Materiality and Politics in Chile's Museum of Memory
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REVOLUTION! Editorial Policy thresholds, the Journal of the MIT Department of Architecture, is an annual, blind peer-reviewed publication produced by student editors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Opinions in thresholds are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, the Department of Architecture, or MIT. Correspondence thresholds—MIT Architecture 77 Massachusetts Ave, Room 7-337 Cambridge, MA 02139 [email protected] http://thresholds.mit.edu Published by SA+P Press MIT School of Architecture + Planning 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 7-231 Cambridge, MA 02139 Copyright © 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The individual contributions are copyright their respective authors.Figures and images are copyright their respective creators, as individually noted. ISSN 1091-711X ISBN 978-0-9829234-0-5 Book design and cover by over, under http://www.overcommaunder.com Printed by ARTCo, Inc. THRESHOLDS 41 REVOLUTION! 6 Staking Claims Ana María León PROLOGUE 14 The Mound of Vendôme David Gissen ACTIONS 18 The Performative Politicization of Public Space: Mexico 1968-2008-2012 Robin Adèle Greeley 32 Occupy the Fun Palace Britt Eversole 46 Sahmat 1989-2009: The Liberal Arts in the Liberalized Public Sphere [Book excerpt] Arindam Dutta 60 The Physicality of Citizenship: The Built Environment and Insurgent Urbanism Diane E. Davis and Prassanna Raman PUBLICS 74 Kant and the Modernity of the Absent Public Mark Jarzombek 82 Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism Thérèse F. Tierney 90 Democratic Expression: Architecture Hijacks Spectacle Kenneth Ip 98 The Right to Architecture Nasser Rabbat 104 In the Bank Reinhold Martin AGENTS 112 Resurrection City: Washington DC, 1968 Tunney Lee and Lawrence Vale 122 ESCARAVOX: Agrosocial infrastructure to grow crops of voice-equipped citizens Andrés Jaque Architects | Office for Political Innovation 126 Aula Abierta Sevilla: From Individual to Collective Action Santiago Cirugeda | Recetas Urbanas 130 Disobedience: An Ongoing Video Archive Nomeda Urbonas and Gediminas Urbonas 134 The Yes Men Are Revolting The Yes Men AFTERIMAGES 138 Staging the Modern Ruin: Beato’s “Sikander Bagh, Lucknow” Ateya Khorakiwala 146 Architecture et révolution: Le Corbusier and the Fascist Revolution Simone Brott 158 Materiality and Politics in Chile’s Museum of Memory and Human Rights Andrés Estefane 172 Picturing Revolution in the Middle Voice Kelly Presutti 186 No Buildings + An Archive: The US Pavilion in Venice and 9+1 at MoMA Mechtild Widrich EPILOGUE 196 Tahiti, Redesigned Montenegro Airways 202 Contributors 5 thresholds 41 Spring 2013, 6-11 STAKING CLAIMS ANA MARÍA LEÓN Resist whatever seems inevitable. Resist people who seem invincible. Lebbeus Woods (1940-2012) No quiero cambiar la arquitectura, lo que quiero cambiar es esa sociedad de mierda. Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) What actions are prompted by revolution in the space of the city? Which publics take part in this struggle, and who are the agents that mobilize it? And after a revolution has subsided, how is it remembered, represented and memorialized? thresholds 41: REVOLUTION! turns to the history, design, and cultural production of the public realm as a site of dissensus. Rather than focusing on a specific revolutionary time and place, we have strived to include different periods and regions, organizing contribu- tions in terms of the relations they establish between sites, actors, and contexts. In the essays and designs featured in these pages, political struggle often shifts estab- lished roles—agitators create new types of public space, designers become activists and fundraisers, individual figures fade in favor of collectives or groups, and actions are best remembered through misrepresentation. How do we write revolution, who writes it and for whom? And, in turn, how does urban conflict inform writing, design, and cultural production at large? Our authors, designers, and artists open up revolu- tion as subject, as event, and as historiographical problem—a problem complicated by discrete actions, multiple publics, critical practices, and the politics of display and remembrance. As a prologue to our conversation, David Gissen proposes commemorating the events of the 1871 Paris Commune by rebuilding the mound of Vendôme, originally built by the Communards to preserve some elements of the city while destroy- ing others. Through images of the reconstructed mound encased in glass, Gissen suggests a paradoxical relationship between destruction and preservation. With this proposal to lift the paving stones of Paris one more time, we introduce a first group of authors focused on actions on the ground: street performances and political pro- tests take the streets of Mexico City, London, Sahibabad, and Cairo. These disparate geographies are brought into contact by virtue of their shared site, the public com- mons, and their desire to occupy it to voice political protest. 6 Robin Adèle Greeley disentangles the assumed relationship between democracy and civic space in Mexico City by weighing how civic movements were alternately repressed, reactivated, or mobilized in three key instances: the Tlatelolco Massacre (1968), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s piece Voz Alta (2008) and the work of #YoSoy132 during the 2012 presidential elections. Lozano-Hemmer opposes the dominance of the Mexican state in the public sphere, Greeley explains, by literally giving latent po- litical communities the opportunity to speak en voz alta. Britt Eversole historicizes a very different kind of street performance in his study of King Mob’s activities in 1970s London. Describing the group’s aggressive, deliberately offensive posters mocking depiction of the supposedly revolutionary architecture of Cedric Price and Archi- gram, Eversole reminds us disciplinary boundaries might limit political engagement, but critical practices can transcend these constraints. In an excerpt from his forthcoming book Sahmat 1989-2009: The Liberal Arts in the Liberalized Public Sphere, Arindam Dutta assembles events that occurred between the 1st and the 5th of January 1989: the murder of theatrical performer and activ- ist Safdar Hashmi in Sahibabad, India, and the subsequent formation of Sahmat, a platform of cultural activists and producers. Dutta’s microhistory shifts focus from the individual figure and singular event to the multiplicity of collective actions and their expanded reach. This is not to say, however, that resolution is attained—rather, the excerpt ends with the start of a new dispute, a contradictory outcome and a surprise guest. If Dutta’s historiographical momentum leads away from the individual as agent, it also hints to the role of the historian as witness. Also focusing on collective action, Diane E. Davis and Prassanna Raman’s essay examines the urban sites of recent struggle, including Cairo, Tripoli, Manama, and New York. Their piece claims the physical presence of crowds in both planned and improvised spaces of assem- bly is an important form of citizenship. Media coverage, they point out, tends to favor planned spaces such as squares and plazas over the improvised character of streets and thoroughfares as sites for struggle. While focusing on the possibility for citizens to create new spaces through occupation, Davis and Raman also call attention to the role of urban designers in the creation of more equitable societies. With this reflection on the interaction between citizens and the built environment, we shift focus from event to audience—what is this much-vaunted notion of the public, what are its origins, and how is it changing in our networked society? Furthermore, how can the design professions, inevitably linked to the forces of capital, serve the needs of publics outside these forces? Mark Jarzombek outlines the three principles posited by Immanuel Kant in his 1790 Critique of Judgement to deliver society into enlightenment: to think for oneself, to think in the mindset of others, and to think consistently. In examining the implications of these principles, Jarzombek finds the notion of ‘the public’—a term that we might think to be relatively obvious in its Staking Claims meanings—is surprisingly absent in Kant’s speculations. He envisions the unexpected n ó repercussions of this absence by illustrating what a Kantian city might look like (with Le 7 thresholds 41 Spring 2013, 6-11 the help of a thresholds friend). Our present condition, Jarzombek proposes, might be closer to Kant’s figurations than much of the modern discourse misled by this discursive absence. Thérèse F. Tierney traces the role of social media in reformulating public spheres. The development of social networks has given rise to new, increasingly fragmented realms, allowing for both expanded networks of communication and increased sur- veillance and control. Tierney explores the consequences of these virtual changes, as they ultimately manifest themselves in the physical space of the city. Kenneth Ip examines some of these consequences in contemporary Hong Kong. Ip explains the mobilization of social networks in protest marches in the city, their effectiveness at the level of the street, and the possibility for architecture to dismantle them. By presenting us with a theoretical project to counter popular demonstrations, Ip fore- grounds the facility with which architecture may become a tool of repression. Nasser Rabbat suggests modern architecture’s complicity with the state is compounded by its dependency on the forces of capital. Architecture