Rua das Trinas, n.º 48 – 2.º, 1200-859 Lisboa tel: 213951697|fax: 213955961|email:victneves@sapo.pt
Lisboa, Julho de 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina Gostaria de lhe oferecer uma BORRACHA. Uma das boas, daquelas macias com duas cores - uma para apagar traços de lápis mais dóceis e outra mais dura para apagar riscos mais reticentes de apagar, quiçá feitos com a sua caneta Porquê uma borracha? -pergunta…porque a borracha é mais honesta e persuasiva. Não é como a tecla DELETE do computador que apaga tudo, instantaneamente, sem deixar rasto. A borracha, essa, deixa o rasto do que se quer apagar, dá-nos tempo para pensar se queremos mesmo apagar e temos de insistir para apagar mesmo. Apagar é um acto que requer reflexão direi eu. Pois então, imagino que a borracha nas suas mãos pudesse apagar algumas coisas que me tiram do sério - a mim a muitas outras pessoas. Por exemplo os dois mastodontes que se estão a construir na frente ribeirinha ao lado da novo Museu da EDP, ou a triste “ampliação/renovação” (?) da estação da CP no Terreiro do Paço, ou clube de golfe abandonado nas Amoreiras, ou os graffiti, TAGS e outras coisas do género que desfiguram, insultam a cidade e as pessoas, sem respeitar nada, nem mesmo património, e que alguns políticos consideram ser ARTE(?).Por ser politicamente correcto.
Rua das Trinas, n.º 48 – 2.º, 1200-859 Lisboa tel: 213951697|fax: 213955961|email:victneves@sapo.pt
Já para não falar dos sempre polémicos e sempre adiados bairros clandestinos… A cidade é um organismo vivo - qualquer pessoa entende isso. Cresce, vai apanhando doenças, adquire feridas, que se vão regenerando ou, outras vezes, mantendo como gangrenas infecciosas. São essas que convinha apagar, ponderadamente, reflectidamente mas sem hesitação. Como seria bom se os técnicos e os políticos pudessem apagar edifícios ou até partes da cidade - libertando os sítios (os políticos esquecem-se amiúde que os sítios tem beleza, historia, coisas assim, sem importância…) ou renovando com critério para benefício das populações (sim essas que estão sempre na boca dos políticos) . Já sei o que o Sr. Presidente/Mr.Mayor me responderia: que isso é uma utopia, porque há direitos adquiridos, legislação a cumprir, planos aprovados ou em aprovação …cadastro, custos etc,etc,etc. Pois é , mas há uns anitos atrás ninguém acreditava em carros sem condutor. E aí estão eles para ficar. Alguém na indústria automóvel pensou em bloquear tudo com burocracia? Sr. Presidente /Mr.Mayor. Na qualidade de um simples arquitecto e também professor digo-lhe que é tecnicamente, tecnologicamente possível construir a cidade com uma nova ideia do EFÉMERO. – com arquitecturas que se possam construir e… desmontar depois Desenhar e construir a cidade com matéria edificada é uma inevitabilidade e um desejo de qualquer arquitecto. Mas fazer isso sabendo que essa acção pode ser revertida e sabendo que assim a cidade se pode regenerar sem constrangimentos irrevogáveis, então alcançaríamos, um avanço importante na ordem e imagem da cidade,, minorando o crescimento descontrolado ou clandestino. Essa quase utopia tem sido explorada, testada por arquitectos em todos os quadrantes do globo e em Lisboa pelos meus alunos na universidade em que lecciono - uma Universidade PRIVADA, das tais que o Sr não gosta mas que já leva 30 anos de actividade reconhecida - curiosamente pela sua qualidade , também Um abraço e espero que não use uma borracha para a pagar este texto. Pode fazer DELETE, Sr. Presidente.
Victor Neves
Mayor of Lisbon Praça do Município 1149 - 101 Lisboa Dear Mayor Fernando Medina
or
Best regards
Pedro Ressano Garcia
https://youtu.be/Jq8tvbEJkBU
DANNY WILLS
Weststrasse 60 8003 Zürich Switzerland
+41 79 909 84 27 dannywills@gmail.com www.dannywills.com
July 28, 2016 Paços do Concelho Praça do Município 1149-014, Lisboa
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, You don’t know me. I don’t really know you. I also don’t know your city too well, therefore I find it a bit hard to give you advice on how to run it. In general I find it a bad idea to take advice from strangers, especially foreign architects. We can create terrible consequences for your city. You may like Bilbao, but do you really want your city to feel like Disneyland all the time? Therefore I think it’s better if I talk to you as a tourist. Like foreign architects, I can be destructive to your city. For example: For every pastel de nata I consume in Belém, I take the seat of a resident trying to commute to work. For every Airbnb I book, I drive up the rent prices and displace a local tenant. For every Uber ride I take, I put a careered taxi driver struggling to make ends meet out of a job. For every selfie stick, fake ceramic tile, and magnet shaped like a guitarra I buy, I rob from the traditional and local craft culture. For every fado restaurant I go to, I prevent new musicians from evolving their talent. For every sightseeing bus I ride, I put an unnecessary strain on the transportation network and keep people from getting to work on time. For every 1€ shot I buy in Barrio Alto, I keep the neighbors awake and angry. I could go on, but you get the point. Touristification is equivalent to gentrification. Every effort you make to increase tourism and bring added tax revenue to your city is a step in the direction of social displacement. Please consider this while improving your city. I will come and go, but your citizens have to stay, and if they can’t afford to do that, where will they go? Your new friend,
Danny Wills PS – I’d like to thank the Starbucks at Rossio station for providing great wifi in order for me to finish this letter!
Under these lines, I am providing you with an Atlas of the currently unused, abandoned, walled and derelict pieces of architecture that are spread all over the centre of Lisbon, specifically within the Alfama. We can call them No-Sites: excluded pieces of a city centre demanding intensity.
How can we establish the necessary tools for filling them with contexts instead of buildings? Hence, constructing those No-Sites do not require to fill them with bricks and mortar, but to trace the necessary mediations to construct a common public context. ...........Should we play?
Pedro Pitarch
Sincerely,
pedro pitarch
Let’s play a game. Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
c/ Gaztambide 28015 Madrid, Spain Madrid, 15th July 2016
They are accompanied by the most relevant, significant and dense buildings of the same area.
How can architecture help to negotiate that counterpoint between density and vacuum?
ESS e.sousasantos@gmail.com
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, Currently the design of cities is not shaped by
In a way, Lisbon is suffering from the same
citizens, nor designers, nor architects. Rather it
problems as other global cities like London or
is shaped by financial forces that transform the
New York, albeit on a different scale.
places where we live with little concern for everyone’s well being.
In Lisbon many buildings lie empty. Most are derelict or abandoned—an issue that has been
If I could be granted a wish, I would like to
denounced before—others are new but
change this dynamic and remedy this
remain unused, mostly because they were
imbalance. Ultimately cities should be shaped
bought only for investment purposes. This is
and designed regarding the well being of its
part of a trend that is the result of financial
citizens and not the financial gains of a few
globalisation and the rise of inequality.
powerful investors.
Unfortunately, in our country, this is being
The design of our cities affects us at every moment. Our health depends on the length of our commute, on the safety of our neighbourhood, on the food markets available near our home, but also on the weight of our
encouraged by incentives given to foreign investors in real estate. The city could and should be more vibrant, more affordable and more beautiful if most of its empty buildings could be inhabited—both derelict and new.
mortgage or rent in our monthly budget. The
It’s in your power to pass legislation and lead a
city’s design and real estate economics directly
process that would allow for change, for the
affect the prosperity of citizens. There is a
empowerment of citizens in the design of the
great difference between the price and the
city. So please consider ways in which the
value of a property. As designers and policy
incentive structure of the property market
makers we should correlate value to the well
could be transformed so that all can benefit
being of citizens rather than to the rising
and have access to a more vital urban life.
prices of real estate. I want to congratulate you for addressing some of the city’s problems with policies such as Orçamento Participativo and Programa
You are also designing the city by influencing the system that ultimately shapes it. Best regards,
Renda Acessível. However—even if incredibly successful—the latter will only bring back less than 8% of the 250.000 people that have fled the city between 1981 and 2011.
Lisboa, July 31 2016
July 31, 2016 3362 ½ Descanso Drive Los Angeles, CA 90026 Mayor Fernando Medina Paços do Concelho Praça do Município 1149-014 Lisboa Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, A few weeks ago my friend Dutch photographer Monica Nouwens sent me a photograph of a homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles. While L.A.’s Skid Row has long been the site of informal and temporary settlement due to mild climate and access to support services, Monica’s photograph captured a more entrenched condition—a makeshift shack on the sidewalk pushed up against a razor wire fence and a hobbyhorse. For the resident, not pictured, this is home.
photo: Monica Nouwens/ Instagram: monicanouwens
Monica has been documenting L.A. for years. Usually her manner is unfazed as she walks and shoots at night. But recently she’s felt a shift. She’s more cautious, more aware that these campsites are defensible private space. As of summer 2016, more than 44,000 men, women, and children from all walks of life sleep on the streets in Los Angeles County—in cars, doorways, tents, and makeshift shelters. Mayor Garcetti has called it a state of emergency. And as these lives sprawl into public space,
they bump against neighborhoods, business improvement districts, and new development. All things that resist encroachment. This tense relationship between precarity and public space is not unique to L.A., likely just as familiar in Lisbon, or any place there’s a transient population underserved by permanent housing solutions, be they refugees, migrants, veterans, mentally ill, or working poor. In recent years at urban policy conferences and mayoral conferences and placemaking conferences, there has been a lot of talk around making cities vibrant and healthy, which has led to certain pleasant amenities coming to the fore: bike lanes and bike share kiosks, pop-up parks and greenways. Yet this version of public life often is direct conflict with the city’s needy. What is well meaning becomes fraught. A homeless man sleeps in a parklet. A woman without a credit card can’t rent a bicycle. But what if we designed cities that were resilient in dealing with the needs of transient populations? What if our urban landscape accepted that political and economic factors driving local and global displacement are a fact to be reckoned with now, not a problem to be fixed down the line or simply wished away? The city of Venice, California is considering overnight car parking areas equipped with toilet facilities. Portland and Seattle are experimenting with tiny house villages that house up to sixty people. Housing takes time, but interim measures that reconsider public space as accommodating some private use could help decriminalize homelessness and ameliorate the tensions between those with and without a roof over their heads.
Sincerely,
Mimi Zeiger
CLUAA
July 31 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. A recent issue of Monocle (Issue #95, July/August 2016), claims that Lisbon is the 16th best city to live in worldwide. It looks like everything is going pretty well for you and your city. However, pressures on Lisbon will undoubtedly build up as its popularity and success continues. The forces of urbanization are such that cities are becoming more and more complex and often municipalities don’t know what to do. Cities demand a range of knowledge and expertise and the design community is willing and qualified to critically contribute to the research, design and general thinking about your city. So here is a suggestion: Operating at the intersection of architecture, landscape and planning, CLUAA is dedicated to researching, designing and writing about the contemporary urban environment.
Clare Lyster Urbanism And Architecture Clare Lyster | CLUAA 860 N Lake Shore Drive, 5K Chicago, IL, 60611 +1 312 731 4082 www.cluaa.com @ClareLyster
Mr. Mayor, please invest in design thinking --practical and radical--about the future of Lisbon. What I mean is to provide funding so that urban experts (theorists, planners, architects, and landscape architects) and community organizers can seriously contemplate and conceive a whole host of effective scenarios, both big and small, for the time ahead. For example, proto-urban concepts that identify how and where people will live; visions that forecast how resources and technologies can support urban development and new forms of public space; ideas that address new interactions between urban and rural areas; and alternative models that propose new systems of communication and flow at a regional scale. Nations and municipalities think nothing of earmarking large funding for medical and scientific research all the while our cities and urban environments dwindle. Mr. Mayor, you already have a good city, but by investing in more design intelligence regarding the future of Lisbon, you can have a truly superior one. Keep up the good work and good luck. Sincerely Clare Lyster, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois, Chicago Founder CLUAA
01.08.16 Caro Presidente Fernando Medina, Vivo em Lisboa mas esta não é a cidade onde quero viver. Não quero viver numa cidade perfeita mas sim num lugar onde a relação com o património seja menos especulativa, onde o transporte colectivo seja acessível à grande maioria das pessoas, permitindo reduzir tempos de pendularidade e poluição, onde os novos tecidos urbanos surjam de uma estruturação territorial que reflecte novos modos de habitar, onde a distribuição dos serviços, equipamentos, qualificação espacial urbana permita uma distribuição mais equitativa das oportunidades, dos indíces de qualidade de vida, onde o debate sobre a construção urbana seja mais informado e menos guloso de imagens e intervenções pontuais, onde o investimento seja usado para a resolução dos reais problemas urbanos. Eu quero viver num lugar onde existe uma organização institucional que melhora o modo de vida urbano contemporâneo. Isto pressupõe ter uma visão sobre o território e sobre as políticas públicas que questiona e supera a actual capacidade de planeamento e regulação do Urbanismo para intervir na transformação dos espaços que habitamos. Eu quero viver num lugar que tem instrumentos de construção do espaço urbano presente e futuro. Resultado de processos de diálogo entre instrumentos de desenvolvimento e projecto urbanístico. Por exemplo, que quando falamos em desigualdades sociais não pensemos somente em habitação, que a mobilidade não seja só o uso multimodal do trasporte colectivo de passageiros (e como estamos longe de conseguir só isto…), que a questão ambiental não seja só o nível de poluição da Avenida da Liberdade ou a construção de ciclovias. Eu quero viver num lugar onde o corpo técnico da administração pública, a cultura arquitectónica e todas as outras disciplinas interessadas produzem conhecimento colectivo e têm opinião pública sobre os verdadeiros problemas urbanos. Identificados e estudados independentemente dos limites administrativos, científicos ou outros que fragmentam a observação dos problemas por temas, por fontes, por trabalho, por estratégia, etc… Enfim, eu quero que a complexidade dos problemas que temos seja assumida na sua verdadeira grandeza física, arquitectónica, urbanística e política. Os meus cumprimentos, Patrícia Robalo Ribeiro Arquitecta Praça do Chile 14, 3D 1000-098 Lisboa
Exmo. Sr. Presidente da Câmara de Lisboa FERNANDO MEDINA Praça do Município 1100-365 Lisboa
Porto, 30 de Julho de 2016
Exmo. Sr. Presidente Fernando Medina
Nestes últimos anos tem-se assistido a uma rápida e progressiva mudança do ambiente urbano de Lisboa, que tem vindo a intensificar-se com o incremento significativo do turismo. Não é assim de estranhar que numa das suas recentes mensagens tenha reconhecido o turismo como o elemento que está a permitir valorizar e puxar pelo dinamismo da cidade, e que é para continuar a crescer, sendo para tanto necessário favorecer o aumento da procura a partir do melhoramento das infraestruturas de comunicação. Nesta conjuntura, o turismo parece, de facto, constituir uma alternativa económica válida e altamente rentável, de tal forma que o seu volume de negócios já ultrapassou algumas das principais exportações industriais do país. No entanto, esta alternativa nunca poderia ser a única, não seria economicamente saudável nem sustentável. As conclusões do relatório Resilient Cities sobre a cidade de Lisboa vêm, de certo modo, confirmar a pertinência desta afirmação, anunciando que a autarquia estaria a preparar-se para direcionar os investimentos no sentido de diversificar a sua economia e reforçar a evolução dos ecossistemas empresariais para assegurar o bem-estar da cidade no futuro. Ora, não obstante haja uma estratégia para a questão económica e social que parece ser prometedora, a preocupação sobre possíveis efeitos negativos desta mudança, enquanto fortemente condicionada pela dinâmicas do turismo, continua a manter-se. No nosso dia a dia apercebemo-nos que ela incide diretamente e nem sempre de forma positiva no património cultural. Este património é caraterizado por elevados valores intrínsecos; é fundamental para a identidade dos lugares, a educação das pessoas e a qualidade do ambiente urbano, devendo, por isso, ser preservado e, quando necessário, reabilitado mantendo e reforçando a capacidade de protagonismo e de resiliência da cidade.
Há cidades que mantiveram a sua centralidade por terem conseguido adaptar os seus espaços a usos diferentes, demonstrando que possuem uma força e uma resistência extraordinárias. Todavia, se esta capacidade de adaptação não for bem gerida pode constituir uma fraqueza intrínseca ou uma condição particularmente desfavorável. Apesar das receitas económicas geradas pelo incremento do turismo, que funciona como uma espécie de novo motor para a promoção da reabilitação urbana, da requalificação das infraestruturas, dos equipamentos e dos espaços urbanos que muito beneficiam as atividades ligadas ao turismo, a cidade de Lisboa continua a perder a sua população residente. À medida que as exigências do mercado urbano se tornam incompatíveis com aquelas de quem vive e reside de forma estável e continuada, muitos centros urbanos de referência tendem a transformarem-se em lugares de consumo turístico promovendo processos de despovoamento. Daqui a necessidade de redefinir os processos de regeneração urbana tendo em consideração a complexidade e densidade social da cidade, e evitando que estes processos se transformem em simples operações de valorização imobiliária ou de make up urbano. Hoje em dia, o maior desafio para quem administra os centros urbanos é conseguir mantê-los vivos sem reduzi-los a meras cenografias para turistas, conjugando a sua salvaguarda com a necessidade de construir espaços onde as pessoas possam viver de forma harmoniosa, satisfazendo as suas necessidades e aspirações. Nesse sentido, é fundamental não só adotar estratégias de desenvolvimento e de valorização capazes de conjugar intervenções físicas, sociais, económicas e culturais, mas também e acima de tudo assegurar que estas mesmas estratégias venham a ser efetivamente implementadas, e que a construção dos seus resultados seja devidamente acompanhada e verificada no tempo, encontrando mecanismos adequados para o efeito.
Atentamente
Paolo Marcolin Diretor do Mestrado Integrado em Arquitectura da ESAP
marinairainho castelo branco, 1990
Caro presidente, Fernando Medina,
responsabilidade do Homem.
Arquitectonicamente pensada em conjunto, nunca em isolado.
charneira deste planeamento, uma vez que atesta a constante
Lisboa apresenta-se diferente a quem chega por fronteiros e igualmente contemplativos.
intemporal. Lisboa para todos, em absoluto.
Lisboa 2016
VC
PROJECT
Visionary Cities Project / Alexander Eisenschmidt / Chicago, 60654, USA / www.AEisenschmidt.com
Mayor Fernando Medina Praça do Município 1149-014 Lisboa Portugal August 19, 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, In our time of extreme urbanization, cities, more than ever, should act as laboratories for speculative scenarios and test beds for radical experimentation. Where else, if not in the catalytic realms of the city (the very trenches of civilization; in the spaces of exchange, contrast, and grit) can new models of collective imagination emerge. Unfortunately, however, most city officials, planning committees, and preservation boards are today content with implementing solutions rather than testing boundaries; and most aim for beautification rather than rethinking established norms. While this mentality might secure the next election cycle, it most certainly trivializes the city, relinquishes architecture, and abandons the urban project. But not everything is lost. As a newly inaugurated mayor, you have the opportunity to facilitate the imagining of a new kind of city, one that is defined by an openness towards urbanization, that enables the unknown, and that helps us see latent possibilities in the most unlikely of places. Let’s make the city once again a testing ground for raw architectural experimentation. Lisbon could become a model that, unlike other Western cities today, is not enamored with its past and, therefore, able to challenge its future; a city for which there is no failure to great and, therefore, can test new boundaries; a city that embraces the unexpected and, therefore, can rethink traditional conventions and clichés; a city where vision making substitutes mere problem solving. I urge you to view Lisbon not simply as a historical artifact that deserves to be preserved but to accept it as a territory that constantly shifts and successfully refutes predetermination, that reveals opportunities in calamity and that rejuvenates through crisis. After all, the history of the city is entwined with successive crises and subsequent reinventions. What better time to rethink urban protocols, conservation efforts, and zoning restrictions than today. Sincerely,
Alexander Eisenschmidt
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, Caro Sr. Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa Fernando Medina, Uma cidade em ruína, envelhecida e em ruptura demográfica não é o contrário de uma cidade apinhada de turistas e com os seus edifícios antigos a serem convertidos em hotéis. Não se deve opor as duas realidades como se se tratasse de uma escolha. Como se estivéssemos perante o Mau e o Bom. No caso de Lisboa é difícil não o ver como parte do mesmo processo. A primeira fase baixou os preços dos imóveis, conduziu à sua degradação e abandono. A segunda leva a que seja caro reabilitar, exclui investimentos que não sejam de rápido retorno e condena o Estado a criar condições de excepção. Não é por acaso que o boom do turismo em Portugal sucede nos anos da troika. Não é o produto de uma política de cidade mas da precarização da acção do Estado. Sendo certo que a actividade económica gerada por este processo ainda em curso tem gerado postos de trabalho, receitas e uma significativa reabilitação dos imóveis dos centros de Lisboa, também é certo que esse processo foi sendo realizado com uma acção marginal do Estado, tantas vezes, demitindo-se de exercer as funções que queremos que exerça. Cumpre-nos agir sobre este processo. Não se trata de barrar a entrada de turistas, mas de travar a especulação financeira que está a expulsar os habitantes da sua cidade. O que se pode fazer no plano municipal? –
Suspensão do licenciamento de novas unidades hoteleiras até que haja uma avaliação concreta sobre o que existe, onde fazem falta e onde é que se quer que nasçam novas unidades;
–
Levantamento rigoroso de fogos privados devolutos ou a necessitar de obras e intimação para a realização de obras ou aumento para a taxa máxima de IMI;
–
Criação de um fundo municipal para obras de reabilitação de fogos em regime de habitação própria permanente;
–
Criação de um programa de bolsas – do tipo BIPZIP – de carácter plurianual que apoie iniciativas de base cidadã, cooperativas e associações de moradores até aos 300.000€ (100.000€/ano) a desenvolver e executar programas de reabilitação urbana e/ou a desenvolver iniciativas de base local com as quais possam concorrer a financiamentos comunitários para a reabilitação urbana ou todas as matérias inscritas na Agenda Urbana para a UE aprovada a 30 de Maio deste ano;
–
Negociação com a banca para que coloque no mercado de arrendamento a custos controlados os seus fogos vazios e para que, enquanto proprietário, não se transforme num agente promotor da degradação e especulação da cidade;
ateliermob
R. dos Fanqueiros nº 235, 4ºEsq. 1100 -229 Lisboa, Portugal | T. +351 218863869 | info@ateliermob.com | http://ateliermob.com
–
Criação de mecanismos de proximidade com cidadãos com mobilidade reduzida em maior articulação com os tradicionais apoios da SCML;
–
Desenvolvimento de mecanismos de participação que implique a co-decisão e co-responsabilização dos habitantes da cidade;
–
Desenvolvimento de política de articulação inter-municipal, metropolitana e regional no âmbito do transporte público colocando-o ao serviço das populações, por preços mais acessíveis e conferindo-lhe os meios para que possam operar;
–
Criação de mecanismos públicos de controlo de plataformas de facilitação de alojamento local;
–
Desenvolvimento da ideia de turista responsável e valorização de práticas de turismo sustentável para a cidade;
–
Apoio directo e de proximidade a situações de despejo ao abrigo da lei, partindo da ideia que Lisboa não pode perder mais habitantes;
–
Melhoria das condições de circulação pedonal, ciclável e para cidadãos com mobilidade reduzida a partir da receita da taxa turística;
–
Limitação à circulação de tuk-tuk's e substituição por sistemas não motorizados em zonas planas;
–
Disponibilização de edifícios e fogos municipais para projectos específicos, de cariz social, cultural ou artístico que se enquadrem dentro dos objectivos políticos e urbanos definidos pelo município e que sejam capazes de promover a reabilitação do edificado público. Creio que a partir de muitas das hipóteses listadas, poder-se-ia começar a construir um programa mínimo de enriquecimento e valorização de iniciativas de base, no respeito por todos os habitantes da cidade (moradores, trabalhadores ou turistas), a partir da ideia que o cidadão deve estar no centro das decisões fundamentais para a cidade e não as entidades com capacidade financeira. Com os melhores cumprimentos pessoais,
Tiago Mota Saraiva, arquitecto
ateliermob
R. dos Fanqueiros nº 235, 4ºEsq. 1100 -229 Lisboa, Portugal | T. +351 218863869 | info@ateliermob.com | http://ateliermob.com
Date:
August 14, 2016
From:
Rafi Segal Principal / RAFI SEGAL A + U Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism / MIT 19 Lancaster Terrace, Brookline, 02446, MA, USA
Els Verbakel Founding Partner | DERMAN VERBAKEL ARCHITECTURE Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design | BEZALEL Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem Shvil Ha'Merets 5, Tel Aviv 6653521, Israel Re:
Letter to the Mayor
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
FAST TRACK URBANISM Embrace Change / Act Fast
As practicing urbanists we are continuously confronted with the need to keep up with change while processes of urban development are becoming longer and more tedious. The rapid transformations of our urban world require our cities to adapt to more dynamic, responsive and real time decision-making. At the same time rapid urban change can cause the opposite reaction as decision makers rely on conventional and existing solutions, which are often unfit for these new conditions nor take advantage of fast change as an opportunity for innovation and re-invention. Therefore, we challenge you to be at the forefront of fast change, as a two-fold mission to embrace change and act fast.
Embracing change entails the readiness to look at reality with fresh eyes and avoid working with mantras and generic formulas. Mayors can play a crucial role here as leaders in moving their cities away from design mistakes that have been failures and are no longer fit for the pace and direction cities are heading. Working with visionary and innovative design thinkers, architects and urbanists, mayors can introduce new, open and flexible procedures, while re-situating city government as a pro-active player in future urban change.
Acting fast in the context of urbanism means that mayors can promote short and agile administrative procedures that take advantage of digital platforms, uprooting old bureaucratic hierarchies, while encouraging all participants in the decision making process to be creative in solution finding and task management.
Rafi Segal Els Verbakel
Modem | Moll de Monchaux Architects
6050 Lowell St | Unit 213 Oakland, CA 94610 | USa http://modem.work
Fernando Medina Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa August 18, 2016 Dear Mr. Mayor, Thinking about this letter I realized I could do worse than quote another one; that written by a critic at Architectural Forum, Jane Jacobs, to Chadbourne Gilpatrick of the Rockefeller Foundation on July 1, 1958. The letter proposed what would become 1962’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities. “What I would like to do is to create for the reader another image of the city... I would like to go further than this however, and open the reader’s eyes to a different way of looking at the city... This is a tough problem, because of the subject matter and the thesis: that within the seeming chaos and jumble of the city is a remarkable degree of order, in the form of relationships of all kinds that have evolved and that are absolutately fundamental to city life – more fundamental and nessecary to safety, to convenience, to social action, to economic opportunity, than anything conceived of in the image of the rebuilt city. Where it works at all well, this network of relationships is astonishingly intricate. It requires a staggering diversity ... intimately interlocked (and often casually so), and able to make constant adjustments... Complexity is thus of the essence... I am convinced any good that is going to come of planning for the city is going to have to foster the city’s diversity instead of obliterating it, and any effective planning is going to have to be based on respect for what catalyses constructive behavior and trends in the city,... instead of being based on futile attempts to keep things in hand by master-minding – and oversimplifying – an impossible infititude of detail. Any usefulness that this image of the city will have will depend first, on how true it is (on this I will try my best), and second, on whether it exerts any influence on the things that are done deliberately to shape the city and its life. I hope it will, but of course I do not know. Sincerely, Jane Jacobs.” Today we have to add to the social challenges of Jacobs’ age the ecological, environmental, and infrastructural challenges of our own. Yet these words retain their essential power in grasping what the city, is, and how we must seek to change it. Not through the alluring fiction of universal solutions, but through dense, detailed, and networked interventions that both mirror and catalyze the diversity of the city. This essential diversity, as we now know, is as much ecological as economic and social. There is another point here, too. While today Jane Jacobs (who would this year turn 100) is remembered as a semi-sanctified activist, when she wrote this letter, and her first two books, she was a full-time architecture critic first and foremost. For her, architecture was the way into the complexity and robustness of the city. And—at its best—a crucial catalyst and custodian of that complexity as well. We will try our best. Sincerely,
Nicholas de Monchaux Modem / Moll de Monchaux, Oakland, CA Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Director, Berkeley Center for New Media University of California, Berkeley
One of 1,542 ecological interventions proposed for vacant lots in San Francisco, 2010-16.
Exmo. Senhor Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, ... ou Exmo. [qualquer outro] Presidente de [qualquer outra] Câmara Municipal...
Procure e defenda os valores da forma ... Nos ‘objectos’ que despertam admiração, que representam o mérito e a mestria de alguém. Nos elementos que apresentam um significado, que simbolizam um período e uma cultura. Nas marcas de uma história, do tempo antigo ou do mais recente, que determinam as características de um espaço e que determinam os princípios que conformam a dimensão física das suas memórias. Nos ambientes desejados dos nossos dias e nos lugares desejáveis para o nosso futuro. Mas, sobretudo, procure-os no inusitado, no complexo e no pouco óbvio. Ultrapasse a lógica simples e mais fácil dos quadros de qualidades consensuais e comummente aceites. Reconheça o ainda não reconhecido, o valor presente no que é geralmente recusado, as propriedades daquilo que, não correspondendo às normas ideais de um determinado modelo, perdura e demonstra a sua utilidade.
E, por isso, procure e defenda, sempre, os valores que são também os valores da gente ... Dos que habitam e se movem nas várias realidades metropolitanas. Dos que trabalham, dos que estudam, dos que aprendem, dos que brincam nos seus mais variados espaços. Dos que esperam um futuro risonho num horizonte longínquo e dos que aceitam um porvir curto de conforto e felicidade. Dos que são daqui e dos que para aqui vieram, trazidos pela sorte ou por um desejo de crescer num lugar diferente. Receba-os dos que experienciam e entendem algumas das múltiplas faces da realidade e sobre estas têm uma opinião mas, sobretudo, dos que a não dominam e nada sobre ela parecem saber. Reconheça, particularmente, os valores que se descobrem a partir dos últimos e nestes procure-os activamente, permanentemente e a cada novo momento. Considere, Exmo. Senhor Presidente, as ambiguidades, as arbitrariedades, as imperfeições. Acolha as dimensões conjectural, conjuntural e plural das várias realidades urbanas e metropolitanas...
Não simplifique... não abrevie excessivamente... Admita os valores das diferenças e integre a diversidade. Cordialmente, Teresa Calix
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Estudos de Arquitectura e Urbanismo – Morfologias e Dinâmicas do Território
Anna Puigjaner — MAIO c/Bruniquer, 23 bx Barcelona, Spain CP 08012
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, This letter is just a friendly reminder. Yours sincerely,
Anna Puigjaner — MAIO Architect Barcelona, August 1st, 2016
Without date
Without date
1956
Guillermo López — MAIO c/Bruniquer, 23 Bx Barcelona, Spain CP 08012
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, This letter is just a friendly reminder. Yours sincerely,
Guillermo López — MAIO Architect Barcelona, August 1st, 2016
1965
1962
1964
Plan Común Santiago, August 24, 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, We are Plan Común, a young architecture practice who proposes formal strategies to maximize and strengthen the character of public or collective space -understood as a key aspect of architecture, regardless of its scale or program-, a fundamental issue regarding life and contemporary cities. In the last decades we got used to a constant state of crisis – political, economical, social or climate-related-, a sign that the system does not seem to be sustainable anymore. In order to counteract this situation we believe it is urgent to strengthen the public realm and to reinforce the collective consciousness by all possible means. We believe in the transforming and transcendental power of architecture. If used properly, it can change contexts, propose precise relationships between various elements and people, and produce new ways to inhabit the world. Common Places is an ongoing research on formal strategies, aiming at improving and maximizing public space, which is conducted by an international team of architects. This is a set of architecture projects for our cities, prototypes questioning the validity of established ideological and/or normative models, reproducing the new and fertile public spaces demanded by the citizenship. This letter presents one of these strategies. We also invite you to see our exhibition entitled ‘Common Places: Urban Playgrounds’ at Roque Gameiro House in Amadora -part of ‘Limits of Landscape’ exhibition- where we present a series of strategies for micro-scale public space (the size of a playground) by young architects, defining new spaces of encounters for citizens of all ages. Kind regards,
Felipe De Ferrari, Diego Grass, Kim Courreges, Thomas Batzenschlager
Biarritz 1963 Providencia, Santiago de Chile contact@plancomun.com / www.plancomun.com
Plan Común
Secret Gardens
Large areas of infrastructure in our cities are waiting to be reclaimed by citizens. We propose to make visible these potential shared areas accessible and accommodated for public use: roundabouts. By making a series of precise interventions, these spaces exposed to car traffic will be transformed into protected, comfortable and intimate gathering places. First operation is to make them accessible from walkways in the other side of the street, by means of adding pedestrian crossings from each one of the blocks coinciding on the roundabout. The correct placement of these crossings will allow the coexistence in one particular area of different kind of flows –especially in terms of speed–. The second operation is to generate a green limit (above 3m height) between street and the new public space. It will be a low maintenance and low-water consuming hedge which will contain the new space from car traffic while also provide a new green facade to this space which was originally exposed: a secret garden right in the middle of a high-speed car traffic area of our metropolises. As for the rest of the rehabilitated public space, it will combine hard pavements, grass and trees in order to add the basic facilities to boost activity in this new area. This way, obscure areas of our cities are recuperated into the fabric of public facilities connected by pedestrian traffic streets.
Biarritz 1963 Providencia, Santiago de Chile contact@plancomun.com / www.plancomun.com
Milano, 25 August 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
We propose to introduce taxation on unrent real estate properties. The money gained with this fiscal policy can be invested in building or restoring schools or other public facilities.
All the best, baukuh
baukuh via tertulliano 70 20137 milano t +39 02 84542716 posta@baukuh.it www.baukuh.it c.f. IT 03875390282 p.iva 03875390282
Neeraj Bhatia The Open Workshop th 2830 20 Street, #208 San Francisco, CA 94110 United States of America
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, Cities are more powerful than ever before. They are often compared to States or Nations in terms of their population and economic output. But there is a major flaw with how our cities function—they require continual growth and produce a consistent byproduct: economic inequality. We feel that this problem resides in how governance and accountability operate. The larger global trend of rescaling governance to subnational (city) and supranational (quasi-governmental or multinational corporate) entities has enabled cities to enter into direct relationships with non-elected supranational bodies. One of the outcomes of this transformation is that local city economies are less dependent on national economies and have entered into a competitive model of economic development to compete in the global economy. Accordingly, local government moves toward governance of a series of actors not directly accountable to the local electorate. This is one of the many ways that inequality is engineered. It is City Mayors, such as yourself, who are optimally positioned to create and implement large-scale changes to the urban environment, in part because of how power is divided among nation, state, and municipality, and in part because of the (relatively) small scale of the city, compared to the nation or state. So let’s ask how we can distribute wealth to increase our collective power and let’s reflect on a city that doesn’t require growth to prosper. It is in that city that we see an inclusive future.
Neeraj Bhatia, Principal, The Open Workshop
Rua Joly Braga Santos, Lote F R/C 1600 – 123 Lisboa Portugal Tel.+(351) 217 261 831 carloscarvalho-ac@carloscarvalho-ac.com www.carloscarvalho-ac.com
Lisboa, 30/08/2016 Estimado Sr. Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Dr. Fernando Medina,
Nestes quase trinta anos de trabalho ininterruptos como galerista, por vezes, nos meus piores dias, imagino como tudo seria mais simples se tivesse optado por uma outra profissão. Mas foi nessas difíceis ocasiões que reforcei a minha convicção de que é através da arte, usando-a como linguagem, que artistas, curadores, produtores, galeristas, coleccionadores participam na comunidade. Nestes anos instáveis de actividade, nunca me desviei da certeza de que a produção artística tem uma condição operativa que é utilizada, não apenas para pensar o nosso mundo, mas também para ser uma parte ativa dele. E num mundo cada vez mais formatado onde cada vez menos é questionada a sua formatação, a arte é essencial para nos inquietar, despertando-nos para a realidade, assumindo um sentido transformador (transgressor). A arte é, pois, o pulsar do presente e o caminho imperativo do futuro. Priorizar políticas de cultura é defender o que é comum. É mostrar como esta é essencial na ideia de comunidade e como pode, efectivamente, capacitar o cidadão para pensar e intervir no seu território. A arte, no vasto campo da cultura, tem que ser um catalisador para a mudança social e induzir a participação democrática. O objeto de arte é em si um objeto de democracia, porque produz sentido e é da sua condição intrínseca estimular a subjetividade e o confronto. Neste processo contínuo, temos que pensar as galerias como agentes na comunidade, porque entendemos a arte como confronto, como pensamento, como experiência e como socialização. Portanto, acreditamos que seria indispensável que as políticas culturais para o concelho de Lisboa considerassem as galerias de arte contemporânea como interlocutores válidos de modo a que muitos projectos possam nascer desta base de trabalho, aproveitando criteriosamente todos os meios disponíveis. Estamos, pois, interessados e abertos para os diálogos necessários para melhor valorização das nossas forças criativas. Atentamente,
Carlos Carvalho
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LIST Architecture-Urbanisme 5, rue Bréguet 75011 Paris, France office@list-oia.com T. + 33 9 50 69 07 61 Paris, August 31st, 2016
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
These are troubled times in Europe. Things need to be done, but we are not quite sure what. As architects, we are expected to have clear ideas on the transformation of the built environnement. Some of our illustrious predecessors regularly advised politicians and mayors, accessorily hoping to gain ambitious projects to work on. We do not know Lisbon all that well and we honestly do not know what should be done there (although we have good intuitions about what we should avoid doing). When we begin working in a new city we try to observe the following : A Central Square B Old town C New town D Poor Quarter E Rich Quarter F Suburbs G Apartment Blocks H Foreign nationality quarters I Station cafe pubs J Town Hall K Parks or Commons L Markets M Library N Museum O Bus station P Factory area (industrial)
The american composer John Cage, in his Lecture on Nothing, claimed : I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. We think it is crucial today, in the generalized uncertainty that envelops us, to firmly claim the same right.
Respectfully yours, LIST
Mayor Fernando Medina Campo Grande 25, Lisboa, Portugal
​carthamagazine.com
Dear Mayor Medina :
What do you really want for Lisbon? What do you want for yourself? Are the hills really that steep? What will your legacy be? Are you free after?
Doubt is a fundamental part in any process of development and it is the source of any improvement. The constant questioning of ourselves and our surroundings provides us with the necessary awareness in the decision making that will define our societies and ourselves.Moreover, few roles imply so much and such important decision making as being the mayor of a city like Lisbon; So we can imagine that you may be questioning yourself quite often about how your decisions have a direct impact in your city, your country and even your continent. Each decision is preceded by a doubt, comes with a hope and it is followed by a result. In this sense, questions are the origin of the critical thinking towards our professions, which in your case is managing the city. Reformulating automated questions that will give expected answers becomes imperative in an ever changing urban context, where problems evolve more rapidly than solutions. In other words thinking first about the right questions may help us to take the right decisions. So dear mayor of Lisbon; above are some questions by CARTHA, we hope that their answers will provide you with a clearer and broader vision that will certainly be useful in the reading of the letters and any further proposals which you might also receive, from our colleague architects.
We are looking forward to receiving your answers. Sincerely, The editorial board of CARTHA.
www.bernardo-rodrigues.com
Bernardo Rodrigues, Arquitecto
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina Câmara Municipal de Lisboa
To apply urban-art on the facade of decayed buildings is as operative as tattooing the face of the sick elderly. And a lot less funny.
Yours truly,
Bernardo Rodrigues
Rua do Almada 254 3º E, 3132 4050032 PORTO Tel: 222 053 221, Fax: 222 053 221, email: office@bernardo-rodrigues.com
Caro Senhor Presidente da Câmara Fernando Medina
Pode o passado regressar em forma de futuro? No dia 11 de dezembro de 2015, o dispositivo museográfico que Lina Bo Bardi projectou para o Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) foi reerguido. Depois de terem sido abandonados em 1996, os “cavaletes de vidro”, que permitem exibir de modo inesperado e radical as telas da colecção, regressaram. Os quadros são fixados num pano de vidro suportado por um cubo de “concreto”; desaparecem as paredes e uma ordem linear de percurso e as pinturas parecem flutuar no espaço, tal como o edifício suspenso num vão de 70 metros parece flutuar na cidade. Este efeito impressiona; sentimos que o tempo acelera quando percorremos lugares únicos que pensávamos perdidos. Tendo visitado a anterior montagem, divisória e conformista, não esperava encontrar o passado a beijar o futuro. Penso nisto observando a Baixa Pombalina, agora transformada em acampamento com uma museografia convencional e as diversas telasfranchising, pinturas naïfs, picassos do instagram, e multidões vagarosas de visitantes prontas para regressar ao transatlântico e ao low cost. O que diria Fernando Pessoa, o principal poeta local? O turismo é insaciável, precisa sempre de cada vez mais ruas e espelhos, de mais turistas a contemplar o turismo, de mais esplanadas empilhadas com vista para o rio. Será possível imaginar os “cavaletes de vidro” de Lina Bo Bardi na Baixa Pombalina? Reerguer uma ordem perdida que remete para a coralidade iluminista da Baixa, a sua geometria, severidade, e luz-sombra particulares? E deixar também entrar os outros: os não-visitantes, os não-turistas?
Jorge Figueira, Arquitecto, Rua dos Douradores, 29, 2º, 1100-203 Lisboa
Manon Mollard 22 Caldy Walk London N1 2QR United Kingdom
London, 25 August 2016 Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, You said earlier this year that we ‘shouldn’t be afraid of growth’. You were commenting on Lisbon’s Airbnb boom, and added we should ‘prepare the city to take in even more tourists.’ I can sort of see your point – an increase in visitors creates jobs and attracts foreign investors, helping economic recovery – but I struggle to believe the good it brings truly outplays the bad. Since I can’t stop you from counting the dwindling number of empty buildings on your way to work, I’ve tried to think of something we may agree on. There is so much more to Lisbon than its historical centre. So much more that needs looking after with care. The capital has inevitably expanded and the urbanisation of the periphery has brought with it the disorderly mushrooming of unmemorable residential blocks. Lisbon’s public transport network reaches out to those living in the outskirts, who commute daily and easily. But beyond the dormitory town label, these places desperately lack identity. Not long ago, they had a true sense of purpose – agriculture, industry, even holiday towns. Today, even the landscape that defined them seems invisible, the urban sprawl has somewhat swallowed it all into one major conurbation, boundless and indeterminate. Look at the Aqueduto das Águas Livres. An engineering masterpiece that survived the 1755 earthquake – we don’t do them like that anymore – responding to the topography it traverses, imperturbable through both rural matrices and urban settlements. Somehow it has become invisible too. What better way to reconnect a territory than reinvigorate one of its major historical axes? I am not even suggesting inventing much anew. So much is already there – light and views, vegetation and air, water and ruins. Simple structures and recreational activities along its route would encourage interaction with the immediate surroundings and once again ground towns and villages into their context. Have you ever thought that when you understand how a landscape works and what lies behind it, you enjoy it differently? The most useful advice I was given in architecture school was to shift scales. Everything is part of something bigger. And small things affect much bigger things. By drawing attention to water’s hidden journey and reconnecting people to places, we can create new meanings and dynamics, shape new relationships between territory and humans – locals and visitors alike. This new spatial continuum has to be considered as a single entity, with all its forgotten inbetweens. The city vs country dichotomy is no longer relevant here. We need to make the vastness measurable. And if planned and done well, I might not be so bitter about tourism – I can even imagine visitors drastically increasing their radius of exploration. Let me know if you need help zooming out,
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
MY LETTER IN THE FORM OF ADENDA TO LISBON MUNICIPALITY “BUSINESS: VISION AND STRATEGY” http://www.cm-lisboa.pt/en/business/vision-and-strategy BOLD ITALICS ADDED Lisboa City Hall presents a strategy to value the city economically and culturally and to attract investment and knowledge based on the following assumptions: • To promote internationalization and competitiveness of the city's economy in a local and global scale, in the context of a broad cultural and social approach to the urban issue; • Create, attract and retain talent, companies, investments and activities in strategic clusters, to infuse creativity and diversity in public space, activating the existing social and cultural mellieu; • Increase innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in Lisboa, with a long term perspective beyond the scope of the mere pressure and satisfaction of present need; • Turn Lisboa in an open space to explore new motivations, experiences and concepts, in balance and dialogue with the permanent and transient local communities; • Place the city in the main networks and global production chains, respecting the inhabitants and preserving without nostalgia the heritage, traditions and habits; • Place Lisboa in major projects and international networks concerning cities, exploring its open and plural identity and its cultural and social specificity. Lisboa aims to become one of the most competitive, innovative, and creative, as well as fair, open and diverse cities in Europe.
King regards, Luís Santiago Baptista
Dear Mayor, Please, don’t listen architects. Although they have sharp and insightful visions to the city, their visions must be taken as contributions to a larger potlatch. Do you know what a potlatch is? A potlatch, in case you didn’t know, is a ceremonial distribution of property and gifts which was popular amongst the native Americans of the Northwest Pacific coast. It’s a nice analogy for a city: a place of gift and exchange. As you know, cities are transformed by its citizens, and, despite your role in managing the institutions that bridges the conflicting interests between different groups of citizens and other actors in the drama of the city, you are no more than a citizen. I also appreciate you have a limited period of office and, alas, architecture is always slower and more pervasive than your limited time and limited jurisdiction. So you have to rely on the technical personnel that work in the institutions you govern: architects, lawyers, engineers and other technicians. And you have to interpret intricate technical documents and procedures to manage the everyday interplay of multiple interests. It is through these bureaucratic apparatus that you manage the transformation of the city. It is this apparatus, this individual that turns up at the potlatch that is the city and gets in the way with this ridiculous idea that it will save a city. In fact, cities are living creatures, municipalities are just the leach. So please, do us all a favour and just ask architects to do their job—design better solutions to architectural problems. If they promise any more than this, don’t listen them. Tell them to be quiet, secure the conditions for them to do architecture by transforming bureaucracy into a clever management system. Don’t let the city devour itself at the behest of international financial capital and the illusion of economic growth. Let it be a potlatch. And, while you are making sure architects play their role as citizens, provide the best conditions for your citizens to learn about the city, architecture, literature, economics, biology, etc. make sure your institutions work, and allows citizens to make Lisbon a wonderful and amazing potlatch. Don’t think you are in control: let the city transform itself. Lisbon, 11th September 2016
+André Tavares
Nuno Cera (Artist) & Julia Albani (Curator) Largo da Madalena No. 1, 2º 1100-314 Lisboa, Portugal
Lisbon, September 7th, 2016
★
SUBJECT: Keep missing each other
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, we hope this finds you well. For some strange reason we haven’t met yet. This is quite surprising, since we obviously share countless interests, expectations, beliefs and doubts – at least that is what we imagined from your posts, speeches and declarations. We hoped to bump into you the other day, when we lost another neighboring housing block to mass tourism. It was a pretty familiar event, very much like the one, where we had to give up our local bakery, giving way to a state-ofthe-art winery shop. May be we will meet next week, when we throw a farewell party to a couple of traditional tascas – which simply could not make it competing with the new trending Foody-Hot Spots – you know, all these new Pizzerias, Burger and Sushi-Places. Oh, may be you could join the memorial celebration of the last time we felt as citizens – and not as an aliens among the hordes of tourists, which have conquered our streets, squares, parks, houses, shops, bars, and who have taken over public transports, sidewalks, infrastructures and who now rule opening hours and even cultural municipal agendas. May be our paths have not crossed, because you got confused, let yourself get distracted or simply taken away by other commitments. But there is no time to loose, if it is not too late already. We actually have changed a lot recently. And most likely we will have to leave soon. Please ask for us, if you cannot find us around, there are still a few left, who know us. Regards and take care! Julia & Nuno
★ Ps: By the way, we have noticed that our paralleling street, Rua dos Fanqueiros, still shows up with numerous empty storefronts. We are talking about more than 40% vacancy. What happened? No sellout this time? Please check, and let us know. May be this could be a good reason for us to meet.
DAVIDSON RAFAILIDIS Amherst, New York, USA contact@davidsonrafailidis.net
Mayor Fernando Medina, Paços do Concelho Praça do Município 1149-014 Lisboa September 12th, 2016 Dear Mayor Fernando Medina, From our standpoint, in a humble corner of suburban America, we look to great cities like yours, like Lisbon, to show us what cities can be. Isn’t it good if people see how many ways there are to live, to work? Isn’t that the potential of a great city - to be a dense showcase of heterogeneity and of constant change? In our imaginations, we take walks and get a charge from the unpredictability, the density, the variety that one encounters every few meters. We want the chance to hear kids playing, chickens clucking, fountain water splashing, rusty bicycles clanking, a clock tower ringing, instead of lawnmowers and leaf blowers keeping every individual patch of suburban lawn uniform and blank.
Please be a city that we can look toward as a place that eschews nimbyism and unnecessary zoning and building restrictions, one that, rather, invites and cultivates the vital buzz and the ever-changing streetscape that reflects people, lovely people, in all of their weirdness and idiosyncracies. Thank you.
Dear Mayor Medina, I am currently preparing to visit your city in the coming month of October, to take part in the 4th Lisbon Architecture Triennale. When I received the invitation, I was very excited about the name of one of the programme sections, with the terrific title A Portuguese Utopian Rest. As with all great titles, it sets an agenda, opens up a number of questions, and – with nuanced sarcasm – acknowledges the truly paradoxical nature of the relationships between architecture, cities and our contemporary world. For what does it really mean to have a “utopian rest” in Lisbon? I trust you have an answer to this question. Perhaps we have become tired of utopian thinking, or, to paraphrase Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Lisbon can't wait for the architect to build his or her utopia. So no more waiting; we all need a break. Of course, the title could be derived from the economic crisis hanging over the city since 2008 (and before), a struggle that now faces new challenges from the EU, Brexit and the immigration debate. But there is something quite odd in this formulation (which makes the title even more suggestive): does utopia depend on an end to the crisis through the influx of new capital? In other words, is utopia merely a matter of money? There is a well-known argument by Boris Groys which argues exactly in that direction. He believes that things are the way they are because there is not enough money to shape them differently. All objects are the way they are because they are under-financed. So, the formative power of capital is specifically manifested through its absence. Which turns the whole traditional view and approach on its head. The things I am sure you love about your city, those that have made it liveable and enjoyable – the power of its old architecture, the buildings, the institutions, the schools, the stadiums and the museums, all those little corners full of charm in streets and squares – all of that never really took form as the result of infinite money, but quite the opposite. In reality the reversal is the case. Contemporary capitalism, with all the excesses of its speculative bubbles, is not a token of pragmatic reality, as we are usually told. On the contrary, it can become a road to nowhere, leading to a place that cannot be. So, my question is: do you have any plans to prevent an excess of money flowing into the city? I am eager to learn of your strategy and ideas. Best Regards, Pedro Ignacio Alonso
Exmo Senhor Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa Caro doutor Fernando Medina Queria aproveitar a participação na exposição Letters to The Mayor, que integra a 4ª edição da Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, para lhe transmitir algumas questões que considero da maior relevância para a cidade: Enquanto não for alargada a rede de Metropolitano a bairros como Santos, Lapa, Campolide ou Campo de Ourique, a batalha para aliviar a pressão dos automóveis dificilmente será ganha - bem como a da qualidade dos transportes públicos, do ar, etc.; Enquanto não se tomar a decisão política estratégica de implementar reais e alargados incentivos à natalidade, nomeadamente através da criação de benefícios de diversa ordem para as famílias numerosas (estacionamento e transportes públicos gratuitos, fiscais, etc.), dificilmente Lisboa aumentará a população residente, ou contribuirá para solucionar o grave problema demográfico do país; Enquanto não for feita uma reflexão séria e inteligente, mas sem precipitações, sobre os efeitos de gentrificação resultantes dos acelerados processos em curso de renovação dos bairros históricos, na maioria por via de investimentos estrangeiros, existe o risco real de Lisboa mudar irreversivelmente para pior; Enquanto se mantiver a resistência crónica à transformação – mesmo que inteligente – de edifícios nas zonas históricas através da introdução de terraços, a cidade não beneficiará plenamente de alguns dos seus maiores trunfos: o clima e as extraordinárias vistas panorâmicas sobre as colinas e o rio; Enquanto a apreciação de projectos continuar a demorar mais, por vezes muito mais de um mês, a economia da cidade não retirará todo o benefício do interesse que Lisboa desperta nos investidores e a obra clandestina continuará a ser encarada como uma opção. Por fim, há que enaltecer o enorme trabalho feito no âmbito do planeamento urbano, na melhoria da qualidade dos espaços públicos, na relação com os projectistas e com quem pretende investir na cidade, bem como na aposta na arquitectura como património e profissão onde Portugal se distingue pela sua enorme competência. Aqui, o apoio consistente, estratégico e convicto que tem dado à Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, é motivo do meu profundo reconhecimento. Cordialmente, José Mateus, arquitecto
CREATING NATURAL CHANGE
Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,
Berlin, July 2016
THE CASE: ● Germany and Portugal as part of Europe are models of the western, consumption-oriented fossil society ● The build environment, that means the habit for the people is consuming 60% of the over all used fossil energy to run the buildings ● Buildings are causing 50% of the over all produced waste through the construction and demolishing process ● Modern construction materials like cement steel and glass gave us the option to build against our climate conditions, like glassed towers in hot climates ● Buildings systems like mechanical ventilation systems, industrial and chemical products are causing health and comfort problems for the inhabitants ● We are building a terrible heritage for our grand kinds who have to pay the bill at the end, we are living at the expense of future generations ● Since the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’ 1972 we know about these major problems ● Since this statement the growth of our carbon footprint started and was not turned up to now POTENTIALS + OPTIONS: ● We should build climate adaptive or with the climate, like the human kind did up to the oil-period ● We should build with natural resources like earth, timber and bamboo and design buildings in sustaining cycles with our environment ● We should keep and transform existing buildings, especially from the pre oil period to use existing resources ● We should invest in long-term economical and ecological cycles and stop short-term profit-oriented projects ● We should invest 5% of all investments into innovation and give it into the hand s of a young fresh generation ● We in Europe should be the showcase for the post oil society, the society of the future Eike Roswag-Klinge, Ziegert Roswag Seiler Architekten Ingenieure, Berlin
Dear Mayor, Not that it is your biggest priority by a long, long way you have a city to look after all - but you may have noticed a small event take place in the United Kingdom towards the end of June. I appreciate you may have been distracted by the long overdue success of the Portuguese national team in the European Championships. The event to which I allude was not the English defeat to Iceland as important and hilarious an event as that was for the smaller nations in that union who are used to being lord over. As much as I would like to dwell on the success of the Welsh national side and talk about the defensive genius of Carvalho, the event that I speak of is the vote of the British people to leave the European Union. I know politics are really downer when there is football to be watched. And it is becoming embarrassing to bring it up in the United Kingdom so deep are the fault-lines and so bitter has been the argument. I am not sure where you stand on the European Union. I know that the Portuguese have had a run-in with the EU over the tiny matter of political autonomy and economics recently, but I don’t know enough about you or Portuguese politics to make any particular comments about what you must do. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to solve the problems of the United Kingdom, we must do that ourselves, but if you could simply remember that we are still European that would be a great help. (And it would make you one step ahead of many people in the UK.) Of course, as I’m sure you appreciate the Brexit vote is simply the most obvious expression of a continent-wide concern over the political make-up of the European Union. The institutions and mechanisms that allowed certain groups to enjoy its qualities were seen in the UK to have failed a large number of people. We, in Britain, will all have to try to be much harder to be European now. It’s no longer simply a question of walking down a privileged queue at customs, then ordering our pastel de natas, kick back in the sun and think how damned sophisticated we are. We will have to try harder to be internationalist. We will have to defend the rights of the Portuguese in the United Kingdom as well as other nations, not just those from nations in the EU. We will have to recast our relations with other nations. (Sorry, am I overwhelming you? You have your own shit to deal with, I’m sure.) Yet as a professional politician you will be more aware than most that sometimes a difficult conversation can be more rewarding than one which ignores all differences. My one small request is that if in your dealings with anyone from the UK, you are able to act on that truism. If you do you will be setting them a much needed example. I think they have forgotten in their politeness how to do it. You can also have a good laugh about the England result against Iceland. If they are Welsh they will laugh too, and if they are English, it will be good for their character. Best Tim Abrahams.
47 Tudor Road London E9 7SN 15.09.16 Dear Mayor Fernando Medina I am a visual artist based in London. For many years I supported myself financially by making large scale reproductions of Renaissance paintings on the South Bank of the Thames.
The street is a privileged space: I was able to meet thousands of people over the years I worked by the River: people from every conceivable background, including those without homes who lived on the streets. It was an invaluable experience and has been hugely important to the work I have made in my studio. I am preoccupied by the idea of the multi-voiced, the polyrhythmic and the space of encounter. The title of a recent series of large drawings was ‘Choral Fields’. Choral: many voiced.
Most spaces in London are directed towards target ‘users’ or consumers: particular age groups, particular economic status, particular class, particular racial profiles, sexualities etc. I would urge the mayor to protect the city’s shared spaces: the parks, the squares, the community centres: anywhere people can encounter one another outside these rigid commercialdriven spaces. As Saskia Sassen writes:
The city is a space where the powerless can make history. That is not to say it is the only space, but it is
certainly a critical one. Becoming present, visible, to each other can alter the character of powerlessness. Best wishes Emma McNally
Lisboa, 14 de Setembro de 2016
Caro Presidente Fernando Medina,
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Sem mais a acrescentar, aqui aguardo pela nossa Lisboa. Com os melhores cumprimentos,
Sara Orsi
Susana Caló Newham College University . Welfare Road, Stratford London E15 4HT
Londres, 2 Outubro de 2016 Caro Presidente da Câmara de Lisboa Fernando Medina, Fazer cidade implica pensar em quem a habita, e nas pessoas que queremos que a possam habitar. Podíamos até dizer que o fazer de uma cidade deve alinhar-se pela multiplicidade que a constitui e que deverá poder afirmar-se nela incondicionalmente como um direito. Pois então, inventar essa cidade para as pessoas passa por politicamente praticar uma retórica que lhes seja atenta e que se alinhe por essa multiplicidade. Dessa retórica fazem parte os objectos que se erguem numa cidade. Recentemente li uma notícia que me deixou a pensar que a sua retórica política está desconectada da realidade de uma cidade multicultural como Lisboa, e de um país como Portugal com um passado histórico colonial, cuja incapacidade de se posicionar relativamente a ele é claramente reconhecida. Lia então que a taxa municipal turística de Lisboa iria reverter, entre outros, para um núcleo museológico dedicado aos Descobrimentos. Da construção desse núcleo faria parte a edificação de uma nau de cerca de 40 metros. Já tínhamos ouvido esta ideia originalmente pensada para a Doca Seca, aliás chumbada pela DGPC e também pelo património arquitectónico e arqueológico do CNC pela sua "intrusividade excessiva". Porquê cair no erro de retomar a velha retórica dos descobrimentos - aqui formalizada em nau - retórica praticada nas escolas e que ignora a violência colonial de vários tipos (do genocídio e do apagamento cultural ao do negócio dos escravos e à apropriação de terras) e que na sua consciência actual, não faz justiça à multiculturalidade portuguesa? Não faria mais sentido pensar esta multiculturalidade positivamente imaginando um possível futuro em vez de a fazer retornar ao passado violento que lhe deu origem? Nesse sentido será o objecto de uma nau - velho símbolo de uma só visão, acentuada pela triste escolha da palavra 'descobrimentos', o ideal para praticar essa consciência dos diversos lados? Copio aqui as palavras do politólogo espanhol Juan Carlos Monedero a propósito de uma saída colectiva para uma vida melhor nos tempos actuais: "A democracia e o bem-estar de alguns vão converter-se na ditadura e na miséria de outros. Conseguimos imaginar quem será feliz ou miserável, num lado e no outro? Então, já sabemos onde estão as pessoas decentes. Um antídoto contra a tentação da inocência". Com os meus melhores cumprimentos,
Museu dos descobrimentos no Porto. A fotografia ĂŠ do JornalĂssimo (http://www.jornalissimo.com).