief/proposal 1 January 2015—Dissertation writing 1 February—Design brief/proposal 2 March—Dissertation writing 2 April—Graphic editing, model making May—Layout and text editing June—Submission

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APPENDIX IV

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A N N O T AT E D B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Aureli, Pier Vittorio, et al. Brussels – A Manifesto. Towards the Capital of Europe. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007. The book is presented in two parts. The first one includes a manifesto for Brussels in regards to the question of the European Capital: how are the new urban and architectural forms for the city of Brussels since it has become the capital of Europe. A series of projects accompany the discourse supporting a certain idea of ‘centralities’, similarly following the strategy on Unger’s Berlin Archipelago. The second part includes a group of essays concerning different topics. In the first one, Aureli elaborates on the questions raised on the manifesto. He discusses the forms that a capital city should manifest and elaborates in topics such as ‘landmarks’, ‘urban action’, ‘vacant city’ and ‘representation’. The reading is followed by articles that combine a journalistic and critical approach to the events that preceded the actual urban condition of Brussels. Baeten, Guy. “2001: The Europeanization of Brussels and the urbanization of ‘Europe’: hybridizing the city, empowerment and disempowerment in the EU District” in European Urban and Regional Studies, 8. London: SAGE, 1994. The article explores the current ‘regeneration practices’ in the EU district in Brussels and how the globalization of the city, in terms of economic and cultural development, are confronting the ‘parochialism’ of political institutions. It argues that the current formats of local urban governance are suffering the insertion of Brussels’ global mission by obstructing the already successfully tested economic coalitions. Furthermore, the government is neglecting any strategy to deal with the rapid internationalization of the city. As a result, he argues that some of the important segments of Brussels’ social fabric are being excluded from participation in public, political and cultural life. The problem at stake is that these ‘excluded segments’ are in fact generating hybridized cultural expressions that might form the base of a new modus vivendi of community, citizenship, economy and politics. Cacciari, Massimo. La Cittá. Pazzini: Verrucchio, 2004. In this book, the idea of a dual city is elucidated to analyse the contemporary trends of urban life and perception. According to Cacciari, the city has been invested, since the beginning, by a double stream of desires: ‘we want the city as a mother, and at the same time, as a machine’. He argues that we urge the city to be our dwelling and at the same time a complex mean of functions, asking for peace and security, and at the same time efficient and extreme mobility. Thus, the city is submitted to contradicto¬ry questions, and trying to overcome them might be a wrong utopia. On the contrary, Cacciari stands for giving form to the city. ‘The city, in its history, is the experiment to give form to contradiction, to conflict.’ 115

APPENDIX IV

Daum, Andreas W. Christof Mauch. Berlin–Wasington, 1800-2000. Washington DC: German Historical Institute, 2005 This book compiles a series of lectures during a symposium organized by the same authors. It nonetheless creates a theoretical framework from which address capital cities, assigned with four main functions: political, economic, social and cultural. It tackles the issue of representation through the structuralism reading of Roland Barthes. The theory of semiotics becomes instrumental to understand the differences between the signified parts of the city, which ultimately pass, and the signifiers that in the end remain. These signs are embodied into the buildings, streets and squares, which are at last interpreted by its own ‘travellers’ or citizens. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Bio-politics: lectures at the Collége de France. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010. This title is an inventory of the problem of governance. It informs the emergence, or ‘explosion’, arisen from treatises on the arts of government during the 16th century. From that moment on, two processes enable what we now call modernity. One the one hand, the dissolution of the old feudal state structures, which consequently created ‘territorial administrative states’. On the other, the radical transformation set off by the protestant reformation. Foucault argues that, from that convergence of profane and sacred transformation, a reorientation of socio-politics transform the way of governance establishing a new state centralisation and a religious dispersion and dissidence. Hein, Carola. The Capital of Europe. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004. This book is a thorough compendium and analysis of the history and urban projects that formed the current premises of the European Union. It provides an organized chronological and geographical explanation since the early projects of the 1950s. It has special attention to Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg, in addition to a complete glossary of terms related to the European institutions, and an accurate timeline. The book is concluded with a personal approach to the polycentric character of the EU. It stands for a networked political institution rather than a centralized and single capital. Lefort, Claude. The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism. Cambridge: Polity, 1986. This is an anthology of works by Claude Lefort, in which he combines the analysis of contemporary political events with a sensitivity to the history of political thought. His critical account of the development of bureaucracy and totalitarianism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe raises some questions regarding the nature and shortcomings of these societies. He connects Marx’s theory of history and concept of ideology to 116

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convey of the role of symbolism in modern societies. It is organized in a way that he first critically addresses the idea of human rights, then informs concepts from Marxist’s theories, and finally reappraises and reconsiders the meaning of ‘democracy’. Madanipour, Ali. Public and Private Spaces of the City. London: Routledge, 2003. The way in which this book elaborates the topic, the relationship between public and private spheres, recalls to the same ascending structure in Georges Perec’s celebrated Species of Spaces. Starting from the private interior space, it moves step by step outwards to the exterior home, the neighbourhood and finally the ‘public’ city. It explores the complex interdependent relations of every part, as well as it investigates the manifestation of social relationships with the urban sphere in addition to its psychological significance. It is a theoretical and historical research on how and why the space for social interaction has been split into public and private parts. Martin, Reinhold. Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. It is a historical and theoretical analysis of corporate architecture mostly in the United States after the Second World War. The book analyses through different case studies, e.g. Eero Saarinen’s General Motors or SOM’s offices, the office building and the emergence of a systems-based model of organization in architecture, in which the modular curtain wall acts as both an organizational device and a carrier of the corporate image. Such an image—of the corporation as a flexible, integrated system—is seen to correspond with a ‘humanization’ of corporate life, as corporations decentralize both spatially and administratively. Sennet, Richard. “The Open City.” Accessed June 19, 2014. http://www.richardsennett.com/ site/SENN/UploadedResources/The%20Open%20City.pdf This paper pursues the idea of an open city versus a closed one. The latter being the over-determined, balanced, integrated and linera, whereas the former means incomplete, errant, conflictual and non-linear. Sennett presents examples of failed utopias that eventually turned into totalitarian, enclosed and non-evolving models for the current city: from Le Corbusier’s plan Voisin to the advanced technologies used by Salvador Allende. He attacks the cunning of neo-liberalism of manipulating the ruling systems for private gain. And he proposes alternative models that support and defend Jane Jacob’s thesis about the dense and diverse city. He draws attention to three models for the open city: The city with ambiguous edges, incomplete in form and under an unresolved narrative.

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APPENDIX IV

Sonne, Wolfgang. Representing the State: Capital City Planning in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Prestel, 2003. Besides being a compendium of some of the most relevant projects for capital cities, from the last 20th century, the book presents itself as a thorough and almost unprecedented exploration about them. The book opens by establishing a theoretical framework regarding the main themes relative to capital cities: political iconography, symbols and representations of power, are some of the central terms to the argument. It conveys some ideas of how some urban figures are either Symbol or Symptom: as one being interpreted, whereas the other planned. Sonne introduces the question of how to give ‘form’ to governmental institutions by citing Aristotle’s description of the three different government types: the acropolis, the plain, and the strong places. Another relevant contribution is the insight to the iconography-formation of a city. Mainly produced in two stages, the first one allocates urban forms for a political, practical, etc. reason. Later, that form, if embraced, becomes symbolic expression of the successor. Therefore, if the meaning is an afterwards attribution, form as such is politically meaningless. Overall the book attempts to define the basic concepts arising from the notion of capital city, building up a thorough meditation on its urban and architectural design. Steiner, George. The idea of Europe = La idea de Europa. Anzos: Siruela, 2010. George Steiner explores, under an essay format, the formation of a European identity established by specific social, geographical and historical patterns. In this depiction, Steiner questions the current status of the European institutions in relation to the ‘idea of Europe’ and with its inhabitants; he emphasizes the weight and importance of the intellectual ventures that founded former advancements; the ‘walkable’ distance of the European geography; and the inevitable burden that the history represents for the future, contrasting to the pragmatism of American culture. From his position of scholar, he concludes the essay by providing some guidelines, in order to preserve and to enlarge the European characteristics at stake, to be carried through by the ‘experts’ and people in power. Tafuri, Manfredo. Architecture and Utopia. Design and Capitalist Development. trans. Barbara Luigia La Penta. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976. Perhaps, one of the strongest critiques on modern architecture and the city, the book argues that, since architecture has been used as a tool for capitalism’s development, it has been unable to respond to social demands. Tafuri understands the relationship between the city and architecture as a single body, and thus, it sets up questions regarding their intrinsic relation: how architecture is determined by the way in which the land is operated, how does it differ if privately or publicly held? And how that affect the architectural design? Tafuri explores the transformation of 118

land management by capitalism, converting it into a commodity. Hence, larger structural relationships became problematic to the exploitation of individual and privatized plots. As a result, buildings became expression of isolated personal idiosyncrasies preventing the ability to contribute to the city. Tafuri emphasizes through different case studies, i.e. Hilberseimerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grossstadtarchitektur, the inevitable surrendering of architecture to the given underlying conditions.

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