Rebecka Tiselius Dissertation by Rebecka Tielius

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Rebecka Tiselius Central Saint Martins, Univerity Of The Arts BA (hons) Architecture; Spaces and Objects April 2013

“When the gods flee, we deify ourselves and each other. And when we grow fearful of a world of strangers, we try to program intimacy everywhere, and end up with nothing.” Richard Sennett, The fall of the public man, 2002

Beyond consumption:

The role of contemporary urban markets in the articulation of a community. Index INTRODUCTION ................................ 9 //HYPOTHESIS ................................. 10 1:0 CHAPTER ONE ............................ 13 //THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ....................... 13 1:1 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PUBLIC REALM. ........... 15 1:2 THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO CONNECT US TO A PLACE AND COMMUNITY. ................................ 17 1:3 THE PUBLIC REALM IN A SECULAR CULTURE. ........ 19 2:0 CHAPTER TWO ............................ 25 //CASE STUDY ................................. 25 2:1 DECONSTRUCTING THE WEEKLY URBAN MARKET SUCH AS LOCAL FARMERS MARKET THE AS A COMMUNITY SERVICE. .... 27 2:2 CASE STUDY: BROADWAY MARKET ................. 28 CONCLUSION ................................. 35 APPENDIX ................................... 43 IMAGES/ DIAGRAMS ........................... 45 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................... 47

Research question:

Could a connection to a local community such as the local farmers market be something that serves as a replacement for the church-community in a secular culture?

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Introduction In this dissertation I intend to investigate whether or not urban markets like the farmers market articulate a sense of community, in a similar way as the churches did in the past. I intent to consider if this is something that is lacking in a secular culture and if it would be something that is required to provide a stronger sense of connection to our context.

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//Hypothesis

I was born and raised in a middle-class villa suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. With a strong welfare state that work so well that most people do not need to worry too much. They do not even ‘need’ to take care of loved ones; the welfare system will do that for them. According to OECD Sweden have one of the highest percentages of life-satisfaction in the world. 83 percent are satisfied with their life and 85 percent think it is going to be better in 5 years(oecd.org, 2013). With a strong state Swedes are able to live our life without relation to our context like the community we live in or our family. Individuals are drifting more and more away from our connection to family and relatives and community related context around us. Most of us have the possibility to fulfil our dreams. Even if that is the case we have one of the highest figures of depression and are consuming related drugs as no other country in the world. Half a million (1 in 20) people take antidepression drugs and 1 in 4 people are predicted to take anti-depressants during one part of their life. In a secular culture we are trying to fill our life with fulfilment, reason to live. Many people find temporary happiness through selfcentred actions. With a free education system we have the possibility to gain knowledge and get a work position that we can live through. What happens if that fails? Who are you without your work, your identity?

In the beginning of the 18th century the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche states in his book The Gay Science that ‘Gott ist tot’, ‘God is dead’, not meaning that God is physically dead but saying that God no longer is relevant, nor should he be used as a basis for moral code. In the 1960 religion historians and sociologist forecasted that all religion would disappear while science, enlightenment and critical thinking would spread. However that’s not what really happened; the majority of the world population is still religious. However the evidence suggests that spirituality and religious fundamentalism is growing every day. The original meaning of the welfare state was to give everybody an equal chance by liberating us from the dependence of our class and the family we were born into. However this may have created a scenario where the state individual welfare system has made people lonely and caused them to miss a deeper meaning, through the unlimited possibilities and distraction from the entertainment business. This could be because we lack a meaningful relation to the context. Somewhere we care and relate to others. In our secular culture we lack spaces to gather and share life experience good and bad; a service that the church provided before. Could spaces to rewind and connect to each other be necessary to find peace in our life? Is a connection to a community where we care about each other important for our wellbeing? In my essay I will investigate the relation we might have to public space and community. I will trace back to where it came from and how it developed over the last 200 years. In Part 1:1 I

will trace back to the 18th century to understand the evolution of public realm and how the topology developed. In Part 1:2 I will investigate the medieval times and consider ‘The importance of religion to connect us to a place and community’. I will end the first chapter in part 1:3 with how Economics changed our experience of the public realm in a secular culture. Could the church have been offering something that we lack in a secular culture? i.e. a greater common goal? Richard Sennett,(2002:b) a sociologist that has through his work influenced the architectural and design world argues that there is now a confused distinction of the private self and the public self in a modern city. He emphasizes that this has characterised our socially disinterested society, and left social interaction devoid of true meaning. The architect Richard Rogers, states that people spaces between buildings are being eroded and that cities need to provide a physical framework for communities to reconnect. New concepts for urban planning need to integrate social responsibility. In part 2:1 I will explore Broadway Market that occurs every Saturday on Broadway in Hackney and brings the neighbourhood together on what Michael Waltzer, (Rogers, 1997) political theorist would define as an open-minded place. That day in the week the street transforms to a lively market street with music playing, people interacting, neighbours talking.

1:0 Chapter One //Theoretical Background

1:1 The evolution of the public realm. //_ public / private

To understand the culture shift, from religious to a secular culture that happened in western culture We need to understand the history of the words ‘public’ and ‘private’. The word ‘public’ was first recorded in 1470, but was not until 17th century shaded more like the way we use it today. Sennett, in his book The Fall Of The Public Man(2002:b), cite Steele in an issue of the Tatler (1709), ‘There effects… upon the public and the private action of men’, and Butler in the Sermons (1726) Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and the public. To go out in public’ is a phrase based on a society conceived in terms of this geography. This explanation sets up for the modern reference. In the 18th century when the Bourgeois group of people got bigger and less concerned to cover up their social origins, the cities became a place where different social groups made contact. During this time the word ‘Public’ got its modern meaning. It was now referring to a fairly big and diverse group of people that located apart from the realm of family and close friends. If you were a ‘perfect public man’ you would now be referred to as a ‘Cosmopolite’. You where then a man that could comfortably move in unfamiliar and diverse public situations. As cities grew, places for strangers to meet grew as quickly. Independent links between people occurred without any outside control, any royal control. This was the time when the massive urban parks was starting to get built. The streets were now getting built with the stroller in mind. People

started to stroll as a way of relaxation. On the street and in the parks you would now have coffee houses, cafes and coaching inns. These became social centres and within those theatre and opera moved in and became open for the public. (Sennett, 2002:b)

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1:2 The importance of religion to connect us to a place and community. In this chapter I scan the history of the development of Christian communities in medieval Paris, and how they function.Religion has an important role in the attachment and engagement to a place and a community. In This chapter I will investigate the church’s role in the development of a community. Richard Sennett explains in Flesh and Stone how you in the medieval times expressed long-life attachment to the place through the commitment of building gigantic, soaring churches in the smallest town. Sennett (2002:a, p 157) describes that ‘The Christian religion was global in this theology, but it fostered intensely local attachments.’ In the high Middle Ages the need for a community got a new expression. When the ‘alien body of Christ’ was introduced people started to relate to their neighbours by developing greater empathy for the suffering of others. The meaning community now starts to get shaded as we know it today, the place in which people care about people the familiar or immediate neighbours. Sennett describes how Paris at this time somehow redefined ‘community’ when in ‘a conjunction of fervent religious impulse and urban growth gave community in medieval Paris a somewhat different meaning.’ This part of the city was more open and caring they took in travellers, homeless people, abandoned babies the unknown sick and the insane. It served as a place for moral reference. (Sennett, 2002:a, p. 158) Richard Rogers agrees in his book Cities For A Small Planet (2002) that the religious community

was a place of moral reference; the almshouse, the parish church and other community services were places to come down and unwind. The market and the docks along the Seine were very aggressive and stressful with a lot of competition. Was it the peoples need for a place to connect to each other that made the church so successful? Is it why religion is still growing in our world today?

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1:3 The public realm in a secular culture. In the following chapter I will discover the development of economic space in the city and how this challenged the Christian sense of a place and community.

In the 18th century social patterns changed, as people grew up interacting with strangers in these new public spaces. They were not dependent on either fixed feudal privileges or monopolistic control, established by a royal grant. The urban market was now internally competitive, the seller were now trying to attract attention from a lager and more diverse group of buyers (Sennett, 2002:b). The changes in economics along side with the changes in religion during this time caused the development of sense of place in an other direction. This new disposable income gave people a new degree of freedom which consequence the effect of making people more self centred and involved in consumerism. The money gave people freedom and made them more self-centred, which they could not afford before. Where in the past the religion gave places were people could care about each other which effected in a stronger community feeling. Sennette (2002:a) commented that ‘Stadt luft macht frei’, ‘city air liberates’ as opposed to ‘the imitation of Christ’ which allows people to understand the suffering of their neighbour not just Christ. It could be argues that changes in economics changed the power of the church. This huge tension between religion and economy produces the first sign of duality, which characterises the modern city. Sennett describes in Flesh and Stone this duality as one being the

desire to ‘cut free from communal bond and the other the desire to find a place were people care about each other.’ This conflict arguably even stronger in contemporary cities the conflict between commercial individualism and communal bonds and social responsibility are even hard to distinguish. With an expanding cash economy investment become more rationalized businesses were moved to lager premises, offices and shops and inevitably became more impersonal. Society struggled for public order and a coherent culture in the 18th century city. However a balance of private and public geography was evident in the Enlightenment, in the architects and planers. This was arguably the foundation of the revolution that followed in more modern times, the rise of national industrial capitalism. Sennett (2002:b) explains the three forces that draw the development of the urban landscape In this direction. ‘First: the double relationship industrial capitalism had with the public life in the city. Second: the reformulation of secularism witch affected how people interpret the strange and the unknown. Third: a strength that became a weakness. Built into the structure of public life itself in the ancient regime.’ That public life did not die a death through political and social upheaval at the end of 18th century, this is evident in that people need public spaces were catered for throughout the 19th an into the 20th. Sennett described the change as ‘seemingly intact, in fact changing from within. This inheritance affected the new forces of secularism and capitalism as much as they were at work on it [he further explains that] because of this peculiar form of survival, the signs of ancien regime

publicness are not far from modern life as might at first be imagined’.

Consumerism had long had its arena in cities. The urban development of public and commercial expediency has been shifting the emphasis from meeting the social need of community, to meeting the circumscribed need of the individuals. Because of this the city has been drained of its vitality. Rogers expands this ‘The complexity of community has been untangled and public life has been dissected into individual components. Paradoxically, in this global age of rising democracy, cities are increasingly polarising society into segregated communities.’ (Rogers, 1997,p 9). Rogers explaining that this division of our public life is leaving serious consequences as lack of vitality in our urban spaces. Rogers are mentioning the political theorist Michael Walzer and how he is talking about two different groups in urban spaces; The´ single-minded and the ´openminded´ spaces. The single-minded spaces he describes fulfil one function as, residential suburban, the housing estate, the business district, the shopping mall. In comprising to the ´open-minded´ spaces that combine more then one function, like a busy square, a lively street, the market, the park or the pavement café. Walzer mean that when we are in a single-minded space they are usually in a hurry but in an openminded place we are more willing to meet peoples gaze and to participate in a communal level. Both serve a role in the modern city. In the act of our very modern craving for private consumption and autonomy single-minded places cater for. In compeering to open-minded places that give us something in common: they bring us together and breed a sense of tolerance, awareness and identity and mutual respect.

Rogers emphasize the process of designing cities to meet the unstoppable patterns of private demand. However by erasing the open-minded places we have today there are a danger of destroying the ide of an inclusive city. Instead of focusing on the interaction and community we are focusing on selfcentred actions, and the consequence of this selfishness separates people from what many may long for, which is a genuine public life. The crowds that pack the city core or the suburban markets during even rainy and windy weekends are confirming this. Rogers underlines that cities have a responsibility to give its users a physical framework for an urban community as much as it needs to provide job opportunities and prosperity. He expands on this and explains that in recent decades the public realm in the cities has been neglected or even eroded. This process has increased the gap between rich and poor even further. Now when we face a time when cities are growing rapidly to unimaginable structures it is hard to remember that they existed and foremost to satisfy the human and social need of a community. In relation to this Richard Rogers argues that social responsibility needs to be integrated in a new concept of urban planning. It is even had to remember that cities existed in first place satisfy the humans social needs of community now when they are growing and changing to such a complex unmanageable structures. In the foreword to Jan Gehls book Cities for People Richard Rogers explains how the public realm; its street, its squares and it parks are the stage and the catalyst for activities and exchange of ides, trade, relaxation and simple enjoyment for

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themselves. Gehl then explains that the public realm are giving us possibilities of serving as a platform for social interaction between diverse groups of people. `The spectrum of activities and actors demonstrates the opportunities for a sustainability, It is a significant quality that all groups of society, regardless of age income, status, religion or ethnic background can meet face in city space as they go about there business…it also makes people feel secure and confident about experiencing the common human values played out in many different contexts’. (Gehl, 2010) Eva Hornecker discuss about in her book Space and place how the public city space should have geometric, structural qualities that programme, limit and guide interaction, there by affecting how a place is experienced and how space becomes appropriated. She means that when contemporary cultures public realms are the setting for social interaction, a competent integration between the public domain and the activity of us. Allowing the user to blend in an harmonious community. This I what define a quality urban space that we should rescue and/or try to build up. Broadway market will be analyse as being a positive catalyst, which as created a sense of community.

2:0 Chapter Two //Case Study

2:1 Deconstructing the weekly urban market such as local farmers market the as a community service. The farmers market gathers people with the same interest, beliefs, perhaps in similar way that the church did before. How ever the reason is not religion; the farmers market gathers people with the same individual interest. The interest of locally produces food and the notion of being environmentally friendly in a global context. It gathers people with the notion of belonging, in a reason greater then commercial-individualism. The Farmers market connects the user to the community through interaction with their local farmer and the local produced products. The aim of taking responsibility for the future of the earth. The farmers market creates an attachment to a place by talking, sharing values, believes about the global context. Like the church did in the past and are continuing to do today. The huge increase of farmers market in the uk since 1997 might be a marker for what we want in the secular culture. In UK the first farmers market was established in 1997 and the number has grown to over 550 nationwide. Sweden has 22, 2 of which is in Stockholm.

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2:2 Case study: Broadway market Broadway market is a street with a history dating back to the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. It was then a vibrant street, which gathered people together in the East End. And served as a catalyst for their community. In the nineteen-eighties the community were dissolving. Many residents in the council bought their houses and sold and moved out. The Thatcher recession and planning during this time had closed down several shops on the street. The street market dissolved as well because of this. Hackney Council tried several times to revive the market but without success. A volunteer group that called them self’s Broadway market traders’ and residents’ Association succeeded in 2004 to revive the Saturday market through a project designed to repopulate the streets. This made new shops, cafes and restaurants to move in to the street. Broadway Market was created by and for the Community, 90 percentages of the visitors are living near by and commute by bike or on foot. Broadway Market is situated between London Fields and Regents Canal which makes it easy to access both ways, by foot or by bike, from longer distance(diagram 2). The visitors usually coming back for there regular shopping week after week. This continuity of people to the market has been generating courtyards markets close by with cafes and bike repair shops.

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

In 2010 Hackney council reported that the market generated £1,9 million gross income for the borough. Today it generates more than £2 million a year for the area. (Broadway Market, 2013) The profit from Broadway market funds community projects such as schools, youth organisations and pensioner groups. It is Broadway markets project CIC which is the operating arm of Broadway Market Traders’ and Residents’ Association. The Market has been generating the possibility for the schoolyard market to exist (picture 4), which is a free platform for not-for-profit organisations, for example St Joseph’s Hospice, the Hackney Society and the Great Drag Race as well as a platform to benefit London Fields School. This is nurturing the community as well. Having a common interest in something that is developing a strong sense of community. Walking Broadway market on a rainy February day or the first sunny Sunday in April it is amazing to see how the street transforms from a street that during a weekday is much less sociable to a lively market street with music playing, people interacting, neighbours talking. Broadway Market is situated between London Fields (south), Regents Canal (north) and between two main high streets (East/West) (diagram 1) which makes it easy and pleasant to access both by foot or bike even from longer distances (diagram 2). It is written on Broadway market’s webpage, browdwaymarket.co.uk that the market reflects the diversity in the neighbourhood and its vitality, by offering a wide product range, good food and original second-hand clothing and serving all income groups and cultures.

Picture 2

Picture 1

Picture 3

Picture 4

I disagree, my impression of the market is that it’s a pretty homogenous group of white middle class people. Mostly middle aged first time parent or males and females between 23-40. This does not show the diverse group they want to target. This might be because of the range of products they offer. The high quality of free range, organic and local produce is priced in a range that people with low income or benefits not might find attractive or reasonable. It might be that if you have a middle class salary and an employment and are less worried about your daily economy you can afford to treat your self to “the better in life” and/or consider how the food is affecting you or your context. Even the second-hand bikes are pricy; you would find a cheaper brand new one at Morrison.

Research question: Could a connection to a local community such as the local urban market be something that serves as a replacement for the church-community in a secular culture?

Conclusion

I agree with Harris cited by Eamoon Canniffe in the book Urban Ethic design in the contemporary city (2006) that ‘Architecture has an ethical function in that it calls us out of the everyday; recall us to the values presiding over our life, a bit closer to the ideal. One task of architecture is to preserve at least a piece of utopia, and inevitably such a piece leaves and should leave a string, awaken utopian longings, fill us with dreams of another and better place.’ Sennett (2002:b) takes this even further and emphasizes that ‘The replacement of the city streets and square as a social centre by suburban living rooms might have something to do with an increased absorption into question of self.’ The local urban market such as the farmers market might serve as this social centre, a place for us in a secular culture to share a common aim; striving for higher quality of food production, a higher standard of living, a feeling of taking responsibility for our future planet by purchasing organic, free range and locally produced goods. It should be in our interest to design for it, or as Rogers (1997) would say our responsibility to

plan for it. With this in mind it is unavoidable to neglect this in the planning of our future cities. The focus should be on people spaces, multi-minded places and not commercial single minded-spaces. Spaces where we can relate to each other and the context. Stockholm is suspected to become the most fast growing city in Europe in the coming 50 years. There are many proposals regarding how that may happen. ‘Lindhagenplan 2.0’ and ‘The Bypass Stockholm’ is two of them. Questions we should ask when we build our cities is weather or not the strategy will make it a more liveable city; a city were we can reconnect to each other and find structure and meaning. With ‘Lindhagenplan 2.0’ and ‘Bypass Stockholm’ in mind: What do their urban strategy generates for the people in Stockholm? Could it generate a higher life standard? What could generate better community connection? Yimby Stockholm (Yes In My Back Yard) has developed a master plan over Stockholm, ‘Lindhagenplanen 2.0’, and how it should be developed in 150 years time. They are decentralizing the city by focusing on development of quarters with more local and vibrant street life with cafes, restaurants and local shops. They want to connect future Stockholm through street life and ecological gateways (uninterrupted parks, as when it is possible, purple in diagram 3).

Diagram 3: an overview of “Yimbys” proposal “Lindhagenplan 2.0”

Diagram 4: Yimbys proposal for over or/and underground system for a future Stockholm. Translation of words in diagram: NU= Now Förslag= proposal

By focusing on public transport and increasing the intersections in the underground and/or over ground network, Yimby wants to simplify the circulation of people. Making it possible to travel without having to pass through the central part of Stockholm. This would generate a more fluent and equal city. In their plan they suggest that terms such as ‘residetional-area’, ‘work-block’ and ’shoppingcentre’ are getting deleted. Replaced by a more divers and equal city with a divers distribution of uses. This would be done with the emphasis on building quarters with a fluent connection throughout the city. One proposal from Yimby how this may happen is that of “Storgatan” (picture 5) a street in suburbia called Solna in Stockholm. Without destroying the old houses and parks this would create a denser city with more possibilities for a divers offering of services and a quarter atmosphere (picture 6). ‘The Bypass Stockholm’ is a proposal created by Trafikverket, The Swedish Transport Administration. The proposal plans to connect the south and the north part of suburban Stockholm with a huge tunnel to redirect the traffic from the city core. That will generate opportunities for investors and developers to build huge malls in the periphery. Emphasizes the modernist vision of planning with segregated suburban cities, satellite cities. The malls will attract people by car from a longer distance. This will more likely drain the street life in near by neighbourhoods; it will disconnect people from there community. In the end it will lead to more traffic and less life quality. Instead of investing money in “The bypass” it should be considered to invest it in a new over/ under ground system as Yimby proposed. If we were

Picture

5 Storgatan today.

Picture 6, Storgatan in Yimbys proposal

Diagram 5, Vägverkets proposal to connect Stockholm with a tunnel.

connected in a less linear and more circular way the city would be given a possibility to grow more equal, more organic. The prises on living would get less different and that might lead to more mixed neighbourhoods which might result in people being more tolerant, more caring and more equal. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the world I would like to live in!

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Appendix “If you really want to make change in the world around you, not your work in it self should be advertised but the outcome for society. The problem with architecture is the way it is presented to the world. It is not the outcome that is published; it is the ambition or the tool, which then created a strange paradox that the outcome just becomes an backdrop or even an excuse of an aesthetic gesture that will be judge as such. But since it is impossible to measure the real outcome of a social project, what is left to communicate or share is the fleeing image of the moment of trying. This is a very interesting and fascinating quest how to capture and communicate the impact of architecture on the world. …/ One of the big problems in architecture allowed itself to be seen as one of the creative industries, producing objects as a cultural gold in it self, that would play a role in some Richard Florida utopian economy in witch only beautiful, shiny, hipster people seams to exist and latters and designer objects are being produced. Part in this architecture as design in a creative economy is that it has trades it responsibility as an instrument to work for the public good, for popularity and comfort.’ (Wouter Vanstiphout interviewd by Beatriz Ramo, 2011, p 8-9)

IMAGES/ DIAGRAMS IMAGE 1 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) IMAGE 2 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) IMAGE 3 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) IMAGE 4 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) IMAGE 5 yimby.se (2012) http://s.yimby.se/se/774/f52765d4-fb8e-11e1-be27bc305bdeeac3.JPG IMAGE 6 yimby.se (2012) http://s.yimby.se/se/774/d9965f26-fb8e11e1-be27-bc305bdeeac3.jpg DIAGRAM 1 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) DIAGRAM 2 by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) DIAGRAM 3 edit by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) orginal diagram http://www.yimby.se/2012/09/lindhagenplanen2.0_1310.html DIAGRAM 4 yimby.se (2012) http://s.yimby.se/se/774/25b64227fb94-11e1-be27-bc305bdeeac3.jpg DIAGRAM 5 edit by Rebecka Tiselius (2013) original diagram http://www.arkitektur.se/tags/forbifart-stockholm

Bibliography

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