|| REAL UTOPIAS
SPECULATIVE IDEAS, REPRESENTATIONS, DRAWINGS, AND MODELS FOR CITIES AND THEIR INFRASTRUCTURES Professor NASRINE SERAJI
ROCHELLE CHARIS YU
HKD$50.00
ARCH 7401//2020
Sherman Hin Fung LAM Sara Maria MARTINS Ruei-Cyuan WANG Rochelle Charis YU Ka Fai CHAN Xenia Ying Hung CHU Jay Holder JORDAN Tsz Yi KWOK Muye MA Tai SHENG Kenji TANG Yalu XIAO Connie Man Ki YEUNG Kelvin Ka Ho YUEN Xinkai FAN Charles Xuancheng LIN Xiaoke ZHANG Zhening ZHANG Freda Ching Yee CHAN Bellamy Linya FU Tin Tian ZENG Sabrina Li Yin CHAU
REAL UTOPIAS
ARCH7401
HEAVEN'S GRIEF BROUGHT HELL'S RAIN
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La Ville Radieuse, 1933.
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Meifoo Sun Chuen, 2017.
以前嘅橫巷 變成金行藥房 以前嘅漁港 變成華麗海旁 五光十色嘅燈光照亮維港 但係耀眼嘅光芒 令我更加迷惘
The lanes of the past / have become jewellers and pharmacies The fishing harbour of the past / has become an elegant promenade Prismatic lights illuminate Victoria Harbour But the dazzling radiance / has rendered me even more confused 青春 [Youth], 阿李 (mc.ali.andy) x 甲乙丙戊, Feb 2019.
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01 PARALLEL In a state of confusion, some of us chose to dwell in parallel universes, and others sought to draw parallels. Neither is faring quite well. How should parallels be drawn, anyway?
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[quote_dicarlo.jpg]
from “Giancarlo di Carlo”
[door.jpg]
[redacted]
from @ct_lai (Instagram)
log 20200529_1515
HOUSE.participatory
I: I’ve been looking at Giancarlo’s projects. He has a pretty nice philosophy behind how he deals with landscape... [carloquote.jpg] J: Yeah, but in general it seems people just simply build according to the existing contours? It also seems to make the most sense? That if you’re going to flatten the landscape anyway, why not flatten the least amount possible and also give the residents a good view. I: The kind of stuff we’re looking here, for workers in Matteotti Village... are the kind of houses only high-income professionals or investors could afford. J: And the amount of care in the half-floors, entry and stacking... no amount if money could get you that in this city.good view. Look at the houses on the Peak and the houses at Stanley... I: Yeah, if we had that kind of talent- but after all that, I don’t want to blame it on incompetence, though. It’s just unconstructive to say “this does not exist because the bastards didn’t lnow better”, “no one can do it now”, so on and so forth. I like to believe that we are actually creative people but we have our creativity suppressed and potentials crushed. J: you have a ton of faith in the locals. I’d like to point out that most people only started educating themselves about localist issues and political issues because of how big it has blown up in their faces.
J: And yet these kind of houses, facing the ocean, with minimal distrubances in proximity... is the dream of many hong kongers, no? To be able to create a life in which you would not have to work much, and relax at a secluded villa next to the sea, unbothered by neighbours or the noise of the urban traffic. I: But is that what people truly want? There seems to be a kind of peace that’s being described here, and I don’t think it has to come with a materialistic satisfaction. J: To state it in the most obvious fashion possible everybody wants to get a say in how they create their living space. But how, if not just by means of “unauthorized structures” and glorified “compact interior design”...? I: That’s where a change in the system comes in. I: Imagine a world free of the speculation-driven property market, where everyone owns their own apartments, and it doesn’t take you most of your life to save enough money just to secure a flat away from your parents...
J: I’d like to point out that most people only started educating themselves about localist issues and political issues because of how big it has blown up in their faces. J: And not because of some inherent motivation... but because the matter has finally come close enough to affect a lot of people. I: Sure, the motivation might be quite superficial. But that doesn’t mean we should take that motivation lightly and pessimistically. I: I believe it could get us somewhere. Even if not an immediate change in big property projects. J: maybe if you’d torn down the way the property market works... I: The way de Carlo and Van Eyck looks at it - I think they've been trying to usurp the "authoritarian" kind of architecture and make it into an architecture of "participation". I: And in the chapter about Matteotti Village, the writer mentioned that de Carlo thought “the residents were not exacting enough in their expectations and had to be encouraged to demand more”! I: So I think, under this pretty self-governing and participatory climate, we already are equipped with a group of people who are willing to explore their own preferences and be exact about their opinions. J: *scoff* then there’s the government. I: As if the government means anything nowadays. J: The government still governs the building services and regulations, dumbass. Despite all the poetry about self-governance and sufficiency sans the government we can’t just magically ignore the current status quo - and I don’t mean just the political power, but also where the capital comes from, with whom the plans get approved, who’s willing to be the residents-
J: The government still governs the building services and regulations, dumbass. Despite all the poetry about self-governance and sufficiency sans the government we can’t just magically ignore the current status quo - and I don’t mean just the political power, but also where the capital comes from, with whom the plans get approved, who’s willing to be the residentsJ: But I think the most practical concern is - how do we anticipate the body of residents in, say, a specific lot of land. And even if the future residents do own the piece of land, what kind of philanthropy do we need to get the capital needed? J: The biggest questions that the city has to address aren’t the ideals - it’s actually the practical execution. I: I think we can install a system in place - set up an initiative for people to crowdfund a piece of land, and let this group of shareholders commission their architects. I: Fuck the government. We should organize ourselves! J: ...I think you just went off the anarchist end. I: To be fair, I am. And so was Giancarlo! I: I think people should have the power and responsibility to be more self-dependent and self-organizing. I: And architects should be part of the bunch that fosters a participatory culture, and not rest complacent as part of the current housing apparatus. I: It’s meaningless to see how many seconds faster an egg can be fried in a kitchen when we fail to make inhabitants happy.
log 20200528_0302
SYMBOL.form
J: So you think local architecture could get better when there is more formal symbolism? I: Now that you put it that way, I realize there are quite a few people who went out of their way to try this. I: Remember when Rocco Yim gave a speech at HKU - he was all about the government offices being a 門常開 [door that’s always open] and the Hong Kong Palace museum being a 鼎 [ding]. J: And then someone in our faculty made this poster. [door.jpg] I: *chuckle* Yeah, I think that was on point. But you see, I think you can already find Giancarlo’s traces in a more
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obscure example. I: It’s a university without an architecture faculty, so I’m not surprised. J: you’re talking HKUST? I: exactly. Albeit far less elegantly. The sundial at the centre, the school buildings that spread on the sides... J: if only it literally had buildings spawling from its circumcentre.
J: i think it’s done to ensure that whatever crowd congregates at the plaza won’t manage to get out of control. Imagine if everyone from any corner of the campus could enter at any time... J: And it was established in 1999, yeah? Right after 198964. That would have administration at that time rather touchy about student protests.
I: but in Collegi dei Cappuccini there aren’t even plazas for that kind of thing. J: true, true, there isn’t even the amount of people for that kind of thing to go out of hand. The number of people in Urbino today only amounts to the total enrollment number in HKUST...
I: I think people should have the power and responsibility to be more self-dependent and self-organizing.
I: And architects should be part of the bunch that fosters a participatory culture, and not rest complacent as part of the current housing apparatus. I: It’s meaningless to see how many seconds faster an egg can be fried in a kitchen when we fail to make inhabitants happy.
02 LUDUS Homo sapiens -> Homo faber -> Homo ludens Our lives are dictated by our need to earn enough just to dwell. But ask anyone on the streets and you would find people just trying to work hard so they could enjoy life in little pockets of time. People teeming with creativity and talent are silenced by the sheer cost of living. And just when they deigned to vocalize, an oppressive regime snuffs their lights. In a better world, perhaps people should always have the room to express themselves...
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想要自由唔一切負累 我要我要每個人開開心心 痛痛快快去尋開心 偏偏又要醒返返到呢個世界 聽朝又要番工同時間鬥快
Want freedom not all burden I want every person to be happy Satisfied in searching for happiness Unfortunately have to wake back up, returning to reality Have to go to work tomorrow morning, racing against time
大懶堂 [Da Lan Tang / Lazy Clan], LMF, 2000.
迫不得已大懶堂要出黎申張正義 但係呢首歌既內容並無牽涉到政治 我話你知 個世界越係咁講 我地既思維就要更加要懂得開放come on
Even the lazy clan is forced to come out and stand for justice But this song is already apolitical Let me tell you - the more the world says it is, The more our thinking would have to be open, come on
揸緊中指 [Middle Finger Raised High ~ Hold on to Principle], LMF, 2009.
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log 20200528_0302 LUDUS.supports J: I think there are quite a lot of people who have tried to build frame structures, and expected future occupants to fill in the gaps. J: You’ve got some megastructure-like manifestations of frames like Entrepôt Macdonald, Nakagin Capsule Tower as an attempted demonstration of pluggable and renewable modules… How is New Babylon any different? I: Self-building. J: You do have a thing for rag-tag spontaneity, don’t you. I: Maybe! But I’m more interested in how they arrived at their conclusion through art and social science…
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I: Guy Debord, for one, proposed looking at a city through “psychogeography”. Then one’s definition of their quarters is defined by psychological qualities, and the city is as changeable as one’s psyche. I: And they believe that the builder shouldn’t be someone whose specific expertise is building, they think that everybody should build their own places to live. [quote_situationiste.txt.]
I: That the act of sharing and creating together should be festive and constant, taking reference from the “potlatch”, a ritual of the Kwakiutl tribe. It was about giving and destroying possessions to demonstrate social status, but in the process actually establishes a constant dynamic of giving and receiving. I: (on that note the fact that white men referenced the ritual in such a manner makes me slightly uncomfortable.) I: Essentially it is an egalitarian existence motivated by… people’s intrinsic attitude of play. J: Then, the difference between New Babylon and de Carlo’s ethos is who does the architect’s work. I: In New Babylon, the “architect’s work” is done by the people. The people ARE their own architect. J: True, we’d have a far smaller problem of chronic dissatisfaction if people are allowed to build their own homes of their own accord… J: One could dream. I: Well, for starters, we could convince the locals that they SHOULD have a say on what gets built for them. I: Under the current functioning of the housing apparatus, you have the government acting as a player of the property market - and so the government chooses the lot, chooses the architects, chooses the contractors based on whichever proposal manages to houses the highest number of people, and whichever has better “dwelling requirements” marked on a checklist. I: But in this city, the government here is one of the most ineffective local organizations in actually listening to their audience or actually delivering anything. I: So people should be allowed to organize themselves and do it the way they want.
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Yona Friedman’s “Ville Spatiale”
[quote_situationiste.txt]
The occupant is the producer of space. The architect has, at most, a supporting role as an intermediary between consumer and producer.
from “Constant’s New Babylon”
[quote_Benham.txt]
The forces that cause jazz-men, wig-makers, sports-car enthusiasts or sculptors to collect in one area rather than the other are not understood - but a start could be made with some such technique as Guy Debord’s theory of psychogeographical drift.
from “Le Corbusier and His Revolutionary Children”
N. John Habraken’s “Support Structure”
[quote_ChildrenofCorbu.txt]
The capitalist and bureaucratic spectacle, the situationists argued, had no fixed form, so neither could its resistance.
from “Le Corbusier and His Revolutionary Children”
[buchanan_quote.txt]
Because a town, built up as it is out of street walls, consists of a sequence of spaces: streets as long continuous spaces which, in their crossings, afford us orientation points, and squares and parks which form accents related to them. from “The Big Rethink: Towards a Complete Architecture”
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I: The lack of coordinated ORIENTATION by the town planner can help cultivate that sense of TRANSIENCE which addresses the constant FLUX and local IDIOSYNCRASIES often overlooked and rejected by the authorities.
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J: I see where you’re getting at. So if I’m to extract the essence of what you’re looking for - it’s about empowering the people by making them aware and capable of their ability to shape their own living environment. J: That their organic behavior and emotions should be part of what shapes it - and not just be assigned quarters by an authority. J: But to live devoid of conventional orientation and planning would mean neglecting that some sort of coordination of sewage and energy supply is needed… J: And so, I insist on keeping a degree of organization within this - things are bound to get far too chaotic to handle. J: Besides, there are existing systems that we can already work WITH. We shouldn’t have to tear everything down to reinstate a new system. J: Imagine if New Babylon’s steel scaffolds and joints became more sophisticated pieces which are even more specific in function but of equal flexibility. Prefabrication could become our liberation, instead of our limitation. It’s just a matter of tweaking how DIRECTLY the resident gets to respond to what's being manufactured and constructed for them - down to the scale of furniture and partitions.
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J: To give people more POWER OVER THEIR OWN ENVIRONMENT shouldn’t be about letting them run free to wherever their whims take them… it should be about helping them gain better control and personal variety. That gives them reasons to stay. J: This isn’t to snuff out the essence of New Babylon’s tendency to depend on the emotive quality of humans - it’s about providing the “infrastructure” to the “culture”, which Habraken coins as “town” to the “community”, not unlike Roland Barthe’s “ville” to the “cité”. J: It’s hard to establish a district or a local culture unless people settle in the same community. Which is why the current “musical chairs” style of people moving between mass housing to another mass housing, based on the rate of renewal and decay, would stump the cultivation of a “community”/“cité”. J: Transience is romantic and exciting. J: However, the transience occurrences are even more worthwhile, if they can be accumulated to enrich the community.
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I: But “transience” is exactly what we need right now! I: We’re running out of time, and lacking a regime that listens. I: We need places expressed by the people themselves. I: We need places where things can happen freely and adapts to whatever situation that arises; a labyrinthine place, navigable only by people who belong there. I: A place for people to be free, before the authorities catch up. I：If authority enforces their rule through a deeply-ingrained system, then the subversion should also manifest as a formless thing. [quote_ChildrenofCorbu.txt] J: We already have parks for gathering, all over the city.
I: Only people are chased out of them with sticks and stones and we’re facing a gradual diaspora within our home. Restricted, suppressed, silenced I: If permanent locations are unavailable, we must create happenings in which we can find like-minded people. We must make expressive pockets of space. I: So long as the mind is free, then all the people need is a platform to connect and develop. J: Stop, I actually can’t understand you through all the censors‌ I: *SIGH* What I mean is, we need an instantaneous solution to keep people hopeful and lively, instead of living their lives as passive, suppressed individuals. I: There, I hope that suffices in political-correctness!
03 ANIMATIC ¡ ENIGMATIC Wy shouldn't Hong Kongers be proud and vocal of their own culture? As an emerging but increasingly oppressed race, perhaps what we could do is write our own Hong Kong Transcript and choreograph our own experiences. Document, to survive.
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I: Whether you like it or not, a place holds memory. J: I believe making a tabula rasa is always possible.
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I: Even the things you’d rather forget. J: You can make people forget by stifling their recounts. 46
I: Things you wish had never happened. J: Things you wish had never happened.
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I: Our identi in song,
I: Our identity is engraved on the streets, on the buildings. J: We live out our routines without finding them worthy of documentation.
J: Until, throug familiar to ma powers that be
ity is written in prose.
J: Until protecting through consumption is all that we know.
I: We have to play our roles in the spectacle that is “Hong Kong society�. J: We even put our leisure as display.
gh imposing towerscapes any other cities, the e dictate how we act.
I: But at least, through that, we know we can be subtle in resistance.
I: It’s just a city that’s fiercely documenting its own culture. Surely that is harmless - it’s driven by affection, and not hatred. J: What is bad about preserving memory, anyway?
J: It doesn’t get in the way of keeping the city lucrative. J: Aren’t we commoditizing our culture to make a good spectacle?
J: Isn’t making everything a spectacle part of an efficient capitalist system?
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J: But now, the biggest spectacle we have managed is... J: Making the heavens grieve. I: So there can be rain in hell. I: Between the insidious decay of before and the accelerated entropy of now, I: We’d always choose the latter. J: It’s everyone’s sign to go and make a change for the better. J: To let go of our ingrained belief that rationality and profit should be our guiding principles. I: And to get back to the small things that create the places in which we dwell.
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Bibliography In order of reference: Chapter 01. Parallel
Zucchi, Benedict. 1992. Giancarlo De Carlo. Oxford: Butterworth. Margherita, Guccione. 2005. Giancarlo De Carlo : le ragioni dell'architettura. Milan: Electa. Zhang, Tiezhi 張鐵志. 2019. 想像力的革命 :1960年代的烏托邦追尋 = Power to the imagination [Revolution of the Imagination: The Quest for Utopia of the 1960s = Power to the imagination]. Xinbei: INK 印刻文 學. Lefebvre, Henri. Writings on Cities. Selected, translated and introduced by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishers. Lam, Sherman. Chapter 02. Ludus
Sadler, Simon. 1998. The Situationist City. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Wigley, Mark. 1998. Constant's New Babylon : the hyper-architecture of desire. Rotterdam : 010 Publisher. Debord, Guy. 1967. Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Ken Knabb. London: Rebel Press. Bosma, Koos. 2000. Housing for the millions: John Habraken and the SAR (1960-2000). Rotterdam: NAI Publishers.
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Habraken, N. J.. 1972. Supports: an alternative to mass housing. Translated by B. Valkenburg Ariba. London: Architectural Press. Maruhn, John. “Le Corbusier and His Revolutionary Children.” In Megastructure Reloaded: Visionary Architecture and Urban Design of the Sixties Reflected by Contemporary Artists, edited by Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter, 33-48. Barcelona, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008. Tan, Pelin. “Yona Friedman and Geam: 'Mobile Architecture' and the Right of Dwelling.” In Megastructure Reloaded: Visionary Architecture and Urban Design of the Sixties Reflected by Contemporary Artists, edited by Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter, 118-128. Barcelona, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008. Chapter 03. Animatic . Enigmatic
Tschumi, Bernard. 1981. The Manhattan Transcripts. London: Academy Editions. Yung, Sze-lok 翁時樂. REvisit REthink REcreate // 社區2020 [REvisit REthink REcreate // Community2020]. BeingHongKong, March, 2020. Jessica Wong 三三. REdraw // 社區，讓我們來重繪 [REdraw // Community - let us redraw]. BeingHongKong, March, 2020.
Illustrations extracted from the article:
featured on p50, by 貓珊 (Maoshan Connie),
featured on p51, by 慧惠 (WAI WAI).
Seng, Eunice. 2020. Resistant City: Histories, Maps and the Architecture of Development. Singapore: World Scientific.
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Coates, Nigel. 2012. Narrative Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Jamieson, Claire. 2017. NATØ : narrative architecture in postmodern London. New York: Routledge. Image Credits Debord, Guy. "The Naked City." 1957. Digitally enhanced image. https://searchofthesublime.tumblr.com/post/73523468378/thenaked-city-guy-debord-1957 Exploringlife. "Chinese Merchants Group The Westpoint in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong." 2016. Digital Photograph. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B8%AF%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83#/media/File:Overlook_China_Merchants_Group_The_Westpoint_(revised).jpg Exploringlife. "Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building." 2014. Digital Photograph. https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Chinese_People%27s_Liberation_Army_Forces_Hong_ Kong_Building#/media/File:Chinese_People's_Liberation_ Army_Forces_Hong_Kong_Building.JPG Wing1990hk. " Tamar Development 添馬艦發展工程." 2013. Digital Photograph. https://zh.wikipedia.org/ wiki/%E6%B7%BB%E9%A6%AC%E8%89%A6%E7%99%BC%E5%B1%95%E5%B7%A5%E7%A8%8B#/media/File:Tamar_ Development_View_201308.jpg Wing1990hk. "Hong Kong Central Library." 2008. DIgital Photograph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Central_Library#/ media/File:Hong_Kong_Central_Library_2008.jpg
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Songs referenced; translated by the author unless otherwise stated: Title
Just One Yesterday, Fall Out Boy, 2013. Prologue
青春 [Youth], 阿李 (mc.ali.andy) and 甲乙丙戊, 2019. Accessed:
https://youtu.be/CYd7HLVZoFI
Chapter 02. Ludus (Introduction)
揸緊中指 [Middle Finger Raised High ~ Hold on to Principle], LMF,
2009. Accessed: https://youtu.be/BU8uHy9otsk
大懶堂 [Da Lan Tang / Lazy Clan], LMF, 2000. Accessed: https://you-
tu.be/DrCgK5tZ2lU (English lyrics from https://genius.com/ Lmf--lyrics)
Chapter 03. Animatic.Enigmatic (melody in p48)
皇后大道東 [Queen's Road East], 羅大佑 (Law Tai-yau) and 蔣志 光 (Ram Chiang), 1991. Accessed: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=m9v6VIj500I (English lyrics and analysis on https://
Queen's Road West,
and
Queen's Road East;
Queen's Road East
turns into Queen's Road Central.
*The elevations on p48 are referenced from Queen's Road West~Central~East for more intuitive geographical reference.
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EPILOGUE
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