Anti Via Cit Turin by Kim Võ

(No Transport City of Turin)

Anti Via Cit Turin. Geraldo Lewa • 884322 • Studio 22: Capriccio, Folly, City (2021)

Content

Prologue

Selected Site

Site Project

Anti Via Cit Turin Reflection

Drawings

+ Epilogue Capriccio

Folly

Notes

+ Bibliography

Anti Via Cit Turin • Preliminary Sketch

Prologue • Selected Site The selected site area aligns with the new subcity’s post-Fordist response. The site itself is situated in between two different types of urban grids: disordered and orthogonal. Anti Via Cit Turin, being closely aligned to Rossi’s rejection on overemphasis of flow, attempts to connect these two together without the blatant use of road. Instead, Anti Via Cit Turin joins them by extending the ends of both grids. Its intersection informs the position of the figures in the new subcity, thereby the new subcity as a median space possesses characteristics of the both grids. Most of the intersections appeared in the north. In order to minimise net lettable area of the intersection figures, Anti Via Cit Turin occupies the south end of the site. This placement also purposely blocks Turin’s main traffic, a display of resistance against Turin’s Fordist character.

Location 5

Prologue • Site Project

Aldo Rossi • Centro Direzionale Torino • 1962

Site

Section Isometric

Plan 7

Anti Via Cit Turin • Reflection Turin was once a European centre for industrial, commercial, and trade activities. Automotive sector’s rapid surge during the industrialisation period upheld Turin’s wheel of economy. Fiat, the Italian automotive company, was immensely influential in Turin, with its headquarters located nearby the city centre. The automotive sector became Turin’s largest employer, attracting thousands of southern region immigrants to reside and work in Turin. In the 70s and 80s, the oil and automotive industry was faced with a severe crisis, which forced Fiat to ditch Turin. Despite losing its foothold, Turin displayed resilience in their attempts to revert its economy back to the service sector. This informed the design of the new subcity, which is a critical response to ideas of industrial work, modernist city, and contemporary living, a post-Fordist city named Anti Via Cit Turin. Turin physically lacks a buffer zone between the road and the buildings. This immediacy implies that transport was the main essence of urban design, reminiscent of Turin’s overreliance on Fiat. As a result, Anti Via Cit Turin embodies Aldo Rossi’s rejection of flow by completely abandoning all forms of motorised vehicles within the subcity. All movement must be done on foot or on bicycles. Since the road no longer occupies available space, the subcity is then filled with natural landscape, something that Turin is significantly lacking. Almost all of Turin’s buildings are tripartite - a modernist facade language whereby the building’s exterior is divided into three. As a response, all of the architectural figures within Turin lack a distinctive exterior and interior floor plates, This is a stark contrast to the design language of the perimeter wall that still associates with Turin’s modernist surroundings. This approach ties back the amalgamation of working and living. All is one, yet ambiguous in Anti Via Cit Turin.

Anti Via Cit Turin • Drawings

Anti Via Cit Turin • Site

Anti Via Cit Turin • Plan

Anti Via Cit Turin • Isometric

Anti Via Cit Turin • View from Main Amphitheatre

Figure III • Orthographic Drawing

Figure III • 3D

Figure III • Orthographic Drawing

Figure III • 3D

Figure III • Orthographic Drawing

Figure III • 3D

+ Epilogue • Capriccio

The city as a container of memories. Rossi, A.

Isometric

Perspective

Turin’s development, being one of Italy’s most industrial cities, was mostly dictated by efficiency as evident from its grid urban layout. However, a city as such is prone to detachment from those residing in it. What if Turin is founded on a different ground? Borrowing Aldo Rossi’s urban principles, Turin’s further developments could perhaps be driven by memories instead of function. Turin, along its buildings, become containers of memories of the everyday: the city as a container of memories. In accordance with this idea, the selected Rossi projects were: San Cataldo Cemetery at Modena, Il Palazzo Hotel at Fukuoka, Locomotiva 2 City Centre at Turin, and La Conica Coffee Maker. San Cataldo was conceived from Rossi’ memory of his near-death experience. These rows of solid were designed in resemblance to the bones of a fish, arranged like a labyrinth to depict the mysteries of death. Although Il Palazzo is visually dissimilar to typical Japanese architecture, the project was designed based on Rossi’s memory of his trip to Japan and the objects he encountered during the trip. Locomotiva 2 is a scaled-up central courtyard building - a typology ever present in Turin. The key drivers of these three buildings culminate towards La Conica. Its form is derived from Rossi’ fascination with simple shapes during his childhood - the epitome of an architecture driven by memories. La Conica replaces the existing Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo Skyscraper, Turin’s third tallest office tower, standing as a new beacon on the city of Turin. Il Palazzo and Locomotiva 2 are seemingly in tension with each other: the exterior columns of Il Palazzo along the giant columns of Locomotiva 2, the cornices of Il Palazzo and the floors slabs of Locomotiva, yet these elements frame the La Conica alongside San Cataldo’s linear arrangement. Rossi initiated his architecture through numerous sketches, which he mostly did on a blue sketchbook in his blue-wall studio. Thus, the colour blue in this capriccio represents a container of Rossi’s memories. Nonetheless, this principle extends beyond Rossi as other buildings in Turin, individually being a container of one’s memories, display other colours. The city of Turin then transforms as an amalgamation of memories, beyond a city that is merely dictated by function.

A city that is the sum of its parts. Hejduk, J.

Isometric

Perspective

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, stated Aristotle. However Venice reveals otherwise. As one of Italy’s most culturally-diverse cities, every single area in Venice is unique. This urban character of Venice is further exemplified by its canal-divided land and omnipresence of alleyways, distinguishing Venice from the typical capitalistic, monotonous modern city. The residents direct the city’s happenings, not zoned by a sole master builder. John Hejduk’s architectural principles and interests align with Venice’s urban character. Thus, an ideal city could perhaps celebrate its individual parts, pronouncing the city’s collectiveness. A city that is a sum of its parts. This idea led to the selection of these three projects by Hejduk: Wall House 2, Half House, and Thirteen Watchtowers ata Cannaregio. In Wall House 2, Hejduk manipulates the most common architectural element, the wall, to form a fresh, lively composition. The tall reinforced concrete wall is perpendicular to the entry hallway walls and contrasts to the rear coloured curved walls. The amalgamation of these differing elements distinguishes the project from its inspiration, Le Corbusier’s Villa La Roche. One Half House is composed of three reduced geometries, the circle, the square, and the rhombus, (which is essentially a rotated square). Each of these geometries exhibit different volumetric personalities: the interior elements in the square align well with the interior grid, making it the most comfortable space to live in. This is different to the rhombus, whereby its elements are skewed from the normal grid, forming awkward spaces. The circle meets in between the two. The square and the circle open to the outside, but the rhombus strictly opens inwards. Yet they relate to each other by the rule of half. This project is a perfect manifestation of ideas to architecture: a pure exercise of the architecture’s autonomy through its physicality. The Thirteen Watchtowers is designed by Hejduk in a later stage of his career that is much more driven by the metaphysical and poetics, much in distance from his earlier volumetric approach to architecture. This is depicted in the project, whereby it is merely a combination of disjointed elements not bound by any system whatsoever. For this reason, the Thirteen Watchtowers are located furthest from the remaining two projects. But they are located in proximity to each other along this T-intersection. The turns of the T-junction signifies the canals and Venice’s geographical divisions into parts. The Wall House 2 no longer functions as a house, replacing Ponte delle Guglie as means of driving people towards this inner Cannaregio. The One Half House, being the most significant project that shows the importance of the parts, is elevated on a flat platform by pilotis. Both Isometric and Capriccio are visually-treated like a cubist painting with its absence of shadow and use of flat colours, avoiding representing the project with a 3D rendering. In summary, this project aims to show the importance of the parts and how it informs the city. A city that is a sum of its parts.

+ Epilogue • Folly

Search “It’s not about being rational, it’s about following your heart… in order to follow that heart, one must do the wrong thing.”

Isometric

Perspective

Plan

Section

Fragmented Isometric

“It’s not about being rational, it’s about following your heart… in order to follow that heart, one must do the wrong thing”, as quoted from April Rain’s “One Is Glad To Be Of Service”. A folly called ‘Search’ is founded on this quote, placed within the context of Turin and Aldo Rossi’s architecture. From this quote, one could derive two conditions of following one’s heart = to be irrational (lacking a fundamental system of logic) and doing something wrong - both of these conditions are expressed in ‘Search’. ‘Search’ comprises three main geometries: a T-shaped passageway, a 30 by 30 metres square courtyard, and a tall cone-shaped tower. The T-shaped passageway brings people to the folly by providing entryways on these two opposite streets, fulfilling the first act of the premise, to follow one’s heart. These two passageways converge in the middle into a perpendicular, enclosed alleyway that leads into an open-air, square courtyard. The courtyard is occupied by a series of smaller La Conicas that are randomly placed, a contrast to the city of Turin that is systematically arranged along a grid. The La Conica, being the epitome of the reduced geometry and the basic principle of Rossi’s architecture, is stripped from its power by being carelessly duplicated, destroyed, and disoriented, rendering it useless. The courtyard, along these La Conicas, represent the two conditions of following one’s heart - irrationality and doing something wrong. However, in the midst of these conditions, there will still be a glimmer of hope within one’s heart that motivates a further search. This could lead one to arrive at the cone-shaped tower located at the furthest corner of the courtyard, reminiscent of the San Cataldo Cemetery, which also has a cone-shaped tower located at the end of the progression. One would go up the tower with a lift and arrive in a two-bytwo room that offers a panoramic view of the complex, a giant blue La Conica surrounded by the Il Palazzo, Locomotiva 2, and San Cataldo, awakening that glimmer of hope, making the search a worthwhile journey.

Monotony “All in all, you were all just bricks in the wall.”

Isometric

Perspective

Plan

Section

Fragmented Isometric

“All in all, you were all just bricks in the wall.” as quoted from Pink Floyd’s 1979 song titled “Another Brick in The Wall”. A folly called ‘Monotony’ is founded on this quote, placed within the context of modern city Turin and Aldo Rossi’s architecture. From this quote, one could derive a shared sense of being trapped in the monotony or dullness of modern life, and this idea is architecturally expressed in ‘Monotony’ ‘Monotony’ comprises three main geometries: a half-cylindrical entrance, a rectangular passageway, and a 80-metres diameter circular courtyard with a grid of cubes at ten-meters centres. The halfcylindrical entrance with a protruding column and beams attracts passersby to enter the folly as it presents itself differently to the typical modernist Turin architecture. The passageway’s skylit front and full-height glazed end leads users along the passageway, arriving at a circular courtyard of cubes arranged on a grid. The views from these single-occupancy cubes are limited to an eye-level horizontal window, signifying this idea of being trapped. These cubes want to be free, yet they are caged by the overhead beams and the columns that protrude from the beams’ intersections. The courtyard with its circular shape seemingly has no end, those who made their way into the folly will be disappointed, its interior and values are not any different to its surroundings, the Fordist Turin city.

Home “Your house is a real refuge. Your children, your wife, your books, your extraordinary friends.”

Isometric

Perspective

Plan

Section

Fragmented Isometric

“Your house is a real refuge. Your children, your wife, your books, your extraordinary friends.” as quoted from Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita - A Miserable Life”. Interestingly, the quote is contradictory in itself. The quote first equates the physical ‘house’ as a refuge, yet the things mentioned after are the immaterial elements which makes the house ‘a real refuge’. From this understanding, a folly titled ‘Home’ aims to showcase this contrast between the built and immaterial aspect of a refuge. ‘Home’ is divided into two separate zones. The left side that is closer to the Turin cityscape consists of a complex of volumetric silhouettes of typical Turin residences. These volumes are stripped from their secondary elements, such as its windows, doors, roof, and decorations. Arranged orthogonally, this side depicts the physicality of the refuge, with its sheer scale exemplifying one’s disconnection to the mere built. On the other hand, the right side is occupied by the residences’ smaller secondary elements. Since these elements are smaller, they are much more connected to those wandering on the premises. Its random distribution contrasts with the orthogonal arrangement of the built, depicting the immaterial aspect of a refuge.

+ Epilogue • Notes

Week I.B • Miro

Week II.B • Miro

Week III.B • Miro

Week IV.B • Miro

Week V.B • Miro

Week VIII.A • Miro

Week IX.A • Miro

Week X.A • Miro

Week XI.A • Miro

Week XII.B • Miro

Anti Via Cit Turin • Preliminary Sketch

+ Bibliography

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