AA 03 2011 05 03 Learning Unlearning

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE SCHOOL PROGRAMMES

COVERSHEET FOR SUBMISSION 2010-2011

PROGRAMME:

MA [Landscape Urbanism]

TERM:

Spring

STUDENT NAME(S):

KELVEKAR, Shantesh

SUBMISSION TITLE

Learning Unlearning

WORD COUNT

4,400 words

COURSE TUTOR

SPENCER, Douglas

COURSE TITLE

Landscape Urbanism, History and Theory

SUBMISSION DATE:

3rd May 2011

DECLARATION: “I certify that this piece of work is entirely my/our own and that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of others is duly acknowledged.”

Signature of Student:

Date:

Learning Unlearning KELVEKAR, Shantesh AA MA [LU] 2010-11

Abstract The paper is a not just a documentation of the OMA’s proposal for Parc de La Villette, Paris; but is an attempt to understand Koolhaas’s attitude on perceiving urbanity via cross‐ referencing through various of his precursor works which led to conceiving of this project, and also which further evolved the resolution of OMA’s/ Koolhaas’s research over the understanding of the subject. The attempt is to make an understanding on how one needs to position oneself for a better perception of the conditions.

For Rem Koolhaas, Parc de La Villette comes at a very critical juncture of his career. He had two major urban researches backing him up, ‘The Exodus’ and ‘Delirious New York’; the latter making a remarkable impact on structuring this project. The very concept of urban park was new to that period, and incorporating diverse programmes into a single patch of landscape was a challenge in itself.

Also, Parc de La Villette lies in between two of his works; one mentioned earlier, Delirious New York, the other is his essay published in S,M,L,XL, The Generic City. While one clear observation in this project is the formal implementation of the section of a sky scraper as a plan for the park, the gestalt helps perceive Koolhaas’s intent of exploring the ‘genericness’ of a city, and the possibilities it leads to, by laying a whole new set of unpredictable events; the exploration of the ‘culture of congestion’.

The attempt is to understand the structure of the OMA’s proposal for Parc de La Villette and analyse its programmatic modulations, and its further impact on the context in the process of its evolution. The experiment’s success is to be analysed against the series of unpredictable events it is likely to generate, not by its programmatic/ functional variations specifically but by its virtue of creating an impact on the social dialect, and eventually the inherent programme itself. Further exploration is a focus on studying the phenomenon of culture of congestion, as specified by Koolhaas, and to understand the contribution of this project for the evolution of the subject.

Apart from its equally radical approach in conceptualisation, the interest in looking at a ‘proposal not executed’ over a ‘proposal executed’ is that the entire landscape was observed as a cliché ‘form’ in the evolved metropolitan, the section of a skyscraper. The section was not understood by just its formal value but rather by its performative value and that evocates an enquiry which is of a meaning to us.

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1.0 Introduction: During the early 1980’s when François Mitterrand became the fourth president of Paris. One of his important agenda was the urban redevelopment and beautification of Paris, and to promote Paris as a tourist destination. This led to alterations of various regions of Paris; La Villette was one of them.

The former slaughter house of 125 acres in the region of La Villette was one of the areas needed to be genuinely looked upon. The area was environmentally, ecologically an unviable piece of land. It was to be converted into a park with an expectation of complex sets of programmes incorporated. There was a lot of brainstorming in around 470 architectural offices participating in the design competition, and there was no certain way of conceiving this park.

On the other side one of the competing participant Rem Koolhaas/ Office for Metropolitan Architecture were a young group, very much passionate of their work and very much intrinsic of the understanding of their work. As a forerunner – Koolhaas had his huge influencing factor – a book he published in 1978, Delirious New York. He wrote this book as a retroactive manifesto on the urban form of New York City and what remains of it from the 20th century. As Koolhaas describes in the same book that a fatal weakness of a manifesto is their inherent lack of evidence, Manhattan’s problem was opposite which had a huge pile of evidence without a manifesto1A. Probably his own work was so influential that at a point he wanted to test this manifesto, like an experiment in a lab, and there was no better way than to test with a project of this stature. Also, there was no risk of failure. As this manifesto, unlike other manifestos, was written after the performance; the working of the city (New York) in this case was reasonable. And it can be termed reasonable because of the occurrence of architectural mutation, utopian fragments and irrational phenomena that are assembling the city1B. The Grid defines a new balance between control and de‐control in which the city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos2.

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2.0 The Context: 19th century transformeed the regio on of La Villette from aa small com mmercial on the outtskirts of Paris into a major merchant intersectionn because of the town o develop pment of Ourcq and Stt. Denis Cannal. In 1860 0 the region n became aa part of the e City of Paris. Laater this areea transform med from aan entrance e to the city into a com mmercial linkk and an internattional transsport hub, the region was famou us for its markets, m sla ughter hou uses and port acttivities. A su ub‐urban region was trransformed into a densse urban reggion.

Therefo ore in 1980 0 when the competittion was opened o for the desiggners it waas much expecteed that the park needed to addresss the issuess of urban sscale and evvolved cultu ure. ‘The Etablissement Public du Parc de La Villettte considered that mo ost parks w were not adaapted to their tiime, thus they wanted the ppark to include the symbols oof modern nity and innovation…The paark also nee eded to refl ect its new relationship with the rregion. The erefore it e core of should eexpress thaat it is no longer an enttrance or passage to the city, butt part of the the largger metropo olitan area3.’ .

Koolhaaas’s intent with respecct to the coontext wass not beyon nd exploringg the metropolitan conditio on, but exploring it tho oroughly. Inn his text ‘EElegy for th he vacant loot’ Koolhaas states, ‘the peermanence of even the t most frivolous architecture a e and the instability of the metropolis are inco ompatible… … In this connflict the me etropolis is,, by definitioon, the victtor; in its pervasivve reality architecture is reducedd to the stattus of a pla aything, toleerated as d décor for the illussions of histtory and memory4’. Hee identifies, with referrence to Maanhattan, ggenius of an urban as a divorrce between its appearrance and p performance.

Hence K Koolhaas’s area of inte erest, in casse of Parc d de La Villette, was to thoroughlyy explore the mu ultiplicity off programm mes and th e interrelations and iterations iit generates in the processs of evolution. The intent was t o highlight on, and explore e the much exe emplified ‘Culturee of Congesttion’.

1. Deliriou us New York (19 978), Koolhaass's most influenntial work refle ecting in many o of OMA's workks KELVEKAR R, Shantesh

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3.0 The Competition: Amidst many entries which adhered to a design based on more conventional parks existing around, a few were quite radical in their approach in conceptualising the park. OMA’s radicality was picking up on a generic element’s peculiarity and analysing it further methodically.

Since such a park with intricate, irrational programmes incorporated was unique to its time, Koolhaas had a great opportunity to test it against the American skyscraper, and perhaps with the Manhattan grid; where he believed, can be understood from his book Delirious New York, that coexistence of unrelated programmes were leading to mutations of the dynamics of the programme and this led to certain unpredictability which was a matter of interest for the urban evolution, for the evolution of the Culture of Congestion. For Manhattan, what Koolhaas sees is, a condition… an invention of elevator leading to stacking of programmes. A section of a skyscraper explains that. Whilst in a grid, stacking of programmes horizontally was linked by the road as a connector, in a skyscraper it was the elevator. As stated in Architectural Design, it further explains, “…Its (Manhattan’s) architecture promotes a state of congestion on all possible levels, and exploits this congestion to inspire and support particular forms of social intercourse that together form a unique culture of congestion.5” This exact phenomena was implemented in Koolhaas’s competition entry for Parc de La Villette, but of course horizontally, which formed the basis for the project.

By only considering the park as a city, and a city within a city; there was a possibility for seeing the project beyond its realms. This form seemed promising as it led to a catalogue of conditions with vast variations, which otherwise would not have been possible. It promised for the evolution of a metropolitan culture, and which could alter with respect to the changing conditions in time.

4.0 The ‘Delirious New York’ impact: January 21st 1991, in a lecture at Rice School of Architecture Koolhaas stated, “…the programme for the Parc de La Villette was a very important moment, because it allowed us to investigate the theme of congestion, for us the key ingredient of any metropolitan architecture or project. For the first time after our preoccupation with New York, we tried to imagine what congestion at the end of the 20th century in Europe could mean.6” Hence La Villette was an appropriate platform to explore the gained knowledge exhaustively.

“A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed. For the whole world has poured its heart into the city by the Palisades, and made it far better than it ever had any right to be…”

Mark Helprin7 Metaphorically Mark Helprin’s statement from his novel ‘Winter’s Tale’ could be interpreted into various ways.

To understand Manhattan, Koolhaas looks back at history, where he refers to Coney Island as ‘a fetal (foetal) Manhattan’, like a Manhattan in a laboratory being tested and retested before its execution. For two reasons, one, for the Coney Island’s smaller but similar dimensions, but more importantly for the Island witnessed various amusements created there as experiments in an urban fantasy8. Coney Island thus formed a genesis, a base for the evolution of the entire Manhattan.

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2. Mark Helprin's nouvell 'Winter's Tale e'

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Further the grid of o Manhattaan incorporrating a maatrix of varrious prograammes witthin was analogissed by Koolhaas with a skyscrapeer. Elisha O Otis , in 185 52, presentiing his inve ention to the pub blic, in the process the e anti‐climaax of presentation as denouemennt, emphassising on the safeety of the eelevator carr which the n had a spe ecial safety mechanism m to lock th he car in place haad the hoissting ropes failed. Koollhaas statess, “Otis had d introducedd a theme that will be a leittmotiv of th he island’s ffuture deveelopment: M Manhattan is an accum mulation of possible 9 disasterrs that neveer happen. ” This entir e event sud ddenly brou ught to lightt the possib bility of a vertical growth, wh hich later happened too change the entire sce enario of M anhattan. K Koolhaas inferencces the secction of thiss modern dday skyscraper with th he grid; whherein the series s of program mmes are stacked s up p one abovve the othe er. Elevatorr as a techhnology disscovered pluralitiies in a sin ngular form m, emphassising over the verticality and tthe densityy of the metropolis.

One of the suitable example es referringg to the plu uralities in a singular form could d be the Downto own Athletic Club, buillding an an alogy of a sskyscraper with the M Manhattan ggrid. This metaph horically con nstructs an allusion thaat a great ccity is a porttrait of itselflf as stated by Mark Helprin. A skyscrap per as a cityy within a ccity! For Koo olhaas, a skkyscraper iss a substancce which ulates a con ndition of b being a sociial condenser; “a mach hine to gennerate and iintensify encapsu 10 desirable forms of human inte ercourse .”” Where he e retrospectt’s even thrrough severral initial visualisaations of a a skyscraper, for instaance in an illustration n ‘1909 theeorem’11, a section depictin ng that singgle metropo olitan locatioon stacks up and repeats one aboove the oth her as an unlimiteed numberr of virgin sites, hypping the skyscraper as a utop ian device of the metropolis. ork Herald aappeared th he world’s m most unusuual amusement park On Mayy 6, 1906 in the New Yo for Coney Island, tthe Globe T Tower. “Whhat Samuel Friede, the inventor oof the Globe e Tower, d was enorm mous in sco ope. For him m a structure in the sh hape of a gllobe or sph here that planned was sub bdivided intto floors was simply aa source of immense square s foottage that needed a tiny point of conttact with earth e to su pport it… The T Globe Tower woould be the e largest buildingg in the wo orld with enormous e eelevators to o carry visitors to its eleven com mpletely KELVEKAR R, Shantesh

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different floors. It would be an agglomeration of Steeplechase, Dreamland and Luna Park, all contained in a single interior volume.12” It was a unique composition as a skyscraper ever in the history for various reasons, for instance stacking of floor plates had variations at every level unlike most American skyscrapers of the period where the plan was extruded for several floors. The idea was to exploit the Platonic solid in a series of pragmatic steps. For Friede the Globe, ruthlessly subdivided into floors, it was simply a source of unlimited square footage. The larger it is, the more immense the interior planes; since the Globe itself will need only a single, negligible point of contact with the earth, this way the smallest possible site will support the largest reclaimable area13. The more the area occupied in a smallest of the territory would mean highest mixing of the programmes; and hence though the Globe Tower was looked on considering its higher commerce values, it was a building which had the possibility of mutating its programmes to a very high extent.

These were some of the factors Koolhaas identified about New York during his research in the 70’s that highly influenced the shaping of Parc de La Villette.

5.0 Conceptualising Parc de La Villette: “A conventional park is a replica of nature serviced by a minimal number of facilities that ensure its enjoyment; the programme of Parc de La Villette extends like a dense forest of social instruments across the site.14” The site of La Villette is too small, and the programmes are too large to fit within it in a conventional manner. Koolhaas states, “at this stage it would be nonsense to design a detailed park”.

What OMA did with the brief was to interpret the sets of programmes provided as a suggestion, a provisional list of desirable matter of the content. Nothing was certain in terms of defining the programme specific to certain conditions; rather it was safe to predict that during the entire life of the park the programme would constantly change and mutate to morph with the changing conditions. “The more the park works, the more it will be in a perpetual state of revision. Its ‘design’ should therefore be the proposal of a method that combines architectural specificity with programmatic indeterminacy.14” The intent is not simply to (re)create a conventional park, but mostly propose a strategy that extracts maximum from the integrated programmes within; then be it by mixing of various activities, alterations happening within activities over a period of time, and leading to uncertainties and unanticipated events. The initial gist of the concept provides enough scope to alter, adjust, violate with the existing programmes with the changes in conditions, and yet maintain stable scenario; basically it means the park could then highly be compliant to volatility of the conditions by adapting and readapting itself innumerably. The essence of OMA’s proposal therefore becomes: how to orchestrate a metropolitan condition manipulating and coexisting the most dynamic activities, binding them together; it becomes a formula to create a social condenser.

From a skyscraper Koolhaas begins his understanding of the changing conditions of urbanity; Parc de La Villette provides an opportunity to him and his team to explore thoroughly how to implement these changing conditions, to explore horizontal congestion.

6.0 Structuring Parc de La Villette 6.1 Stripes: The entire site was subdivided into horizontal stripes running in east‐west direction. These stripes could accommodate majorly all the programmatic categories; theme gardens, play grounds, discovery gardens etc. These bands could run on the site partly based on arbitrary method and partly based on the logic derived from the site conditions. This way the concentration or clustering of particular programmatic elements could be avoided, says Koolhaas.

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The intent of these bands was to mix the programmatic variations and build proximity between disparate programmes, thus expecting them to integrate and intermingle to generate delusive results. In his book S,M,L,XL Koolhaas states, “The tactic of layering creates the maximum length of ‘borders’ between the maximum number of programmatic components and will there‐by guarantee the maximum permeability of each programmatic band and – though this interference – the maximum number of programmatic mutations.15” The directionality of these bands is determined based on the existing dominant functions on the site, viz… the Science Museum, the Grande Halle – they are well incorporated into the system. The band which incorporates the Science Museum becomes extra wide, which itself is an analogous division of thematic bands; the Grande Halle is wrapped within a series of bands running through it. Nature, in this case, whether ‘plastic’ or ‘real’ is treated as a programme within the confineness of these bands. This way the bands incorporate external variables more fluidly and adapt them within, yet retain their distinct identity, depicting floor plates of a skyscraper sleeping on the ground plane.

The trees/ vegetation in these bands of thematic gardens, landscapes will form series of screens. This will create an illusion of different programmes coexisting, yet are differentiated by the edges. As Koolhaas specifies that the layering is certainly not unlike an experience of a high‐rise building, with its superimposed floors all capable of supporting different programmatic events, yet all contributing to a summation of something more than just the accumulation of parts16.

6.2 Confetti: These are very miniscule elements which do not influence or affect the organisation of the bands; they rather are placed, at what looks like random, on basis of a mathematically derived methodology. The result of this mathematical methodology17 is that since the points are distributed across the entire site, and point grids occur in different zones, thereby both acquiring and influencing the character of the ‘host’ zone. That would mean two functionally similar kiosks (points) in different ‘host’ zones behave and influence their contexts in a different way; thus creating an immensely wide spectrum of variations in behaviour and responses of activities.

The number of programmes for the scale of the park is relatively large. With these points colliding and conflicting with these bands of determined programmes creates variables within the available bandwidth of programmes. This increases the possibility of malleability of the programmes and their reactions exponentially. Like Koolhaas explains, “the occasional proximity of the various elements distributed according to the different grids leads to random and accidental clustering that give every constellation of points its unique configuration and character.18” Eventually leading to a scenario where opportunity for undergoing mutation of the entire park is greater than ever.

These points are expected to behave autonomously, and at the same time are likely to be absorbed by their locality. The irony is that they are anticipated to bind the whole site through fragmentation. This entire methodical stance makes the project very much different from its contemporaries. The park brings a new radicality to the design approaches by thinking into separate solitudes of layers and yet reassembling them with the context to unify as a whole.

Although these confettis are small in scale, with the compositional permutations on site, they are identified as potentials to create variations within large scaled programmes.

6.2 Access and Circulation: The strong analogy of an elevator in a skyscraper, of the grid in Manhattan; relates to the access and circulation system in Parc de La Villette. The system nourishes all episodes of the park and ensures their most intense exploitation19. The exploitation can be determined by the fact that the corridors run perpendicular to the bands of landscapes which integrate programmes within, thus providing scope for mixing of them KELVEKAR, Shantesh

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to hybriidise. Also, they form a link betw ween the maajor existing g programm mes viz. the Science Museum m, Music City, Baths in n the north of the parkk, Grande H Halle in the south; this twenty‐ five meters wide b boulevard co onnects all the diversiffied major existing proogrammes ttoo. This tends tto heighten n the experience of ttransition through the e varied seets of proggrammes presentt; thus building up a platform foor interaction. It demarcates andd emphasisses on a pseudo condition of ‘sites within the siite’. These smaller sites hosts vaaried otherr smaller activitiees from am mphitheatre es, seating to chess tables, pu uppet theaatres, rollerr‐skating surfacess.

The variety in proggrammatic interventionn makes the e experiencce of the usser highly fluid both in X and d Y axis.

6.3 The Final Layerr: The final layer is a laayer of elem ments whicch are uniquue and too large to mathematicaal rule. “Thee relative regularity an nd neutralitty of the firrst three be situaated by a m layers fo orms a background/ context agaiinst which tthese layerss become ssignificant.200” These are mosstly the exiisting progrrammes witth certain predetermi p ned usabilitty, like the Science Museum m, which th hen get sup perficially laaid over the layers bu uilt. They occcupy the negative n space w within the constructed positive. Thhis final sup perficial layyer actually makes a po ossibility for further mixing of the pro ogrammes. The fixed defined usa able spacess get altere ed when they come in contact with the base layeers, which aalready have e occupied variety in tterms of program mmatic variiations; thiss condition hence further enhancces, reinforcces and tho oroughly exploitss the concep pt of the ‘CU ULTURE OF CONGESTIO ON’.

3. Parc de LLa Villette: Design n strategy by OM MA

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7.0 Did Situationist’s Influence?: Early 1980’s, the conceptualisation of Parc de La Villette, was too radical for its era for it was unlike its contemporary parks, wherein the ‘landscape’ of the parks with certain similar programmes (like the thematic gardens) was conceived in a totally different approach. It was romanticised, nostalgic to a referral condition, and was seldom based on a reasonable logic. La Villette on the other was being fundamental in its reasoning to make a proposal. It focussed on creating an opportunity to utilise programmes, create new ones out of it, and provide an experience immeasurable, but with its own scales defined, scales of no limitations in terms of exploration and possibilities to create and recreate unpredictable events.

Now, it would be absurd to build direct relations of Parc de La Villette with the Situationists; for the Situationists were themselves very nostalgic for a period when artists, architects and designers had pursued disparate, open‐ended experiments; for period when fundamental shifts of thought were happening. The Situationists were hazy about the precise dates of this golden age, but they assimilated a cornucopia of sources – from the arts and crafts movement and the Deutscher Werkbund to expressionism, cubisim, futurism, constructivism, De Stijl, the Bauhaus movement, Dadaism, and surrealism. 21 In 1959 “City Notes”, ex‐convenor of the Independent Group, Lawrence Alloway started up in accord with the Situationists, by refuting the idealism of the rationally planned city.

Alloway stated, “Nowhere are ‘permanent’ formal principles less likely to survive intact, than in the crowded, solid city… The past, the present, and the future… overlap in a messy configuration. Architects can never get and keep control of all the factors in a city which exist in dimensions of patched‐up, expendable, and developable forms.22” A preliminary germination of the notion that architects cannot/ need not control all the factors influencing a city, rather certain things left for itself to evolve; in this case the notion seemed to consciously deviate from a narcissist approach to a more comprehensive approach.

Guy Debord, another Situationist, was fascinated by urban social geography of Paul‐Henri Chombart de Luawe, who published his revealing (Paris and the Parisian agglomeration) in 1952.23 Such sociologies led to awareness of the real social construct of the cities, of the complex way in which cities are reliable on the urban components . City structuring, which was understood to a fallaciously simplistic levels, now revealed through Chombart de Lauwe’s dissection of Paris some mind‐boggling subtleties in terms of the uses and characteristics that evolve within a city; moreover his research emphasised on the way in which people’s social associations and relations with spatial make changes over a period of time.

Both Situationists and Independents felt that indigenous living patterns were best nurtured through the “clustering” of the city.24 In 1956‐57 Guy Debord and Asger Jorn cut up street maps of Paris, to understand some of the working class zones within the city, which are of social interest, and worth preserving. A map was constructed of the identified spaces of interest, named as ‘Guide, Psychogeographique de Paris’. This map was a collage of places of social interest, and was created from the fragments from magnificent perspectival rendering of the City of Paris; from the Plan de Paris à vol d’oiseau preapared in 1956. Another similar psychogeographic map for Paris was conceived by Debord and Jorn, this one too was based on the similar concept, but was much simpler in terms of understanding of its structure, the map was known as ‘The Naked City’. Its importance lies in identifying the important role (socially) playing areas of Paris, negating the remainder this map establishes relations between the activated spaces, and prepares a base for the exploration of the future of the city. It investigates the relation between the language, narrative, and cognition.25

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4. Psychogeographic de Paris Althouggh Situation nist was a movementt in the lattter part of o the twenntieth century, the irrationality is to eenquire and d explore thhis possible relation be etween thee Situationisst model and thee construct of Parc de La Villette,, the intentt to build this relationn is ‘not’ to suggest possiblee design inffluence rootts for La Villlette, but aa communality in methhodology co onceived which cconsiders planning p of a city withh respect to the fragm ments withhin, the con nditional responsse these fraagments gain, and the possibilitiess in terms o of mutationns a city (or for that matter, a space) un ndergoes. A A likelihoodd of the risin ng of accide ental eventss in the making and evolvingg of a spacee becomes aa matter of interest.

Though Park de Laa Villette do oes not resppond to the e way Situationists desscribed their model of studyy, it respon nds in what can be teermed as an a unanticip pated seriees of eventss, which builds u up the exciitement of understandding the sp patial altera ations. Anoother of Ko oolhaas’s project in Toronto almost a co ouple decaddes later, P Park Downsvview – a prooposal of th housand pathways, reinforcces the conccept; howevver, in this ccase in a tottally differeent way!

5. The Nakeed City: Another map evolved by situationists bassed on 'Psychoge eographique de P Paris'

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8.0 Response of the ‘Generic’: What Koolhaas wrote more than a decade after this project, an essay documented in S,M,L,XL titled ‘The Generic City’, relates back again to the enquiries he made in his book ‘Delirious New York’. In this case exploring the generic condition, where the fragments within just respond according to the condition present; these fragments, according to him, adapt to the change. Explaining it further he states, “The Generic City is a city liberated from the captivity of centre, from the straitjacket of identity. The Generic City breaks with this destructive cycle of dependency: it is nothing but a reflection of present need and present ability. It is the city without history.26” He further states that this condition is ‘superficial’ and can alter and produce innumerable conditions as and when required.

In the same essay he goes on to make a statement, “Generic Cities issue from the tabula rasa; if there is nothing, now they are there; if there was something, they have replaced it.27” What observation suggests is that even in case of Parc de La Villette conceptualisation, these subtle factors of ‘Genericness’ somewhere existed in the back of the mind, and the conditions were explored with the beginning of the project itself; the site, for Koolhaas, was a tabula rasa. And that the mutating programmes would keep the site in that state for ever.

The only thing which does not change is the ‘change’.

9.0 Conclusion: The entire presentation of these series of events (related, unrelated, or remotely related) make an enquiry of this radical approach for its era, which stood by itself to shape and mould into something beyond the direct perceptions.

‘Learning Unlearning’ is a small attempt to visualise through the scenarios, the possibilities generated – the uniqueness, the irrationality amidst having a fundamentally strong stance, the intent of the architect to learn New York City – and to build an absurd relation to carpet an urban phenomena over a piece of intended landscape; justifying the content as a theorem, methodically to prove the hidden rationality. (Un)learning it again to (re)prove the situations from a piece of work, The Generic City, further reinforces the belief that a city (any city) evolves with time, and various parameters affect a cities evolution but an architect’s vision (or at least beyond an architect’s vision).

‘Learning Unlearning’ tries to build relations idiotically, run through events randomly; and then come to a non‐conclusive conclusion that questions: is ‘generic’ the new future? Or is ‘generic’ a ‘variable’?

‘Learning Unlearning’ hence opens a wider possibility of exploring and discarding and re‐ exploring the conditions, the variables with a ‘generic’ outlook in expectation of a better performance of the rapidly growing urban condition.

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Learning Unlearning

Notes: 1A –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, p.9; New York, The Monacelli Press 1B –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, p.9; New York, The Monacelli Press 2 –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, p.20; New York, The Monacelli Press 3 –Hejduk, Renata, Marrou, Victor, Wiki101:Parc de La Villette, APH 515: Current Issues and Topics 4 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.937 (Essay: ELEGY FOR THE VACANT LOT); New York, The Monacelli Press 5 –Issue 32, Architectural Design (Wiley Publications) 6 –Kwinter, Sanford (1996) Rem Koolhaas: conversations with students, p. 13; New York, Princeton Architectural Press 7 –Halprin, Mark (1983) Winter’s Tale, p. xi.; New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 8 –Ikeda, Sandy (Mon 15 Sep 2008) The Sun: New York, article: E. B. White on NYC; New York 9 –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, p.27; New York, The Monacelli Press 10 –Kwinter, Sanford (1996) Rem Koolhaas: conversations with students, p. 14; New York, Princeton Architectural Press 11 –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, (illustration) p.83; New York, The Monacelli Press 12 –Stanton, Jeffrey (1997), Coney Island – Globe Tower Swindle (article source: unknown) 13 –Koolhaas, Rem (1978), delirious new york, (illustration) p.71; New York, The Monacelli Press 14 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.921 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press 15 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.923 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press (Explaining the ‘stripes’ he uses in the project as a primary building block of the matter) 16 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.923 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press (To exemplify the analogy of the floors of a high-rise with the bands of landscape, wherein the edges/ screens of landscapes without being the actual substance performs as one. This provides scope for mixing and differentiating programmatic variations at the same time) 17 –Source: S, M, L, XL; Mathematical methodology: The derivative for their frequency of distribution (or determining the dimensions of each point grid) is based on an equation which differentiates the area required for functional activities from the total area available, and is divided with the number of points to be distributed over the entire area; the whole result is square rooted.

18 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.925 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press (Koolhaas makes this statement in his essay, exemplifying and highlighting the possibility the matrix of programmes are likely to create, and the scope eventually leading towards hybridisation of programmes due to this phenomena of ‘mutations’) 19 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.927 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press (The system’s major connection is the north-south connection, cutting perpendicular to the bands running east-west, which directly builds an analogy with an elevator in a skyscraper considering the bands of vegetation are depicting floor plates in a skyscraper) 20 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.929 (Essay: Congestion Without Matter); New York, The Monacelli Press (The left-out spaces after the incorporation of the prior three layers forms a basis to incorporate this layer of large programmes) 21 –Sadler, Simon (1999), The Situationist City, p.5-6 ; Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press 22 –Alloway, Lawrence (1959), Architectural Design, no.29 , p.34-35 (Essay: City Notes) ; Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press 23 –Sadler, Simon (1999), The Situationist City, p.20 ; Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press 24 –Smithson, Alison; Smithson, Peter (1957), Architectural Review 122, p.333-336 (Cluster City: A new shape of the community) 25 –Sadler, Simon (1999), The Situationist City, p.60; (Discription: The Naked City, map) Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press 26 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.1250 (Essay: The Generic City); New York, The Monacelli Press 27 –Koolhaas, Rem, Mau, Bruce (1995), S,M,L,XL, p.1253 (Essay: The Generic City); New York, The Monacelli Press

KELVEKAR, Shantesh

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